Arrell, Gwendoline (Gwen) & Allen Interview

Hello. Today is Tuesday the 11th February 2025. I’m privileged to be speaking to Allen and Gwen Arrell in their home in Hastings. My name is Robyn Warren. Mr Arrell, could you tell us your full name, Allen?

Allen: Allen Samuel Arrell.

And your date of birth?

6/4 …

Gwen: 1926.

Allen: Oh yeah, 6/4/26.

And where were you born?

Hastings, in Nelson Street. Used to be a Nurse[s’] Home in Nelson Street; going south it was on the right-hand side, just past Fitzroy Avenue, I think it was.

What was your mum’s name?

Gwen: Margaret Ellen …

Allen: Margaret Ellen, yeah.

And your dad’s name?

Yeah, Robert.

And what was your father’s occupation?

Allen: Well, he worked for Robert Holt … goodness knows how many years in the timber yard. So I don’t know how you’d describe that as a working thing.

Mmm. And so you’ve got some siblings?

Gwen: No.

So you were brought up as an only child?

Allen: Yeah.

And then your mother died at the same time as the [your] brother?

Yeah, as [at] the birth.

And then you and your father lived with your grandparents?

Yep.

So Gwen, could you tell us your full name and date of birth, please?

Gwen: Gwendoline Joyce Arrell, and I was born on the 19th February 1925.

Almost a century!

Yeah. [Chuckles] Can’t believe it! [Chuckles]

And your maiden name?

Yeah … Trendell.

And where were you born?

In Hastings.

At the Nelson Street Hospital?

Probably, I don’t know. [Chuckle]

And could you tell us your mother[‘s] and father’s full names too, please?

Yeah, my mother was Mary Blair, known as Nettie, and my father was Frederick Charles.

And your mother’s maiden name?

Oh, Griggs.

So Mary Blair Griggs?

Yeah.

And so, what did your father do for a job?

He was a plasterer.

Do you remember who for?

Oh … Abbott and Co. Harry Abbott, wasn’t it, was a builder.

Allen: Employed plasterers, didn’t he?

Gwen: Yeah.

And so you’ve got siblings too, Gwen?

Only one sister, I had – yeah, Joan Selena. But she never married; she was just on her own.

So tell us the address that you grew up in.

Yeah, I grew up at 704 Oak Road. [Chuckle]

In Hastings?

Yeah, that’s right, ‘til I was at high school, then we moved to 511 Ellison Road.

So what primary school would you’ve started?

I went to Central School.

Where you’d just started on the day of the earthquake?

[chuckle] Yeah, that’s right, and was there …

And what high school? That would’ve been …

Yeah, Hastings High School. We were both there then ‘cause it’s only separated since. Yeah … used to be co-ed[ucational].

What did you do for a job then when you were young?

Oh, I worked for DePelichet McLeod. I went there as a shorthand typist, and then I changed to doing all the bookkeeping, on a bookkeeping machine we used to use in those days [chuckle] … do the accounts for the shops that the travellers had sold stuff to.

And you worked there until you were married?

No, after that. No, I worked there for about eight years. No, we were too busy building our house and that to [chuckle] start a family or anything. [Chuckle] But what I used to do was … we used to get paid once a month, and every month we’d go and buy something else for the house – some GIB board or something; paint or something. [Chuckles]

Allen: I didn’t have enough to pay for it all. [Chuckles]

Well you were the builder, weren’t you? So you were busy building the house?

Allen: Yeah.

Gwen: We lived in the garage while we were building, and gradually bought enough stuff to finish it. Actually, when we moved in there was no GIB board on. You’d open the back door and you could see right through to the front. [Chuckle] Nothing on the walls.

Allen: But we managed to GIB board the back bedroom and we could sleep in there, if you like.

And so what was the address of that house?

Gwen: Karamu Road North. Yeah, out of the borough it was then, out by the Showgrounds. That last block there, yeah.

That’s the corner of Caroline Road?

Yeah, my mother was in Caroline Road. [Cough]

The house on the corner of Caroline Road and Frederick Street?

Yeah, that’s where me [my] mother … built the house for my mother; and me [my] father was still alive too at that time, he passed away while they lived there. And then we sold Karamu Road and we lived at that house while we built Totara Street.

And where were your boys born?

Oh, Rex was born while we were in Karamu Road. Kevin was born in Totara Street. Yeah. And that’s right, when we [were] back on our own, eventually we decided to go to Parkvale Estate in Howard Street.

Oh, before you came here ..?

Yeah. Yeah, we came here.

Yes, to Gracelands … I see. And so, did you spend your whole life as a builder?

Allen: No, I started off – I was at high school, the second year at high school, [and] I got a job with … J J Niven, that’s right, as an apprentice pattern maker. And that was in woodwork, you see – just the same. And a pattern maker’s job was – if somebody wanted a casting made of, say, anything … say that handle for argument’s sake … somebody would have to carve a wooden one. And that’s taken to the foundry then and they put it in the sand etcetera, and then pour the molten metal over it. And then when it’s finished they can just knock all the sand off it, and away we go.

Well you can tell us about your working career … what did you do following Nivens?

Oh. Well, I left Nivens and that’s when I went down to Wellington, I think, wasn’t it?

Gwen: Yeah.

Allen: I went to Wellington, to William Cable, doing the same sort of job – pattern making. And then from Cables, I came back … No, I went to Auckland first.

Gwen: Went to Auckland for a few months.

Allen: Yeah, and then [I] worked me [my] way down and came back to Hastings.

You got a job in Wellington and then in Auckland, or did your firm send you?

Yeah, yeah.

Gwen: Yeah, just for experience.

Allen: Yeah, it’s all for experience. And then I left there, and I worked me [my] way down the North Island back to Hastings, and I can’t remember what places I worked at then. Oh …

Gwen: Plix Products…

Allen: Plix Products was my last employment there.

Gwen: Then you started building on your own.

What was your occupation at Plix?

Gwen: Still making moulds.

Allen: Or helping them to make moulds. I didn’t really make any moulds but I helped them to make moulds. It was all done with a sheet of plastic [which] was laid down, and you’d made a sample of what you wanted, and you’d cut round the outside and then that …

Gwen: Make a wooden mould.

Allen: Yeah; way they go then.

Gwen: That Shell sign … he did that.

Allen: Yeah, that Shell sign, that’s right – yeah, I made the mould for that.

Gwen: Yeah, out of wood, and then they put the plastic round it.

The Shell petrol station sign, do you mean?

Gwen: Yeah.

You made that?

Gwen: [Chuckle] Yeah.

Allen: The letters were about that high if I remember rightly, and …

Gwen: It was quite a big thing.

Allen: I can’t remember what colour they were though.

Gwen: Yellow, it is.

Allen: Yellow, was it? Oh yeah. That’s as far as that went.

So Plix Plastics [Products] grew into a very big operation, didn’t it?

Gwen: Yeah. I don’t know whether it’s still going, I’ve no idea.

Allen: Oh, I don’t know … no, I think it’s closed down. Yeah, and I think the northern branches decided to close if I remember rightly. [Clock chiming]

No, I don’t think it’s operating any more.

Gwen: Anyway, then he worked for himself as a builder for I don’t know how many years … many, many years. And then you got a job in the office at

W & R Jack; woodworking machinery place.

Allen: Yeah, and that’s where I finished.

Gwen: That was a change. [Chuckles]

Allen: That’s where I finished me [my] working life, really.

Gwen: Yeah.

So that was an indoor job?

Allen: Yeah.

Gwen: [Chuckle] Sitting down at a desk all day – that was a change.

[Chuckles] Until he retired.

So you retired from there and then…

Allen: I was round the house probably annoying Gwen then. [Chuckle]

You would’ve still been doing some building?

Gwen: You used to make things.

Allen: Ah, yeah.

Gwen: Like our table, and those things there and …

They’re beautiful!

Gwen: He made them all.

With your design too?

Both: Yeah.

Allen: Just kept me [my] hand in.

Gwen: [Of] course he can’t see to do it now.

Allen: Not now, no, but I could, yeah. You just get a square hunk of timber, you know, about inch and a half thick or something and, say, about nine or ten inches square; put it in the lathe and you can finish up with that.

It’s beautiful. What about this?

Allen: Yeah, that was odd sort of lengths of timber about two inch square. And you just put that in the lathe and you get that. And while it’s still in the lathe you can put all these … what d’you call them?

Grooves.

Yeah, grooves and stuff in it, yeah.

Beautiful … mahogany.

Gwen: The lamp stand. Oh, he used to potter and do all these things.

Allen: Keep me out of mischief. [Chuckles]

That’s right.

I got into enough mischief as it was. [Chuckle]

Did you? On the job or after the job?

[Chuckle] I’d better say after the job. [Laughter]

So you can see the fruits of your labours wherever you drive in town, really, can’t you? [Chuckles] Houses you’ve built, or signs you’ve made, or furniture you’ve created?

Both: Yeah.

Allen: Yeah. Oh well, that’s life, I suppose.

So did you go to Central School too?

No, no, I was at Mahora.

Really?

Gwen: They lived in Frederick Street where the sweet shop was.

Yes, tell us about the sweet shop.

Harper’s sweet shop.

Allen: Harper’s.

Gwen: Confectionary shop perhaps they called it, I don’t know.

Allen: Yeah, yeah. That was my grandparents’ shop.

Whereabouts was that situated?

Allen: Between Nelson Street and Tomoana Road, about halfway between. The shop was in there, in the front of a house. They could go to the house from the shop with no trouble at all.

So your grandparents owned the house and they set up the sweet shop?

Both: Yeah.

And you worked there as well?

Gwen: He was only a boy then.

Oh, I see.

Allen: Yeah, just a boy, that’s right. Yeah.

But you remember going there?

Allen: [Chuckle] Yeah, yeah, remember going there all right. Yep. But the house was at the back of the shop, but when I say it was at the back of the shop … it was at the back of the shop but there was quite a big space between them. From the shop you’d go out the back door and then you’d have to walk past the garden and all this sort of jazz to get to the next step, you see.

Gwen: Get to the house.

Do you recall any of the lollies they sold?

Allen: No.

You didn’t have any favourites as a young boy? [Speaking together]

No, I didn’t have any money to deal with and that. No, I was still only …

Gwen: I bet you got spoilt with them though. [Chuckles]

Allen: I was still only a youngster at that stage, really.

Gwen: Well, you went there when you were two.

Allen: Yeah.

When your mother died, that’s when you went to live with your grandparents and your father?

Yeah. Yeah.

And what was your father’s occupation?

Allen: Well, he worked at Holts; I think he was about thirty-odd years at Holts.

Gwen: Used to drive a truck at one stage.

Allen: Driving the trucks most of the time, but in the latter part of it he was where the stocks of timber was, [were] and the clients would come in and they’d want ten five by twos [5×2] and he’d get ‘em out and throw ‘em on their truck then.

So that’s where you would’ve learnt about timber yourself?

Oh yeah.

And was he making all these sorts of furniture pieces as well?

No, not as well.

Gwen: He used to buy an old house and do it up.

Allen: Oh yeah.

Gwen: And you used to help him. That’s where you got this experience.

Allen: Yeah, that was my dad, she’s talking about, so that kept me out of mischief.

Absolutely. [Chuckles] But Gwen, tell us about your experience of the earthquake. It was your first day at school?

Gwen: Oh. Yeah, so I was at school. It was my second year at school. And I thought it was playtime; we were outside, but I noticed the other day – that reading they did – he was talking about the panic in the passageway getting to the outside. And I thought, “Well, that’s funny, I’m sure it was playtime.” [Chuckle] One of us was wrong, I don’t know which one. Anyway, we all run [ran] round like mad not knowing what it was; I don’t know how many times I fell over and skinned my hands and knees ‘cause the ground was all moving. And I was looking for my sister, Joan, and I don’t know how many Joans I found until I got to the right one. [Chuckle] And then we hung around, and my father came up on his bike and took us home on his bike down back to Oak Road, and all the neighbours were sitting along the gutter or the footpaths, too scared to go in their house[s] ‘cause all the chimneys had come down. And the houses were a mess with everything fallen down.

You have clear memories of all those?

Oh gosh yes, you never forget a thing like that.

Allen: [Chuckle] No.

Had your chimney come down as well?

Gwen: Yes … yeah. And then we gathered the bricks from the chimney and built a fireplace outside to do the cooking and [to] boil water.

Allen: But then she had a father that [who] was a bricklayer, etcetera – got the bricks and put them into place etcetera, and there’s your fireplace.

Gwen: Yeah, yeah. He went out to the Drill Hall and borrowed a bell tent, and we put that up on [in] the backyard. We used to go camping so we had stretchers and things. We made up our beds outside in the tent and lived out there for quite some time.

A number of days or a number of weeks?

Oh no, weeks; yeah.

And the weather was …

It was summer – it was really hot, yeah.

And so you weren’t able to go back to school at that time?

Oh, not for a long time, no, no.

How would you’ve occupied your days then, as children?

Oh, goodness knows … reading, I suppose, or something, I don’t know. [Chuckle]

Helping with the chores or picking up the bricks…

Yeah, that’s all. Tidying up, picking up the mess. I know there were smashed eggs and groceries all over the floor. [Chuckles] Anyway. Ah well – we never want to go through that again. [Chuckle]

Allen: No, that’s right.

No. Do you recall the earthquake, too, Allen?

Oh yeah, yeah. I was in the shop, you know, that the grandparents had. And on the mantelpiece over the fireplace there was a clock about that size. Not so plain sort of, as that; one of those fancy looking clocks. And I can remember seeing that go [brrrrrrrr] … [chuckle] And my grandfather was outside, behind the shop at the ice chest.

Yes …

Had ice chests in those days to keep stuff cool.

Gwen: No fridges.

Allen: And yeah, he was out at the ice chest, that’s right, and [chuckle] I could see this clock moving, you know. I thought, ‘Blimey Charlie!’ So I hurriedly got out of the road, round the back to the ice chest where he was, and I stayed with him there then. And that’s the earthquake over virtually.

So your school wouldn’t have gone back for some time either?

Gwen: No. Well, he didn’t go to school that day.

Allen: [Chuckle] I was supposed to go to school but I didn’t. I thought better. [Chuckles]

Now, what were the names of your grandparents?

Gwen: We’ll have to find out and let you know.

Allen: Colleen’ll probably know.

Gwen, your mother’s name was Mary Blair Griggs. Tell us a little about your father.

Gwen: Oh, my father … well, he came out here with his parents when he was about eight year[s] old, and they bought a farm out [in] East Clive and they lived out there. And then when World War One came along he went with the army overseas, and must’ve been on leave or something; anyway, he met up with me [my] mother over there. They met somehow, and in 1919 they got married and they came back on the troop ship; me [my] mother and all.

Really?

That’s right. And they came back and lived at Clive for a while. And then you could get a loan through the soldier’s … I don’t know what you call it …

Rehabilitation? [Soldier Settlement Scheme]

Yeah … something you could get. [And they] bought that house at Oak Road.

And we haven’t said what your father’s name was …

Frederick Charles Trendell.

Now, which country was he from?

He’s from England, from Croydon. My mother was from Southend-on-Sea.

So the Trendell family would’ve come to New Zealand prior to that time?

Yeah.

[Break; recommencing on new subject]

My first year in the Primers I was so small, and the teachers were frightened I’d get knocked over so they used carry me into the classroom. [Chuckle]

You were just very tiny.

Yeah, that’s right. Yeah.

And you can remember being carried in, and the teacher’s name?

Was Parnell, one of them.

These are the Central teachers?

Yeah; can’t remember now.

What about friends – do you recall any of the other little girls?

Oh, there was a Sheila Giffney, that’s right. No, I can’t think of who they were.

So you enjoyed school?

Oh yes, yeah, quite enjoyed it.

How did you get to school?

We used to walk, of course, and walk home for lunch and back again … Massey Street, we’d cross the road and we went what we called, ‘down the bank’; at the back of the Central School, there was quite a paddock but it was lower down. We used to call it ‘down the bank’.

Is that where part of the playground is now?

Yeah.

And so after the earthquake it took some weeks before you were allowed to go back to school?

Oh yeah, it was quite some time.

Had the school been repaired?

Yes, oh yes.

What age did you leave school, Gwen?

Oh, that’s a good question. No, I don’t remember, no. Fourteen, sixteen, I suppose, I don’t know. By the time I’d had two years at high school and a good six months at Brabet Commercial College in those days; in Queen Street it was, Brabet Commercial …

And that’s where you learnt ..?

Oh – well I had taken commercial at high school, but I just furthered my studies with shorthand and typing and bookkeeping there.

And that was in Queen’s Street in Hastings?

Yeah, upstairs … and went there for a few months, then I got a job at De Pelichet McLeod as shorthand typist. [Chuckle]

Allen: You were there ‘til we married, weren’t you?

Gwen: Well, I was still there for quite a few years after we were married. We never had a mortgage for our house, we just worked and bought timber and stuff as we earned it. Yeah … just lived in the garage in the meantime. It put us on our feet, anyway.

And when did you leave school, Allen?

Allen: Oh, me? Oh, when did I leave school? I’d just finished the second year at high school and I was about to go to the third year but instead of that I got a job. [Chuckle]

Gwen: How old would you be?

Allen: Oh, good question. Well, I must have been – hang on; now, they had to get a permit for me to start work so I must’ve been fifteen, in those days.

Gwen: ‘Cause of machinery.

Allen: Yeah, there was machinery etcetera, and they had to get a permit for me to go. Yeah, so that’s the story on that part. What else is there?

Gwen: I don’t know. I think we’ve done our dash.

I don’t want to tire you, so perhaps it’s time. Can you think of anything else you’d like to say?

Allen: No, not at this stage I don’t think.

Gwen: No.

All right. We’ll turn it off.