Boyce, Trevor Gordon Interview

Interview presided over by Katrina, a volunteer with the Hawke’s Bay Knowledge Bank.

Today is 20th June 2024, and I’m talking to Trevor Boyce this morning about his family and working life; over to you.

My mother and father started in Christchurch; that’s where they met, then they moved to Westshore and they lived there for quite a while. And they moved to Clive after that, and they had ’bout seven, eight children, and two of them had accidents at school – one died of pneumonia, and the other one died of something else. Rene, Phyllis, Betty, myself, Trevor … Clive was killed in an accident after the Napier earthquake – that’s when he was killed, and it sent my mother round the bend. She ended up in Porirua … got a hell of a shock. Then about three months later Dad died, and I was only about thirteen or fourteen then.

I went to Mangateretere School for all my life; passed all my exam[s] up to … I was fifteen. Then I went and worked at a bakehouse in Hastings, down by Stortford Lodge – I forget the name of it. But I went to another bakehouse up in Hastings. I used to live with my sister then, Irene, and then mucked around for a while. Then I was bike pushing [push biking] down the road and I used to go down to the sewers at Clive where … all a sewer now … we used to catch kingfish and that there, snapper and that. And Noel Cooper and I used to go in the evening and catch snapper down there.

And then I started at Tuckers [Wool Scourers], and I worked at Tuckers for forty-four years. I started there – I used to get a shilling a bale in those days. I used to put the wool into the tubs and fork it out of the tubs, then on top of [a] platform. And that would dry and a man would pick it up, then drop it into the drum around … then it would come out in the bottom on two trays, and drain. And Marty Kay, he was there, and the one in front of him was doing the other side, feeding it in. They had an argument then, ’cause it was too heavy for him to lift up; he couldn’t lift it up, and they argued about it. And then sometimes the hydro would break down; the joker Key or somebody used to come and fix it up and mend it.

So we used to come home from school and this chap used to bike down the road, and I used to run with him. And he ended up at Tuckers looking after the boiler in those days, and he used to oil the machine and that. I used to get this shilling a bale, it was great; I’d pick it up and put it into the hopper, and I had to tear up top and cart it away; it had to go about … oh, six or seven hundred feet, I s’pose – through the place to hydro, and through and down the back into a big hole. My name is up there, Trevor Boyce and Marty Kay; it’s still up there.

Then they bought in a scour then, and brought it in with a hopper up the front and a hydro; and then one, two, three, four bowls. Had four big drums handle it – every time it’d come through it’d punch all the water out, and drop in. I did that for a long, long time, those two.

Then I got transferred up to the top … the man on the floor up top. And I didn’t know much about anything those days. I gradually learned a bit, and a bit, and a bit, and I could class the wool then. You put some down this hole, some down this hole, in three different lots. You had to do it.

Then I was there one day and he came and took me out to a chap I knew at Maraetotara, and I did me [my] first lot of wool classing there for this chap. He used to bike ride with me, and I did my first lot of wool classing there. It was all right, he said. Then he said, “I’ve got another job down at [?]” … he used to go to Waipari, wool class there. So I did Waipari for years, down there, it was a great place; they had six one side and six the other side where you could share [shear?] the wool in those days.

Whereabouts is that?

Waipari … Waipari. It’s Omakere. And then I used to live there, and I went to Peter Morris at Pukerangi; went there, and then I went to … what’s the name of the place? Did the other one there too … And anyhow, from there [I] went to Porangahau which was the one down there. And those two have died [??], two brothers … Smith, yeah. We used to class for him. They always got top with their wool. I did it for the one next door and we actually beat them. You’d get sort of 48s, 50s and 52s sort of quality, and mine was 54/6 … the quality of mine. And they were 54/6s, yeah – was two points higher than theirs. And they were quite happy, ‘cause I beat them by that two, you know? Two percent higher, you know. They were rapt at this and they shouted beer [??].

So I worked there for a little while in those places, and after that I mucked around at work for a long time. Done forty-four years, but when I got to forty I got eight weeks’ holiday pay; after forty years they give [gave] me eight weeks’ holiday pay. And two months muckin’ round home was … you know, very funny, sittin’ round doin’ nothin’ more or less.

And then I left when I was sixty and you had to retire. I’m just ninety-four and a half now; it’s been a long time now. But we’ve sort of finished that now; more or less finished that.

I got a few bob together and I bought a racing bike, and I used to grass track race; did a half mile and three mile.

Was that at the Hastings racecourse?

Mmm. You know, they won quite a few races. Keith Atkinson used to beat me sometimes; he beat me three times. He got first and I got second in the mile and three mile. We used to go to Napier and race there; we raced round at night. The tide was sinking in – I ran out to the side, and they cancelled the one after that meeting. Then we went to Dannevirke for the Hawke’s Bay Championship there; you started about two minutes apart and you had to go about twelve and a half miles out and back. There’s another chap went off in front of me, and I took off; I got up pretty high [?] and before we got halfway I passed him and got to the joker, and you had to take the ticket off your hand and give it to him to prove that you’d got there. And then I turned around and come back, and he come [came] up the hill and onto the flat, and he come [came] over the railway lines and he come [came] down round a big bend, and he come [came] towards the Finish then. And as I was coming round the corner the chap was yelling, “Go for it! Go for it!” He says, “You’ll just about win this.” So that’s how I finished, and I went in the toilet, and just coming out of there and he said, “You’ve just beaten me! You’ve just beaten me [???].” It was unbelievable. Had he have won … [?] Then he said, “I did a lot more bike riding, I race round Mount Egmont. I haven’t done enough training”, he said, but I got 7s and that”, he said. “They all just caught me comin’ up the last hill; I didn’t realise you had to turn and you had to finish the last four furlongs on the racecourse”, he said. “That was a fair bugger”, he said, “you know, after coming off the hard and coming onto grass like a racecourse, it was bloody terrible – I got there and I collapsed on the flat there for a while.” And then he said, “It come to the hundred miles, the Hawke’s Bay Championships … had to go back to Dannevirke again.”

There was about oh, twenty-five, thirty of us started off, and so I just tagged along for quite a while, and gradually a few got down and down; we got to fifty mile, and … wasn’t too bad, but you had to go round and down the hills and up a big [?] and down and around this … four times you had to go round this piece, and it got down to two of us left – me and this chap from Dannevirke. We’re comin’ up the last piece along by the aerodrome, I put a bit of pressure on [and] he dropped back. But he sort of eased back; I let him come up. We come [came] up by the corner of low wood places and that; you come round the corner and there’s a big dam on the other side of the hill there. And you come down the hill; he’s come up and I just put pressure on – I just ran away. I thought I won that quite easy, the Hawke’s Bay Hundred Mile Championships. And there wasn’t much to do after that in that sort of thing.

I started fishing; I started off with a small [?bowie?], and we used to like to spear flounders in those days with a seven pronged [?] fork.

Whereabouts did you do that?

In the Ngaruroro River, so you could catch herrings and mullet. And when we started fishing from Clifton I got a bigger boat, and a bigger boat, and then we used to go out fishing. And it would come round Show time and Boxing Day, and I’d hear they’re catching the gropers out at Mahia, at Bull Rock there. About a fortnight later they’d come down the coast towards Waimarama, and we would go out there to about sixty-eight metres … just sit and catch them. We’d catch fifteen or twenty gropers and a few snapper, and gurnard – quite a few gurnard. And the next day we’d move back a bit further towards where we’ll still catch the groper. And then we found Post Office Rock after that. One joker from Napier used to go out there and catch them, and my mate used to go down and catch them. Moss Mossman, he was a good fisherman [someone interrupts; speaks over Trevor] – he’d go down there and catch them. We fished there for years catching these groper, and catch the odd kingfish.

Yeah, so I got to sixty sort of, then and I retired. ‘Cause I used to go down to the Heretaunga Club and have three or four jugs of beer, and bike home in those days. And I used to play a lot of snooker down there, you know. The two jokers that run [ran] the place were robbing the place gradually, and the place went down and down and down. And [?Michael Spencer?] used to come to me; he says, “Can’t you do something about it?” I says, “I was nearly going to get the microphone and do something about it, but [?] said that broke up.” And these jokers were flogging the beer, and that sort of happened. And then it got changed; the three clubs went together – Hibernian, the RSA [Returned & Services Association] and the Heretaunga – went together, and so now it’s called RSA, that club. I got crook when my wife died and I haven’t gone back there any more.

Now I’m home sort of sittin’ here in me [my] own chair. My neighbour, Malcolm Cornes, says I [can] go over there at night time and sit there with them; and they have a few beers and I sit there and watch them.

But I come home and cook tea for me and Stephen; he’s in a bit of bloody trouble. I do the spuds, and I do the pumpkin and I’ve got to cut it into about three or four pieces, then I get the scraper so I [can] do the spuds – I’ve got to scrape all the skin off the outside with that; that takes me about five minutes to do that. Then I chop it all up into bits and small pieces, that’s about fifteen to twenty bits. Then I do four spuds, and I cut those up into bits; then I put the two together and I put them in the pot and I put it under the tap and pour it over them. And I tip it out, and I put it in again and tipped it out again. Then I fill it up with water and put it on the stove, and I get the scraper, pull out the salt and I put three quarters of that in there, go in and watch television with Stephen.

Comes to five o’clock, I go down and put the stove on, put the meat in the stove and a kumera I cut in half, I put that in the bottom, and I turn that on. Then I go and watch television again ‘til half past five, then I go down and turn the meat and the kumera over; then I put the tea on after that. And that’s cooking, so I go up top; sittin’ there, and all of a sudden Stephen tears down, takes the lid off it and turns the stove back down to ‘bout two and a half. I was sittin’ there for a while, and I look at him, and I jump out and go down, and I turned it back down to two; come back up and watch television again.

And ten to six, five to six, I go down and I stick the fork in and the spuds and the pumpkin are cooked, so I open the stove and have a look and [the] meat’s cooked, so I shut everything off. Then I squashed it all down, the pumpkin and then the spuds. And then I get a spoon and I tip in … what d’you call that sort of stuff? Well we put butter in it or something, and I do that and we mixed it all up. And then I get milk and put it on top of it and mash that all up. Then I dished it up, one this way, one this way, one this way … need four, each side. Then I just clean up the rest and drop it in the [?]. Then I pick the dish up and I take it over by the stove, open up the oven and I take out one meat and one kumera and put it on a plate, and I do the same for mine. Then I grab one and I turn the light off and grab the other, and we go up to the table. And Stephen passes me on the way back – he said he’s going down to get the Wattie’s tomato sauce; comes back and he pours Wattie’s tomato sauce all over his.

And I sit down, and I struggle to eat mine with me [my] teeth; I’m bitin’ and chewin’ away. And eventually we get that done. I’m finished sometimes by that [then] – I’m waitin’ for Stephen to do his. “Finished”, he says, and then I pick the two up together, put the two bits of bone together, put that on a plate and someone’ll grab it and take it down, and put the sauces and stuff into a little dish on the table. Get [a] little bag and put all the rubbish in there, and I’ll wash the two plates and some knives and forks with that.

And … now we’ve got no power on at the present, so we’ve got to wash that. When it’s all cleaned I take that out and leave the two dishes there. Then I’ve got to boil the kettle ‘cause our hot water cylinder’s broken; the man’s supposed to be here at ten o’clock, but he hasn’t arrived yet. We sort of get through that, and we pour the hot water back into the tub, and then we wash up the plates and knives and forks and put them away in the drawer; then we go up and sit down and that’s it.

Then I go to bed at night time, I lay there until oh … eight or nine o’clock at night, and I go to sleep.

Mr Boyce, how long have you lived in this house here?

Oh, over sixty years.

Did you have it built, or did you buy it?

We bought it. It was only half the size when we bought it.

Oh, okay, so just a little cottage, and you’ve extended it?

Yeah. Twenty to seven I get up, then I get dressed; me [my] pants are hangin’ down by my knees, and I’m on my knees by the bed. Then I’ve got to get up to get dressed – that’s the trouble. I get hold of the end of the bed and I get so far and I can’t get up. I sit there for a while, and I struggle and eventually I get round and I can get up. And that’s all right; then I go out and turn the electric jug on, then I open up the cupboard and get my plate out, put my plate on the table and I open up the cupboard to get the weetbix out; I get three weetbix out, put it into the plate there, put sugar on it.

Then Malcolm next door puts the paper in there, so I sit there for a while, and … ‘Hell, I haven’t had me [my] pills’, so I’ve got to get out there and get me [my] six pills. And I bring those and put them here by the window sill, and I get there and I’ve got five.  We’re huntin’ around and couldn’t find this other one. I went out and shifted everything off the table … couldn’t find it. I look down and my mate says, “It’s down here.” Every day I do the same sort of thing; every morning, get up and have me [my] weetbix, me [my] cup of tea, go over next door, get the paper. Not allowed to drive any more now – can’t pass me [my] test, so I’ve got a little machine and I ride that now.

A mobility scooter?

Yeah, mobility scooter, yeah. It’s got forward, reverse, and I hop on that, go down the road. When there’s no cars coming I look, and I get across the road. Then I go right down to the shops, then I’ve got to go across to the chemist shop and he gives me pills I’ve got to have every day. Sometimes I’ve got to go further to get two lots of milk – we get two lots of milk for $6.50 from that place there.

So in the sixty years that you’ve lived here has a lot changed down at the Mahora Shopping Centre?

Oh yeah, it has, yeah. The chap who’s father used to own the chemist shop before, I go and watch the cricket sometimes and he comes past, and he’ll see me sitting there …

In Cornwall Park, there?

Cornwall Park, yeah, on a Saturday afternoon ‘bout one o’clock – I go one ‘til three, you know. And life changes; you don’t sort of realise, you know … trying to think of everything that’s happened, you know, in your life.

And sort of back on my little mobile scooter now … that does me now. I just ride up there and ride back; or if I go shopping I’ve got to wait for Stephen to take me everywhere. I can’t drive now, that’s my trouble, you know.

I used to see you going whitebaiting …

Oh yeah, I did miles of whitebaiting in those days.

Every season?

Oh, every … did it when I was a young kid.

Make a bit of pocket money?

No, no, we used to eat it. I used to catch it at Christmas time – you [could] catch whitebait all the year round; you still can, you know. Unbelievable, you know – the life I’ve had. And seeing everything, you know, I’d love to come back in a hundred years time and see what’s happened, you know? You would too, you know, to see what’s happened in your life. It’s unbelievable the things that happen. But never mind, I’ve sort of got to the stage now that …

I started here with one dove up in the power pole there; I used to talk to that, and then she’d come down here; then I got two, then I got three, [quiet chuckle] then I’ve got four here. One day I’m out here feeding and there’s five here. And Tom Mulligan next door, he counted six here. I said, “No, there’s only five.” This morning I had four sitting out here just before you came this morning.

Do they nest in the tree up there?

Oh, they sit up on the pole … no, they’re round here in the tree.

Living on the power lines up there …

Stephen sits there, and he says, “Oh, there’s four up there”, you know? The things Stephen sees that I don’t see … it’s unbelievable. There’s a feijoa tree round the corner, they sleep there most of the day.

It’s a shame this chap hasn’t arrived yet; there’s not much else that we can tell you now, really, you know, it’s …

Covered?

Mmm.

Anything about your school life that you wanted to talk about? What sort of activities and things did you get up to?

Oh, not much of that really, no. We had a reunion at …

Mangateretere?

Yeah, Mangateretere. That was the hundred year one, and I was the oldest there, so we went to the do that night. We’re sittin’ there and Mr & Mrs Robin come [came] in and sat beside us. And this lady come [came] in … didn’t know who the hell she was. Oh, before that I was over further, sat down, and this woman come [came] and said, “[You] don’t want to sit there – the band plays bloody loud.” So I moved over and I sat there with the two Robins; Mr & Mrs Robin come [came] in from Kohupatiki. I knew the old man Robin – he built the stopbank along past Tuckers in those days ‘cause it had nothing there those days. And then she come [came] and sits [sat] there, and we’re talkin’ good as gold. Then it got to quarter to seven; Stephen had to come and pick me up at seven o’clock, so I rushed out and saw this lady. “Do you want me to cut the bloody cake?” I says to her. [Chuckle] And she shot into the dining room and brought the cake out and give [gave] it to me, and I just cut the thing and pulled it straight through the middle of it. The lady was … I mean, a man I’d give it to him; didn’t wait for a bit of cake, and I went back and sat down in the chair. Then it got to seven o’clock and I went outside; this woman followed me out and sat there, and pushed the door [?away?], and that was good.

Next day we had to go to the church service; they were having a church service on the Sunday morning. So I got up and I go over to Malcolm’s next door; we’re sittin’ there, and I said, “Are you going to the church service?” He says, “What bloody church service?” Malcolm says, “The church service is at the Mangateretere School.” I said, “What?” He says, “Yes, they’re havin’ it back there. I’m not goin’”, Malcolm says. And I said, “Hell! If they’re havin’ it there”, I said, “I was going to meet this lady and see if [I] … get friends or something.” That happens, and [snap]. So we never went there, and that sort of finished that. [Quiet chuckle] You know, funny things that happen in your life.

Can’t sort of think much more of what’s happened in the days. I used to pushbike round the Cape, those days; I’d climb up the hill and over the side and down …

Cape Kidnappers?

Yeah, Cape Kidnappers, yeah. We’d climb way up the hill, and the gannets are up the top there on the other side, and we used to climb down the other side, right down. Pretty steep; we’d get out and walk around the corners and places, and you had to wade yourself out. My brother used to put the pots in there, and he used to pull off pauas for bait in those days – not allowed to now. And I’d get as much as I could carry; sometimes I couldn’t carry them all, so we had a little pot and we used to put them in there, and the next day I’d go out … I used to go out there bloody every day in those days, gettin’ crayfish, and he’d take it away and sell ‘em. I used to ride my pushbike around there, and it was great, the old days.

We were comin’ back one night, my brother and I – we went out just to the Black Reef, and we had to wade up to about that deep – we wade out to there, and as the tide went down there was [were] some big holes; there was one, two, three holes there, and you’d catch, oh, not quite takeable ones in those days, and some bigger ones, then we’d get twenty or thirty and then bring those home. ‘Cause when you got out there you put your shoes back on, then you could walk out with no water … tide had gone out. And there’s one place in the Black Reef – [if] you had to bring your boat through it was dangerous, you had to know where you were going, ‘specially at night time. My brother come [came] along and he drove the boat; oh, he went up over the top and landed on the Black Reef; the next wave took them off.

What was your brother’s name?

Arthur Boyce. They’ve got a photo there [with] about three hundred snapper, and [it] took two trucks and the Napier Fisheries to take them away. Kids were selling them for two shillings [2/-] and half a crown [2/6d, or two shillings and sixpence] in those days, each, you know?

Was that a lot of money?

Yeah … well, yeah. Well I was getting a shilling a bale in those days, you know, when you go back …

From Tuckers?

Yeah – 19/6d [nineteen shillings and sixpence] a week or something in those days, you know. When I left I was gettin’, oh … ‘bout £800 a week then. But you had to work in those days, you know, [a] lot of difference. So there’s … haven’t got much more we can really tell you.

Oh – well thank you very much, Mr Boyce.

Yeah.