Bradshaw, Frederick Rawhiti (Fred) Interview

Today is the 30^th day of November, 2015.  I’m interviewing Fred Bradshaw of Havelock North about the life and times of his family from day one until now.  Fred would you like to tell us something about the beginnings?

My parents came from England.  Well, my father Albert came from Staffordshire. He used to say ‘where the mugs come from’.  And my mother came from Kent but she came in a family group – her mother and father and another sister, Ivy.  Her father’s name was Frederick Walters and his wife was Elizabeth Walters.  I don’t know much about their arrival in New Zealand other than somehow they arrived in Hawke’s Bay and their first night here they were somewhere near Paki Paki.  My mother used to call it ‘Pay-keye Pay-keye’.  I think there must have been a Maori death right at that time because they couldn’t get used to the moaning and crying and what goes on in that sort of thing.

The father was a bricklayer and I think he built the accommodation area out there and it still stands today.  Shortly after that the family moved to Whakatu where I think the big works was being built. He landed the job – a very tricky job I believe – of … they were building a pretty big engine room and I think they had boilers and they generated their own power largely.  One of the major jobs he did was to brick in the boilers.  And also he built himself a house – a brick house – which survived the 1931 earthquake and still looks a nice house today.

From that stage we’ll pass on to my father.  He arrived in New Zealand – Wellington with a cousin I think, William Ridge, and they decided they’d go to Gisborne.  And going to Gisborne meant going by a local vessel – it called in at Napier and they liked the look of the place, so that’s where they stayed.  I think my father got a job on a building site.  What happened to Bill Ridge I don’t know at that stage, but he eventually finished up in Norsewood where he spent all his life.

My mother, as far as I know, became the manageress of – when she grew up of course – the manageress of the Trocadero, quite a large eating place in Napier in those days.   Somehow my father met her and then the War came along.

This was the first World War?

The first World War – this would be around about 1914.  He went off to war but – it was a shock in those days – he left my mother pregnant, which in that era was a very difficult social event to handle.

We’ll follow my father first. He then went to France and spent the rest of his days at the front. When I looked on his medals I could never work out as a youngster – CQMS – Company Quarter Master Sergeant. Well, he suffered some injury and I think he was fortunate that that happened at the time of Passchendaele, because – we talk about Gallipoli but Passchendaele is about the most awful war story New Zealand suffered. Eventually, I think he said when the war was over he just jumped the first ship he could find and came back to New Zealand.  But he had a fine record as a soldier.

When he got back … I don’t think he knew – my mother never told him there was a child because when I looked up … I was once at Waiouru that has quite a collection, an old collection of military matters, and I was amazed there to find that his next of kin was his mother, Mrs Bradshaw.  But anyway they came back and got together, got married, and then they had the bright idea of building a store at Whakatu, right opposite the new freezing works.

On the corner?

On the corner of, you know, Railway Road and the other road.

Yes, I do.

They were very successful. I think my mother was very astute apparently.  I was told a lot of this by a law clerk who knew our family very well.  And she knew who to give a bit of tick and who not to.  Money matters were most important.

There was Ivan and then in 1924 Robert was born and then I was born in 1926. There’s a mystery – there’s a family name change takes place – well, I’ll bring that in just a little later, but anyway from the time of my mother’s birth, my mother suffered asthma, chronic asthma.  And the thinking in those days was that one of the best places … one thing that may help was living by the sea so they moved to Haumoana and bought a property right on the rise just back from the beach and that was somewhere between ‘27 and ‘30. Then my own memory comes into it a bit.

Did they still have the shop?

No, no – the business had grown quite big and they operated a truck and deliveries and all that sort of thing and I think they sold the shop to a Mr Dillon.

I’ve interviewed his son, and he told me about the brick shop at Whakatu.  Brian Dillon from Pakowhai. 

Go on.

His father.

Yes, well it was my parents that started the shop. My own memory starts with 1931.  I was a little boy of just five and I must have just started school and needed something and I was in the main street of Hastings and I can still remember, you know, somebody shouting “get into the middle of the street” because we were standing there and the shop fronts were falling away as we watched.   And you can’t describe an earthquake, you’re just – you’re in it.  My father was in the Public Library in Hastings and that, that was a brick building – and I think only his war experience and that, he said people tried running out.  He stood in a doorway, suffered a broken jaw and didn’t know that for some days.  I don’t know how we met up, but somehow he and my mother got together and we found the car, and then the next thing was to try and get home back to Haumoana.  I can remember them coming along the Havelock Road and getting as far as the Havelock bridge but the built up areas to get on to the bridge had fallen away.

Eventually we got home. I was always amazed how we made the Black Bridge but it must have still been workable. From that stage on the house – well, the water tank had gone, the chimney was down.  When you went inside the house the kitchen was the greatest mess because all the cupboards, the cupboard doors had come open and there was just a crash. There was a tennis court on this property.  First of all though, before we get to how we set it up, they chased to where Bob was at Haumoana School and Ivan at Napier Boys’ High School. Somehow in the period of time we found out we’d all survived which was wonderful. But then my mother was utterly terrified of earthquakes and her policy always with an earthquake was to run into the middle of the tennis court. She didn’t want to live in the house at that stage so on the corner of where there was sort of fence and uprights they rigged a bivouac sort of area. My father and Ivan slept in the house and my mother and the two little ones were outside.

There was a name change in our family, and there’s nothing to hide but it was a funny sort of name – Shufflebotham. Not ‘bottom’ – ‘botham’.  It doesn’t sound bad when you hear the people – Eastbotham, and all that – the Shuffle-one.  Ivan went to High School and he came home one day completely distraught of what some boy was calling him, you know – and my father must have thought about it. Immediately he went to his solicitor and requested a name change and the name was Bradshaw, his mother’s name.

So that was his mother’s name?

His mother’s name, yeah.  So – I don’t think I would be ashamed to have had that name but some of these old English ones.  I’ve tried at times to find out the Shuffle part of it because sometimes people got named after the type of work they did or – all that sort of thing.

Anyway Ivan did very well at High School. He – I can remember he was going for matriculation which was a four year course. Some of them tried it in the third year as an experiment to get used to what was going on. When the results came out he had passed and passed with a medical prelim, which I think is because he passed in Latin.  But the headmaster said it was a fluke.  I don’t see how it could be a fluke really if he’s name wasn’t on the top and all that sort of thing, but he said he realised what the headmaster meant when he went into the 6^th Form because sitting there was the father of the … Ben Wood… He became a magistrate and was the father of the ACC scheme.

Not Woodhouse?

Woodhouse [Owen Woodhouse]  – that’s the name, Frank.  This happened of course in the early ‘30’s.  Places like Haumoana, the depression ruled, and it was a shocking depression where lots of very capable, talented men just couldn’t get jobs.  And Haumoana was full of them. So Ivan didn’t stay long in the 6^th form. He applied for a job and when they applied for jobs at that stage you were in the queue. But he finished up getting a clerk’s job at McCulloch, Butler & Spence, and I think the big man in it at that stage was Norman Fippard and his son had a tragic accident. So he was there.

My family were quite religious. My mother could play the piano. My father had learnt to play the organ and also though – an interesting fact – he went to the same school that later R J Mitchell, the famous spitfire designer went to.

We survived the depression. I don’t know whether my father saw what was coming on and that, but we were probably, when I look back, lucky boys.

What did your father do at that stage?  After he left Whakatu?

Well, he had been to the doctor or something, and he was told he had a tired heart. Whatever that meant Frank.   Because in their business – I think it got quite big, and carting stuff, and they did a delivery run and all that sort of thing. He was a big strong man. I think if there was a job picking fruit or something … maybe if the Showgrounds wanted people at the gate he would go there. He may go to the racecourse.

He always told us kids a great one about gambling.   He said he was going to the races this day to collect the money at the gate.   And he picked up a bloke and he was a jockey, and the jockey was all distraught, he was late.  My father got him to the racecourse and the bloke said  “to thank you I’ll give you a certainty. You can put your shirt on it”.  But it didn’t win.

We were I suppose – comfortable, Frank, and I can always remember Jimmy Wattie, because Jimmy Wattie to them was the office boy at Whakatu Freezing Works.  And I think Jimmy asked Dad to help him in his very first stages, but as my father said up to that stage all of those sort of things hadn’t succeeded.  And I can remember Jimmy Wattie was a resident in Haumoana for a while you know.  I’m sure Frank, looking back, it would be the stage where he probably sold his house and raised all he could for his business.  And Gordon Wattie was in the same class at Haumoana School as me.   Is this what you want Frank?

Absolutely – well you know, It’s amazing. It’s almost incestuous … all these people who all knew one another all come from Haumoana or Havelock … you don’t hear of people coming from Hastings.

Ivan worked at McCullochs, and I think though in those days the clerk boys were working long hours and that sort of thing.  He had a chest complaint and also there was another issue to it – he’d met a young lady I think.  We had a tennis court and we were all not bad tennis players. Ivan played for Haumoana I think.  Haumoana tennis court back then was down Holden Road. Haumoana had a little team and I think Twyford had a team and Jean was Jean Berge, of course – there were three girls there.  Did you know that family?

No I only knew Jean when she was married to Ivan.

Horrie Berge – he had a little property almost exactly opposite on the other corner with the school on one side and just across the road was there because … I’m going to tell you about a spud crop there.

Ivan saw a different sort of life I think.  Parties and girls and that sort of thing, and he and my father clashed. The outcome of it was Ivan went shepherding. He first went to a block on Te Aute Trust – the names get me now, but anyway – that was just for a single shepherd. Eventually my father and he made it up to a degree. Jean and Ivan got married almost at the start of ‘39 – or almost as the war came along.  But to get a job he had to find one for a married couple. So he finished up at Craggy Range, and that was a fascinating property.

It was Van Asch’s then wasn’t it?

Van Asch’s yes. There had been a big tragedy there, you know – you know about that?

Yes, I do.

But they were talented, clever men.  He … and Ivan lived at Craggy Range, and if there was a little bit of a break, I was allowed to take my bike and bike up the back way, opening gates and maybe spend overnight with them. The van Asch’s, if I was around, would let Ivan have an extra horse and I was able to ride horses and all that sort of thing. In fact Ivan Van Asch came to Jean’s funeral.  Delightful people.  Because Van Asch’s come in at Haumoana too. All the land next to Haumoana in that square, if you take the school road and East Road, was virtually Derek van Asch.

We’ll go back to me a bit now. School holidays – we wanted a bob or two. Derek Van Asch had got a new Ellis Chalmers mill and converted it into a self propelling mill and it had a Draper pick-up sort of thing and he could seed lots of paddocks of rye grass seed. The pick-up didn’t cleanly sort of take the thing  – if the seed rolled round you lost the seed just before it got on to the mat. So I got a job with Derek Van Asch, and my first run was just sitting on the front of the mill with a hay fork just nursing the stuff quietly so it came on smoothly alongside a set of brand new little Allis Chalmers Model B tractor with a mower. The next thing I knew I was on the tractor. He showed me the gears and all that sort of thing. The next thing I was mowing paddocks of rye grass, you know.  My father said “Yes, and he’s paying you 2/6d an hour”.  But what a thrill for a kid of about fourteen.

The first tractor I drove was an Allis Chalmers B but I was sixteen.

Allis Chalmers were … well, they gained a lot of the market. Well that takes us to that stage. Then we come to the war.

My father – he went into the National Guard and he finished up with –  I don’t know whether he went down – a corporal or something, you know, but he was with just a small group of men manning a guard post around the petrol and oil tanks at Ahuriri, and – well, that was a constant job.  Ivan went into the Army but was invalided out because of severe asthma.  But Ivan was more of a larrikin in the Army which upset my father.

My brother Bob then, he went on to Napier Boys’ High School.  He knew almost from day one that horticulture was his thing.  He first went to High School and there was nothing – no course for anything like that for him, so they put him in the Agricultural class. He had been runner-up to Dux at Haumoana by the way.  He was top of the class there but it wasn’t what he wanted but his form master was a Mr – I’ll always remember his initials – D A C Campbell, who really later became very interested in the top-dressing industry of New Zealand.  But he took Bob under his wing and they got it organised so that, sort of either a half day or one day a week he went to a top nurseryman and all that sort of thing, you know.  And he studied at night from information sent from Victoria University.  He reached the age of about 17 and then I think he joined the local Air Cadets in Hastings. By the time he was eighteen he went into the Air Force.  And I think the dare devils fighter pilots – the more studious ones like the observers, the navigators and the bomb aimers – have to do calculations and all that sort of thing, you know.   So he went into the Air Force the moment he was eighteen.  He spent a wee while at Rotorua and then he was sent down to Taieri for more training.

But the great big course that was operating was in Canada and somehow we found out he went on the ‘Dominion Monarch’ to Canada.  He was too good a student because – I don’t know, I’ve got all of his data in there, but anyway Frank, they get divided into classes – gunners, wireless operators and all that sort of thing.  He landed in the navigators, bomb aimers, observers.  And when the course is completed everybody that passes is at least a sergeant, but one or two gain a commission and Bob at that stage became a Pilot Officer.

So I followed two fairly bright brothers. Sadly Bob went on and passed and he was killed in a most tragic accident. The captain of the plane survived but the – he was on Lancaster Bombers and they were trying to teach the engineer how to fly or something and they lost control of the plane.  And – well, he was the only one that survived but everybody else was killed.  I don’t know whether my parents knew that – I hope they didn’t because it seemed such a waste.  Frank, forty thousand men flew – Britain controlled an air war. Anyway, that’s the sad part. That happened in about – in the middle of ’44 – October 4^th ‘44.

I went to Napier Boys’ High School for about three years, and then – oh, my father looked at me and said “As far as I’m concerned you’re going nowhere until you’re twenty one, I’ll get every block in the way”.

Ivan did well with his shepherding but once he and my father got together they could see that you don’t enter farming by sheep farming. You go for dairying.   So Ivan went to Taranaki for a couple of years – worked for a W J Freeth  that had high quality cows and that sort of thing, and then my father bought a small property in York Road, forty three acres, a pig farm. Ivan was the farmer and my father had the bright idea – well, it started with thirty cows and a jersey bull purchased from Hughie McKessick in Tukituki Road and that bull … there was an episode with that too.   And my father said “Well, I think the idea … Ivan will want some help I think, with the way they’re going milking cows, pigs and – do all that, and fairly intensive” so I became Ivan’s assistant.  And you don’t mess around with older brothers and older brothers don’t go lightly on younger brothers.

Well, we then milked thirty cows but Ivan had them herd tested and all that sort of thing. He was a good stock farmer. He was the sort of bloke that if he did anything it was full tilt – 100%.  I’ll always remember Frank, on one night he and Jean were wanting to go somewhere and he left me to do the end of the milking and before milking we took the bull out and he was separated from the herd in a paddock just adjacent to the cow bale, and he said to me, he said “oh, take Jimmy, my dog, and put the bull across in that far corner gate”, you know. Yes, that was good.  I think we’d done that sort of manoeuvre many times.  I finished milking and … “c’mon Jimmy”, and we go in and walking across the paddock and the bull turns round and starts poring the ground and snorting and that – and Jimmy ran away.

Your dog ran away?

I was left in the middle of the paddock, you know. This bull had been – the only thing I say to be frank – it only had a partial horn.  But it had learnt how to lift gates off, then jersey … jerseys are frisky. I thought if I run he’ll run after me and just bowl me over. So I just side stepped quietly all the time towards the nearest fence and he came right up to me and nosed me and all this sort of thing. I survived, Frank.

And Jimmy the dog was sitting watching was he?

No, Jimmy – there was a story there. Ivan had some good shepherding dogs and when he went into the Army his dogs got distemper and Jimmy was really a quiet eye dog but not very strong.

Anyway we went on there. The war finished and I didn’t want to stay farming.  Ivan eventually built up another block of land or leased a piece with up to seventy cows which – round Hawke’s Bay …

But I surprised everybody by saying – well, I’d read an ad in the paper, New Zealand Radio College – surprised everybody by saying I was going to Auckland to learn radio.  Because radio then was more or less what the computer world was in its infancy.  So I went up there and – I had to have somewhere to board.  I think my mother came up with me, concerned  her offspring was flying out of the nest.  And I was a tin bum there Frank, in a sense – I finished up – first, in 86 Sarsfield Street, Herne Bay.  Herne Bay is rather a beautiful site in Auckland so I went there at 37/6d a week.  But it was – about five or six of us … run like a little boarding house but clean and good food.

Somehow, around that place, someone heard I played a bit of tennis and one day a bloke came to me from the John Court Tennis Club, Hamilton Road Herne Bay – quite a private little club.  “Would I like to come and have a game of tennis?”  Well, I finished up No 2 man in their little team. Howard Hutchison, a banker fellow … a big tall man – I was always little and short – he was No 1 and we did quite well.  But it was wonderful because the Court family were very nice you know – but I was a poor student – nothing to offer. Threepence on a tram from Herne Bay down to – you know.  But for the first time in my life I really tried, Frank.  And I finished up – after about 18 months I sat an Amateur Radio ticket … sat it far too soon but I got it, and then a 2^nd Class and a 1^st Class PMG and a Certificate in radio technology. Then I could go to sea. Did I say the College was full of Air Force blokes?

Yes, because Herne Bay was an Air Force base, wasn’t it?

No, that’s the other way, Mechanics Bay. But the big Solents were flying around and these blokes – they knew all about that stuff, you know.   So I was the little greenhorn sitting there.  At High School I learnt to send Morse on a flag with Ces Bagley, and when my brother Bob was learning the Morse at about half past nine at night the radio would put on slow Morse and I found I could copy that stuff. Then eventually I went to the school – well, I was able to compare my skills with these so-called seasoned blokes and I spied what you call a bug key.   I had to go to America to buy one of those, and I did.  So my confidence started to grow as I knew that if they could hold their job down and I can do it a bit better than them, I’m coming right, you know.  There were other blokes there that were very skilled but it was a great sort of yard stick and eventually I got a recommendation from them and I got it in less than normal time.

And then I suggested to my mother that I’d like to probably try flying, and immediately I could see she was upset, and so the next thing was a job on a ship. I got the drill because our place was probably supplying trainees, and I went down and met a Mr Pengelly and he said “yes, there’s a – the ‘Kiwitea’, an old coal boat’s due in and there’s a change – we’ll put you there”.  Frank – I had been at Radio School being taught some of the mysteries of radar and all that stuff and suddenly I’m on a coal boat – but proud!  I got a ship!  But the radio gear was archaic … goes right back to old Marconi!  Little coal boats are dirty ships. What do you wear?  In those days the naval outfitters had khaki battle dress tops dyed navy blue and you’d get a pair of navy blue pants and epaulettes.

So what rank were you?

I was Radio Officer.

‘Course – you were an officer by right.

That’s right. Oh, Frank – my first class ticket … I could have gone to England and got on the Queen Mary. It was a high class ticket.  You know, I worked hard.

With the old equipment you had, did you manage to get the coal ship to where it was supposed to be going?

Well, I had a wonderful experience there. The first captain was a Captain Brown.  We sailed from Auckland down to Westport and you loaded nearly three thousand tons of coal on this old thing … about the same age as me as it turned out.  And we had an odd break down with the steering gear and a loaded ship coming over those South Island bars, if you hit the bottom it’s the strangest experience. The ‘Kiwitea’ was one of three, ‘Kaponga’ and ‘Kartigi’. The Kaponga was lost almost new, right on the bar there.

So I did that.  The second captain was Captain Wilfred Keogh. Now he was a big man and I was still classed the greenhorn on the ship and we were at times only sailing with two certified officers when there should have been three. Things were the opposite then Frank – the soldiers coming back – they didn’t want to go to sea, they had families.   So he had become the hero of the ‘Wiltshire’ wreck.  A big English ship ploughed into Great Barrier Reef, [Island] the ship broke up and everybody was left on the front section with a whole lot of rocks and land over there – they couldn’t get any link.   Somehow someone on the ship floated a line and Wilfred Keogh, I think swam for it.  And out of that they rigged breeches buoys and all that and they got everybody – they saved them all.   Out of that they gave Ordinary Seaman Keogh the opportunity to train as a ship’s officer and that’s who I met up with. He was so short of crew on that, that he got me to do some of the duties of Third Officer. I was absolutely thrilled, you know, because really deep down if I’d gone to sea a little earlier that would’ve been the department I’d go in because you move right up to the top.

Anyway they played pranks on me and well … I blamed the captain, because – we were due to sail and I’d ducked ashore to post a letter and came back, opened my cabin door and there was a seagull sitting on the side of the … bloody seagull!  What do you do?  I think I grabbed a towel or something and threw it at it and managed to get the bird out without too much evidence. But I got back at the old captain because I’d noticed wandering around the ship was a pregnant cat – on the coasters and that you can’t have those things on the voyages.  I knew where his cabin door key was and I let it into his day room.  It had kittens on his settee.

What age would you have been at that stage?

Twenty one.

Just a boy still.

That’s right – oh, well – very much a boy.  Going on ships there’s a language of the sea that greenhorns go …   Although I think I coped fairly well.  So I did another voyage with him and when I look back I can only think my – captain sends in reports of officers – I probably got a good tick with him.

Next I was sent to the ‘Wainui’.  You ever heard of the ‘Wainui’?

Yes – doesn’t ring a bell, but I have heard of it.

The Union Company operated a little cargo ship operating Dunedin, Oamaru, Timaru, Napier, Gisborne.  I got put on because I was a Napier boy, you know, and it was wonderful. That ship had valve and – it was a trim little coaster – clean.

Then I got the huge break though.  I was somehow in Wellington and a new ship arrived, one of the first built after the war, the ‘Kaitoke’, and suddenly on comes a report that I was to be the radio officer. Now, twas a step up because also on board there they had the first sets to operate the small frequency radio telephone speech, 21822162.  The captain of the ship was from the barque ‘Pamir’, Captain Collier … nicknamed Two-gun Pete. The Chief Officer was Mr Robertson who was Captain Robertson of the ‘Wahine’ that got lost.  What a sad episode. Gibbingston, the second one, had served on a sailing ship.  You meet the captain with a letter of introduction, and – you know – “Oh … Radio Officer! You know my reputation about Radio Officers”.  He sort of made fun of me you know, and I could only say I find him a bit tough, you know.  But he took no interest in the radio and that was his weakness I think.

So we sailed from Wellington for Adelaide.  As we were approaching Aussie nearing the Bass Strait I picked up a message from the big radio station saying would ships in a certain area, which we were in, please indicate your positions.  Now the ship that was in trouble was the oldest ship of the Union Company.  So really – they then ordered ‘Kaitoke’ to give assistance – the ‘Kaitoke’ radio man to stay on continuous watch.  That meant Frank, I sat that night from eight o’clock at night right through to next morning.  There’s quite a story to it.   So when I took the message he … “what d’you get this for?”  You know, sort of … he wasn’t thrilled.  But when you’re ordered to go to an outfit – brand new ship – I can remember walking out of the saloon with the chief engineer and him looking at me and saying “well, Fred – this old bugger’s going to find out this ship’s got engines”.

So we were only lightly loaded.  With storm conditions the first thing I found was the sheer – the radio room was starting to throw around – I had to lash it down, you know. That ship was built in 1910. Their radio man on that ship was only what we call a mate operator. He could only do twelve words a minute.  He had an ancient old spark transmitter and I had to somehow get in touch with him and get him to send some signals. We had a radio direction finder there, a new New Zealand one, to try and help, but no radar.  We didn’t have radar on the ship. The other crowd, the third officer, went off watch at midnight and the second officer came on and he went off at four o’clock. Fred’s sitting there all night, you know – coaxing this man.  While we had signals it was still afloat.  Not too much – we didn’t want to run his gear down.

Anyway, next morning at daybreak we found them. The cargo had shifted and this little ship was leaning. Years afterwards I often think ‘what would I have felt like if I was a seaman on that ship and I looked out and saw a ship right beside us?’  Because in real big seas … it’s all fine to talk about life boats and that, but you can’t get the bloody thing into the water or keep it there long enough.  So anyway we … luck was on our side. The weather started to moderate and they – we hung around for a while and they decided on the ‘Kowhai’ that they could make Melbourne. We were ready to be with them but they said go on.

We got into Adelaide, and we were news. The reporter interviewed the captain of course. So that went on … somewhere along the line shortly after that he must have thought about it.  I omitted to say that during operating Frank, you have a distress frequency which every half hour or so you have a three minute break so that you could hear a weak signal.  With other traffic going you can’t.  And then … kept on giving me a message – and I’m hauled in – and I said “do you want me to break the silence period, Captain?”  Because if the captain says so you break it, you know.   I don’t think he knew what I was talking about.  Oh, oh – and he stormed out.  I didn’t break it, I waited ‘til it was over.  But anyway he must have thought about me a bit – he says “come into my cabin.”   He said “I’ll show you some of the photos of when the ‘Pamir’ was in England and we were visited by royalty”.  We wondered how on earth he spoke to a Royal Princess. He was an old sea dog.

But anyway that’s how things progressed, you know, and then – little article in the paper -and then up to Portland because we’d loaded gypsum. I got a message from Wellington to say I was to report to Wellington.  Really when you think back afterwards, the Union Company were dead lucky because when ships of another company go to assist another ship, time’s wasted and there’s huge cost. The fact that one of their own ships went there saved …

A lot, yes.

… I got to Wellington and had an interview with the Deputy Marine Superintendent and I was appointed second operator on the ‘Hinemoa’.

‘Hinemoa’, was that one of the Strait boats?

It sailed from Lyttelton to Christchurch – yeah it was, yeah … overnight trip.

That’s right.

Never missed one.  Well I joined the ‘Hinemoa’, and the chief one there was known as the fussiest, difficultest – most difficult man to handle and live with, you know?   It was Christmas for me because I was keen, Frank.   In fast telegraphy you have to use a typewriter and I’d started to learn typing you know.  And he looked at me and he said “well” he said “no radio REM’s going out of this place handwritten – got to be typed”. He got me in the afternoons up in the radio room on shortwave getting Morse and that and I practised, practised until I could type them. He was fussy but I got on with him. I didn’t even know where the battery room was. He didn’t trust the second one to …

But on that ship we had radar and the bridge used to ring through … it was all war time stuff, full of knobs in a little room out there.  We used to have to go out, the radio men, and change the channel for them and make sure it was all going right.  I had nearly eight or nine months with him.   And one night he … I knew these expert fellows like the head of the Radio College. He didn’t send Morse on this way, he sent it on one of these bug keys. One night there was a message there for the ‘Wahine’ and he shoved across his McElroy oval key. I’ve got my one out there. I sent this message ZMMLDZMFQQTC which means “‘Hinemoa’ calling ‘Wahine’, I have a message for you”.  I did it perfectly so I was on my way.

It was on daylight runs that you got the piles of messages. I think people had nothing else to do but – I’ll send a radio gram.  But the top people get very good because there’s a lot of it. On the coastal or cargo ships there’s not enough traffic to push you.  I can always remember on one of the Transpacific ships, an American company – “can you get me the stock market report?”  It was right up my alley. Anyway Frank, I graduated from there and spent some time on the inter-colonial go and one day the captain of the ship I was on came back and he said “You’re going to the ‘Waitemata’” which was one of the Transpacific ships going from New Zealand, Raratonga, Tahiti, Vancouver, San Francisco, Los Angeles, all those. First voyage we were only allowed $80 or $90.  Life as a radio man.   But it was fascinating for me and it did the job.

When my brother was killed, candidly Frank I was a bit mixed up, or my standards were questioned.   You know, he’d been a good living joker and all that, and suddenly killed. I thought God protects … this type of thinking.  But going to sea taught me to stand on my own legs, and I had to tell that Robertson fellow on the ‘Kaitoke’ on one occasion.  He was treating me like one of his crew and I said “when you step over the door in here Mr Robertson – I’m the boss in radio matters”.

So how did he handle that?

Oh, it was a bit odd for him.  But, you know he could do what he liked but he wasn’t my boss.  A captain is supreme.  You don’t ever question a captain, you know, like that old bloke, but he accepted me in the finish.  I wasn’t bad.

So how long did you stay at sea then?

Well the whole period probably covered about eight years, and the great thing was that one of my last ships – the two senior men on the ‘Hinemoa’ who trained me a lot – I replaced one of them on one of these foreign going ships. I was good enough to do his job. The sea’s a wonderful place and a good ship is proud to be part of.  I had an episode where I was standing by in Wellington and there was an old tramp steamer, they’re ships that sail around just picking up cargoes wherever they can get them, and their radio man had been crook and he must have tried the Union Company to get somebody.  And they came to me and they said “We’ll let you go”.  It was a great experience. They said “Ask for a bit more when he talks pay”. So I went down to GH sales office and talked to the captain and it was a liberty ship.  Have you heard of liberty ships?

Yes, I have.  Were they built in the United States?

Yes. Kaiser shipyard built one in about a week I think.

That’s right. I know – they were all welded together, weren’t they?

Only welded.  And some were lost.  So I chatted him and said “oh, yes, I signed on to go to Makatea for a load of phosphate or you know, bird droppings.”  And I told him “I’ll have to go back and get my gear”.  By then it was an hour later probably.  I stepped on the gangway and climbed up and up came the gangway – we sailed!  You get to know the layout of ships when you work on them.  I found the radio room and went in there and nothing seemed to work.  It was all American gear that I had never seen before in my life … what do I do?  I found a little emergency transmitter or something, and peeped a tiny message because on a ship you … say that was ‘Springbank’, we’re leaving Wellington but we were bound for New Plymouth, and from that moment on you keep watch on the distress frequency.  I couldn’t because none of the gear was working.  But anyway I thought I’ll fix it in the morning. I went to bed.  It was the only ship I’ve ever served on and which I was rolled out of my bunk.  It was nearly empty and we were in Cook Strait and it was roly poly, and I soon learned that things on that ship weren’t run like I had been trained to do.  I first of all got up next day and found that nearly all the batteries were flat.  I got a bit going and when we arrived in New Plymouth I went to the captain and I made a request – I wanted distilled water. “We’ve never – no one on this ship’s ever ordered distilled water”.  “Well” I said, “my training with batteries is that you don’t fill them with water out of the ship’s tanks”. I think I got my distilled water. But it was a rough ship. But when I stayed with it a day or two it had wonderful radio gear – wonderful radio gear.  It had been built almost with the drawers of the cupboard and the cabinet already just to swing aboard and just couple it up.  It had a magnificent transmitter – great experience.

So when you came ashore what did you do then?

Well what had happened then Frank – my father had contacted me and said “look, Ivan’s giving up dairying. He wants to go more in the cropping field” and he said “I can see that he’ll need labour and that.”  And he said “how about you coming and joining him?”.  I can remember on one occasion Watties coming to us – they suddenly had a big order and they … we tried to grow thirty acres of tomatoes.  Thirty acres in the days when we planted them, we sprayed them, we picked them into boxes.

No forklifts.

I watched a Maori fellow and his sister-in-law, a Maori woman, race one another up a row and pick more than 100 boxes each in a day.

We used to grow tomatoes for Watties. We used to grow peas for Watties, and potatoes for Watties. We were dairy farmers too. We used to milk about 80 cows and as time went by my brother and I – we wanted to do some other things so we grew crops for Watties. But you were going to tell me about the potato crop.

Well potatoes became a big issue but the moment you got a good price, the next year everybody planted a paddock of tomatoes.  But we stayed with it and not long before we noticed one day we’d filled a railway wagon with potatoes and along came the agent, took the number and … somehow we got to know what sort of margin he got out of it, and we had tried selling direct. I can remember taking a trip down to one of the big merchandise firms. So that sort of thing took place. But there came one year in which potatoes then went up to about £100 a ton. We had a good crop that year. That really set us up. Mind you we were growing lots of other crops too, but as long as you grew good spuds that’s how you got your way in. You had to grade them. All these people picking them up in the paddock and just a sack of spuds. That doesn’t present a good article, Frank.

But the funny one was with the shipping company. The radio crowd knew me well of course and one radio bloke – he was the tutor of the Union Company’s radio school – came up to visit us and he was intrigued by all this … crops and all this sort of stuff and we’d just then bought Sisson orchard.   He went back and at potato time he said “can I … give us a price and I’ll sell a few bags of spuds for you”. It grew into a whole truck load. I had a little one ton truck and on this weekend I would load about half a ton on mine and there might be someone to call at Tawa and some would call in at various places and finish up staying with this bloke at Karori and then on Saturday morning I would go down and I’d bring ton loads back to the … part of the Union Company yard and it was like a Chinese market. But they knew me and I knew them and I think we even sold them to the Marine Superintendent.

‘Course at this stage you’re farming and working with your brother on the farm growing crops and …

That’s right. Well we did a lot of share crops. I can remember us getting a little tiny pocket handkerchief in the corner of Tollemache Road and Riverslea Road. Some Norsewood people had bought it and they were going to make a little chicken farm. They must have had a licence for some pullets.  They had a … sort of … six months it was going to be bare or something. I drove a little Ferguson with a three furrow plough. I could duck around little tiny places and plough up the paddock. Man, we grew a crop of potatoes in there.  On another occasion the Elms boys knew us and I ploughed all the richer part of the back of where the Intermediate School is.  Well there we are … so I was the plough… I enjoyed ploughing, ploughing in lands, but it could look good or it could look bloody awful. I reckon I was a better ploughman than Ivan.

Yes, I had a little Fergie 24 once in a plough and my father said to me when I was working on the farm, he said “I’m not going to be able to pay you but” he said “one day this farm’s going to be yours.” So he said “what I’m going to do is buy you a tractor and plough and discs and a mower and” he said “you can go and do a bit of contracting as well. But you can use the tractor to help break in the farm”. Which I did. So I used to go out and plough little paddocks and plant crops in them too.

Well, what helped us a lot too – they looked like – I used it like a toy in this paddock.  Over the road would be a big Minneapolis Moline or something or a great Farmhorse [?] or something, but we got one of the first diesels.  Frank, it was just powerful enough to take a three furrow plough.  And I know out at Twyford this old farmer would come over and he said “you get up in that gear – my tractor would die”.  But as long as you set your plough properly – it’s interesting, isn’t it?

So at some stage or other you got married.

Oh, yes – in about 1950.

Is this while you were still cropping?

While we were cropping I went to a wedding and there was this young bridesmaid and I was best man and we were thrown together and she was a pretty dishy little girl.

So where did she come from?

Norsewood. So Fred was doing little trips – fast trips – I had a high speed diff in the International.  And I used to say at that stage “no truck passes me”, but I’m coming back from Norsewood one night on the speed probably a hundred and a great Winlove truck went past me.

It wasn’t whispering breeze was it?  Because that was their big six-wheeler.

I don’t really know but it just – empty of course – passed me and I thought ‘Fred, you’ve learnt your lesson’.   But no, we were cropping then. Then I had to look around for a little property –  somewhere with a bit of land was useful, going to live in town. Couldn’t find one, not for a long time, and I bought a section not far from York Road and sold it again.  I don’t know whether you remember John Simms the tractor salesman?  He had a little property in Bennett Road, seven odd acres. He said “I’m selling my place”. Well there was no land agents or anybody involved in it, and we bought that. It had an old historic house.  I think I just saved it because we repiled it while I went on my honeymoon, and we lived there. The only problem there was the smell of Tomoana Freezing Works at times. But that house eventually went to Mike … oh, he’s one of the Deputy Field Officers with Bob Jeune, I sold it to him. He was a gardening expert here – talked on the radio and wrote a book.

Mike … I know who you’re talking about … Mike Crooks?

That’s it.   And we then … had just then … bought Sisson’s orchard.  You wouldn’t have seen a more run down show …

Where was Sisson’s orchard?

York Road.

Was that right next to your block?

No, no.  Come off Maraekakaho Road. The first property … you’ve turned right into Maraekakaho Road going down York Road. The first property was Len Common. The next one was the Sisson orchard.

That’s the one that the auto electrician owns now. Doug Lyons?

Yes, he bought it off me.

Oh, I didn’t realise you were an orchardist separately.

Well it went on and then … brothers and that … and well, it was able to come about I would be happier if I have that one and Ivan had the bigger block – he’d worked longer.

So how big was your block then?

Twenty six acres.

Oh, yes – but that was a good enough block though, wasn’t it?

Yes, but it was a difficult block in a sense that a lot of it was damp and …

Yes, down the back.

… in pears.

Yes. A bit like the Read block – down the back it was wet too.

That’s right.  Right next door to Read’s.

Yes, I know – I’ve spent half my life in that area.

And so we got married and within about a year Mark, my son, was born and a year or so later, Julie, our two kids.   Oh, I turned that property around as much as I could. In those days you got a lot of help from the Department of Agriculture. There were one or two blokes there who knew a few … old Clarrie Brown, a man of grafting.  ‘Cause I couldn’t always get trees, so we bought one and changed it.  Because on the corner of our block I think was one of the original asparagus blocks I think that Wattie had seen. It was pretty well shot by that time but I planted Hawke’s Bay reds there – I hit a magnificent block. I remember an American coming and saying – he said “well, that took me a while to see the best block in Hawke’s Bay”.

I had sixty acres of orchard and vineyard. I had 30 acres in Thompson Road in Havelock when the cows went and I had Hawke’s Bay reds too, and they were black. But you know – they got rid of them for other varieties, didn’t they?  Just dropped them.

Well, I’m thankful I’m not a grower now. Well, I – well, there’s a story here.  Well, then we split.  Sisson’s was mine and Ivan had the forty three acres – a lovely forty three acres.  We went on and well, I grew fruit for probably nearly twenty years. And I had a son who – well, in my married life we’ve had ills. My little boy, a lovely little boy, but about three he got some respiratory problem and our doctor … they couldn’t … it’s most distressing, this … with breathing very bad you know, and I think  it’s too hard on the heart and that.  I remember they whistled in the English doctor Bostock and another bloke, new bloke – specialist – Cantwell. I remember Cantwell giving him something and he was like a little drunk.   Overdose, you know.   Oh … I think we had him nine times in the hospital.   And when he first went to school here I got reports he used to sleep at school.

Was this the drugs that were making him tired?

Well, I think they … his body … it upset the balance of his … he had these attacks. I had to buy a nebuliser and …

Did he ever recover from it?

Well that was the problem.  I said leave schooling, and they said to me worry about his health first. He came better at about 13 but by then I’d had to learn to do injections. My wife had had to do … we didn’t actually do Mark, but I laughed the day we went to the doctor and he said “Well, Hazel, you give Fred an injection” and she  – “What?!” And she picked it up and she … boom!  Perfect.  My turn and I’m there fiddling round – so tender, and he said – “not the way to do it”.

So it went on and I had a lot of pears.  I believe I had the largest block of Winter Coles in New Zealand, four hundred trees.  I couldn’t tame the things for a long while, Frank. I think afterwards he grew them on Asian pear stock. Bernie was his own man but he was clever in some of his drainage and they grew alright, but they were … too much growth. I slogged away winters there, in fact it reached a stage where they were that high … these hawks came to light. Right in the early stages they weren’t there but another clever engineer orchardist, Don Hurst, made a couple of them and I bought one of them.  I called it Gemini because it was worth two anyway.  And that helped.

Well, the saddest thing then – Hazel developed rheumatoid arthritis in her mid 30’s and she’s had fingers, knuckles changed and toes. I don’t think they’ve got much of an answer for that one, and I think here in Hawke’s Bay we had Waterworth, a so-called rheumatologist, but I think the wiser ones in the finish went to Rotorua.  I think there was a better class of knowledge there.

My wife has rheumatism in her hands. Her fingers are all twisted and she has to have cortisone injections in the joints. She went to Waterworth. I went to Waterworth for a problem as well but I just questioned him at times whether he really was as good as everyone thought he was.

As good as the price he asked.

The first thing they said to you was now “it’s $250 or something for a visit – you’ve got that money with you sir?”

It’s a huge problem, isn’t it?  We were endlessly with operations in there. Hazel’s had all those knuckles changed.   Her hands … like this, but now she’s suffering a little bit of dementia, but I’m keeping her home while we can manage.

So your son, did he …?

Well, he … it took all the stuffing out of him.  Oh, he worked on the orchard – all that sort of thing.

So then you carried on … coming back to your Winter Coles. Remember when you were packing the smaller size of them? My wife and I, we used to pack at two orchards, one was a pear orchard, old Asbey Palmer in Havelock North and the other was Cliff Jeffries who was in Thompson Road – they both had pears and quite often we found we were on the small pears.  I also packed at Mardons too, Pernel … in the dark ages, back in the ’50s/’60s I suppose. You know those little pears – I don’t know where they went to.

I’ll tell you a story about little pears too.

And now I see they’ve got these little apples in Havelock, these rockits, in the tube. We were producing little pears like that.

Really, the ultimate – or the supreme – problem with little Coles is … suddenly people and the markets want bigger Coles.  There is no such thing as … I had the odd one or two big ones … but Winter Coles by nature are not a big pear.  My wife learnt to pack a bit too and on one occasion she packed out the little bin.  It’s sad to me, but I knew at the finish … Mark … the orchard wasn’t for him really. There are periods of real anxiety that you can’t change, and also I think – after about twenty years I thought ‘what would it be like if I wake up in the morning and I please myself?’

And so one day you sold it.

I did that and I found another [?].   And then I surprised everybody.  The Apple & Pear Board advertised for a pack house manager and I thought well I know how to run a pack house – I’ll go there.  But the one thing I did when I went in I said “But – I want to employ my own labour”.   I had a reason for that because when I went into the pack house – we’d always had … somehow growers were always disappointed with some of the parts of the Apple & Pear Board.  In my first two minutes I wandered round the place and there was this pretty girl wandering away over there and I said “what’s your job in the pack house?”  She said “I’m a packer”.  I said “well, would you join the packing line please”.  No cursing or swearing or anything, you know.

At lunch time Frank, I went down – I could smell food and I thought ‘that’s strange’.   Just before lunch time I went down and they had a flash living, you know –  the Apple & Pear … could buy the best and there was a man there looking after it.  Sitting on a little shelf just over there was a pot of vegetables and it was all spilling, and there was a plate of it and it  was plugged to a point over there.  I didn’t say much. My thinking was this is the Apple & Pear Board’s pack house but it’s being run by somebody else.  So I just watched that for a while and by the next day – or not very long afterwards – one of the forklift drivers was crook or couldn’t come in, and I looked at the qualifications of my staff and old Harry who was the lidding man was classified as a forklift driver.  And so just before lunch time I went down and I said “Look Harry, we’re short of a forklift driver, would you please drive the forklift after lunch?”  Oh!

Because their set up really was, the old hands were there a long time, they had all the easier soft jobs. The new blokes did all the stacking of pallets and all that sort of thing.  So that’s alright … lunchtime … I came back and he came into my office and threw down his Union card and said “I’m finished”.  I wasn’t a least bit worried was I?  Because my plan was in the finish to say that the labour for the men … sort of two weeks in one job and move around.  I just did things like that.  Because – eventually I heard that when the races were on they would stop to listen to a race.  I didn’t sack anybody but a few left.

In the finish they were buying new equipment.  You know, the big day came when they gave away wrapping paper around apples.   By then automation could move in. And I got that pack house going better anyway, and I noticed the office girls started to liaise with the girls … and were getting the right sort of attitude. Don, the Chief Engineer of the … Pear Board went overseas and he bought all this new gear.  We’d heard there was going to be new equipment, and I thought – I was in my sixties by then Frank.  I’ve got a copy of it somewhere – they advertised for a new pack house manager. The new pack house manager was going to manage the new pack house and the new pre-sizer – that was a huge thing.  Age group sort of thirty five to so and so, or they would consider others. I didn’t even apply, but Tony Cross came to me as they were closing and said “We haven’t got your name on the list, so I knew then.  I quite enjoyed the Apple & Pear Board because I only ran the show as I ran people in my own property.  But the pre-sizer thing was a huge challenge. They were spending millions and I got that going right too, Frank.

And then you retired.

Well then got the pension.  I never took the pension until I retired.

So you haven’t done anything since you got …

Oh, the only sadness around here, Frank – I keep thinking every day I’m going to be better but I’m at an age now when I have to realise that I’m physically … well, anything can happen.  I love horticulture and that.  But one of the grandsons is Adam Ladbrook and he’s set himself up as an agricultural contractor.  He was one of the boys at school – I don’t know whether he had a bit of dyslexia or something, but he’s built tractors and I’ve just helped him into a – well my mother’s helped him – into about a seventeen acre block out of town, Valley Road.  Nice house there and he’s very good at fencing – he’s a boy to help.  That’s where I want to do the help now.

So I guess when you look back Fred, you’ve lead an interesting life haven’t you – from Haumoana to the sea, the world, then back to York Road.

It’s wonderful, yeah – it’s been wonderful.

Now just a question. York Road was a dead end road once wasn’t it?

Oh, yes … oh, it was absolutely beautiful then. Flaxmere destroyed the nice aspect of York Road.  On that orchard, petrol got pinched, you know … in the latter stages, the stands still got pinched. We had our fowls stolen one night. I built a new home there – I built a new shed, but … I think I built the house before there was much traffic so it should have been further back possibly, to do it right.  Although – you’ve got to build two houses to get it right.

And now you’ve been here for thirty seven years.

No, thirty four.  Came here in ‘81.  And we bought a lovely property. This one goes right down onto Franklin Terrace.  It was owned by David Christie the furniture man.  See … these sort of curtains are thirty years old.

Just the best. David Christie – was he Harold’s brother?

They’re brothers I think, but his wife died in this house.  He had three daughters. He owned, I think in the finish, the furnishing business in Russell Street.

Yes, he was Harold’s brother. Is there anything else that … any other little snippet of ..?

Oh – don’t say that Frank – it could go on and on.  I’m having a lot of fun with eyesight. I’m waiting to go in and have a cataract and the cloud off the other one straightened up.  Well – I got a new phone book this morning – have you seen the new one?

No, is the writing bigger?

Oh, dear – is the writing bigger?  I can’t read it.  I’ve just been banned from driving – not banned, but – I can’t get my licence. The good one is a bit clouded or something, but that can be fixed. I’ll be thrilled when it’s done. I’ll become Fred again.

Yes.  And what other gems have you got there?

I was at sea in the strike. Fanning Island – ever heard of that place Frank?  Yeah well, Fanning Island – when I got on to the Transpacific run it started off with just one New Zealand registered ship with a New Zealand crew. It was a war time Canadian built ship, in fact we used to go back in dry dock in the area where she was built. Then the Union Company at a little later stage decided to buy out the other four Canadian ships that were running on … they have different companies … oh, anyway, there were four more ships to come into the Union Company’s fold.  The first one they had to fly a New Zealand crew from New Zealand up to Vancouver to get everything organised in the New Zealand way.  I was chosen to be the radio man but right at that moment my mother was taken very ill and I had to come up to Hawke’s Bay, so I missed that one.  But I joined that ship when it came to New Zealand.

Often on that new Company line they were more calling at Sydney and the Australian ports for cargo north.   Among the jobs they had with the Australian Government was to supply a little cable station at a place called Fanning Island, two degrees north of the equator.  And when we got our load of passengers in Sydney ready to sail, one crowd was a whole family. It was the new doctor, his wife and I think two kids. Mostly I think Fanning Island was used as a place for doctors that were on the margin of being accepted fully as an Australian doctor. Probably if they served a time on Fanning and worked, they were in.

So we made our way, I think it was the first port of call.  It’s only a little place, no harbour or anything like that. We had to maintain sea watches and there was a bit of cargo in two holds so the old man said would I do a job for him – would I go down in one of the holds mainly to watch that only the cargo for Fanning Island went. And the purser – he was around – knew all the cargo because that was his job.  Among the things we had to unload though was a truck.  Now in the ocean – really it’s seldom very – completely still, there’s just a light rocking around.  One of my jobs was to get these island boys to hitch it up. Our crew could man the winches – you know, we had gear that we could lift stuff up and across and load it down. The Island people had rigged up a couple of fairly long dinghies and got planks across and made a flat [?] – not too big though. And the first major job was to get that thing out on there and you’re doing it neatly.  So, but we did succeed, so that was that and all the other stuff.  I find those sort of things interesting. We unloaded all their cargo and it was nearly time for us to sail.  Partly loaded ships have to be very well dunnaged, you know – they’re dangerous.  Watch keeping officers never touched alcohol at sea and I mean that but the Island people, it was time for celebration for them, you now – new stores, new food, new this …

New truck.

Yeah.  The joker who was the Postmaster on the Island, I saw a bit of him and he was interested in communications and that sort of thing. They got a little merry, you know. Well this bloke, he was sitting in my cabin, he was carrying a great big container wallet, it was the island stamps. He looked at me and he said “Fred you must take a few island stamps back. They’re rare”. You know?  This man was getting a bit lit and I thought ‘ no, I don’t want to take them out of that man’s book like this. Tomorrow morning he’s going to have to square it up.  But he kept on, and he kept on, and he kept on. So I took a few but I took little penny ones – they were good to have and that sort of thing. On board came the new doctor, a great big Russian. He was a nice bloke though. He was a big tall man and we used to go out and play deck quoits – out of the line of ordinary duty.  How these people exist on these little tiny places because I think our ships only went there probably every couple of months or something like that. That was one, Frank.

Well the 1951 strike – well I was at sea in 1951.  And you remember the freezing workers, the wharfies, the seamen and some of the drivers – they were really throwing their weight around Frank – demands, and hell … There were the commo fellows – there is a sort of commo element among some of the seamen blokes, you know.  Doesn’t stop them from being good seamen but their politics are a bit odd.   It reached the stage where the seamen walked off and we were left with ships tied up with cargo to be unloaded and all that sort of thing.

They took a vote among the ships’ – the officers “Did we agree with the strike or not?”  We could see no future.   Because – earlier in my career Frank – we came in and we had one hold filled with whisky and that type of stuff.   Now the wharfies seemed to have an attitude that a few bottles of that were their perks.  They said would I like to be hold watchman. Oh, yes … you know.  So I went down that hold – they’d get an odd case get broken.  There’d be nothing in it.   On one occasion I said “oh, give us that case, put it over here”. Well … … I was very pleased when my mates looked over the top – I was just one person among a whole lot of blokes. I didn’t know their code of ethics. I’d been brought up honest.

I had a son who worked at the Freezing Works – he was an engineer. He said he would see the same thing with meat happening.  In the freezer, he said – they used to take it as a right and he said “there was nothing I could do about it”.

What freezing works?

At Tomoana.  But it happens. And there’s an opportunity, and those people who are earning huge amounts of money …

They’re the worst ones.

They’re the worst ones.

Oh, the trouble’s at the top with money and that.  But that’s what the sea did for me, Frank – it gave me such a rich … meeting people and … good discipline first. A good ship … a good captain … he’s hardly saying a word.  The Chief Officer manages the crew.

Well, they delegate – a good captain delegates, don’t they?

That’s right but he meets up with that man and if something is not pleasing him he tells that bloke. The Union Company – it was a big company, Frank.

Well, you see it’s interesting – a lot of the kids I went to school with went to Napier Boys’ High. I can’t even remember some of their names now.

Doug Walker was a Napier High School boy. My head lady was Mary Whatarau.

But see – isn’t it interesting that the Dillons who owned the store after you – I interviewed Brian Dillon the son because he’s an orchardist.

Yes.  I know his … I retired but old Tony Cross said to me “we want you to come back and do sampling.” They provided a vehicle and I drove all round the place, down Central Hawke’s Bay and all that and visited orchards. I only wish I’d been able to go around Hawke’s Bay when I started and see where the land and types of trees. I used to visit Dillons. Sykes was a sad episode wasn’t it?

It was, very.  Did you realise that the Dillon in Pakowhai Road had bought your father’s store?

His father ?  Yeah, oh – I think he knew – he must have known that I knew.

What we can do, if you have any other things you want to talk about we can always come back and do an addendum.

Well, see – I’ve got all this period – Haumoana;  ‘30s;  so I was told;  so you want a new tennis racquet;  at sea – it covers that in detail; Apple & Pear Board.  Do you want any of that?

Yes. Absolutely. Did you type all this up?

I did Frank, but I’m having an awful go at the moment. I can hardly read this.

What we can do – we can put this straight into the history. We can copy that.

Yeah, I don’t know whether there’s any mistakes …

No, no – we clear the mistakes.  They edit it.

Look, this started as an exercise just to tell my family.

I know.  But it’s important, isn’t it?  I think it’s wonderful actually.

I think the sea though, made it easy like at the Apple & Pear Board to see how men handle people. You don’t get mad and jump up and down and I’ve got a radio station, see – in ham radio.  When I did retire I used the Morse which doesn’t have any security problems and there are challenges there.   The first one I had was to work a hundred countries and then during working a hundred countries I worked an American ham in Florida, and he said “Oh you’ve got a beautiful signal” and I was only low power. He wrote me a letter and said I’ve nominated you for the AI Operator Club of America.  There’s one other Hawke’s Bay bloke, but there’s about a football team, or maybe about twenty New Zealanders in this … thousands of Americans … so that was a thrill.

I don’t know with my eye sight whether I’ve got them mixed up a bit. Come back and I’ll get them in order and … I haven’t even numbered the leaves, you know.

See, when you were talking about the Allis Chalmers threshing mill, I’d worked on one of those because they had the Draper pickup – the canvas pickup.

Draper, that’s the name.  That was the thing old Derek had problems with.   That’s why I sat on with a hay fork.

And of course until Fergusons came along the Allis Chalmers was the only little tractor you could buy, wasn’t it?

Yeah.  Oh, well – our first tractor came about because somebody at Stewart Greers said “We will sell you an Allis Chalmers tractor, and we’ll also though get you a contract for a paddock of peas.  Our first Allis had steel wheels.

Did it really?  ‘Cause that was during the war, or at the end of the war, wasn’t it?

That’s right. It was funny though, I served on the ‘Wairuna’, and in our last stages of York Road there we … we were trying to be I suppose – perfectionists, and we bought a land leveller –  a great big long thing – because we found with crops of peas that little bit – little early or little late – you could only make it all together.  I was amazed though to see stamped on it, it was shipped on the ‘Wairuna’.

I’m doing an addendum on the Apple & Pear Board interview with Fred Bradshaw.  Fred would you like to tell us something about when you started again in life after you sold your orchard?

I‘d always dreamed on the orchard – what would life be like if you got up in the morning and you could totally please yourself.  After doing a few things and we came to Havelock North, I found life was sort of empty and boring.  At that time the Apple & Pear Board advertised for a Pack house Manager. They always seemed to be advertising for Pack house Manager positions.  So I went along and I was interviewed I think by Mike Gay.  Might have been Tony Cross but anyway I got the job. The only request I made to them, I said “I want to employ my own staff”.
My whole feeling about the place was it had no direction, the staff were almost doing as they felt and still the Apple and Pear Board packhouse…

So anyway it happened that I had a message just before lunch that one of the forklift drivers couldn’t come back after lunch and I looked up my list and I noticed the man on the lidding machine really was qualified as a forklift driver.   So I went down and said to him “Look, can you this afternoon drive a forklift”. I could see by the look of his face that that didn’t please him, but … went back to my office.  And shortly he came up to me and he threw down his Union card and said “I’m finished”.

I wasn’t greatly worried about it because before I’d been there very long I decided that the positions should change around every ten days. What was happening was the old hands had all the easier jobs. The new men came and they were always stacking and lifting. It really wasn’t quite fair.  So being able to employ my own labour was one of the keys because I had noticed in the staff list we had an outside manager, Taki Johnson. When I looked up the list I had Taki’s mother-in-law, I had Taki’s daughter, I had Taki’s sister, I had Taki’s uncle. Later I learnt that the place, when there was an interesting horse race on, they stopped everything to listen to the races.

Also in my employment I had the head union man of the whole Apple & Pear Board. I knew possibly it was very likely I was going to cross paths with Taki.  That never happened. I took great care, I could see that a packer – they were so casual – if a packer noticed a blemish on a fruit, no matter what they were doing they should remove it. If we’re going to keep the quality up everybody in the shed – if one gets past somebody else, you correct it.  So that very quickly I got a report back that the fruit from the pack house was much better to the retailers.

So that went on. Around the Apple & Pear Board it was getting known that new equipment was going to be purchased for the pack house but also they were going to install a huge pre-sizer. That meant it was a piece of equipment that when we brought in the bins from the growers you could quickly put them over the machine and finish packing them up, they were sized.  Whether they count a hundred, a hundred and thirteen. It meant there was a lot of space freed up in the cool stores.

Anyway time went on and the Board decided to advertise – I think they always had to advertise when there was a position coming up.  And they advertised for a new pack house manager to manage the pack house plus the pre-sizer.   So that took place.   I was at that stage in my 60s, and the ad said preferably aged thirty to forty but it had the proviso … you know, said that if somebody else comes … you’d be considered.   So the day came, it was closing, and the Regional Manager came over to me and he said “We haven’t got your name in the list”. I said “No”. And he said “We would like it in the list”.  So I knew fairly well then that I was going to land the job. If I wanted a challenge I was now really getting one. The equipment  arrived. They built a big new building. It was extensive. We had a big flume area, when I mean flume area … the area where it is filled with water and the fruit is sized and then dropped into that.  There were twelve of those across the building and there were three engineers appointed. I was to have a head engineer, one engineer in the pack house, one in the pre-sizer.

So things moved on and we came to the day of the first run of the machine and I was quite disappointed with it. The sizing wasn’t up to standard at all.  So they allowed me to ring the United States and I rang and got the Vice-President and he knew me by name then I think, and he said “Well Fred, we build them, you fly them”. I think I knew exactly what he meant, but in New Zealand we were a long way from the United States.  And there was a lot of secrecy in the design and to be first was the great challenge in all that sort of gear. I could see that we wanted a computer expert right in Hastings. I was fortunate in that direction because I was a member of the Amateur Radio Club and I knew one boy very well who was pretty imaginative and I knew was very good at his work. He was then I think foreman in one of the television repairing outfits.  And the Board let me go and suggest to him, say our requirements. They were really in the season just to lift the phone and ‘can you come Phil’ – Phil Cook was his name.  That was one of the very best moves I made.

Also we found after the man had gone back to the States and we were left with it and there were problems in the computer area because it was secret stuff just to Penwalt.   Talking with my man we could see ‘we’ve got to have some of that’. It’s vital.  And eventually I rang and told them the story and they let my man converse with their experts and get the information. It was wonderful for that young man because even just after I left he was able to go to the United States and greatly enlarge his knowledge. The sadness was that a few years later he was riding a bike with his mate and fell dead. Probably in early ’40s. Tragic.

So this sizer – what brand was it?

It was a Penwalt – it was manufactured by the Penwalt Corporation in California. The basic design of it was it had two eight lane graders alongside one another. We had a magnificent loading system with all the bins up there.  They emptied the fruit into the start of the area. When they were emptied they went across to the area where we were able to put the sized fruit back into the bin.  It had the entry part and then that fed on to four big grading tables. It could handle a lot of fruit. They moved around to the singulator area and almost immediately we found that … where they had placed some of the critical units right in the middle of the building with no heating … a frosty morning or a cold morning were totally different from a warm morning.  We decided to build another area for those units and put them up in a temperature controlled area. Slowly we made progress with it.

I also could see that as a cross section of getting the sizing right there were available very accurate little weighing machines, very accurate. We purchased one of those and mounted it in the middle of the flume area and I had one girl – they rotated it a bit to make it easier for the girls – they would take about twenty fruits out of this bin. They would know the size range – what it was to be in.  At the start of it I had to work out the weight of the carton, the paper and that – what’s the actual weight of a hundred apples in a hundred count, you know, that we wanted.  Interesting stuff.  So that gave us a cross check because it had one aspect that I didn’t like, that if something went wrong it would start shooting that fruit into the reject bin and on a machine that size that’s deadly wrong. The different sizes would go into their flumes. It had little gates we could chop off exactly the amount of fruit we wanted in a bin.  And even for the long storage fruit we could allow a little extra weight because of the loss in storage.  One of the great thrills of my life was that when we put it through the pack house and I looked  at the weight on the scales it was plum in the middle. Wonderful. But it was a lot of fun getting it to that stage.

And of course in those days the Apple & Pear Board were taking loose fruit from the growers weren’t they?  Tremendous amount of …

It was a big aspect and the variety and the difference in quality was enormous. You might be doing a line that was very good but somehow another one got in there and it was poorer fruit. It really made grading more difficult. I finished up with a staff of about fifty.

And did you ever get over them cooking on the line?  You sorted that one out?

Oh, well … that man came and threw his hand in.

But see – they took it as part of their right. We used to grow a lot of carrots for Watties – they were hand harvested and a lot of hand harvested tomatoes those days – and some of the people we were paying by the hour, they might be hoeing or doing things like that, you’d go over and there was a cooker in the paddock, two or three sitting around it preparing lunch for the others.  Or they would all be working to the slowest person and you’d say “Now, look that slow person there, if he doesn’t pick up his speed he’ll have to go.” Next thing he’s working the same … they tried you all the way but I can understand the races and the cooking. They were habits that grew into the systems.

Oh, I think even the engineer people and that didn’t think it was strange. It was the Apple & Pear Board’s pack house but they had no control. Where was the leadership that should have come over and noticed?  Some bosses run the place from the office. I’m a great believer if you are a pack house manager you’re in the centre of the pack house.

The other interesting thing that did happen … I got a nickname out of it … was the head Union man for the whole Apple & Pear Board was one of my employees and something happened to him – a big fat man – and he was away and it grew a couple of weeks I never heard.  And I read the Union rules and I think after about two weeks if he hadn’t contacted you at all you had the right to say his job was terminated. He terminated himself by his own action. So that happened and that’s exactly what I did.  Because I thought of it this way, Frank – if a Union man can go away and be away for three weeks and not abide by the rules you’re giving him a special privilege which is not available to anybody else. He had to live by his own rules. For a little while with the Union my job was a bit electric but one engineer gave me the nickname of ‘Fearless’. It was applying the rules fairly.

Yes, but you see your background in the Merchant Navy of discipline gave you … and obviously your family life … and your orcharding gave you that strength.

That’s right Frank.  I was running a pack house in the same manner I had run my own.  The fact that Taki could come in and all – it made no difference to me. Taki had nothing to do with the pack house and he never overstepped the mark.  After about six years I retired from that. Even then they came to me and said would I manage the sampling of fruit.  That took me all over … and there were a couple of others doing it too. I wished as a young man I’d visited parts of Hawke’s Bay and seen what soil types do and all this sort of thing.  And a car was supplied so I had a further four or five years before I finally gave it away.

One of the most interesting visits I made … on one of my lists I had to call on Ken Kiddle. Ken was a very highly respected Chairman of the Board and Ken wasn’t the sort of man who was doing it for himself. He was a great bloke.  So I bowled up to the Kiddle orchard and Ken happened to be in the pack house and I wandered in and I – “I’m from the Apple & Pear Board”.   “If you’re from the Apple & Pear Board – out – but because it’s you Fred, come in”. It’s telling you a bit isn’t it. I think Ken was quite bitterly disappointed with the way things were going. It was tough times. You know, you grow fruit … you’re really growing a commodity not knowing what it’s going to be worth, and we had great years when there were disasters in Europe and they had frosts and stuff – but it’s so highly competitive.

Yes – oh, that’s interesting … ‘seeing it’s you Fred you can come in’.

As I say, Ken had something special I felt, deep down.  He was a very clever man – had a very clever woman.

Well, they both had Masters degrees didn’t they?

Yes.   And he had a brother a doctor down in Nelson. He was a radio amateur, I think that’s how I knew that.

I got to know Ken through our Rotary Club in Havelock. I got to know … very well over the years. Not as an orchardist but as …

I don’t know whether he ever had his hip repaired.

No, he didn’t.

It always puzzled me.

I think he was too busy.  When I finished work on the orchard and then I worked in the Village I used to see Ken. He’d be coming up to get milk from the dairy and going to the bank and I’d see him there and we’d have a good long chat and I went out to visit Ken and he had a dear old golden Labrador dog and when I walked towards the front door this dog was crouched … this was a big fat dog with …

You wouldn’t think it’d harm anything.

… grey whiskers round it’s mouth, and it set itself in the launching position – I went to walk back and I put my arm up – I was standing up – and it tore the meat off my arm, and Ken couldn’t believe that this dear old pet of theirs would do that.

You said Labrador ? I thought Labradors didn’t attack anybody.

No, all dogs do, but – I don’t know why – I couldn’t get back into the car. This dog moved so quickly. He grabbed me.

… portray radio men as almost cissy fellows … always dollied up and sitting in their little establishment and it was most embarrassing to listen to and the only thing I could blurt out was he may find me a bit tougher.

And on that ship then happened an episode which we had – we were approaching the Bass Strait area, a very rough and stormy conditions, and I picked a message up from Sydney radio VIS and they said would all ships in the certain vicinity if they’re there – indicate their position.  And I went to the old man with this and he – “Oh, what have you picked up now”. He wasn’t thrilled.  But anyway … finished up Sydney radio instructed ‘Kaitoke’, our ship, to go to the assistance of the ‘Kowhai’. The second one was – you’re to maintain continuous radio watch.  Only one radio operator and that was 8 o’clock at night.  I actually sat in that radio room right through to daylight next morning.

It’s a wonderful process but on the distress frequency there are two periods of three minutes on every hour in which everybody shuts up to let a very weak signal be heard if something is in trouble. The old man came to me with a message – “Will you send this”, and I looked at the clock and I could see we were just entering a silence period. We can break it but I always liked to know the Captain gave me the authority to do it and I said to the captain “Do you want me to break the silence period?” Oh, oh.  He didn’t know what I was talking about. This was our relationship at that stage.

The seagoing people, the deck officers were maintaining of course the same watches, but at four o’clock in the morning it was the Chief Officer. The Chief Officer was a fellow Robertson and he later became the master of the ‘Wahine’.  I think he was used to … the main job of a Chief Officer is, he really is the boss of the crew and he had a pretty short sort of manner. I  think I got so excited with – I don’t know – I said “Mr Robertson, when you enter this room, in matters of radio I’m the boss”.  I think I was tired but I never regret saying it.

Luck was on our side. As we found the ship at daylight the cargo had shifted, she was laying over. The ship had been launched in 1910.  So we sailed on to Adelaide.  Also on that ship though – I was testing the first radio telephone transmitters for the small ships. They found morse difficult if you weren’t really using it. It gave them the ability to speak 21822162. So we eventually reached Adelaide and there was a reporter waiting there, and of course reporters were always taken to the Captain.

Well, things went on and suddenly he must have changed a bit because he said “Come and I’ll show you something”. And on his voyage on the ‘Pamir’ in the English port he had been visited by Prince Philip and the then Princess Elizabeth. We wondered how he ever had a conversation with the Royal Princess because he was pretty basic with us.  I think he liked to act the image of the old sailing ship man and the glory of sail.  As the Chief Engineer said to me, Bill Insley, as we walked out of the saloon on one occasion he said “This old bugger’s going to find out this ship’s got engines”.  So he showed me all this and his tone and approach with me sort of changed – made more of a goat of himself.

And lo and behold, we loaded gypsum on the peninsula in Western Australian and stuff, and we were coming across and we were suddenly diverted to come to Napier. In Napier he was interviewed there because of this episode and … apparently asked him “any Hawke’s Bay men?” And I had a little chit at the bottom.  He called me … the Radio Engineer is Fred Bradshaw, from Haumoana, Hawke’s Bay.

The biggest thing we learned at Radio school was you were there for one great reason. The safety of life at sea.