Duncan, Peter Douglas & Holden, Shirley Mary Interview

Good morning. I’m with Mrs Peter Holden (Shirley) and Peter Duncan at Middle Road in Havelock North, and on behalf of the Hawke’s Bay Knowledge Bank I’m asking them about the history of their families;  and now, good morning, Peter, and good morning, Shirley.

Both: Good morning Jim.

Peter: Well, I have indeed made some notes. First of all, I was born on the 17th October 1927 in the nursing home in Hastings. I can’t remember the name of the place, but I do recollect having visited some six years later when my sister – or half-sister, Shirley Lane at that time and now Shirley Holden – was born and I was introduced to her. Now my next memory which is a real memory is of the Napier earthquake. Pretty vague, but I seem to remember a tallboy tipping over my mother into the … the frights and the noise, and the following day going out into the summer house which of course was wonderful for a very young child out in the garden. I think I was accused of enjoying eating the dirt and other things of childhood. That’s just a memory. And then my next significant memory I think was the great flood and storm which occurred in April 1938 when I was 11 years old. Perhaps going back a bit I was 3+ years old when the earthquake occurred. I was 11 years old when the big flood came. At that time what seemed to be huge gum trees in the hills above my sister’s home were blown down and the whole of the Esk Valley was under water to the tops of the fences. My stepfather and the rest of us went down to see it when it was dry enough to be able to be seen.

I suppose my next memories from there would be of course Hereworth, going to school there, good school, lots of things to do. Before that I was at St Luke’s and we were the little cissies next door to the public school and we were scared of all of them. As public school boys and girls we learnt to play hop scotch and other forms of sport which no doubt helped in life. During that time I began to be involved with horses in particular. My mother was a very good horsewoman, and she had a horse called Kiwi which was a great jumping horse but terrible to … perhaps Shirley will remember that … very difficult to clip. Went crazy when he got put in the loose box to be clipped.

What else do I remember about that time? A horse called Hickow which my sister learnt to ride on when she was tiny, tiny. The great rock above, and the cabbage trees, now dead, and the hills just above.

Other aspects of early life was the occasional visit to people in what was originally the 19,000 acre estate of the Te Mahanga family, and I think it was in 1860 that William John Douglas, the second of the pioneers in my family, acquired the leasehold on Te Mahanga and began to develop. He was the age of 25 I think. He must have been a real entrepreneur leader of men because he began opening up this territory. I remember in particular my mother saying what a wonderful time they had as children riding on their ponies up into the grasslands with torches and setting afire the grasses to clear the land so that we could grow sheep. I have written something about it in a book called Family History (no, not a book, four pages) plus photos which I’ve given to Jimmy.

Can you go back a little bit into your father/grandfather?

My father began developing this land. As he got certain areas developed in about 2000 acre lots he would sell them off, three or four sales which would help him finance for development, and in the process he developed one of the best Clydesdale workhorses … studs in the area. These of course were used for the very heavy ploughing and transport work at that time.

We did go up to Puketitiri from time to time where my stepfather had I think 3000 acres or something of that sort which was very wild, and a lot of time was spent on scrub cutting and then of course the annual shearing. I remember my brother and I got in considerable disgrace at one stage.

They’d done the main mustering for the main shearing. I can’t remember how many sheep were involved, but part of the process was bringing in the goats at the same time because the goats were not very popular in the flocks and they were all assembled around a sort of stockade next to the shearing shed and my brother and I thought it was rather fun to throw stones at them and see them jump in the courtyard. Well for some reason unfortunately, one wise old billy goat thought this was no fun at all and they didn’t want to have stones thrown at them and they climbed up a strainer post sign and jumped over and the whole of the rest of the goats followed and took them all back out into the field again. We weren’t beaten for this – my parents never beat me, but I don’t think I was very popular. Nor was John – he’s my older brother by two years and now deceased.

I think at one stage they had something like 19,000 sheep being sheared at Te Mahanga at that time and as children we went out to the old Te Mahanga with its old thoroughbred stables. I think there was a big photograph of the great eclipse as a decoration in it.

Over the years … my grandfather died very young at age 47 leaving behind 6 children the oldest my sister 18 and then the others you can see in my family history notes. At that time there was belief that the Maoris were very angry with William John Douglas for insisting on building his house on a piece of land that was in some way … tapu is it called? … sacred to some Maori burial past. At any rate there was a story that no Douglas in the male line would get over the age of 50 years because of this desecration. Well in fact that proved to be true for many Douglases until perhaps 5 or 6 years ago when Mark Douglas became more than 50.

Other aspects of my recollections of that area included (I don’t think you remember it Shirley) old Willie in a shed near the old homestead … no – old Mick it was … one of the oldest occupants of that place. And of course there were wonderful orchards around there with very good apples. No swimming pool, duck shooting of course every year with my uncle Ron the youngest of the children of William John Douglas. He was a very good shot. All the brothers had gone to Christchurch. My sister Shirley had gone to Woodford. My mother Jean went to Iona and my cousin Margie went to Woodford, which Shirley went to later on.

And then later on in life … tell us a bit about that, and then we’ll get on with Shirley.

Later on in life. During that time I became a voracious reader. Fortunately I grew up in this house which had plenty of books in it. Also I used to get quite a few prizes from Hereworth, books about … like ‘Jock of the Bushveld’, ‘The Call of the Wild’ … all about different parts of the world – one about Argentina etc. and I became interested in the outside world.

Before long I was moving out of the Hawke’s Bay via Palmerston, going to school in Wanganui, stopping on the way in Palmerston where my great grandmother was still alive. I remember being amazed at how much food she ate at that age. We used to get those awful thick sandwiches at the stopping places on the train to Wanganui.

Any rate that brought me into a wider world at secondary school and there were at that time a number of people from the UK who were being evacuated from war in Europe to safety in New Zealand. We had a Swiss and an English guy with others, so I became more and more interested in the outside world. Then having done fairly well academically I went on to University in Otago – not exactly the best choice because at that time lots of my fellow school mates were qualifying as dentists and doctors in Dunedin and Dunedin had the reputation of being the best University. I somehow drifted there with all the extra travel and expense of getting across on the ferry and by train to Otago. But that didn’t seem difficult at the time.

At University the reason I got involved in the Arts faculty, not in the scientific faculties … partly because of a teacher at Wanganui who was in fact a teacher of Latin and the great enjoyment for his class was to somehow divert him away from Latin on to his belief in the Douglas Social Credit which was an economic system developed in Canada at that time which was meant to be the answer to the greed and mismanagement of the Banks which … of course by that time we had had the great depression. Lots of people had lost their livelihood, lost their lands … possibly also my own father (I’ve got very little documentation on this) … it was never talked about in the family but my mother was …. well she married at about 18 or just after her father died to a newly returned soldier from the 1^st World War, David Low Duncan, son of the prosperous D & D Duncan Engineering family in Christchurch. I vaguely remember having been in Christchurch and visiting the family very early on. In particular I remember wanting to be taken as a very small child across the road and down to the river Avon to see the ducks and the people around me, my grandmother or somebody said, “No, no, you can’t go today, I can’t take you today – I’ve got a bone in my leg” and the people around laughing. And I sort of knew I was being somehow tricked at that time … stuck in my memory.

And then … vaguely remember a trip with a nanny that took me to Christchurch where my then divorced mother was living, and of course getting divorced in those days was a pretty disgraceful sort of thing. People didn’t talk about it. I subsequently much later learned that it was possibly a rather nasty divorce but not much in it … nothing in detail about it. At any rate, around that time I recollect my mother taking a home near the Nimon bus stop where I met some … I was by then old enough to make friends with boys from next door, a fellow called Pat Lamb – can’t remember any more about that. At that time my mother was meeting and then got married to my step father Douglas Lane who took on a new wife and 2 children. Of course Douglas Lane was one of the prominent Hawke’s Bay farmers – the Nelson family, of which Shirley knows much more about than I do.

Now going back from University in Dunedin – I had an enjoyable time. I was probably clever enough to have done very well but I was not very hard working and got through my exams alright. The most inspiring teacher I had was a fellow called Dr Bernadelli who was an Austrian grown up in Germany, and interesting stories of his experiences as an economist starting with the treatment of his father who insisted that he repaid the whole of his primary costs from his future earnings. Well that was at the time of the great economic depression in Germany, and in a few weeks after being presented with the bill by his father for his education the currency went so madly inflated that he could pick up a couple of suit cases of 1000 marks – notes – and hand the whole thing over to his father and say “here you are, that’s the money.” Now how much of this is apocryphal I don’t know.

Any rate he subsequently was a teacher at Otago University and a very lively and interesting teacher. Others I do remember was Miss Baron a rather severe teacher of French. And I ended up having had a good time, drunk a lot of beer, taken part in the capping ceremonies, got a 2^nd class honours degree at the MA level and somewhere along the … well, about then … on completing my MA at Otago, I worked in the Statistics Department in Wellington and learnt quite a bit about the construction of consumer and wholesale price indexes which was a useful background. And later I was – I think assistant or secretary – to the Royal Commission on sheep farming in the high country of the South Island, which was my first experience of taking notes and keeping records relating to the findings of the Royal Commission and preparing the report on it. So now I still have an interest in such documents, now much more sophisticated than they were then.

About that time it became possible for suitably qualified people to join the British Colonial Service for service in colonies around the world. So I applied for that, and having done fairly well at school and being fairly active in sports in the rugby 1^st XV at Wanganui – got my cap there as a breakaway forward. Our final year was in Christchurch I think. We didn’t win the tournament, I think we were second. At any rate I qualified for joining the British Colonial Service and before long I was on a ship, the ‘Wanganella’ I think it was, on my way to England, and somewhat to my disappointment the University I was assigned to was London University rather than the historic Oxford or Cambridge that I was hoping for. However living in London and going to the London School of Economics, and a new University, and learning, gave me a broad idea of the British Empire and its colonies in their declining years.

So I went out to Nigeria as a cadet but with an economic degree behind me and was before long, first of all working as the lowest of the low cadet in the office of the President in Ibaden, one of the provinces of Western Nigeria, and over my 11 years I was mainly at headquarters in Ibaden in the western region of Nigeria, dealing with economic … finance and ultimately became the adviser to the Minister for Economic Development in Nigeria as it moved towards independence. Independence came … I didn’t want to go to another thing, I was looking around for a new job and get some sort of a gratuity or pension from my previous work from my 11 years as a Colonial service.

I was going out to New Zealand and I stopped in California to catch up with some friends and there I was given the opportunity to apply for a job with Stanford Research Institute which was a think tank associated with Stanford University, Palo Alto, California. And that lead me to a career in economic development, first of all in Cyprus, later in various other countries including jobs in Mexico and various others that you can see from the documents I’m sending you. A long spell of 4 years in Brazil living in Leme, virtually next door – the next door beach to Copacabana where I was co-ordinating the World Bank transport project of great importance in the future development of Brazil.

Then I had a long spell of another 7 years as the … project working with the Minister of Planning in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia where I successfully guided the completion of two five year development plans before passing on to a colleague to continue with the same project for another several years while I went off. The next major assignment was in Indonesia where I had a wonderful opportunity to work with a Dr Obebe who later, for a year and a half, became President of Indonesia after the downfall of the long term military dictator, but in many ways saviour of Indonesia as a non-communist country. I have since met with him and have read his various books and publications relating to the time when I was working with him and I regret to say that my work there didn’t go as well as it should have done. However I’ll have to think about that more before I decide what to do about that, if anything. Like writing about it.

Any rate after my period with the Board for the Application of Technology in Indonesia I worked in various development projects in and around Jakarta until it was time for me to move on having taken over and trying to keep alive a polo club which was called the Jagowari Polo Club, and I kept it alive despite of the economic crisis at that time.

And that in fact led to my present activity which is as a retired active – not very physically active – but active partner in the 10 ½ hectare leased property in the highlands of … in the high tea country of Central Sri Lanka at about 1000 metres where I’m hoping to work with my partners in reforesting land which was originally rain forest with garden farms for the local people. We hope to replace the degraded and abandoned tea country that is now grassland and very eroding, and we’re hoping to reforest it so it will recover its rain forest cover – mainly with native trees then interplanting in line with commercial crops including citrus and cinnamon and organic vegetables in the hope that we will guide an activity that will spread to a larger number of acres of land and contribute to the efforts being made to mitigate the more troublesome aspects of climate change.

And that’s what I’m doing now with occasional visits as now to my still beautiful, still beautifully sunny but quite cold at times, hill above the great Hawke’s Bay looking towards the Ruahine ranges, and thinking to myself ‘how is it that I possibly have ended up with another view across a great valley to the mountain ranges in the distance in a climate that is possibly better than the one here – never much below 15 degrees centigrade and never much above 28 – and with a lot of rainfall scattered irregularly throughout the year’. So I have a wonderful retirement activity and yet succeeding in maintaining my love of life, the place where I grew up and my remaining friends and relatives there.

Thank you Jim, for the opportunity to put this all together.

Peter, you’ve certainly covered your life. Very interesting indeed and very happy to have you. It’s a very good report. I’m sure it will go down well – thank you.

I forgot to mention I have a sort of a love/fear relationship with two horses. As a child I was riding a little pony here with my brother around and one thing and another, and my brother gave a hurry up to the pony which set off and I lost my balance and got stuck up in a stirrup and was dragged until my stepfather realised what had happened and managed to catch up with me and stopped the pony. So I had always been a bit of a scaredy cat, so I was always attracted to horses because of the family background but always a bit scared of them too. So I was never a great polo player but I could play.

Now Shirley, just give us a bit of a history about you.

Well I was born in Hastings in 1934 and I had a wonderful childhood, very good parents and I loved horses and ponies and things and I had two brothers that were … I used to be a real nuisance to them. They always got told that they had to take Shirley all the time. I always remember we had a big gum tree outside our house and they used to make toffee and then they’d climb up the tree and hang it down on bits of string tempting me and leaving me there to jump for it. Do you remember that Peter?

Peter: I don’t. Nobody has told me about it. Also I don’t believe it.

Shirley: And I remember in the war years of course. I can remember the marines sitting out here on our veranda, and to a young girl of – what would I have been – 8 I suppose – having the marines here was just amazing ’cause to me – well, they were just wonderful.

Peter: And you probably also remember going with your father in the home guard.

Shirley: Yeah, I was just going to say that … and dad was in the home guard and I used to get taken along on the treks on my little pony. I used to absolutely love that, it was wonderful.

I got married and I went to Mrs Doyley’s in Woodford House. Then I got married pretty young in 1954 to Peter Holden from Springvale, Tikokino and we had a long marriage and three children. One thing I remember about dad’s father, J E Lane, who was married to Ida Nelson, who was William Nelson’s oldest daughter. He was a wonderful man, terribly kind, and every time I turned up at his house on my pony he always gave me money and in those days that was pretty special.

So tell us about that famous race horse, Piccaroon, where did that come in?

Well Dad had bought Piccaroon at the Trentham sales for … think it was 180 guineas … and he turned out to be a very good horse trained by Bob Quinlivan in Hastings. And after dad died – dad won three gold cups with him – but after dad died Peter and I continued to race Piccaroon and he won 11 gold cups in 29 races. So it was a wonderful start to our sort of introduction into racing – we had a lot of fun with over the years.

And were you tied up with the horse with the show jumping?

I used to hunt and show jumping but I never did FEI jumping for some reason – I don’t know, I just got married too young I think and had three children and just never got into the FE side of it but I hunted all the time so that was wonderful.

And anyhow, Peter and I were married for just on 57 years so … and he passed away 3 years ago.

I’m sure there’s a lot more I could possibly squeeze out of you if I really gave it some thought. 

I’m sure that’s all that’s of great interest to people.

Peter:  And she’s always welcomed me back from time to time. Decided I ought to get back home.

I’ve just thought of another thing I wanted to mention which relates our families together and cricket. At the age of 11 on the 17 October it must have been or very close to it, it would be autumn show time, and at that time we had the autumn show in the …

Waikoko? 

Waikoko … and my birthday cake consisted of 11 cricketers over the icing, so although I was never a lover of cricket – in fact I seriously disliked it as a child – it was in those beautiful Waikoko Gardens which linked the Nelson family to my family.

Your birthday is in October is it, the 17^th or thereabouts?  

October 17^th yes.

And I’m on the 15^th.    

Shirley:  And I’m on the 26^th. We’re all October babies. [Laughter]

Well, I want to thank you both indeed for that talk about your life and everything and I’m sure the Knowledge Bank will be very happy to hear about it.  

Shirley:  One of the things I do remember which is of interest now that they’re building a lovely big new smart hotel in Havelock is my days of riding my pony and tying him up to the old Havelock pub. I used to tie him up to the water trough there.

Peter:  Is that water trough still there?

No, no – that’s gone now.   

Peter:   Has it been taken somewhere?

No, no – yeah, the whole thing … the whole village is changed. The trough’s gone. You wouldn’t know where it was.  

Shirley:  In somebody’s fire, I would think.

Yeah, Bruce McKenzie and Ian Nimon and I used to have some great times down at the Happy Tav. The policeman …  

Shirley:  McDuff’s Hotel.

At 6 o’clock he’d come round, the policeman – “Now Mr Colin – all out of here, all gone?” “Yes sir, yes … they’ve all gone”. There’d be silence in the back bar and he’d go down the road, and anyway, once or twice there was a bit of a play up and a bit of tom foolery … would pick the other one up and throw him into the horse trough. But then a little later with the policeman you used to hear ‘knock knock … knock knock’ … knock – Colin said “door’s unlocked Constable, just come in”. “I knew you boys were in here”.  

Shirley:   There was a lot of fun had at that old pub, wasn’t there?

Peter:  They didn’t arrest you?

No. We had a lot of fun alright. Good clean fun too in those days. 

Shirley:  McDuff’s – d’you remember the McDuff’s that were there first? You’d remember them – you should remember them better than me, Jim, probably.

I used to deliver the beer down and drop the kegs down underground there with the ropes and I always remember that. 

Peter:  And the butcher’s shop on the corner? It’s really incredible the development. That’s what has impressed me about going up to Puketitiri. What I recollect is lots of manuka to be cut and so on and scattered, and now it’s all pretty rich looking farm land. We also went to Ball’s Clearing. An interesting little message in the thing about how there was something like 20,000 acres now down to 200 or something like that. Do you remember that?

Shirley:  33 hectares I think it is, Ball’s Clearing. Not very big.

Peter:  From about 230 or something.

Shirley:   No pub up there. Do you remember the pub that used to be there and the general store and the school. You know, all that’s gone hasn’t it?

They’ve got a golf club there.  

Shirley: Yeah. We drove into the golf club. Had a look at that. A lot of sheep on the golf course.

Peter: Have you ever played golf there?

No.  

Shirley: Better turn it off now Jim, we’re waffling on …

Yeah, but quite often that’s when …

Shirley: Oh, is it? [Chuckles]