Harker, John Derek (Buster) Interview

Today’s the 16^th of September 2015. Today I’m interviewing Buster Harker, retired farmer of St Lawrence Road, Elsthorpe.  He will tell us about the life and times of his family. Thank you Buster.

Thank you Frank.  My father, Leslie Harker, was one of three brothers, Leslie, Cyril and Harry, who were all born in Napier and went to school at Napier Boys’ High. My father never told me anything at all about his father because he was ashamed of him, because his father walked out on the three boys and their mother when my father was about ten years of age and he disappeared into the pale blue yonder. He was a remittance man who came out from England early 1870s.  He came from a family who lived in London and their business was spice importers and I think William Jarvis [Harker], my grandfather, was a bit of a problem to his family because they sent him out to the Colonies as they were called in those days, to see the back of him I think.  And sadly my father and his two younger brothers saw the back of him too at the age of ten, eight and six.  So that was a part of my history that I know nothing about.  The little I do know is probably best forgotten – sadly.

My grandmother, Gertrude, she married William Jarvis [Harker] as a young woman. She was one of the Sheath family who were gunmakers in Birmingham – Hollis & Sheath – and Gertrude Sheath came out with her father, whose name was – I just forget for the moment – but he settled in South Canterbury and having left the gunmaking firm and brought his worldly goods with him, he bought a sheep property in South Canterbury.   But sadly he knew nothing about farming and perhaps didn’t think wisely enough to set his operation with a manager. Perhaps there weren’t too many managers about in the 18 – early ’70s, but he lost the property and he moved to Christchurch and built a two-storeyed home which I saw many years later, but his farming operation apparently wasn’t a success because it failed for him.

Getting back to my own family, my father was born in 1886 and his two younger brothers, each two or three years later, and my father left Napier Boys’ High in 1901, and he went to work at the Port.  He joined the Hawke’s Bay Farmers … he started life in the wool stores there and he had a great friend who was probably a schoolboy friend, called Clive Fulton.  And he and Clive Fulton used to sail their 16′ centreboard dinghy, or sailing boat I guess it was, on the inner harbour where the Napier airport is now.  It was a keen sailing area in the days before the earthquake, because there were – I think something like 10,000 acres of water there.

And perhaps I inherited his love of sailing, later on, because I’ve had some very interesting voyages around the North and South Island and up to Fiji and of course I sailed, I crewed on a 135′ top sail schooner in the Tall Ships race. I joined the vessel as crew … crew must have been very hard to find too … signed me on in 1992 when – I was 75 in the year 2000, so in 1992 I was eight years younger – 67.   So I had a very interesting voyage.  I joined this vessel which was owned by David Blakely from Tauranga and I joined it at Boston on the East Coast of the United States, and we sailed out of Boston Harbour … 4 o’clock in the afternoon, 1 of two hundred ships … sailing vessels, ranging in size from 30′ was the smallest I think, and 200′ plus was the largest four masted sailing ship with a crew of two hundred. I was on a 135′ tops’l schooner with a crew of nine.

That must have been quite a sight, to see 200 ships.

It was, it was a wonderful sight on a sunny afternoon when we left Boston Harbour.  Night fell about 9 o’clock and to our amazement next morning there were only eleven vessels visible from the great massive ships that had left Boston Harbour the previous evening.  And during the day the vessels scattered over the horizon, all heading for Liverpool.  And the following morning, which was 24 hours later, we didn’t see any sailing vessel at all. In fact we didn’t see any other vessel until we got to the Irish Sea.  We sailed in calm weather and to our surprise, I found out later that our skipper decided that his vessel, which he had had built in Whangarei – it was a steel ship with a centreboard which could be raised and lowered by a winch. There were only two winches on board, one to raise the 12 ton centreboard and the other to raise the anchor, but the sails were raised by manpower.   We set off in good weather and the skipper David Blakely, I thought rather recklessly, decided that the vessel would sail considerably faster without the drag of a centreboard, so the centreboard was fully raised and we were getting along at 11 knots which was quite a good speed for a vessel of that size in comparatively calm weather.

And we sailed for the next 10 days across the North Atlantic with the centreboard raised all the way in good weather.  We had one bit of excitement when the radio warned that there were icebergs about as we progressed further north beyond Newfoundland and so the crews were advised to keep a sharp lookout for icebergs because they’re not – they do a lot of damage to a sailing ship if you happen to run into one.  But I must say I got a little nervous – next morning after this warning we had very foggy conditions and we could see probably 100 yards ahead but we were moving into that fog at 11 knots and I think we would have been pretty busy to avoid an iceberg if one had suddenly appeared out of the mist. But anyway we never saw any icebergs fortunately.

When we reached the Irish Sea we ran into very heavy weather and high winds and our skipper decided, with the full approval of his 8 crew members, to take shelter in a Welsh port – the name of which escapes me – so we ran for shelter into this port and tied up alongside and remained there for the next two days while the storm disappeared.  We did this with the approval of the race organisers because most other vessels which were in our area, although we didn’t see any of them, they’d all taken shelter likewise.  I’m sorry to say that I never got to finish the race with the crew at Liverpool because I had a meeting arranged with my wife in London and I’d run out of time to be on the ship … part of the crew, so I caught a train to London and with the skipper’s approval, I didn’t jump ship!   But when he got to Liverpool he collected I prize I think, I don’t know if it was for the oldest crew or the smallest crew, but he was quite happy to be awarded a prize for the voyage which he had accomplished.

He started – his vessel which had been built to his specifications in Whangarei a couple of years beforehand and the reason that he had it built with a centreboard, he had ideas of filling his ship with ewe mutton which was available for something like $10 a carcass in 1992, and he had ideas of sailing up to the Fijian islands and selling it to the natives for possibly a small profit, and his vessel only drew about four feet of water with the centre board raised fully and so he was going to be able to get right inshore without worrying about coral reefs and so on.  That’s another story, and it never came to pass.

Now coming back to your … going to school, we’ve skipped a few years there. 

Yes, we have.  Yes, I only talked about where my father went to school and his brothers.  From Waipukurau I grew up and attended the Convent School in Waipukurau.  My first day at school was the Napier Earthquake. I had two elder sisters and an elder brother, so I went comfortably, probably holding one of my sister’s hands.  We had about a 15 minute walk from our home in Racecourse Road, Waipukurau to St Joseph’s Convent School down nearer the river, the Tukituki River.  I thought school was quite a good place because I only had from 9 o’clock until quarter to eleven, and the earthquake hit Hawke’s Bay.  And fortunately for my two elder sisters and elder brother – they were in the senior classroom and it was just the end of playtime and they were lined up ready to go back into the classroom when the earthquake came which was a bit lucky for them because the front porch of the school which was a concrete porch – collapsed – and fortunately none of the children were near enough to be injured.  But because of the damage to the school and the general damage to Hawke’s Bay, the school closed for two weeks.  So I thought as a little fellow of five that school was quite an exciting place because you only went to school for two hours and then you had a fortnight’s holiday.

One of the things that my father arranged for me as a youngster, was to have music lessons which was a good idea because family singsongs around the piano in 1931 and in those years – it was a great form of entertainment.  But stupidly after a couple of months of piano lessons which were – I found extremely difficult, and reading the music seemed a lot of gobbledegook – I begged to be allowed to cease having piano lessons and that was the end of my music lessons.  Although later on when I went to St Pat’s, Silverstream as a border for four years and I joined the … in 1939 was my first year at Silverstream – I think we had about 300 borders and 50 day boys at St Pat’s in those days. Later on in the year when the war broke out we all were involved in cadet training and so my – I got back into music at that stage because I was directed into the school band and I learnt to play the bugle, which had, unlike a trumpet which has notes, the bugle was just a blow –

I know exactly what you’re saying – just a straight pipe.

Yes, and I spent a couple of years in the school band. So apparently I had enough wind and kept using it in the right direction.   But we very much enjoyed our cadet training because we used to do a lot of marching and we also did a lot of digging at one stage because the school decided that we needed slit trenches in case later on in the end of ’41 when Japan came into the war there was quite a bit of nervousness about the possibility of the Japanese coming down, so we were all put on digging duties to dig slit trenches. And the school at Silverstream was built on river flats – the digging was very stony.  Very stony.

Did you play any sports while you were at Silverstream?  

Yes.  We were – I started off the first year – we were graded according to our weight.   I think my weight in 1939 was something like 5 stone 7, so I was in – they call it the fifth grade.  I enjoyed playing rugby, and my time at school, although I never got – I moved into the fourth grade the next year because that was what my weight had grown to, and the next two years I got up to the third grade.  For some reason best known to our coach I was appointed the captain of the team, not because I was a good footballer but I must have been quite useful at telling other people what to do. But I enjoyed my school days of rugby.

Your brothers and sisters went to the same school … did they go to St Pat’s – your brothers?

I just had one brother, Peter, who was nearly five years older than me.  He went to school in … let me see … he went to Silverstream from ’34 to’37.  And you were saying Frank – we both went to John Caulton’s funeral a couple of weeks ago – John Caulton was … he lived at Wanstead and he went to Silverstream the first year the school opened in 1931.

So he’d been a family – the family were friends that length of time, you knew him at the High School in those days?

I didn’t because I didn’t go to school until 1939. I don’t know what year John Caulton joined the Air Force – do you know?

No, I had interviewed him but I can’t remember now, it was at the beginning of the War.

My brother Peter, who left school in ’37 – he went farming. He started farming at a property at Bay View which my father owned in partnership with his sister-in-law, Aunt Ella Harker from Wairoa. They bought a property at Bay View along the coastline where – it’s the property that is now the forestry …

Pan Pac.

Pan Pac, it’s where Pan Pac now is. Not very desirable property in those days because it had lots of goats which seemed to be able to cross from paddock to paddock – the goats used to run up the stays of the strainer posts and get over.

I spent many a day helping farmers in that area shoot goats. Bay View was full of them.

My father and his brother Harry sold the farm.  I don’t know how long they’d had it but my father went to work with Eric Tansley who was the manager.  After he left school my father, who spent all his working life at Hawke’s Bay Farmers – his first job was in 1901 in the wool stores – and then he progressed to being a stock agent at the Dannevirke branch.  And I remember being rather surprised when he told me he used to go out to interview clients on a motor bike, and he’d ride the motor bike along bush tracks where they had made a railway track so that they could push in wagons in there to get the timber out in the Dannevirke district, which was full of good timber.  But it must have been a bumpy ride to ride a motor bike along a bush railway track. But while my father was working there as a young stock agent he met and fell for my mother who was one of five daughters and two sons of William Torrance Irvine, and he like William Harker, had come out in the early 1970s [1870s] on a sailing ship, and William Torrance Irvine landed in Dunedin.

That was 1876.

Yes, it was 18 – early 1870s, and William Torrance Irvine, grandfather, was an accountant in Dannevirke.  And I remember being amazed when I said to my mother who was born in 1889 – she was three years my father’s junior – I remember asking her what she and her sisters did after they left school, and she said “oh, we just stayed at home and helped mother.”  It was extraordinary to my mind that that happened as comparatively recently as around 1900, but apparently they – the families with better education – it wasn’t considered right to go out to work. Fortunately that habit died a natural death, ’cause it must have been awful to have a whole lot of young women hanging about the house.

That’s right – at least the mending and the washing and the cooking would all be done wouldn’t it?

Yes, it certainly would.  But it was such a waste of potential talent wasn’t it.

Right, 1901 my father started work.  He spent two or three years at the Port of Napier in the wool stores and then he was promoted to a stock department down at Dannevirke and he spent a few years there and in 1912 he was sent to Waipukurau to open a branch of the HBF, and my father would have then been 26, so he must have been rather chuffed to be promoted to a managerial position.  Rightly or wrongly for him he spent all his working life with the HBF and when he retired in 1949 he had a staff of fifty at Waipukurau and the branch that he opened – it had a stock department, wool department.  I remember as a kid playing after school out amongst the sacks of grain in the grain department.  But I often used to – at my father’s suggestion – after school I would call in at the office because he told me he was going for a drive.  He was a great one to drive out to see the clients rather than get on the phone and just talk.  He used to like to visit them personally, and so I learnt to drive. He started off allowing me at the age of 8 or 9 to sit between his legs in the 1925 Buick Tourer that he drove and – there was no power steering in those days, so steering at that age was only pretending to steer really, because I needed the old man’s help to get around the corners.  But he would leave the office at half past three or four o’clock and drive out to Tikokino, by which time it was nearly dark and I had a few lonely sessions waiting in the car hoping that he’d cut his visit short. But, I used to enjoy the drives with my father as a kid.

I’ll just tell you a little story – give you a rest for a minute.  My father – I used to go in when I was young – on a Friday afternoon with my father. He used to meet his mates at the Carlton Hotel or the Pacific or different hotels, but he also used to get grain ground at the Hawke’s Bay Farmers grain store for the pigs.  So anyway this particular day we went in and he would park me in the Grand Hotel in the snug and get the old ladies in the snug some money to buy me raspberry and lemonades while he was having his drinks down the pub. Anyway this particular day we arrived home late.  My mother, who had already started milking the cows because we were dairy farmers, and he said he was sorry that he was late but he had to wait for the grain to be crushed. And I said to him “but we picked the barley up at 11 o’clock this morning.”  He never took me again – never ever – that was the finish.  Never split on your father.  So carry on with your story.

At Silverstream I used to kid myself that I was a bit of a runner. The best I ever did was to come third in the senior cross country and third in the senior breast stroke, and I was captain of my rugby team for the four years I was there, but I never got further than the third grade.  Boys with any real talent used to get into the First XV which was the ultimate for a schoolboy if they were talented enough, but by and large, from memory, they didn’t put small fellows into the senior teams unless they were big enough to look after themselves.

After leaving school, my father who was still engaged in the stock and station business … he didn’t – to my memory he didn’t consult with his boys what they would like to do when they left school.  He had a great regard, and I suppose he had an envy of farmers probably, but he steered both his sons into farming and I went to work after leaving school – first of all for G F Kennedy at Hatuma, about nine miles out from home. I used to go back to my parents’ home usually at the weekend.  I think I used to ride my pony the nine miles back into Waipukurau and then after I’d saved up a few bob I got an old – bought an old Panther motorcycle, and I was riding back to G F Kennedy’s at Hatuma one Friday night – I think I’d been in with a few mates to go to the cinema, which was about the only entertainment in those days, and unfortunately when I came out I found my headlight wouldn’t go.  But I set off back to … I thought the moon will come out shortly and I know the road pretty well … but I didn’t get very far before I collided with a fellow who I actually knew.  He was walking up to the Sanatorium where he had a job. He was walking along Takapau Road and I hit him with the front wheel of the motorbike, that’s how dark it was … I didn’t see him.  He heard me coming and I said to him “why didn’t you get out of the way?” He said I couldn’t see you, I didn’t think you were so close.

Anyway I had a leather helmet on and leather gloves, but I gave myself a fair whack when I hit the road and so I pushed the bike about half a mile from the railway line in Waipukurau.  I pushed the bike back home and crawled into bed and next morning I had a good size lump on my forehead and so my parents took me to the Dr and … old Dr Raymond in Waipukurau decided I’d had concussion and the recipe for concussion in those days was apparently go to bed for three weeks. So that buggered up my farm job with G F Kennedy – a nice man who I got on quite well with and learnt to drive the horse and the sledge and do all the things that farm boys do in their early days of farming.

So after recuperating from the bump on the head – my father had been in touch with one of his clients and so my next job I went out to Oakburn Station, 24 miles from Waipukurau to work for Peter Canning.  And I spent the next two years learning shepherding and learning all about farming at Oakburn.  Peter Canning – he was a man I suppose of about 50 and I heard later that he was very disappointed that he’d been man-powered to stay at home and run the property because he had three brothers, Robert, Walmsley and Jack and they were in the Army, the Navy and the Air Force and they were all serving overseas. So Peter Canning had a staff of one 18 year old boy who didn’t know very much.

That was you, was it?

Yes, and a couple of Rarotongan boys and Herbie Franklin the head shepherd, and that was all the staff we had on 4,700 acres of hill country which kept us pretty busy.  And, the first thing to do in the morning was to catch and saddle your horse at the stables and then you’d go your various ways to do whatever the boss wanted doing that particular day.

So you stayed with him right throughout the War, or ..? 

No, I stayed with him for September ’43 until I finally was accepted for the Navy in 1945.  I had tried in 1944 to join the Navy but they said come back when you are 19½.  So I finally got into the Navy in May 1945 just after the War ended. Sadly for me it was disappointing at the time but I suppose I was one of the lucky ones because I put up a dismal record of service 30 days in the Navy and 31 days leave. Because I joined Scheme B and 30 of us went to train at Motuihe Island in the Auckland Harbour where they had a naval training school.  From quarter passed six in the morning ’til nine o’clock at night we did everything at the double.  So we – after three weeks there we thought we were fairly fit.  We slept pretty well at the end of the day because having done everything at the double, which is running, everything you did – the Petty Officers didn’t have any mercy on slow runners – so we got the hurry up from them all day and every day.  But we thoroughly enjoyed it. Then we went home for final leave for ten days and then we went back to the Auckland Domain where we were accommodated in huts, and we were to board the Ruahine for England ten days later, but in the meantime VJ Day came along – August 15^th – and the Japanese surrendered and so we went home on final leave – on discharge leave having had final leave.

But you did join the Navy?

Yes, but – it was a huge disappointment that we joined too late to be of any help to anybody else.

So, then I probably made a mistake because instead of branching out either joining J Force and going over to Japan as some of the boys did, I went back to Oakburn for a couple of years. So, that was another mistake I guess I made – instead of going to another boss and another place.  But they welcomed me back and I guess I must have been quite content to go back to the place that I knew.

Just a question – what happened to the chap you ran into with the motorbike? You didn’t kill him did you? 

No, no – fortunately I was going very slowly because it was dark and the moon that I was promising to come out it wasn’t doing the right thing at all.  I never rode a motorbike without lights again because Oakburn was 24 miles south east of Waipukurau.

Well, that’s almost at Porangahau isn’t it?

Yes, and the asphalt in those days didn’t last very must after you left Waipukurau. The asphalt soon ran out and then it was gravel all the time, all the way, which was quite tricky but the answer seemed to be to keep your speed down and you could generally stay on the bike.

Yes, the old Panther, was it a Panther 500 – 500 cc?

No, it seems ridiculous but I can’t remember what the cc was.

They were just a big single banger weren’t they, single cylinder?

Might have been.

Most of them were 500cc’s, with a huge pot and long stroke and they weren’t that easy to kick over either.   Sorry, carry on … you were back at Oakburn for a couple of years and where did you go to from there? 

Once again I’m sorry to say I consulted my father and I got a job working on Larry Sheriff’s property out at Utiku which is south of Taihape. Larry Sheriff had an Angus stud.  So I went to work for him for 18 months in 1940 – the War ended in August ’45 so I must have been back at Oakburn for three years, because in 1948 I went to – by this time I’d upgraded my transport – bought a Model T Ford.   It cost me a whole $20.  I bought it at the end of the War.   I remember going out one Sunday morning and finding out – I often used to visit a family at Porangahau Beach, the Board family. Sid Board had two attractive daughters and they used to have tennis parties and that was a very pleasant part of life after work at the weekends. The Boards’ property was alongside the Porangahau River where we could do a bit of boating if somebody had a boat and a bit of eeling too.

But moving on … to when I went to Taihape the Model T Ford amazingly enough would find its way through the Manawatu Gorge and through Feilding and up to through Mangaweka and up north to Utiku and then out to the Sheriff’s farm which was close to the Ruahine Ranges, which strangely enough was Utiku was over the Ruahines from Waipukurau.  I always thought about taking the short way home on foot but I never got around to doing it. But the old Model T Ford it didn’t have a gear lever, it had three pedals.  If you wanted to go in reverse you pushed the middle pedal and that would engage the rear movement.  And it didn’t have an accelerator it had a hand lever throttle.  But it took five a half hours to drive from Waipukurau to the farm at Utiku. But it was a very trusty steed, the Model T Ford.

I had a happy time working for Larry Sheriff. There was usually another fellow of similar age to myself and we shared a bach.  Mrs Sheriff fed the two boys so we were pretty lucky in that we dined with the family.  In the 18 months I spent there I joined the Taihape Old Boys’ rugby team – junior old boys they were – and I used to play rugby in the wintertime on a Saturday afternoon, have the odd beer with the lads and usually finished up going to the – either a local dance or more often than not, the cinema.  The family were very good to their young staff because they used to include us when they had a tennis party, they would include the two boys on the staff.  The fact the boss had three daughters was quite a help too, to fraternise.

And then my next move after 18 months feeding the bulls, apart from ordinary stock work on the farm and shepherding the sheep and farming the cattle, working amongst the stud stock took up a bit of our time teaching the calves to lead and so on.  But after 18 months there my brother Peter had gone into partnership with my father to buy a property which was actually sold to them by Maurice Chambers  from Havelock North.  He had a farm at Aria, south west of Te Kuiti and Peter was up there farming as a bachelor and he persuaded me to go up and work with him, which I did then from early 1950 to 1951. That was farming different country in a different climate in a different part of the world. While I’d been at Taihape I’d joined the Otahape Ski Club. I became friendly with some of the locals, local Taihape people who persuaded me to join their ski club and we used to go up at weekends and learned to ski.

Was Turoa open then?

No. No it wasn’t, but it was quite a major … to go either in your vehicle or somebody else’s vehicle.  Sometimes the Ski Club used to organise a truck to take a team of so called workers and so called skiers up the mountain for Saturday night and sometimes Sunday Night, or if you could persuade the boss to give you Saturday morning off we’d get away up there on Friday night. We had some very happy times there to look back on.

Te Matai south west of Aria was about, from memory, 20 odd miles south west again of Te Kuiti.  It was on the – Te Matai was on the Mokau River which was 35 miles from the sea on the West Coast, and Dick Loughnan who was a next door neighbour used to spend a lot of time whitebaiting when he probably should have been farming. But he used to catch whitebait by the kerosene tin full.  So for a couple of bachelors living in a corrugated iron cottage, which was the homestead on Te Matai, we used to enjoy it when Dick Loughnan had surplus whitebait.  But I found it quite amazing that the whitebait would progress 35 miles up the river.

The time I spent at Te Matai, Bob Atlee was the married man on the property working for Peter – or with Peter – and I remember we had a huge totara tree which stood … I could just see over the top of it … it was a fallen tree of mostly heart totara, and Bob and I were splitting posts out of this totara tree and the cross-cut saw which we were using to cut these six foot post lengths – it was a long way, the cut from a five foot six log. It was always a sigh of relief when you finally got to the bottom, and had a brief spell before you started on the next length.

Another exciting thing that we – I used to do with Bob, who was the married shepherd on the property – he was a great pig hunting enthusiast and there were wild pigs on the property and it was a lot of fun going on horseback on your day off to try and go with the dogs, and somebody had seen the pigs had been rooting the day before and we’d usually get a pig and bring it home either on the packhorse or if you didn’t have a packhorse with you you’d put it up on the saddle with you and head off home with it.  But wild pork was always a treat in the oven and was generally a popular change from usually ewe mutton which we used to eat.

While I was up at Te Matai for 18 months I joined the Ruapehu Ski Club which – later in life when I got married in 1955, which is five years on, I couldn’t wait to join up my wife and then the family when they arrived, and skiing has been a very attractive and worthwhile sport for all the family.  And my three grandsons now in 2015 – my three grandsons, and my son Jeremy, are all qualified – they’ve got their ticket as ski instructors.  So skiing has been a very exciting sport for all the family.  Jeremy’s youngest son, Willy, is now a man of 19 – a couple of years ago he learnt to do a somersault on his skis while skiing downhill, do a back somersault and land on the skis and carry on.  Sadly I gave up skiing in 1979 at the age of 79. Caroline, my daughter, had taken me on a ski expedition, I was farming at Elsthorpe and she was living down south and she took me on – with a ski party of about 20 friends – they had the exclusive use of this lodge at Mt Olympus and the only ski tow there was rope tow and we had nutcrackers to hang onto the rope.   We had a very happy week there, but unfortunately I was standing still on top of a knob in the sunshine talking to somebody and my feet – we were not moving, but my feet went from under me and I landed hard on my hip, and didn’t think too much of it, but when I had my shower at the end of the day I found I had a decent sort of a bruise, and I had that bruise when I got home for about six weeks – and in the end I couldn’t get rid of it until the doctor put a needle into it and drew out a whole lot of infection which got rid of the bruise and so on.  So I decided that from 1948 – I guess I started skiing when I worked at Taihape – I’d had 31 years skiing – I decided to give it away.

You are at your brother’s farm …

Yes, so I decided I needed a change from farming so a friend and I in 1951 finally, with the help of Kirkpatrick who was the manager of the Tomoana Freezing Works, he finally put in a word with the captain of a cargo boat for me and my mate and I signed on as crew.  I’m forgetting to say that we decided we wanted to go overseas and we didn’t want to go as passengers, because we thought that was unduly expensive, so we thought to sign on as crew.  And we went to Gisborne and we went to Wellington and we even went to Auckland I think too, because the story was that often crew jumped ship in New Zealand and if you were on the wharf on the day of sailing and they suddenly found that they were short of crew, if you were there and looked ready, willing and able you could sign on – on a vessel.

Anyway, my mate and I finally got fed up with going to Napier and to Wellington and to Gisborne to standby to get a job on a ship.  Finally I think Alec Kirkpatrick put in a word for us and we signed on the Trojan Star out of Napier and away we went to England for I think a shilling a day.   We had an exciting voyage on the Trojan Star.  We signed on so one of us was a deck boy working with the ordinary seamen, painting and doing things that deckhands do on a cargo boat, and the other one was a pantry boy and we were week about.  One was on deck and one was in the pantry.  And on one occasion we were going across the Pacific to Panama, the ship was rolling so much that the plates in the galley were sliding from one end of the … as the ship rolled any plates that weren’t being held were sliding up and down the table and then when she rolled the other way they were sliding the other way.   We thought that was quite fun until one of the crew said “well, I reckon she’s rolling 38 degrees and if she goes a little more past 40 degrees she won’t come back.”

However, we took six weeks to get across the Pacific, through the Panama Canal, across the Atlantic to the London docks and it was a tremendous lot of fun.  We were – the two of us had a cabin but we lived and dined in the sailors’ mess and they were a lot of characters.  And some of them said “well when you get to England come home and stay with us for a day or two”, and I always regretted afterwards that we never did that.   But we had friends in London who we were looking forward to catching up with and instead of going with the seamen up to their homes to see where they lived and meet their family and so on – we stupidly said we’re sorry we can’t do that we’ve got to catch up with our mates in London.  So we signed off as crew in England, and caught up with our mates and made arrangements to stay in the flat which usually a group of half a dozen New Zealanders and like all young people who first get to London, we marvelled at all the excitement of the city and the history and everything about England that was new to us.  And we arrived in England on the 11^th of November 1950 and I can honestly say we didn’t see the sun for three months.  And it didn’t really bother us – it didn’t rain all the time but there were an awful lot of grey days.

We got a job in a box factory at High Wycombe at one stage, making boxes – I think from memory they were beer boxes rather than cardboard cartons, and had that job for a few weeks got us out of all the temptations of doing nothing in London and topped up our savings.  I stayed there for nearly 12 months.

My parents arrived with their daughter and they rented a house at Wimbledon, so I joined them and my father took delivery of a new car which was an Austin 70 and I went travelling with them.  This was in May, but I’m forgetting – in January I got the opportunity of going across to the Continent and had a ski holiday in Austria with a group of about 10 New Zealanders who went in two cars driving from London south, on the ferry to France, and then we travelled across France and into Austria and my place was in the dickie seat of a Ford three seater, three in the front and two in the dickie seat, and in the winter time it was quite a draughty trip.  We had a very exciting skiing holiday with a group of New Zealanders, some of whom were Rex Sinclair, who recently died in Auckland.  His father was a doctor in Taihape and Rex had grown up in Taihape and I’d first met him in his ski club – Taihape Ski Club and later on Ruapehu Ski Club.  He was continuing his medical training in England.  And Bruce Craig was another one, who later became a doctor in Invercargill.  They were part of this group of about 10 New Zealand who went to Austria on a ski holiday for a fortnight.

Then later on, when my parents arrived, they gave me the opportunity of travelling round Scotland and Ireland with them.  My sister and her friend and I sometimes would put a – my parents would book into accommodation, either a farmhouse or a country pub.  We would often – we three younger ones – would often just rig up a canvas awning from the car and blow up our lilos, I think we had.  We’d do it on the cheap if the weather was reasonably kind, and we saw a lot of the country, England, Scotland and Ireland.  We travelled for several weeks like that and then when it … later on in the year when it came time to get back home and get on with the work of life, applied for a job with Dalgety’s to take care of livestock being exported to New Zealand and Australia on a ship. The thing was they would sign on young farming types, usually a couple of you to look after the stock … we had sheep and cattle, on deck. So that was how I got back home again. You were signed on to take care of the livestock on board, feed them and muck them out, and generally take care of them. That was an adventure in itself, because we – on  the cargo ships generally call at various ports to load or offload cargo and the crew would get ashore and see the sights.  Keep out of trouble as much as possible.  The best way to keep out of trouble was to run in the opposite direction if trouble blew up.

So you eventually got back to New Zealand?

Yes. I’m just trying to put a date on it.  Yes, I got back to New Zealand and went to work.  My father had bought a farm in my name to my surprise while I’d been away.   He actually … he bought a farm in the latter years of the War – or at the end of the War – he bought a farm in my name, and I said “what about my brother whose just spent all these … five years in the Navy” and my father’s theory was that Peter would qualify for rehab so I was always a bit embarrassed that the farm was bought in my name.  So when I get back from the overseas trip I went to work out there, which was 38 miles from Waipukurau, up at the top of the Mangaorapa Road, and I worked out there with the manager who was on the property for a while.  But shortly after that he got his own property just a few miles down the road, and then I was on my own.  So I spent a couple of years there, ’52 and ’53.  Then I met a young lady who … I suggested matrimony to her but to my surprise and disappointment she got on a ship and went to England to work for a year.

Oh dear … left you in the sticks.

Yes, that was very disappointing at the time, but we kept in touch with each other. That happened in 1954 – she was in the UK for a year, we corresponded while she was away and for better or worse she came home in about January ’55 and we were married in April ’55 and we’ve now just celebrated our 60^th wedding anniversary.

So when you were married you were at the station?

No, no, no, I was on Putahi Farm as it was called up the top of the Mangaorapa.

That was pretty high country there wasn’t it?

Yes, it went up to the top of Taputai as it was called, Taputai Hill, it’s the highest hill in the …

Some years ago I went out to … Bay de Lautour had a property close to there somewhere, and I couldn’t believe how high it was.  I had to climb up to the shearers’ quarters where this – went out to by some white ducks for my pond on the farm, but it’s quite steep country out there isn’t it?

Yes it is.  When my brother – I was at Putahi Farm for a couple of years – my brother Peter was there and my sister Gretchen was housekeeping for him while I was in England, and Peter on one occasion on Taputai which is the big hill which goes up at the end of the Mangaorapa Road – he got blown off his horse.  It can really blow at Porangahau.

Now that was the farm your father bought you was it?

Yes, so when he handed it over to me I picked up the mortgage and so I was very fortunate to be given that start in life.  But, while I was up the Mangaorapa on Putahi Farm … got to hear of this property up the St Lawrence Road which was a Glasgow lease and I remember taking Eric Tansey, who had been my father’s manager out at Bay View before the War.  And Eric Tansey later became a valuer with the State Advances Corporation, and I took him for – I’d heard of this property which was up for sale, leasehold property on St Lawrence Road, and Eric Tansey came for a ride around it with me and he gave it the thumbs down because it was a leasehold property, but I saw it as a great opportunity to get a leg in on a property much more centrally situated than the back end of Porangahau.  So we – I just can’t recall exactly how we did it, but we arranged to sell Putahi Farm and purchase Pine Bush from Wally Watson, Patangata, or St Lawrence Road at the same time. You know often when properties change hands one depends – the purchase often depends on the sale of the previous property.  But we managed to tie it all together.   Rosalind, my new bride, came to Putahi Farm for only three weeks and it was time to take over the new place just when she came on board. So, the excitement was really mounting then, had a new wife and a new farm.

Yes, I can imagine. Was it a totally broken in farm?

No, no, it had been farmed as part of St Lawrence Station for many years and Wally Watson who I bought from, he’d taken on the lease.  I think he’d worked on St Lawrence Station and he’d taken on the leasehold when it became available, as about six different properties on St Lawrence Road had that arrangement.  They were all part of the original St Lawrence and we paid rental to the Williams Trust.  And we did that quite happily for 11 years because we were only paying just a few dollars a year per acre rental.  But after 11 years we got the opportunity to buy the freehold, so five or six properties there, adjoining properties, all took up the chance of buying the freehold. Except one continued to … Ross Withers who was up the end next to Mangatapiri Station, he continued with the rental system.

So, moving on, we learnt to be husband and wife as you do when you’re first married because we – I think like many people of our age, we never shared a bed until we were married. Unlike today – they don’t even bother to marry do they?  And that seems to be widely accepted as OK.

So you had – how many children did you have … do you have?

Yes, well we were blessed with one son and three daughters.  And Jeremy was our eldest – first born, and he arrived 10 months after we were married, so that was a whole new adventure for us. Then the girls followed 18 months later and then two years later and then eight years later.  And we lived in the farm cottage which was, looking back on it, was horribly, horribly cold in the winter. But, when you’re reasonably young you just put an extra blanket on the bed if you’re cold.

Yes, you live with the cold.

You do, but it’s surprising how we put up with the cold because when you went up into the ceiling on the farm, the bungalow that we lived in for 11 years, there was no building paper under the iron and on a frosty night you could hear the drips onto the ceiling. You’ve had that experience Frank?

Yes, absolutely, yes.

Ros was always rather surprised … after 11 years we succeeded in building a new home and so when we did that we put a married couple into the farmhouse that we had lived in, and Ros says that as soon as the married shepherd’s wife mentioned that it was pretty cold, we put in a heater, you know one of those heaters you have a concrete blocks in?  They’re very effective. Ros always wondered why we hadn’t put one in when we lived there.

And so your children would have gone to Elsthorpe School or?

Yes, our son and three daughters went to Elsthorpe School from 1960 up until about 1975 when the last of them went to boarding school.  But, we had a very happy life growing up in … we had a happy life in Elsthorpe.  Ros had a hand it getting Pony Club going out there, and I served my time on the school committee as Chairman of the School Committee.  And I was even Chairman of the National Party for a while, like you were Frank.  We were always disappointed when the local MP, John Falloon, used to come to our annual meeting and on one or two occasions he would ring up at the last minute and say he couldn’t make it.  And he was – sadly he was fairly careful, because we used to have him at the Hawke’s Bay Show when I was on the committee there for 25 years, and we’d put a raffle book in front of him, but he never had any money.

I worked with all those politicians, they were all the same.

Were they?

Yes, they were fair weather friends – yes, it was funny really.  In election year they were right beside you. They were so good friends because they wanted the money and they wanted the membership and all that, but once they got elected they …  I don’t ever regret the time I gave the National Party because I was a Divisional Councillor and I did lots of things within the system.  We tried – I tried – I thought I could influence the party to change Muldoon’s direction, but after a while I got to know Muldoon quite well, and he wasn’t such a bad fellow.  But anyway that’s another story.

Yes, it is.

After 35 years of sheep farming, I never had an interesting conversation with a mob of ewes yet, or a herd of cattle, but when we walked the Milford Track with a couple of friends in 1970, Ros said “wouldn’t it be great to come back here one day and spend more time?”  And I remembered her having said that and I had a rather crazy idea at one stage of selling the farm at St Lawrence Road … I heard of a property that was coming up on the market in the Wairarapa … it’d be twice the area and I thought possibly twice the potential, and similar outlay. So, I set the wheels in motion to put the idea – with the idea of putting the farm on the market and shifted camp to the Wairarapa, but it – at the last minute this fella changed his mind and decided he wasn’t going to sell.

So, I found that rather unsettling at the time and then … the idea of applying for a job on the Milford Track to have a change from farming. Ros said she wondered if I had the equivalent of the male menopause.  Anyway, I wrote to the Milford Track authorities – it used to be run by THC – and they said “oh well, if you come down here we’ll have a look at you and see if you’re suitable for running one of our huts”.  And I said “well, can’t we see someone in the North Island, you know – it’s a helluva long way to go down there just on the off chance.” So they said “oh yes, we could – if you come to Wellington we’ll interview you there.”   So we went down there and said to them, “well, if a hut keeper’s job on the Milford Track comes up we’d like to take you on” and we said we’d do it as a husband and wife hut keeper and cook, and our three daughters will be the hut staff.  And we also said that we’d like to employ our own staff rather than you just send us Tom, Jack and Dick from Waikikamukau, we’ll employ our own staff and they said “oh, well we couldn’t let you do that unless the staff guarantee to stay for three weeks minimum.”

Anyway we got the job at Pompalona and some of our friends thought I had a screw loose and the other 50% said “Oh, I’d love to do something like that but I can’t get away.”   Well of course you can’t because you’re locked into farming aren’t you?  So after – with the upset of thinking about getting a bigger property and then it falling through – I was a bit unsettled in my mind I suppose, but I – we went down to Pompalona and we really … we loved it, because you couldn’t have a bigger change from – sort of lifestyle, being a servant of the sheep and cattle to being…

What age were the children at that stage?

The girls were both – one was at varsity and another one was just about to start and Pip, the youngest was 12.  So she could only come in the school holidays, but Sally the second one, said “oh I’m not going to bury myself on the Milford Track from November to February”.  And I said “I’m sorry Sally, but we’ve taken this job on as a family operation and you’ve got to come, we need you.” And she – so she came feeling reluctant about it, but she was the one who rang us up in July the next year and said let’s do it again.

She had a boyfriend who she recommended we get as a track man, because we had two track men and two hut girls and Ros and I were hut keeper and cook, so it was a staff of six you see, at each hut.  But Steve Hanna was – he was a track man and he and Sally married later on, and are still happily married.  And to our pleasant surprise they have a nice home in Wellington at Seatoun just looking out over the Harbour where the ferries go past. They’ve amazed us by ringing us one – a couple of weeks ago – and they said “we’ve just bought a home in Te Awanga, and we’re selling our business in Wellington and selling the home and we hope to be moving up in February or March.”  They’ve got quite a number of friends there already and so she was talking to some of her friends the other day and they said “oh, we’ve got a place in Hawke’s Bay” or “we’ve got a house at Te Awanga”, but Sally said “yes, but I’m the only one that was born in Hawke’s Bay.”

So how long did you go to the Milford then?

Oh – well, we did it for three years, for three summers and we leased our farm to a neighbour who was the farm manager on St Lawrence Station – a chap called Don Smith – and we leased the farm, and we sold the stock to him and so we had to buy the stock back when we started farming again after three years. But that worked out alright.

But, it was a wonderful existence down there because, you know – farming in many ways – in the country, especially when your back a bit down the arse end of Porangahau for instance – it’s a – it can be quite a lonely life, you know, and you’re very dependent on your own family and the need to get along with each other.  But, it opened up a whole new life for us because we’d get a call on the radio to say – from THC boss – he’d say “we’ve got Questors Tours & Travel are sending their group up the track tomorrow … give them a hand and do anything you can to help because they have another tour in February”.  And you know, these were a group of 24 I think, which was more than half the party. So we said “OK, we’ll do our best” so without the other members of the team sort of … feeling that they were being neglected in any way, we just went out of our way to be pleasant to these people.  And so they used to send two student graduates from America with the party, and so they said “thanks very much for looking after us, we’ll see you again in February when we’ll be back.” So, when they came back in February I took these two 20 and 21 year old university graduates who were looking after the party of birders – they were birding enthusiasts, Questors Tours & Travel clients.   I said “this is bloody ridiculous, you two American lads showing the party through my country – I could do it far better”, and they said “well, if you think you can, you’d better get in touch with our boss.”  So I got in touch with the boss, by mail and by telephone and generally made a nuisance of myself for a couple of years – we were still on the track.  Anyway, when we came off the track I was still needling away to Questors Tours & Travel, and so to my pleasant surprise they sent out Woody Hartman who was a – he was tour leader – but they named me as tour leader and Woody Hartman was assistant.  So I got to be the tour leader round New Zealand of Questors Tours & Travel for this group, and they had a wonderful tour through New Zealand, Questors did.  They landed in Auckland, flew to the Bay of Islands, had two nights up there, then flew to Rotorua, two nights there doing the birds and the scenery in that district. And then flew to Mt Cook two nights there.

Were you with them?

Yes.  It was a 17 day tour.  Then fly to Te Anau, walk the Milford Track which is five nights, fly to Stewart Island two nights there then fly from Stewart Island back to Christchurch, two nights there.  And we used to take them out to the big birds at Banks Peninsula and then away.

What a trip!

Yes, well – I organised, with the boss, that Ros could join us.  She joined us – I think two nights in Rotorua, two nights at Mt Cook and somewhere else, and when Hartman went back to the States he said “Harker would be alright so long as Ros is not far behind.”  And, the very next tour they sent 24 people, and Ros and I were the tour leaders, so we went through New Zealand with them, and … see, it only took us away from the farm for 17-18 days, and by this time, after 35 years there, we’d cranked the farm up a bit so we could afford to have a married man.  So it, you know … we weren’t neglecting our home base.

But the icing on the cake was when I persuaded the boss to … I said “instead of THC doing all your New Zealand bookings” I said “we’ve just formed New Zealand Nature Expeditions as tour operators, licensed tour operators,” I said “why don’t we do the bookings?” and he said, the boss in New York said “well you give us a quote.” So, we did our sums and gave him a quote and they said – he came back to us – this was by fax I think in those days rather than email, he said “your price is bigger than THC’s price.” I said “well if you tell us THC’s price we’ll match it”. Anyway the long and the short of it was we got to do the bookings, and of course that’s where the cream is, because the accountant said – our accountant said – “you’re only charging 10%, you’re only making 10% on all this work you are doing, we think you should make it 20%,” which we did, and so long as we did the job properly and people felt satisfied that they’d got fair value for money, everybody was happy.

So each year from 1983 we left the Milford Track in … ’76, ’77, ’78 we … we were on the Milford Track those three years and then I think we did our first Questors one in ’81. So it was a three year time lag.  But we did it every year with them, twice a year – November and February – walking the  Track, until Questors gave up in 2000.  So we had 20 years with them really.  Then when Questors packed it in I started – my nephew Nick Harker, Peter’s son, farms at – my brother Peter died 15 years ago.  Nick, his son, who’s a similar age to our son Jeremy – he farms Peter’s property now, or since his father died. And he’s married to Birgit, a Danish girl, and they have a family of four, and the parents come out every year to see them.  And I said to Henry, who I get on with like a house on fire, I said to him “you come all the way from Denmark and then you fly back again”. That set Henry thinking, and damn it all next year he got in touch and said “Right, I’m getting 16 or 18 people together, you plan a tour round New Zealand for us”.  And so for 12 years in a row Henry and I – we hired at 42 seater bus, usually from Waipawa Buses who I know well because … and Henry and I drove it, cheaper than paying a driver.

You had a bus licence?

Yes, and for the Questors people that Henry brought – once they arrived here all their meals were included, even when we were travelling.  We always had two nights’ stays, because you know any holiday with one night stays is just hard work. Always two nights stays – sometimes three nights, and if Henry and I … if we felt that a place was a bit of a fizzer, we’d fine tune it so that next year we wouldn’t use it. And we finished up with a 26 day tour from North Auckland to Stewart Island and doing the West Coast.

So you’re really a tour operator.

Well, we still get a consideration from the tax department because when Henry stopped coming – actually the last two or three years that they did it after my 12 year stint, they did it with Henry’s daughter and she sort of took over with Henry what we’d been doing, ‘cos she speaks Danish . So that was fine.

So Ros then formed Rosark Travel and she did – she’s had the RHS garden group from England around New Zealand gardens two or three times over the years and she’s taken New Zealand groups to Australia and she’s also taken New Zealand groups to France and Italy a number of times.

You’d think that I must have twisted Questors round my little finger, but we suggested to them that if Ros and I went to Australia and did their route at our own expense, to make ourselves familiar with the Australian birds – of which there are bloody hundreds – 800 I think – maybe we could do the Australian tour as well.  So, we did the Australian tour for several years, and also the Hawaiian itinerary we did several times for Questors, and that’s very nice, the Hawaiian tour because they fly to the three different islands and Questors only had the best available accommodation.

Gosh, that’s incredible to know it all was happening from a little village in Havelock.

But it all started from Milford Track you see.  A  lot of my mates thought I’d you know Harker must have gone off his nut, fancy going down and being a hut keeper on the Milford Track.

See lots of people think about doing these things, but they never do them, do they?

Well, between ourselves I think some’s of them are bogged down with the fact that they went to Wanganui Collegiate or Christ College you know. That’s become their whole existence.

I did something a few years ago when I was 70 – I thought of several things I hadn’t done and one was to learn the mandolin and the other was to buy a motorbike and ride it to Invercargill  to Northland. I bought the motorbike first, a big wide Honda 650, and the family and all my friends thought I’d gone mad, absolutely – “have you …  going back to …” and I said “no!”  Anyway I’ve done all those things and it’s been the most wonderful experience I could’ve ever had.  ‘Course my grandkids were in Winton at that stage, in Southland so I had a reason to ride down that way, and the other kids in Auckland and so yeah, it was great.  But you know, there’s nothing I’ve done I regret doing. I’m pleased I did them. 

So anyway, during this you were farming and of course you were obviously doing other things. You said you did quite a lot of sailing. Was that while the children were younger or ..?

No, Sometimes I would take a week off from the farm and join a good sailor with a good 40 foot keeler – in a sloop rigged keeler – and I’ve enjoyed sailing with him, sometimes out of Napier, sometimes out of Auckland. I’ve been round the North Island and round the South Island with him and had the nice experience of sailing – joining him in Milford and sailing into the Fiords where Captain Cook used to rest up and so on.  Learnt a bit about sailing on the way.  Did I – I talk earlier about crossing the Atlantic?

Yes, the Boston trip crossing the Atlantic.  So you know you’ve really been – always had a hankering for the outdoors. You probably never ever knew when you were younger that you had this urge, did you?

No, perhaps not. ‘Course you get to love the outdoors in the farming life I think. Thinking back – two of my farming friends finished up their life committing suicide, which is an awful waste, and I hope it’s not going to happen to dairy farmers because some of them must be backs to the wall these days.

I see they’ve got another rise in price at the sale this morning, didn’t they – overnight?  I can’t remember how much it was.

Well perhaps they’ve turned a corner.

Well, yes but the quantities are not – it’s because the … Fonterra’s not putting so much out on the market – they’ve reduced the amount available and so that obviously has some bearing.

Lifted the price.

So then you carried on with all your other entrepreneurial interests – you still carried on farming, and you farmed until 1993 was it?

Yes, we handed over to Jeremy then.

And so you retired to Reeve Drive, Havelock North.

We handed over to Jeremy in 1993 but we stayed – well I worked for him and we didn’t wean ourselves away from Pine Bush until ’97.

How big was Pine Bush?

1043 acres.

Oh – it’s a good size farm.

Yes, a good size farm but you know only 100 acres of flat and 300 acres of arable and the rest hill.

So you must have backed on to, you backed onto the Tukituki?

No, there’s another property.

Oh, is there? 

Yes. The stream which comes down … the Makara Stream which comes down through Elsthorpe and it bounds St Lawrence and Pine Bush and it runs into the Tukituki.  But there’s another property called – partly St Lawrence and partly what is now Guy Bell’s farm. He bought from the Smiths’ property which is between us and the Tukituki.

I’m waiting for a cataract operation.

I knew there must be a reason why you weren’t playing so well.

Well do you know – our little TV set is only about eight feet away from where we sit in an evening, but you know if we’re watching – we’ve been watching tennis just the last few days – I can’t read the score, you know which is in big writing. It’s a blur, so I’m hoping the cataract operation will change all that.

Oh yes, I’m sure it will.

Have you had it?

No, but I know people that have.

Apparently it makes all the difference.

In fact I subscribe to a chap over in the Islands who does cataract operations all the time. I send $25 a month – what’s his name?  He’s a New Zealander who did all the cataract operations on the cheap – he does them for $25 a head, and I got a letter today to say about this photo of this chap who I’ve given sight to, so he’s able to go back to work.  It’s amazing … $25 a time.

Is that a fact?

Yes – and they’re about … several thousand here.

Anyway – that’s fascinating really – this story is amazing. Two things I haven’t asked you – No1 is … and I did ask you but I need you to tell me – how did you get the nickname “Buster”?

Ah – well I – the two eldest in the family – I was fourth out of five children – and my two elder sisters were ten years and seven years older than me and for some reason they hung the name of Buster on me when I was about three. I don’t know if it had anything to do with Buster Keaton who was perhaps in the movies on those times, but that’s how it started.

It’s certainly stuck hasn’t it?

Yes, it has.

And the other thing is your age at the time of interview? 

Oh, 90 years and four months. My birthday was – well we celebrated our 60^th wedding anniversary with family and about 10 close friends – most of whom had been at our wedding –  and about 38 cousins and husbands and nieces and nephews and grandchildren.  So we had a … we built a new home on the farm in 1965.   My father started the Waipukurau Wine & Spirit Company with his friend Frankie Dunne who was an accountant in Waipukurau.  He told me they put up £50 each and they got a liquor licence to form the Waipukurau Wine & Spirit Company. My father died in ’54 and my brother took over being a director.  My father died of a heart attack at the age of 67 and Peter carried on with Frankie Dunne’s widow – they were both directors, but she was a difficult woman and difficult to work with and Peter was farming up in the King Country and had had enough I think, and she was bending over backwards to buy out our share which she eventually did.  So … my younger sister died at the age of 26 from a heart problem which could have been fixed now, but it killed her. So Peter agreed to sell our half of the business for £80,000 so each of the four of us got 20,000 which enabled us to build a new home on the farm.

I started to say a few minutes ago – one of the real joys of what we did on the Milford Track was that we arranged with the boss that we would employ our own staff if he would allow us, and he decreed that they had to stay a minimum of three weeks otherwise there was too much bookkeeping with turning the wage book on and off. So we were able to invite some our not so young friends like ourselves, as couples – sometimes as couples – the oldest ones we ever had was my sister and her favourite cousin and when they came they were women – in their – well, Oddie de Chateau – my cousin – died last year at the age of 99.  So last year was 2014 and we were on the Milford Track in 76, 77, 78. You can work it out.

It’s a long time.

They were grandmothers – both grandmothers when they came down, and they rolled up their sleeves and made the beds and cleaned the loos and anything … everything that housemaids have to do, and they just loved it. And we were able to have some of our middle-aged – well, same age as ourselves.  Actually I was 50 when we went there so … you know anyone who is 50 now looks really young to us.

They do.

So our 50+ friends who came with us onto the track really loved it because … one little old lady came puffing up the track to the Pompalona Hut which we were in by the river – and that’s probably the hut you remember Frank.  Yes, the hut we were in on the Milford Track was washed away a couple of years after we left it. It was the river caused a huge slip which undermined the bank above where the hut was sitting above the creek, and it was panic stations for THC who operated the Milford Track at that time because this happened in September, and the track was due to open six weeks later.  So they did an incredible job in that they cleared a patch of bush about 200 metres higher up from where the old hut had been, and they flew in building materials and erected a hut ready to operate the Track in time to open early November. But that was another plus – that we were able to share the sights and sounds of the Milford Track with many of our friends who came and worked there with us.