Heyward, Kevin, Beverley McMurtrie and Jenny Gambirazzi Interview

Today is 16th October 2023. My name is Judy Shinnick and I will be interviewing Beverley McMurtrie, Kevin Heyward, and Jenny Gambirazzi about their parents, Eiola and Fred Heyward. Eiola was formerly known as Eiola Anderson, and the interview is taking place in Beverley’s home in Hastings. And I think, Jenny, you’re going to start off?

Jenny Gambirazzi: Okay. So this is our remembrances of Fred and Eiola Heyward, our parents. Fred was born in Blenheim and came up to Hawke’s Bay in his middle to late twenties. He was a musterer; a shepherd on many farms in the South Island, and then worked his way up to Hawke’s Bay. He was coming up here because his sister had a farm at Whakatu, and Fred stayed there with his sister when they first came. An article that was written for their Golden Wedding talks about the time our dad met our mum … the first time he saw her. He was shaving in the bathroom of his sister’s home, our Aunty Emma, when Eiola passed by the open window. He leaned out the window to watch her, and Eiola says he was still watching, lather and all, when she came back five minutes later; and then as we say, the rest is history.

He was on his way to work in Gisborne, and we understand, possibly go to Argentina to be a shepherd over there, but he never got north of Napier. Mum entrapped him I think; he said after that it took him twenty years to eventually get to Gisborne.

Our mum, Eiola, lived on the family farm of the Andersons, Seba and Alan Anderson, at Mangateretere, and their farm backed and wrapped around where the Mangateretere School is now. They had about a hundred acres there apparently.

So Mum and Dad courted for five years before they got married, and then they moved into Norton Road in Hastings where they had a small milk run. They then went to work for the Hartrees at Ngaroto Station which is up Patoka way. They were there for three years, and that’s where our older brother, Colin, who has since passed away, was born. Then they came back to Havelock North and they bought property on Havelock Road, where they milked cows and grew veges under contract to the Army during the Second World War. After the war the area was planted out in fruit trees and they ran an orchard there before selling up and moving out to Havelock North, in Campbell Street where I grew up.

Dad had many hobbies, and he was involved in racing pigeons; he was involved in the swimming club, which we’ll talk about a little bit later. He always said he was a bowler’s widower because Mum was heavily involved in bowling out at Havelock North, and also in St Columba’s Church.

So I’ll pass over to Kevin and Beverley for some memories about their life on the orchard. It was called Glenlea, and it’s still called Glenlea, and it’s on the Hastings-Havelock road.

Beverley McMurtrie: Right. Dad also had cows that he milked, ‘cause I can remember helping him do that; that was before the fruit trees were put in. He grew peas and tomatoes for Wattie’s – that would’ve been after the war. And he grew the fruit; that was just the orchard – had sales at the gate but he also consigned fruit all over mainly the North Island … used to drive the truck to the railway station to be consigned to wherever.

And were you part of helping out on the orchard or the gardens?

I very much helped on the orchard, pruning, thinning, picking, grading; in the early days driving the spray outfit, especially when it was frost-fighting time. I used to drive the spray outfit and Dad would walk behind and fill the oil pots. What a filthy job, but we did it. So I worked there weekends during my school life, and yeah – just was Dad’s right hand man, I suppose you’d call me. [Chuckle] I mean he did employ other pickers and things.

Kevin and Jenny, did you work on the orchard helping out as well?

Jenny: No, I didn’t. I was an afterthought in the family, and they sold the orchard when I was nearly two and moved out to Havelock North.

Kevin Heyward: I grew up on the orchard until I was twelve, and orchard life … we had a great time, you know, it was good in the Hastings-Havelock Road, growing up there. Colin, my brother – he was eight years older than me – and when he turned fifteen or sixteen he left home to go to the Navy, and I think it was on his first or second leave home [that] Jenny had popped out, [chuckles] so Mum and Dad replaced him with Jenny. [Chuckles]

Kevin were you second eldest?

No.

You were, Beverley?

Kevin: Yeah. I was the baby in the family until Jenny turned up. [Chuckle] [Chuckle] Yes. On the orchard … just got this book here which is ‘100 Years of Harvest in Hawke’s Bay’ [‘100 Harvests – a history of fruitgrowing in Hawke’s Bay’], and Dad’s mentioned in this. He was on the committee for the Blossom Parade, the first Blossom Parade that was organised by the fruit growers in 1950. And that’s a photo there; myself and Bev, and that was the truck that he put in. That was our orchard truck; he decorated that with real blossom cut off the trees for the Blossom Parade. And he also – got another photo somewhere – he had the old spray outfit, which I remember was an old Federal Knight truck with a sprayer on the back, and it had a Chev motor that drove the sprayer. He also put that into the Blossom Parade too. We don’t know who the driver of that truck was in the Blossom Parade, it could have been our next door neighbour, Fred Apley, or one of the Masters … not quite sure.

Jenny: That’s impressive.

Kevin: Yeah. So that was us growing up in the orchard. And then we went to Havelock North, Campbell Street; Mum and Dad sold the orchard and went to Havelock North, and Dad still worked at Masters’ orchard which was over the road from us in Havelock Road, from Glenlea. So he worked on Masters’ orchard until he retired, and some. And he also worked at Lucknow School as the caretaker … did a stint there for two years, I think.

Before retirement?

Well, he’d retired, he was well in his seventies … he worked there. But going back to Mum and Dad’s achievements – heavily involved in the Havelock North Swimming Club from 1944, so that must’ve been for our brother, Colin, when he started swimming. Dad’s got citations; he became a life member, so that was their main involvement. But there was the Pigeon Club; he was involved with the Hawke’s Bay Pigeon Club – its rooms were down in Karamu Road. He was also involved with the Boxing Association in Hawke’s Bay, and Bev and myself [can] remember going to the Municipal Theatre to watch boxing. I think they call it Toitoi now.

Was he boxing himself?

Kevin: No, he didn’t box, but he just loved the boxing and he was on the Association.

Bev: He also used to take us to watch the rugby at Nelson Park, Saturday afternoon rugby.

Kevin: But with the swimming club we still had the old truck … 1928 Chev pickup truck … and all us kids used to sit on the back and go to Mahora, to Raureka, to Mayfair, Central and Havelock North. They were all the different swimming clubs; we’d travel round those different days of the week at night time – it was always at night.

What was happening at night?

That was swimming events for the swimming club, so swimming carnivals which were big things back in the fifties and sixties.

Are you able to tell us a little bit more about, you know, what they were like?

Bev: The swimming carnivals?

Yes.

I don’t know about Kevin or Jenny, but I represented Havelock North Swimming Club at the Hawke’s Bay Championships. [Cough]

Jenny: I did the same, and also the Hawke’s Bay-Poverty Bay Swimming Association at the North Island Swimming Championships. Dad and Mum were both managers for many years of Hawke’s Bay representative teams that went to the Swimming Nationals. It was a real family atmosphere. [Cough] Dad was made a life member of the Havelock North Swimming Club in 1969 and then in 1974 he was made a life member of the Hawke’s Bay-Poverty Bay Swimming Centre, they called it – I always knew it as the Association. But he was a swimming judge, and used to judge at local Hawke’s Bay and National level … at National swimming levels … and he had joined the club in 1944. From 1946 he was on the committee right through to 1974 when this citation was written, and beyond that – a huge time. In that time he’d been a judge, a timekeeper, a chief judge since 1959; he was the billeting officer for fifteen years and used to organise ‘home stays’, I guess we’d call them now, but visiting teams would be billeted out; they didn’t stay in motels or camping grounds or anything, they’d stay with …

Kevin: Individual …

Jenny: … families that belonged to the swimming clubs. Well Dad organised all of that for fifteen years, which would’ve been a huge job. He was a carnival organiser – he used to organise the summer carnival each year – and the team manager. He also took on the responsibility of representing one of the Gisborne clubs on the Hawke’s Bay-Poverty Bay Association because I think they used to meet down here, and to save travel of their delegates he always acted as a delegate for them. Yeah. Swimming was our life really.

Kevin: Our life …

Jenny: All of us were competitive swimmers. And I don’t know, but Dad told a story of when he was about eleven or twelve in Blenheim, swimming down the river and one of their mates got into trouble and drowned, and neither of the others could swim. And from that day he determined that he would teach himself to swim and if he had kids that we’d all be swimmers, and we were. It was just our life.

Kevin: As Jenny and Bev said, they both represented Hawke’s Bay. From Havelock North Swimming Club I represented Hawke’s Bay as well … represented Havelock North at the Hawke’s Bay Champs. [Championships] So we’ve all gone through it, you know.

Bev: Havelock North Swimming Club used to rotate with the swimming club in Gisborne; can’t remember its actual name …

Kevin & Jenny: Olympic.

Bev: … alternate years. They’d either come down to us or we’d go up to them …

Jenny: That’s right.

Bev: … and take a whole group of swimmers, so that was good fun.

Jenny: Bev, you might like to talk about the fundraising for the new swimming pool [speaking together] at Havelock, ‘cause you were very involved in that.

Bev: Yes. Dad would’ve been involved on that committee. Yes, they chose me as the Havelock Swimming Club Queen, and there were three other Queens.

What was the role of the Queen?

It was to raise money for the new swimming pool at Havelock North; they renovated the pool, and that was a big thing. Yes, so each Queen’s committee had functions to raise money, and that’s what we did. Yes, and that was quite good fun.

Over what years was the fundraising?

Kevin: ‘60, ‘61?

Bev: No, it would’ve been in the fifties ‘cause I got married in ’59 and it was before I got married; probably ’57, ’58 perhaps?

Kevin: I can remember Dad running I think he called it ‘Housie Housie’ [bingo] at the Highland Games …

Jenny: Oh, at the Highland Games at Easter … [speaking together]

Kevin: … every Highland Games at Windsor Park, and the Havelock North Swimming Club had this game, ‘Housie Housie’; they raised money for the Havelock North swimming pool.

And you can’t remember how many years it took to raise the money?

Kevin: The pools were open in 1961, so it took a while. It was only the Havelock North Borough Council then, there was nothing combined with Hastings so it was really separate. And there wasn’t [weren’t] very many people. Great population of Havelock North back then, and … Yeah – no, it was just one of those things, they all got together and I think the local builders … Lays? Was it Lays who actually built the swimming pool?

Jenny: It says here in his citation that was written for his life membership application that ‘One of his many outstanding contributions to the Havelock North club was the part he played in the fundraising during the Havelock North Borough Council centennial celebrations to raise money for the development of the new swimming pool. Even prior to this he’d spent many hours raising funds to install filtration plants in the Havelock North Baths. Over many years Fred has always given his time and effort for the purpose of raising money for the club. The people of Havelock North and surrounding districts owe this man a debt of gratitude because he was one of the few people who had the foresight and willingness to work so that we can now enjoy the fine facility of the Havelock North Swimming Baths’. And he was made a life member of the Havelock North club in 1969. So that citation was written in 1974, so … centennial pools.

So this was before he retired?

Kevin: Yeah.

So it must have been a very busy life?

Jenny: He was working full time. I remember when he was working on the orchard and we lived out at Havelock, Dad’d be home at five-fifteen, five-twenty. Mum’d have dinner on the table at five-thirty; at six o’clock if it was during frost time or busy time on the orchard, he’d be back to work at six o’clock. And he always supported us in whatever we were interested in; like Kevin was a cyclist, and …

Kevin: Yeah, I got involved with cycling with the Ramblers Cycling Club in Havelock North, and straight away – I was only fifteen at the time – straight away Dad got on the committee, so that was another committee he was on. He was already on the swimming club committee, but still found time to go on another committee.

Very sort of family and community oriented?

Yeah. And [of] course Mum, was involved heavily in the swimming club as well as a chaperone through the years. But her main interests were her bowling club, Havelock North Women’s Bowling Club.

Bev: And they both grew roses and showed roses; they won many certificates.

Jenny: And Dad bred birds, and used to show birds at the local Caged …

What sort of birds?

Kevin: Canaries, budgies …

Jenny: Zebra finches.

Kevin: But we just found an interesting thing that Jenny brought up when we were going through all these bits and pieces … that when Dad showed his birds at the Caged Bird Club he always put them down under Jenny’s name.

Jenny: [Chuckle] I’ve got all the certificates. [Chuckles]

Kevin: He grew roses. We had a great rose garden in Campbell Street which was absolutely beautiful; it was a show piece, wasn’t it? It really was. Dad’s garden and Mum’s garden was a show piece, and now it’s a car park. [Chuckle] Dad’s roses were his passion, you know, he really loved them. When he was working on the orchard at Masters, not only was he working on the orchard, he was doing Molly Masters’ roses as well. And she used to show her roses and Dad would show his roses, and it was always firsts and seconds between the two of them.

But it was your dad that [who] did the work for both?

It was Dad that [who] did the work.

Okay, so either way, he came first and second. [Chuckles]

But he just did so many things, you know?

Jenny: He did. And I was just thinking and reading here about Mum. She was quietly always there by his side, and as Kevin said she was very involved in the Havelock North Women’s Bowling Club and was made a life member. She was a past president of that club and she served on that committee for twenty-two years, so she had a long involvement. Dad always said he was a bowling widower.

Kevin: Yeah. And she was involved with the St Columba’s Church as well … welfare.

Bev: Op shop.

Jenny: Yeah. And she initially worked when I was little at the Hillsbrook Children’s Home. She ran the laundry there, and I remember going up …

Kevin: Sliding down the big slide?

Jenny: Slide down the fire escape slides. [Chuckles]

So whereabouts was that?

Bev: It’s on Te Mata Road, [speaking together] and it’s roughly where the Catholic Church is.

Kevin: Yeah, just beyond that.

So it sounds like she was really involved in the community as well?

Kevin: Oh! Definitely was. [All in agreement]

They seem very, you know, high energy, passionate people about everything they did?

[All in agreement]

Jenny: And a nice thing they’ve got written here, which is an article in the paper when their Golden Wedding was celebrated; it says, ‘Warm-hearted and kindly people, Eiola and Fred Heyward’s home was always being thrown open to their own and their children’s friends. When their eldest son, Colin, was in the Royal Navy, he often would bring home a group of four or five petty officers to stay. And on another occasion as a result of an SOS from Greater Hastings for accommodation, they had a complete girls’ marching team bedded down in sleeping bags in the living room floor’. And we often used to have swimming people coming to stay as well. Yeah, they were a good team. And they said their recipe for a long and happily married life was togetherness … working together in their children’s interest[s] and in the leisure time interests of each other. And that really summed them up.

That’s how you remember them?

Mmm, very much so, yeah.

Bev: Yeah.

Can you tell us more about your memories of them?

Kevin: My memory of Dad was Dad was always an old man. He was forty-five when I was born; he was fifty-two when Jenny was born, so to us he was an old man. He wasn’t a young man, he didn’t meet Mum until he was thirty-one. ‘Cause Dad and Mum both went through the 1931 earthquake.

Which part of Hawke’s Bay were they living in?

Kevin: Well Dad was at Whakatu; he was a yard man at the freezing works at the time when the earthquake struck. And he always told me that his priority on that day, when the freezing works started to collapse – it’d been pay day. He got paid in cash – he ran back into his locker to get his money. [Chuckles]

And Mum was working on her father’s farm with her brothers. Grandad was dead by then; he’d died in a motor vehicle accident, one of the first in Hawke’s Bay back in 1928?

Bev: ‘29 …

Kevin: So Mum was working on the orchard, and they were doing hay … had the thresher machine going, stacking up the big haystack. And Mum was on top – her job was standing on top getting the sort of bundles of hay pitchforked up to her, and she was doing the stacking on top. And she yelled out to her brothers, “Stop, you can see the earth rolling!” And the earthquake hit; she got thrown off …

Jenny and Kevin: Onto the ground.

Right, so from quite a high ..?

Kevin: Quite a height. She crawled home – what’d she say?

Bev: She said to me that she hit a fencepost and hurt her back, and it took her the rest of the day to crawl back to the house. Yeah.

Jenny: And she’s told me that the ground was opening up and closing in front of her, ‘cause they were just having continual aftershocks.

Did she have any very serious injury from that?

Bev: No, but she always wore a corset all her life.

Jenny: After that.

Bev: After that. Support, I suppose, for her back. But she never mentioned operations or anything. Didn’t have scars.

Kevin: And another survival thing they had was when they were up at Patoka, on the sheep station up there. It was 1938 – they’d been into town and got supplies and they were on their way home; crossed the Rissington bridge, it was teeming with rain. And a farmer above it saw them cross it, and then he looked out and the bridge had gone in the flood. And that was the 1938 floods.

That was right through Eskdale, wasn’t it?

Kevin: That was right through Eskdale. So they just crossed that bridge, and then a minute later it wasn’t there. So somebody was on their side that day. So they’d been through the ’31 earthquake and the 1938 floods.

Did they talk about those two events very much?

Kevin: No.

Bev: Not much … mentioned it but …

Jenny: Not much.

Bev: … not really

Kevin: No, we’ve found out a few things since, which we didn’t know – I’ve got [a] couple of photos up there I can show you later. Dad helped with the clean up in Hastings after the earthquake. He volunteered to help there; he also volunteered to be what we call Community Patrol now, but back in those days it was to stop looting. [I’ve] got his baton there and his police badge. He was on that to stop looting – there was a group of them – at night time. So he did the patrol at night and helped clean up during the day.

And where your parents were living … like, were they okay housing wise?

Kevin: Yeah, well the house where Mum was at the time, because they weren’t married then, so Dad must have been at …

Jenny: Aunty Emma’s …

Kevin: … and that house was still there, wasn’t it? And the homestead at Mangateretere next to the school … it’s been altered, but it’s still there today.

Jenny: But I remember Mum telling me that they lived in the garage for about six weeks after the earthquake, and with the aftershocks how much the furniture would move, so I don’t know whether it was because there was damage to the homestead or they felt it was safer out in the garage, I don’t know.

Kevin: The photos I’ve got … ‘Dad, Napier, ‘31 Earthquake … Dad there on patrol, and one there helping with the clean up. Michael Fowler wrote an interesting article about the community patrols back then to stop looting. They were issued with a revolver, and the law was back then, you could shoot looters.

Well, that’s changed, hasn’t it?

Kevin: It has changed.

How old was your father?

Kevin: He would’ve been thirty …

Jenny: He was born in 1901.

And what about your mum, how old was she?

Kevin: She was born in 1910.

Jenny: So she would’ve been twenty-one.

That’s interesting, you know, seeing them in the police …

Kevin: Yeah, there was …

… uniform.

… eleven years between Mum and Dad which was quite a gap. That’s where Jenny and I had an old father. [Laughter]

Bev: And I don’t remember him as being old, he was just my dad. But probably I had no one, only my friends’ fathers … I never looked at men and thought, ‘Gosh you’re old’. [Chuckles]

But your perception was different to Kevin and Jenny.

Bev: Yes, Kevin’s five years after me. Yes, Dad and I were good mates and if I did anything wrong during the day Mum would always say, “I’ll tell your father when he gets home, he’ll deal with you.” But he never did. It was always Mum that was the disciplinarian.

Did she ever tell him?

Bev: I have no idea. [Chuckles]

And Bev, do you have any particular memories about your parents?

Bev: Oh, just what Jenny and Kevin have said – always involved in whatever we were interested in. Yes, they got involved, and it was good. We had a good life.

Kevin: Yeah, we did, we did. They were both eighty-four when they died, you know, even though it was ten years apart, And my brother died last year, and he said, “I want to live until I’m eighty-five”, and he did; he was eighty-five and nine days. Bev’s going to outlive us all, [chuckle] she’s going to be like our great-grandfather – he died on his hundredth birthday.

You’ve got longevity in the genes …

Bev: Don’t know about that. [Chuckle]

Kevin: So Mum and Dad’s life … very interesting life in Hawke’s Bay, and I think they contributed – as you can see from that – a lot to not only the Fruitgrowers’ Federation back then, Swimming Club, Pigeon Club, Rose Society …

Yes, you haven’t told us anything …

Canary Club …

… about the Pigeon Club yet.

Kevin: Yeah, well when we were on the orchard Dad had a lot of pigeons he raced; he raced pigeons and that was another passion.

Bev: And he used to bring them on the truck to Karamu Road, that Pigeon Club building was there. And yes, I’d go with him then, and he’d clock the birds in for a race day, and then we’d be all sitting at home waiting for the birds to arrive and he’d clock them in again.

Kevin: Yeah, they used to go by rail down to Dannevirke or Palmerston North or something like that, and then they’d race home, you see.

That’s amazing!

Bev: Yeah, it is. There is a Pigeon Club still going, I think.

Jenny: It says here in the article that ‘Pigeon Racing Club rooms in Railway Road were built with timber from a huge macrocarpa tree felled on the Heyward property and milled for that express purpose’.

Kevin & Bev: Oh, there you go.

Kevin: Another one. Something I didn’t know, so there’s something I’ve learnt today.

So is that in a newspaper article?

Jenny: This is the newspaper article celebrating their Golden Wedding in 1984.

Kevin: But he used to like taking us to the boxing, and to the rugby at Nelson Park. He still had time to do those plus all his committee work.

Yes … I mean it sounds like he was a man [who] fitted in a lot …

Kevin: A lot, a lot.

… like, lived life to the full.

And he had the most beautiful vege garden … huge. And he’d spent hours out there digging.

Jenny: Oh, every minute of every day, whenever he could.

Kevin: Every spare minute he had he would be in the … I think in you know, summer time, he’d be up at five o’clock, out digging the vege garden, you know. Everything was done by hand in it.

So altogether, how many years did he have in Hawke’s Bay?

Jenny: He was eighty-four when he died, so …

Kevin: He would’ve been here in his late twenties …

Bev: Yes.

Kevin: … so he was here in the 1931 earthquake so probably [a] couple of years before that, so he might’ve been here from when he was twenty-nine.

So a good many years, and your mum was here the whole … born and bred?

Jenny: Yeah.

Kevin: Mum was born and bred – well, she wasn’t born here, she was born around …

Jenny: She was born in Masterton; grew up on the farm at Mangateretere.

Kevin: [Her] father came up and started farming up here. But Dad was from a big family of …

Jenny: Nine children.

Kevin: Thirteen …

Jenny: I thought nine, but …

Bev: I thought it was eleven. [Laughter]

Jenny: Many kids.

Somewhere between nine and thirteen? [Chuckle]

Bev: Not thirteen.

Kevin: Mum had …

Jenny: Three brothers.

So you’d’ve had lots of cousins?

Kevin: Lots of cousins, still lots of cousins here in Hawke’s Bay,

Jenny: And there’s still family on the farm at Mangateretere?

Bev: No, that’s been sold too.

Jenny: Oh, has it​?

Bev: Yes.

Jenny: See, I’ve moved away; I don’t know that.

Kevin: Yeah, there’s no family farm there any more ‘cause Roy moved to Pakowhai and his son took over that, and that’s been flooded.

So just going back to the 1938 floods, did they talk much about ..?

Kevin: No.

… that? So it was just the bridge collapsing ..?

Just the bridge collapsing.

… after they’d got across, and that’s the memory that’ they’ve talked about?

Kevin: Yeah. Yes.

Bev: They didn’t talk much about it.

Kevin: Even going back to Dad’s life down the South Island, you know – he was a musterer on the Molesworth Station, he mustered down the McKenzie country. But he never spoke about it, you know? Just saying, “Oh, I was out …”

Bev: High country muster …

Kevin: “… high country mustering in the snow, and you know, we’d be out for three months before we got the sheep all into the station”, and you know? So it was sort of … he must’ve [had] a lonely life.

Bev: He did find gold in the Howard River which is down there, which he made Mum’s wedding ring out of … which I have now got on my finger.

So he went prospecting or something, did he?

Bev: Well, probably just for fun.

But got enough gold to do that?

Yes.

Kevin: No … interesting stories. We’ve got a nice photo somewhere when he was coming up to Hawke’s Bay and he worked his way on sheep stations all the way up; and one photo is at Tora Station in Wairarapa.

Oh yes – is that where they do the walk now?

Jenny: Yes, they do.

Kevin: So my daughter’s been down and walked it, and thought, ‘Oh, that’s where Grandad’s …’ He worked his way up to different sheep stations, working his way up to Hawke’s Bay.

So he’s been a man of the land?

Kevin: Man of the land; never liked trees, but he grew a bloody orchard. [Chuckles] I remember moving to Havelock North and there was a whole lot of plane trees in front …

Bev: Silver birch, they were.

Kevin: Silver birch.

Jenny: And he cut them down.

Kevin: The first thing he did was cut them all down. [Chuckles]

And what was he growing on the orchard?

Kevin: Peaches for Wattie’s …

Bev: Golden Queen peaches, pears, plums, apples …

Jenny: What did he have in the glasshouse?

Kevin & Bev: Tomatoes …

Bev: … which he grew for Wattie’s.

Kevin: Chooks, plenty of chooks; there was always eggs.

Bev: Always had cats, and not so much a house dog – not like a, you know, house dog, but a …

Kevin: But another thing he was judge of was the Hawke’s Bay A&P [Agricultural & Pastoral] Society – he was a head judge on [of] the pigs.

Jenny: With Fred Apley.

Kevin: And he used to go to all the shows, Masterton and …

Bev: That’s right, yeah, everywhere.

Kevin: Everywhere, judging pigs at show time.

So he must’ve spent quite a bit of time travelling as well …

Kevin: Oh!

… you know, judging at these different things?

We always dressed up to go to the show and Dad always wore a suit.

Bev: Collar and tie, and a hat, yeah. [Chuckles]

Kevin: And that’s one of those photos that Jenny’s got there. We always used to go up town on Christmas Eve …

Bev: And Friday nights.

Kevin: But Christmas Eve was a big night, and Hastings used to close off and you’d go up town. And I think Dad and Fred Apley used to go to the pub first and have a few. I remember one Christmas Eve he was walking … trying to think of the hotel, it was on the corner of Railway Road …

Bev: There was the Carlton and the …

Kevin: I think it might’ve been the Carlton; The Albert was on Karamu Road. It was the Carlton and he was walking down and he was swaying a bit, and [a] policeman stopped him and asked him if he was drunk or something, and he said, “No”, he said, “I’m just following this building.” [Laughter] So, that was Dad. But he used to drink on a Saturday afternoon at the Havelock pub, but never …

Bev: He wasn’t a heavy drinker.

Jenny: No. No.

Kevin: No, he wasn’t a heavy drinker. Another thing, going back to the orchard, they used to make cider once a year. He was a great cider man, wasn’t he?

Jenny & Bev: Mmm; yeah.

… and that used to involve all the orchards around in Havelock Road. Dad had the old tractor and had a cider press, and it was just all the apples that’d fallen on the ground – they were half rotten or bugs in them or whatever – all go through the crusher. And while they were crushing down this year’s they were bottling last year’s, which were in big vats, barrels, and sampling it, so by the end of the [chuckle] day everybody was pretty, as Mum would say, shickered. [Laughter]

So was that, you know, for the orchardists or did they sell ..?

Kevin: No, didn’t sell it, no. No, no, it was just a little black market thing. [Chuckle]

So is there anything else that you want to share, you know, that’s been really important in their lives and yours?

Well, the most important thing was their commitment to everything that we got involved in. That was their biggest achievement. You know, the swimming club was the biggest one, the main purpose.

Jenny: They were just very community-minded people.

Kevin: Wanted to get involved with anything.

So very connected?

Jenny: Very.

Okay …

Kevin: Yeah, so it was great times for us, growing up in Havelock Road and doing the orchard. And also following through, especially Jenny and myself, ‘cause I was twelve so I had a few years in Havelock North. But it was a village then, and it was a real village life, wasn’t it?

Jenny: Mmm.

Kevin: It was good.

And since then you’ve moved away, Jenny?

Jenny: Yes.

You’ve stayed here, Bev?

Bev: Been all round Hawke’s Bay, but been here fifty years [or] something.

Jenny: In this house.

And what about you, Kevin?

Kevin: Yeah, no I went up to Auckland to travel overseas and met a young lady and stayed there for thirty-two years; and now I’ve come home.

Jenny: So that’s Dad’s story repeated. [Chuckles]

Never got overseas?

No, never got overseas … met a young lady and stayed.

So is this a good place to leave your memories of your parents?

Kevin: Yeah, I don’t think there’s anything more. There’s just so many things they got involved with, you know? As I said, just [the] memory of him doing the cider …

Bev: I can remember helping him milk the cows, ‘cause he used to put it in those cream …

Kevin: Cans …

Bev: …barrels or whatever you call them. Yeah, and put it at the gate; it’d get picked up. Yes, so that … was before the orchard anyway, ‘cause he grew peas and tomatoes for Wattie’s.

Kevin: It was a dairy farm when they bought it; it was a dairy farm.

Jenny: And he had the cows and then he planted the orchard, didn’t he?

Kevin: Yeah, according to that thing I’ve got it was a dairy farm when they bought it, and it went from Havelock Road and then went right down the back to …

Bev: St George’s Road …

Jenny: St Georges, by Paynters’ …

Kevin: So it went round Paynters’ place.

So is there any last thing you want to share?

Jenny: No. I just think we were really privileged to have such wonderful parents, we really were.

Kevin: And as I said before, you know, to us – not so much Mum, but Dad was always an old man. [Chuckles] He was always an old man.

But not to Bev?

Bev: No. [Chuckles]

So Bev, is there anything further you want to share to finish off?

Bev: Not really. I just enjoyed life on the orchard; we all moved to Havelock when I was sixteen, and he did ask my then boyfriend – who became my husband – who was farming, if he gave the orchard to me … he must’ve been thinking of selling it … would he be interested. He said, “Yes, I’ll cut the trees down and put sheep on it.” Well that was the end of that. [Laughter] No, just always there, you know … involved.

And anything more from you, Kevin?

Kevin: No, I think I’ve said my bit. Got the main points, and you know … we’ve got interesting photos which are our memories … Mum and Dad, you know, these ones of the earthquake. They never spoke about it when they came up. Mum found them, didn’t she?

Jenny: [At] an exhibition in Napier; they must’ve been commemorating the earthquake at some stage, and saw the photos.

And that’s the first you’ve heard …

Jenny: Yes, and they got copies of them, yeah. [Discussing particular photos]

Kevin: We knew he’d done that because he had the baton and the armband which we’ve got there. Didn’t have the pistol. [Laughter] He must’ve had to … the pistol [had to] be handed back. [Chuckle] But that would’ve been an interesting time for them after the earthquake, you know, as you can see by that photo cleaning up, and that one doing a community patrol. Stop looting, and having a pistol and being able to shoot somebody if you saw them looting. [Chuckles] It’s a big responsibility, and the article there … it says, ‘You shoot, you hit them over the head with the baton and you blow the whistle for the police to come.’ [Chuckles]

Well that’s changed substantially, hasn’t it? That’s probably a good place for us to leave it.

Jenny: Thank you.