Jones, Victoria (Viki) Interview

21st June 2021

I’m talking this afternoon with Victoria Jones of Hastings. Good afternoon, Victoria, and I look forward to hearing about your family. If you can tell us everything that you can we would be obliged, so that people in future generations will know all about you and your family.

Good afternoon. My name is Vicky Jones. I was born in 1940. I’m the second eldest daughter born to William Barry Wong and [???] Wong. I come from a family of ten, seven sisters and three brothers. When I was twenty years old I gave birth to a daughter; her father collapsed while playing rugby when she was only three months old, and so Mum and Dad decided to legally adopt my daughter.

My growing up years … oh, my gosh … when I was five years old and started going to primary school I was always teased about my being Chinese by kids in the class, and the only way I knew how to retaliate was to fight them. So I started fighting, and I kept getting sent back to the back of the room to sit by myself. The classroom I was in was all Pakeha but in the end I just cried and just wanted to go home because I couldn’t handle it.

What school?

Mahora School. Because of the work that Dad did back in those days – like, he just picked up work wherever he could, and wherever he had to go work, we had to move there to be with him.

When Dad was born in China he was born a [an] identical twin, and we have no recollection [knowledge] of what his life was like from when he was born until he was ten years old. When he was ten years old him [he] and his brother were put onto a boat by a [an] uncle, that was sailing to New Zealand.

Because ..?

Well because, we think, multiple births weren’t allowed in China at the time, and so I think it was decided that the best thing for them was to come to New Zealand. So when they arrived in New Zealand, ten years old, they changed their names from their Chinese names to a name in New Zealand, and I’ve got his birth certificate that [which] states he was born in 1910. When they arrived in New Zealand, Uncle was taken to Wairarapa and my Dad was taken to Shannon. My uncle was raised by an uncle, and Dad was raised by a French family in Shannon. We don’t know what time or how old they were, or how they met up in Hastings. We think that they had a [an] uncle who was very close to them who lived here. He owned a big vegetable and fruit shop on the corner of Nelson Street and Heretaunga Street back in those days. So Dad and Uncle more or less worked for their uncle in market gardens or helping in the shop, and you know, any other job they could pick up.

So when I was born in 1940 Dad got a job on Waitio Station, which is still on the Matapiro Road.

What station?

Waitio … it was owned by the Harper family. So while I was a baby at Waitio Station Mum used to go and work with Dad digging the drains, and the farmer and his wife looked after me. And they must’ve looked after me for quite a while, because by the time Mum and Dad were ready to leave the farm they wanted Mum and Dad [to] give me to them. But Mum and Dad didn’t want that; so we left there and Mum and Dad were living with our grandparents – they’re my Mum’s mum and dad – our grandparents. And they lived in Omahu in a big five bedroom homestead; but whenever Dad got a job away from Omahu we had to move to where he was working.

So growing up, because there was ten of us in our family … we were all born at different stages, you know, different ages … like my older sister was two years older than me; I was two years older than the third sister, and you know; so things that happened in my life wasn’t [weren’t] the same as what happened with all my other sisters; you know, the relationships we had with our Mum and Dad were all different, but we had a good relationship with our Mum and Dad, you know, they taught us a lot when we were kids growing up; taught us how to be responsible. Dad, being Chinese, taught us how important ethics were. And he used to take me to work in the gardens with him where he taught me how to work hard. It was hard work, picking spuds up into sugar bags and dragging the bags in between your legs.

Then I started school at Mahora, and we were there for two years before we had to move back to Omahu with our grandparents, because Dad had picked up a job working at Mataura Freezing Works down in Southland for three months. So we stayed with our grandparents in Omahu, and we attended the Fernhill School at the time. It was a different school to Mahora, you know – we were welcome; no one cared what we were then, but when we were at Mahora it was ongoing … you know, it was really, really bad. So when we attended Fernhill School the principal at the time had just moved there from the East Coast – him [he] and his wife had taught in many Māori schools on the East Coast. So when they came to teach at Fernhill School, the Fernhill Bridge divided the Fernhill community from the Omahu community; so you had the Fernhill community on one side of the bridge and the Omahu community which were all Māori – because you know, the marae is on the other side – so there were two different communities surrounding Fernhill at the time.

So when we started school, the school was mixed – Māori and Pakeha – but everyone got on with each other. There was always a happy atmosphere at school. And the thing we couldn’t get over was how much the principal had changed what happened at school; like, got us into inter-school sports, playing all kinds of sports like basketball, rugby, hockey, tennis, softball; and they ran a Gala Day every year. The Gala Day was between … like, all the pupils at the school were split into four teams, so on the Gala Day days we all played team events. And every time you won a race you had points, so at the end of the day all the points added up. And the good thing about a Gala Day was that at the end of the day the winners get [got] to hold the school banner. It was a big thing in those days; so the leading team wins the banner and takes it for a march around the school, just to show off. [Chuckles]

But while I was at school – I would have only been about nine – and the headmaster got me interested in playing tennis. I didn’t know how to play tennis, so he gave me a tennis racquet and sent me outside to play with the boys; and the boys used to whack the tennis ball directly at me, and I … you know, I couldn’t return them. But anyway, I went home and told Mum how Mr Henderson wants me to play tennis. And she knew I had nothing; I didn’t know how to play tennis; but I had a cousin who was a very good tennis player, ‘cause they had tennis courts at the marae. So he started teaching me how to play tennis when we didn’t have any school. And when I come [came] to know how to play tennis, I started playing tennis again at school and started hitting the balls back to these boys, you see, and they got a hang of a fright! [Chuckles]

So I was nine years old, and I think the following year Mr Henderson got me and one of the boys … he wanted to enter us into a junior tennis competition in town … boys and girls competition … and the school provided all the tennis gear that we had to wear and all that. So we both went along to the tournament, and we both got into the semi-finals. Billy Russell, the boy that went with me, he played his semi-final but he lost his game. I won my game, so I had to sit around and wait for the finals. I didn’t know who my – who I was playing until I ran onto the tennis court, and then someone told me I was playing against Ruia Morrison – well at that time she was the New Zealand junior champ; [champion] [chuckles] and I think the reason they didn’t tell me until I ran out on the court, because I may not have run out. [Chuckles] And I thought, ‘Oh my God!’ But anyway, I went out on the court and I just played my heart out. I won one game to her two, ‘cause you know, you only played three games back then; you didn’t play a set like they do today. So I won the first game, and she just upped her game and won the last two.

But you know when we finished playing she come [came] up and shook my hand, and she asked me who my coach was. And I says to her, “I don’t have a coach.” [Chuckles] She goes to me “Do you not have a coach … anyone coaching you how to play tennis?” And I said, “No, only my cousin when I learnt how to play tennis.” And she couldn’t believe it, and she just said to me that if I wanted to carry on with my tennis there are people I could go and see. And … ‘cause I knew Jack Charters at the time, he had the bicycle shop here … sports shop; and he was very good to me. And so I played for the Parkvale Tennis Club, because while I was still at school and went on to high school – again, because of me being Chinese – you had to book a tennis court to get onto the court to play tennis. And for some reason or other I could never get onto the tennis court; there was always some story why I couldn’t get there, so in the end I didn’t try any more, I just stayed with the Parkvale Tennis Club.

When I finished school …

When you finished Mahora School ..?

No, I finished Mahora School when I was seven years old, then we went to Fernhill School, and we stayed at Fernhill School ‘til I was ready to go to high school. But when I went to high school we had to join up at the Boys’ High, because Girls’ High wasn’t built then. So I had to run against all the boys.

Now you’re talking Hastings Boys’ High School?

Yep.

Combined?

Yeah. We had to go there for the first year until the Girls’ High was built. So you know, we had a lot of sports things on at the time. And when you played any sport you competed against the boys, which, you know, it was good, because it made you play. You know the boys were all always out to beat you, [chuckles] and so you know, I used to try my best; I mean I never used to win, but at least I gave it a good go. And from tennis I … because we had seven sisters in our family we became a hockey family. Mum’s family were good hockey players.

And Mum’s family loved music, so when we were growing up we used to wake up to beautiful singing, guitar strumming, every morning at the house. Our cousins had a singing group called the Clive Trio, and they were very popular back in the 1950s and ‘60s. So I used to travel around with them every time they went somewhere to sing; I was just so mad on music. Then I learned how to dance so I was mad on dancing. [Chuckle] I went everywhere to watch my aunty play the piano in a dance band – I went everywhere with her every Saturday night. And then when the rock ‘n’ roll craze came, oh my God! I just went crazy on rock ‘n’ roll.

Up at the Assembly Hall?

Yeah – sometimes at the Assembly Hall, and then the Trades Hall.

And what’s the one behind the Catholic Church?

I could only remember when they were held at the Trades Hall or the Assembly Hall. Anyway, I got really good at rock ‘n’ roll, and so, you know, I didn’t have trouble getting a partner.

I’ll bet you didn’t! [Laughter]

And one night I met this guy, he was very good at rock ‘n’ roll, so he taught me how to do all these good moves, you know. And I was working at the hospital then; I had started working to help Mum and Dad financially, you know – bring all my young siblings up. When we were old enough to work we all helped Mum and Dad with money, with our younger siblings.

So getting back to the rock ‘n’ roll days – this guy that I met at a dance one night, he was teaching me all the real good moves; so that was okay. Then in 1960 I decided I wanted to go work in the shearing sheds because it was more money; Danny [??] where you got a job – it was better money. So we both went to the shearing sheds …

We both?

Yeah – Danny.

The rock ‘n’ roll boy?

Yeah, but we were just good friends, we weren’t boyfriend or girlfriend. He became my mentor. About six months after we started in the sheds he went out with some of the shearers, and had a real bad accident; he ended up in hospital. And when we got to know one another, he never ever spoke about his family. I used to always question him, you know, about his family but he never wanted to talk about them. So when we went to work out in the sheds, he was always there, you know; he was always there with me so I didn’t have any trouble from any other males. [Chuckle] But when he had the accident, he couldn’t walk after the accident, so I stopped work for a while because I needed to be at the hospital with him. When he come [came] around in ICU [Intensive Care Unit] and he found out he couldn’t walk he had to be put into a nursing home because he still needed medical care. So, while he lived at the nursing home he more or less became my mentor. He was so good to talk to, you know; working in the sheds was bloody hard work, and I had more bad days than good days. So I used to always run to him, cry to him, you know, ‘cause it was so hard. The work was hard, and the people were mean and all that, but he was so full of wisdom, understanding, and so knowledgeable. He was only seventeen, you know, but he was the guy that I always went to when I needed someone to talk to. But you know, he passed away in 2004, so I had to carry in the shearing sheds by myself.

Now from 1960 I learnt how to rousie [rouseabout] and work with wool. Most of the women I worked with at that time were a lot older. There were no young people in the sheds; only me. So from 1960 ‘til about the mid-1970s I was with mostly older people and they were always called ‘old school’. But they taught me the correct way of working; how to do my work properly, and they were always on my back if I was half-pie; I couldn’t be half-pie, I had to do my work properly.

In 1960 when I first started in the woolshed, there was no training for rousies – you were always taught by someone in the sheds. No one spoke about the Wool Board, ever, in those days; the Wool Board was only running training courses for shearers, not for rousies. So in 1961 I met Bill Jones, and I worked for Bill in the sheds ‘til about 1970, and we became friends; then we became more friends; then we started a relationship, and at that time he was a shearing contractor. So the early 1970s I joined up with Bill to help him run his shearing run, which was getting quite big at the time. Practically we shore at most of the sheds up [at] Sherenden. We had sheds out at Patoka, out at Omakere, at Waimarama, and in [the] late 1950s Bill picked up the shearing at Matapiro and Ngāmatea Station.

Matapiro … it’s a big twelve stand shed off Taihape Road; it’s west of Fernhill, anyway.

So when Bill picked up those two big sheds it made him the biggest contractor in Hawke’s Bay. So I finished working in the sheds to help Bill to become a shearing contractor, and it was just so busy. It was hectic; I mean you know, you not only had the shearing to worry about, you had all the workers. We were living in Hastings at the time and the place we were living in was too small, so we had to look for a bigger place. A place [be]came available out at Fernhill, which was owned by the Halsteads; they had a big overland trucking business. So they had a ten acre property on the corner there next to Doug White, which we bought. So after purchasing the property, we moved the shearing out there; we then sat with one another and wondered what the hell we were going to do with this bloody ten acre block. So we looked down the back of the property, and there was just so much room, so we decided to build a shearing complex. Wasn’t the best of our choices, but we were only thinking about the people we had to employ. But we had all the neighbours coming over, and you know, “Why are we doing this?” You know, we were wasting our money on shearers. And I realised that people were always putting shearing down but never knew how hard the damn job was; but they were always putting shearing down; putting us down, and they didn’t want us to build a shearing complex at all, but we did. And we used the complex the first time in 1975, and from the day we started using the shearing quarters ‘til ‘87 when we sold our run to Brendan Mahoney, we never had any trouble with the workers, you know. But they were hectic years; nobody saw me ‘cause I was too busy. [Chuckle] But you know, all the years I worked in the shearing sheds up until 2017 when I decided to …

Give it away?

Well I had arthritis. But anyway, way before then when we were out at Fernhill, you know, the shearing just got so busy. We didn’t even have time to get married. So ‘87 we had just had enough of shearing by then, and we’d sold the run to Brendan and we to go out of shearing for three years. So while I was out of shearing I went to work at the packhouse – first time I ever worked in a [an] apple packhouse. And I ended up running a packhouse for five years, and I achieved a QC [Quality Control] certificate; and then after there I went out pruning the grapes. I had a royal time, you know, learning all of these new skills.

But then the love for the sheds just wouldn’t go away, and in 1993 while we were out of the sheds, a lot of our farmers couldn’t get on with Brendan’s workers, and so they started ringing young Bill up to see if he was interested [in] running a shearing gang. So young Bill started up shearing about ‘88, and you know, it wasn’t a big run, it was just people who didn’t want Brendan to do their shearing. So he carried on with it until ‘93; he got sick of the shearing so he passed it back to his Dad and that’s when I started back in the shed; but when I went back into the sheds everything was different.

Can I ask you … who is Brendan?

Brendan Mahoney, [he] was a shearing contractor in Napier.

So [in] ‘93 I went back into the sheds and I was the head rousie; and look here – I didn’t know the first thing about being a head rousie. [Quiet chuckles] And the way people were treating me was like … oh, you know, “You shouldn’t be there – you don’t know how to be a head rousie.”

So I was fifty-three years old; I decided to study wool. Wasn’t easy, bro’ … everybody was putting me down, and … I first did a wool course to gain a Senior Wool Handling certificate, which allowed me to be a head rousie; but every time I went to be a head rousie I wasn’t good enough. [Chuckle] So from there I was lucky – when I took on contract shearing I had a lot of opportunities from the shearing industry and the wool industry, and I kept getting all these wool experts, you know, teaching me different things. But when I went back and did a shed in ‘93, I looked up my friend Lou Willoughby. He was our wool production officer at the time, and [of] course when he came to Hawke’s Bay, that’s when all the wool courses started happening.

So 1977 they were wanting to run a senior wool course. They said they had advertised in [the] papers for girls to apply to attend the course but they never had anyone; they had no one. So they rang me and Bill; we had to look for fourteen wool handlers on the Monday morning, because the Ministry of Agriculture was with the Ministry of Fisheries … they were all together. You know, luckily we weren’t busy, it was more or less during main crutching, so luckily we were able to find fourteen of our wool handlers, but the thing was that they had to have three years’ experience; none of them were that experienced [chuckle] but we still sent them. So we sent them along, and two girls came out with certificates; and they were the first two girls in New Zealand to be qualified wool handlers.

I’ve been trying to find out when the times started changing, because from then on, when the time started changing in the wool sheds, everything changed. I mean for nearly twenty years I worked with old school, you know, doing the wool the old way; and then when I went back into the sheds in ‘93 I didn’t even know what the hell they were doing with the wool; I didn’t even know what a foot was. [Chuckles]

So I had to go back to school, but oh my God! I was just so scared, you know – I had to sit three wool papers, I had to sit a communication paper, and I had to sit a farm management paper. I didn’t know nothing [anything] about farming, [chuckle] so I was waking Bill up all hours of the night asking him questions about farming, ‘cause he was a blinkin’ shepherd at Matapiro – he’s supposed to know everything about sheep farming, but he didn’t know nothing. [Anything] [Chuckle] So I ended up having to go out and talk to farmers; you know, they were very helpful when they found out that I was going to Massey [chuckle] studying wool. I mean, you know, they thought it was great.

I can see that you learnt your trade over the years.

Yeah.

You’re a very strong woman as well, and you wanted to be the best.

Yeah.

And you were.

Dad taught me all that, you know, when I was young I used to go to work with Dad every morning in the market gardens. He taught me how I need to have good work ethics like him, ‘cause he was a damn hard worker. He had the roughest pair of hands I’ve ever seen on a man – they were so rough. You know, it was terrible; it was the sort of job that Dad did. But he taught us more than good work ethics, you know – we all had turns bringing up our younger siblings; we all had turns keeping the house clean, you know, we were always doing those things. And then when you tried telling people what it was like growing up, they used to just laugh at you and thought it was a hell of a joke, you know – no TV, no this, no that. But you know, when we were growing up we never saw other families struggling; we didn’t even know we were struggling. But we were quite happy with what we had. You know, Dad taught us how to grow vegetables, how to look after them; so we more or less lived off the land. We went eeling; we went fishing with our uncles; then shearing came along and that was bloody hard work. I don’t know how many times I cried ‘cause I had to bend down and pick up dags with my bare hands. [Laughter] I thought they were having me on when they were trying to make me pick these dags up with my bare hands.

So when I started studying it was hard, you know, like … it was called an extramural programme where you were able to study at home and work at the same time. Well I thought I was smart, you know … you can do all this studying and you can go to work; not a problem. But it became a problem in the end. [Laughter]

And how long did you do that for?

I started studying in ‘93. They ran the very first Q stencil programme at Massey which I attended, and I gained a Q stencil; and the Q stencil made you … like, you were able to take over a wool classer’s job in the sheds, just grading the wool clip. And so at that time wool classers were going out of the sheds from wool classing, and leaving it to people grading the wool.

So that was the first time I went to Massey; and then Lou Willoughby talks me into doing this extramural programme. And I said to Lou, “Lou, you do know how old I am?” He goes, “Yes”. And I said, “I’m 53 years old.” He said, “That’s not a problem”, he said. And I says, “I haven’t been to school for ages!” And [of] course I told him, “When I was at school I was just so into sports that I left school to follow my dreams playing sports.” I played hockey for Hawke’s Bay, tennis – what else did I do? And rugby. All for Hawke’s Bay. So while I was shearing I was playing sports as well. I mean shearing kept me fit so …

So women were playing rugby back in those early days?

The first time I played rugby was in ‘62. The night of the Blossom Festival, I got knocked out. [Chuckles] I got knocked out playing against Wellington. It was all right, you know. And from then on I carried on with rugby; I played for Hawke’s Bay Women; I played Hawke’s Bay hockey, for women; and tennis. So I was so busy with sports and work.

[Break]

So in the ‘70s was when the big change came in the shearing sheds, you know, how we worked in the old days had to all change. That’s when the quality of the job started coming in, and so we all had to make sure we did a good wool job. But it was hard trying to get girls up to that point, you know – I had to teach a lot in the sheds; because back in the day when I first started working in the sheds rousies were never taught anything about the wool itself, they were only taught how to work with wool. But it was amazing watching the way they worked with wool and not even knowing anything about the wool, because back in those days they did their work properly, and all work had to be precise.

Did you choose the wool at that stage to be put into shows for competition?

Yeah – you had to be trained to do that, because you know, you had to tell the difference between wool with character, and … you know, everything; there’s so much that goes into choosing the wool for the show and if you don’t know that you just shouldn’t bother.

Yeah … but you knew?

Yeah. But you know, it’s when you learn to be a wool classer you learn all that.

And were you successful in a lot of those shows with the wool that you showed? On behalf of the owner, I suppose?

I used to choose wool out of Jack Roberts … out of his wool ‘cause he’s got Corriedales … beautiful wool, but you know, the downfall on Corriedales is that they have that hard crust running through the backs of the fleeces that you have to be very aware of; sometimes you can’t see it. But we do a lot of work for Jack Roberts. Mind you they owned Ngāmatea, and … well, I can tell you a few stories about Ngāmatea. [Chuckle]

That’s a big property, isn’t it?

The first time I went up to Ngāmatea Station the road was just like two wheel tracks; bush everywhere. And we had to travel on the back of Bedford trucks up to Ngāmatea, and that took over three hours. Getting up to the Ngāmatea gateway took two and a half; you still had seven hours more to travel into the sheds itself. His father was … well, when you saw him dressed up, he dressed like a beggar; he had [chuckle] holes in his clothes, and I couldn’t believe he was a farmer with a big farm, and he was dressed like a beggar.

What was his name?

Lawrence … Lawrence Roberts. But he was such a hard worker. And I think at the time when they were … see they didn’t take over Ngāmatea until the 1930s, and when they took over Ngāmatea they needed a lot of money to get it up to scratch, and they still weren’t able to do that. People we took up to Ngāmatea to work, they just fell in love with the place. And every year we always had people ringing up trying to get up to Ngāmatea, but you know, we were always full up with workers to go up there. People just wanted to go up there for a ride, to see what the place … why people were falling in love with this place.

Had a great name …

Yeah. You see when we did the shearing up there for thirty years, they never did anything to the quarters; but you know, the people … back in the day, I’m talking about [a] time when people had to work for a living. They didn’t care what the place [was like] they lived in; they didn’t care about that; what was important to them was that they had a job, and that’s what Ngāmatea was like. I mean Ngāmatea’s quarters weren’t flash, but then they weren’t that bad, and you know, there’s always a bad egg in the basket. There was always someone moaning, [chuckles] but you know, we always say, “Well, you know we’re way out in the wop-wops – if you don’t like it there’s the road.” And it’s a long way to walk home. [Chuckle] But you know, everybody used to fall in love with Ngāmatea; I think it was because you know, you could go out pig hunting; but everybody enjoyed themselves up there. And people in the sheds today that used to work for me and Bill back in the day, you know, they always say to me, “Oh, the good times are gone out of the sheds”, because you know, today it’s all about how much money you can make. People never worried about how much money you can make back in the day … long as you had a job.

Victoria, when did the Apatus come into the picture?

Oh – they’re related to me. They’re related to me on my mum’s side. We shore for Ray … ‘cause Terry married Lawrence Roberts’ daughter, Margaret. We shore for Ray; we shore for Ken; so we knew the Apatus very well.

Ray died too early, didn’t he?

I know – he was a lovely man …

He was.

… you know, he was a real gentleman. Even Ken – I used to always go and see Ken, he was always very good to me. They were all good to me.

I think one of the boys is up on the farm?

You know, you talk about Apatus – about two weeks before *Ren [Renata Apatu] had his accident, he rang me up. He was just starting to realise how bad wool is [was] actually being done in the sheds, and he wanted to talk to me … what was my opinion about, you know, bad wool jobs; and I says to him, “You know, it’s terrible – people just don’t want to do the work because they don’t think they’re being paid enough money to do the work.” And I says to Ren that the work farmers expect girls to do with their wool” … I said to him, “sometimes you see wool coming in the shed full of pen stain; there’s not a hell of a lot you can do with the wool.” And I said, “You can’t even take the bad part of pen stain out because the rest of the clip is still pen stained, so there was no use.” And it’s the same when the wool is all yellow; and so you know, Ren was going to change all that. And his accident was just one big shock.

But anyway, before he died … I had a photo of his dad with Bill when they pressed the one thousandth bale up there … and so I got a copy done and posted it to him. And he was ever so thankful – he said he had one but someone pinched it. [Chuckles] But he was a lovely boy. And I think young Nate [Nathan Apatu] is up there now.

Now, when did you actually retire from your work?

Two years ago.

So … my word!

I was seventy-seven when I finished in 2017; only because the last two years I worked in the sheds with arthritis. I was managing my pain all right, but it was mainly people’s attitudes; I could manage my pain but I couldn’t manage all the dramas. But then again, I was waiting for an operation – I’ve had a full hip replacement, and ever since I had the op it’s been marvellous; I’ve never had any pain or anything. And yeah, I was sitting up coming out of the theatre, I couldn’t feel any pain. [Chuckle]

Well, I’m pleased because some people have a lot of trouble afterwards.

I know. I was out of hospital within the two days. And of course you know, they don’t send you to physio [therapy] any more; you do it all yourself at home.

You’ve had no trouble?

No.

Very lucky. I’ve seen some people, they pop it out … scream with pain.

You know when it pops out, is that another operation you have to have?

Mmm.

Yeah. The surgeon did tell me that if I went back into the sheds I would have to watch that I don’t fall, because I could dislocate my hip; and I just didn’t want to do that so I retired. I’ve always wanted to write a book.

And what’s the name of the book?

‘Shearing – A Way of Life’; well it was my way of life.

And when do you think that’ll hit the shelves?

We’ve submitted the first edit, and the publishers think the story is good enough to go into a competition. I had to pay $500 to put it into this competition, and they think that my story’s got a show of winning the competition. So if it hopefully wins the competition, I won’t have to pay to have it published. But they think that … probably [a] couple of months or a bit more than that. We were going to have a book launch in Hastings, but it would have to be when shearing’s not busy because I think that that’s when most people would come and buy the book. They’ve made arrangements with Whitcoull New Zealand to sell the books.

Congratulations!

Thank you.

You’ve put a lot of work into it.

I know, I can’t believe how much work I’ve put in. [Chuckle]

Well done; it’ll be a very interesting book. I’ll look forward to having a look at that, and reading it.

Oh, then I will bring you a copy.

Will you?

Yes.

Yeah, well I hope you’ll keep in touch with us, and when you have that launch that you know, we might be able to follow up on it as well.

Yeah.

That’s a great story you’ve told us today, and of course the Wong family is well known in Hawke’s Bay …

Yeah.

Vegetable shops …

Can you remember, it used to be right on the corn[er], you know, where Jon [Jon’s] Bakery is? That’s where the shop was, on that corner.

Opposite Mick Thompson?

Yeah. And my dad and his twin brother, they used to work there when they didn’t have to work out in the market gardens.

My mother used to go to Ah Wing.

Yeah, I remember Ah Wing.

That was down other end of town.

Loo Kee – where was Loo Kee? Do you remember the old billiard saloon?

Yes – Donovans?

My dad used to work in there at night on the weekends, and I used to stay in this little hut behind this little Chinese vegetable shop; trying to think whereabouts it was, and I think it’s somewhere round by where … just about opposite Hallensteins I think; somewhere in that block. And that’s where I used to sleep and wait for Dad to come home.

Well, that was near the Pacific Hotel.

Yeah, yeah.

No wonder you stayed there!

[Laughter] Oh, you know, I remember all the pubs; when we were short of shearers we used to go to the Stortford Lodge – the pub used to be full of shearers. [Chuckle]

That’s right; that’s right. Okay, well I think we might have just about come to the end, and I thank you very much indeed for …

Oh, you’re welcome.

… putting in the time and telling us your story.

I’m glad I came here.

Yeah – I’m sure the Knowledge Bank will be absolutely so pleased …

Oh, will they?

… to have your talk – yes, they will.

Well you know, if you want to know anything just give me a ring and I can pop back over here.

I will – I’ll be putting your name in the front row.

[Chuckle] Anything you need help with.

Thank you. Thank you, Victoria – lovely talk, and very pleased that I had the opportunity to interview you today.