Lambert, Gordon John Interview

Today is the 30th January 2017. I’m interviewing Gordon John Lambert, a retired maintenance engineer of Hastings. Gordon, would you like to tell us something about your family?

Good morning. I’ve been studying my family history for quite a few years now and I’ve come to find that my grandfather, which [who] is George Lambert, come [came] from Birmingham in England. And he come [came] out to New Zealand, arrived in Napier on the ship called the ‘Montmorency’. There is a bit of a story about the ‘Montmorency’ which caught fire, and they dragged it out to sea. And actually there is a mark out by the chicken shop in Ahuriri there that is marked where the ship is laying still.

My grandfather was a [an] engineer as well. He worked as a fellmonger to start with out at Awatoto. He lived in East Clive. I’m not sure – I haven’t really found the house or anything … any evidence … but he lived there. His wife come [came] out a few years later, and her name was Elizabeth Ford. Her ship that she come [came] out [on] which come [came] into Napier, was the ‘Schiehallion’ She come [came] out with her brother and his wife and a child. I can’t remember when Grandad met up, but they got married and eventually had ten children. Most of them were born at Clive, some in Hastings, and the third child I think was Frances, a girl – the only girl they had – passed away when she was probably about six months old. So they had the nine boys.

My father was the third to youngest, and he was a labourer and he worked for the Council … used to be a Council yard in Southampton Street … well that’s where we lived, in one of the little houses there. But my dad, who was married to Beatrice Allen, his first wife – she was killed in the 1931 earthquake. She worked in Hannah’s Shoe Shop. She was forty-six. Her name’s up on the town clock as Beatrice Lambert.

A few years later my dad met my mum, and Mum was a lot younger than my dad – quite a bit. And anyway they started to have a family and my eldest brother was born in 1934 round about, and there’s nine in our family. I’ve got three sisters and five brothers, and I’m the youngest of them all. I was born in 1946 … October ‘46 … and I lived in Southampton Street.

I was just trying to place whereabouts those yards were in Southampton Street?

You know where the school is? If you’re going down Southampton Street and the school’s on the right, there’s a few little houses along there – well it was directly opposite. And there’s a little yard in there and he worked there. We lived in that house … I was born in ‘46 as I was saying … and ten months later my dad died. So I was only ten months, and Mum had all these kids to look after, so it was a bit of a battle for her.

And about four … when I was four, the Government actually got us a Housing – new house, and we moved down to Nelson Street. It was 504 Nelson Street. It was a big old house, but it was good. We all fitted in there. And then we all gradually moved out, getting married and away from Mum. And Mum in the end went into a smaller little house, a two-bedroom house somewhere.

During those years did you play any sport?

Yes, I played rugby for oh, ‘bout eight years probably. Played for Hastings High School Old Boys. That’s where I met Keith. Yeah, that was about the only sport I got. And then I got married.

So where did you meet your wife?

Well, before I left school my brother-in-law got me a job after school with an engineering firm. I was just going in there cleaning up the yard and sweeping up after all the workers. Then in the holidays he wanted me to go down full … oh well, not full time, but do a few hours each day … so that was good. And that’s where I got interested in engineering. Really didn’t like it at school, but this is sort of … when you get out into the workshop it’s a different story. So I ended up – when I was fifteen I left school and got an apprenticeship with Charlie Powell, Powell Engineering … end of Warren Street.

And anyway, during my apprenticeship there Heather, his wife, used to come down and do the books and do the wages … couple of days a week. She used to bring along her daughter, and I got chatting with the daughter and – she used to bring the payslips out. And after a couple of years we sort of met at a dance. They used to have these dances at the St Matthew’s Hall and all that, so we got together, and that’s how I met my wife.

Charlie had the engineering business. Half way through my apprenticeship he sold, and there’s a firm called MacIntosh Brothers from Palmerston North – they took over. So I worked for them for another three or four years, and then I decided it was time to … wasn’t moving along there … needed money. I had a wife and a kid, so I got a job at Tomoana Freezing Works. I was there for twenty-five years doing a maintenance engineering job, and then of course it closed down in ‘94, I think it was.

So after it closed down I got a job working for Tom Deere Tractors. I worked for him for oh … nearly ten months, and he sort of got quiet, ran out of work. So I says “oh well, I can find other work – been offered other work, so” I said “I’ll take that until you get busy and I’ll come back.” But he never called me back, but I stayed at Napier Engineering Contractors, and I was there for fifteen years. I was there until I worked me [my] way up to be a foreman. And then after being made a foreman, about a year later they made both of us … both foremans [foremen] redundant, so I had to leave there.

And I got a job at Lowe Corp, and I was working in the tanneries in Coventry Road. I was working there for about seven years until I retired. I retired at the end of 2016 – just had one year of retirement and that was a busy one, so I hope this one’s a bit quieter and I can do a few more jobs round home.

Yes, looking back on your time with the freezing industry, it was hard to believe that a place like that could ever close down, wasn’t it?

Yeah. I always thought it was permanent, that’s why I went there. You know, not … going on the chains or anything like that wasn’t permanent. I’d been an engineer, I thought it was more permanent – I would never get fired from there, I’d really stay there.

But the amazing thing … and you can probably make a comment on this … was that the training you gave your apprentices there was such a broad training, wasn’t it?

Yeah. But they moved around in the departments, and they went with … you know, tradesmen, up on say, the beef house and then the mutton floor. I was in charge of the wool scour at one stage down there, and they were sent down there. Yes, they were sent to all departments. And then after they’d done their apprenticeship they were given a year’s work as a journeyman, and then they were sort of made … told to go and find another job. And we used to have about six apprentices going through at a time.

So … grandchildren?

Yeah – nine grandchildren. Got four girls and five boys. The oldest one’s seventeen, down to the youngest one is seven.

Are they all local?

Imran and Alana – they’re in Napier … Onekawa, they live. That’s Richard, that’s me [my] eldest son. And Matthew, my second son, he had three children, three boys. Matthew lives in Brisbane. They’ve all just been here for Christmas. Yeah, their eldest boy’s coming up … he’ll be seventeen in May, and they’ve got three boys and one girl. He married an Australian girl, very nice.

And do you go across to see them?

Yes, we try to go every year. And we try to go round about … nice in the wintertime – June, July. But it’s for going to watch them play sport. Three of them still play sport – netball and rugby, so that’s our chance. We try to get three weekends with them, and we go over. Sometimes we only go once a year, sometimes we’ve been twice – all depends what’s happening over there. We’ve made a few trips there.

They’re in Brisbane city itself?

Brisbane – yes. He’s got an engineering business over there. He started his time as a fitter-welder in Hastings. He moved over there and he’s got a business in stainless steel. My eldest son is a stainless steel engineer too. He worked at NEC – at the same place I worked but now he’s working at the Awatoto rendering department out there.

Do you play any sports these days?

No – I play a bit of rough snooker at the Club … Hastings … I play a bit of snooker there with me [my] mates on a Thursday night. We go down there for a laugh and a few beers.

Do you like the new club?

Yep.

It’s like a big tavern though, isn’t it?

Yeah.

They had such a great opportunity of making it a place that was warm and inviting, but it’s like a tavern of thirty years ago.

No, for what I use it for … just like going down on a Thursday night, or we’ll go down sometimes if friends turn up we’ll go down on Saturday night for tea. It’s good.

Got one more child which is Justin – now he’s an electrician, and he lives in Havelock North, and he’s got two girls and a boy – his girl is the youngest, the seven-year-old.

So do you want me to tell you about my brothers and sisters?

Yes.

I can’t remember the actual date they were born, but Reg is my eldest brother and then Valda is my eldest sister. Now Reg passed away a few years ago. Val is still with us. Ivan is the third one, he’s still with us. Then we go to … who have we got next? Must be the twins, Lorna and Myra. Then go to Les – Les passed away … he was fifty-two when he passed away in ‘94 I think it was … same year that the Works closed, and he was at the Works too. Then after that, Bob – Bob’s still alive, he’s … oh, we’re all retired now. Bob’s living by himself. And then I’ve got Peter, he was born a year before me, and then me. Like I say, Reg was an auctioneer, as a job – he worked for Turners & Growers in them [those] days.

Well, your mother must have had a handful with all of you boys?

Oh yeah. Yeah. Yeah, well I think Reg was only about thirteen when dad died.

So, you know, she supported the family – did she work?

Yeah, she went out house cleaning.

Did she really? You know …

Yeah, she used to have two or three a day, you know.

And when you hear today of some of the families who say “oh, we need help” – they don’t know they’re alive, do they?

No. No, they don’t know how hard it was. No, we didn’t have anything. If we wanted anything we had to make it ourselves. And just doing the lawns, you know – hand mower. When it got down to my turn … ‘cause all the other … they’re older, that was all right, but when it got down to my turn to doing the lawn mower [mowing] with a hand mower, that was a bit rough. I was an apprentice then so I bought a motor mower [chuckle] for it – got that one out of the road. We had a big hedge we had to cut.

Quite a big section here, isn’t it?

Yeah, three and a half acres actually.

And what do you do with the land?

Oh, there’s the big house here, and we’ve got a little cottage behind us, it’s rented out. We got half an acre of orchard over here, and the other two acres down the back is rented out to the Epicureans.

I used to come in and spray this … my association with the house … ‘cause it was new those days, that was back in the sixties.

Yeah, well they reckon it was built in the fifties. And we had a friend around – oh, we had a barbecue. Oh no, it was on my sixtieth birthday I think – we had friends around and one of our friends is a carpenter, and he worked on the house. He come [came] into the house and he says “I did all the architrave all around this, all around the floors, as an apprentice.”

It’s a small world, isn’t it?

Yeah.

So any other highlights of your life that you’ve forgotten about? You were never in the Army?

No, I missed out on the Army by one day, in the ballot. Only one brother got in, that was Ivan – he got into it.

Now obviously you’re interested in the history of your family because I see you’ve brought very large numbers of photos and books of all sorts of things to the Knowledge Bank for copying and digitalising them …

Yeah. Well all the photos come [came] about by Ray Lambert whose father was Herbert, and he was the youngest of the big family. Ray was sort of … only one we had any contact … well I did – had contact, ‘cause all the others were all older than me and Ray was the only one I had contact with really. And it was Ray’s dad who was a photographer. All the photos and negatives I took in … I was looking after them when Ray had to shift house into Swansea Village, so they asked me if I could look after all their photos, so I did, and actually went through some of them. But I should have gone through earlier while Ray was alive, but it wasn’t till after Ray died, I thought ‘well, what am I going to do with all this stuff?’ So I go through it, I found a few bits and pieces – I could find a few photographs of my grandfather I’d never seen before; uncles; there’s a few interesting photos there of earthquakes and places around. But he did have an exhibition in town apparently, in Council buildings, of all his photos.

So he was a hobby photographer?

Yeah. ‘Cause he worked for my – or with my grandad, and they had a shop in Karamu Road. Grandad was a blacksmith … gunsmith … and Herbert had – they’re all combined, but Herbert had the bicycle shop.

So what was your grandfather’s name?

George Lambert. I’ve got bits and pieces of what I could find. When Ray died he had another shed full of stuff out at Tollemache Road, and so his wife and I, and my sister and my wife, we went down and helped her clean it out, sort all the stuff out that they didn’t want, and … went into auctioneers, and that’s when I found a few more photos of that he’d done.

So was Ray Lambert married?

Yep.

What was his wife ..?

Maureen. Maureen Atkinson.

[Showing and discussing photographs]

Val Smith?

Do you know Len Smith?

Yes.

That’s my sister.

Oh yes. And I knew your other sister too.

Myra or Lorna?

She was a …

Yeah – twin, yes.

Yes.

Got up to Reg, I think.

We were talking about …

Ray and Maureen?

Ray.

Ray died in 2014, I think, or ‘15. Maureen’s alive.

Yes. Is she still at ..?

Swansea Village.

See those photos, that’s at Patangata when the bridge was being built.

Well, the Atkinsons – they lived outside Waipukurau. They were racehorse people.

Ray was giving away a lot of stuff. I got all his tools, I got three or four tool boxes of tools. He was a [an] electrician. He worked in the Hawke’s Bay Power Board – well, in the appliance, you know – repairs on the appliances – and we used to take our electric blanket, you know – he used to do them.

You say you’ve got all the other photos?

Yeah. I had all hers, but I separated all hers and took them back to her when I bought all the photos in just before Christmas, ‘cause they were no good to me. Because that was about an overseas trip mainly and they were all slides and I was more interested in the negatives. I told you about the story about some of the negatives, and – it had Holdens? In the cemetery, they must have a plot on the farm … had a headstone, and they had Holden …

This is up at Tikokino?

Yeah, and there was a few photos of the house and that, but it had Holden on the box, which is good. And then I saw the headstone, so that was pretty good, and then I saw the house … there was a photo of the house. And anyway, before Christmas there, the wife and I went for a drive and they had open homes at Tikokino for the gardens. And we went to this Holdens’ farm, and I just started to walk up towards the house and I said to my wife, “I’ve seen that house before – never been there. I’ve seen it.” She said “where?” I said “I don’t know.” I said “this is the negatives that I’ve got, I’m sure.” So I come [came] home that night, found the box that had Holdens on it, and sure enough – here’s the house of the Holdens’ place, with no gardens around it, just a fence right around it. So I rang them up, told them, and they’d come in before Christmas and they were going to try and get some of them developed, ‘cause they had a ninety-five year old, or a ninety year old member of the family still going, and they wanted him to recognise it, see if he knew anything. ‘Cause there was a lot of photos of people in there and I didn’t know who they were. Objects or anything like that, you know …

And if you hadn’t looked at the negatives you wouldn’t have recognised the house.

No. And I wouldn’t have gone down – yeah.

And then there was the one on the Lowrys, but I haven’t really … didn’t pick up …

Was this through a horse association?

It was photography.

Oh, of course – Lowry the photographer! Never rang a bell.

Oh, is there?

There was a Lowry, a photographer.

Oh, well … must’ve been a mate of Herbert’s.

Pat Lowry? There was a Lowry that did wedding photos … pretty sure there was a Lowry that was a photographer.

And there was a photo of two Lowry twins, it said. And they were both dressed up in Highland fling things … girls. Yeah, but I gave that back to Maureen. I said “well, you go through that”, and there was a few things I didn’t know. I said “if you can name some of these in the things, then I can take them.”

So Maureen was the contact with the Lowry family, was she?

Well I don’t know. And I don’t know how they got contact with the Holdens.  I had a big boxful of photos of horses of hers, and a cup that a horse had won. All those photos were taken in the 1920s, so that would have been Herbert, Ray’s dad. So I don’t know how he would have got out there.

Be fascinating when it’s all collated. We’ll need to get you in to come and identify some of the people we don’t know.

Yeah.

All right …

I can just tell you a bit about my family. Well Reg was an auctioneer – I said that before. Val was a typist in an office before she met Len. Ivan used to work for the Union Steamship Company, in the office, you know. The twins – they both worked in – one worked at Dalgety’s, one worked at Blackmore’s Clothing shop. Les was a car painter. We all took apprenticeships, the younger ones. Les took a … car painting, Bob was a joiner, Peter did panel beating, and then I took up engineering.

So that pretty well covers everything. You’re retired now at seventy, you could have another twenty-five years here.

Well, I hope so. I’m not a computer man so that’s what I want to try and do, is start learning. I used to – when I was a foreman I was doing work on the computer but all I had to do was the timesheets and job sheets, you know, and organise the jobs and organise the guys, but that was a sort of a set little programme – you didn’t do anything else.

Repetition.

My mum’s dad, they came out from Liverpool in 1910, arrived in Auckland on the ‘Sussex’, and then they moved down to Gisborne. And John Houghton – he was a gardener – that was my grandfather’s father. So my grandfather went to the First World War – he was Robert Houghton, and his brother Joseph Houghton – they both went to the war. They both come  [came]  back, fighting in Europe.

Grandad was married and had gone to the war before my mum was born – just before. She was born in 1916 on Christmas Day. Anyway, when he come [came] back they had another child – her name was Ruth Walters. And anyway, it wasn’t long after that his wife died of that flu that was around, black … so he lost his wife. And in that time there he was single again, so his father, John, adopted my mum and her sister and brought them down to Hastings. And he worked in the Frimley Gardens and that, so they lived down Fitzroy Avenue. And she grew up here.

And then after, at some stage when mum – I think she was only seventeen when she got married, and her sister went back to Gisborne. ‘Bout all I think.

Things like this black flu, and there was other epidemics we had ‘cause we didn’t have the medicines to cure. But there were lots of families that were broken by the mother or the father dying, and there were adoptions amongst families. Well I guess it was a necessity.

Now the story about Robert Houghton, my grandfather on my mother’s side – he went to the war. And I didn’t realise there was anything – I’ve got a photo of him in his Army uniform. But a few years ago there was an article in the Gisborne paper saying that the RSA in Nelson have got some medals that belong to three Gisborne soldiers and one of them happened to be my grandfather, Robert Skilling Houghton – ‘If anyone … you know … make enquiries’. So I rang him up, and he says “yeah, well you’re the only one that’s called”. And he says “well all the information I need is – you give me his Army numbers and … information you can”. He said “you going to have to have the okay from all the other family members”, and he said “send me some information.” So I did this and I got all the information – rang my cousins and all me [my] brothers and sisters and they all okayed, to say “yeah … no, that’s good.” So we sent an email down to them and they sent the medal to me, which is good. There was only the one medal – apparently there’s two. One’s a Victory Medal, and I don’t know what the other one was called. So I had a replica made of the second one, and so now I’ve got it all mounted up in a frame and the service he did … where he went to – I’ve got that mounted, and a photo of him and the medals. And I photocopied them all and I gave them all to all the family so that they can have a look.  And I wore the medals to the 100th year. It was good.

Oh, that’s been most interesting.