Leete, (Joe) Guilden Frederick Interview

Today is 19th November 2024. I’m privileged to be speaking to Joe Leete at the Knowledge Bank, Hastings. I’ll leave it now with you, Joe, to tell us your life story. Thank you.

Well I was born eighty-five years ago, I’m told, and we lived in Hastings at the time in Southland Road. And I’m told I was six months old when we moved from Southland Road, I understood to Haumoana, although [as a] six-month-old I don’t recall the occasion. I think at the time the house in Southland Road – I don’t think the parents owned it, it was rented ‘cause it was all part of Peter Bridgeman’s big area down there. But then the parents moved out to Haumoana to a little wee shack. I understood it was unlined at the time and my father told me that Peter Bridgeman’s crew turned up with a whole truckload of lining board and lined the whole house out. But that was typical of my father – he had a great rapport with other people in the trade – he was in the electrical side. And I know that we must’ve stayed out there for about four years, ‘cause I always remember at the time my brother, Ted, had a microscope and my father had beehives; so he said that he would love to have a bee to look [at] under his microscope, and so being helpful I went out to get the bee. The bees attacked me and my mother reckoned with all the bee stings I got I looked like an old man at that stage. But that probably helped treat my arthritis in the future, with all the injections.

We stayed there for four years and then we moved into Havelock North into McLean Street, which is now renamed Scannell Street, and [external siren] in that street our house is the only house still standing – all the rest have been knocked down and rebuilt – we stayed there, and my father had beehives; he had all the Tutira area along with working at the Power Board full time. He built a big honey extractor there; I know it was quite revolutionary – it would hold sixty frames at a time, and as far as I remember it went down to Dannevirke to another beekeeper.

But then my father wanted to buy a bit of land out in the country ‘cause he didn’t think it was good to have bees all round in town, so he approached old man Lane of Lane Road and he thought he could buy just a half acre. But no, old John Lane had eight and a quarter acres, and my father thought that was like buying half of Hawke’s Bay. But he decided to go for that and it was £40 an acre; and old John Lane said, “You could buy the paddock next door – that’s another eleven acres, nineteen acres altogether, and you could have it for £30 an acre.” My father thought that was ridiculous, that was most of Hawke’s Bay at that stage. But then he thought about it, and he went back to old John Lane, who was a real gentleman and said, “No young fellow, I’ve given you the chance; I won’t sell it to you now.” So we settled for the eight and a quarter acres up Lane Road where they built a house. And I think – I’ve seen the records – I think all up he borrowed £3,000 from the bank at the time to do it. But once again that house was all native timber, ‘cause I remember my father saying, “Oh they’re going to start and build houses out of this terrible pine now.” Out the back he built a honey house … he still had a few beehives, and every night when he came home from work – it was all concrete block – he made one concrete block each night and that all built up. And we had some cows up there and he built a cow bale.

But then later on when my parents passed on … my mother passed on with a massive heart attack; she must’ve been only about seventy, but my father went on longer and he came and lived with us in Te Aute Road for the last … oh, five months; I looked after him for five months twenty-four/seven. And then later on the property up Lane’s Road was sold, and the chap that bought it, two of his sons lived there. Later on – he had plenty of money so the house and the honey house and everything else was just bulldozed down and he redeveloped the whole site – but that’s the choice he can do.

Joe, would you just tell us your parents’ names?

Yeah, my father was Morden Frederick Leete, but then on his baptism certificate it’s the other way round, it’s Edward [Frederick] Morden. And my mother was Edna May; before she was married she was actually a Brownett.

From Hastings?

No, she came from Napier. My father lived in Te Aute Road – the house is still there where he lived originally – and his mother died when he was eight and his father died when he was twelve.

What were their names?

No, I’ll have to check that one up; I’ve got a family tree at home with it all on there anyway, but he was brought up by his aunt up on the Napier hill in Gladstone Road, up by the Napier Girls’ High School … in that area.

Do you recall her name?

Yeah, she was May Mitchell. And I only found out the other day from my cousin there’s actually a whole collection of May Mitchell’s stuff in the museum in Napier, which I must follow up and just see exactly what it is. Her husband was Bill Mitchell, and I think there was a fair bit of money in the family, that’s why May Mitchell’s got this collection of wonderful stuff at the museum. And that’s where my father – he was the first, I think, in Napier – he must’ve been only seventeen when he had a radio licence. He had a radio shack up at Gladstone Road and he had a radio licence; the first one was issued in 1923, and on the radio licence I thought they were a bit miserable ‘cause they cut the old date out and just put 1924 when he renewed it. So there’s a copy of that radio licence over at the Faraday Museum which I must follow up too.

That’s wonderful. Could you tell us now how to spell your name?

Yeah, well I’m Guilden Frederick Leete, and I understood I got that – it was a bit of a family feud at the time – my cousin in Waipukurau, he was born six months before me and he was given Guilden as a first name, and my mother didn’t want to be outdone so I got Guilden as a second name.

And now you’re Joe?

Yeah, and also it was a bit of a family scrap; my father wanted me to be called Joseph, so I was legally called Guilden but everyone knows me as Joe, just to confuse the issue.

[Chuckle] Well now, how did you meet your wife and where is she from?

Well it’s a double banger there, ‘cause my first wife I met through a [an] introduction scheme, and got married at St Luke’s Church by David King.

In Havelock?

Havelock, yeah. But fortunately the marriage only lasted five months; the wife had a nine year old son, but it just didn’t work out. We were living in the house at Ada Street, and I got David King to come round and see us; I thought the church would turn round and say, “Well maybe we should work on this”; and his straight reaction was, “Why make both of your lives miserable? You might as well split up.” And what really hurt me with that interview was he told me, “She’s only a gold digger”, which – in my ignorance I couldn’t see it.

I mucked around for a while, and my next door neighbour had told me about this person, and oh … no, she told her that she wasn’t interested – “I’m going off to Australia.” Well she went off to Australia.

[My] next door neighbour, Mabel Wendell, said, “Oh, he’s still around.” “Oh, I’d like to meet him.” So at that stage my wife, Bunny, although her official name is Jeanette, was actually a psychiatric nurse at the hospital. So I was given a phone number and I had to ring her up and talk to her in the psychiatric unit. And I used to go along and meet [her] in there, and I’d sit amongst all the patients until she knocked off. And I remember one day – Salvation Army used to come round dishing out cigarettes at that stage – and he came up and sit alongside me and said, “Have you been in here long?”

Bunny actually comes from Gisborne. Her father was a saddler up there, [John] Bunyan, and we ended up to-ing and fro-ing back to Gisborne and that. At that stage I’d only just moved the house we were currently in from Heretaunga Street in Hastings, and it was oh, probably … well almost to the wallpapering stage when I met Bunny, or Jeanette, and we ended up getting married at Ulverstone, an old antique [historic] house in Gisborne, with a celebrant. So that’s where we were married, at Ulverstone in Gisborne.

What date would that be?

No … I could look it up on my family tree.

And then you came back to Havelock North to live?

Yeah. Bunny at that stage had a house in Brunswick Street …

Brunswick … Hastings?

Yeah. And after we were married we moved into the house ‘cause it was all completed at that stage. Yeah … oh, the honeymoon, ‘nother story … we went to Australia because [I’ve] got very good friends in the horticultural line in Perth. And they’d talked about coming over to visit us and I said, “Well we’re coming over to visit you”; which we did. We went into – I think it was either Sydney or Melbourne – and we went across the [by] train through the Nullabor Plains which took four days, which … probably shouldn’t say it but it ended up being a bit of an accident, ‘cause when Bunny got back she found she was pregnant; that was with our first child, Reidun, and she is living in Gisborne now.

And then you’ve got other children after Reidun?

Yes, yeah; and then after Reidun Chloe was born. Chloe is still living in Havelock and she’s got three children. And the youngest one is George, our son, and … well he’s married the oldest Harrington girl; they were orcharding just in Oak Avenue here. They lived in a house in Tomoana Road for a while which they bought, but now that house has been sold and they’re in a fairly nice orchard which is part of the organisation he works for, although they own the house … a beautiful two-storeyed house that was designed by Michael Geor. And now they’ve got two children – Henry, who’s I think seven how, and Maeve, who’s three. Yeah, but they got hit badly with the flood, Morley Road is the road; the house and orchard backs right onto the expressway and the water was up to the window sills, but in some respects an advantage; they had two storeys so they could move some stuff upstairs.

This was in the cyclone 2023?

Yep, yeah – Cyclone Gabrielle, yeah. Yeah. And most of the orchard seems to’ve survived too, but after a horrific amount of insurance money the house is all back together again, and they’ve got new lawn laid and everything else, so it’s good now. Yeah.

It was a tragic time, wasn’t it?

Well yeah, yeah, that’s right, ‘cause I mean George came round to our place – oh, about mid afternoon – and he had a top on and I think he might’ve only had underpants on, ‘cause when the riverbank broke it came through like a tidal wave. There was a big high fence; we’d built a dog paddock … big strainer posts … and it just wiped the whole lot out. It wasn’t just a flood that came up slowly, it was like a tidal wave.

So they were safe in their upstairs?

Oh, well George – as I said, he came around to us in Te Aute Road with no legs on the bottom of the pants. And he’d told his wife, “We’d better get out of here in a hurry”, and just as well they did ’cause just round the corner is Trevor Goode’s house, two storeys, and I think the wife had to be rescued off the balcony of it. Yeah … yeah.

Yes – a lot of sadness and distress.

Yeah, very much so, you know – that’s one of the joys of being on the land.

Your own land, that was safe?

Yeah, no we’re right; but then Te Aute Road acted like a stop bank and the Baptist Church over the road got flooded. The Gardiners got flooded, the Moores got flooded, and the Rowes got flooded. But I was a bit concerned with that new big subdivision of Graham Lowe’s going in up the back – all that water virtually has to come down round our place through the gully. But I see they’re doing a horrific amount of work with retention dams and all the rest of it ‘cause the old fashioned idea seemed to be that when the water gets to the boundary it’s somebody else’s problem. But [it] looks like it’s going to be well and truly under control.

Good. Now tell us a little bit about your land. You’ve been in Te Aute Road a long time and you’ve developed the land?

Yeah, well we went there … I think it was through my father; he made contact with Byron O’Keefe. He was the legal advisor for the Lands & Survey [Department] in Napier. Oh, we knew about this bit of land down in Te Aute Road. At that stage when I started work I was working for Arapata down there, so I was very familiar with the area.

Arapata Farm?

Yeah. John Mason owned it at the time, and the story was that this piece of land was [owned by the] Education Board, but in actual fact it was still under Lands & Survey and a chap across the road, Dick Bright, had horses on it. And a bit of a scrap started ‘cause Dick Bright worked for the Rabbit Board and he needed the land to keep his horses for rabbiting purposes. But Byron O’Keefe contacted the Rabbit Board and they said, “No, no need to, we’ve provided him with a Land Rover.” So that was the end of the argument, so we went through the process.

They gave me a lease on the property; I thought it was only three years but I was just looking up the records the other day – it was for five years, and it was a peppercorn [rent] ’cause the piece of land was under Lands & Survey as a landing reserve. Byron O’Keefe told me at the time Te Aute Road is a chain for the road and half a chain for the railway, and the idea originally, in the early pioneer [days], was for the railway to come along Te Aute Road. Miss Crombie, who was one of my teachers at primary school, said the railway station was going to be where Donnellys’ house was … where the brick telephone exchange is in Havelock now. And the idea was … before the river changed its course back in 1870 or whenever it was … they were going to have jetties out into the river and they were going to float the wool out to sea and load it up out on the coast; and that’s how it came to be a landing reserve; and there was another landing reserve, a smaller one, which I also leased at one stage on the corner of Crosses Road and Napier Road. So we actually leased it for three years and then Byron O’Keefe said we should apply to buy it. He obviously took a liking to me ’cause he used to come out in the weekend to my parents’ place up Lane Road, and he would dictate a letter for his wife to type up on my old typewriter; he would sign it and then he would take it back to the Lands & Survey Office and read it on the Monday morning, and put it in the file.

We went through this process, and then it came up [that] they decided they were going to sell it to me, which is a bit awkward being government land. I had to go before the Land Settlement Board as if I was buying ten thousand acres. And old Dick Nimon, who used to be up Gilpin Road, was very helpful, and he said, “I won’t tell you … another person I’ve spoken to is going to help it, but it was Ding Dong”, he said. And it was a chap Bell who had a lot of power. And I went to this hearing, and they wrote back to me in due course and they said, ‘Yes, you can buy it’, but there was no price mentioned but the thing was to sell. So later on Byron O’Keefe wrote to me and told me that the price was, I think, £1200 or £1300; I thought that was ridiculous. I was going to tell him what they could do with their piece of land, but then when I settled down and … and being off [from] the government … I think I had thirty years to pay it off, and it was a peppercorn interest rate too. So that’s how we went through the process and ended up buying it off [from] Lands & Survey.

And how many acres do you have there?

That was only three and a quarter acres, and then as I say, I had the place down on the corner of Crosses Road which was under the Havelock North Borough Council at the [that] stage. But then later on when I was working at Arapata I used to cut the hay in the paddock next door which was a lucerne paddock. Unfortunately John Mason ended up with an untimely death, and Mrs Mason decided I could buy that paddock too; that was going to be £80,000, but then one of the sons was digging his toes in and she said, “No – I’m selling it to Joe.” So I ended up buying that piece too. Then right by the Herehere Stream was another property, and a chap [called] Vella had it. It was originally planted by Richard Scott into Golden Queen trees, and I think he said at the time there was a tractor with sprayer there; he wanted £12,000, and I said, “No, keep your tractor and your sprayer and I’ll give you £10,000”, so we bought that piece too. And [of] course what was the lucerne paddock is now Ryman retirement village.

Yes, big developments down Te Aute Road now, aren’t there?

Yeah, very much so.

Do you feel like you’re being surrounded?

Oh yeah, we’re being a bit crowded out now. But there was an interesting thing that came up, my sister had it on a website. When we put the orchard in we planted twelve thousand trees down Te Aute Road on that particular property and we put a well down – John Hill put the well down. And then on the Saturday there was a chap there doing the development of the well where they just blow it all out and clean it all out. I went down to see how things were going and he said to me, “Oh, there’s oyster shells down there. ” And I said, “Whoa! They wouldn’t be alive, would they?” I was having him on a bit. And he said, “Oh no, no”, and I said, “well, you may have mucked it up – it might be salt water that’s comin’ up.” So he got his old enamel mug out of the truck … “Oh no, that’s good water.” So they finished on the weekend and took the rig away. And there was [were] big stones in that well, it was a beautiful well, whereas down at the house well it was only sand, which is still beautiful water. I didn’t know that John Hill must’ve contacted the research station down [in] the Hutt [Valley], and next thing there’s a joker up there with a bucket and spade gathering up the stones I put over the riverbank ’cause it turned out [that] twenty-three metres down, thousands of years ago, [there] was a beach. And my sister’s got all those records now.

And it really was salty?

No, it wasn’t salty, it was beautiful clear water, but those mussel [?oyster?] shells were from the beach of thousands of years ago.

But another story was that Bill Lawrence used to be in charge of the pine tree nursery at Pakipaki years ago, and they had to put pipes in the ground there ’cause of the salt. And all down Mutiny Road, when they ploughed the paddock and it dried it all glistened. They reckon at that stage it was actually a fault that comes all the way round behind Napier Airport and that salt comes up there. But we had no salt down with us, although we have got a big layer of white powdery pumice under there which is obviously from when Taupo erupted originally …

Oh yes, Tarawera?

Well, Lake Taupo itself blew, and we’ve got this fine powdery pumice, whereas we had another property down Richard Road which I bought off [from] Dick Nimon years ago, and that was all great big lumps like rugby balls, and there was [were] a lot of charred logs in there when we come to plough it, so it’s all obviously related to geothermal activity up in the middle of the island.

So it’s a very fertile area, isn’t it, where you live?

Yeah, yeah, it is. When I had the property in Ada Street I reckon I had the worst paddock in Hawke’s Bay, but in Te Aute Road I had the best paddock. And old Dick Nimon said with the Richard Road property, “Don’t bring up that pumice.” But I ploughed it with a big single furrow plough behind a big Ford tractor – it was almost lying on its side – and these big lumps came up. And I rotary hoed it several times and it made it like a glorious potting mix. It was a mixture of pumice and the heavy soil, ’cause that was heavy soil off the Havelock hills which when it dried out you could poke your finger down through the cracks, so there’s quite a variation of soil types in Hawke’s Bay, all right.

And so you’ve planted trees, fruit trees, on the different lands?

Yeah. Yeah, well I planted twelve thousand where Ryman Village is now.

Peach, apple?

All apples, yeah, yeah. ‘Cause when we started the nursery we started off growing roses; and I think we got up to about eight thousand roses we had there, and also stone fruit trees. People couldn’t buy apple trees at the time, and Noel Congdon from the Agricultural Department suggested I go and see Dr Don McKenzie at the research station, and so I went down there about getting this rootstock, ’cause when I was doing my apprenticeship it was all the old twelve rootstock and things that’d gone out of fashion. So I marched down one day to the research station, and they said, “Oh – out there in that room out the back.” And I walked in there and here was this chap sweeping the room out, and I said, “I’m looking for Dr Don McKenzie.” He said, “That’s me.” And we got on like a house on fire; he used to refer to me as his nephew. ‘Cause there was a new series of rootstocks that’d come out from England and he had the first of it, and he gave me some 106 rootstock … MM106 … and some M793. I think he only gave me about two of one and ten of the other – and he said, “Treat that with your life, it’s going to be worth gold.” And he was right; and that’s when we went back and we multiplied up this rootstock, the original stuff he gave me, and that was really what we made most of the money out of in the nursery. We got up to probably over a hundred thousand trees we were growing, a year.

And what was the name of that particular variety?

No, this is only just the rootstock itself; this is the bit under the ground, and then you bud onto it. We used to bud onto it, and that’s the traditional way we used to do it, but most of the places … we used to supply a lot to John Paynter and Kelvin Taylor; they used to get truckloads. But most cases now it’s a different technique; whereas we took two years to grow a tree, now they bench graft; they put a little graft on the top of the rootstock and they produce a tree in one year, which made a big difference. But then when we came from Wilson’s we charged the same price, and it was six shillings [6/-] a tree. Now I understand it’s about $24-$25 a tree.

You don’t wish you were still in that business?

Well no, I’m a little bit too long in the tooth now. [Chuckle] But it’s quite nice ’cause George is still in the apple industry so I still know what’s going on. But you know, it could’ve been that George might’ve … he didn’t indicate being interested in growing the nursery ’cause he decided when he was eleven he was going to be a wine maker. But he’s back into apples now, and also they’ve got a lot of stone fruit there on the orchard, so he’s in charge of that packing machine. So it’s a different era, but still in the horticultural line.

Yes, you must be very proud of him?

Oh yeah, he’s done well, yeah. Well, all the family, proud of them, yeah.

So really you’ve spent your whole life in and around Havelock North, haven’t you?

Yes, well apart from six months in Southland Road and just four years out at Haumoana; then up McLean Street and then the property up Lane Road. Well once again, we dug a well there and it was quite fascinating ’cause we had trouble with water supply ’cause Old Man Lane … he was a real pioneer … he had a pipe that came from way up in Chambers’ property, several kilometres. It started off at about a two inch pipe, and he piped it all the way down to his house on the corner of Iona Road, and ‘cause there’s a flaw [?fall?] he had several tanks to break down the pressure.

My parents were on that same pipe but then [the] son-in-law came on the scene and he wasn’t terribly co-operative and the ile we drilled down. And we struck water all right, and we pumped out of this little hole for a while and then my father decided to dig a well.

Bill Taylor, who was over there between Middle Road and Te Aute Road, out the back [of his house] was the old fashioned copper but it had beautiful bricks in it, but it was always just stuck with sand and lime mortar which is beautiful, you could just wipe the water off.water got turned off quite a few times. So my father thought, ‘Oh we might see if we can find water’. So old Georgie Boyd came out – he lived out Swamp Road – and he marked a spot, and we drilled down with a four inch post hole digger with a long piece of pipe on [it], and I know my father paid him £10 for the water divining ’cause he walked around with a stick like they normally do. We drilled down thirty feet and we struck nothing, so father, thinking, ‘Well £10’s £10’; so he got him back out and he marked another spot down further. Old Georgie … he was wanting his £10 so he stayed there all afternoon wh So we dismantled his copper and took all the bricks up there, Lane Road, and my father cast a concrete ring and he keystoned all these bricks. You cut the corners off so they go round, and they’re not cemented in. He did five feet of those and then he got some sheet metal rolled; he had a [an] end of a cable drum and he cast these well liners on it, which were probably … I don’t know … ‘bout one and a half meters in diameter. But being a person of the Depression he used old fencing wire for the reinforcing, and made these on the site. We got down and started digging, and one well liner sat on top of the five foot [feet] of brick. Kept on adding on, and it used to be terrifying ’cause we only had a thin layer of pan but it was all sandstone, which you could shovel out. You’d have to scoop out underneath this bottom ring and the whole lot would slide down, and you just add another one on the top. But it was quite interesting – when you got down to about twenty feet, broad daylight, you’d look up and you’d see stars out … which seemed to be on. We kept on going down and my brother was giving me a hand, and there was a gum tree with a pulley on it and he used to pull the bucket up, but sometimes the well liners weren’t sitting dead right and he’d tip all the water over the top of you down the bottom. The only thing, you were a little bit restricted – I don’t know why my father didn’t have it rigged up, ’cause the air used to get very stale down there. He should’ve had a fan blowing fresh air down there.

Sounds ingenious …

But then we got down to where we were bringing up more water than the sand we’re digging out, so we just gave up; we installed a deep well pump there which was a good water supply. It was only about a hundred gallons an hour but it was sufficient. But there was always a problem with my father up there, ’cause he lived up there for twenty years after my mother passed away and every time my two sisters would visit the pump would always play up so I’d have to go up there and get the pump working again. So we had a bit of experience, and that was a great experience digging that well down to that depth, and that was sufficient water supply. But I presume … well hopefully the well might’ve been filled in now; ’cause it had a big concrete lid on which was quite safe, but it’s all water reticulated up there from the council now so there’s no requirement.

So tell me, how did you dig that hole that deep, just with shovels?

With just a trowel.

Really?

Yeah, just a hand trowel, yeah. Yeah, yeah.

And do you remember how many days it took?

Well, it was a weekend activity, so I don’t know. ‘Cause I know my father … with the Power Board, he had an old 1936 Chev [Chevrolet] car which had a big boot, and I know – obviously in the interim period – he had a galvanised tank in there and he used to bring water home from Hastings, obviously until we got the well going.

So all those houses up that way, that would’ve been the way that they originally got water to their own homes?

Well I found a plan the other day of a subdivision that a grandson of Lane was going to do; and I know Helen and Bruce Fippard lived up there and it was in behind there they put a well down, but I don’t know how successful it was ’cause that was going to be the water source for this subdivision of lifestyle blocks that he was going to subdivide. Norm Fippard was a well known accountant in Hastings, but the water supply originally came from springs on Chambers’ property, big beautiful springs. I went up there, and that is actually the source of the Herehere Stream, it comes down and joins up with the Karamu Creek, we call it, which was the Ngaruroro [River] originally.

So the Karamu Creek runs alongside your Te Aute Road property?

Yeah, along the back there, yeah … runs right down and runs under what they call the Havelock Bridge, which originally was the Ngaruroro before it changed its course back in 1870-odd. [1867]

Was that as a result of a flood it changed course?

Yeah, yeah, several floods apparently. ‘Cause Ray Durney had his property just above us and it circled round there and it’s all flattish land whereas where our house is, it’s actually a very steep bank and then it levels out again a bit by [the time] it gets down to the Karamu Creek.

I see, did you build your house there yourself?

No, we moved it – it was in Heretaunga Street alongside what is the Mormon Church there now. And it’s surprising how things’ve changed, ’cause I see on television the other night they were moving a house, I think to Farewell Spit, and it was in a vineyard; the house purchase and the move was $200,000. I can remember the spot; it sounds a bit sinister ’cause I went round to the house in Ada Street and my wife had skinned the house out … my first wife. It was all pre-meditated ’cause they’d even gone through the photograph album and taken out the photographs.

Barry Lay stopped me on the side of the road; “Do you want to buy a house?” So it sounds terrible … as if I kicked my wife out in the morning and bought a house in the afternoon. And that was alongside the Mormon Church and it was £9,000, and that was basically double what anyone was pay[ing], ’cause they were only paying about £5,000 for a house. But it was a bit snobby, I thought, but it was a beautiful stucco house with a tile roof, and I had to pay ten percent deposit on it and the balance before we started any preparation. And I got onto Devantier – he was a house removal place based in Rotorua; he mucked us around a bit but I did a lot of preparation and it was very good from my point of view.

I should’ve been as pleased as can be when my first wife took off, but psychologically it was a great medication, doing the preparation. I would go in there and work at night getting the house ready, you know, smashing out foundations and taking the chimney down and all the rest of it. Then finally Devantier turned up and they did the preparation and put the trailer under, and it was just purely a trailer, it’s not like the modern ones with the hydraulics on it and all the rest of it. It was fairly wet weather before that … ’cause in the back of there was the Heretaunga Bowling Club and Helen Fippard’s brother had the car sales [business] next door. There was a problem to get the house out, and my father being an electrician, he said, “Well, just see if we can dig down a two inch pipe and just lean it over so we can get the house out”; but no, Bob wasn’t going to be co-operative. There’d be no problem ’cause any fault with the power my father would have fixed it up. On the other side there was a lane way that went down to the Heretaunga Bowling Club so I got permission from them to cut their sign off ’cause it went over the top of the walkway, so that allowed us to get the house out, and you know, I had to reinstate the sign which was no problem.

But then Devantier turned up, and back in those old days the gutters were very deep and I think in the permit if I did any damage to the footpath I was liable. So Devantier backed his winch truck in, and the way that cable torqued with them trying to get the house off the site … but they finally won and put it out on the road, and then they took off. At that stage we made a walkway through the tiles; they used to work on the roof, you know, lifting up power lines. We were given directions but Devantier didn’t take – it was by the St John’s Ambulance in Southland Road there – there were heavy cables and we weren’t allowed to go that way, so I think they had to back down the street ’cause Devantier reckoned the house went [weighed] about sixty tonne. So we got out of there and before we got to Maraekakaho Road – I can’t think of the road – at the far end the chap on the roof … it’s easy to be critical afterwards … but he was working with no gloves on the roof, and he picked up this composite cable which has got like an earth wire in the middle of it, and he walked backwards into the eleven thousand volt bare lines. And I was at the Maraekakaho Road end and I could see him go down on the roof and roll, and I stupidly thought he would stop when he got to the spouting; but no, it was arms and legs and all the rest of it and he went down onto the tar seal road. A good friend of mine was with me – he was the one that did our house plans originally, Ian Drake – and he went up there and was holding this chap’s head, but unfortunately apparently electricity’s like a microwave – it cooked his arm. He went down to the Hutt [Hospital] and he ended up losing his arm. But he actually went back to the Power Board; but you know, it’s different to what it used to be or what it is now ’cause another chap went on the roof and he … we carried on. There was no police involved, workplace safety – I mean, now the house would probably have to sit in the middle of the street for a day before they’d give it clearance. And then we went round and over the railway at Longlands, and back in those days the railway had a lot of lines that used to go for the signals. The new chap on the roof just grabbed them all together, and I could imagine signals going up and down.

We carried on and we pulled in onto the property ’cause they’d already put the ring foundation in ’cause of the weight of the house – being stucco with a tile roof you just couldn’t put it on piles, it had to be on a concrete ring foundation. So they just pulled in off the road and the house was sitting on a [an] angle. I’ve got a photograph of the bridge just by the Louisa Stream, ’cause they had trouble getting over that ’cause of no hydraulic on the trailer; so they had to put timber on the road to lift this, and I thought it was going to slide off the trailer. And they just pulled it in off the site, and … “Right, we’re going home for breakfast now.” I think he had a bach out at Haumoana or somewhere. When we did the ring foundation we left both ends open so they could drive through and we put extra reinforcing in the ring foundation so they could drive over there; they just put it up on packing blocks ’cause we had to do more preparation work before it could come down. They came back and lowered it down and [on] the foundation concrete blocks I put in there … put it on the site and it settled down beautifully, ’cause it had the weight of the stucco and the tile roof. One room, which is our dining room, didn’t sit right down on the foundations, so … I had to do a lot of concrete work so I went and bought a tonne of cement and stacked it into that room, and that just made it settle down onto the foundations.

But then when you got up in the roof – it was a concrete tiled roof by Firth – no insulation back in those days; you could see all these little like $2 coins where the water had been dripping through it. So rightly or wrongly I decided to take the roof off, and so we went round and we took a roof of a house up Lighthouse Road on Napier [Bluff] Hill. And there was a big two-storeyed house which was another nurseryman’s house, backing on to Lindisfarne playing field and we took all that roof off; it was a two-storeyed house so I borrowed bins [hand bell ringing] from George Curtis, the orchardist at Longlands, and they took them up there and loaded into the bins and lifted them down with a crane, so I took the roof off that. And we were still short of ridging tiles which are like hen’s teeth to get, it’s all like … and these were all beautiful Marseille tiles which come all the way from France. They used to bring them here in the ships as ballast ’cause they’d take wool and that overseas but then the ships would be bobbing around, so they brought them back just purely as ballast; that’s the only reason that the Marseille tiles are here. And at the Power Board, Noel Curtis … in the earlier stages my father said, “Could you come and tile the roof?” ‘Cause that’s what he [Noel] used to do … he used to do the concrete poles for the Power Board. He said, “Oh no”, he said, “I spent most of my life taking those tiles off the roof.” He must’ve been referring to the first tiles. He said, “I live in Pakowhai Road.” The house that they were pulling down there – two-storeyed house in Lyndhurst Road – he said, “Can I just go and have a look?” The house was built in ’06 …

1906?

Yeah, and he rang back and he said, “Those tiles are as good as they day they were put on.” But it depended on where the tiles came from ’cause it’s a matter of whether they dug clay out of Te Mata Peak, or out Pakipaki, ’cause some of them used to just blow up like Weetbix. But there was one on the nose of the tile that had like a wasp there, and I can’t tell you what the name of it was but they were beautiful tiles, and we got all these tiles.

And we took the whole roof off St Luke’s Church in Havelock, ’cause none of them … although I was on the vestry there for a while … had been up there, but in their wisdom they decided to retile the roof. And they were just going to get a big skip and throw the tiles in, get rid of them, so I took my staff down. We had a Bedford truck and we made a wooden slide up, and we slid ‘em down. And in their wisdom they put Monier tiles on which are about fifty percent heavier in weight; so that was their choice. But I got all the tiles and a chap I think out Bay View got some of them from there too; so it’s a combination of several houses have gone on our roof.

Were they the original St Luke’s tiles as well, from when the church was built in 1874?

Yeah. Yeah, well that’s the silly part, is that it was a big scrap over the so-called village hall – I think it was a community hall. But Patrick Dingemans got involved, and it was all decided – they got halls and they smashed it [them] all down, whereas there would’ve been enough tiles ’cause there would only be ten percent rejects on St Luke’s Church. They could’ve used the tiles off the hall and they could’ve had beautiful Marseille tiles all the way through.

But you got the benefit of the tiles …

Oh yeah, yeah.

… and you still have them.

Yes, well I still have them, but I ended up with about … actually when we built the office and smoko room we put tiles on there, and I think we ended up with about seven hundred left over, so they ended up going to somebody down the Wairarapa. Yeah, the ridge tiles are the hard things to get hold of, and my brother got them off [from] the Cook Hospital in Gisborne, ’cause he’d worked there when they bulldozed that down into a gully. They didn’t take the tiles off either.

Such waste …

But then I’ve got the office in what we call the cottage now, two finials, fancy decorative ones, and I brought them all the way back from Perth. I bought them in a demolition yard over there and I took them on board as ‘carry-on’ stuff but I had them one in each plastic bag, and I had to walk on the plane with my shoulders up not indicate the weight that was in them.

Well, well, and you got away with that?

Yeah, I did. Yeah, yeah – wouldn’t get away with it now.

Oh, you’ve got a world of experiences, Joe …

Well yeah, well I mean, my father did that, he started it off ’cause I mean, he’d have a go at anything that came along. It’s just like starting with the house at Haumoana with no lining on [in] it, but that was the first house he’d bought, and then he went up McLean Street, and then up Lane Road and dug a well there; you know, built all the concrete blocks to build the so-called Honey House and …

And what was his occupation?

He was an electrician by trade.

Yes, so he learnt all that as he went along?

Yeah, well it was a case of … he would stop at nothing. As I said, he was brought up by his aunt in Napier so he had a real love affair for Napier. He did his apprenticeship at McGregor’s in Napier, and he then moved to Hastings eventually and worked for the Borough Council on the electrical side. And then the Power Board was formed and they took over the assets of the Borough Council at the time and he ended up being Chief Inspector at the Power Board up until he retired. I think he was a little bit annoyed ’cause he was always very active, and I think they had to retire at sixty-five. I think he would’ve been more than capable of carrying on for quite a few more years, ’cause one of his big projects was … Tutira was the last place they took the power in and he was very much involved there; that’s where he took a lot of photographs and they’ve got it all here now ’cause he was in the chair for the Camera Club for quite a few years too. So he had quite a few …

Interests …

Yeah. Yeah, very much so yes.

What a remarkable man.

Yeah – oh, yeah, yes.

So your mother did what all mothers did back then, brought the children up, looked after the housekeeping?

Yeah, ’cause my younger sister, she was born … I think she was only a few months old when we moved up to Lane Road …

What was her name?

Christine May – now married, Saunders. And she’s the one that’s put all these things on the websites. But there again you see, to make ends meet my father had a couple of cows; but then we used to grow back in those days – war years – Iceland poppies, and I think we got up to growing about ten thousand Iceland poppies.

And what did you do with those?

Well it used to be at night we’d pick them, and you know, it was more poppy buds, you know, when they were just showing a bit of colour. And he used to tie them up, and my mother used to be terrified ’cause you had to burn the ends of them and my father used to bring the acetylene bottle inside to burn the ends. And strangely enough they all went to Gibbs down in Dannevirke, there was quite a big nursery there.

So the stems went to Gibbs in Dannevirke or the whole plants

No, just the flowers. They were I think done up in dozens, I think, at that stage.

Florists?

Yeah. Although Gibbs had quite a big nursery – they used to grow a lot of pine trees and that – you know, when you’re going into Dannevirke, before you go down the hill and back up again, they were there in on the left hand side.

Yes that’s right

But then he had a go at growing vegetable plants for Simmonds & Co.

Simmonds in Hastings?

Yep, yep. Yeah, old Charlie Weber was the manager there at that stage. And then he had all the bee hives up the Tutira era [area] – I think he realised that it was too big a job – and he was very friendly with old Laurie Gordon and Perce Berry … great mates … so I think he ended up selling up all his bee hives up there at Tutira to Perce Berry. But then at that stage it was quite demoralising, foulbrood was a bad thing. I remember going up there with Father; we used to go up and camp at Tutira in a tent, and go up with a trailer behind the old Model A we had at the time. And we used to go round and he’d find foulbrood in a nest; and he’d have a five pound tin of cyanide, and I remember him with his hive tool taking it out and throwing it into the beehive and just blocking it up. It must’ve been so demoralising, you know, to wipe it out. But he was fairly well respected in the bee fraternity for a while.

A man of many talents …

Yeah, well he wasn’t there to let the grass grow under his feet, I can tell you that. [Chuckle]

And he was a lovely father too?

Oh yeah. Yeah. Although I think he might’ve had Mother under his thumb a little bit too much, ’cause she used to like singing in the choir and playing the piano, but she didn’t do too much of that. But then you know, Christine, the youngest sister, was born at that stage so she was only a young child. And then my oldest brother who’s since passed on, he was a bit of a harum-scarum and a mad idiot on a motorbike. My father used to teach apprentices at the Boys’ High School in [on] the weekends; when he was away on the Saturday morning my father, my brother used to ride up Iona Road with his motorbike with no exhaust pipes on, and he reckoned the sheep ran for miles in the paddocks on both sides.

Then my eldest sister, she was married quite young; I think she was about … only eighteen … and she married Frank Maxwell. He was brought up at Puketitiri, his father used to be [the] Lands & Survey joker looking after Balls Clearing up there. And they had to get married quickly … not ’cause of any pregnancy or anything … ’cause he’d applied for this job over [in] Mangaweka, and it was for a married person so they had to get married. And they milked cows and then they went down to Ohau and milked [did] share-milking down there. And then they bought a farm up at Reporoa, and they did very well for themselves; and also their son did very well – he had about fourteen dairy farms at one time so …

What was the name of that sister?

That was Janice Maxwell. Yeah, she was Janice Edna after my mother. But she’s ninety now, and her husband passed away a few years ago. She’s down in Nelson ’cause her eldest daughter lives down there, so she’s more or less in a care situation now.

So you would’ve all attended schools in Havelock North as children?

Yeah, I’m not too sure … eldest sister when we were at Haumoana, only she would’ve gone there. But I certainly attended the old Havelock Primary in Te Mata Road, and then Christine and my brother would’ve been there in Te Mata Road; but then my sister was more or less like a first day pupil when they opened up in Campbell Street.

So no Intermediate at that stage so you stayed on until Standard 6?

Yeah, oh yeah, it was just straight through to Standard 6.

And then what – to the Boys’ High School in Hastings?

No I went to Napier, ’cause I wanted to go more the farming way. Both my father and brother were electricians by trade, and I don’t like things that you can’t see that bite, so I decided to go farming so I went to Napier Boys’ High School. While I was there my father was very friendly with Sid Morrison in Karamu Road, and my father built an electric welder for himself and Sid Morrison. I’ve still got his original welder in my shed, although unfortunately burglars got in and took the copper leads off it for scrap metal. But it’s still there. Going to Napier Boys’ High School I could weld, so just being a student there I ended up building a hay barn, ’cause it was all – I think it was Lands & Survey … no Harbour Board lease – all the high school farm right down to the golf course at Awatoto. And we built this hay barn, and it had railway irons for the uprights and then we put the lattice work on top. But the amusing part was – ’cause they’re building houses there now – we could only pour the concrete at low tide otherwise the water was … so they’d be certainly on a floating foundation; but that hay barn … all the development there’s gone now. Yeah, but it was still all good experience.

So that area was farmed as part of the Boys’ High School curriculum?

Yeah, right down to the golf course, yeah … chap Midgely, he was the manager of the farm, and they had Ray Keith’s; they had cows, they milked cows too, ’cause what it was, the boarders at the Napier Boys’ High School could do it while they were there but we’d have to go over there [for] six weeks in our school holidays to do the practical agricultural part of it.

So you lived in your home in Havelock North and travelled over there by bus?

Yeah, we went over there, it was [a] New Zealand Railway[s] bus from Hastings, and 5/9d [five shillings and ninepence or, fifty-nine cents] a week for the bus ticket. And we weren’t terribly popular at times ’cause it used to be if you had to hang around for the bus – we used to go across the railway line, up on the Parade; and if you got there you could hitchhike the Daily Telegraph car bringing the newspapers through to Hastings. But quite often you used to just hitch hike home anyway, and then [with] my father at the Power Board I would just walk round to him and it used to be quite enjoyable, I used to get on well with the staff there. He would bring me home.

Well you’ve had a very varied life …

Yeah … oh, that’s right, yeah.

Do you have anything else that you’d like to share today or shall we talk another time?

Well the only other thing is that when I started working my eldest sister did like an apprenticeship as a dressmaker, and she was at Miss Manson’s which is up the top end of Duart Road; that slightly strange religious outfit. They’ve got a beautiful big house there with …

Oh yes, you mean Weleda?

No, no. No, it’s another … he was like a so-called disciple that came …

Yes … we’ll think of it. [Whare Ra]

Yeah, ’cause it’s got a beautiful tiled floor in there which is quite famous. But Miss Manson lived in a little cottage there which went up to the reservoirs, and I remember going there. My first job was cutting kindling wood, and that was 1/9d [one shilling and ninepence or nineteen cents] an hour they got paid for that.

And then I used to go over from Lane Road, walk over the hill to Margaret Avenue, and old Duncan Burberry was there … had an orchard, and I used to work in the orchard. And I mean, he was a different personality – he was quite a character. In the orchard I always remember him saying – it was old wooden ladders – “Make sure all three legs are firm on the ground before you go up”, and I thought that made a lot of sense. I used go over there a lot; I don’t know how much he paid me but I must’ve been satisfied. He had an old packing shed and it was a bit rusty, so we had a drum of tar which we heated up and I tarred the whole roof and all the walls of that shed with this hot tar.

How did you do that? With some sort of tool?

No, just a big brush – but I mean you know, you had to have it hot.

Yes – and you were a school boy at that stage?

Yes – well I think I was still at primary school …

Ohhh!

… and every now and again the drum of tar would catch on fire so you’d have to go and put that out. But he was to me a personality … quite eccentric. I don’t think I’m talking out of turn – he had to go to Porirua a couple of times. And at that stage old Beck was the constable out at Havelock … he was a personality himself. Back in those days it was the railcar to go down to Wellington, and just before he got there he said to old Beck, “Oh, can I see my papers?” And he had the papers and they went to Porirua, and old Duncan admitted Beck …

Ohhh!

… yeah, as a patient. [Chuckle] It took him quite a while to get himself out again.

[Chuckle] He was quite a wag?

Oh, he was … yeah, delightful person.

So he needed to be accompanied to go to Porirua?

Well he went down there several times. His son, Nigel, he was really hypo … he has got a mental problem; he ‘s still around. But he used to go in the orchard; instead of a ladder he had stilts on. And [where] the average person [siren outside] could pick say five or six bins but he could sweep them off the tree and he would do ten bins a day. Yeah.

Was that because he didn’t have to move the ladders around?

Yeah, yeah. Yeah, but he was just … you know, like on a high when he was out there pickin’ fruit, he just literally swept the fruit off the tree.

No machinery to pick the fruit then, was there?

No, no. No.

And then I went down and enquired at Masons once, down Middle Road there – the entrance was straight across … you know where Birdwood is now? That was all part of the property at the time, and he’d planted a lot of pampas bushes; he’d put two fences so far apart. He had all the property at Pukahu, and I was given this … like a spade-cum-shovel, and I spent the whole six weeks on this shovel chipping the weeds along these rows. Harry Waters was the manager; he was from Australia but he was a delightful person, couldn’t get anyone better.

I did that, and then I went back and was working on the farm doing a lot of agricultural work, tractor work and all that, and threshing grain. [Siren outside] And I used to go down to that property next door where Ryman[s] is now and do the lucerne hay; cut that and bale it. I’d do it either early in the morning or late in the evening, ’cause lucerne … if you don’t do it right all the leaf falls and you’ve only got the stalks so you’ve got to do it with a bit of moisture in there. Yeah, and I did a lot of … well, even crawler tractor work and subsoiling and all the rest of it.

We had that hay barn way up on the top of the hill – it’s still there at Arapata – and you know, we did a whole range of stuff. Mr Mason had a Romney stud and George Linton came up from the South Island – he was going to be in charge of the stud. Went out one day and here was this ewe trying to lamb, and so I lambed the ewe, got a beautiful ram lamb. I think they called it Joe, ’cause that was the first one of the stud born.

But John Mason … well he had a lot of businesses, but some of them weren’t too good. He had Putaruru Timber Yard which had pre-cut houses and all the rest of it. He was a person that [who] just didn’t go and see management, he went and saw the people on the ground floor, and unfortunately he fell into the big breaking-down saw and he was virtually chopped in half. So Arapata was all sold up; Mrs Mason moved into a house up behind where the brick kiln is in Havelock, and that was the end of all that … what was a great experience, actually.

He taught you a lot, obviously?

Oh yeah, I learnt a lot there, yeah, very much so. And also this Australian manager, he was brilliant.

Whereas … well, the orchard in Te Aute Road went downhill, so in ’97 we sold that and to another chap who I think lost a lot of money; we sold it for about $230,000, but I understand that he sold it to Ryman[s] for $3.5 million – the land.

So I had to do something, and at that stage a chap was managing … another Australian … who turned out to be an absolute idiot liability. His wife was working at Royston with Bunny. So I applied for a job out there, and … oh, it went on and on; took about six weeks before I got an interview, and I had an interview with this joker. “Well yeah, you’ve got the job.” Ninety percent of it Jim Delegat had to come down from Auckland and interview me; so I got that job, but this joker was an absolute idiot, and things we were doing in the vineyard … I don’t know why Delegat’s even employed him, ‘cause I mean, Jim and Rose Delegat were delightful people to deal with. And so I kept my mouth closed for about twelve months and then I started asking questions, and he didn’t appreciate that. Everything had to be … file cabinets full of paper, and we all had fancy titles. I forget what mine was – I think it was ‘Land Maintenance’; and he’d had all this programme worked out that we’re going to put a new workshop up, and I got a price, $12,000. “Oh! I’ve only put $8,000 in the budget.” Next thing Jim Delegat gets involved … $320,000, the design; it was an architect designed job. And they built all this wonderful workshop and that was supposed to be for me. And then I fell out of favour with this idiot, and, “Oh – no, we’ll have to see about another position ’cause your job’s going to be redundant; we’re going to outsource all the work and get it done in town.” And it was only just an excuse to get rid of me. So we had to go through the whole process of you know, being put off.

They put him off the orchard and he went into one of Mike Toogood’s places in Heretaunga Street; it was for a fairly long term lease. Went in there one day and his typist said to me, “I can’t believe that letter that I had to type up – it was relating to you to go to head office, with what he was saying.” She didn’t elaborate [on] what was in the … So I had to go back ’cause he was going to see if they had another position, ’cause another joker that he employed who was an idiot too – he was given marching orders. He had to go and work for Delegat’s in Marlborough if he wanted his job. So he went into Mike Toogood’s office there upstairs and … “Oh no, we find we’ve got no positions at all for you.” I said, “Why didn’t you tell me that in the first place?”

But … oh that’s right, he gave me a real – put it bluntly – shitty job running second hand wire in the vineyard. I did that for a month ’cause I had a month’s notice, and this one day I was on the tail end of it and Jim Delegat was being shown around, and he came over and shook my hand and, you know, “Sorry about having to put you off”, and all the rest of it. But he said, “Oh, you’ve got three weeks’ redundancy pay anyway, that’ll keep you going.” I said, “No, I got three days”, ’cause I was going to go home and look after my father. It worked out well ’cause if my father had to go into a home at that stage …

So the last day I went, and Dennis Green was one of them still working there; he was one of the Greens from you know, next door to Lombardi down there? I got sick of the wire thing, so I went down helped them planting some new grape vines. And next thing his phone goes and it was the assistant manager … chap Watson; “Whereabouts are you?” I said, “I’m down here just giving them a hand planting these few grapes.” “Oh well”, you know, “we’ve got a farewell party for you.” I said, “Well I won’t be there.” I wasn’t going to listen to this idiot Australian being two-faced. “Oh, well we’ve bought all muffins and all that for the farewell party.” I said, “Sorry, I won’t be there.” So the manager wrote me a letter, you know, as if I wasn’t playing by his rules and all the rest of it, and also some query about my number of hours and all the rest of it. But I got my three weeks’ pay, and went home and started looking after Father which was far more rewarding than being dictated to by an absolute idiot.

Well that was a nasty experience though, wasn’t it?

Well yeah, but it’s all part of life. It was a good experience; I mean, he had this great thing … ‘multi-functioning’ … in the orchard where we had a Fendt tractor which [where] he could put a mower on the front and a sprayer on behind so you could mow and spray all together. Well, spraying in itself is a terrible job so it’s better to concentrate on that. So we moved about a thousand strainer posts back and had to pull vines out to make the headlands bigger, so we lost a lot of vines just ’cause of his stupid idea of this so-called ‘multi-functioning’. But I understand that … his wife worked at Royston, and from what I gather he might’ve had a mental breakdown, and went back to Australia, which is … good riddance to him as far as I’m concerned. [Chuckles]

So when did your father die eventually?

He died about ten days before his ninety-third birthday … couldn’t tell you exactly what year, but I’ve got all that at home on the family tree. My father did the family tree; I’m not terribly much into that kind of stuff. But then Vern King who had an advertising agency – I was very friendly with him and he put the whole family tree together which is all framed; and I did a lot of proof reading on it. But I must write down now, you know, when my brother-in-law died, and all those that knew me. If I just stick it on a sticker on the back of the thing – I’m not going to worry about doing it again, I mean, it’s just for George and his son, he was a Leete by surname anyway.

Well, I think, Joe, you’ve covered a multitude of years …

Yeah … sorry, bit boring. [Chuckle]

No, not boring at all.

Another thing that’s just cropped up, with my father, you know, being brought up by his aunt in Napier; ’cause those days it was the trams in Napier and when you came down Shakespeare Road, you didn’t get your push bike in that otherwise you were over the handlebars. But he must’ve had a paper run there, and apparently [there] must’ve been loose papers; but if you came to somebody that you didn’t particularly like you rolled the paper up very tight and then broke it over the knee before you put it in their letterbox.

Another thing fascinating was, round at the end of the breakwater there was a well against the cliff. They must’ve put it down for exploration. He used to go round there and turn the tap on, and every now and again there’d be a blurp come up – there was obviously gas down there, ’cause he said he’d have a box of matches and it would light. Yeah, that was just two fascinating little things with Napier. But then my aunt had a son, and I think between him – George Mitchell – and my father, I think they virtually terrorised Napier in their teenage years.

[Chuckle] Well, sounds like he had a wonderful upbringing …

Oh yeah, he did.

… even though it was an unfortunate start for him.

Yeah, that’s right. Yeah, but I think … you know, let’s face it, it might’ve been an unfortunate start as you say, but I think it all adds to your strength later on.

Absolutely.

I mean you know, life’s not supposed to be just a …

A bed of roses?

Yeah, that’s right.

Well Joe, if there’s anything else that you think of …

My brother, as I say, he was harum-scarum; he was an electrician too. I think he started off at Island Bay down in Wellington – I think that was like a [an] electrical supply place. I think the Sutherland [Sunderland] float planes used to come in there. And then he worked for quite a few years at Wairakei in the geothermal power; then he was at the hospital in Gisborne, and I think he ended up being classed as a [an] electrical technician. ‘Cause that’s another thing, even with my father … when he retired he actually sat his electrical technician’s exam. It must’ve been through a correspondence school in Wellington. I had all his handwritten notes and they were very complimentary about his, you know, writings and all the rest of it.

Also, another side issue; my father … I think we were at Haumoana … I think he had a kidney problem, so he was just in the Home Guard and that was based in Foxton. I was with my father when he passed away; there was always trouble, like with older people, getting enough fluid into them, and I used to have half flat lemonade. And I had a little tumbler with some in and I gave him a drink, and he laid back on his pillow, smiled, and his head just rolled to one side. And I thought, ‘All those things I should’ve asked him’, but I didn’t.

But I’ve got a medal, and it’s Sergeant Leete – he must’ve been up to the rank of Sergeant. But also I’ve got other medals which relate to my grandfather, Walter Slater. He was involved in the one day war out there at Omarunui, ’cause a group of the Maori at that stage were intending to attack Napier so they went and met them half way. I think there’s three medals with W Slater on the outside. He was the bugler there; I brought a book in, it’s in amongst the stuff … ‘The One Day War’. He was the bugler, but his grandson sounded the bugle, and he reckoned he did the Retreat. [Chuckle]

Joe is going to add a little more about his earlier years.

What I probably admitted [omitted] … when I finished at Arapata [I] had to do something. So my father was very friendly with old Donald Wilson of Wilson’s Nurseries, so it was arranged; I went there and it was a Saturday morning; I remember climbing up to open the door of the office and old Donald Wilson came through the garden from the house – he probably thought I was trying to break in. But he decided I could do an apprenticeship, and the fact that I’d worked on Arapata, my age gave me one year off my apprenticeship … instead of being five years I had four years, and I was going to get the same money as Brian Davis who went to Napier Boys’ High School also, but he’d started the year before, and it was £10 a week. Brian later on went on to be Superintendent of Parks in Gisborne, but unfortunately he passed away about eight years ago. But I did four years at Wilson’s and it was a great experience. You very quickly learnt that you didn’t dig up your garden with a shovel, you had to use a spade; shovels were only for shovelling shingle. And I mean, he was a great person to learn under; he was a fairly tough taskmaster but you did things the right way, although I must admit over a period of time he shot himself in the foot, ’cause you’d have to put out orders in the winter, and you might have labels for six different types of hydrangeas, named ones, but you just dug the first six in the row, so they weren’t really getting … And I think he mucked himself up a little bit there.

But then at the tail end when I was down on the property in Te Aute Road, I’d already started growing [a] nursery; I was only half way through my apprenticeship and I had a paddock full of fruit trees and I think a few roses and all that, ready to sell; but I actually hadn’t sold anything. About ten days before the completion of my apprenticeship old Donald Wilson got onto me … “The fact that you’re doing doing nursery work … that’s contrary to your apprenticeship contract.” But I mean I didn’t query it with him, but the fact that I hadn’t sold … I mean, anyone can grow trees. He jumped off his bike a bit, and cooled down a few days later and said, “Well maybe we could work in together. You could do stuff for us and we could do stuff for you.”

So I was due for my annual holidays, so I went off and saw Gordon Hosking who was the manager at the Research Station. He said, “Oh yes, we’ve got a position up for an assistant for Don McKenzie”, who was a great friend of mine. He said, “It closes next week, but I can tell you now you’ve got the job.” I said, “Well [the] only thing was [is] that I would only probably want it for three years ’cause we were already starting the nursery; it’s only an interim thing.” “Oh no; no, that wouldn’t be any good, but you know, see what you can do.”

So I got on my bike and I went down to Wyona Canneries. [I was] very friendly with the Lays there, and they were brilliant, so I started a job there straight away. In the nursery you’re virtually bending down, touching your toes budding, and all the rest of it, but the first job Doug Lay gave me down at Wyona was picking the last of the fruit off the apple trees, which was bending the other way; oh, I thought I was almost going to break in half doing that. But that was another fantastic experience, working for Wyona Canneries. I actually worked there for three fruit seasons. It was a matter of building up machinery and all sorts. We used to do a lot of solid pack apples, which was … back in those days they brought in hundreds of bins; tonnes of Sturmer apples, and they were done as solid pack. My main job at that stage was putting the lids on these A10 tins which were … ooh, I suppose like a five pound tin. But in between times we built a new cool store; they put another big boiler in, and I remember building the cool store – we’d put the timber work up there, and I actually had the great big welder which I’d bought from Ivan Tuck, Ruahine Engineering. And that went down there and that’s what they welded most of the steelwork up with. I took it as a great experience in that time.

At the earlier stages Doug Lay was mucking around with a boat with jet propulsion rather than a [pro]pellor, and that must’ve been about the same time as Hamilton developed his big jet boat; they were really pioneering. Since then my sister put this on the website, and Kevin Lay, who was also a pretty smart cookie – he’s done all these things – they put these little radio things on birds and all that; I think they call it [a] tracker or something or other, but he responded. And they apparently built a hydraulic orchard ladder too, which might’ve even been before Hydralada started. But you know, the whole thing working for Lays was absolutely brilliant, and I got on extremely well with them. Unfortunately Doug ended up with a bad back, and I remember Frank Lay had a station wagon, and on a couple of occasions they had to lie him out in the back of the station wagon. I think they took him for some treatment down in Palmerston North. But also, that same family is Barry Lay that [who] stopped on the side of the road and wanted to know if I wanted to buy a house. So that’s more or less the end of that experience.

Yeah, just a small thing, Wyona … I don’t know how the name came about but it started off fairly small. It’s down Napier Road on the corner of Thompson Road; the actual place is up for sale at present again, but there were some other people that took it over originally and built some big cool stores, and they ended up going belly up. Unfortunately I lent them all my irrigation pipes and [of] course [as] the result of insolvency I lost all my irrigation pipes.

But it was a great experience working with … well Frank Lay was basically the owner; and then Doug and his wife worked in the office, and Barry Lay also … I think he actually had a franchise for selling refrigerators … but he also was working down there off and on. It’s certainly expanded, but it was reliant on a chap Etheridge that [who] did all the marketing of it. I think he was based in Napier, but I think his firm folded up, so seeing there wasn’t any outlet the whole thing virtually fell apart which was extremely unfortunate.

How long would you’ve spent there?

I spent three seasons there, but I’ve always had the connection with the Lays for years.

Joe will just add a story about his father.

Yeah, my father was brought up by his aunt in Gladstone Road, that’s Morden Frederick Leete, and out the back of the place was what he called the ‘radio shed’ and I’ve got a photograph of him sitting there with headphones on. I worked it out the other day, ’cause I mucked it up … I thought my father was born in 1904 but it was 1906, so he would have been only seventeen when he had his radio shed up there. And he had a radio licence which I’ve got a copy of, issued in 1923. I took a copy of that over to Dave … oh, what’s his name? Over at the Faraday Museum; I must check to see if it’s been put up, because I was a little bit annoyed ’cause the original one was issued in 1923, which I think you’ll find is probably the first in Hawke’s Bay. But when it came to renew they just crossed the old one out and just wrote over it ‘1924’ for its next year. Yeah, Dave Prebensen, I gave it to him – he tried to contact me, but we’ve never crossed over.

So your father had dealings with the Camera Club as well?

Yeah. I think he ended up being made a life member of the Camera Club locally. He used to exhibit nationally, and also [at] the latter end of it all with the Camera Club he used to send prints overseas, so he got into the international market. He organised – I’ve got a photograph of it – a huge collection of people from all round the world, and they had a big thing held at the Racecourse in Hastings here; there must’ve been … I don’t know, two or three hundred people at that event. Ivan Hunt of Hunt’s Jewellers was one of the big noise[s] there, and then there was old Arthur Purchase who was a bit of a grump; I think he was an accountant. And then there was old Ted Teesdale, and one of the Tustins who I think was in Arthur Purchase’s office. Been living around here too long … there was a chap Tustin and then there was Ian Tustin, who had a nursery down on Kaiapo Road. And his son worked at the Research Station, so you quickly go through three generations of one family. That’s the worst part of living round here too bloody long.

Oh, best part, I think. [Chuckle] Shows you’re connected.

Yeah, that’s right.

Well … wonderful lot of memories. Joe, I think that we’ll call today a day, and thank you very much for all you’ve shared.

My pleasure.