MacEwan, Florence Perress (Flo) Interview

Today is the 2^nd June, 2015. I’m interviewing Flo MacEwan (nee Hingston) about the life and times of her family. Flo, it’s all over to you.

Right – thank you. Well I was born in 1935 at Sister Cooper’s in St Aubyn Street into a very secure family that had been in Hawke’s Bay for some considerable time. My grandparents, I understand, still talked about England as home and yet my grandmother had been born in New Zealand, but that was the way of the world in those days.

Until the age of ten I really had not experienced a world without war. War played a huge part in those early years, with BBC News at 7 o’clock where you had to sit quietly and not say anything, and your parents expressed distress at how the war was going, and of course it didn’t really mean a great to you when all you had to do was be quiet. My mother had a very antagonistic view to war because she’d lost her only brother in the 1st World War and she didn’t see there was a need for a world war. And consequently she’s influenced me because I very rarely buy or support RSA because I think it’s almost promulgating war – but nevertheless that’s a side line.

I started school at Mahora, but when the Japanese entered the war my mother felt that going through Tomoana Works was a prime target for the Japanese to bomb and we couldn’t have little Flo and sister Jan walking through the Freezing Works at such a time. And it was so safe to go up Ruahapia Road, or to go up Panapa Road and go to Mangateretere School. And it was a very good move because Mangateretere School proved to be a very well adjusted, caring, racial tolerant and understanding … even although everybody was less advantaged, but everybody was caring of each other. And the Freezing Works of course played a huge part in Mangateretere School, Tuckers Wool Shed – Mr Tucker Wool Scourers. Mr Tucker was the Chairman or he might have been the representative on the Education Board and he would come to our school picnics and break-ups and make pontificating sort of speeches which never said very much at all. But both Jan and I and Perry were very, very happy at Mangateretere School.

The one highlight of going to Mahora – I think I was only there for about two terms – and the highlight of the year was – there were picnics. You had County picnics, and you had school picnics. And when we were at Mahora we went on the train to Napier, and I must admit the Parade … the Napier beach wasn’t quite like it is now with all that shingle. When the tide went out at low tide there was sand and you were able to swim and paddle right outside the Marine Parade there. And of course there was all the … the train ride in itself was an excitement. But we were easily pleased in those days.

Now – Mangateretere – I say it was a caring school – we had Red Cross and we were encouraged to do things towards the War effort. Because I lived on a farm we didn’t really suffer rationing to any great degree but we were in teams and we had to take every coupon – rationing coupon that we took to school got us points for our house.

But we got our meat from the Freezing Works and our petrol came from … I don’t know where … out of a tank in the yard. Sugar was rationed but that didn’t affect us greatly, but butter – we supplied cream to the Dairy Factory so butter wasn’t an issue either. Clothing – I think it was the beginning of recycling. People unravelled old jerseys and then would knit the two worn out strands together. And we had – the lining in the boys’ trousers was made of flour bags. And certainly many ingenious ways were created to …

I remember those too.

[Chuckle] Yes, you would do – ‘course you would do.

The patches on the pants and …

That’s right. We had leather tags around our necks with our names and our addresses poker worked onto them. I don’t suppose people of today know what poker working is, but poker working was quite an art form in those days. I guess that was if something dreadful happened. I mean we were prepared for war.

We biked to school from Otene Road and because we were over a certain distance from the school we got permits for the inner tubes of our bikes, and there were very few cars on the road. But I biked from the time I was 5½ and I had a very little bike. And I can recall – well there must have been very few cars because I would show off and make the boys laugh. I haven’t changed much have I? [Chuckle] Riding in and out the white line in the middle of the road …

Well – why should you change?

[Chuckle] … which I think is a terrible thing now – I’d have fits if I thought my children were doing such a thing. Anyway, the Donaldson boys who lived in Elwood Road, they thought it was … they’d encourage me to do that thing by laughing.

And we had shingle roads and it was just lovely to get on to the tar seal on the main road. And we knew why the concrete on the road was not all the same length, because during the depression the men that were on relief work concreted that main road between Hastings and Napier, and of course if it rained or if they didn’t have so many in the gang the lengths of concrete wouldn’t be the same length. And now it’s tarsealed over, but you can still feel …

The joints.

… when you’re driving a car you can still feel the concrete underneath. Now my sister and I we would measure those lengths by how many pedals we did and we’d know which one was longest and we became really very well versed with what happened on the main road. But the shingle road was another thing, and it was just wonderful when the grader had been and there was no great piles of shingle to push your bike through, and it would be lovely to bike.

And of course the cattle came to the works along the road and we had very strict instructions on what we were to do. Not so much with the sheep, you just stood to the side of the road, but when the cattle came and some of those cattle were really wild, we would have to put our bikes by the fence and climb over the fence and wait till they passed.

Mr Royal was probably the last of the horse drawn drovers, and I can remember loving seeing his dogs taking turns in the hessian under the cart. And one would come up and one would jump out and another would jump in, and it really … Mr Royal always spoke to us, and we spoke to all the people. Everybody seemed to know you. But we were very well versed in keeping safe. We knew that we had to do what our parents … what our mother told us. We didn’t ever take rides or money or sweets or anything like that from people. Not just strangers but anybody – we weren’t allowed to take presents from them.

And talking about the Royals – Alec Royal was our paper boy and oddly enough we always got the Daily Telegraph, which was the Napier paper. And it wasn’t until the two newspapers amalgamated that we even thought about getting the Tribune.

Is that right?

Then it became HB Today. I don’t know, perhaps the sports section was better. Perhaps they had a better journalist doing the rugby – that might have been the … because rugby played a huge, huge part in our lives.

Well Alec Royal – is he the one that’s on the Council at the moment?

No Alec would be dead now. Ivan, round here, was his younger brother and they lived in Tomoana Road. Now – I’ve lost my thread a bit.

As I say, rugby played a huge part in our lives. Dad was just dedicated to Hastings Football Club. He’d played rugby for – well, they didn’t have Ross Shield in those days, but he’d been a primary school rep, and I’ve still got his cap in there. And he had rheumatic fever very badly so he never really … I think once he was selected for Hawke’s Bay but he didn’t get to play because his knees were just not up to it.

But he did nearly drown on McLean Park. McLean Park had been a rubbish tip at one time, and he was knocked out in a puddle and everyone played around him and suddenly realised that there he was face down in this puddle. [Chuckle] At McLean Park.

But his brothers, having been Te Aute boys, they played for Hawke’s Bay. They played for the big Ranfurly Shield in the early days then. And really, as I say, it was part of a religion within the family, and somehow I inherited that rugby desire because Perry and Jan have never really been as interested. I think I went to rugby from the time I was four years old, and I would sit on the grandstand. ‘Course Dad never sat on the grandstand, he was right up … because he was the Hastings selector and he was viewing those players. And he told me at a very young age “you just don’t look at a rugby game, you watch one player when you’re selecting a team. You’ve just got to see how much they actually do. It’s no good just looking at the score and who did big kicks and tackles, you’ve got to look at them for a few minutes”.

But while I was sitting on the grandstand there were people like Chris Lassen and all these older men who all knew who I was, and I’d be fed lollies, and share the rug. And there was never any suggestion of sexual abuse or anything like that. Those men were incredibly kind to me. And in those days I think we all knew what the lines were. We knew what was right and what was wrong, and we were very conscious of how our parents were so concerned about our well being.

It wasn’t … the security you felt as a child in those days – it wasn’t a materialistic view. You didn’t think – what my father did, or what my mother did, or how much money you had, or what car you drove, or how many things you had – you just were secure in the fact that your parents loved you. And I think it’s very important, and I often tell a story – in the times when I would be leaving schools – telling stories about … my father was a truck driver but he was a man who had wonderful skills with children. And he was taking my niece and her father’s godson out in his truck and they were driving along and Dad had to stop for something, and he got out of the truck and Susan and Michael were talking in the front and he said to Susan “oh, you are so lucky” he said “your Grandad’s such a great guy and my Grandad is only a Bank Manager”. And I think that really tells … people lose sight of how children think and it’s so important.

My mother was what I would call a conservative liberal. I think she voted National all her life, but she had a real thing about Unions and regulations. And I can remember somebody during the war coming to inspect something and she ordered them off the farm which now I shrink to think. And we had more wells on our property than we should have, and she wasn’t keen on blocking them off, and ‘who were they to tell her what she should do on her farm?’ Which, by today’s standards …

We didn’t know about conservation in those days – nobody was very con… I’d never heard the word conservation until I was probably in my thirties – but then I’d never heard about homosexuality either until I was in my twenties. [Chuckle] So, yes we were kept in blissful ignorance.

I left Mangateretere in Standard 6. One of the things we did at Mangateretere School – we had to go to manual training in Hastings. And it was absolutely amazing really, in hindsight, how we were put on a bus – no teacher. We would go to the bus depot which was on this side of Hastings where the Public Trust building is now, and we would walk right through the centre of Hastings to Central School. We would play on the old foundations of the secondary school which was still there by the Manual Training Centre, and we might buy a coffee bun or something. Nobody seemed to – we never seemed to have any trouble at all. We’d sit there and wait till the manual training … and the girls would go into sewing and cooking and the boys would go to their woodwork. I marvel how we used to have white aprons and white head gear – a thing that went on our heads – and when we were in Standard 4 we had to embroider our names on the front so the teacher knew who we were. The amazing thing is – I don’t think you could get children today – in Standard 4 today to do even a run and fell seam let alone embroidery. But I don’t think mine was very good. My mother probably finished it for me which she was very good at.

We went from Havelock School to manual training in Nimon’s old bus, and we had a little apron because we did woodwork.

Actually we went – at one time we did go with Havelock, because I can remember going with one of the Joll girls, she was my partner. And she was sort of – one of my aunts was married to a Joll. The second year we went with Pakowhai. It sort of changed around. But you did get to know … oh, I mean – the town was so small – it was lovely, everybody knew everybody else. There was no sexual harassment [chuckle] … just people were kind to each other. [Chuckle] We went on a blue Government bus and you went on a green Nimon’s one.

That’s right.

Right, well after completing my Mangateretere school education I went to Hastings High School which was a co-educational High School that my mother had been to before me. And she was very proud of the fact that she had matriculated in thirteen subjects including Latin, which you had to have to be a doctor. But she hadn’t been a doctor. She went to Christchurch Training College and trained as a teacher. But nevertheless, it didn’t seem to matter how well Jan and I did academically, we were never quite up to Mum’s standard because we didn’t win prizes. I think she totally forgot that the classes and her competition was far less than we were coping with [chuckle] in the next generation which would indeed have exacerbated even further now, with our children. But I really think I went to High School to play games and just pass exams by the skin of my teeth, which I managed to do. I was in the academic professional form and I still have contact with lots of those people I went to secondary school with.

When I left school – I dare say it, I left because I wasn’t made a prefect. And I got a job in the Agricultural Department with the idea of going to Training College at the end of the year. I had had a very agricultural, horticultural background, because I – when I was at Mangateretere (I forgot to say this before) we had a club – it was a district club where you had animals. I forget what it’s called now – I think they still do it in country schools. And we had gardens that they came round and judged, and we also had – I had fowls. And I got my first clutch of eggs from the Vogtherrs in Karamu Road there, the Bacon place which is still in existence but not in Karamu Road any longer. And I went in there and collected my dozen eggs and started to raise these chooks when I was in Standard 6. Well I continued to do it, my flock got larger, and then I met Mr Dudding who was a poultry fancier too and he took me under his wing and showed me how to show my chooks. And I had chooks in show and I won prizes in the show and I got a New Zealand Champion Hen with my buff Orpingtons. And actually I really wanted black Orpingtons, but Mr Vogtherr offered me these buff Orpingtons and he said they were just a better colour and not so common, so that was how I started off. And I used to subsidise my poultry business with selling the clucky hens. And I used to think it was absolutely amazing – I got ten shillings. I would advertise in the paper and people would come out and pick up these clucky hens to set their eggs on, and I would get ten shillings for that. Well, as my flock was growing, to lose the odd clucky hen here and there – ten shillings was great – very, very good business. Of course I never had to pay for the chook feed or anything like that because Mum and Dad paid for that so it was a very lucrative business for somebody who was fourteen.

However … I must get on. I worked in the Agricultural Department for a year – well not quite a year, but I really enjoyed that and learnt such a lot about what was available to helping farming people in the Bay. Young Farmers’ Club and all those sort of things and all the different offices and of course in those days all those services that farmers got and advice was all free. There was – nothing had to be paid for. It was good taxpayers’ money that paid for those things.

Anyway, the next year I took off to Training College and that was an education in itself. I had been to Wellington before, but … We went on the train – I went with Ethne Wake and we lived on the Terrace and it was a really life changing experience. I guess my life had been very provincial, and my parents imagined that there was never any criticism of authority in any way at all but here … go to Training College and all these people are questioning this and questioning that, and I guess that’s where I learnt to start to have a good hard look at myself and the world around me and change my ideas considerably.

I met Pat MacEwan there and we married at the end of my teacher training and we lived in Paraparaumu and after teaching there for just one year Pat won a – well, we both won a job teaching in Labasa in Fiji. Labasa is the main town on the second island. ‘Course The Colonial Sugar Company was the main provider of everything in Labasa – most people worked there.

And the Australians – it was very racial because the manager lived on the top of the hill and it went down the hill to the part Europeans – and really most of the part Europeans, the only thing European about them was their name because the years of early settlers and then contact with Fijians entirely. Nevertheless, we lived sort of in the middle between, and that was a huge learning experience for me. I had never really experienced racism like that. We had nothing to do with Fijians or Indians socially. It was sort of unacceptable to … almost be pleasant to them. We had our own golf club, our own tennis club, our own club and I certainly learnt to entertain, and drinks at eleven, and you didn’t stay for lunch if you weren’t invited, and all that sort of thing. I was pretty young so it was a really learning exercise for me, but it stood me in great stead for the rest of my life. I learnt to play bridge and Pat and I were really good bridge players in Fiji and it opened lots of doors for us, and we played bridge with people that had high positions and were very experienced in the ways of the world.

Right, well I’m a bit like a homing pigeon because having been in Fiji for two years and had my first child there, where did we come back to? We came back to Hastings, and we lived at Haumoana in our farm at my parents beach house while our house was being built in Collinge Road. And Pat was the DP at Te Awa School and then he won a job at Frimley School – as the DP at Frimley School, and we had a very happy time. He played rugby for Hastings Football Club which made my father very happy, and raised money and did all those sorts of things. And in that time the Hastings Football Club built their club rooms which was the pride and joy of my father but he didn’t like all the drinking that went on there, but still – that’s another sideline. And Pat played for Hawke’s Bay and in those days wives cleaned husband’s boots which seems absolutely incredible today, but I was very happy to do that because I was staying home and looking after my one child and then I had two more children. It seemed every time when Pat moved jobs we had another child.

Well then we went to Broadlands which is just north of Taupo and south of Reporoa and we had two years there as school principal – Pat was school principal. I didn’t teach because I had other things to do but I did do a little bit of relieving and we had another son there so we now had one daughter and three sons. Pat got very restless. Jobs were very, very competitive and he didn’t seem to be able to win a job to get away from Broadlands although we were quite happy there but living in the school house was very, very limiting.

We went on exchange for a year to the United Kingdom. We went by boat with our four children. And Callum our youngest was only eighteen months old, and when I look at colour slides and things in those days of our time in England, I marvel at how I could turn them out in white socks and blue anoraks and all looking very spruce. New Zealand actually devalued – when you go on exchange you’re paid by your own Government, and Pat was getting a very much reduced salary when we got to the UK. Actually we were in the middle of the Pacific when we heard about New Zealand devaluing, and I was really forced to go back to teaching when we were in England to make ends meet. But it didn’t do me any harm because it kept my hand in and I had somebody to look after the one child that wasn’t going to school.

And we bought an old van and we travelled round. There were riots in France while we were there and so we decided we would spend time in Scotland rather than go to Europe. But Pat went to a Red Cross conference in Switzerland because he was quite a big Red Crosser and I went to Paris to see ballet and Nureyev dance, and that was a great experience too.

I don’t know … then we … one of the significant parts of our moves is we always returned back to Hastings. This time we decided that we didn’t want to live in town, we’d lived in the country, we’d both been brought up on small holdings and we bought ‘Balewan’ in Napier Road and there our lives took another turn. Pat took up secondary teaching. Our children grew up – went to Te Mata School, Karamu High School, and I went back teaching. And when I retired I was teaching at Lucknow. But I made lots of friends in education, and I think had I never stopped teaching I would have been a lot more ambitious and a lot more successful. But I do think that it was a time for it to be a male, not a female in the teaching profession and Hawke’s Bay was very much behind the times as far as promoting women within the teaching profession.

Pat and I eventually retired from teaching. Our children – our eldest son … they all … all our children went to University. Our eldest son had a BSc in Computer Science, our daughter had a BA in education and still teaches. Hamish had a radio programme on Wednesday afternoons – he spoke on … about computers. He’d actually had a job in radio and had a very good radio voice but he has finished with that now in this day and age. Neven was an electrical engineer and Callum never really finished his – he got a holiday job and ended up buying the company. And he was a video editor and … person – he’s worked with television and video things all his working life.

Hamish married and had one son, Rory, who’s now in Australia. And he had a Masters Degree in economics. But Hamish’s marriage didn’t last very long, and he’s only had the one child. But Lesley, his wife – his ex wife – has been John Key’s Press Secretary for two sessions but she’s now given up that job because it was very, very, very demanding and I think she’s young McLeay’s press person.

Yes, yes – Todd McLeay.

Todd McLeay’s press person. Now Todd McLeay’s father – actually when we were … this is going back a bit – Todd McLeay’s father …

Roger.

…Roger, was a young teacher at Reporoa College, and he actually drove the bus that picked up the children from our area that took them to Reporoa College. So we’ve known Roger all our lives. He was a very young and inexperienced teacher – he probably did better in politics than he would have done in education, but there you are. That’s another story.

Our daughter – she was a horse person. She had … spent a lot of time and a lot of money on horses and horse trucks, and one day events, and show jumping, and national events, and both Pat and I were show jumping judges. Pat was an international one but I wasn’t, and he was president of the Hawke’s Bay horse people here. I’m trying to think what it was called – that’s terrible.

We played golf. We had a very … we had a really good life. Neven had two children and Callum never married – still hasn’t married. Neven’s marriage failed, and he’s got two able children, one doing vet and one very musical who’s played The Last Post. He’s a trumpeter, but he played on the bugle at the last ANZAC ceremony for the soldiers at the Soldiers’ Church in Auckland. And he now has a five year old daughter who’s just started school, so it’s quite a diverse … all those grandchildren, very expensive at Christmas and birthdays, but still. Heather’s had five children and she would have to tell her own life because it has in itself has been a very interesting journey.

I still see all my children. I’m not as fanatical about my grandchildren as a lot of my friends are. I love them and I accept their faults and their successes, but I’m not stupid about them and I think a lot of people are. Possibly there is a degree of cynicism within me having taught children, and really my philosophy always was “show me the child with the tidy desk who knew where their shoes were, did their homework and caused their parents no bother – I’ll show you a successful man.” and it’s very true. People go on about their gifted children ad nauseam and – academic achievement is very nice to have. It’s an additional thing but personal success relies very much on how people view themselves. And that would have been my philosophy. This business about children having potential all the time really gets to me, because – I’ve never realised my potential, my husband’s never realised his – he never realised his potential. I don’t think anybody ever realises their potential.

There’s a comfortable line isn’t there?

[Chuckle] Yes – I think it is a comfortable line. However …

In year 2000 my life changed considerably with my husband dropping dead on the golf course and he was only 68 and I was 65. It’s a time of … I was young enough to sort of reinvent myself and I continued with the capsicums and staying on the property here at Balewan, and as I say I reinvented myself. The first year was terrible. I could never find the car keys … the whole rhythm of my life had been disrupted. But fortunately, I was very lucky in so far as – Pat – he was always terrified of me dying first. Well that was one success he’d had – I didn’t die first, and he always treated me as if I could do absolutely everything. There was nothing … he wasn’t a chauvinist in any way at all – in fact we shared everything. He consulted with me, he took my advice, and when it came to pulling trees down and driving tractors, and making holes and towing boats and things, and horse floats – he knew that I could do it just as well as he could, and if I couldn’t he made me, and I would be pretty nervous but I would achieve. So I was very well equipped I believe, for widowhood.

I always remember he was such a strong powerful man. He was the last man in the world that you would think would just stop like that.

Well he’d had an operation of course – he’d had a prostate operation and they think he had a clot. It was bad luck – he was in very good – I mean, apart from that he was in very good health. So it was a terrible shock – a terrible shock – but life goes on. And as I say, it was very tough – that first year was terrible. Because I was married when I was not quite twenty. So, we’d only been – well … only … we didn’t see our 50 years which was unfortunate because we used to look at photos in the paper of people who’d been married 50 years and Pat used to say “you look a lot better than that”. [Laughter]  But it wasn’t to be.

He continued with his Red Cross work. He was president of the Red Cross, and was responsible for the shifting of the Red Cross rooms from Tomoana Road in Tongs’ old house to the Watsons’ cordial factory, and supervised all that and it really was a great achievement ’cause it’s been a huge success with the op-shop and the rooms that they have there.

And talking about Tongs – when I was very young I used to have holidays with Mr & Mrs Tong, the undertaker in Tomoana Road. It all happened because my mother was a netball … she actually played netball for Canterbury and for Hawke’s Bay, and she was a life member of the Hawke’s Bay Netball Association which of course was basketball in those days. But she was coaching the Hawke’s Bay Netball team – they were to go down to Christchurch, and Rona Tong was in the netball team and Mum was very worried about what was going to happen to me, and Mrs Tong, Rona’s mother, said that she’d have me. Well it was every holidays I spent some time with the Tongs, and I think that again was an experience living in town, people that were in business. Quite an entirely different lifestyle, which all these things add to your …

Well I interviewed Rona. And I interviewed another lady who’s name was Slade – Caroline Slade, who also used to play basketball with Rona and also hurdle – ’cause Rona was the first hurdler in New Zealand.

Yes, she was, she was. Well Rona – oddly enough my father was conscripted during the war but he only got to Linton and he was there for three days. You know people go on about children, but I can remember being on the Railway Station and Mum crying, and I really thought it was quite exciting that Dad was going to the war. All this ANZAC day business – children have no concept whatsoever of what war involves. Anyway, Dad only – ‘course he went with lots of Hastings people. He had three children at the time and he wasn’t young and he passed A1 but he was a terrible asthmatic. Anyway he got asthma and he ended up in the iron lung in Palmerston North hospital, and it was Les McCarthy that really changed his life because he was sharing a …

That was Rona’s husband to be.

Rona’s husband, yes, yes, yes.

Well I’ll be blowed. Isn’t it a small world?

It is a very small world. Well it was – we lived in a very … very small secure world. Very small.

As I’ve been doing these interviews it’s of interest because in that age group there was only eight or nine hundred people living in Havelock, there was probably two or three thousand in Hastings – and so of course everyone knew everyone.

And we all went to school together. I mean that’s what sad about today’s world, because all these little groups of division – and the gap between those who have and those who have not is getting wider and wider.

I think I have just about exhausted myself, really.

Now I have already mentioned about Dad’s brothers going to Te Aute and my father not going. But one of the things that happened – because the brothers went to Te Aute some of them married Maori women and I’ve got Maori cousins. We’ve got Ken Hingston who’s a Maori Land Court judge – Judge Hingston – and on the whole it’s a very, very diverse family. My mother was quite wonderful in so far as we were always made to feel that our relations were welcome. We moved in a world where we could move onto a marae and we could also move in European society if needs be. Mother was very tolerant and we were made to feel proud of who we were. There was nothing to be ashamed of. That tolerance I think – I don’t think my father thought that because he had had the nub end of being part Maori and life in those days wasn’t always the best for people that … Times have changed very, very much now, where when I was young you didn’t see Maoris in office positions or work positions of responsibility like you do today, and even though we think their progress has been slow it hasn’t. Now I’m quite fanatical about Maori language. I think it is absolutely essential that New Zealand … it’s our point of difference and I believe in Maori education. I wouldn’t inflict Maori language on Pakeha people, but I was the chairperson of the Maori language teaching for the Havelock schools and had to employ Maori language teachers but I do believe that I probably learnt more than my children because we only had half an hour each week with different Maori language speakers. But nevertheless, I think it’s just gradually becoming part of our … part of our culture now, and it’s the point of difference. New Zealand – no other country has the tolerance that we have even though people don’t think we do. I think there is an underlying antagonism towards Maoris but I think it is improving, and I think thinking people … it’s a changing world. We had a kiwi cloak on our wall at Tomoana when we were children that my father had inherited from his mother and she’d used it on her bed as a blanket. And I hate to say it but my grandfather trapped the kiwis on the [chuckle] Taupo plains. But I’ve already said that conservation wasn’t an issue in those days.

That’s right.

But unfortunately … well not unfortunately – Perry did have the Maori cloak but he died, and now it’s gone to some of our cousins who really are Maori and will appreciate it as a Maori taonga that possibly Perry and his family didn’t.