Marnoch, Bruce Irvine & Sally Margaret Interview

It’s the 24th of July [2018], and I’m with Bruce and Sally Marnoch, and what a delight it is to be talking with you and telling us your life history in Hawke’s Bay. I’m Jim Newbigin and now I pass it on to Bruce and Sally to tell me what you remember.

Bruce: Well what I remember first … we were brought up, the Marnoch family, in a house in Tomoana Road, which was known as 6 North Tomoana Road, ‘cause from Williams Street to the Works [Tomoana Freezing Works] the numbers went backwards and started again. So you had 2, 4, 6, 8 and so forth up into the houses. We grew up … spent most of our time playing in either Cornwall Park or down the creek at the back, which was a creek which actually did run out of Cornwall Park and ran down beside the freezing works and continued out towards Pakowhai. In the early days, the sheep trucks – quite often they’d be banked up round to Williams Street, from there to the Works, waiting to get unloaded; particularly during the lambing season when the lambs come into the Works. And we’d often go down there after school and sit up on the railings and watch the stockmen working the cattle. One of the highlights of that was the Blue Merle dogs; heelers … what we call heelers … and they used to go up and dive in under the cattle’s hooves and nick [nip] them on the ankles, and then get out of the way. And of course the cattle, kicking, would go straight over the top of their heads. That was quite a highlight, ‘cause we had three or four drovers … four that I can just recall … in very close proximity to there. One was Kerr … Frank Kerr; and the other was Milne; Harry Royal and another Milne, ‘bout half way to the Works. Harry Royal was the last house on the left heading down to the Works. In that area down Coventry Road, which is a road just beside the Works, I think the family was Townsends in there. They had a raspberry plot down there; we used to go down picking raspberries.

One of the biggest things I did down the creek – when I was six I took a heel off … cut it off in the creek. I had to spend many a time in the hospital through my life with that, leaving quite a mess. Dr Marshall had to put on a big skin graft, and for flesh, took it off the back of my leg and put that on my foot; and of course went on with that. And there was very little known about it in those days. They used to use me at the hospital every so often; I’d have to go up – my mother would take me up on the bike – and I’d sit there while they’re using me as a guinea pig. There’d be different specialists and that would come in from different parts of the country, and they’d all come and stand around the room and look at you. In those days nobody would say anything to you – you just sat there … a little boy sitting there with all these people in white coats looking at you. And they’d all go and that was it; I’d go away.

From Tomoana Road we shifted out to Haumoana. Dad [John Irvine Marnoch] had bought a property out there, a section, which he paid about £45 for in those days. He first had a tent, then he got an army hut … old army hut … and they were more or less joined together, until at a later date they built a bach. And by that stage us kids were getting on a bit, so we could do quite a bit of the work as well, mixing concrete. It was all done by hand on a board; that was for the piles. The little bach was built … in those days you couldn’t get corrugated iron. It was very difficult, so the roof was sarked in macrocarpa and then malthoid was laid over it with tar, and sand was put on top of the tar. That was to keep it.

Sark?

It was just macrocarpa; in other words it was just like flooring on the roof, and then you laid the other over it. And that lasted for a few years … just used to have to keep patching it. The seagulls, they were a bit of a problem – they used to pick away at it. But at a later date we added on to the house and built over that in corrugated iron, and turned it into quite a nice little house. Mum [Nellie Jane Marnoch née Orchard] and Dad had four kids, and we lived there until we all sprouted wings and flew.

My first job was at a typewriter shop in Hastings, British Typewriters; worked there for some time. I then left there and joined … what my love was was hunting and game … out at the Greenmeadows Game Farm. I was there for some years and during that time I met my future wife; went together for a few years – I think from memory it was about three years – engaged for fourteen months. We married, and …

Where at?

Married in Dannevirke, at St John the Baptist Anglican Church in the main street.

And what date was that?

Sally: 12th February 1966.

Bruce: Then we shifted back up to the Bay. After the Game Farm I did work for a while at Bird’s Eye. I left Bird’s Eye and then I went to Whakatu. I was at Whakatu for four years; had two years in the wool room, and two years in what they called the Small Goods department. That was packing small goods.

Yeah, that’s right – before we married I had a stint out at Herbertville on a farm, on Farnham Station. I was out there for about seven months I think, it was something like that – did a lambing beat. Then we got married [and] we shifted back up to the Bay, came up there. We had Whakatu, and then Sally’s father had a cleaning business which he wanted one of the family to take over; so I took over the cleaning business. We bought that. And we had that for twenty-nine-odd years.

And the name of that was?

There was no name – we didn’t have a name, it was just personal – just ourselves. Yeah, but didn’t really employ anybody.

Sally: Didn’t have to advertise.

Bruce: Couldn’t handle what work we had. It was mostly private work; did a few businesses and things. But yeah, we lasted twenty-nine years ‘til my health cracked up. At that stage we’d shifted to Dannevirke and lived there for a few years; and then moved to Mangatainoka. We had a property there.

Oh – you only liked the Tui!

Oh yes … [Chuckles] We looked at the Tui [Brewery] – it was out of our kitchen window, was the main building.

Sally: Yeah, the big old building …

Bruce: The old building, the Tui – the icon building. That was a very interesting time. And then when my health gave up we left the business and moved back up to Hawke’s Bay, to here.

What year?

We came here, 2000. The year 2000 we shifted here; we bought this place and we’ve lived here ever since. I’ve got to say it’s the longest place we’ve been in … the longest time we’ve been in a house. We’ve had quite a few shifts.

Sally: We had two children – a girl, Theresa, and a boy, Adam.

And what age are they now?

Teresa is fifty-one, and Adam is forty-eight.

They grow up, don’t they?

Gosh, I’ll say they do.

Bruce: Our daughter married when we lived at a place call Ruawhata. That was ‘bout five miles from Mangatainoka. We bought a property there, lived there for a few years, and shifted into Woodville. And then from Woodville we came back up to Hawke’s Bay. We’ve been quite happy living here in that time.

Sally: Yes, we have.

Bruce: We’ve had a lot of interesting things with Mum and Dad, going back in our history. On my mother’s side, she was born in Hastings at Waipatu, down Bennett’s Road. They lived there at the time; Mum was born there, then they shifted into Tomoana Road into a house, which I understand was only a very temporary. I think it was a matter of days they were there, until they bought their family home in … Orchard family … in Nelson Street, and they lived there until Mum and Dad met and got married.

My father – he was what you call a ‘Flock House boy’; he’d come out from Aberdeen with his brother. Flock House was set up for [the] sons of British seamen lost at sea. Their father had been killed on a minesweeper, and they applied to come out here and they travelled out here in 1925 on the [?], the ship. And they went through Flock House and then came up to Hawke’s Bay, and they worked on varying farms up here all round the Matapiro district mainly – in that area. Then Pop went through the Rehab [Rehabilitation for Returning Soldiers] after the war – that was to learn carpentry, and he spent the rest of his life as a carpenter. Prior to that he did, as I say, farm work; the war came, he enlisted in the army. I think first he enlisted into the navy and never heard back, so he enlisted into the army. He was in there for a while, and then he got his letter from the navy, and he went to the navy. One of the ships Dad served on was the ‘Kiwi’; that met quite a bit of action up in the Pacific where they ran the submarine, which Pop never really spoke anything about. He kept very, very quiet about that part.

After the war my earliest recollections … I can still remember the cardboard up at the windows; that was there. And we used to play with Pop’s gas mask from the war, and his signalling flags; he had them, the old silk, big flags. Unfortunately all those things have disappeared over time.

But Dad ended up in charge of the carpenters’ shop at Whakatu, that was his last job where he did the brands – that was for the sheep carcasses. [He] used to cut a lot of them out – they were cut out of hard rubber on a canvas bat. He was also the locksmith; he did that until his retirement. And Mum and Dad were living at Haumoana at the time; they then shifted to Waiheke Island, and spent their last days up there. They had a few years … twenty-odd years, I think it was … ‘bout eighteen, twenty years up at Waiheke before they both died.

About what year?

Sally: ‘71, I think they …

Bruce: They went there.

Sally: And your father died in ‘92.

Bruce: Mum was ‘90, I think – the year 1990, my mother died.

Sally: [?] 1990, and then your father died in 1992, October.

Bruce: That’s right. I think one of Mum’s biggest highlights, being a Royalist … very strong in the Royal Family … she met the Duchess of Kent. That was at Hamilton Royal Show, and that would have been in the … from memory, the late seventies, I think that would have been. That was my mother’s highlight that I can recall on that. Dad was very handy with his hands with his carpentering, and built on to his houses wherever he was. He always seemed to find something that needed improving and rebuilt. So he carried on doing that.

Sally: We didn’t put the grandchildren in either. We’ve got two granddaughters. One’s twenty-three, and one’s coming up twenty-one.

That’s nice. All keep good health?

Both: Yes.

Bruce: Yes – one’s on a farm; they work on a farm at Takapau at the moment … southern end of Takapau between there and Norsewood; and the other one works with animals as well, at a breeding centre, with stock. She’s very handy; our daughter married a joiner. They have their joinery factory in Woodville, which they’ve had there for some years. And our son, he was away for some years; spent two years in the Territorials as a cook. I think his highlight in that was training with the Ghurkas down south in Tekapo. He used to go down there and that was a training area. He was down in Christchurch for some years, working, particularly through the waste industry, and then went to Tauranga with one of his bosses for about thirteen-odd years. And now he’s come home. He’s single; he’s never been married. I think he’s decided home’s not such a bad place after all. [Chuckles] He’s good. Yes, so he’s been back home going on two years – it would be coming up two years, so it’s worked out very well.

Sally: Yes, we all get on well together.

Yeah – it’s nice to have family that have stuck together over the years, isn’t it?

Yes.

Yes – nice to look back on.

But there were many things happened there when we were in Tomoana Road. We lived down there; where Bird’s Eye factory is now we used to milk cows in there for a chap by the name of Des Van Asch. He had a little herd of cows, mainly Jersey, right on the corner of Tomoana Road and Williams Street. We used to milk there quite regularly, and Des had a milk run; he had a bike with balloon tyres, and he’d put the milk cans onto the bike – there’d be about four cans – and he’d ride from the Williams Street corner, down Tomoana Road to Richmond Road and then out to Pakowhai Road, then back up to Williams Street and along there. And he’d be able to deliver his milk into billies which you’d have in your letterbox; and it was just baled out with a measure out of the milk cans.

Those were the days …

In those days there were big gum trees bordering Williams Street and Tomoana Road. And they were pretty high, big trees … big ugly trees that had a lot of crows nesting in [them]. And then Des – that went, and then [the] Bird’s Eye factory built up. And I can remember when the boiler blew at Bird’s Eye; I was on the front verandah. I saw that go up – that was a massive sight, and I was across the other side of the factory from that.

Tomoana – there were several fires at Tomoana over the years … big fires, I think mainly in the freezer department. That would be the tar and what-have-you no doubt, that would catch up. They were big.

But they were good days. The kids could play, particularly over the back of Tomoana Road and Williams Street, in that corner; whereas now it’s all just a housing area. Kids used to just run riot … just run wild in there, with tomatoes cropping that would be in there, and there was a lot of kids that would go in there and play. And particularly the tomato fights – there’d be one lot of kids behind the tractors, and another lot behind the boxes – forty pound boxes that they used to pick them into – and there’d be a terrific fight! There’d be something like twenty or thirty kids over there, all in. It’d just be all on. But a lot of fun down there. And the end, next to Royals was Thompsons; [they] I understand had the big paddock at the end where there was a hay barn in there. And that was a great place for kids to play. We used to get in there through one of the shut up windows, and kids would have a great time. But that was living in Tomoana – it was a good area; it was good. Our schooling was all Mahora until Intermediate started up. And then I went to Intermediate, then the Hastings Boys’ High.

Years at Boy’s High?

I left in the fifth form. Yes, I left when I had to go back to hospital again with problems with my foot.

And that was round about what year?

That would be in the mid to late fifties. I played in the pipe band; the Hastings … which was in the Hastings Scots in those days, which went to the City of Hastings; played in that band.

Were you a pipe or a drummer?

I was a piper. I was pretty young at the time. I think my first outing was to Rose Sunday. They had that at Frimley Park, used to be each year, and the pipe band used to play there for that. Yeah, and then Anzac Parades of course; some of them were pretty big in those days, with the pipe band. I left that when I got … yeah, I think shifted, and that was work. Running our own business it was impossible to do that.

So that left sport; played rugby, soccer; was in the first schoolboys’ soccer team in Hastings. I captained that team. Got into the Hastings reps, [representative team] but that was as far as I got. That was in the early fifties – probably mid-fifties that would’ve been, and before. That started up at intermediate school ’cause one of the teachers was pretty keen on the soccer and that’s how … yeah, I can recall that I started on that.

There was good family life in those days with … there’d be uncles and aunts and cousins. They were all together in those days; there’d be varying functions that you’d go to, and parties and things that they would have. Or evenings more than parties, particularly when we were out [at] the beach; [a] lot of them would come out in the summer, ‘cause all the kids would be off down the beach … playing down the beach. We spent a lot of time down there fishing with nets; using nets off the boat which Dad had built. We’d help him, and built our own boat, got our net, and we’d go down the beach and get others to help. You’d go down and fish and get what you could. And I think the biggest haul we ever got was ‘bout a hundred and twenty-five snapper in one haul. That was an absolute oncer!

It would’ve been. Be heavy in the net?

Very! It was very heavy. And we ended up … well, you couldn’t do anything with them in those days, so we ended up taking them into a fish shop and selling them in Hastings, the bulk of them that the rest of us couldn’t take, ‘cause you couldn’t keep fish for too long then. Wasn’t too many.

One of the big things Mum and Dad did when we lived in Tomoana Road – they started what was called a dolls’ hospital. That was for repairing dolls. That brings back a few memories. I think one of the two most interesting things they had – they used to repair the hospital dolls, or the mannequins that they had there for training nurses. You used to be able to open up the stomach part and there was bladders and things inside, with little chains and that. They were full size, life size. And Mum and Dad … oh, Dad built in the front verandah and he turned that into the dolls’ room; and that at times would be full of dolls. And they’d have to quite often warn people when they’d come in not to be concerned about the … there’d be a doll sitting in there like a full size human. I can remember two dolls from the hospital coming, and I think the most interesting one Dad ever had to repair was a couple of Egyptian dolls. They were made out of human skin. But they were quite scary; I remember that well – Pop was quite happy to see them go. They made dolls and sold them; like pixies – little pixie dolls that probably from memory would be about a foot long. They’d sold quite a lot of them, and I think that’s where the money came from to buy the section out at Haumoana when his kids were quite young. Each summer we’d leave on Boxing Day, travel out to the beach, and we’d stay there for the holiday; and then when school started we’d come back to Hastings, and clean the section up again ‘cause that would be like a jungle over the summer, you know, through January.

What sort of transport did you have a way back? Even when you were farming at Herbertville?

Had a little Morris Minor. I’d bought a Morris Minor when I worked at Bird’s Eye. My first form of transport was a Crescent scooter … ‘bout a 50cc scooter I think it was. It was bought from Barclay Motors, in Karamu Road at the time. I had that for a few years until I bought the Morris Minor, and I used to travel out from Dannevirke out to Herbertville which’d be about an hour from memory, or a bit over an hour … hour and a quarter. Some nights – pretty hard driving at night out there with stock on the roads, and you run into black Angus walking in the bush. [Chuckle] It was … yeah, a little hair raising. I think after that we had a Hillman Minx …

Sally: That’s right.

Bruce: … Super Minx. We bought that from Baillie Motors in town, in Hastings.

Sally: Great car, that one. [Speaking together]

Bruce: And that was a Hortop Joinery vehicle. We had that for some years ‘til we bought the business; then we had to drop down to one vehicle with a van for business. Vanguard van, we had, with no power steering. It was like a dray. [Chuckle]

Sally: Great heavy machine.

Bruce: Then we eventually … yeah, sold that and went up from little vehicles which suited us for our job – the little Vivas … Vauxhall Vivas … when they came out. Then the Vauxhall Chevette – that didn’t last long, I don’t think, but it was actually quite a good little car; it was well set up but didn’t really catch on. Going back in the very early days, yeah, we just had … well, you walked until Mum and Dad could buy you a push bike. And each of us kids had our own bike, and we’d ride.

Dad had the old Chev [Chevrolet] car at the time. I think his biggest misfortune there was he got caught by the train at Whakatu. There was [were] carriages out and he [chuckle] went through them. The train got him and that was the end of that car. He was lucky he got out. Got out with a few broken ribs; [re]member that coming home from school – Pop was sitting there [chuckle] nursing his ribs. He took it all right, but the thing that upset him – he got fined £4/10/- [Four pound ten shillings] if I remember rightly, for damaging the train. [Chuckle] He had to pay for a cable on the front of the train; I think it was about £4/10/- he got fined. So that was that.

Then we shifted, didn’t we? From Ruawhata; we moved from Dannevirke – that’s where we first started – had our first house. That was quite an experience, getting that house. It was quite a story, but an old friend of Sally’s family was a land agent – old land agent – he’d retired at the time. And he got us into an old house there. Managed to borrow the money from a law firm in Feilding – Fullerton-Smith, Miles & Chisnall. Mr Miles was the lawyer’s name, and we borrowed the money. We had to borrow the lot; we didn’t have any.

Sally: No, we didn’t.

Bruce: We were starting, and it was Sally’s parents wasn’t it? Stood guarantor so we could get it. I asked Mr Miles, I said, “When can we get these papers out?” He says, “When half of the loan’s paid.” So we duly worked very hard ‘til we got on our own feet and got that out, and then were okay.

Sally: Went into it – Family Benefit and all sorts.

Bruce: Scraped up, as you do, scrape up everything. Then the old fellow wanted his commission, coming home from Feilding, so I had to borrow that off the mother-in-law. What did he charge? A pound a hundred [£1 per £100] in those days. So we had $25 [?£?] I had to give him, I think, if I can remember correctly; he got his money. And yeah, so we got that paid off, and we’ve been pretty well right. We’ve owned each house we’ve been in, [cough] and worked to pay it off, which we have done here, done a lot of work. We’ve been settled quite well.

That’s a very interesting story that you’ve given me Bruce. Sally, what’s your background?

Sally: I’m Dannevirke. I was born in a place called Roseneath, down Swinburn Street.

Did you do your schooling in Dannevirke?

Yes. South School and Dannevirke High. I worked in a shop by the name of Blythe’s Limited in Dannevirke; worked there for … ooh, ‘bout three or four years. And then just six months before we were married I went to McKenzie’s across the road … McKenzie’s chain store.

Like Woolworth’s; McKenzie’s?

Yeah. I had two big sisters and a brother.

And then you got married?

Yes, got married … met at a wedding dance.

Doing the Gay Gordons?

[Chuckle]

Bruce: Oh we’ve done plenty of them.

Sally: Oh too right, yes.

Bruce: And you became secretary, didn’t you, of the Scottish Society.

Sally: That’s right.

Bruce: They’re in Pahiatua, but that’s out of this district, now.

That’s good.

I was Chief of that Pahiatua Scottish Society for twelve, thirteen years. We ran that, and yeah, Sally was secretary for nine.

Sally: And our daughter …

Bruce: Daughter did two years as secretary of that. It was a great interest.

Sally: It was.

What was the cloth that you had, the Scottish cloth?

Bruce: Ours was the Innes tartan … Marnoch belonged to the Innes tartan. There was a place called Marnoch in Scotland above Huntly, and I think Dad’s family moved down from there … filtered down through to Aberdeen. And oddly enough, Sally’s mother, with her parents, lived at Aberdeenshire. They emigrated out here in 1920.

Sally: 1919.

Bruce: But your mother came out as a younger girl with her parents and brothers.

Sally: That’s right.

Bruce: After the First World War, Grandad Orchard … that was George Henry Orchard; he was a gardener at the Works, and he planted oak trees in remembrance of the boys that [who] were killed at the war, losing two boys himself. And that was the start, but unfortunately there’s no record anywhere of that being done. But it was always said – my mother always told me, and her brother, Lionel Orchard – they knew it right through their life that that’s where the trees were, but they never said very much about it. He did work at Webb’s Nurseries; they were obviously around then, and at a later date. And Uncle Lionel himself worked at Webb’s Nurseries, planting the cypress trees at the front of the Hastings Boys’ High. That’s who planted those trees, and that was many years ago. These snippets [are] sort of coming back to me of the old times. But we cannot find any record of it, but that’s what they did in those days.

What other snippets have we got? The other big one was Show Day, when all the stock would walk past, through Tomoana Road and down Coventry Road to the Show. There would be just rows of animals walking down with the horses and the riders and then after the Works’d finish, there’d be rows of bikes coming away from Tomoana, mainly push bikes and cars. It was quite a sight to see, to sit outside and watch them all go past; and that was for many years. A lot of the stock came from Mahora Stud Farm in Pakowhai Road. I’ve got to think what else.

Well you’ve done very well for just on an hour …

Remember the ground out [at] the beach? Do you remember what it was like at Haumoana? It was all stone. Yep. [Showing photos] That was the bach – that was just sitting outside it, in those days. Now you don’t know it – they’ve built a house in front of it.

It was … yeah, interesting. Yeah – Pop was very bitter over the war. Extremely. If anybody could’ve got anything out of them, I would’ve. It would’ve been me.

We’ve found that with all our interviews, that people who went to the war – they never spoke about it. They kept it bottled up inside them.

Yep.

Okay. Well, I want to thank Bruce and Sally Marnoch for their talk this afternoon; exceedingly interesting, and I thank you both very, very much for allowing us to interview you.

Thank you.