McGaffin, Mervyn and Glenise Interview

It’s 15th February [2022]. This is the first interview for Chesterhope Farms … Miss Fernie; and I’m at the home of Mervyn and Gladys McGaffin. [Also in the room is Ross Duncan]

Glenise McGaffin: Glenise.

[Deleted: apology from interviewer; noise on recording.]

Mervyn worked for Miss Fernie for forty-plus years. Good morning, Mervyn; good morning, Glenise.

Good morning.

Good morning, Ross.

Ross: Good morning.

Mervyn, I’d just like [to] welcome you and say thank you very much for allowing the Knowledge Bank to get your history and Chesterhope Station, and what you can remember. So would you just like to start telling us your life story?

Mervyn McGaffin: I started work pretty early, leaving school.

Glenise: Do you want me to start?

Yes.

Okay; well Mervyn was born in Methven in 1936, [interference] and his family came to Hastings when he was about two years old. He went to Central School and he went to the Boys’ High School, and when he was fifteen he left school, and he went to work out at Gilbert McGinnis’ farm at OHara Station. After that he worked for Stan and Ralph Walmsley for a few years, driving D4 Caterpillar tractors doing agricultural work, and in 1959 he went to work at Chesterhope Station.

And then?

Mervyn: Yes, it was Gilbert McGinnis that owned the farm and his wife and his daughter. I was with Gilbert for four years, and it was a great job because Gilbert left me on the property by myself, running the place while they were away on holiday. And Gilbert’s mother and [her] husband, they were senior people and they looked after me. I stopped [stayed] in the woolshed, and I remember this horse that I was left, and I tell you it was pretty fast. But anyway I managed it in the end and it was a great experience because I’d sort of just come out of … yes, it was sort of straight from school.

What size farm was it that you were on? Was it cattle or sheep or ..?

[Conversation in background]

It was a mixed farm, and it was a small property because …

What, a thousand acres?

Yes, well …

Or more?

No, it would be that, because it was the OHara Station, and it had the big … it was split in two. OHara Station had a property, ‘cause Gilbert was a stock agent and he was moving round all the time.

He was a stock agent for who?

[Background conversation taking place]

For himself. Yeah. But you know, it was the first time that I was left; ‘cause I’d only left school and here I was looking after this property. In those days … I remember this tractor that I had, and it had the big disc. And on the back it pulled round this big roller; we used it to squash the …

Glenise: Gorse, would it be?

Mervyn: Well, it was … yes.

Covered in gorse and shrubbery?

Yeah. And I remember Gilbert McGinnis’s mother, she sort of cooked food and that for me at night; and then after [I] had that tea, then I would go and live in the [chuckle] woolshed. No, it was great time to live with this …

[Background conversation continues]

So how long were you there on this farm?

‘Til I met nice Glenise. [Chuckle]

Glenise: No, you weren’t there when I met you.

Mervyn: No, but afterwards; I left there, didn’t I?

Was this at a local dance? All the girls lined up on one side [chuckles] and the boys on the other side, and you just picked out the best?

No, no – well, the place where … you had to get from OHara Station until …

Glenise: Hastings.

Mervyn: But the OHara place was right in … well, and the hills were in the back.

This is near Kereru?

Yes.

Glenise: And there was no power or anything up there.

Mervyn: No.

Oh, but you had the old lantern didn’t you, those days?

That’s right, yes. Yes, there was, and that’s when Gilbert left his mother and …

Now OHara is spelt ..?

Glenise: O-capital H, I think it was. Like OH … Ohara; I think that’s how I’ve seen it spelt. Anyway, that’s way, way, way back.

Yes, so you were in the wop-wops really?

Mervyn: Yes.

Glenise: What do you remember about Chesterhope?

[Background conversation continues]

Mervyn: It was a lovely place and Miss Fernie was a wonderful lady, very honest and a very hard worker.

[Background conversation overwhelming. Break; continues with Glenise]

Glenise: We got married on 30th January 1960 at St Andrew’s Church which was the old wooden building, and the minister was the Reverend Mitchell in those days; Alex Mitchell. And it was a hot, hot day … boiling hot day. Mervyn’s best man was his brother, Ralph; and Bob, Robert Laidlaw, who now still lives in Taupō. Ralph’s passed away. My bridesmaids were a cousin called Beryl Calnan, and Jill Whittington who had got married to Mervyn’s brother, Ralph. And I had a young cousin called Ruth Parkinson who now lives in Wellington. Beryl and Jill have both passed away. And then we had a reception – I think it was called the Glencoe Tearooms in Heretaunga Street. And that’s about it, I think.

So Mervyn knew Mr Eric Batson who was an agricultural man, and somewhere along the line he was talking to Mervyn and said that there was a job going at Chesterhope, and he should go and talk to Mrs Fernie about it. And he said, “Don’t listen to what other people say – you go and” you know, “see how you get on with them.” And he made a comment about shutting the gate, didn’t he? What was that?

Mervyn: Yes, it was, “Go and look at the job for yourself. The gate swings, so if you don’t like the job go through the gate and keep going.” [Chuckles]

Glenise: So Mervyn went to Chesterhope in 1959, and then we got married in 1960 and we went to live on the property.

Happily married?

Glenise: Oh, we have our ups and downs. [Chuckle]

Ross: Which house did you live in then?

Glenise: We lived in the one before the bridge

Ross: Your daughter’s there now?

Glenise: Yes … yeah.

Ross: That’s where Rex lived; Rex and Faye.

Glenise: Yes, they did. I think they moved in after we moved out … oh, maybe not. It wasn’t long behind us leaving.

When you were at OHara Station, did you do your killing for meat?

Mervyn: Yes. Yes, well it was just out in the paddock at OHara Station and Gilbert … they had gone for their holiday, and I didn’t bother.

Well you were the boss.

[Chuckle] But the cattle lived on the grass and that.

Did you show the cattle at the Shows, or anything like that in those days?

No. No, it was sort of really in the back blocks.

You didn’t have a prize bull or anything?

No.

Glenise: Miss Fernie gave a cattle beast to the local Show every year for a guessing competition.

Ross: And they paid a donation, guessed its weight, and the nearest person won some sort of prize. But the beast was butchered and the proceeds went to the A&P [Agricultural & Pastoral] Society.

I think they still have it. Did you have dogs?

Mervyn: No, we just …

You just did the farming yourself?

Mervyn: Yes.

And I suppose the sheep knew you anyway; bit like an old fellow of mine, used to walk in front of them and they all followed him … the Pied Piper.

No, the animals got used to you, and it was no problem.

Glenise: But you had horses, didn’t you? You rode horses …

Mervyn: Mmm – they were very good.

Well, horses are better than motorbikes and what-have-you …

Ross: Oh, easier to start. Isn’t it terrible? There’s so many things, and you can’t even get your head to …

Well, it doesn’t matter at this stage, you will start thinking. It’ll all come to you. And just come in and we’ll just add to it.

Glenise: There’s little stories like driving the sheep to the works. They used to set off at daylight with the sheep, to go to the freezing works. They were on horses and the sheep had to walk, but nowadays you’re not allowed to do that. But he has little stories if he can remember them, of people on the road. Do you remember the story about those guys that were ..?

Mervyn: Oh yeah, it would be …

Ross: In the car.

Glenise: Yeah.

Ross: The horse jumped up … tell them that, it’s a good one. [Chuckle]

Mervyn: Yes. Well these stock agents, they …

Glenise: They’d been to the football match, hadn’t they?

Mervyn: Yes. It was held here out Clive way.

Glenise: Napier.

Mervyn: Yes. And anyway, they lost the game; and they were in this flash car … these five stock agents [chuckle] in this one car … but they were that brassed off that they had lost the game. And Miss Fernie was taking the leads of the stock; and when you were shifting stock, she would always go in front of the cattle. And these boys were stock agents – I think they had so much drink [chuckle] they couldn’t control themselves – and Miss Fernie yelled out, “Get back! Get back!” Because they were crossing the bridge that’s there now …

Glenise: The old bridge.

Mervyn: The old bridge, yeah. And anyway, these stock agents weren’t taking any notice of Miss Fernie, and it was fairly early in the morning when they were getting the stock over the bridge; and these stock agents were that full of beer [chuckles] and brassed off they’d lost the game. [Chuckle] And Miss Fernie had this horse, and it would just rear up; and I can still see the [chuckle] horse rearing up and going straight onto the car. And that was Joan’s horse, it was very good like that; Miss Fernie would’ve sort of let it go straight onto the roof of the car. [Chuckles] Yes.

Ross: It was a big stallion I think, wasn’t it?

Mervyn: Yes, mmm. Yes, Miss Fernie used to run a stallion; but I can still see these stock agents – they were going to take no notice of Miss Fernie, but Miss Fernie was very strong; if she said something, that’s it. [Chuckle] Yes.

You had to drive …

Mervyn: Take cattle from the farm, from Pakowhai right into …

I was thinking OHara Station …

All: No, no.

Did they do that though? Take the cattle from OHara to the works?

Glenise: I wouldn’t have a clue, I don’t know what they did.

Mervyn: No, ‘cause Gilbert, he was a stock agent; he just bought stock.

But Miss Fernie was like that, she was very good with stock and she never hesitated – if she seen [saw] you doing something wrong with the stock she would let you know. But she was a very hard worker … like, when we were dagging sheep in the morning, we’d start some mornings early at six, half past six. And Miss Fernie was there – a smallish lady – but she would be there all day with a pair of old secateurs, and handle those sheep all day. She never used to bring us smoko or that, but when I wanted a drink [chuckle] I sort of got Miss Fernie … “Here’s a drink, Miss Fernie”, and after that I took the smoko, didn’t I?

Glenise: I think so.

Mervyn: Mmm. But Miss Fernie, she was a terrific lady; a very hard worker, but she expected you to do it too. We started on this line of stock – they were ewes – and the stock agent come [came] up and started talking to me, and Miss Fernie … I can still see saying, “You come back here after five o’clock and you can talk to Mervyn all day and all …” [Chuckles]

Glenise: Wasn’t he an insurance man who came?

Mervyn: [Chuckle] That’s right.

Glenise: Yeah, he was an insurance person, came to talk to the men but it was their working time.

Mervyn: Yep.

Glenise: So she told him to come back after five and he could talk as long as he wanted. [Chuckles]

Mervyn: But she was, you know, she would tell them something that she would do too; but, the look on his face …

Ross: Merv, Chesterhope was about sixteen hundred acres plus; how much [many] staff did you have working with you? ‘Cause you had the glasshouses, you had the orchard, and the extensive vegetable gardens. Who did you have doing all the work on those?

Glenise: There was always [a] full-time gardener, right up until … can’t think who the last person was. And the gardener’s house was the house straight opposite the school. But they had a full-time gardener, and there was always a shepherd … two shepherds possibly, most of the time. The old, old house that’s fallen down on the other side, that was a shepherd’s house; and the one that’s still there now by the Expressway, that was a shepherd’s house. And then there was another house across this creek that went up to the main road. The Haftka family lived there for many years, and some of their family worked as gardeners. I don’t think that house is there any more. We lived in one house …

Mervyn: Yeah.

Glenise: And Rex Anderson lived up the road; there was often

Mervyn: And he’d bike down from his parents’ place …

Glenise: There’d be three shepherds probably; three workers, maybe four sometimes, and plus a gardener. And they used to grow big cattle pumpkins a way down the other side, and every year they’d grow these big paddocks of pumpkins for the cattle in the winter.

Mervyn: That’s right, and when these pumpkins were ready Miss Fernie would go and take the seeds out of the …

Glenise: Mmm, I mean they were huge pumpkins – like, that big. I’ve got photos somewhere of our little children sitting on top of the pumpkins. [Chuckles]

Mervyn: But that saved feeding other’s food for [to] the cattle. Yeah, cattle pumpkins they were called, but they were huge. And I think the accountant, Mr Webb, he took one or something for a competition. [Chuckle]

Glenise: That’s right, I remember that.

Mervyn: This great big pumpkin – think he won it, too. [Chuckle]

The more you talk the more the memories come back.

Yes.

Ross: That’s right.

Yeah, I know, you’re loosening up now. Ross, anything you want to bring in?

Joan Fernie was always a very good supporter of the A&P Show, and I think I’ve shown you the picture that I’ve got of her giving a presentation for the champion pony. Tell us about the Show and the animals that you used to exhibit.

Glenise: She had a big paddock of ponies at one stage.

Ross: Yeah, well that one that I’ve got a picture of, it was a champion. One of the things that we outsiders realised, that Joan was a very private person, but she was always good to the community. And I remember her taking the Pakowhai Pony Club kids, my daughter being one, and taking them around the station on their ponies. Are there any other stories like that?

Mervyn: Oh, yes, Miss Fernie was very kind like that, but she loved horses and she would breed them, and breed the small ones with [for] the young ones that would come; and they’d come in foal and Miss Fernie would pick out the best ones that would be really … she would say, “Well that’s a good one; that’s a good pony.” She loved taking them to the Show, and I used to get the job of walking round with …

Ross: In the ring.

Glenise: And then she had a lovely cook. They had a housekeeper/cook lady, Mrs Corless, who lived in the little flat at the back. And we used to go and visit her quite often; she was good to our children. Mrs Corless we used to call her. She was a big Māori lady. She got on well with Miss Fernie, and her [they] were mates, weren’t they?

Mervyn: Was a very tall lady, Mrs Corless.

Glenise: Part-Māori lady, but she was … I think she was a good friend to Miss Fernie.

Mervyn: Oh yeah, very kind, and I think I’ve got a pound note that Mrs Corless, at Christmas time, gave for our children. [Chuckle] I’ve still got that pound note. [Chuckle] The children didn’t …

Glenise: That’d be back in the 1960s era.

Ross: That’d be worth a lot.

Mervyn: Yeah, she was very kind.

Ross: One of the things at Chesterhope was the array of vehicles, especially cars, that you had on the station. Tell us about some of them. One was a Hudson?

Glenise: Do you remember you took Mrs Fernie to Wellington in the big Buick once? She had to go to Wellington for a [an] eye operation, and she got Mervyn to drive her there.

Mervyn: And the Buick was a wonderful car, and as I was driving down to Wellington with Mrs Fernie, this car overtook me [quiet chuckles] just round by Pakipaki. Mrs Fernie says, “Mervyn, why did you let that go past you?” [Chuckles] “Chase it – get past it!” [Chuckles] And I was in this big Buick Straight[-8], and [coughing] here was Mrs Fernie, a little lady in this big Buick car – “Mervyn! Why did you let him go past? Go and catch him”, [chuckles] “and pass [him].” [Chuckles] And this Buick car, they brought it out from America.

Glenise: And then Joan had the Hudson car which was her twenty-first birthday present from her parents, or her father. And of course it got run round the farm, and the mudguards [coughing] all rusted away with the manure that got caught in it and so forth, and eventually she gave it to Mervyn. And Mervyn repaired all the holes in the mudguards and things. And I think somebody in Havelock [North] still has that car. I can’t remember who came and got it, but I’m pretty sure somebody in Havelock … I recently asked about it, and I think the person still has it out in Havelock.

Ross: That’s interesting.

I’ll keep a lookout when they have the show at Windsor Park.

Glenise: Yeah, it’s a 1920-something or other Hudson.

Mervyn: Hudson Coupé, yes, and in the boot you could put a forty-four-gallon drum of petrol. But I remember trying it out with Rex; I backed it down the driveway. And Rex had a sports car and I said to Rex, “I’ll try it out – d’you think you could go in front?” [Chuckles] But he couldn’t keep up with [on] the straight, and I think I got up to about fifty … well, say, forty-five sounds more … but it was a lot faster than going backwards up the line. [Laughter] Yes. And that was up that drive so I know what speed it was [chuckle] … was doing. That’s right, Rex was checking the speed I …

And when did you officially or unofficially retire?

Mervyn: Oh, well when I started to get a bit sick.

Glenise: Last April.

Oh! Oh, that’s a good working life.

Mervyn: Yes.

Glenise: He was eighty-four, coming up nearly eighty-five when he couldn’t go to work any more.

Well done!

Mervyn: But it was good, you know, you look forward to …

Glenise: He still would like to be going to work.

Wouldn’t we all?

Think he finds it boring at home all day; not enough to do.

Any tours overseas?

Mervyn: No.

You didn’t go to war? No?

No.

Glenise: The war had finished.

Well we had the best years, didn’t we?

Mervyn: Oh yes.

Glenise: I thought so.

Ross: We were lucky really.

Yep, we were lucky, yeah – just had the Depression; Nordmeyer’s black budget …

Mervyn: You forget all those …

But you’re in retirement now, living the life of …

I don’t like it.

[Chuckle] And what about you, Glenise? Do you like to have him at home under your feet?

Glenise: No, not really.

Mervyn: Not all the time … [chuckles]

Glenise: Not really, he hasn’t got enough to keep him busy, and he’s looking around … he makes jobs, you know, that perhaps should be just left alone.

Mervyn: Well yesterday I found out that the spouting was … I don’t know whether Glenise had put another one up – she could see that it was leaking …

Glenise: Never touched it.

Mervyn: Oh. ‘Cause the spouting was out there and I thought, ‘Oh well’ – I went and measured it and …

Glenise: No – you put that spouting up there years ago; you used it for running the water out of the swimming pool across to the sump hole.

Mervyn: Oh. So I thought, ‘Oh well, I’ll have to go and get a new length.’ But I found that I only needed another ten feet, if that. I could place it, but I haven’t got round [to it]. Yesterday with the rain and that I [chuckle] …

Come on, you farmers are tough, you work in the rain as well. [Chuckles] You used to come in and tell us townies that … don’t believe half of it.

Glenise: No, he’d much prefer to still be going to work every day than sitting at home – it’s quite hard. I think he finds it hard just being around all day with no animals, and no tractors to get on and mow the grass; no animals to go and check.

Mervyn: Yes, they were good, the animals.

Ross: Merv was … those of us that [who] knew him a little bit were very aware, he just liked to work all the time, and during lambing and that he’d be at work every day of the week, looking after the stock and keeping an eye on the place.

Glenise: Seven days a week it became, just because he wanted to be there.

Mervyn: But Miss Fernie was just as … she’d work right along beside you. I remember … well, between the twelve weeks Miss Fernie would draft up some of the cattle. They would be left in the paddock through the winter time. They really would come up because it was a paddock that had nothing, no stock, and it was teetered down. It was called a plantation – that’s what it was, the plantation. And I remember Miss Fernie and I went down, it was in the winter time; they were in good condition ‘cause they were in the plantation, and Miss Fernie said to the stock agent, “How much will you give me for that? What’s the price on that line?” And the stock agent says such and such a price, and Miss Fernie said to him – little short fellow [chuckle] – “You know how you come [came] in through that gate? Well you just turn round and get back through that gate, and I don’t want you on the property.” [Chuckles] Because he was tearing [ripping] her off; wasn’t giving her a fair price. They were beautiful cattle. “You can turn around, you know the gate you come [came in]? Go, and don’t come back.” [Chuckle]

Ross: As I understand it, Merv, there were other stations, Te Mahanga and two or three others, that were involved or connected, and still owned by the Fernie family. Did the stock … they were bred in those places and then they came to Chesterhope, and you just finished them off; and then in the early days they walked … and now of course they’d have to truck them to the sale yards or to the freezing works. Is that how you ran the operation? And did Malcolm [MacDonald] do a lot of the buying and trading? Is that how you worked it?

Mervyn: Yes, yes. Malcolm, he actually seen [saw] the stock; he’d go up to the sale yards to see what price they were bringing, and he made sure that his price …

Ross: Got a good price.

Mervyn: Mmm.

Glenise: And the stock came from Moeangi[angi] mostly – well, as far as I know it all came from Moeangiangi to Chesterhope, and then to the works.

Mervyn: Mmm. And then we replaced them from Mangatapiri, out at Havelock. I remember when I first went there … Mrs Fernie and myself would go out to Mangatapiri and this … oh, jeez, I can see the man too; he loved the firewater. [Laughter] He was the manager out there; think he was an Irishman. [Chuckle] I can see the man, and can’t put … But Mrs Fernie, she would come and check them over, but I don’t think she really knew what was [chuckle] …

Ross: Joan Fernie was always with her too.

And who was Malcolm that you’re talking about?

Glenise: Malcolm MacDonald is the trustee.

Mervyn: Very nice chap.

Ross: He’s one of the trustees, isn’t he?

Glenise: Yes.

Still alive?

Mervyn: Yes.

Glenise: He organises all the stock that comes and goes and gets sold and that sort of thing. You could, I suppose, call him the stock agent for …

Mervyn and Ross: Yes.

Glenise: … Chesterhope.

Ross: He lived in Hodgkinson [Hodgson] Road along from where you lived originally, right next door to the Fernies; and the family became very friendly with Joan and they had a lot of interaction.

Glenise: Malcolm’s father worked for Chesterhope for a while. Malcolm’s been involved in Chesterhope since he was a schoolboy, at least. I know that when he was at primary school he chopped the kindling wood for the fires and that for Mrs Fernie. So he’s really had … he basically knew them all his life.

Ross: And he lives in a house with the little orchard on it along Pakowhai Road, between the store and the bridge.

This is all getting very, very interesting …

Glenise: And – I’ll just add to that – I only found out a short time ago [that] his family, the MacDonald family, lived way, way over the other side of Chesterhope. There was a house up there on the riverbed, and it was a house that was like a watchman’s house. When the floods were coming up, it used to flood over the bank; and the house was there to come and warn them the river’s coming up. Now I’ve just found out very recently that Malcolm’s family lived over in that house when he was just a little fellow – they lived way across Chesterhope in that watchman’s house.

Ross: Then they must have bought that orchard in …

Glenise: Hodgson Road, yes.

Ross: Do you have any memories of when the motorway went right through Chesterhope? I know at the time it would’ve upset the Fernie people, because it divided their farm in half. And do you have any comments on that time? You must have been well involved with the fencing and the stock.

Glenise: Miss Fernie died of a broken heart over that. She told us, she said she had a broken heart over … [speaking together]

Ross: Yes, her beloved farm, that she’d put so much into, was divided in half.

Glenise: The farm was split in half.

They didn’t think about putting a tunnel underneath the road like a lot of the places down in the Pahiatua area?

Ross: They looked at that concept.

Glenise: There is a tunnel under the road.

Ross: By the creek, isn’t there? Right down the end.

Glenise: Mervyn would know; I have never seen it, but Mervyn uses it.

Ross: Yes. It’s the end where we are.

Glenise: It’s big enough to get a tractor underneath and a drive through …

Ross: Run stock through it. But to do the deal the roading people would’ve paid a fair price for the land; they had to construct big deer-type fences, and replace a house, sheep and cattle yards, shearing facility, and put a very adequate bridge in Franklin Road, which would have cost a lot of money. It was all part of the deal getting that motorway through, which is chock-a-block day and night now.

Okay. Well, we’ve had a fair bit from you, and I think there’s a lot more hidden there in that brain of yours. We’ve probably sown the seed for you to think about; you and Glenise have got a great history there. Ross: Got some great memories there.

Glenise: Oh, it’s not much to do with me, I didn’t have much to do with Chesterhope.

But you were in love with him.

Ross: Well you kept him going, didn’t you?

Yeah.

You did his smokos, and his …

Glenise: I made the lunches, until in the later years he had to make his own. [Chuckle] I’m not getting up at six o’clock in the morning to make lunches, so [he can get] his own food to take.

Ross: If you think of things or stories, get a little notebook or make a note, you know, so it’ll jog us next time; ‘cause there’ll be stories like the one about the stallion, you know, and there must be other stories.

Glenise: Mervyn told a few stories at Miss Fernie’s funeral, which I think he regretted afterwards; felt like he maybe shouldn’t have been telling stories at that particular time but I can remember the story about her checking the sheep over for cut marks and nicks and things [chuckle] like that, you know.

Ross: After shearing.

Mervyn: Well, when you think of the Pakowhai Road, how …

Glenise: The bridge across the river now …

Ross: The Ngaruroro?

Glenise: … that wasn’t there when we were young. You had to go down into the dip.

Ross: That’s right, over that. I remember that, and when it flooded you couldn’t get home.

Glenise: No. And I mean around where I lived, we flooded there from time to time; it came up Hodgson Road. And I mean, the water was right … just about ready to come into the house. Every two or three years there’d be a flood.

Mervyn: When you think of coming along the Pakowhai Road, how the trees grew along there; people wouldn’t …

Glenise: There was Poplar Avenue that people wouldn’t appreciate – I mean that was quite a nice road with the poplar trees on either side.

Mervyn: But a lot of people wouldn’t have been …

Glenise: And now it’s all farming land.

Mervyn: You wouldn’t even know trees were there, and that was the way to get to the works.

Glenise: That’s right.

Mervyn: But they were good days.

They were.

Glenise: And then sometimes it reminds you … I mean, we’ve seen a lot of families come and go on Chesterhope in our time, you know, families with school kids, and old Mr Minter, he was the gardener when we went there.

Mervyn: Down by the school, wasn’t he?

Glenise: Yes. Mr Minter; he used to go up to Chesterhope on a push bike, and there’s a little story about that, isn’t there? I can’t remember exactly …

Mervyn: I’m just trying to think what it was …

Glenise: A cattle beast or something was on the road, [chuckles] and he was ringing his bell [laughter] …

Mervyn: [Chuckle] Ringing his bell. [Chuckles] You could just imagine what the stock was like [chuckle] … dingle dingle … [Chuckle] Oh, they were good days.

Ross: All right; oh well, thanks for your time, it’s been great.

Yes, thank you very much for your time and thank you for your hospitality, both of you.

Glenise: You’re welcome.