Reid, Joy Interview

Good morning. Today is Thursday 27th May 2021. I am Lyn Sturm and on behalf of the Knowledge Bank I’ve been given the privilege of interviewing Joy Reid from Waipukurau, Central Hawke’s Bay.

[Background noise is kettle boiling]

Good morning. My full name is Joy Reid. I was born on 24th November 1945 in Waipukurau. My mother’s name was Alma Hunt; she was born in 1919 in Takapau or Dannevirke, I’m not absolutely sure; and my father’s full name was Welsh Shaw Brontë. He was born in Northern Ireland in Rathfriland [County Down] in 1904, approximately.

My grandparents on my mother’s side were my grandmother Esther Hunt – was Esther Matheson – born in Dannevirke to my great grandparents – I don’t know their Christian names, but they were Mathesons, and came out from Denmark to clear the land for the railways. My grandfather on my mother’s side was born in England; was sent to Australia as a young child, and came to New Zealand at some stage. After the First World War my grandfather got a rehab [Soldier Settlement Scheme] or ballot farm up in the Otawhao Block in Takapau.

My grandparents on my father’s side I never knew, but my grandfather was pretty old when he had my father, having been born in 1850, and I know that my grandmother died shortly after my father was born. They were both from Northern Ireland. As far as great grandparents go on his side, I have no idea – they would be very elderly, [chuckle] but I do know that we were the closest living relatives to the Brontë sisters, because my great-great grandfather would probably have been a younger brother of Patrick Brontë.

I have sister living who is two years younger than me, Shirley, commonly known as Winkie when she was growing up; and a brother, Roger, who died in 2009 of cancer. He was born in 1951, I think.

My parents farmed and my great grandparents farmed – this is on my mother’s side – and as I say, my great grandparents came out from Denmark and worked on clearing the land for the railways.

I think my father’s parents lived off the land; they were certainly fairly poor tenant farmers, I think, in Northern Ireland. I neglected to mention that I had a brother born in 1943 that [who] was scalded in the cowshed a year before I was born, which affected my parents, I think, for the rest of their lives as my mother was not allowed to attend the funeral. And I don’t think she ever got over it.

For the first seven years of my life I lived in Takapau on a dairy farm, and it was fairly primitive compared to nowadays. We had a car; we did live in a house on the farm. We didn’t have flush loo initially; I shared a bedroom eventually with my sister who was two years younger than me. Our neighbours were not very close, [but] we had plenty of room to play and we were brought up amongst dogs and cats and hens, and it was, I guess, a fairly normal life for that time. When I was seven, we shifted from Takapau to Waipukurau and we lived in town. My parents bought another farm – it was now sheep and cattle – this was halfway between Waipukurau and Waipawa on the main road, and we used to walk to school, the Waipukurau Primary School, which was about a mile away. We lived right next door to the cemetery. I can remember the first day of shifting schools. I was very nervous as the school was bigger, and being in town was quite different from living in the country. We continued to live there until I was older. We had a pet cat, [and] I had lovely friends; and we had good close neighbours when we lived in Waipukurau. We did our share of little jobs at home – we didn’t get pocket money. We owned a car still, and we didn’t go away for school holidays – only once I remember going to Westshore and staying with some friends in a house that we rented, but normally we never went on holiday. I do remember in 1953 going up to Napier for the day to see the Queen with friends, and visiting friends.

We had a great time at primary school. There were little things, it was great; the roads weren’t busy, so I learnt to ride a bike and I played a lot of cards with a very good friend – Strip Jack Naked and things like that. We lived next door to the cemetery and we were reprimanded for collecting all the bows off the wreaths at one stage. We had little games that we played, like putting a parcel out on the road with a string attached to it and pulling it in when [chuckle] someone stopped. We also used to raid Mr Monteith’s orchard and wait ‘til he came out, and stay up the trees and throw fruit at him when he waved his walking stick at us. [Chuckles] So we were quite naughty at times. Oh, and another fun one was … you had the phones where you rang up the exchange, and you’d ask for a number and then when someone answered, like Mrs Gaston, you’d say, “Is that the gas works?” And then put the receiver down; however, we did get told off for doing that, so that stopped.

I did go to piano lessons at the Convent which I didn’t enjoy that much because the nun that took us used to rap you over the knuckles if you didn’t do your practise; however, we did go. I had no pre-school education or kindergarten, and when I started primary school in Takapau I went on a bus which used to pick me up one month at half past seven in the morning and take an hour to get to school, and drop me off at half past three straight after school. And the other month I would get on the bus at half past eight and go to school, and then come home and wouldn’t get home until half past four. I can remember it being a very long trip; very nice bus driver called Mr Birkin, who was very good with all the children.

And then when I left Takapau School, we used to walk from practically the cemetery which is about a mile to the primary school. I’d been there for nearly three years and they opened the Terrace School, which was built behind our place, and I was a foundation pupil of the Terrace School and went there for two and a half years. Following that I went to the College, and was a foundation pupil in 1959 when that opened – that is the Central Hawke’s Bay College – and I had four years and a term there.

I left school when I was seventeen, but going back over my college years, they were great. I played hockey, and used to ride my bike five miles from our place on Arlington Road – we had now shifted out into the country again to another farm – and play on a Saturday morning. I had some great friends that I still keep in touch with. I went through my whole schooling with them. We had some wonderful teachers that [who] in those days had to do two years’ country service. And one year we went to Mt Cook for a school trip which in those days was fairly rare.

While I was at college I helped quite a lot on the farm. My sister and I used to help my father feed out and do the lambing beats and the docking and the dipping and all the usual farm things because we couldn’t afford to have paid help at that stage.

When I left school I worked at the Waipukurau Hospital as a physiotherapy assistant which I thoroughly enjoyed; it was [a] great thing for me to do before I actually went to physio school. I can’t remember exactly what I was paid but it was somewhere in the vicinity of about £3 a week, and I saved this to put towards my keep whilst I was in Dunedin because in those days physiotherapy students only got a Department of Health bursary, which barely covered your board. This is now a university course; at that stage it was attached to the Dunedin Hospital, and you were then bonded to the Health Department and they placed you in a hospital after you graduated. And you were meant to work for two years, unless you got married and then you were able to break the bond.

At the moment I am not working; I retired in 2003. But prior to that, when I had trained I came back to Hastings for a year and worked in the Hastings physiotherapy department, and then became the Charge Physio at the Waipukurau Hospital for three years until the birth of my daughter. I then took about six years off; in that time I took antenatal classes for [the] Parents Centre.

I had never been on public transport or flown until I left home to go to university; [chuckles] I first flew when I was twenty-one and went to Australia. I found it quite stressful actually, when I did.

Going back to my Dunedin days, the first year I was there I had private board which was very good, and I made a lifelong friend there; I stayed with two of her aunts. And the second year and third year I went flatting. Now mixed flatting was just starting in those days but we were all girls, I flatted. There were four of us in the flat, and I cannot remember how much we paid but it was quite expensive. And I don’t know whether we had a fridge or not in those days, but I can remember when the meat started to go off we used to cut the bits off and douse it with vinegar [chuckles] and then cook it. [Chuckles] But we had a very good system. We had a kitty and we put money in and everyone took their turn at cooking and buying the food we needed and you were responsible for your own bedroom and we had turns at cleaning the flat. It all worked very well. We had a great social life in Dunedin. Physiotherapy was a wonderful thing to do; thoroughly enjoyed it, made lots of friends – some are still great friends.

Now I met my husband, Chris, when I was at school, at the end of my schooling. He went off to Palmerston North to do a wool course and I then went down to Dunedin to do my physiotherapy. He worked around Hawke’s Bay wool classing, and then went to America and Canada for six months. And when he returned I was at Hastings Hospital; we got engaged and we got married in 1968, and I came to Waipukurau to live. My family were still here; my sister was in Auckland. My brother took over the farm; he hadn’t taken it over at that stage. We lived in Waipukurau after we were married because my husband and his brother took over their father’s business, Tucker’s 1958 Limited, and ran that for the next thirty years.

I had three children – Caroline was born in 1971, Lincoln nineteen months later in ‘72 and Stewart in 1976. My children. Caroline the eldest is living in London; she is a pharmacist married to another pharmacist with an MBA. He is from Perth, Mike Ho – his father is Chinese, his mother is English. They were married in 2003, and Caroline has been in England since 1998. They’ve lived in numerous places like Paris for five years and Ireland for a year, and they have no children.

Lincoln is now forty-seven; he is a lawyer in Napier. He is married to an English girl, Zoe, and they have two boys, Finn and Jamie who are fifteen and twelve, and they go to school locally.

And Stewart is forty-four or forty-five. He has two sons. He’s married to an Australian girl and they live in Melbourne. Their boys, Jacob and Lachie, are thirteen and nine. Stewart is … he did manage an Irish pub for eighteen years but he is now a salesperson for a large winery out of Melbourne. I have travelled to see them over the years, but now with Covid I’m not travelling at the moment, and nor are they. But Caroline will come home as soon as she can, I think.

They all went to the local college and Caroline went to Dunedin to do pharmacy after that, Lincoln went to Victoria to do law, and Stewart went to Wanganui to do a sport and rec [recreation] course, but pulled out and then went overseas. My three children all went to Central Hawke’s Bay College and they did well academically, particularly the older two. And the two boys were particularly good at cricket and were in all the age group teams, and at that stage Central Hawke’s Bay had rep [representative] cricket teams and I think they made … I’m not sure whether they made it to the Hawke’s Bay ones. Stewart was particularly good at rugby and was in the Ross Shield.

But I had told them when they were eighteen they had to leave Waipukurau [chuckle] because it was too small, and they’d end up pushing a pram [chuckles] if they didn’t. By the time they’d all finished school in [the] 1990s I was working full time, and I also worked at Pukeora Home for the Disabled part time for some years. And in 2000 I went into private practice with Francis Bird, and eventually I left that in 2003.

Meanwhile my husband was very keen on travelling and we did do quite a lot of overseas trips. We started off in 1974; my mother looked after our two children at that stage, and we went on a trip to Hawaii. In 1986 we went to Tahiti, and then we had numerous trips overseas, mainly to see children as in 1998 all three children were in the UK. [United Kingdom]

Now the millennium – we were at Pourerere in [at] the millennium, and we climbed to the top of the hill at Pourerere Beach and watched the sun rise with a couple of friends, which was quite exciting.

Now getting back to the other things we’ve got, like sport; I play nine holes of golf now, I go to pilates, I used to play tennis, I played hockey when I was at school, I’m quite a keen walker; oh, and I go to aqua jogging. Life’s kept fairly busy. I enjoy drawing and knitting and gardening. I wouldn’t say I’ve got a favourite one, but I enjoy participating in all these things. Oh, and hobbies – how could I forget bridge? That probably is my favourite … love playing bridge. Any card games are fun. I’ve got no worries about the cost, none of them are hugely expensive.

I volunteer at Electra Gallery, an art gallery down in town, once or twice a month to do a session; I do Meals on Wheels, have been doing it for about fifteen years. Meals on Wheels is delivering meals to people that are either ill or can’t manage in their own home and just saying hello and seeing that they’re okay; a pleasant thing to do really. Prior to my retirement I did antenatals for the Parents’ Centre at one stage, and I belong to a community organisation called Cogs, just helping with community activities.

Oh – and I organised the 25th Jubilee for the Central Hawke’s Bay College, which was a wonderful thing to do, it went off extremely well. We had a huge attendance of people after twenty-five years and it was a roaring success. The 25th Jubilee was great. The three principals that had been at the College, Mr Sharp, Mr Foster and Mr Ballantyne, were all there. A lot of pupils came from away. We had a dinner, we had a dance, we had a roll call, we had photographs; people really enjoyed themselves. Later, in the late nineties we had a gathering of all the pupils of the first five years of the College, and any pupils from the two District Highs that amalgamated to form the College. It was a smaller affair than the 25th Jubilee but equally as enjoyable, and well attended, once again with a meet and greet and dinner and roll call; the usual procedure.

Now my husband, Chris – as I said, we met at school and were married in 1968, and he and his brother, Bill, ran a wool and skin business in Waipukurau until 1999. They then split up and Chris ran the local radio station for a few years. And I retired fortunately, as in 2006 he was diagnosed with bowel cancer. We had a great life together – we bought a small bach at Pourerere in 1977 and we had some wonderful school holidays out there. I used to go out with the children and he would commute in and out from work as January was quite a busy time at the wool and skin business. We went for many holidays overseas; we were very lucky, he enjoyed travelling and took great delight in organising these. We had almost forty-one years together before he was diagnosed with cancer, which was rather sad. But we both used to play golf, together. He was a Rotarian which he thoroughly enjoyed, and we did quite a lot; Rotary was a great thing for both husbands and wives – you didn’t have to belong, if your partner did you joined in all the things. They did a lot of good work around Waipukurau. After he split with his brother, he managed the local radio station and eventually managed to sell it.

Now going back to the 1980s; in 1980 Chris and I built a house. He was the project manager. It was a huge undertaking; we did a lot of the groundwork ourselves, some of the painting, and he employed two builders and as I say, was the project manager. It took a year to build as we were building at the same time as they were building the Takapau Freezing Works. And we had trouble because our neighbour was the project manager for the Works; he had moved down to Waipukurau, and every time the plumber arrived, his wife used to ring [him] and say, “Turfreys should be at the Works, I presume, dear – they’re at Reids’ again.” And consequently we did a lot of waiting for plumbers to do work. We also did all the ground work; the laying of the tiles – it’s on the side of the hill in Waipukurau – the gardens to form; anyway it was a great project, and we were thrilled; and it was the family home that I stayed in until after he had died.

Also, [I should] mention that when we were younger dinner parties were all the rage for entertainment, and if you couldn’t get a babysitter, which a lot of the people in the country couldn’t get, they used to take their kids and put them to sleep in sleeping bags in the back of the cars, and drive home – sometimes very under the weather. Nowadays you would’ve been in jail, I think, if you’d done this.

The other thing – with Rotary we had numerous Rotary exchange teams that came across, and you often billeted people from other countries. We were fortunate enough in the late nineties to have a lady from Sweden that [who] was the leader of a team, and in the early 2000s we went and stayed with her, which was a great thing to do.

Now, where had I got to with Chris? In 2006 he was diagnosed with bowel cancer, and we had two and a half years with treatment; and really quality years together before he died. We had a lovely family gathering in Melbourne about six months before he died, and about the same time that Jacob, Stewart’s eldest, was born. The Rotarians spoilt him, they would whip him into a wheelchair and take him to golf or out for lunch, and I think he got the most out of his two and a half years. But 2009 was a bad year; he died in January; my brother died three months later – a very sudden death; I’m sure it was either cancer of the oesophagus or the pancreas, and then my mother died ten days after that. So it was a year not worth remembering.

Now being on my own after this was quite a challenge – having married at twenty-two and always had a partner, it was quite difficult. I was left with a business premises and another investment property to get rid of, and I suddenly – although I had done all the accounts and things for the house, I found it quite challenging thinking about moving on, and getting the house I was in up to scratch to sell. Also, the challenge of selling these two commercial buildings was something that I had not anticipated. However, one of his last words was, “You’re here, dear, I’m going; you have to be there for the children and you’ll have to get on with life.” So I did.

After a few years I sold the house we had built and moved down to where I am now, with the intention of subdividing the section and building. However, the neighbours were not happy about cutting down the trees and I did not want to live in the shade for half the year, so I refurbished the house that was there that I am in now, and almost did a rebuild. But I am very happy; it is close to town, it is warm and lovely to live in.

In 2013 I had a brush with cancer; I had a breast lump which was in the early stages, so I am lucky to be fit and healthy now. In 2015 I had my seventieth birthday, and this was the first time all the family had been together since Chris had died; it was great. And Stewart and Rebecca decided to get married, completely unbeknown to me; and they surprised me – the celebrant arrived; had the wedding and we had fish and chips and champagne on the front deck with the children and the whole family – it was a delightful time, really. They very rarely get together because they’re all so far apart.

I am kept fairly busy still with all my hobbies and things I like doing, and I still travel quite a bit but usually in group travel with someone organising it. Much easier than doing it on your own. Just last year we went down the South Island on a trip; I roomed with a school mate, and it was a wonderful trip with about forty other older people. And I will look forward when all the countries open up again to going back over to England to see my daughter and her husband, and to Melbourne to see my grandsons and son and daughter-in-law.

In saying all this, I’ve had a good life and I’m still enjoying life. It is lonely being on your own, but I have wonderful friends and I will reassess the situation of living here on my own when I get to eighty, and maybe think about joining other people like myself in maybe a retirement village; mainly because you have company, and you give up the worries of gutterings that are full and lawns that need doing; and perhaps be closer to my family, or one part of my family in time.

Thank you, Joy, very much for letting me interview you today. I do appreciate it so on behalf of the Knowledge Bank, thank you very much and I wish you all the very, very best for the future.

Thank you.