Sowersby, Robert Interview

[Recorded on 13th November 2023]

We’re at the home of Mr Robert Sowersby to talk about his grandfather, Robert Sowersby. So we’re looking at …

His apprenticeship papers.

Oh yes. What date are we looking at there?

1880. How much he got a week, ‘bout …

Three shillings a week for the second year, [chuckle] … doesn’t say about the first year. Oh, that’s marvellous, Mr Sowersby …

I thought you’d be interested in that.

Yes, yes. Robert is noted for the fine quality of his building work. He built the [St Andrews] Presbyterian manse, and he built Mr Beatson’s house – that was on Asparagus Limited [land]?

Yeah, yeah.

And the comments in the paper … ‘There was nothing finer than the work that he’d done’.

Is that so?

But now, you tell me again about the Catholic Church; the Sacred Heart Church and the spire … steeple.

All I know is that when they were putting the spire up, they didn’t know how to do it. He was a Yorkshireman and served his time doing it, and so he advised them how to put the spire up. Yeah.

Well I’ve got a photograph, and it’s in the distance but it must’ve been quite some time after the building of the church, because I couldn’t relate the date with the scaffolding around the spire.

Yeah, well he showed them how to do it, even though … He was a shocker; as a young married man he was a drunkard … an absolute drunkard, and my oldest aunty, she and my grandmother used to have to go down and get him out of the gutter.

Was that Aunty Tottie?

Yeah, Grace … Grace [?]. And then he saw the light and he got totally religious; no drink, nothing. At one stage he was in the Brethren and then he left all that, and he was sort of going through phases and everything. Then they joined the Baptist church and they were good Baptists for the rest of … But he died before I was born, and I was born in 1934; but I was named Robert after him. But he wasn’t a good father – he was an absolute shocking father … absolute[ly] shocking. He made his money building and everything, but he bought the farm – well he bought the farm next door to ours at Ngatarawa, and he was actually at one stage on the Ngatarawa Water Race Committee. That was back in about 1905.

Water Race … at that time?

Yeah. Oh, right up, well and truly past my date – I was on the committee at one stage. We had twenty-one miles of water race out at Ngatarawa.

Now Mr Sowersby …

Everybody calls me Robert or Rob.

Thank you, Robert. That is interesting because I’ve never heard of a water race, so I will bring a map in and maybe you’ll be able to draw the location of [the] water race, ‘cause that’s gone now.

I can pretty well tell you, yeah. Yeah.

So the farm on the corner of …

Ngatarawa Road.

… and Roy’s Hill there – that was Robert Sowersbys?

And Dad’s. Because before that he owned a mile down the road towards Maraekakaho, down Highway 50 – he owned Farmarys there where Mrs Farmary bought off [from] old man Farmary.

I must tell you a bit of an aside there, because [chuckle] … the death toll at the Farmarys – there was so much suicide in those days it wasn’t funny. Frank Farmary cut his wrists in the bath; then Billy Lachie – he was across the road coming back towards our place, just in the hills in the back, up the valley – oh, he hung himself; and then Dad died of natural causes when he was forty-five … had a tumour on the brain. Then just round the corner there was [were] the Thompsons, and Victor Thompson shot himself because he thought he had cancer. And then there was a fellow called Percy Joll further down the road, and he used to graze the long acre all the time, and he was notorious. His place was a starvation ranch, but he was always on the road with his sheep grazing along there.

Is he the father of Des Joll?

Yeah, and Ralph; Ralph became a missionary. Ralph was a lovely fellow, and they used to do our milling. They had a seed mill and they did all our milling. But they were Cooneyites.

Like, Special Brethren?

Yeah. But very, very good living, and nice people. Yeah. But anyway, Bill Gimblett lived down the road a little bit further on. Percy told me this … Percy was grazing the road one day and Bill was out doing his gardening. And they got talking – Bill had a bad stutter – and he said “Y-y-y-y-you know”, he said, “it’s c-c-c-coming down the road.” Percy hadn’t been well, and he said, “It’s c-c-c-c-coming down the road”, he said, “it h-h-hasn’t missed anyone out.” And Percy said, “What?” He said, “D-d-d-death”, he said. “First of all it was F-F-F-Frank Farmary, th-th-then Billy Lachie”, he said, “and th-th-then H-H-H-Harold Sowersby, and then-then V-V-Victor Thompson. Hasn’t m-m-missed anyone out.” He said, “I-I m-m-must be next.” No – he said, “And the-then there was John Baird”, and he said, “And I’m next in line – I m-m-m-must be next; ha-ha-hasn’t missed anyone out.” And Percy said, “Oh no, Bill, I’ll go long before you – you know”, he said, “I haven’t been well”, and everything like that. And Percy was telling me one day when I was out fencing on the side of the road; he said, “And bless my days, within two or three months he was dead!” He said, “And it hasn’t missed anyone out, [chuckle] you know, all the way down the road. Didn’t miss one.”

Oohhh …

Boom, boom, boom, boom … [Chuckle]

That’s amazing!

Yeah. [Chuckle]

So Harold was your Dad?

Yeah.

And was it he or your grandfather Robert who owned the Farmary place?

Robert owned Farmarys. And then when Dad came back from the war … his mother was Irish, old Margaret Sowersby …

Margaret Dempster, yes …

… Margaret Sowersby, yeah, my grandmother – she was Irish. She actually came out as a sixteen year old when Aunty Thompson … we never called them by their Christian names; the Thompsons called Grandma ‘Aunty Sowersby’. That was a Northern Ireland thing, and I think her name might’ve … no, wouldn’t have a clue what Aunty Thompson’s name was, but she was a dear old soul; but it was always Aunty Thompson. Yeah.

She was the wife of who?

She was the wife of W Something-or-other, the one that [who] started Thompson’s Butchers.

William Phillip. Oh, there was Thomas John Thompson who was the main butcher, and his brother William.

Yeah, and they were from Northern Ireland.

Londonderry?

Yeah. And Grandma Sowersby was born in Ballymena in Ireland. Anyway, we were going to have a look there but I thought it was just a little village, but it’s a big city, Ballymena; so we didn’t bother going in. But no, she came out with Aunty Thompson; Aunty Thompson came out to marry old man Thompson, from Ireland, and Grandma came out as a sixteen year old, as a companion for her.

So it was an arranged marriage already?

Yeah … oh yes, yeah. Old man Thompson was out here, made a success of himself. Apart from the butcher’s shop they owned two farms, one at Ngatarawa opposite us, and also one out Kahuranaki.

Kahuranaki. He also had other farms, Robert – Thompson Road in Havelock North …

Oh yeah? I didn’t realise that was …

The whole of the Thompson Road where Brookvale Road comes down the hill – that part of Thompson, and then where the little bridge is over the Mangateretere, from there all the way to the Mangateretere-Te Mata Road and right down to Frogleys. And also on the left, that was all Thompson, so the Konini and Waipuna Streets off Frederick Street, that was theirs. He had forty-odd acres where the sports park is; his brother Joseph had another piece on the other side of the road, and William had a piece up by Parkin [Percival] Road, all on Evenden Road. They were big farms.

Oh … oh yeah, and they were very successful. But old Robert Sowersby, he owned eighty acres out towards Whakatu from the corner of Frederick Street and Caroline Street [Road]. He built on three corners of that, and there’s still two houses along but now one’s down; but he owned … at different times. And then going towards Whakatu he owned, I think, seventy or eighty acres.

How far down?

I don’t know … all I know is that … you know, probably fairly handy to Frederick Street.

Right, I’ll tell you then – directly opposite Mr Fitzroy’s place which is between Collins Road and Fenwick Street, he was on the left hand side and he had a farm there. Then he lived in Jervois Street before he got to Caroline Road-Frederick Street. But I want to take you back … he came out with his mother; the father had died back in Yorkshire. Can you tell me anything about ..?

I can tell you that actually ‘bout two years ago I was visiting their grave. In actual fact my daughter was called Margaret after my grandmother. We went to have a look at the grave … I took her to show her one day. She said, “Oh Dad, that’s a wee bit worrying, you know … Robert and Margaret Sowersby.” [Chuckle] She said, “I don’t like the look of that.” [Chuckle] She was married. But then on the other side of the grave on the next tombstone, back to back to it, is his mother! Robert’s mother.

She’s come up from Kaiapoi or Rangiora.

Well, I didn’t know she was at Kaiapoi or anything like that, but yeah, I didn’t realise that his mother had come out to New Zealand

When the father died back in Yorkshire she brought him out, and they went, according to his obituary, into Rangiora. I can’t find him in Rangiora but I can in Kaiapoi ‘cause he was the mainstay in the cricket club.

My maternal grandmother was bred and born in Kaiapoi, believe it or not. Yeah, not that Dad or Mum knew anything about that. They’re opposites, you know. First time I’ve ever heard of that; I knew that Gran came from Kaiapoi or Rangiora. Yeah.

Now do you know about Edith … the daughter, Edith?

Oh yes, yeah, there’s stuff here; an obituary there. Yeah, Edie. Yeah.

I’ll read that later. Edie, yes; she was Edith by birth but Edie by name.

Yeah. I think she died … I can’t remember … she died about twelve or something like that.

Yes, she was twelve. It’s intriguing to me how prominent he was in the Kaiapoi cricket, and then when he came to Hastings – that’s how I can actually find when he did, because suddenly his name is in Hastings cricket, and [he] just left Kaiapoi one season; he started the next season.

He must’ve been a sharp shooter too, because I have two shooting cups that he had, and I’ve given them to one of my nephews. That’s Robert Sowersby had them. And one of them, even though it was a shooting cup, it had oars on it [chuckle] … crossed oars, yeah. It’s supposed to be a shooting cup. [Chuckle]

When he first shows up he is down as a joiner initially, which is that certificate; but it didn’t take long before he was building.

Well that’s all mystery to me, that – I don’t know any part of that, basically. All I do know is that he and Dad, even though they were partners in the farm, Robert owned two thirds and Dad owned a third. And he used to come out to the farm every day, even during the slump and everything he’d come out, and he’d stop and talk to old man Baird and leave his car running all the time he was talking; in the middle of the slump. But he used to come out for lunch; sit with my mother every day, and he and Dad wouldn’t talk. They would have their conversation through Mum.

So they weren’t talking to each other?

No. No. Dad couldn’t stand him.

So how did you ..?

I don’t know. All I know is that … yeah, well I suppose it’d be a bit like that, yeah.

Now Robert had the farm a long time before?

No, not that part. He had the farm down the road before – a long time before. Just south of ours, yeah.

Farmary. Well on the land titles, Robert, your grandfather had the Ngatarawa corner farm first and then your Dad came in later.

No, that’s not … I can’t understand that because the way I’ve been told is that when Dad came back after the war he put his money … his annuity in from the war and combined with Robert Sowersby. And that’s when they bought our block on the corner.

So is that the First World War or the Second World War?

First World War. Crikeys, he didn’t come back ‘til 1920. He was [in] Northern Ireland. And Mum, even though he would never ever tell Mum where he was – ‘cause he’s got an Aunty McElveen which [who] was Grandma’s sister … one of her sisters … and he stayed with her. [I] expect I’ve got a photograph of him, it’s in there. And Mum would – pillow talk and all the rest of it – never tell her. And she reckoned he was in jail.

Oh!

She swears that he was in jail.

Well when I come again I’ll bring these titles, because Robert had a clearing sale in 1911 on the farm … all his equipment. And then in his obituary he is noted as being the best chaff grower in Hawke’s Bay, and that’s what they said he grew on that farm.

Yeah, well it wasn’t him that was the chaff grower, it was bloody Dad. [Chuckle] Yeah, it was Dad. We have a chaff cutter in fact; we gave it to them once – it’s up at Thompsons … you know, we gave it to Hugh Thompson up yonder here.

Kahuranaki?

Yeah, we gave the chaff cutter to him. We used to go contracting with it. And even as a kid, you know, fifteen year old boy I was working on the chaff cutter.

So your grandfather did contracting that you know of?

No. Dad.

It was your Dad.

Yeah, Dad did the contracting. No, Robert didn’t ever – no.

Whereabouts was your house at Ngatarawa?

There it is there. It belonged to Talbot before the Sowersbys bought it. That was when they bought that one – after they sold Farmarys – and that was just round the corner on Highway 50 from Ngatarawa Road. As you go round the hill you look straight at where it was. And it burnt down – that’s after 1905 because the Talbots had that at [the] night it burnt down, in 1905. The two Talbot brothers, they’d taken wool into Napier and they were coming back around the hill at Roy’s Hill, and they looked across and they saw a bird’s nest fire. And in those days there was no water or anything, only tanks, and they got everything out of the house and everything like that but they had to stand back and watch the house burn down.

Then they built that one and it burnt down, with my wife and I in 1957.

Oh!

And we had a young baby. And we stood outside and watched it burn, too – it lit up the whole hill. It was at four o’clock in the morning. And then they built that. Actually you can see the pavers up on the roof, they’d just covered that in. That old wash house actually [with]stood the first fire. It was all pitted on the side where it nearly caught fire and the whare, they bought that down the Roy’s Hill road.

So there’s a painting and an aerial photograph we’re looking at.

And oh – I must tell you this though – my brother was always the carpenter in the family and when we got burnt out we had a septic tank there from the old house. So they coupled into it, and we put it on the end of the old wash house. My brother was supposed to put a cover round it but it took him about a week to do it, and so that was sitting outside and we’d be sitting on the lavatory at night and a car would come round the hill and shine straight on you.

There’s a small photograph to go with the aerial photograph of the 1956 house, showing a lavatory sitting outside of the building waiting to have the walls put on. [Quiet chuckle] That’s marvellous. [Chuckle]

[Robert moves away from microphone] And then Beth and I moved in there with our baby … into the wash house and the whare. Now Lindsay [?] down the road gave us a great big six foot bath … it was alongside the copper. We used to boil the copper every night and get into the bath, Beth and I – the baby was in the whare next door. We’d get in the bath and have a bath, and we had the radio – there was no television of course in those days. And every night we used to listen to the ‘Dossier on Dumetrius’. [1951 radio serial] Ohhh, it was a thriller! And we’d sit back in the bath together and listen to the ‘Dossier on Dumetrius’.

That’s not a programme my mother has ever talked about – I’ll ask her.

You ask her. ‘Dossier on Dumetrius’. It was a thriller, used to come on at eight o’clock or something.

Now … have you got any family stories about Robert’s encounters with trains?

No, none.

He ran afoul of the locomotives twice …

Oh, I’m not surprised.

… driving over the railway line in front of it, and he also had a collision at one stage with the train, and he got fined.

[Chuckle] He’d be annoyed about that.

[Chuckle] Yes. We’ll bring those things out. Now it says he was a great judge of horses, and he had a special favourite – draught horses.

Well I don’t know anything about that, no. I was only three when Dad died, and Robert was dead before that, before I was born. And so Mum didn’t actually talk about Robert very much. But Aunty Tottie and Aunty [?] they didn’t talk about him much either. No.

So if there was a sort of a separation between your Dad and his father ..?

Yeah. Yeah.

… it’s not likely that he’s going to talk about him fondly afterwards.

No. No. And Mum didn’t discuss it.

So did they talk about back in Sowerby in Yorkshire?

Now I tell you what … I had old Robert’s bible – I’ve given it to my oldest daughter – and on the fly leaf there’s ‘To Robert Sowersby from his nephew Moses Sowerby’ … no Sowersby, Sowerby.

I found a piece that says Robert’s father was also called Moses.

Was he? Is that so? Yeah, well he had a nephew called Moses; he had a cousin called Moses, and Moses Sowerby.

And sometimes you can’t find Robert because he’s been spelt in the Births, Deaths & Marriages as Sawerby … S-A-W … So he was a builder in Jervois Street, and he was a builder when he was in Karamu Road opposite Fitzroy. And I think he had the property where Warwick Street goes down … just by there. In 1895 he built the additions on the Havelock North school; 1897 was the Presbyterian manse which was in Karamu Road – not next to St Andrew’s – and we don’t know where it is in Karamu. And 1883 is when he did this fourteen-room house for Mr Beatson who’d come down from up north; built this giant house for him. Of course he owned Windsor Park …

Beatson’s Park.

Mmm.

Beatson’s Park. And believe it or not his son, George Beatson, was a gentleman jockey, and they had a farm down in Dannevirke. But they were farming Beatson’s Park … Windsor Park.

Oh, they had Oringi?

Yeah. And then they moved down, and my cousin, Joan Hennah, married George Beatson, gentleman jockey. And George used to actually ride … My uncle, Jack Hennah, had a champion race horse called Padishah that won so much money it wasn’t funny. But Uncle Jack had made all his money as a bookmaker, and then bought half of Heretaunga Street. He was an orphan at twelve … self-made, but a lovely … [the] most generous person you could ever wish to meet. And his wife, my blood aunty, was the most mean … [Chuckle] She was shocking – she was as mean as he was generous.

So who was his wife?

Phoebe Murfitt.

And how did that relate – to your Mum or to your Dad?

She was Mum’s older sister.

Now what was the name of the horse again?

Padishah – it’s Turkish for a chief or something or other; Padishah. Anyway, great horse.

And George’s father, old man Beatson, he was the chairman of the Jockey Club. Anyway Uncle Jack was a gambler, a real gambler, and Padishah was racing over two Saturdays, one weekend following the other. And he said to George, “Pull the horse today and let him win next weekend; shorten the odds … we’ll get the odds right.” So George pulled the horse and there was an enquiry, because he was such a good horse he should have won by a head … more than a head. And they called Uncle Jack up before the Jockey Club Committee, and he said, “Mr Beatson, I can understand you doubting me a bit, but are you inferring that your son pulled my horse?” Enquiry dropped. [Quiet chuckle] Padishah came out the next week and hosed in.

[Chuckle] With a good return …

Yeah, with a big return.

Big booty. Did you go down to the Oringi farm down there?

I used to call in there at times; Joan was very, very hospitable. And Beth’s family, a lot of them came from Manawatu, and so often on the way to or from we’d call in to have a cup of tea with Joan. Joan taught me to swim incidentally; she was a sports mistress at Iona, believe it or not.

Joan ..?

Joan Beatson … Joan Hennah.

That’s fascinating, that link, ‘cause I’ve long known the Beatsons from Oringi. There’s another part of the name I can’t remember … Maori name. But I had no idea that they were related to the Beatsons up here.

Yeah. As I say, George was Uncle Jack’s jockey. [Chuckle]

So now what do you mean by a ‘gentleman jockey’?

He did it because he liked doing it, he didn’t do it for a living.

Ah, yes.

And also, he was too heavy for just an ordinary race horse, he had to be at hurdles, you know, with weight. He’d be too heavy for a flat race.

Right – so was he successful at his racing?

Very.

As a jockey …

Oh Yeah. I actually think he only raced for Uncle Jack … rode horses for Uncle Jack, yeah.

Now going back to Robert, he was doing his building and then he purchased Dennett’s Auction House.

I knew that he had an auction house, yeah.

And Dennett was one of the early mayors of Hastings. And after that he doesn’t appear as a builder, he was entirely into selling properties, and auctions. But he then went on to the farming side and he purchased farms in Otane, Pakowhai, Raupare and Longlands. He would develop and then on-sell them and make money that way. Have you heard anything ..?

No, I didn’t know that, but I did know that he was an entrepreneur; he was a wealthy man. Yeah, but then he blew the whole thing during the slump … blew the whole thing. He took out a great bit mortgage at [on] Talbots and we didn’t pay that mortgage off. I can remember Mum jumping up and down with glee, ‘til … oh, probably in the beginning of the fifties. And during the slump it was so bad at Ngatarawa – it was the dust bowl of Hastings – it was so bad that Dad wanted to walk off, and Mum wouldn’t let him. Mum said “No, at least we can grow our own vegetables here and we’ve got a house; we’re staying here.” So that’s how bad it was during the slump at Ngatarawa.

Which way did the water come – from the Maraekakaho area?

Yeah, it came from … now, further up before you get to Marae[kakaho] there’s a drover’s hut on the right hand side; well it came in just above that. And you’ll find that the trench is probably still there where the water race … And we used to have working bees because every now and then there’d be a [?] or something like that, and there’d be a sandbar and we’d have to go up with shovels. When it was really bad we’d get the Glazebrooks to bring their bulldozer up, but most times it was just the shovels. And all us young ones used to have to do the work; and all the older men leaning on their shovels, gossiping. And all us boys’d do the bloody work … yeah.

They had it right …

Yeah, oh, they had it right all, right. I remember Lindsay Wellwood – he lived on the corner of Roy’s Hill Road and Maraekakaho Road … the house is gone now, and the wool shed. Anyway, he was a great big man – he was about six foot six, had arms on him like that; he was a lovely, lovely old chap, but hen pecked. He had a bad stammer. And there was a fellow, Bill Rouse, had bought a property right next door to Washpool. And young Rouse, the son … I remember them gossiping up at the river, and Lindsay saying “D-d-d-did you hear about y-y-y-young Rouse?” “No.” “Oh, h-he w-went to h-h-high school and p-picked up his g-girlfriend and th-th-they’ve eloped.” “Is that so?” “Yeah, th-the d-dirty r-r-r-rotten lucky bastard.” [Laughter] I’ll never forget that as a kid. [Laughter] A lot of funny bits and pieces …

Now Robert, when you were living on the farm on that corner and the Thompsons had Te Awa on the other side, did they have a house there?

Oh, a big old house … lovely house. A long, long driveway, and it would be just about to the entrance to Ngatarawa Wines, where Ngatarawa Wines’ entrance used to be … virtually opposite that. And it was right down and right up against Mrs J T Rowland’s place.

So that was going back towards the air field?

No, no, going back towards Omahu Road …

Oh, that side …

… going the other way. Yeah. It’s a long, long driveway, and they had windmills all the way through; they had wells down with windmills.

Bringing the water up for the stock all the time?

Yeah, bringing the water, yeah, for the stock. Yeah.

It also talks about one of the … I guess it was one of the boys was keen on breeding racehorses, or bred horses and had them up for stud?

Not the Thompson boys? Oh, that was Hughie – that was out at Kahuranaki.

No, it was at Te Awa as well.

But Hughie worked at Te Awa for a while before my time, yeah – Dempster rather, not Huey – Dempster. Now Dempster’s name … his mother and my grandmother, their maiden name was Dempster. So Aunty Thompson called her son Dempster Thompson; he worked at Te Awa before my time and he was actually killed in a car accident.

Yes, down by Ormondville.

I don’t know where he was, but …

They’d been to a rugby match …

That’s all I knew, that he was killed in a car accident … Dempster.

Four boys had been to the rugby match down in Dannevirke, but the main road was closed and they were detoured through Ormondville. And they came round a corner and it went off, and Dempster, I think … don’t know if he was killed at the time but … yes, they were lucky the three boys survived.

Well Hugh, the oldest of the lot, he was one of the nicest men you could ever have the pleasure of knowing; and he ran Thompson’s Butchers Shop here. But he had a son called Hugh that [who] was farming out at Kahuranaki.

Oh, okay …

There was Old Hugh, and he was a really, really lovely man.

Did you know there were two other brothers? There was [were] actually five brothers.

One was a judge. An older one was a judge, that’s all I know; I don’t know anything more about them.

In Hawke’s Bay?

No, no. It could be Wellington – I’d be guessing – could be Manawatu, but all I know is that one of the Thompsons was a judge

That would be one of the brothers of ..?

Yeah, that would be Hugh’s brother, yeah, Hugh and Victor; Victor was the baby of course. Hugh and Victor and Dempster and I think there was another one or two. Yeah.

Well if I just run through the Thompson brothers … so Hugh, and their father was Thomas … T J, Thomas John. His next brother down was William Phillips, and that was a family name; but they had another brother who was older whose name was Harry James … Henry James.

Yeah, he was a judge.

Not this one.

Oh, wasn’t he?

This Henry James was actually here before Thomas arrived …

Oh, is that so?

… and he was Thomas Tanner’s manager and overseer for Riverslea Station. And then he left towards the end of the 18… He built the Carlton Hotel, and then not long after that he left and took up a huge station in Argentina, and that’s where he lived ‘til the end of his days.

But then our Thompsons had cousins … Albert Thompson, he was a contractor and he lived in town I think, with his mother … Albert, he was a cousin.

Of yours?

No, not of mine. A cousin of Victor and Hugh and all that; they all came out from [the] north of Ireland, so that would be the family that you’re talking about – that other family.

And then there was Joseph Barr Thompson, another brother of Thomas; and George Thompson who ended up in Christchurch or Oamaru. So there were actually five Thompson brothers at one stage living in Hastings, all from Londonderry. So Dempster, the one who died in the car crash, that’s the first mention I find of the Sowersbys, because he talks about one of the pallbearers.

Be a cousin.

Could’ve even been Harold; might’ve been …

It could well have been.

… at that vintage, yes.

Harold died of a tumour on the brain at forty-five, and he got to the stage he couldn’t talk.

This was your father?

Yeah. He’d be alive now with modern … and the doctor told Mum when they took the top off his head to try and do something about it, the blood had built up so much there it hit the theatre roof, with pressure. He couldn’t speak; he wanted to speak and he couldn’t get anything out.

It was like a stroke effect?

Yeah, yeah. It was just constant … the tumour got bigger and bigger and put so much pressure on him.

What age were you at that time, Robert?

I was three.

Oh – gosh!

I’ve only got one memory, and whether it’s just a dream or not I don’t know. I can remember him putting me on a little pony outside the gate at Ngatarawa. Yeah.

So you have a big family of brothers and sisters?

No, I’ve got … well they’re all dead now, but I had one brother. I was lucky to be alive because Mum was in her fortieth year when she had me, and there was eight years difference between my brother, George Murray … but they called him ‘Boy’, because old Robert Sowersby was a Yorkshireman and he’d come out and say, “How’s Boy?” He was George Murray but he was always called Boy. And so Boy was eight years older; and then there was June Hodgkinson that [who] had the orchards down Main Street.

Oh, the ones that used to sell to Wellington? Yes, yes …

Yeah, that’s right. He started the open market, Tony. He was an entrepreneur, well and truly, Tony. Mean as … it was Hodgkinson Brothers had the orchard which was big in those days, but that was Tony’s father and uncle. Tony’s cousin was a generous man, and Tony himself was mean …

So Tony’s cousin, his name was ..?

Trying to think of it … not Grant … no, just couldn’t tell you now. Nice fellow. I knew a lot of people that [who] worked for him – they couldn’t stand Tony but they loved working for the cousin. He was a lovely fellow. He looked after them. Yeah.

So that’s one sister …

Yeah. The other sister was Nola, she was the oldest one; she was eleven years older than me. My birthday’s 5th March and hers was 13th March, so yeah, there’s eleven years difference. Our whole family had congenital cataracts; Mum got them when she was about twelve or thirteen, just on puberty; and Nola, my oldest sister, she got them when she was about twelve months old … yeah, went blind. I went blind just before I was five, but my brother and other sister – good as gold. But it’s a vicious thing. I’ve got three children and the youngest one’s got them. As I say, my other siblings, none of their kids have got them, but my sister, Nola, she had three girls and two of them have it, the other one not. And of their children, the younger one … her kids have got it. So it’s a vicious, vicious thing … congenital cataracts.

So you say you got it when you were five?

Yeah, I was blind when I was about four and a half, five.

So how did you get to see again – what did they do?

Oh, these days, you know … people when they’re older now they get them … well they used to get them then; but when I was a kid Mum took me down to Wellington ‘cause in those days they could only did it in Wellington, not in Hastings, [to] this fellow called Doctor Marchant. They stir the cataract up, then they would wait for it to settle; then they would take it out and cut it off, and they’d cut the lens at the same time, so you didn’t have your lens. So they did one eye and then they did the other, but they must have left a little bit in because I started to go blind again when I was about seven or eight. They gradually moved my stool and my desk further and further up to the blackboard [for me] to see. And I had to go back and get it done again twice, but nowadays they just put your intraocular lens straight in. But in those days it was a totally different thing. So I was lucky – I had a doctor that was well before his time, and until I was about fifteen – ‘cause you lose your power of focus – I didn’t realise that he’d put a reading lens in one eye and a long distance in the other, and they used to blend. I wasn’t conscious [of it]; I can see to read better with both eyes and I can see long distance with both eyes, even though … look long distance with my reading eye and it was blurry. But no, it still improved them. But anyway then David Sabiston – did you ever know David Sabiston?

I know of the name Sabiston, yes.

Sabo, yeah; oh, he was a brilliant character. Corker bloke, David. Anyway, they had a Pacific Basin conference in Napier, and he got me in to show off with my son who had the cataracts as well, ‘cause we [were] unique. There was an American there, and Sabo said very, very sneeringly, “Of course, this fellow’s queer, he’s got one reading lens in one eye and a long distance lens in the other eye with his glasses.” And the American said, “Who did that?” And I said, “A fellow called Doctor Marchant in Wellington”, and he said, “When was that?” I said, “Actually it was 1939 and 1940.” He said, “That man was fifty years ahead of his time; we’re doing it in America now.” He said, “That man was so far ahead of his time it’s not funny.” And I turned round to Sabo and I said, “Put that in your bloody pipe and smoke it, Sabiston.” [Chuckle]

Fifty years ahead. He was a New Zealander, this Doctor Marchant?

Yeah, Doctor Marchant in Wellington.

That’s wonderful. Now where did you go to primary school?

Mostly I went to Central School because when Dad died in 1937 my maternal grandmother got very bad shingles … very, very bad shingles; so Mum came in to look after her and brought me in with her. And as I say, I started to go to Central School and then I went back to Marae[kakaho]; only for a very brief time because my mother’s younger brother, Mick Murfitt, came out to help with the harvest when he was seventeen and stayed for the rest of his life, so got married and lived out there and everything. And when I left school at fifteen Mick was my boss; Mick ran the farm after Dad died. Mum had the business brains but Mick did all the other part.

The grit …

Yeah. And so that was the way it went, so I went in to Central School. But then Mum went back to the farm in October. Mick’s wife was there … had the twins in 1942, and so she was staying – in the home in those days, they stayed for a long time – and so Mum went back to the farm … busy with harvesting and looking after the men. And I went too, and I went to Maraekakaho School but only for a few weeks … very few weeks, but [it] still made me a member of the school – I’m still on the list. In fact I had to propose the toast and cut the cake at their bloody anniversary.

What were they harvesting, Robert?

Oh, be mostly oats for chaff – we grew a hell of a lot of oats for chaff in those days, and as I say they had the chaff cutter. We grew a bit of barley, but mostly … ninety percent of the stuff that was grown would’ve been oats. ‘Cause all working horses too, in those days.

Yes, yes. You were virtually the oil field for the working horses … yes.

Yeah, that’s right. Yeah, yeah. Now my daughters went to Marae[kakaho School]; my grandchildren went to Marae, on one side; and now I’ve just got a little great-granddaughter, has started at Maraekakaho School. So I thought, ‘Right, I’ll go into Hawke’s Bay Today and tell them – that’ll [there’ll] be a lot of interest.’ And there was a nasty woman on the counter; she said, “No. Not interested. We’re Auckland based – people up in Auckland couldn’t care less about that. Take it away, we’re not interested.” That was Hawke’s Bay Today; I was so disgusted.

That’s telling you a lot.

Yeah, isn’t it? Hawke’s Bay – we’re Auckland owned

But Hawke’s Bay Today has a Hawke’s Bay side to it.

Yeah.

My gosh – that’s awful!

Isn’t that ..? I won’t buy it now, I won’t have anything to do with Hawke’s Bay Today … no, bugger them.

Oh … that’s shocking. Now, high school was the Hastings High School?

Hastings High, and then after a couple of years I went into the agricultural course in Napier, which was a bloody waste of time. Compared to the Hastings Boys’ High … or it was Hastings High; it wasn’t Hastings Boys’ High in those days … it was ten times the school that Napier was. Absolutely …

That’s interesting to hear because when Hastings started off as a high school people from Hastings kept sending their children to Napier, because they didn’t think Hastings …

Yeah. Yeah, I know, yeah, yeah. I had friends that went through Napier Boys’ High – they used to go on a bus every day.

So you would’ve had Mr Penlington?

Yes … Wag.

Wag Penlington.

Yeah, he gave me the cane.

That’s a treasure. [Chuckle]

And he didn’t cane very often, but it was only just love taps. It was for being cheeky to the sports mistress [chuckle] and she complained. There were three of us; I was in [the] engineering Form, and the engineering master was always a bit late coming back from smoko and everything. So we were out playing with the girls’ hockey set, sitting outside, and she came out and told us off and then complained. There was only three of us down one end – cricket, not hockey, cricket – two Maoris from Fernhill and me. And the rest of the class – there were only about another six or eight in the class – down the other end. And she told the two Maoris and me off and then went and complained and said we were cheeky and all the rest of it, and so Wag gave us the cane. But it was only three little love taps. [Chuckles] Just to keep her quiet.

Yes. Let’s just stop this here, and then we’ll come back again … give me time to think about some questions. Thank you.

No, good as gold.

It’s Monday 13th November. We’re at the home of Mr Robert Sowersby doing the second interview.

Now this Beatson …

They’re connected with Oringi, aren’t they? With the Beatsons?

Yeah, his broth[er] … oh, actually, it’s been bad business there; bad business. They’ve got two farms there and the two boys got a farm each – there’s two brothers, and their sister, she got money; so they were going to sue her because they wanted half a million dollars each from her, after a farm each. Yeah. I haven’t seen them, but boy, am I going to give them the message when I see them. Yeah.

Does Beatson still have land down there?

Oh yeah – they’ve got two farms there. Just the other side of Dannevirke, between Dannevirke and Woodville.

Where they put the freezing works?

Yeah, yeah. No – blimmin’ hungry. The Wedds are their cousins; there’s Graeme Wedd, he’s out at Poukawa; he’s got a farm out there, and he was trustee for his father who got a bit wonky, and he tried to do his twin sister out of her inheritance, and his other sister. I haven’t seen him either, but apparently he was at a family do shortly after this and none of the family’d speak to him … just ignored him.

So how are the Sowersby connected to the Beatsons?

The Beatsons’ grandmother, Phoebe Hennah, was my mother’s older sister.

Hennah?

Yeah.

She was Beatson?

No, she was originally Murfitt. She was my mother’s sister, and her daughter married George Beatson.

Ah … and your mother was …

Murfitt.

What was her first name?

May.

We’ve had a look at when the Sowersbys came out with the mother and they went to Kaiapoi – have you ever heard any talk about where they lived?

No, I didn’t even know they’d been to Kaiapoi. But my other maternal grandmother was born there … grew up there at Kaiapoi and Rangiora, and she was a … oh crikeys, I’m trying to think what her maiden name was … but no, she was born there.

Over here I’ve got the … there’s the title for the Caroline Road [property].

Oh, yes … oh, corker! [Chuckle]

Now you’ll have to use a magnifying glass ‘cause these titles are actually quite large but I can only print them out on A4.

Yeah, yeah. No fair enough.

But it gives the date there when the Sowersbys came in.

Oh lovely – oh, that’s corker!

But there was [were] two acres?

Yeah, that’s right, yeah. It was a big area, right up against the railway line. I remember having the big area there when I was a little boy, ‘cause my mother and I used to go down there and have afternoon tea with my grandmother.

So it obviously comes further back down Caroline Road from where the house is today?

Oh yes, yep. And they had a shed just there, and yeah, it went further back, yeah.

Did you see it when it was the whole two acres?

If I did I would’ve only been two or three or four, yeah. So no, I wouldn’t know.

I was intrigued to know whether it was garden, orchard, paddocks ..?

No, just paddocks.

Just paddocks.

Yeah. And also, as you know, he owned three sides of Caroline [Road] and Frederick Street. You knew that?

On the corners?

Yeah. He owned three corners, yeah. He built on the three corners actually, believe it or not, and there’s two of them still standing. There’s the one that … yeah, and the one opposite on Caroline Road belonged to the Joneses from Hastings Motors Ford for years.

And LeBon Helyer was in there as well …

Yes he was, yeah. That’s right. So old Robert built that one as well.

Oh!

But apparently what he did too in the house that … I knew of him ‘cause he was dead before I was born; anyway, he was a builder by trade as you know; all the interior walls he packed with sawdust.

Oh, for insulation … that’s a fire risk.

Yeah, yeah.

[Chuckle] But … he was ahead of his time in terms of insulation.

Oh yeah, for insulation, yeah.

So he had come from the north of England?

Old Robert – yes, I think he did. Yes …

Yorkshire?

… Sowerby. And there’s the other one right next door to it, and I can’t think of the name of it now. My older daughter’s got the family bible with bits and pieces in it. Yeah.

It sort of occurs to me that he learnt something up there which he brought down here?

Oh yeah. As I said to you the other day he actually learnt how to do steeples. And the Catholic Church here, they didn’t know how to put the steeple on, and they got him to supervise it. You showed me …

I’ve got a photograph to bring you to show you that. ‘Cause the dates are very interesting – when the church was built and when the steeple went on – are separated.

Yeah, because they didn’t know how to do it. They got Robert to do it. Yeah.

This here, did I give you … ?

No. No. This is your Murfitt side?

Yeah. That’s my uncle that [who] was killed, long before I was born.

This was at the war?

Yeah, First World War. 1918, I think he was killed.

Stanley David Murfitt.

Yeah, that’s him.

Dated 1917; 10th November.

1917, yeah. My other uncle, his older brother, he got leave from out of the trenches and went to see him; he said, “I’ve come to see Stanley Murfitt.” “Oh – he was killed this morning.” Behind the lines, too – a shell came over and obliterated four of them. He has not got a grave, ‘cause there was nothing left of him. It’s [There’s] a memorial at [in] Belgium and he’s on the memorial wall. We went and saw it … he’s got his name there, yeah.

Oh, that’s tragic, yeah. So when you were saying about the medals, was this from your father?

Yeah, those were my father’s medals; he didn’t get any huge ones, he just got the First World War medals. And my Uncle George, my mother’s older brother, he was there too – he was the one that went to see his brother – his as well. Now my cousin … Murfitt cousin … is mad keen to get hold of them. I used to have a collection of badges and medals; Aunty Thompson from Thompson’s Butchers, she gave me a swag of them … Highlanders’ badges and all sorts of stuff. I collected a swag of badges and I gave them to Keith’s brother, Phillip, and he gave them to this John Townsend who was my cousin’s husband. Apparently they’re in Napier somewhere and I’d like them back, but I don’t know where they are … we can’t find [them].

It’s an enquiry you could make at MTG. [Museum Theatre Gallery]

Okay, yeah – good thinking; I might do that because Eric, my cousin, wants the Murfitt ones back to wear on Anzac Day, and I’d like them back for from Keith, the oldest Sowersby, ‘cause they have Dad’s as well.

You get in contact with the MTG Archives – that’s in the old Rothmans building.

Oh yes – is that so, right round there, Ahuriri?

It’s coming to Hastings soon …

Is it?

… they’re renovating a whole building there and all the archives are coming over to Hastings for safe-keeping, because if they have a tsunami in Napier …

Well thank you, I’ll go into the museum and speak to them there; thanks very much.

You have to ring and make an appointment, ‘cause they come to open the door. No one can just walk in to the archives …

Is that so?

… different to the museum.

OK, I was just going to the museum to get them

If you ring they’ll put you through, and then you can make the arrangement and time.

Oh, that’s excellent.

Now last time we talked you told me that Robert would go out to the farm, and your father was out there and they’d sit down and have a meal at lunchtime. But all the talking was done through …

Mum.

Now do you know what caused the ruction between them?

No, I don’t. Robert was a bit eccentric to the degree that when he was young he was an absolute boozer, and my grandmother and aunty used to have to go and get him out of the gutter and bring him home. And then he saw the light; at one stage he turned Brethren, then finished that and then he was a Baptist, so they carried on being Baptists. Dad put money into the farm with his annuity when he got back from the war – he put a third in and Robert owned two-thirds. I don’t know whether it was … Dad was inclined to enjoy a drink – in fact he was terrible, and I’ll tell you a little story about that. But no, I don’t know what caused the rift between them, or whether there always was one; but if there was a rift between them you wouldn’t think they’d go in partnership.

Did they work together on the farm at that time?

No, no. Robert didn’t … he never ever did any work at all on the farm.

He had the money in …

But every year he would buy pre-lamb lambs. And he wouldn’t know what the weather was going to do; they’d send these bloody lambs … next thing there’d be mobs of lambs turn up and they didn’t have the feed for it. He’d bought the pre-lamb ones, year after year. Dad used to get furious!

Now [I] just want to come to one of these little articles here, Robert. There was a clearance sale in 1911 out at Ngatarawa. So you know that the farm carried on, but if you have a look at that, it’s a complete clearance of all stock and implements.

Well, well, well … 1911; that was when he’d’ve had the farm alongside where we were, before they bought that …

Before they bought the Talbot one?

Yeah, before they bought the Talbot one.

Yes, so the Talbot one is 1920?

Yeah, yep.

So whose was that farm that was next door?

Oh, you’ll have to read the history of Maraekakaho Station; I can’t remember now. It could have been Watts or somebody like that. But no, I haven’t heard. In fact I’ve got the history somewhere, but I’ve lent it to … there’s a book put out about the early days of Maraekakaho.

Oh, Alan Scarfe’s book?

That’s right. We got one; and in fact the one I’ve got now is a second edition ‘cause he’s corrected some of the things. He had Dad down as a carpenter, and there was so much wrong; and everybody in Maraekakaho went mad. He got so much wrong it wasn’t funny.

This was in his first edition?

And the second one wasn’t much better.

Oh dear!

But Ngatarawa and Marae[kakaho] were up in arms – the ones that knew the old days – they were up in arms when he published that book. And he sent me a second one and thanked me because my wife, Betty, sent emails to him saying, ‘This is not right; that’s not right.’ So he wrote it again and sent the second edition out with a note on it saying, ‘Thank you very much’. And it still wasn’t right.

For your connection in there, it’s still not all right?

Yes. Yeah. Yeah.

Wow!

Oh, I tell you what – Amanda Clarkson from up Highway 50, she went mad on behalf of Neil, her husband; and as I say, my wife went mad; and Jan Graham from around the corner, she went mad …

Yes, on the flats …

Oh no – he had us up in arms!

Oh dear.

And it’s supposed to be history, and it’s not right.

Gosh! I don’t know what to say now, [chuckle] because it’s lauded; the book is lauded.

Yeah.

It’s thought of as wonderful. I hope his story of the McLeans is correct.

What is the story? Can’t remember now.

The core part of the book is about Donald McLean.

Yeah. But Donald [Lachlan] McLean, he was only a relation of the McLeans that [who] owned Maraekakaho Station. He tried to make out that he was part of it, but he wasn’t. The old Sir Donald, or Douglas – I can’t remember which was the first one [Donald] – he brought all his workers out from the island that he was brought up in [Isle of Tiree in the Inner Hebrides] – when he wanted workers he brought them out from Scotland.

And a lot of them were McLeans, but not direct?

No. No. But old man McLean … old Lachie McLean … he tried to make out that he was one of the McLeans, but he wasn’t. I knew him well. Yeah. In fact we used to go to church up at the Maraekakaho Hall – and it was cold in the winter, too. I was one of the instigators who got the little church built because we owned the land, and we owned the vicarage up on the hill, which is still there. So we sold all that; and we owned, I think, fourteen acres at Mangatahi on the lake, because originally they thought that’s where the railway, with [to] town, was going to go through Mangatahi.

Who owned ..?

Presbyterian Church owned thirteen or fourteen acres up by Tankersleys.

Oh, yes … Mangatahi?

Yeah, because that’s where they thought the rail was going … I think it was Watt that actually gave the land to the railway for the station … get them [to] Hastings.

Hicks?

Yeah. But anyway … so we used to sit in that church – I wasn’t an elder, I was just a manager – and we used to have these meetings. But we’d sit in the church up [in] the hall on a Sunday, and freeze! Anyway, we were having a meeting with the elders and the managers and I said, “Look we’ve got the land, why don’t we get it and put up a little church?” And where that little church is now, that used to be the farriers.

Oh, the blacksmith of the business?

Just in there, yeah; so we put the church up there.

Was there a building there at the time?

No.

It’d already gone?

Already gone. Yeah. But even though it’s vested in the Presbyterian Church, it’s interdenominational; anybody can use it. In fact the Roman Catholics use it more than the Presbyterians … Presbyterians probably don’t use it now. But I want to be buried from there.

Oh – your service out there ..?

Yeah.

And where will you be buried? In Hastings?

Yeah, I’ll be buried in Hastings; no, I’ll be burnt. That great big thing over there on the table, that’s my wife’s ashes. And so some of them will be dropped off to the farm together, and some we will put into a little urn, and I’m going to have to go to the cemetery and see them about putting … at Robert[‘s] and Margaret’s grave … I would like right at the front just to have a little thing just saying … and have us put in there if we can.

You won’t be with your father?

No; actually I’ve given my share of that grave to Keith – that [who] you met – to his family, because his youngest brother, Brent, was killed on a motorbike accident at fifteen, and it just about broke my brother’s heart. Anyway, my brother’s name was Murray, but we called him Boy; he didn’t want to cremate Brent, he wanted to bury him. So I said to him, “Righto, that grave’s yours. You take that because Dad’s buried there.” And so they buried Brent on top of Dad. And Boy’s being buried there, and his wife, and so that’s their family grave now, which is fair enough; the way it should be. And so I’ll go into old Robert and Margaret’s, I’ll just put the ashes in there if we can. Yeah.

I hope he speaks to you. [Chuckles]

Well he didn’t know me, because even though I was named Robert after him, he died in 1932 and I wasn’t born until ’34.

So your father died when?

1937.

Oh, gosh – so you never knew your father?

No- oh well, I can just … I don’t know whether it’s fantasy or not, but I believe that I can remember him putting me on a little pony outside the back gate. Whether that’s a fantasy or not I don’t know. But he died of a tumour on the brain, and he gradually got to the stage he couldn’t talk …

The pressure …

They operated on him and when they opened his skull up the doctor told Mum that the blood hit the ceiling ‘cause it was under so much pressure there.

Did he die on the operating table?

Yes, he did. The doctor said, “I could probably have saved him, but he would probably never move again and he wouldn’t be able to speak.” And Mum said, “No, you did the right thing.”

So when Ngatarawa, the first property, was sold there’s a gap of nine years to 1920. He was noted as being the grower of the finest chaff; so it’s not him because you’ve just told me he had the money in the property but he didn’t do the work. So your father …

And we had a chaff cutter too, a big commercial chaff cutter … huge thing it was … and a big binder. Mind you, [the] binder wasn’t bought until later, ‘til ‘bout 1932 – I was born about 1934 – big tractor binder with a ten foot cut, which was most unusual in those days …

That’s huge!

… ‘cause they used to have little horse-drawn ones. This was a big PTO [power take-off] driven tractor binder; they used to do a lot of contracting, all around Ngatarawera, Omahu – all over the place.

So who was involved in that contracting?

That was my father and my uncle Mick, who was his brother-in-law.

That’s a Murfitt?

Yeah. Mick went out to the farm to help with the harvest when he was seventeen, and stayed there for the rest of his life.

So he worked with you on the farm?

Yes. When I left school at fifteen he was my boss. Mum did all the business side of it and Mick did all the practical side of it.

So at fifteen you went out to Ngatarawa – did you live there?

Yes. I’d come back at the weekends ‘cause Mum had already come into town to look after her mother. Yeah … directly opposite the Anglican Church. No, we came back – I’d just go out for the holidays, and then I went out and worked full time and I’d go and do it on a Sunday.

But did you stay on the weekends out there?

No. Usually I’d work on Saturday but I always stayed with Mum on a Saturday and Sunday night.

So you served your apprenticeship with your uncle …

Yep.

… at what point did you become the senior?

Well there was my brother, and my brother was in his thirties and he was still just working on the farm. And I had all-up with Mum actually, [chuckle] because she didn’t hold much … We were getting small wages, but we were away most of the time. But Mum and Boy had a big glasshouse and grew tomatoes, and he was flat out doing that most of the time.

At Ngatarawa?

Ngatarawa; built it himself, yeah, he was quite handy with his hands. And I had a hay baling business. But before that we were shearing – we were flat out shearing and crutching – and Mick would just get us home for the essentials, you know, lambing and docking and all that sort of thing, and we were off the farm most of the time doing our things. As I say, I had a hay baling business and I had two balers.

So Mick was running the farm for your mother?

Mick ran the farm until Boy and I took over about 1965 or something like that, I think it was. Mick used to go and sail … windsurf sail … he’d go round to my mother’s before the sail and have morning tea, and they’d discuss the business and everything. Anyway, we’d spoken to Mick about it, and we said, “Now don’t say anything to Mum yet because we want to discuss it with her.” But he did speak to her … did tell her, and next thing I get the phone call … oh no, I’d just had a new boy starting working for me; I had to go and get some parts, so I took him in to Mum, sort of introduced him. And she said, “So you think that you’re going to take over the farm, do you?” Just like that. And I said, “Yes. Boy’s in his mid-thirties and I’m twenty-eight”, I said, “but the place is going to rack and ruin because we’re busy doing our own things. It needs more fencing, it needs this, it needs that.” She said, “Well I’ve got news for you”, she said, “that’ll be over my dead body.” I said, “That’s exactly what I’d expect from a pig-headed Murfitt” – ‘cause she was a Murfitt – I said,“come on Trevor, we’re going.” So anyway, by the time I got home my wife, Betty, said, “Your mother’s rung and she wants you to speak to her.” So I rang her back and she said, “Son, yes, you boys can take it over, but not for another …” There was some reason I’ve forgotten, but I think we had eighteen months or two years or something or another. So that was that, yeah; so that’s the way it went. No, but until then we were both flat out doing our own thing.

So at that point when you took over you gave up your contracting?

Well no, I still kept the contracting; then when Boy and I took it over we got a contract from Unilever and we used to grow eighty acres of beans a year for them. That was quite a big job; only planted two acres at a time or something like that. But I started growing a bit before that, and you’d put an ad [advertisement] in the paper and you wouldn’t know whether two people turned up or two hundred.

So you said you did two acres at a time – was that to cope with the harvest?

That was later, yes, that was to fit in with Unilever’s programme. I think there were ten growers – they picked the ten best growers to give contracts to. And we had a bean machine that harvested and separated into big … and we actually leased ours from Unilever. Everybody else bought theirs but we leased ours from Unilever, which was good.

That was a better financial …?

Oh yeah, ‘cause we didn’t have to spend all that money on the bean machine and the tractor and all. So we did that for quite a number of years and it was excellent, you know, we had good contracts. And Unilever were ten times the company to work for than Wattie’s … Wattie’s were – it takes me all my time to buy any Wattie’s produce, ‘cause I grew asparagus for them. And Wattie’s treated their staff magnificently; but Jimmy Wattie used to say, “If I had my way I’d have all these growers peasants”, he said, “and we’d do our own growing.” That was his statement – that’s the way he treated the growers, whereas Unilever … they were fantastic to work with – absolutely fantastic, yeah.

So when you started doing the beans, was it hand picking?

Hand picking when I started.

So you wouldn’t want eighty acres all at once?

No, no, no – I only grew about three or four acres.

Oh, it was eighty acres for the whole of Hawke’s Bay?

Eighty acres was when we got the contract from Unilever with the machine picking.

And what’s your soil like at Ngatarawa?

Along Ngatarawa Road from Highway 50, it’s really heavy just there; and then you go back to the next paddock and it runs right out into red metal and there’s only about that much soil on top. But along that Ngatarawa Road it’s really heavy black soil – and beautiful soil, but the further down you go it gradually deteriorates, and it gets more and more pumice until you get half way along … it’s all pumice.

Even in your own property it was all ..?

No …

Oh, along the road …

… we still had the black soil, yeah.

Douglas Twigg ..?

Yeah, Doug – nice fellow, yeah.

Hugh Bagwell who lived at Maraekakaho used to call Douglas ‘the dry land farmer’. He would shut up shop at Christmas time …

That’s right, yeah.

… and go out to Waimarama, and as long as there was water for the stock they looked after themselves.

That’s right. That’s right, you know, the paddocks’d be like this and they’d still do well, so long as we had water races, twenty-three miles of water races at Ngatarawa.

Twenty three …

Yeah – twenty-two from the river … do you know where the Drover’s shed is?

The Drover’s Hut, yes. It’s still there, yes.

It came in around about there, and we used to have working bees there. Doug was a bloody good farmer, don’t make any bones about that; they used to sling off at him the way he farmed, but no, he was a very successful farmer. But who were you saying about at Mare[kakaho] … told you about Doug?

Hugh’s comment was that he farmed appropriately, because he could shut up shop and go off for six weeks holiday.

What’s Hugh’s surname?

Bagwell.

Bagwell, yeah. Well when they moved up to Marae[kakaho] I had this asparagus paddock – I used to grow forty acres of asparagus, and I invented an asparagus machine and the girls would come in. And I was never short of labour; I treated them well. But I had emergencies – most of them were fairly young and they hadn’t held a job until their children started to get of [to school] age, and didn’t have the confidence. And Marie [?] was my recruiter, and she used to get half of Mangatahi and Marae[kakaho] as my pickers. And I had emergencies, so if one would ring at seven o’clock in the morning and say, “Look, little Willie’s sick”, I’d say, “don’t worry”, and I’d ring the emergency. They all got confidence working for the first time, and they all went and got jobs in town.

Oh, you lost them to the town?

Gradually, but I always had emergencies waiting to take the job on. But Claire [Bagwell] – we used to boil the Thermette for smoko, they’d all sit round, and I was the only bloke there. And the first day Claire was there and she was quite shy; anyway, the girls used to discuss anything and everything in front of me … they were talking about contraception, what they were using and everything, and Claire didn’t know which way to look. She was so, so embarrassed. I said to Claire, “Oh, don’t take any notice of them, they go like this all the time.” Well one of them heard me and she said, “Oh don’t take any notice of him! He’s like the family doctor – we discuss anything in front of him.” [Chuckle]

Do you know who Claire’s brother was?

No.

Sir Rodney Gallen. He was a lawyer in Napier …

Oh yes.

… and he became a Queen’s Counsel. But she and Rodney were the two … [their] father was a postmaster …

She was a very nice person; very shy. Very, very shy, especially with the rough crowds I had, yeah. I told you the story about Tony Nankervis, didn’t I?

Not that I can remember.

His mother was a Vidal; there were three brothers … Ces and Les, and I can’t remember the other one. One of the boys inherited – ‘cause Ces was a bachelor, and great friends with my uncle – Ces’s share of Vidal’s, a third share, and he sold out. He was a bank clerk, Tony, and [he] retired at forty-two. Anyway, he invested his money well, and he used to come out and drive the asparagus machine for me for something to do. This was on a Thursday; he always went to men’s golf on a Thursday, and he would bring his clothes, have a shower at our place and then go on off to golf in the afternoon. He worked all the time for me.

But anyway, it would start off in the spring; almost a frost, and a cold southerly and … oh, terrible. So the girls would turn up and they’d be all rugged up – you wouldn’t know whether they were girls or boys or what they were. And it happened twice that I can remember … about ten o’clock the southerly’d drop right away, the sun’d come out and it turned stinking hot. Anyway, the first time it happened to Tony, he had to stop at the end of the row and load up the other truck with asparagus boxes and everything, and then he got back on his tractor. And as I say it turned out stinking hot going down the rows ‘cause they were just crawling along the row … stinking hot. And he gets to the end of the row and he turns round; instead of these unsexed people sitting there they’d all stripped off coming down the row. Normally they wore the clothes that were suitable, but these times they got caught short, and here they are sitting on the asparagus machine with their legs wide apart like that, in their cradles in panties and bra. “Oh”, he said, “I just about went through the fence!” [Chuckle]

Now Robert, I worked for Hugh and Claire in the early 1980s. Down below, running along State Highway 50, Gus Meech – he had asparagus there but it was sandy soil. What sort of soil were you growing your asparagus in?

The first block I put in was along Ngatarawa Road on the heavier ground, but then I went over into the light Ngatarawa soil and grew it there too. It didn’t yield quite as much but it was still all right, yeah.

The asparagus up in around Mangatahi area is all growing on sandy country, so Gus had … well Hugh said it was sandy soil there, so you were in different soil types?

No, no – further over it was really soupy. Once you got past Ngatarawa Road back towards Marae[kakaho] and everything, it was really soupy stuff. I’ve been rolling a paddock and it’s been like flour, and this dust’s been rolling along in front and spewing out the sides. Oh no, bloody terrible country, but beautiful fat lamb country – fatten anything.

Now watering soil like that, it would be hard to go in?

No, it wasn’t hard to go in. I used to have just a water meter – I had two, one at a foot and one at two feet.

And then we had a conference … the Department of Agriculture brought some people out to show them what I was doing, ‘cause by that stage I’d put an orchard in and I was drip feeding with a micro drip. And a guy from Australia said, “You know, they’re not good, those, because they put too much pressure. And with this soil there’s a surface tension and once you put enough pressure on that”, he said, “it breaks it and your water just drains out; goes straight down into the subsoil.” He said, “you’re wasting your time doing it.” So with that I put in little micro sprinklers to spread it from here to you to spread the load. I would watch the soil – you could see where the water was going [and] how fast. But he said, “Once you get down to over a foot, all you’re doing, you’re opening a trapdoor”, he said, “and it’s disappearing. So you keep the top wet and that’s all”, he said, “you do not put too much pressure.” So I was lucky to get advice of that sort.

Now how much of your property were you able to put in orchard?

I ended up with about forty acres. I put apples into the Ngatarawa Road side, then over the back the first lot I put in was apricots … five acres of apricots, only because my best friend’s wife said, “I reckon apricots’d grow really well there, like Central Otago.” So I did. They were tricky to grow; I had an export crop by Christmas, and in fact Barry Walsh, the head of the Department of Agriculture here, he was bringing people out to show them that you could grow nice apricots, and you didn’t have to be in Central Otago. And they were beautiful, and I was going to export them – I was due to pick about Boxing Day or thereabouts, and Christmas Eve it started to rain. I was on my tractor, I got wet through, and it kept on raining, kept on raining all through Christmas and the apricots sat on the tree and the stone dropped out. They were buggers of things to grow, apricots.

Did you talk with Hugh? He had apricots there above the Memorial …

After … yeah, afterwards. No, I haven’t seen Hugh; I’d finished with the asparagus and everything too, and I haven’t seen Hugh, no.

He was growing apricots there, and it was at the time that I was there in the early eighties … just that tiny little block at the bottom of the hill … now in olives.

I know exactly where you mean, now, I remember when he planted them. Of course when first we left school – I was saying to you, my brother and a neighbour’s son, they started doing a bit of shearing and crutching, so I joined them.

Who was the neighbour?

Hammond. He was across the road; he was just the manager there, yeah – Ivan Hammond, and his son was Don … Don Hammond. Nice fellow, Don.

Anyway, so they started doing a bit of shearing, so I joined them as first of all just shed hand, then a presser, and then I learnt to shear; Donald Hammond taught me to shear. But later on the Young Farmers Club put on a thing … volunteers to go to *Bowens at Massey [Agricultural College] but we could shear by that stage. And my mate that [who] I used to crutch and shear with, Des [?], we decided we’d go because his girlfriend was at Marton, and Betty was nursing in Palmerston [North]. So we went down there and we had a ball [chuckles] as you can imagine; but our best year crutching … Des’ and mine … sixty-three thousand sheep.

Oh! What was the range of the sheds?

All round Ngatarawa and Maraekakaho, but don’t forget some of them were done twice and you know, they were still counted. Fly crutching and main crutching, all that sort of thing.

So you put forty acres of orchard. You’ve got two hundred and fourteen acres there so …

No, no – I didn’t have that, I had a hundred and sixty-three acres. There was three hundred and twenty-seven acres all told in the Sowersby block, and we split the place in half, Boy and I.

Ah yes, I can see that. This one here, the [microphone interference] Sowersby farm, in 1967 it’s five thousand lengths along there, and there’s the water race. And there’s a piece taken out …

That’s right.

… quite a bit, so … yes, Robert Sowersby, 1979.

Yeah. And also what I did with my brother Boy, because I had so much facing the highway and right along here; he had a block that was just in here, so I gave him right of way down here basically, to get down to the back of his place. And so if ever he wanted to subdivide, which he ultimately did with his children, they had access. I said, “’Cause it’s not fair Boy – I’ve got all this access all the way along and you’ve only got a tiny little bit; so what say I give you right of way through there?” And he said, “Yeah, good idea.” So that’s what we did.

Did St John Yule … is it St John Yule?

Yeah, super fellow, St John. Oh, he was a lovely fellow. I saw him a while ago. And his wife, she was head of the Girl Guides; she was really, really English and she had the money, and St John was a remittance man. His family came from the Grand Old Duke of York; he was about the fourth son of a fourth son of a fourth son, you know? But no, his ancestor was the Grand Old Duke of York.

[Chuckle] ‘Had ten thousand men’ .

Yeah, that’s him, yeah. Anyway, he was a scream of a man, St John, and we used to have a lot to do with him, and his wife was head of the Girl Guides in Hawke’s Bay. Anyway, her mother had come out from England; she’d taken her mother to Rotorua, and the mother was going to go on and fly back to England. Anyway, St John called in one night and Bett and I were having a drink and I said to him, “D’you want a beer, St John?” And he said, “Yep.” So he’s sitting down having a beer – it was the middle of summer – with his back to the back door. Anyway, he’s going on about taking the old bat back to … you know, he’s going on. She turned up unbeknown to him, and [was] standing in the back door listening. [Chuckle] I didn’t know which way to look, he’s going on and on about the old bat. [Chuckle] Anyway, she sneaked up behind him and put [her] hands over her [his] eyes, and she said, “Guess who?” Talk about a debonair Englishman – he didn’t turn a hair … “Oh, you’re back, my dear”, he said. [Chuckles] Oh, corker bloke, St John – we used to get on very well.

So was he part of what had been the Sowersby farm?

He was on part of what was our original Sowersby farm, then that belonged to Farmarys … the Farmarys had bought it.

Oh, okay. So is that the original one that was sold in 1911?

That would have been it, yeah, although we didn’t buy our block until … we owned Farmarys and I didn’t think that that was sold until the late [19]19s. But old Robert, he’s in the records of the Ngatarawa Water Race Committee; being on the committee in about 1904.

So he was out there early?

I’ve learnt more from you about …

Well there’s more to come. [Chuckles] I know for a fact I haven’t got all the details, so the next time I come I hope to have those.

Okay, that’s good. Excellent.

[Discussion continues on a subject not included in recording]

Also, I don’t know whether I told you or not; my Uncle Eddie [Edwin] Murley – he was married to my mother’s sister.

This is the Murley, Murley & Morrison data?

Yes, but Murley started it; they called him Pater – that was Uncle Eddie’s grandfather … or no, might’ve been his father. And they had the agency for the State Fire Insurance – and it was worth a fortune too, to them. But he had so many photographs of Hastings, Heretaunga Street, after the earthquake – he had a swag of them in the house and everything like that. Now they got burnt out in 1957, so whether those photographs were destroyed or not I don’t know, but Ian Rosenberg, the dentist … if they’re still going he would have them. He’s down Southampton Street, Ian Rosenberg, just before you get to the railway line.

Oh, that new building they’ve just put up?

No, he’s in an old building there. But anyway, if you go into Rosey – and you can tell him I’m being a nuisance – but Rosey might have some of the old photos of Uncle Eddie’s.

When you said your mother’s sister was his wife, what was her name?

Eileen. Yeah, she was eighteen months younger than Mum. But Ian’s a lovely fellow so if he’s got them he would make them available. Do you know where Redgraves were?

Yes.

Yeah, well just along from there, and they went right through to the next street; you came through their drive into the back.

Oh yeah – gosh, yes. That’s a big building.

Yeah. Just the same as Thompsons, the butchers. They owned right along, not right to the next street but pretty close to it – they had big chillers in there and all sorts of stuff.

Now you know who owned the land that Thompsons Butchers was on?

Well it would’ve been Thompson

No, it was the Waiapu Diocese.

Oh is that so?

It was the original site of St Matthew’s. The first St Matthew’s Church was built between Heretaunga Street and Queen Street and it looked a bit like Notre Dame Cathedral; it was built right back. And the powers to [that] be in the church didn’t think it was impressive enough, so they purchased, I think from Wellwood, where they are now. But the Waiapu Diocese continued to own that property, and Thompsons leased from them.

I did not know that, I thought they owned it. Well, well, well.

When I got the title to the land I discovered … oh! Right to the corner where the gas company was, all of that.

I’ll be blowed! I didn’t know that; you live and learn. Yeah.

Now I found your grandfather … [Reads] ‘The Reverend G Foss took the chair at the Christian Endeavour Society meeting’ – this is October 1895 – ‘and addresses were given by the Reverend Morris and Miss Montgomery’, and some others. ‘The refectorial arrangements were ably presided over by’ so-and-so, and Highway, J Thompson and Sowersby.’ [Chuckle] ‘A feature of the evening’s entertainment was the violin playing of Miss Menzies.’ Have you heard of the Christian Endeavour Society?

No, never heard of that. I knew he joined the Brethren for a while. I tell you what, he must’ve had a relapse because my grandmother and aunty – I think I’ve told you – they used to have to go and get him out of the gutter; he was a drunkard. Yeah, absolute drunkard.

Now also, you would’ve seen photographs of the original Post Office in Hastings – not the one that came down with the earthquake, but the wooden one beforehand, which they shifted around into Queen Street?

No, no.

It was in Queen Street in my time, so the 1970s it was still there and they used it as the mail sorting room.

Oh yes, yes.

But in 1895: [Reads] ‘The new Post Office is now well under way, the carpenters for the job were selected yesterday and this morning met Mr Loush at the Courthouse to receive instructions and sign the agreement. Mr John Renouf has been appointed Clerk of Works by the Public Works Department. Six carpenters have been selected at present; the men subsequently selected Mr R Sowersby as foreman.’ And then there’s later comments that another building was built by Mr Sowersby who was the foreman for the Post Office. So it was an esteemed situation.

Yeah. But then as I say, he was dealing in land, which … you amaze me with different areas … but at one stage he had I think, seventy or eighty acres going virtually from Frederick Street towards the Showground; owned quite a big block of heavy land there.

Ah … yes that’s right, because when Mr Fitzroy was growing grapes he was between Fenwick Street and Collinge Road, and Sowersby was across the road ‘cause he had two sacks of his best potatoes pinched. [Laughter] And they were a special variety, and they were to be for the family. [Reads] ‘Mr Sowersby who lives close by Mr Fitzroy had two large sacks of potatoes stolen last week, the tracks of a wheelbarrow being traced for some distance. This was the more annoying as he’d grown a choice brand of potatoes on his own section; was reserving them for the winter’s use for his family.’ [Chuckle] That’s 1896.

My Uncle Mick, my mother’s young brother, she more or less mothered him – she was ten years older than him. And then he came out to the farm as I say at the age of seventeen just to help with the harvest, and stayed the rest of his life. He was a pugilist … loved fighting; he wanted to turn professional but Gran wouldn’t let him. He had a knockout blow; he was only ten stone and he had fists like rocks and a knock out blow in each one … jaw-breaking blow, that’s how hard he …

So he was a Sowersby?

No, Murfitt. All the Maoris at Fernhill pub, they were all shit scared of him. And Mick loved fighting. He had broken knuckles across there; he’d broken those when he was twelve years old, fighting at school.

Bare fists?

Yeah, ooh yeah, bare fists.

He wouldn’t be bare fist fighting when he was doing the fighting you’re talking about, would he? Would it be boxing gloves?

No, no. No, I’m talking about street fighting. He was a street fighter and pub fighter.

Oh! Quite different.

Oh, quite different, oh yeah. But he had a knock out blow … not a knock out, a jaw-breaking blow … in each fist.

Were these arranged fights?

No!

These were the spontaneous pub brawls?

Yeah, yeah. But he and Dad, they were bosom pals, and Mick had a little two-stroke motorbike and they used to save their dag money and everything to go down to the Fernhill pub to get a few drinks. And they were coming home one night and Dad’s in behind with Mick, and he reckons he was going a bit awkwardly; they were only going slow, so Dad put his feet down on the ground to let the motorbike carry on without him, and it did but it ripped the crotch out of his trousers. [Laughter] But there’s so many stories about, you know, those sort of things. Yeah.

Well, we might just end this here.

Yeah, ‘cause I’ve got to get into my op shop.

So we’re terminating this, the second interview with Robert Sowersby. Thank you.