Spence, Alastair Geoffrey Interview

21st August 2020, and I am interviewing Alastair Geoffrey Spence of Havelock North. Good afternoon, Alastair.

Morning, Jim.

Now I’m looking forward to hearing your story on the Spence family, and I’ve seen the family tree, and that is immense. It goes back a long way, so perhaps you might like to tell us a little bit about it; thank you.

There’s a lot of printed material – my daughter, Kerry Hinton, came round this morning – from my archives, which will save a lot of talking. And it’s more or less in chronological order, starting with William Couper who came out to New Zealand about 1827 as a young boy; ran away from home at the top of Scotland.

I won’t dwell on that because it’s printed, which is easier.

So he bought Kahuranaki Station in 1857; had a large family, which is all written down there. One of his daughters was Janet Couper who married R H MacKenzie, my great grandfather; and his youngest son, Frederick George Gray [Couper] – it’s all there in the tree – finished up buying a farm in the Rangitikei. One of his daughters, Madge, was my grandmother, so we’re a little mixed up; my grandfather and grandmother were first cousins for that reason, which you’ll see on [in] the writing, so I’ve got a double link to Kahuranaki. So when William died in 1879, the will dictated that no transfers could take place until Frederick George Gray, the youngest, was twenty-five, which was about 1893. So in 1896 the first subdivision took place to J B Campbell … there’s more detail in the paper. The next subdivision was to Greenwoods, who still own it today … the balance. They bought about two and a half thousand acres of it.

R H MacKenzie, who earlier I said married Janet Couper, I forget the years there; he bought, in 1898, six thousand acres of Kahuranaki and called it Gruinard, which still stands today at the end of MacKenzie Road. He had five children, four boys and a girl. Two of the boys were farmers; great uncle Willy, who is Bruce MacKenzie’s, Rocky MacKenzie’s, Bill MacKenzie’s grandfather who was eight years older than Fred, my grandfather; so my grandfather was sixteen when R H died. So they had to go across the river of course, to farm it; there was no road. And in 1900 they built a nine-stand wool shed, and in 1901 [or] thereabouts, built a small house which over the years has been added to; which [where] subsequently my mother and [her] sister and two brothers were born. So that six thousand acres they called Gruinard. Fred MacKenzie married his first cousin, Madge, in 1912 over in Westbrook at Toowoomba [Queensland, Australia] where Frederick George Gray, the youngest as I said, had sold in the Rangitikei. And I think he had asthma; anyhow, that’s where he went, and he bought a huge property called Westbrook, well subdivided now. Out of interest, the ram paddock was [is] where Myer department store in Toowoomba now sits. That was the cattle stop into the property.

So they were married in 1912, came back to Gruinard. And then after the Second World War my mother, who was a twin to Sandy MacKenzie, married Geoff Spence who had come back from the Middle East. And he had an opportunity to buy with a returned serviceman’s loan, and I guess a reasonable price – I’m not sure actually – from his father-in-law, nine hundred and ten acres which we called Moturoa. We subsequently had the opportunity to buy from my grandmother, ‘cause she owned eight hundred acres which was part of the six thousand acres; and that was called Red Whare. So that was split in half between her twin brother, Sandy, and the four hundred acres that bounded us … four hundred and forty, actually … that took us to thirteen [hundred and] fifty. So when I sold in 1990, sadly I was the last of the Couper clan to be farming there. That’s life.

Yes, my father was another family tree we won’t delve into … big family; Spences in Gisborne, thirteen in his family. He was the eldest, born in 1909. So he had four and a half years away in the war; went to Greece at the start. Got photos there of machine guns up in the Greek mountains bounding Yugoslavia, in the snow. They had no show against the Germans.

So that was early 1941. Then as history is well known, tore on to the beaches, jumped on to the boats; on to Crete; fought a rearguard action on Crete to no avail; and then eventually got back to Egypt, where reinforcements arrived, and the whole regrouping and what-have-you. And then subsequently went to Palestine, came back to Egypt; then chased Rommel across the top of North Africa … [El] Alamein, Tobruk, Benghazi; crossed to Sicily; Cassino – right in the thick of it there. He was mainly the 27th Machine-Gun Battalion. So just before Trieste when Germany was really collapsing and the British were coming in from the west, Russians from the east, Dad came home, I think about the end of January ‘45, and Hitler surrendered in May.

So Dad came down from Gisborne after catching up with his family, and married in April ‘45 in Havelock North, and went back to Gisborne as head shepherd on Waihuka Station, which was Hutchisons’. Oh yeah – just as an aside, Dad was very fortunate I guess, with two of his younger brothers; they went all the way to Christ’s College from eighty-odd miles out of Gisborne in 1923; no roads; caught a ship to Napier. Sometimes I think, Jim, would they’ve caught a ship to Wellington? Mostly I think, they hired a Hudson car … talking to old Jack Murphy years ago … with a driver; got them down to the ferry, and caught the same Lyttelton ferry that I subsequently caught in my time.

So late ‘46 he had the opportunity as I said earlier, I think, didn’t I? To buy the nine hundred and ten acres. So yep, we farmed there and I went to Hereworth. I started out at Red Whare, the little block I’d talked about. There was no house, we had no electricity, no school; the Elsthorpe School bus stopped five miles up the road, which was slippery clay, not much shingle in the [at the] end of the forties, early fifties. So I had correspondence school for three years, and 1954 went to Hereworth as the youngest border … oh, youngest boy in the school. There were nine day boys I think, and about a hundred and ten boarders, something like that.

So we had this little house that was built about 1875, and that’s where Dad ran the farm from. We did our shearing right next door at Bevan Williams’. His fourteen [hundred and] sixty acres was bought in 1930 as part of that six thousand acres that I mentioned earlier, that my great grandfather R H MacKenzie had bought. So in 1952, good wool prices was a big help, and the electricity coming through. Everyone around built houses and got the electricity into them; we built the house which is still there today.

Alastair, when you talk about [the] 1940s, to me it just seems the other day; yet here we are. And I look back and I’m surprised that we didn’t have electricity in 1950? ‘46?

Yeah, but that’s rural though, Jim, you see … all the infrastructure was in town, wasn’t it?

Yeah …

Oh, I mean when our fathers were at Christ’s … there was plenty of electricity way back then; but not in rural. Yeah, so Dad … very good stockman. He was born on Waipaoa Station which at the time had the most stock of any property in New Zealand. It was thirty-five thousand acres, past Whatatutu. My grandfather, T B Spence, must’ve been well respected. He was asked by [the] Clarkes who owned Waipaoa – he and his brother owned Ruakaka and Mangaroa Station; they bought that about 1896, but grandfather never farmed it – he was always away on Harbour Boards, soil conservation boards, and getting other properties up and running. He always had a manager on Ruakaka, and Leslie Spence, great uncle – he owned Mangaroa.

So Clarkes in 1902 asked him to go and manage Waipaoa; must’ve been big country in those days, thirty-five thousand acres. So Dad was born there in 1909. His mother died in 1911, and in 1913 T B married the grandmother, who I remember, and had six more children. Two of the boys went to Christ’s, two of the girls went to Woodford, and the youngest didn’t even go to secondary school. Dad came back from the war and discovered they hadn’t sent him to secondary school; so yeah, that was Dad’s background. So used to big mobs, big mustering; weeks and weeks of early mornings, one o’clock mornings, on Waipaoa Station. The back property was called Moonlight for a very historic reason … it was just renowned that the shepherds were always out there in the moonlight.

What part of the East Coast was Waipaoa Station?

You go up past Whatatutu, and then go up the Waipaoa River … towards the headwaters of the Waipaoa River, which is so renowned for its flooding.

Just on the side, I heard that your father … and you mentioned what a hard worker he was, and used to do the fencing … and you were the boy learning how to fence. And I’ve heard that if your grandfather dug the holes and you just put the wires in between the posts … am I correct?

No! No … not my grandfather.

Oh, your father?

No – I was fencing when I was fifteen.

Yeah, well it was when you were young and you were learning. Was it your grandfather that you were learning from?

No, no, he died. No, I did most of the fencing on my own.

Did you?

Yeah.

Yeah, but somebody dug the holes and you only put the wire in between them …

No fear!

… when the posts were in the ground.

No. [Laughter] Not at all, no.

That was some news I got from …

Hell no!

… people not to be mentioned.

Really? [Chuckles] No fear, no. No, I was out digging them, and you know, Dad would’ve helped me run the wires. You’re pulling my leg!

[Chuckle] No, I’m not …

No fear! No.

Yeah, so Dad came back. 1954 he had a – my first year at Hereworth – he had a terrible heart attack; very serious. And medical knowledge wasn’t obviously as good then, and maybe blood thinning drugs weren’t so known … prevalent. And it did quite a lot of damage and he was in hospital for some time, just getting bigger and bigger; this big clot. However, he sort of got over that and lived life pretty well; enjoyed a good party, and he enjoyed his whisky, and yeah – had a pretty tough life in the war. So I guess it eventually caught up with him, and he fell over docking on the side of the hill, August 1971. So yeah, it wasn’t unexpected; but that’s life. So I was lucky – I’d just bought the farm about eight months before with a State Advances loan, so I was very, yeah … very lucky; Ts had been crossed and Is had been dotted, and so we just carried on.

Was this after you’d been to Lincoln?

Oh yes. Oh, no, I was married. I haven’t come to what I’ve done, I’m just saying Dad. So that was 1971.

1970 I had bought the place. I haven’t got a lot in my life; my father did a lot more with the war and … My life was very tame. So I was born in January ‘46 … some of it you’ve already got; Correspondence [School], went to Hereworth, wasn’t as good at sport as Jim; I was average. I won the cricket ball throw I think; I was in the First XV. I got whacked over the backside by Syd Grant with a stump for being cheeky in First Club – I was demoted to Second Club; and we had a very enthusiastic tutor, a Mr Latham, who might’ve been … maybe twenty-one; and I was made captain of the Second XI and we beat the First XI. [Chuckles] And I can remember that very clearly.

So five years there, and went to Christ’s College; caught the train to Wellington, caught the eight o’clock ferry to Lyttelton which got in at seven in the morning; and a relatively painless trip down … bit of fun. Four years there in School House.

Fives champion …

Oh, I did play fives, so what year? I wasn’t heavy enough to be in the top football rugby team; I think I might’ve been in the Third XV or something, whatever. Enjoyed my cricket – I was captain of the Colts, I think I got to, Under 16s; and then I played tennis in my fourth year. I didn’t have five years there. Yeah, we were lucky at Christ’s, we had Fives courts; yeah, I had two years winning my age group … oh yeah, and then they pulled them down; yeah, they were pulled down while I was there.

I’ve looked through the Register and they haven’t got the Fives in the Register that came out after 1960.

That’d be dead right; yeah. ‘Cause I won ‘59 and ‘60, and obviously they can’t’ve been there ‘61. True.

Then I went back to Hawke’s Bay. I wanted to go to Lincoln to do … just the Diploma there, Farm Management and Valuation. So one of the prerequisites was either dairying, cropping, sheep farming; you had to do a year of either [any] of those … two of those three. So having been brought up on a sheep farm they accepted my year as being okay, so I actually went home and went contract fencing to get a bit of money, and help Dad of course, with docking, shearing and all those sort of things.

[19]63 I went and worked for a really good cropping fellow at Oxford … a chap, Courtney Wells. Dalgety’s regarded him as one of their best cropping farmers and I got the job through David Belcher’s uncle who worked for Dalgety’s in Christchurch, and he said, “This is the guy.” So yeah, I learnt a lot; [it] was a real eye opener coming from the hill country with no flat, to a dead flat farm. Even in those days [it] was quite intense; had irrigation and all the crops and what-have-you. So that was good.

I played rugby for the Under 20s at Oxford. I’m wrong, that was 1964, sorry. ‘65, went to Lincoln, and at the end of the year we had a five months gap between the courses so I went to Hedgehope in Southland on an intensive sheep farm; that was a lot of fun. And very good people, the Goldsmiths, to work for., who I still keep in touch with.

Back to Lincoln for the second year; got my sixty percent, which I had to get in order to do the third year; and maybe stupidly, I decided I wouldn’t go back. So I went fencing again, probably because I was a bit luckier than most – I had the opportunity, even though I bought it, but I was able to go to … was State Advances still in those days … I had the opportunity to go to them to eventually buy it and buy out my brother. So maybe that was my thinking. [It] was a bit slack of me really, I should’ve gone back and did Valuation, but in hindsight I’ve had a good farming life, so I don’t regret it.

So two of us went contract fencing for the government in the Waikato, mostly at Ruakura, and I think we did about fifteen miles for the government there and built some big cattle yards. Then I came back to Hawke’s Bay and did more fencing. I did a lot of fencing. ‘67, came back from the Waikato and worked as a shepherd on Mangatapiri Station which was Joan Fernie … very well known landholder in Hawke’s Bay, with big properties …very well known property at Elsthorpe; so it is in a trust now after Joan died. Five thousand eight hundred acres – wonderful property. So yeah, there were four single boys there with a manager who was actually from Oxford originally … Lees Valley at Oxford. They had merino cross sheep there; we shore about twenty-two thousand sheep with lambs; and, typical young guys, we’d get up to a bit of fun and … yeah, as shepherds do.

So in 19 … end of ’67 I met Lynne Rathbone at a party in Hastings, because we had the Ranfurly Shield in those days, which we seem to still talk about; and us young guys had parties afterwards. So in ‘68 we were engaged, and married in February ‘69. And in 1970, got a State Advances loan from Ivan Martin, who older farmers will well remember as the local chief of State Advances. [Corporation] And I was very lucky, got a good start.

Did you do farming at Kereru?

Oh, this is later on. Yeah. So we had three children; Marie, who is now married to Paul Apatu – a large cropping family; Kerry, who’s married to Mike Hinton, and they do Mayfair Pools, tennis courts – Supergreene – well known in Hastings; and Mark, who’s into finance and companies, and he’s got a business on Waiheke Island, with three boys. So they keep the Spence name going; Marie’s got two children and Kerry has three … eight grandchildren, all fit and healthy.

In 1979 I’d done a fair bit of work at Moturoa, and in ‘71 we built a big wool shed. We didn’t have a wool shed; shore at Bevan Williams’. Built it just before Dad died actually, in ‘71, so that was brilliant, having a good shed and good yards.

‘79, feet were getting itchy – I must’ve been fit – so I bought a rundown orchard right on the edge of Hastings, which is now where the Summerset Retirement Village is. Twenty-two acres and I just got stuck in with my own four-wheel drive and bulldozer; took about four years I suppose, just quietly doing areas at a time, and redeveloped that; half into kiwifruit and half into apples. Yeah, had that for about eight years, and I think I ran out of steam … probably ran out of patience a bit. Difficult living out on the farm and getting pickers to come at the right time, but I enjoyed it, learnt a lot. Unfortunately I wasn’t sharp enough to get it re-zoned; and it wasn’t even the fellow I sold it to, it was the next fellow some years later, got it re-zoned – I think stupidly, for the Council – the best soil in Hawke’s Bay. And he got it re-zoned and made a packet and sold it to Summerset. So that was the end of orcharding.

1990 … time’s moving on, and my ankylosing spondylitis was getting quite bad in my neck and my shoulders, so I said to Lynne, “Well I still enjoy farming”, and we went and bought an easy farm up at Kereru. So in February ‘90 we sold Moturoa which was the end of the Couper link. That was the last of it. And I took four days with my horse and dogs and we walked three hundred and fifty cattle up to Kereru, which you couldn’t do now – the Council wouldn’t let you. No problems with it. So we had nearly seventeen years at Kereru, and in 2007 we built the house on twenty acres in Mt Erin Road …

What happened to the cattle that you had at Kereru?

No, no, everything was sold; all the stock were sold. Well that was the end of my farming.

You didn’t drive any cattle and make the Herald news at any time ..?

I did – we were in the paper when we took them up there.

Oh, was it when you took them up there?

Yeah. [Chuckle] What are you trying to dig up now? [Chuckles]

And people drove out from Hastings because of this news and went out there to have a look at the cattle up people’s driveways, and … absolute havoc, I understand.

[Quiet chuckle] You’re thinking about the trucks who inconsiderately kept driving at Pakipaki. And yes, you are right – one steer [chuckles] … one steer got pushed over the barrier into the Awanui Stream. Is this newsworthy? [Chuckles]

It’s a good laugh …

It was, yeah, this steer … no, it wasn’t my fault. It was all organised with the Traffic Department, and they never turned up to stop the traffic; so this steer got pushed over the side and he got into the marae; charged everybody there, then he charged the Minister in the church. He got caught up in [chuckle] an old Maori’s clothesline; dragged all these clothes up the street. [Chuckle] Yeah – that’s what happens. We got him back.

We’re a little bit out of chronological order, sorry. Just to add to it, I’m still a very keen tennis player. When Lynne and I were first married and Marie was a little baby, the Havelock [North] Tennis Club was great. We’d just go down there with a picnic; mostly grass … I think just about all grass courts then … yeah, very friendly. And so we played for about four years I guess. Lynne didn’t play squash but I did, for … not long, maybe seven or eight years. Never that good, but [a] lot of fun … few lies and a few beers. That’s about …

Then you got into the musical side – you’re a great guitarist. Well you’re not great – you’re a guitarist of some note.

I’m just a party guitarist to be honest – I haven’t got finger skills. I was lucky … oh yeah, okay, I’ll go back. In 1954 at Hereworth it was pretty mandatory for a lot of us to have music lessons. It sort of reminded you of Charles Dickens, in a dark little room with a piano and a forty watt bulb; and you were assigned maybe three half-hours a week … remember Jim, in those little music rooms? To do your Royal Schools of Music. So I diligently did this for four years, and I won the Music Cup on my fourth year as an eleven year old. I can’t remember … it was either Grade 3 or Grade 4 that I got to. Very scary when you went and sat the exam, in a massive room somewhere in Hastings … dark, with a stern fellow in a wooden chair, and one piano sitting in the middle of the room. I can remember that.

Anyhow, in 1958 Dad saw a bright red guitar for £2/10/- [two pounds ten shillings] in a little shop in Havelock North. So he bought it, and for those of you who aren’t musical, the guitar … to get the chords really is very simple; if you can play the piano and play the chords on a piano … you just put your fingers on the chords, put your foot on the pedal, hold the notes, and you just find the chord in less than fifteen seconds. So yeah, I’m afraid the piano went on the back tit for my last year; and poor old Jack Trundle said to me, “Oh Alastair, I’m so disappointed – you’re just not coming on this year, you’re not progressing.” And I never had the heart to tell him that I’d sneak this new £2/10 guitar into the music room and just quietly … very quietly … just play a few chords.

But of course the sixties were just around the corner, weren’t they? Possibly some of the best party music around. So I was pretty lucky there, so when I went to Christ’s I was quite handy, just as a rhythm guitarist in 1959. And I was very lucky; another fellow, John Sayers from Dunedin, in School House a year ahead of me, could see that I could play rhythm guitar, and in no time we formed a school band; probably more my second year. And we played at school dances in Christchurch, so I was quite lucky to join those older guys. So we had three guitars and drums. And oh, I think possibly I’m right … I can’t prove it … if not one of the very first schoolboy bands to make a record. So we made a record at Robin’s Recordings in 1962. There were plenty of bands, ‘cause around then was Ray Columbus and the Invaders – we’d play the extras while they had supper quite often, which was fun; we weren’t too bad. And there was another band – I can’t remember who [what] they were called – another top Christchurch band. So yeah, we made this record, an instrumental either side of a 45. And then that was the end of those guys, we went our own way, and I literally never saw them again. Life moves on.

Went to Lincoln of course in ‘65, right at the peak of all those Beatles and … was a great time. And we had a huge amount of fun … neat bunch of guys. And of course we were old enough that we could legally go and have a beer in a bar, so it was … yeah, good. Good times.

Did that get you, later on, into your latest venture with the Orphans Club?

Oh Jim, I only heard about the Orphans … only when I gave up farming as a sixty-two year old. Yeah, no, Bruce Giorgi approached me and said, “Oh, I belong to the Orphans; come and join us.” So it’s no big deal, it’s just an entertainment club; some of you will have heard of it.

Was Martin Pipe ..?

Martin Pipe joined when I joined. I didn’t know him before.

His brother was David? The broadcaster …

Yes, yes. Correct. I think he’s a funeral director as well. Martin’s got the Griffith’s Footwear shop – very, very talented guy. So we just form a group and just take our turn at the Orphans Club. But my playing in my farming days was only at parties, nothing else.

Yes … in 1970, Gary MacKenzie – who is my first cousin, who has also farmed the home block at Gruinard, and sold about the time that I did … just before – and another fellow in the district, Lindsay Lock – yeah, we had a bit of fun; we went into a talent quest and got into the final at the old Pacific Hotel that you’ll remember, Jim, before they pulled it down. And that was about our lot. 27.34.0

In your retirement you’re playing a lot of golf, very well indeed. Very steady golfer, and a lot of the people just wonder how you sit on that ridiculous handicap that you have.

You’re not looking me in the eye, Jim, you’re looking out the window. [Chuckles] I’m lucky, I play tennis with these guys on a Wednesday normally. I’m on a seventeen [handicap]; that’s about my lot, happy at that. Still play tennis on Tuesday morning at the Havelock Tennis Club, and socially during the week on a Monday or a Tuesday.

We still fatten sort of a hundred and fifty-odd lambs between the crops on our twenty acres at Mt Erin Road, and those lambs will all be gone by 7th October.

I’ve spoken about my father, who of course married into the lineage with a Returned Serviceman’s loan. Just a little bit about my mother, Ailsa; very good worker. When dad died in 1971 she just got stuck in – she didn’t have to – she got two dogs; she was always a great horsewoman obviously, being born on six-odd thousand acres. But yeah, it was a great help to me. Had her horse, and she continued to live in the main house. Lynne and I lived in a cottage which we’d added to; it was good. So yeah, Mum was very good – she had her own lambing beat and did her own mustering, and always came out helping with the docking. During the war, she was in Wellington when she met my father at Trentham, through her twin brother, Sandy. Then about … end of ‘43 I’m guessing, she was called home; they were desperate for land girls. Quite historical – there’s quite a few articles written in the papers. I’ve got some of the articles myself, written by the newspapers on the roles of land girls. Very important, especially wool in those days, for uniforms; and meat. And [of] course not much [many] staff … so many soldiers away, big properties under-staffed, so yeah, Mum got stuck in, and probably had eighteen months before the war ended, so unfortunately she didn’t finish her final exams nursing, but it didn’t matter. Everyone in the district called on her or rang her if there was a you know … a more common medical problem, and she’d go and bandage someone up or whatever. So they were married, as I said earlier, in April 1945.

So on behalf of the Knowledge Bank …

Thanks, Jim.

… we really thank you and I’ve enjoyed the talk immensely. Thank you.