Springford, John and Bark, John Interview

This is Jim Newbigin, interviewing John Springford and John Bark, both past directors of Brown Webb & Company or Brown Richardson & Company, and it’s 3rd December [2020], and we’ll go from there. Good morning, John.

John Springford: Good morning, Jim, John.

John Bark: Morning, John, Jim.

Thank you very much for having this interview about Brown Webb Richardson, and we’ll leave it over to you.

John S: Well, I thought I’d kick it off with how Brown Webb Richardson, commonly known now as BWR, was first formed – started off with a very casual conversation I had with Roger Sinclair who was a director of Richardson Epplett at the Long Cottage – that was a [an] art gallery set up by Colin and Bea Blackmore in Iona Road. And Roger was a very keen art collector … and I’d have to say I was a fairly casual one … and in conversation he mentioned about Preston Epplett pulling out and setting up his own firm. And I must [just] mentioned to him, I said, “Well, perhaps we should get together and look at merging the two firms.” We both had some historical connections going way back, and John Bark who’s here today, was part of the joint sharing of time with McCulloch, Butler & Spence, the forerunner of Richardson Epplett; and likewise I had some time with McCulloch, Butler & Spence before joining John and the rest of the Brown Webb team as they were.

So that casual conversation led to a series of meetings in late 2001 I think, John? And on 1st April, I think, 2002, BWR or Brown Webb Richardson was formed with John Bark as the Chairman, and the Brown Webb partners who were then John, myself – just going in order of age – Trevor Webb, Robyn Laughton and George Speedy, were joined by Roger Sinclair, Stephen Dine and their senior partner was Ivan Richardson. So that was the team; John sort of took control of the amalgamation of the two firms. We moved into the McCulloch, Butler & Spence building, the original building was built in 1907, and used their offices while the Brown Webb building in Avenue Road was reconstructed and designed to take the merged practice. So that’s how it kicked off.

John B: It was a strange thing for me because it was the office I started off in McCulloch’s when I left school, so I’d worked there for five years. And then to go back as almost a new resident … I actually had bad dreams about what was I doing here at this place? [Chuckles]

John S: Sorry to hear that, John [chuckles] … didn’t know you had bad dreams. You might’ve had bad dreams when you were at McCulloch, Butler & Spence I suspect. Yes, it was interesting going back ‘cause I’d worked in that building for three years before I moved across the back yard at the incentive of John’s daughter, Joanne, who worked for McCulloch, Butler & Spence alongside me at the time. And I was duly recruited by John and Gordon Black, who was the then acting chief of the place. So that was reasonably a happy merger, I think; both firms were finding that with size [it] was a struggle to attract good staff, and so putting the two firms together was a pretty positive – and I think it’s proved to be a very positive – move for both firms in the amalgamation.

John B: Took a while [microphone interference] for the staff to accept different things, both sides, but it has really worked out very well.

John S: In hindsight you’d have said we probably should’ve had a change manager; it was a lot more difficult getting everyone to agree to actions at one direction, and use the one computer system, and adapt to agreed policies. [A] lot of that was driven by staff who were comfortable doing what they’d been used to and didn’t want to change. So that’s how we got together, but I think probably of interest, Jim, would be a bit of the history of McCulloch, Butler & Spence. Have you got anything on the Knowledge Bank ..?

Not that I know of.

‘Cause it was a very old firm. Do you want me to talk about that, John, or ..?

John B: Yeah … so 1907 was the note I had.

John S: That was the aim; McCulloch set up a practice in Hastings and Napier. In 1907 I think was when they merged with Bill McCulloch – or William McCulloch he was called – with Butler & Spence to form McCulloch, Butler & Spence in 1907. And the building in Queen Street has that on the top of it, and remains standing despite the earthquake, which … quite a bit of history to that building too. The office where one of the partners worked was originally an entranceway into the stables at the back, where a lot of the old records were kept for many years. The brick building extended out the back, so yeah, through Jeff Richards’ office was a carriageway for horse[s] and carts …

John B: Oh yeah …

John S: … to go through. Anyway, that brick building’s been demolished and it’s now car parks. And R D Brown joined the firm and worked for them from 1912, and he set up his own practice in 1921. Interestingly Jim, I’ve got a letter from McCulloch, Butler & Spence to R D Brown, wishing him well in setting up his new practice, and I’ll leave that with the Knowledge Bank. I’ve got a few old records of R D Brown, which is probably better in the Knowledge Bank rather than in the folder sitting here in my place.

John B: Yeah, well mine, I can’t find them so …

John S: ‘Cause you know, these won’t be kept unless they’re somewhere like the Knowledge Bank. That’s quite interesting … today you’d be a bit peeved that somebody was leaving your firm to start up in opposition, but it appeared he went with their blessing. So he set up practice in 1921.

John B: He must’ve been a sole practitioner right through ‘til the end of the war – I think that’s when Len Webb came in as a partner.

John S: Yeah, I’ve got a date here that he came in in 1934, so …

John B: Oh!

John S: … so that would be before the war. Or even have joined them, perhaps not as a partner, John.

John B: Yeah, I don’t think he was a partner.

John S: Yeah, well that’s when he would’ve come in. Perhaps he’d qualified at that stage, ‘cause he did do war service so possibly [be]came a partner when he came back.

John B: That was my understanding. Yeah.

John S: But interesting … just on McCulloch, Butler & Spence … they were a great trainer. They were well recognised throughout New Zealand as the experts in farm accounting, and they had established branches right throughout the East Coast and then later on into Wellington and Christchurch. But they also produced four presidents of the New Zealand Society of Accountants, which is quite uncommon for rural practices to be represented so well at the top. So William McCulloch was the first; there was a Charles Smith; R D Brown who was president once he’d left and set up his own firm; and Norm Fippard. So that was quite an achievement for any firm to have that history.

So that’s the McCulloch’s … there’s quite a bit of stuff there. And I’ve got a history, Jim, that I’ll leave with you on McCulloch, Butler & Spence which was written in 1968, which might as well go into the Knowledge Bank too. That company is really pretty much disintegrated now, McCulloch, Butler & Spence; there’s no firm holds the name any more, and they separated out. The firm in Gisborne still has the name McCulloch’s, which is … usually [you’ve] got to be a previous member or a person’s name.

Would you have a contact for anybody? Doug Crawford?

John S: Yeah, he’s still about, he’s a McCulloch, Butler & Spence ex partner. But yeah, the firm was largely built up because of its audit practice; the big one was Wattie’s, and as Wattie’s expanded into the South Island they needed a Christchurch branch. Not quite sure why they had Wellington, and I don’t know whether Wellington was that successful for them or not, but it was very strong in Hastings. They had ten partners when I worked there; not sure how many were there when you were, John?

John B: Five, I think. Yes, so it had grown.

John S: They had two audit partners in Bob MacInnes and John Young

John B: There was Rex Chaplin, Bob MacInnes, Norm Fippard, Dudley Plank …

John S: Yeah, so there was a few additions to it; so yes, it’s interesting that sort of name is gone. But R D Brown’s name has stayed throughout, which is you know, quite reassuring in some ways, from 1912.

John B: It’s interesting that he called himself R D Brown when we first started off, and then when Webb came in as a partner there was quite a discussion as it didn’t sound quite right to be R D Brown & Webb, but R D wanted to keep his name there … his initials. And it was Piet van Asch as I understand it, who came up with the idea of … “Why don’t you call it Brown, Webb & Co?”

John S: Oh, okay – I wondered, ‘cause he was referred to as R D, wasn’t he?

John B: Yeah, or he was Doug.

John S: Not too many people called him Doug.

John B: But R D, yeah.

John S: So there’s a photo of him there Jim, quite a good photo. You’d remember him, John?

John B: Yeah.

John S: Before my time.

John B: When I started at the office he was still there but … was he a partner? Oh, I can’t remember now. He was a keen tennis player.

John S: There’s a bit of a story about him that I’ll leave with you too, Jim. It’s a bit hard to read, but it’s possibly out of the local newspaper – I’m not sure where I got it from. Takes a bit of reading but it does cover his time with the tennis club, and also particularly the Hawke’s Bay & East Coast Aero Club which has been a long term client. He was involved with the founding of it, and it’s been a strong client up until quite recent years. You’ve mentioned, John, Piet van Asch from Aerial Mapping – that was another client with Len and Doug Brown, so they were a stalwart of the Hastings Lawn Tennis Club. He won the Hawke’s Bay Doubles Championship for many years, seasons representative, represented Hawke’s Bay in inter-provincial tennis. Doesn’t say who his doubles partner was. So he was married but never had any children.

John B: Yeah, I was never a partner with him, because if he was still an associate as we’d call it today, I became a partner on 1st April ’61; he died [in] March 1961. [Clock chiming, deleted where possible]

John S: I’ll find that date for you …

John B: He was in the new building; he had a room and a chair. Have we still got that chair?

John S: Robyn Laughton had it for quite a long time.

John B: Oh yes …

John S: He’s buried in the Hastings Cemetery anyway, along with his wife, Margaret. He died on 18th March 1966.

John B: Oh, ’66 – yeah, because I became a partner in ’66. ’61 was when I joined the firm.

John S: So Len Webb was his first partner, that John’s mentioned. He came back after the war after serving in …

John B: Sunderland flying boats in the Pacific. Now that’s a family that the Knowledge Bank should get some information from. I suspect Kerry and Anne Webb might have had some[thing] on their nursery, and their father supplying tomato plants for Wattie’s for many years. And Len and his son, Trevor, were both partners in this firm but they had significant other interests, particularly Len, in gardening and plants and flowers, and the Masonic Lodge, Rotary. He sort of was into everything.

John B: [Speaking together] He was into all those, yep.

John S: He never told us much about his war service, I gather, until his family ..?

John B: No, something happened there; I won’t mention it though I did actually hear, but whether it was right or not … but there was some traumatic event. He never talked about it, and he never wanted to go overseas. The furthest he went was Australia, and that was quite something for him to do that.

John S: I remember him saying that when they were in Canada on flying training they lived a lot on butter … could eat a pound of butter. [Chuckles] I thought it would make you sick; but however, he said it was something that was good, just in casual conversation.

John S: After Len Webb, Gordon Black joined the firm in 1947 and he was a very strong leader, I think, of the firm; had very high standards and he expected everybody else to have high standards. And I can recall on a few occasions telling his fellow partners to go home and clean their shoes, or you know, next day he should come back to work with a haircut. Fortunately I don’t think you or I, John, would’ve ever been at the other end of his instructions.

John B: Did you say he joined the firm in …

John S: 1947.

John B: That’s when he joined the firm? Well according to me, in ’47 he’d only be … I was born in ’37 and he was eight years older than me.

John S: Well in his own handwriting I can read, ‘On leaving high school’, which would’ve been Dannevirke High School he went to. He doesn’t say that in here, but, ‘In 1946 he joined the firm as a junior clerk; retired as a senior partner in 1996. He served on the boards of both Iona College and Lindisfarne College for more than twenty years, and is a life member of the Hawke’s Bay & East Coast Aero Club and the Hawke’s Bay Motor Cycle Club; been an active member of the Havelock North Rotary Club for thirty years, and in 1975 was appointed the Rotarian Leader on a group study exchange team to Missouri in the United States’. Not sure what that was handwritten out for …

John B: I can’t reconcile that ’47 … 1947.

John S: Well, he finished school in 1946; how old would he’ve been … seventeen, say?

John B: Oh – so I’m getting it wrong. I would’ve been ten, and he was eight … oh yeah, that’s right. He was eight years older. When did he become a partner? Is that mentioned there?

John S: No, but I might have it somewhere.

John B: I thought it was just before I joined … I joined the firm in January ’61. I think he was a partner the year before.

John S: Yeah, but Len Webb was a partner in 1948 according to these notes. He started work in 1934; Gordon joined in 1947, became a partner in 1960.

John B: That ties in. Yeah. And I started in ’61, and that was difficult for me because I worked for Norm Fippard when I was at McCulloch’s, and he was very good to me. He took me on trips to rugby matches, and when the Lions were out here in 1950 we went to two or three rugby matches. And looking back now, I feel as though I did a bit of a dirty on him when I joined Brown Webb because that was his brother-in-law.

John S: Oh, that’s right. [Chuckle]

John B: And I don’t think Norm Fippard would’ve ever forgiven me.

John S: Why did you leave McCulloch, Butler & Spence, John?

John B: Actually I got it quite wrong; but certainly when you’re to become a partner in McCulloch, Butler & Spence, you couldn’t expect to be in one of the major offices. And the possibility was that you would get moved to Waipawa, Wairoa or even Tokomaru Bay. [Chuckles] And Bruce Fippard, Fipp’s son, went to Tokomaru Bay, but then he didn’t become a partner; he set up his own …

John S: Own practice.

John B: But that’s why I moved, because it didn’t matter; if I wasn’t going to be working in Hastings – I was married, young family – I didn’t want to be moving away, particularly to Tokomaru Bay. [Chuckle]

John S: They had one partner up there I think.

John B: Yeah – you were it. You were the clerk and the partner and the … in those days of course, everything was handwritten.

John S: Yeah – I think that branch closed down quite a long time before McCulloch’s disintegrated. When I was at McCulloch’s I was employed by Jeff Richards – I’ve still got his letter of appointment. I was on this grand salary of $8,300 which was quite significant. I was qualified; I’d qualified in Wellington, and so I worked with Jeff Richards for three years. And they thought I should move and work with Doug Crawford because you know, they were sort of grooming up partners. Interestingly enough, when I started there were seven qualified staff members, and three months later I was the only one left.

John B: Wow! They were quite a significant training ground for people studying, but often going overseas or into other firms, so they were quite a significant training facility really. And working with Doug, I found he had a senior clerk who was running everything so I had very little to do, so I spent a fair amount of my time working on Ian Lyver’s clients. But I had to find the work really, and I had to deal with some of Ian’s wife’s family, who following a [an] aircraft accident in which Ian’s wife and the bank manager … who was the other one? The pilot, what was his name? They were both killed in the plane crash. They’d gone to Palmerston North with Ron Atkinson who was a lawyer … and then I understand they were told they probably shouldn’t be flying, but they chose to fly back, and Ron stayed on. Interestingly enough I’d worked with Ron in Wellington when he was studying law.

John B: Yeah, as I understand it, whoever the pilot [was] – I can’t remember – he had his own plane that was flying to Nelson, and Ian’s wife just went because it was a way of getting to see her parents. And so they left there in bad weather, landed at Palmerston North to sort of review the situation [and] decided to carry on. And that was strange too, wasn’t it, because he wasn’t at the accident site, he was actually found at the bottom of a ravine. She had had a coat put on her covering her up, and so they think he covered her up – she was probably still alive – and he went to get help and must’ve fallen down the ravine. ‘Cause they were neighbours of ours in Muritai Crescent.

John S: Liz Lyver’s just recently died.

John B: Who has?

John S: Ian’s wife. Anyway, that sort of filled in my day, and I worked alongside Joanne Bark. And I’d already applied for a job at Brown Webb in about 1972, I suppose it was, and I got a letter from John Bark declining my application. I had no qualifications at the time, I’d only just started studying at the Wellington Polytechnic and Victoria University, and then three years later when I had qualified I joined McCulloch, Butler & Spence; so you offered me a job.

John B: [Chuckle] Yeah.

John S: And Joanne said, “Oh, Dad’s looking for some more accountants for their firm.” And I knew them quite well ‘cause when we went to any accountants’ functions they were all the more sociable group. So I had an interview, and they had to advertise it ‘cause that was the courtesy thing that was done in those days – you didn’t sort of solicit staff from other firms without going through a process of advertising. And not only did they get me, they got Mandy Keesing who applied [replied] to the advertisement. So that was the start of my career working with Len Webb, Gordon and John, and the other partner that [who] was there was Kevin Williams, who resigned in 1992. So that sort of brings us a bit up to date with where we’re at.

Since Brown Webb Richardson was formed, John [clock chiming] was the first Chairman and on his retirement – we had a fixed term – I became the next chairman. Then we brought in Robyn Laughton, and they’d come in before the merger, hadn’t they? Robyn Laughton and George Speedy had come in in 1996, so it was well before the merger.

Of the new firm, the BWR firm, John was the first Chairman and that comprised John, myself, Robyn and George from the old firm, and Roger Sinclair, Stephen Dine and Ivan Richardson of the new. We were there when Craig Riddiford and Regan Loach were appointed, and since then Michelle Monteith has joined with Mark Coombe and Donna Araroa. Mark and Donna are associate directors. So I think that’s the team; it hasn’t been extensive, but going back from 1912 it’s not a bad number.

Well, the early days now, with R D Brown – if you’ve got any history of it apart from what you’ve given me in writing?

Well I’ve given you a couple of other things to do with R D Brown, one which Gordon had; he did an address by the President of the New Zealand Society of Accountants on our economy, which is dated 1949. Gordon had it typed out, so that might be of interest to someone. So that’s quite interesting the way he finishes up on that – that’s the handwritten version if you wanted that as well.

No, we’ll take this one here, otherwise someone’s got to decipher it all again.

Right, yeah. And it’s got all these crossings out … it was his draft, you can see that. And he finishes up by saying, “And now, Mr Chairman, having talked myself into a state of economic and political incoherence, I’m through.” [Chuckle] So he must’ve had a sense of humour. I’ll have to bin that unless you’d like it, John. As you’ve said, he was quite involved with a number of organisations, in particular Iona College; even though he had no family he took a strong interest in education. The Hawke’s Bay & East Coast Aero Club, that was another favourite of his.

John B: Lindisfarne?

John S: Yeah, I’m not sure – when was Lindisfarne set up?

John B: Lindisfarne – I thought he was one of three that more or less set it up.

John S: With the guy Herrick and … I think Ian Campbell, was it? I should know, I was on the Lindisfarne 25th Jubilee Committee at one stage.

I played squash at Lindisfarne, at the Herricks’. They had a squash court there.

Oh, yeah.

John B: Was that before Napier, or ..?

Oh yeah, way back.

John S: I think it is important that I record that R D Brown was the mayor of Hastings from 1947 to 1953, and then President of the New Zealand Society of Accountants from 1961 to 1962. He qualified [as] an accountant in 1911; he was working in a commercial role in those days. He served in World War 1 as a Sergeant, and returned to accounting in 1919. [He] began staffed with one person, Miss Eva Napier.

John B: She was there for many, many years.

John S: Their offices were on the corner of Karamu Road and Queen Street, which was where the Dominion Building was … Dominion newspaper building, on the corner there.

John B: Initially the office was in Queen Street.

John S: I’ll just read what – I don’t know who’s written this but, ‘Opposite the present Hawke’s Bay Herald Tribune’ … yeah, in Queen Street. ‘During his career he was involved in the founding of the Hawke’s Bay & East Coast Aero Club in 1928, the Heretaunga Building Society in 1934, and helped Piet van Asch get New Zealand Aerial Mapping off the ground in 1936.’ Good expression, ‘getting it off the ground’. The building society – McCulloch, Butler & Spence had a building society called The Hawke’s Bay Mutual Building Society – and so when R D Brown forms his accountancy practice he sets one up too, which was …

John B: Hastings Mutual …

John S: Yeah, that was another one, Hastings Mutual was Hawke’s Bay … one of the guys from out at Twyford goes to Landmarks quite regularly; used to elect the Chairs, and he was the secretary of it for a long time. You’d know him … hasn’t been quite so well lately.

John B: Who’s that?

John S: Think [?] was the manager or secretary of the Hawke’s Bay Mutual Building Society.

He’s retired from it now, hasn’t he? Twelve months ago, from …

From Landmarks. Somebody will remember his name. I should remember it, but age takes its toll. ‘He was secretary of’ – Iona College of course is a lot older than Lindisfarne, and he was secretary of that; ‘co-founder of Lindisfarne having seen the Herrick homestead as an ideal site for a boys’ residential school in 1951’, the wool boom time. ‘£15,000 was needed to buy the property and was raised by gifts from Hawke’s Bay citizens over the 1951 Easter weekend and the firm was closely involved with the establishment of the college in its earlier years. R D Brown saw the firm move three times and he finally withdrew in 1960. He died in 1966, just before the move to the present purpose-built building.’ And he went over the road to the Herald Tribune building at one stage, too.

John B: That’s where I started. So that would’ve been for me, from ’61 to ’66 when we moved to the new building.

John S: So that’s a little bit about RD Brown. Just as a matter of interest, I found in amongst the collection of papers I’d photocopied at one stage, the 1955 Celebration Dinner for the Heretaunga Permanent Building Society it was then called, when they attained the £200,000 loan mark. So that would’ve been quite an achievement, and there’s [there’re] some quite significant names amongst them. There’s an A F Redgrave from Redgrave Gardens; R F Campbell, L J Harvey, R Paynter … I presume that’s your …

John B: Ralph Paynter.

John S: … grandfather-in-law; Judy’s grandfather, would it’ve been?

John B: No, uncle … great-uncle.

John S: R D Brown was Director, A D Ross, whoever he might’ve been, and H F Forster. They were the directors of the building society.

John B: Heretaunga – so was it Heretaunga Building Society right from the start?

John S: I believe so. Well the Hawke’s Bay Mutual was McCulloch, Butler & Spence’s one.

John B: Oh yes, that’s right.

John S: And there’s a whole lot of autographs there, with Len Webb on it and people that went to the dinner. R F Campbell, he was sort of a well known person …

John B: H H Campbell & Sons, the …

John S: Builders and joiners. I gave into the office the other day to Michelle Monteith, who was looking after some historical records, R D Brown’s tax returns from about 1921. This is a little thing from the National Bank inspection of their client records dated 31st March 1923. It says he was ‘Registered as a public accountant in Hastings; his turnover for twelve months was £2,594, and their funding from the bank was secured by life policies assigned and registered with a surrender value of £211. A man of good standing who has influenced valuable business for the bank.’ God knows where that came from. [Chuckle]

Well I’m pleased to be getting this all moved on, John.

John B: You’ve done well.

You wonder sometimes what you’re going to do with all the papers …

John S: Well I’ve got some stuff there I was going to show you, but unrelated to this discussion. That’s the establishment of Richardson Epplett & Partners from McCulloch, Butler, with Ivan Richardson, Geoff Richards, John Young who’s since died – he was the youngest; Doug Crawford, who’s still going, Ian Lyver; Mike Waterson’s wife died recently, they live in Queensland. Used to meet Stephen Dine and Roger, so we inherited Ivan and Stephen and Roger into the BW. [Brown Webb]

Who came to our Open Day? Someone came to our Open Day and left us some trust money … Trevor Webb, I think.

Oh recently, yeah.

We bought a big cabinet.

Yeah. Well I was going to mention some of our … don’t know whether that’s appropriate … interesting clients that you’ve had over the time that you’ve helped. I call them ‘Most Satisfying Clients’.

John B: We had some what we would have called reasonably large audit clients because it was Leopard Brewery; Eastern & Central Savings Bank – started off as Hawke’s Bay Savings Bank, I think it was called initially, then Hawke’s Bay & Gisborne, then Eastern & Central, which covered Manawatu and Hawke’s Bay so for us to win that contract as it were, was quite something …

John S: It was huge.

John B: … over one of the national firms.

John S: I was engaged on that for a period, [???] audits of the mortgage lending.

John B: Tomoana Freezing Works … Nelsons.

John S: Yep, and you reported to London on that?

John B: Well I wasn’t so involved, that was Trevor and Rodney

John S: You had the two newspapers, did you mention them? The Hawke’s Bay Herald Tribune and the Napier paper.

Daily Telegraph.

And what about the gas companies? That’s way back before my time, but I think the two gas companies … Hastings Gas Company?

John B: Okay, must have been before my time.

John S: Well, I read that somewhere. Half the lies I tell aren’t true, but …

This is quite a good book, Jim, on the history of accountants, called ‘From Inkwells to Email’ by Michael Fowler. When this came out I thought, ‘Oh, this’ll be a bit boring as they say accountants can be pretty boring; but it’s actually a very interesting read, I was quite surprised. You’ve probably got a copy of that in your archives at the Knowledge Bank?

I don’t know, I’ll have to have a look.

There’s a joke about accountants there, but it might not be appropriate to publish; wasn’t too unseemly.

John B: Having mentioned – this is going back a bit into McCulloch’s with Norm Fippard [who] was recognised as the expert in farm accounting for New Zealand, and he actually wrote a book.

John S: That’s right, he did.

Norman Fippard did?

John B: Yeah, he was recognised as the expert, and it was a book we used for qualifying. And so for me it was the fact that it was farm accounting that was my interest.

John S: No, they were [had] significant involvement in farm accounting, and even in your day, still had quite a lot of influence, [clock chimes] particularly in taxation. You worked with that guy King, was it? [He] was from the MAF [Ministry of Agriculture & Fisheries] helping design the modern taxation of livestock.

John B: Yes.

John S: This guy was a top economist with MAF …

John B: Whereas the old way was standard values, and it didn’t matter whether currently the price of a cattle beast might’ve been $20; the standard value was $1.50, or …

John S: That’s right. Huge opportunities to write down …

John B: That’s right, it was great for tax but it certainly didn’t give a good picture of what the farmers were really making, and that’s when I – who was it? There was the chap King – trying to arrive at true profits rather than taxation …

John S: Taxation benefits. Here’s a little story about accountants, talking about grey-headed – are we allowed to put that in? You can censor it.

‘The image of the dull grey accountant has been shattered by a survey claiming they are more interesting and adventurous than other people. They are more likely to socialise, watch less television, and enjoy more sex according to Monotony Monitor, aimed at exposing those whose lives as more rut-race than rat-race. One hundred people in different jobs kept a diary for a fortnight to show how they spent their time. Hairdressers spent most of the time in front of TV, followed by ad [advertising] executives; construction engineers went to the gym the least and went to bed the earliest. All admitted to lethargy when it came to social life, watching television nine nights out of ten. By contrast, accountants watched less TV, have sex an average six times a fortnight compared with the average three, and most play some kind of sport and go to the gym. They also go to bed later and are the keenest to change their routine. Researchers say that the face of finance has changed so much that accountants often have front-office roles, inter-personal skills, and the presence to succeed outside number-crunching, making them more sociable. The survey was conducted for Lindeman’s, the wine producers’. [Chuckles] That was in the Main Report – remember when we used to get that regular newsletter with all sorts of things affecting business? Yeah – that was in 2003.

Yes, so the Heretaunga Building Society remains probably the biggest client of the firm; and New Zealand Aerial Mapping was a long time client, and very close to the firm.

John B: We used to have combined staff social events; the Christmas event was combined with Aerial Mapping.

John S: That was before my time, I don’t think I ever had one. But I became a shareholder in Aerial Mapping through a trust for Hugh van Asch, I think, or Mary van Asch, one of their nieces; I went along to a few functions there.

In my time my biggest client was Tom Cooper, who had a significant farming operation throughout Hawke’s Bay and Gisborne, and dealings with him and his family were quite involved over a number of years with about thirty-odd different entities. That ended up in a huge court case which is still not resolved as I understand, and many millions. I’ve got no idea what it is, but it would be five or six million at least spent in legal and accounting fees to date. And yeah, I think it’s still going on. But anyway, they were interesting times. Tom died last year.

John B: So quite a major firm for me was the setting up of … meat exporters …

John S: Oh, Fernridge.

John B: Setting it up so that their contracts could traced, and know whether they were making money or not on whatever contracts they might’ve been affected.

John S: Yeah, they’ve been a really successful company for its owners. You were particularly good at and interested in those sorts of things – computer recording and … John set up the first sort of computer system by converting a bookmaking machine into a proper computer.

John B: Well my whole aim was to take the drudgery out of accounting and make the computer do it.

John S: In the old days they had a bunch of ladies who worked in the typing pool, and they’d type all these accounts regularly with …

John B: Carbon paper.

John S: … carbon paper in between, and if there was a mistake made then they had to go and change five copies or however many they were typing. They were phenomenal, and there would be stacks ahead of them as it got to the end of November, which was a crunch time with the Inland Revenue. It was pretty unfair; and they had to come back and work overtime. But those days have gone with computers and fast printers.

I remember my office days at Levin & Company; we had to put the carbon paper, five copies for the typists, and we had to keep five hundred invoices ahead of the typists, so every day we were virtually doing a hundred, two hundred of these. That was our job after we had collected the mail from the Post Office at six o’clock in the morning, seven, eight, nine o’clock, and that was the last pick-up.

Now the mail at the office is delivered by courier. In the past people would go and collect it. And company Annual Reports, you know, we might have twenty or thirty Directors’ Reports for common companies, and they became a huge weight for people to bring back from the Post Office, so they were delivered. I think I was particularly lucky, when I came across the back yard to join Brown Webb I worked with Gordon Black, and I sort of got to know his clients pretty well; [in] fact very well. And then we had Sam Burkett who was in practice on his own account, and he had inherited a practice from a lady called Jean Craig who, interestingly enough, used to work at McCulloch, Butler & Spence. She was a registered Secretary … Chartered Secretary I think, was her title. She wasn’t a chartered accountant.

John B: She wasn’t qualified.

John S: She had a number of clients. Some of the younger partners thought well they could deal with these clients better themselves than have her controlling them, and they sort of gave her the push. And somewhere in my archives I’ve seen the letter that was written moving her on. So she promptly went out and set up her own practice as Jean Craig Chartered Secretary, I think was her title, and took most of the clients that she had from McCulloch, Butler & Spence. She then engaged Sam Burkett as her senior accountant – he was qualified – and effectively he inherited the whole practice. And he came at the invitation of John and Gordon to work in our office; he was seeking help, he couldn’t get staff; he couldn’t cope for various reasons, and so he moved into an office at Brown Webb. And it became patently obvious that he wasn’t coping at all, and in the end he gave up. I’d sort of been left to understudy most of his clients, not all of them but a good percentage of them, so in addition to inheriting a good part of Gordon’s portfolio of clients I also inherited the biggest part of Sam Burkett’s clients. You took over some; Kevin Williams took over Atua [Station], I remember. After Kevin resigned they became a client of mine, and they were significant clients, as was Tom Cooper. He had a huge number of entities and Sam just really couldn’t cope with all the inter-current account transactions between the different entities. In fact when I took it over I had different staff members on each set of accounts and they had to go round and talk to all the others to reconcile those current accounts, and some of the transactions went back quite a few years. But it’d be impossible for a person who wasn’t really using computer systems, and he went back to his orchard. Unfortunately he cleared out his office into some fruit bins, and I understand they were destroyed, including some of the minute books of people that I inherited, like Kereru Station; all the early records of that are lost. So that’s, you know, a great shame; there’s a history to that, but Kereru’s now been recorded in its own history. There’s a book on that which is good reading.

John B: One of the other interesting ones that I had was the … well, what’s now known as Ngamatea Station, but it was the Fernie Brothers … Walter Fernie. They had an accountant in Wanganui and he was five years behind in his filing of tax returns for this big farming …

John S: Maunganui Station wasn’t it?

John B: Well no, Maunganui was part of it; Ngamatea, Te Mahanga – it was all initially under the estate being run by the Apatus [for] Ngamatea; Roberts for Te Mahanga. So Robyn Laughton spent hours and hours and probably weeks, getting these five years’ tax returns done.

John S: That’s right, I remember all that work being done. And he hadn’t got up to date with modern tax practices for livestock, so he just used the standard values which had had been going on, but had been long ceded by the new tax systems.

John B: He just couldn’t cope; well he was certainly in his eighties … he might’ve been close to ninety, still trying to do accounting.

John S: Some big organisations; well Ngamatea’s still one of the biggest stations in the North Island. Sadly, Ren Apatu got killed in a helicopter crash, last year, wasn’t it [2018] ? He was sort of running it with his brothers; now still an office client.

I don’t know whether you want to talk too much about clients, but one of the jobs I inherited from Sam was Mt Erin Station, and it’s probably the one I’ve had the most influence on over the years. My first job was to try and work out who the proper owners were. It was a Cooper Family property, but there’d been a number of single or childless owners whose estates had never been wound up; they’d been left still in existence. And so I did this huge exercise going back through all of their wills, and discovered that while Mrs Rochford’s share had been largely put into a trust, part of it hadn’t been, and so some went to certain members of the family – I shouldn’t mention names, I guess – who didn’t know that they had any interest in Mt Erin. They were still very minor and their brother and sister younger; they got an inheritance through their mother. So that was the first … and then Roger Bate took the whole plan to the Land Transfer Office and talked them into just transferring it from the existing owners and their trustees. And then I was the Chairman of it, and we organised quite a lot of land purchases from Lochie McKenzie next door, as he [was] wanting to sell a bit. We’d buy a paddock at a time, and be out there negotiating in the paddocks to buy a bit more land, ‘cause they had generational differences; we had a lot of elderly partners in it, then a lot of young ones. So we borrowed the money to do it so it was paid off regularly over a period of time. It’s all that flat land on the right hand side of Middle Road – not all of it, some of it was already owned but [??]. And we put in a huge water scheme … pumping scheme; so that was an interesting one.

Other ones – you know, I’ve been pretty lucky – Arohiwi Station up at Puketitiri, that was one of Gordon’s original clients with Mrs Mitchell, who left her interest to Presbyterian Support. And there were three Holts – it was the Robert Holt family – and when I got involved with it it’d gone to Guardian Trust for a period, and Gordon had a lot of issues with their accounting for livestock and all sorts of other things … more of a cash basis than anything else. So they came, probably with his influence, to me to take over the accounting, and that became quite an interesting job. We had two Holt sisters, Marion Holt and Janet McCardle, the co-owners with Presbyterian Support. During that time Alf Dixon was a driving force behind Presbyterian Support in that. [Phone rings] The opportunity came to buy some more land and we managed to buy that to extend the operation. When Miss Holt died Janet McCardle decided it was time for her to get out, and so I spent several sessions in front of the Presbyterian Support board and encouraged them to buy the shares out, because they had an investment fund from the sale of the retirement villages – which they agreed to do. And we set up a separate charitable company to run it with outside directors, and I’m told that that was a $10million operation at the time; it’s now doubled in value, [and] would be what I would say is the most profitable farm in Hawke’s Bay, certainly that I’ve seen, with a regular return, so it’s something that worked out well …

John B: Yes.

John S: You don’t always know. And the other big one that I’ve been involved with is Mangakuri Station down on the coast; we’ve been through the mill a bit in that in recent times but it’s now in a charitable trust set up. And you were a trustee of that for a long time, John …

John B: Mmm.

John S: … and probably in better days than in recent times, but it’s [an] interesting property.

The one that I had a few trips away … well, not trips away but went up the coast to … was at Matarau Station, which is one I inherited from Sam Burkett, although funnily enough it’d been in Brown Webb’s hands many years ago, ‘cause it had some of Gordon Black’s writing in the cash book. But that was a big station in the Waikura Valley, inland from Hicks Bay. So I had a couple of trips up there just on holiday, and then went up to the clearing sale which was on TV; the sale is a Country Calendar programme. It was the Hindmarsh family from Gisborne were the majority owners with some of the Chambers family here. But yeah, it’s a very remote sort of spot.

Talking about Chambers, Bernard Chambers who’s just given a grant to Hereworth for the new facility there towards the sound and lighting studio; that’s a charitable trust that I’ve been a trustee of for a while – was always good to be involved with, although times coming when one has to pull the plug.

One of my more successful clients that came from scratch was a guy called Peter Snow; he was a meat inspector. He’d be quite happy talking about this publicly, ‘cause he is a meat inspector and he did a bit of building; he’d done his trade with Morgans, and he went meat inspecting and in his spare time he did a bit of building work, so his father told him he needed an accountant. And he went off to a Morgan conference in Salt Lake City and came back with a Chem-Dry franchise for New Zealand; and the guy just adapted to being ‘president’ as they call them in the States, of Chem-Dry New Zealand and sold it throughout the country through franchises and gave a hundred percent support to all those people … geared them along, encouraged them … and became a very successful company throughout New Zealand. Then he was offered the Canadian franchise and did likewise over there, although he’s more recently sold that. So I had quite a few trips to Australia and Fiji for their annual conferences – not that I ever got to clean any carpets, but I learned about the processes – and of course to Canada. I‘ve had two or three trips to Canada for the Canadian side of the operations. So there’s been some interesting clients and some good ones,

John B: So is that one still going?

John S: Still going, yeah, still. The New Zealand operations; Peter lives in Canada but he still runs it from there, and it’s still a client.

The other good ones are … you know, I’ve been with Guthrie Smith for a long time I suppose, as accountant for that for many years, and more recently as a trustee although I retired from that last December. They’re all good jobs, good clean jobs.

John B: Interesting jobs.

Yes so it’s not just doing the books, it’s getting around a bit?

John S: It certainly is. People say, “Oh, you’re a number cruncher or a bean counter.” I said … must’ve been when I was retiring, some of the interesting things you do … and I said about me having to get a client out of the bath – it probably saved her life. This elderly client had moved into a new flat in Te Mata Road, and I went round one Saturday morning to see her. Couldn’t get an answer on the door; I knocked on her ranch slider and couldn’t get an answer, so I slid open the ranch slider – it was unlocked, which it shouldn’t’ve been – and I said, “Are you there?” And she said, “I’m in the bath.” And I said, “Well, don’t hurry, I’ll wait for you.” She said, “But I can’t get out.” So this lady was stuck in the bath and she’d let the water out, and then couldn’t get out. She was eighty, eighty-one, and so I had to help her out of the bath. It wasn’t a big deal really, but that was on a Saturday morning. Monday morning I went to work and Ian Lyver was in the car park out the back, and talking to some other guy – I don’t know who he was. And he said, “John, your firm supplies some unusual services for your clients”, and I said, “What do you mean?” I hadn’t even thought about it any more. He said, “Oh, you’re helping people in and out of the bath.” I said, “Well you have to remember she was eighty-one, not eighteen.” [Chuckles] So yeah, there’s a few other things that came by the wayside.

There’s an article on John Bark which you might be interested to have … ‘Hundred Years of Making Racquets’ … that’s about the club I think.

John B: Yeah.

John S: Haven’t talked too much about Trevor Webb, ‘cause he did quite a lot of the audit work. All the audits are gone; we made a decision that we would give up auditing which is the best call I think the firm ever made, because we had a full time audit director … an associate director in Rodney Grindley, and Trevor and John sort of supervised him. But the year after we gave up, the Eastern & Central [Savings Bank] was taken out … was merged into Trust Bank; [it] was done elsewhere; the freezing works sort of closed down; couple of the others went out, the audits were done out of town. All the audits would’ve disappeared within a year or two.

John B: Well, we virtually gave them away – we didn’t want them. Yes, auditing changed a bit over the years. When I first started at Brown Webb we had a little notebook that you just made a few notes in.

John S: [Chuckle] Well Eastern & Central was too big for us really, anyway, wasn’t it? A lot of that was done by computer; cheques and things were done elsewhere.

There’s your life story, John. When we applied to get you a fellowship of the Institute. Still grieves me that you didn’t get one, because other people have bought their way into them. [Clock chiming]

A hundred years of the Hawke’s Bay Lawn Tennis Club, Hastings? This was in the Herald Tribune.

John B: [In] fact my memory … I thought it was before 1900 – okay, no, our school was 1904, so yeah, 1908, okay.

John was still at secondary school when he joined the soon-to-be hundred year old club in the 1960s.

John S: I’ve got my farewell to John at Brown Webb when he retired, but you probably recorded most of this in your interview with him.

John B: But it was more the Bark family. Judy and I both spoke, but I didn’t really cover too much on … if any. I’ll have to listen to it again.

John S: Well – ‘John was born in Hastings, one of three boys to Doggy and Molly Bark.’ What was your father’s proper name?

John B: John George.

John S: ‘He was called Doggy, well obviously, with the Bark surname. John’s father was killed in Italy during the Second World War, and his mother a widow for over fifty years, [microphone interference] brought up their three children on the family property in York Road. This moulded John’s character, and he grew up with an independence of mind tempered with a caring interest in his family and his friends, including his workmates.’

John B: Who wrote that?

John S: I wrote it.

‘Accountancy’s not as boring as the jokes make out.’ In the latest Main Report, and that’s when I had connected the two. ‘John might be grey but he’s not boring. He has a wide interest in all sorts of things … his family, Judy and their four children and their children. He’s a do-it-yourselfer, keen to fix things or make them better … shelves for fax machines, rulers screwed onto printer boxes to make the paper flow. He fixed the paraplegic door when the lock didn’t work. The only thing he hasn’t fixed yet is the chain in the men’s urinal so we can all reach it. [Chuckles] He did get me though, to model for the height that it should be.

‘Sport has been a major interest of John’s; more of a player than a spectator – tennis in the summer; squash in the winter; water and snow skiing. Past president and life member of the Hastings District Tennis & Squash Club. John attended Hastings Boys’ High School as a secondary school pupil, subsequently taking night school. More recently he has served on the Board of the Trustees with two terms of [as] its Chairman. He is on the Board of Management of St Columba’s Church and compiles their financial records, and some Sundays he’s on duty as part of the meet & greet team.

‘John didn’t want any fuss about his interim retirement but we wanted to acknowledge his contribution to the affairs of the firm. My first contact with John was when he declined my application for a job in 1972. I had no accounting papers but then in 1976 I had qualified and Geoff Richards kindly offered me a job with his firm.

‘When I joined BW, as it was called, it was dominated by careful and thoughtful planning of two strong personalities. That could have been a recipe for disaster but Gordon Black and John Bark got on well as they both wanted the best for the partnership. The practice was quite innovative, being one of the first to introduce computers to the book keeping process, adapting a Burroughs machine to process client records.

‘The partners sought improvements; they met with a group of five other similar practices throughout New Zealand to learn new methods and systems. John Bark attended a number of practice development conferences. You will all have seen John at his work over the last year; he has been a very able and organised mind with attention to detail. He prepares detailed and often complex reports for his clients and for his partners, some of which are not readily understood; but they always work out in the right answer and he has considered all aspects.

‘Working with NCS, [Napier Computer Systems] the BW computer system was second to none, thanks totally to the willing support of Dennis Hall of Napier Computer Systems and the input and significant time of John. While it may’ve been complex to learn, the results are there to be seen. John formatted many layouts for all different entities or requirements. The system prepared livestock taxation calculations as part of the initial processing – I don’t think there is one commercial programme that does that. We have had to change – Unix is not so readily accessible to Windows, and Dennis Hall and John Bark can’t be with us forever.

‘John was elected inaugural Chairman of BWR, with unanimous support. He’s used his organisational skills to take us through the first year and we recognise his major contribution to both the building construction and refurnishing, and more importantly to the integration of the two firms – not an easy task, but we are pleased with the way the two groups have come together as one and adopted the new firm with much loyalty and support. John’s a keen team player, working together to achieve a better end result for all. In his world everyone is important and can contribute. “Look at their strengths”, was a common plea to his sometimes critical partners.

‘John, you didn’t want any fuss tonight; in fact you didn’t want anything at all, but here we acknowledge the business you have left us to carry on with. You can relax knowing that you’ve contributed to a strong and vibrant accounting firm where integrity counts. You can now relax, take some time out, enjoy your family, your sport and perhaps some more travelling … so please fill your glasses. While you wouldn’t let me have a flagpole on the new building, I am pleased to propose a toast.

‘John and Judy – we wish you well, we wish you a long and healthy retirement and John you leave your full time position with the firm, safe and satisfied in the knowledge of a job well done.’

Very good … that is good.

John B: The bit about the flagpole … [chuckles]

John S: Always wanted a flagpole.

John B: That’s probably the only difference [chuckle] of opinion that we ever had.

John S: We got on pretty well, really. I remember we had a girl on the counter who was ex-Navy, and she would’ve been happy to pull up the flag. Never got it. [Chuckle] We got a great big sign up there, must’ve cost the earth … not that it’s our worry any more.

I want to thank John Springford and John Bark for their talk this morning on Brown Webb & Co, McCulloch, Butler & Spence, and a number of businesses in Hastings as well. Thank you to you both.

John B:  Thank you.