Watkins, Kevin Victor Interview

Today is 23rd January 2018. I’m interviewing Kevin Victor Watkins of Frimley, Hastings. Kevin’s going to tell us about his family’s involvement in Hawke’s Bay history. Kevin has been a Councillor, so Kevin, would you like to tell me about the life and times of your family?

Yeah, thank you, Frank. Perhaps we might go back to the beginning of the recorded history that we have of the Watkins family, and that dates back to 1800 where the first Watkins we are aware of was living in Hereford in the UK. [United Kingdom] He was an innkeeper, and he had several children; one of those, William Watkins, became a watchmaker, and in the mid 1800s he and his wife sailed for Australia. He became quite prominent in politics in Australia becoming a Member of Parliament, and he continued in the trade of watchmaking and jewellery. And then he sold up those businesses in Collins Street in Melbourne, and he bought a series of hotels. So this is the continuation I guess, of the Watkins in the hospitality industry, and that was to follow through in my father’s later life.

So the first child born to that Watkins family in Australia was my great grandfather, and he was married in Australia and shortly afterwards he and his wife shipped to New Zealand. They landed at Hokitika; took a trip across the Southern Alps during the middle of winter with young children, and that was quite a heroic feat. They set up home in Christchurch for a few years, moved to Dunedin for a couple of years, and then decided they would move up to the North Island, so they arrived here in Hastings, Napier area. So that great grandfather was Edwin William Watkins, and his wife, Lucy, who are both buried in the Hastings Cemetery. They had quite a large family and one of those children was my grandfather, Alf Watkins. Now Alf passed away before I was born so what I’m sharing now is just from written history that we do have.

So Alf went through school; it seemed he had quite a mechanical interest from a young age. He joined the Railways Department and he became a fireman on the first steam engine that travelled the main trunk line when it was opened. And I have a photo here of him and the crew standing beside that engine on the turntable somewhere over central North Island …

Near Taumarunui.

… somewhere in that area.

That’s where the turntable used to be.

So he was the fireman on the first engine that did that trip. So he worked for the Railways for a few years; then I notice in 1911 he gained his certificate to allow him to drive traction engines and steam driven equipment. So he got that [in] 1911, and at that stage I think he must’ve left the employ of the Railways and he started up his own business here in Hastings.

Two of his sisters here had married two of the Powdrell brothers. Now Powdrells were a well-established family [speaking together] in the transport and farming industry; and my understanding looking back through some of the old diaries, that the Powdrell family lent my grandfather somewhere in the vicinity of £700 to buy his first traction engine. So that happened, and I see in the diaries that that was paid back in a matter of two years, so there was a lot of work going on. And we have a very lovely photo of Grandad and that engine in February 1914, moving what was the old Union Bank that sat on the corner of Karamu Road and Heretaunga Street, and is now known as Willowpark Lodge in Willowpark Road.

So Grandad was very involved in growing a contracting business – general cartage, moving of buildings, and in particular, in the summer season, harvesting. He had his own threshing mills and the gypsy wagons and the water carts and all those were parked at his residence in Avenue Road West … 503, 505 were the two properties where he lived in Avenue Road West.

So Grandad was doing very, very well; and then the First World War came along. He left New Zealand beginning of January 1916, and he was caught up in Belgium and Passchendaele and Ypres, in some of those terrible battles. And he suffered from the German gas that they let go, so he came back to New Zealand at the end of 1917, a very unwell man.

Anyway, I think about three years later, two years later, he married. His wife was a young lady from the Corban family in Hastings, which [who] were a well-established family. And they set up their home in Avenue Road. So those first years after the war, I can remember my Grandma saying that during the summer months he would sleep outside the house in a little whare that was just big enough for a single bed, and he would cough his lungs out all night. It was terrible. But during that time he was still working; he set up his own workshop, and he had lathes and milling machines, and he was very mechanical. He built a lot of equipment, repaired his own stuff … he was an interesting man. Not tall in stature, but certainly a good brain and a very good, practical man.

So that business grew and grew, and then we arrive at 1931; and February 3rd they were out threshing in Tollemache Road when the earthquake struck. So of course everything stopped there, and then they came into the town and saw what had happened; and there was an urgent for traction engines to come in and try and move rubble so they could get in and rescue survivors. So Grandad sent two engines in, and there are photographs of both those engines in amongst the rubble in Hastings. After the earthquake, in his diaries there are several entries where he moved buildings out of the CBD [central business district] to various places round the town, so that created more work for him.

My dad, Victor William Watkins, was born in 1924, and in those early, mid-thirty years [mid 1930s] he spent every moment that he could with my Grandad, and my dad developed a great understanding and empathy for machinery. When he was eleven years old he was in charge of his first full gang out harvesting – traction engine, mill, all the guys – eleven years old – Dad was in charge and Grandad was somewhere else around the district with another gang. My dad recalled a story when he was twelve years old, bringing the traction engine and the mill back into Hastings late at night; they had been out Valley Road, Maraekakaho. And the engines on the roads made quite a rumbling noise; and it was very late and someone had rung the local traffic cop whose name was Herbie Green. And Herbie Green was waiting for him in Maraekakaho Road, just on the town boundary. So my dad got a bit of a rarking up about that, and he said, “Well”, he said, “I can’t leave the engine here, I’ve got to get it home.” So he did get it home and Grandad paid the ticket. Those were little things that happened.

So after my dad left Hastings Boys’ High School, he worked at Stewart Greer Motors as a mechanic, and from there he went into the Air Force and served time at Ohakea as an Air Force mechanic. He didn’t go overseas for service, he was based here in New Zealand as Air Force mechanic. Then he came back to Hastings and just took over the whole contracting business. My grandad was very sick and he died in 1945 … August 1945. My grandad had been an astute businessman; he’d bought properties in Frimley, and he had quite a few other investments and shares; and when he died my father and his brother Len were left land in Frimley and what in those days would be considered a useful amount of cash to sort of make a good start in life.

So my dad built the family home in 402 Ikanui Road; married my mum in 1946, and I came along, the only child, in 1949. So at the family home in Ikanui Road we had three quarters of an acre; quarter of an acre was the house and the other half acre was the yard. So in those first years the traction engines were there, and the house shifting trailers which were really made of just big hardwood beams with steel u-bolts. The wheels were wooden inside steel casings – really very basic, but by gosh, they worked – amazing. Anyway, after the war a lot of ex World War II machinery ended up in New Zealand, and my dad went down to an auction in Trentham – I guess this is probably about 1950, ‘51 – and there were some ex British Guy trucks. They were six wheel vehicles, four cylinder engines, petrol engines, about 70hp. [Horsepower] So my dad bought one of these to replace the traction engine; and once it got home and he used it the first time, he said, “Steam’s gone!” So the traction engines were just sent to Japan … his ones went to Japan. He said, “Nup! Not getting up at three o’clock in the morning to light fires when I can just go out and turn a crank handle and I’m ready to go.”

So he had a truck, but he still had the old wooden transporter, so he thought, ‘Well I’ve got to do something about this’, so in 1953 he went back to Trentham. And they had in the compound there an American [?] tank transporter from the war. The Army said, no, no – they couldn’t possibly sell it to him. So I think S I Jones was the MP [Member of Parliament] at that time, so Dad went round to see MP Jones and told him the transporter was no good sitting in a yard in Trentham doing nothing when it could be here in Hastings doing a lot of work. So apparently MP Jones went back to Wellington and had discussions, and my dad ended up buying that transporter. He bought it back to Hastings and he modified it; increased its length. It became a telescopic unit, and I can still remember as a little boy, and I would’ve been four years old, at nighttime the welders would come in to do all the welding, and the sky would light up with the flare from the welding torches. Well at that time radios weren’t like radios today, and every time the welding torch started it interfered with all the radios in the neighbourhood. And while my dad was down the backyard doing this with the guys, my mum was taking phone calls from irate neighbours [chuckle] saying, “Tell Vic Watkins to turn that bloody welder off because we can’t hear our radios!” [Chuckle] And this went on for about four months; anyway, the job was done, and Dad ended up with the biggest transporter this side of Wellington in the south and Hamilton in the north. It was a very big unit.

So I grew up with a dad who was full time shifting houses, moving anything that needed to be moved, pulling anything out that was stuck, pulling over big trees, boats that got washed up that had to be transported back to be repaired; and although I was an only child it was a really exciting childhood, because I loved machinery, and you know, at nighttime I’d always wait outside on the roadside, waiting for my dad to come home with the transporter, and that was always a very, very big thrill. So I grew up all amongst that stuff.

The other thing I need to say about my dad was, he was an immensely physically strong and powerful man, incredibly strong. And when you’re shifting houses, well in those days it was all hard work; there was no hydraulics – it was all physical hard work.

Absolutely.

And so my dad had a whole stack of huge telephone poles which were Malayan hardwoods; some of those were forty foot long and they would be twelve inches square at the big end, and they’d taper down to about eight inches square at the light end. And these would sit across the transporter, and the houses that he moved would sit on these big beams. Well, in latter years some of the workers who worked for my dad’d say, “There’d be three of us guys on the light end”, [chuckle] “and we’d be struggling to move these beams.” And they said, “Your old man’d put his arms round the big end, and he’d swing that beam round. And he’d say, ‘What’re you guys doing on the light end?’” And he said, “We’d be struggling”, he said, “our knees’d be bent, our backs’d be bent; and your old man”, he said, “he’d just toss this thing round.” Well I heard many stories from many different guys who worked with my dad over the years, and I saw him – I saw the physical size of his body.

And that played out again in the Highland Games in Hastings because my dad was a competitor in tossing the sheaf and tossing the caber, and no one could compete with him tossing the caber. And they had a Challenge cup there, which I think he won ten years; and people used to crowd around to watch Vic Watkins pick up the big caber. And they had two – they had a standard caber for everybody else, and they had the big one that was for Vic Watkins. [Chuckle] And there was sort of a bit of an awe about that, and as a little fellow I was pretty proud of my dad, ‘cause he was someone pretty special.

So my dad did some jobs that were pretty outstanding even by New Zealand standards, considering the limitation of the gear that he had. In 1956 he moved the big two-storeyed Little Sisters of the Poor Home in Wolseley Street; so that’s a huge two-storey house …

It is.

… stucco building. He moved that in one piece, back and across on the section so they could rebuild the new buildings that are currently there. That was one job that was his pride and joy.

The other job he did just before he finished actually contracting in the Hawke’s Bay; a large fishing boat named the ‘Jenco III’ ran aground down at Castlepoint out from Masterton, and it was very badly holed. And they said it couldn’t be salvaged – big boat, it was nearly seventy foot long. And it lay in the sand for two years and really got buried – all you could see was just the cabin sticking out. Anyway, my dad was talking to the owner of the boat one day; Dad said, “Oh!” He said, “Nothing’s too big a challenge for me”, he said, “we’d better go and have a look at it.” So they went down to Masterton and out to the coast, and my dad said, “Yeah”, he said, “I can bring this boat back”, and he said, “I’ll deliver it into your boatyard for repair. No cure, no pay, so if it doesn’t get there, it doesn’t cost you anything.” So my dad built a special transporter, went down there, and they dug this big boat out of the sand; winched it up above high tide, loaded it up on this transporter; and then I came with him and we bought the boat back from the Wairarapa to Napier.* That was a huge job. And the Ministry of Transport said, “Well, we just don’t think it can be done; we don’t think it can get over the roads.” My dad measured everything; he said, “I will get it over the roads.” And we came round corners there where … just literally inches to spare, and bridges we scraped over. When we were coming from Pahiatua to Woodville it was too big to go over the bridge so we had to pull it through the Manawatu River, and so we had D8 bulldozers as anchors, and the Scammell winching it through there. So that was another job that he was immensely proud of because everyone else said it couldn’t be done.

‘Cause that was the thing that started him, wasn’t it? “It can’t be done.”

“It can’t be done.” And in my dad’s psyche everything could be done; it’s just a matter of working how you do it. And Frank, my dad had a knack with machinery. He could almost hear a machine’s heartbeat; he’d get a hundred percent out of it, and then he’d get another ten percent. And he was just great to watch – he’d look at something, think about it, and then he’d lay out what he needed to do, and he would do it.

So about 1973 he sold up the business; sold the properties in Hastings; and he moved down to the Wairarapa to a little country town called Tinui, and he bought his first hotel there.

That’s Falloon country, isn’t it?

Yes it is, yes. Yes. So when we started this conversation, you know, the earliest Watkins we know about in Hereford was in the tavern industry. And the Watkins come out to Melbourne and they’re in the hotel industry; and here we skip another two or three generations and my dad’s back in the hospitality industry. And that’s where he stayed, in that hospitality industry; moving round the country. He retired in Taupo; and he’d just retired a year, and he phoned me up one evening and he said, “Oh”, he said, “I’ve just been and had a bit of a spit, and he said it’s red.” He said, “I don’t like the look of that.” So I said, “Well you’d better go to the doctor, Dad.” So he came through here and saw Sid Young who’d been an old mate. And Sid said, “Oh”, he said, “we’ll have a look, Vic … just have a look down the gullet.” Anyway, they did that, and Sid said, “Well, Vic”, he said, “you’ve got six months.” He said, “It’s in the gullet, in the stomach – we can’t do anything about it.” And he told Dad that on … it was about 3rd January, and Dad died on 1st February. It was four weeks. As quickly as that.

Hell! And the only symptoms he had were coughing some blood?

Yeah. So he was living in Taupo by himself at that stage, so we brought him back to Hastings and he stayed with us, and he died in our home. So that was the end of the era of Vic Watkins.

In terms of my own life, I went to Frimley School. I was the first child born in what was then the new maternity home which my dad had shifted from … it was from memory the Green homestead, virtually opposite the hospital store shops. And he shifted that round the back, and there was an entrance in off Canning Road, and that became the new maternity wing. And I understand I was the first child born in that wing – or was it my sister? I had a sister born in 1955 who was stillborn; I correct it; it was my sister … she was the first born there. Sadly she died there. So I went to Frimley School, and I loved my time at Frimley School.

How big a school was it those days?

About eight classrooms. So there were four Primer classrooms at the back, and four Standard classrooms in the front. Les Bradley was the first headmaster, followed by Frank Cutler. Anyway, those were lovely days and it was just a very short walk out the back [speaking together] of the school, down Ikanui Road to the home.

So from Frimley School I graduated as a first day pupil at the new Heretaunga Intermediate which was opened in 1960, and those were two great years. And then from Heretaunga Intermediate to Hastings Boys’ High School, and I was there five years. Became a bit of a ratbag at Hastings Boys’ High School, but never got myself caned. I did stand at the bottom of the stairs on several occasions sweating blood, [chuckle] but never actually got myself caned. But I look back now and think, ‘Oh … those school years were the great years of our lives.’

So I left high school; worked with my dad for a year shifting houses; then my dad sold up; moved to the Wairarapa. And my first job out in the big wide world was with the Hawke’s Bay Farmers’ Motor Company in Queen Street and I was employed to work in the Parts department. So I was in the Parts department for two years and then I moved into the Administration department. And in the three or four years prior to that, I’d been very involved with a young people’s group at St Matthew’s Anglican Church in Hastings, so in 1970 I actually went to St John’s Theological College in Auckland because I thought, ‘Well this might be my vocation in the ordained ministry.’ Had a great year there; academically wasn’t very successful, but everything else was pretty successful. Loved that year – one of the great years of my life – but at the end of that year I thought, ‘No, no, I’m too much a practical sort of guy out in the wide world.’ So I came back to Hawke’s Bay Farmers’ Motor Company, and shortly after that they merged with Baillie Motors and so the …

Where was the Hawke’s Bay Motor Company?

It’s in Queen Street, where the old Briscoe’s building is. You’ve got Hawke’s Bay Farmers’ Co-Op [Co-operative] Association on the corner; if you come back west there’s an old building with a curved roof, that was the Hawke’s Bay Farmers’ Motor Company. So they were General Motors agents. It was a division of the Hawke’s Bay Farmers’ Co-op.

So with the merger of the two companies I was transferred down to the Baillie Motors site, and I spent … well, I was there ‘til the late 1970s, yeah. And then while I was there I had purchased another Scammell from the Army. I still had Dad’s transporter and people still wanted buildings moved. So I’d start my day at three o’clock in the morning and I’d go knocking out chimneys of buildings that had to be moved; [chuckle] come home at half past seven, jump in the shower, dress up with a white shirt and tie, and then I’d do my eight hours at Baillie Farmers; then scream home, get into my old clothes and back out preparing houses for removal. And then when it was time to move a house I’d say to them, “I just need half a day off … I need the morning off.” So we’d move a house, and then daylight … morning or evening, weekends, we’d put the foundations in, get the job done. Probably spent two years doing that, but it was totally impractical; totally impossible.

Then the boss said one day, “Look, Kevin”, he said, “I think you’d better make up your mind whether you want to shift houses or you want to be here.” And I said, “Look, shifting houses is really in my heart, so I think that it’s time to go.” So that’s what I did; went full time shifting houses and boats, and pulling trees and all those things that I’d done with my dad. The only that I didn’t do was get involved in harvesting, because my dad, in those early forties, fifties and sixties in summertime – he had mechanical threshing mills – and he would go out threshing in the summertime and I would go out with him. But I didn’t follow that in later life. So I shifted many houses and buildings and churches in the Hawke’s Bay district, but predominantly Hastings and Napier.

And then we had the opportunity … at the time of the new millennium I saw a window of opportunity to claim a little bit of fame for the Watkins family, seeing we had been involved in shifting houses and changing the face of Hastings for three generations. So at midnight … on the stroke of midnight 2000, I moved a house in Percival Road in Hastings which belonged to the Hill family … Ted and Jean Hill. And because we were in daylight saving time we repeated that move on the stroke of 1am, just to make sure that we couldn’t technically be tripped up. So we did that without permits; without any Police escorts; we unlawfully blocked the road [chuckle] so no other traffic could come down it. And we had nice professional signs made to put on the building, to say this was the ‘first building moved in the world in the new millennium’. So that was just a little opportunity we took and a little claim to fame, and I feel quite proud about that.

So I carried on shifting buildings and then local government had always been of some interest to myself. My dad had quite a lot to do with the Borough Council and then the City Council, talking with councillors of the day and the mayors of the day. And I always felt quite a love for Hastings; I thought it was a special place. So local government elections 2001, I thought, ‘Oh … I’m going to have a go. I could be a councillor; I could shift houses; this would work quite well.’ So I put my name in the hat, and very luckily I was elected. I was the second highest poller of that election in 2001. So I carried on moving houses and then it very quickly became apparent that I wasn’t going to be able to wear two hats so I thought, ‘I’ve got to do one thing successfully, and let one thing go.’ And the local government was a big interest so I thought, ‘Well, I’ve done the house shifting, I feel like I’ve kept the family tradition going; I can let that go.’ And so that’s what happened; and as at today I’m in my sixth term as a councillor. So that was good.

So anyway, in my personal life I met my first wife, Denise Black, ‘bout 1972. She was the daughter of Jack Black, who was the manager of Baillie Farmers’ Havelock North. We were married at St Matthew’s in 1974, and we had three sons, Mark, Jono and Bradley. Mark and Jono are still living in the Hastings district. The youngest son, Bradley, is a helicopter pilot, and he traverses oceans all round the world on fishing boats. He flies off the deck in the helicopters and fish spotters.

So my eldest son, Mark, has two granddaughters, Olivia and Jessie. Both those girls are now going to Woodford House. The middle son, Jono, has one son, little Ralphie who’s just one year old. And Brad hasn’t married or … any family at this stage.

So when we were married we lived in Frimley; we lived in a little flat in Nottingley Road for two years. Then I bought a property in Ballantyne Place with the old homestead on it, and did that up – spent about three years doing that up. And I moved that house out to Clive and I bought a much more modern homestead off the Hedgeley Estate in Bay View; and I moved that home …

Well, that was the Holt ..?

Yes. Yes. I moved that home on to the property in [at] Ballantyne Place and that’s where we lived. And then about 1990 … maybe less; 1990 bought a five-acre property in Lyndhurst Road. So we lived there; we had an orchard … stonefruit orchard. And then things weren’t too good so the family split up, and [the] Lyndhurst property was sold. And I moved and bought a property where we are now, Ikanui Place.

About 2015 I met a lovely young lady by the name of Carina; and that was an amazing set of coincidences how that happened, but that would probably take too long for this recording, I think. [Chuckle]

No, it wouldn’t actually.

Okay. [Bird chirping in background] Well, during my time on Council I’ve been very involved with the China connection – Hastings-Guilin and the greater China connection. And that has become one of my major portfolios. About 2013 a big bus load of Chinese people who lived in Auckland and who were members of the Catholic community in Auckland had bussed down to Hawke’s Bay for a weekend – a long weekend. The organiser of the tour had supposedly made all the arrangements with someone here to book accommodation, itinerary, sightseeing and all those things. It seems the bus load of people arrived in Napier; they stopped, and the tour leader rang this lady and said, “Look, we’re here with the bus – where do we stay?” And the lady said, “Well I hadn’t actually heard any more from you so I’ve done nothing about it.” So here’s a bus of forty-eight people. So somehow, the lady on the bus was given the Napier City Council number to phone, so in a blind panic she phoned Napier City Council. And they apparently said, “Look, we can’t help you, but there’s a councillor in Hastings by the name of Kevin Watkins who deals with Chinese – I’ll give you his number.” So Friday afternoon I’m just driving back home and the phone goes; I pull over and here’s this lady, and she says, “Look, I’m in a terrible predicament.” She said, “I’m in a bus with forty-eight people; we’ve got no accommodation; don’t know what we’re going to do here for the next three days – is there any way you could suggest something?” I said, “Look, just tell the bus driver [to] stay where he is; get out of the bus, get some fresh air; give me ten minutes.” So I rang the Angus Inn – Graham … I said, “Graham, look – we’ve got an emergency.” I said, “Do you reckon you can put forty-eight people up for three nights?” He said, “Yeah, we can do it.” So I rang back and I said, “Look, bring the bus to Hastings to the Angus Inn; I will be there to meet you.” So the bus duly came over, everyone got off, and I said, “Look – if you’ve got no itinerary, I’m happy to come on the bus with you for the next three days and I’ll show you everything you need to see.” So we did that, and we had a wonderful time, it was a brilliant trip. So these people go back to Auckland, and they said, “Look, if you ever come to Auckland just let us know; we’ll be at the airport waiting for you, we’ll take you to lunch”, and … blah blah blah.

So anyway a few months later I did go back to Auckland and I rang the tour organiser who was on the bus, and she met me. And we went to a restaurant and here were some of the others from that group and we had a dinner. That was good … lovely. So I thought, ‘That’s the end of the story.’ But it wasn’t. The following December … this is a year later … December the 31st I’m meant to be flying to China. In the morning I hadn’t felt too bright, so I went to my doctor and I said, “Colin”, I said, “I’m flying to China tonight and I’m not actually feeling too bright.” So he said, “Oh – look, we’d better just give you a check up at the hospital.” So I whip into the hospital straight after lunch, and they give me a check over and they said, “Oh – the liver’s not too great, we think you need to stay here.” And I said, “Well look, I’ve got to be at the airport at Napier ‘cause I’m flying to Auckland; flying out to China tonight.” They said, “Look, you’re not flying to China. So I thought, ‘Oh, what’s going on here?’ So anyway, they monitored me ‘til about six o’clock at night; and they said, “Well look, everything sort of looks all right. You’re not going to China, but go home.” You know? So I went home. Been home about ten minutes and my phone goes, and it’s the lady who was the tour organiser on the bus. “Oh Kevin”, she said, “I’m in Hastings with three friends – we’ve just arrived, and we’re going to spend New Year’s night here and a couple of days. Do you think you’d like to catch up with us and perhaps show us round?” I thought, “Oh God! Of all nights”, you know. I thought, “Oh well, I’d better do it, so I said, “Yeah, look I’ll do that.” So I jumped in my car, go down and meet them, and they’re staying at a motel in Windsor Avenue; meet the three friends, and one of the friends was this delightful Malaysian lady.

Aha!

So the next two days I take them round everywhere. We go to the orchards and we buy fruit and we dine out and we have a lovely time. I did sort of just keep looking at this one lady, and I thought, ‘Gosh, she’s always smiling; she always looks happy – what a lovely lady.’ Never thought any more about it. But I did say to her before she left – I said, “Look, do you mind if we swap phone numbers?” You know? “If ever you come back to Hastings give me a ring; perhaps if I go to Auckland I’ll give you a call.” So we did that, and it was a few months later I was going back to Auckland so I phoned this lady, Carina, and I said, “Look, I don’t anything about you – are you married? Family or anything like that?” “No, no”, she said, “I’ve never been married. I’ve been in Auckland eight years; I’m living here.” She said, “My sister’s married with a family, she lives just round the corner.” And she said, “I work at a daycare.” And I said, “Look, I’m coming up to Auckland to a conference, and there’s a conference dinner.” I said, “Would you like to come to the dinner with me?” She said, “Oh, I’d be more than happy to do that; that’s fine.” So we did that and it was lovely, and it was purely a friendship; a friendship friendship.

And anyway, I’m sort of here by myself and I thought, ‘Well, this is sort of … lovely lady and she speaks Cantonese and Mandarin; and my deep involvement with China, you know, there could be some meshing of some cogs here.’ So one thing led to another, and we saw a little bit more of each other, and Carina came down here and had a look at Hastings. And then we decided … well, she’s living by herself, I’m living by myself, we thought we could get together and make a nice family together …

Makes a lovely story, actually.

Yeah. So it was an amazing coincidence – the bus; that the arrangements weren’t made; I was meant to be going to China and the hospital put the kybosh and said, “You’re not going to China, you’re staying here.” This lady happened to pick Carina to come with her to Hastings. [Chuckle] So it is a lovely story, and that’s a story I’m really happy to share.

Yes. You spoke earlier about … your grandfather married a Powdrell …

Corban. Grandad married a Corban, but two of his sisters married two Powdrell brothers.

That’s right. So you’ve been involved with the Hastings District Council now you said for … this your eighteenth year?

2001, so seventeen, yes.

I’ve seen on the front of … Father Christmas every year, and at Blossom Festivals, and …

Yeah, you’re right, Frank. We’ll talk about Father Christmas first and that goes back to my dad. My dad was a member of the Home Servicemen’s Association here in Hastings, and every year just before Christmas my dad’d get an old canvas canopy and put [it] on the back of his truck, and they’d throw an old couch in the back; and then one of the members would dress up as Father Christmas … sit on the couch. Alan Hughes who owned Columbus Radio was a member, so he’d bring down a speaker and an amp [amplifier] and they’d wire all that up. Fred Sullivan who was … I think he was the boss of the milk treatment station … he’d bring cartons of old aluminium-coloured top offcuts. So on the Friday night before, they would go round visiting all the members. The guys’d come round home, into the shed, we’d get the canopy on, throw some of this tinsel on, big sign on the side that said Home Servicemen’s Association, put the couch in the back. By this time it was nine o’clock, and then the whiskies’d come out and everything else; and the guys would have a bit of a lair up. [Throat clearing] Then on the Saturday morning ‘bout nine o’clock, Santa would be dressed up; he’d get on the back of the deck sitting on a couch and there’d be a padded carton of Frosty Jack [chuckle] ice-cream tubs and some lollies, and there were a couple of other chairs. And I would often go on the rounds; so they’d drive round to each Home Servicemen member’s home and a loud speaker would go, “Father Christmas is here! Father Christmas is here!” The kids’d come out, get their ice-cream and their lollies; and it was a tradition that the family invited Father Christmas in for a cup of tea and a little piece of cake. Well I can remember, Frank, in the morning it always was cups of tea and a bit of cake. But after midday it was something a little stronger; and by the time we got to about five o’clock in the afternoon, I suspect everyone was very well lubricated, ‘cause I know Dad was driving the truck an awful lot faster than he was in the morning. [Chuckles] And the ‘ho-ho-hos’ [chuckle] were an awful lot louder than [chuckle] what they were in the morning. [Chuckle]

But what I remembered and what has always stuck with me was the thrill of Father Christmas actually going to people’s homes and walking in their front gate. Now at that time in Hastings – and you might remember this – Roach’s used to have a Santa grotto at the back of the shop; and hundreds of people … families … would go in it at night, and you’d walk in the grotto. So that was one way of seeing Father Christmas. This was an alternate way, that Santa was coming to your home.

Previous to that I’d been involved in some of the Christmas Parades in Hastings, and I made Christmas floats; I had a little bit of creative flair. But [a]round 2000 I said, “Right – I’m going to build a float on the back of my little trailer that we can tow [a]round, and we’ll just drive past people’s houses, not stopping – just going to drive [a]round. So I built this little float with three Christmas candles, there was no Father Christmas, and we drove [a]round. And gosh! People were looking up and waving and smiling, and cars were tooting. I thought, ‘Well this thing actually could progress.’ So the next year I built a better sleigh on a bigger trailer. We still didn’t have any reindeer, but my mate Ross Sweetman said, “Oh”, he said, “I’ll dress up as Father Christmas and sit on it.” So we did this, and we got more toots and waves. So I said to Ross, “Look Ross – there’s nothing like this in Hastings. The Christmas Parades had stopped; there’s nothing in the shops; let’s make this something for Hastings.” So we purchased two reindeer … lovely model reindeer … and we built a back on the float with some organ pipes, and we coloured it up. And we had some music. So we went round streets and schools and … oh, the response was greater again. So I came home and said, “Ross, we’ve only got two reindeer.” I said, “We need something a bit more spectacular.” So we were gifted another four reindeer by a very generous gentleman in Hastings, and he saw the value to the community. So we built another sleigh, and we built the float a little bit bigger; and so now we had six reindeer. So we did that for about three years, and then we got one more reindeer to have seven, and we built the float that we’ve got now. I’d have to say that’s probably one of the most exciting things I have done to generate community interaction and response. People when they hear the music, they just flock out on to the footpaths; the kids are dancing and bouncing, and it’s just a …

This year about two or three weeks before Christmas I got a ring from Tremains who I worked for for twenty-four years; and they said, “We’d like you to be Father Christmas.” They had a Santa’s cave in the Havelock office, dressed up beautifully. It was only five or six nights, two hour stints, but it was so hot!

I don’t think it’s the last year for you, somehow …

It is actually. No – I’m eighty-one now. [Chuckles]

Look, Frank, we do about eighteen hundred kilometres just driving round the streets of Hastings; that’s what we clock up over the four weeks. We have had some pretty tearful experiences with people, and we’ve had some pretty horrible experiences. We’ve been bottled by the Mongrel Mob … beer bottles … and that’s not nice when beer bottles are smashing on the float and on the road, and these guys are tearing after you and … you don’t know if your life’s in danger. Had that; and we’ve had tearful moments where we’ve gone to visit people who are very close to the end of their life; and the joy that that’s bought them, and just the magic moments. We have unashamedly cried ourselves, and the people who’ve been there have cried, ‘cause it’s just one of those moments in time in your life where everything comes together.

So I’ve often thought, ‘Well, we’ve done Father Christmas long enough; perhaps we should stop.’ But my mate Ross [chuckle] … about June he says, “Well I’m just thinking what we’re going to do this year on the float.”

Is he still being Father Christmas?

He’s been my sole Father Christmas from year one.

That’s wonderful.

Yeah. We’ve appeared on national television; and the tens of thousands of photos that’ve been taken. And many of those by international tourists. If I see a tourist take a photo of the float I just feel happy, because I think somewhere in the world they are going to go home, and they’re going to show their photos to their family and they’ll look at that Father Christmas and think, ‘That was in Hastings, New Zealand.’ So I feel pretty happy about that.

So that was the Christmas thing; and Blossom Parade floats … again, this is a follow-on from my dad. In the fifties and sixties we always helped Thodey’s Orchard make their floats … Doug Thodey. So Doug Thodey always made a natural blossom float. Thodeys and Pernels were the two who really went for natural blossoms. So I remember working late at nights, Friday nights on the Thodey float. And then I started building floats about … hmm … be probably the mid 1990s. And I’ve had a reasonable amount of success; I think I’ve won ‘Best in Parade’ five times.

Well that’s pretty good.

And I love it, because to me the Blossom Parade is Hastings. This is what brought Hastings people together – ‘The Fruit Bowl of New Zealand’, and we celebrated it with a Blossom Parade. So I look forward to that and I’ll be building a float for this year’s …

Now you mentioned Guilin. You’ve been very involved as the Council’s rep [representative] on that for some time now; would you just like to say a few words about that?

Yeah – really from the first year I was elected on Council, 2001. I had always been interested in the sister city relationship, ‘cause as you know, Frank, that was the first New Zealand – China relationship, signed in 1981. So when I got on Council I wanted to immerse myself, to understand more about the relationship. I went to China the first time with a Council delegation in 2004, not really knowing what to expect. I had a mental image of what China would be like; when I went to China it turned that mental image completely upside down. And I really just fell in love with the people; the most warm-hearted, generous, kind people. And I was lucky enough to see some of the beauty of the culture, and I fell in love with that. And I guess in lots of ways that changed my life; I came back here with this very real-life experience of China, and trying to balance in my mind what we had here, and what we take for granted. And yeah, that has certainly coloured my life since then. So I’ve immersed myself in the relationship; some would say too deeply, but I don’t think so. I’ve been to China fourteen times now.

But from the political point of view round our Council table, I don’t think I’m exaggerating to say I’ve been the person who’s actually driven the relationship and made sure the wheels and the cogs are oiled and turned. I’ve been the one who’s burnt the midnight candle and done the long hours to make sure things happen. And I guess an extension of that is the lighting of the Chinese Garden; that week every year – that’s something that’s really special.

And what struck me, Frank, was, I had the opportunity to visit many secondary schools in China and I saw the work ethic and the time, you know, they put into education. And I came back here, and I thought, ‘Well the Chinese young people are smart; education is their number one goal, and they’ll work twenty-three hours a day, seven days a week to achieve.’ And I looked at our kids, and I looked at my own kids, and I thought, you know, ‘Our kids are going to be competing against these kids before too long, and so I need to try and make our students aware of what their competitors are going to be like.’ So I arranged a series of projects, and the object of those projects was to let our secondary school students understand the history, the culture, the education, and to create some interaction. Those projects have been pretty successful, and the last one, 2015, was called ‘The Amazing China Face Race’. That involved our students having to identify one person in the whole of China. So 1.36 billion people; they had to find one person, and all they had was that person’s face. So we designed the competition to give them a little bit of a helping hand by taking them through every province in China, learning about that province, its political side, economy side, the history, the culture; and eventually they would come to one province where this face could be found.

That was a pretty successful programme which won national honours here; was picked up by the Chinese news media as something totally unique – they’d never heard of anything like this. And Hastings got television publicity that we would never, ever, ever be able to buy. They sent television teams out here that filmed in our secondary schools that are trying to get international students from China; they filmed the hinterlands, they filmed the plains, our produce, and … we had two programmes shown at New Year – two twenty-five minute programmes on Chinese New Year – the biggest viewing audience of the year – for free. Two twenty-five minutes, showcasing Hastings.

That’s amazing, yes.

Things you can do. So we’re doing another one of these projects this year, 2018, and we’ve chosen a face. And the China Culture Centre, which is part of the Ministry of Culture in Beijing – they’re onto it; so they’re in behind us. And all the sponsorship virtually, is coming from the China end to make this thing work. So this is sort of the flow-on effect from the Guilin sister city relationship.

So what do you do to relax?

What do I do to relax? Well I guess my relaxation has really been doing more in the China area. But look, I love to go out and sit on the beach with my fishing rod. I guess I’m a keen fisherman but I don’t get out too often. I love trout fishing in Taupo, and I haven’t been on the lake for six years. But I can go out to the beach here with my rod, cast out, sit down in my chair, and within five minutes everything in my mind has gone. So it’s just a total refuel, refresh, relax.

And are you successful?

I have been known to catch the odd fish, Frank. [Chuckle]

That’s being honest.

That’s being honest. But I love my gardening, and I love my lawns; I love my gardening. And Carina and I … we like to go out occasionally, we’ll enjoy a coffee and look around the shops, and … yeah; just enjoy a good life.

So is there anything you’ve forgotten to tell me?

There’s about six hours of things I’ve forgotten to tell you, Frank. [Chuckle]

I’ve still got plenty of tape.

You’ve still got plenty of tape. I think we should talk about the years of harvesting with my dad.

Yes. That’s quite unique, ‘cause a lot of people wouldn’t even know what a tin mill [?] was, apart from those of us that [who] stood on them in the dust and …

Yes. Yeah. So my dad’s initial threshing experience with the traction engines and the old box mills and the horses, you know … bringing all the hay in, and the hay stacks, and the dust and grime. Well my dad moved out of that, and he bought a stationary case baler; and he bought ‘62 model International tractor-drawn pickup harvesters. Now the old case baler – I think there were two guys sitting on the end of it; one guy would be feeding in the top, and there were shuttles that they would put in and then they’d have to push wires through really quickly, and tie the wires up. And if you didn’t get the shuttles quite right you’d end up with a big bale or a smaller bale.

Most of the harvesting I can remember was done in Evenden Road for Laurie Sweeney. And I would go out with my dad in the morning and I would always be on the mill. And it was a two bag mill, and we had a nice piece of – I guess it was almost four by four rimu or matai with a pointed end – and that was your rammer. And you would stand on the back there in the dust, and you’d ram and ram one bag; and when that got full you’d switch over so the seed would fall into the other bag, and the full bag you’d pull off. And you’d grab your big needle and your string, and you’d put it through and a couple of wraps round the end, and then a few stitches and a couple of wraps round the other end. And you’d throw that on the tray that you could tip off at the appropriate point. My job was sort of watching, and helping where I could until I got old enough to be able to ram and sew the bags myself. And they were … God, they were hot days! [Chuckle]

But Laurie Sweeney … at lunchtime we were always invited into the home, and there’d be a lovely big hot meal cooked for us; and then we’d go out again. And I think we could probably only thresh about ten acres a day – that was about it.

But I remember we’d come home dirty, dusty, tired; go to sleep; wake up in the morning and I couldn’t prise my eyes open – they were glued. So I’d feel my way down the hallway to the bathroom, get the taps on and you’d spend a couple of minutes just washing your eyes ‘til you could finally pull one [chuckles] open, and then you’re off for another day’s harvesting.

I do remember one incident – it was a little bit naughty really; but I was bagging on the mill, and Laurie Sweeney, the owner, was driving round in a Ferguson tractor with a steel tray on the back, and he would pick up the bags and put in the tray and drive them off. And I’d obviously sewn up a very lightweight bag, and I watched Laurie sort of pick this bag up, and he turned round and he was shaking his fist at me; and that was the message, that the bag was …

Too light.

So I thought well I’d better do a heavy bag. So we went round and round the paddock, and while I was flicking other bags off there was one bag that I just kept … ram, and ram, and ram, and ram, and ram. And I rammed this bag so tight you wouldn’t get another seed in it. Well I couldn’t actually get it off [chuckle] … off the frame. So I struggled and I sewed this bag up. Well I couldn’t even move it, so I let it fall off … I was trying to [chuckle] … trying with all my strength just to get it on to the tray; and I finally got it on to the tray, tipped it off onto the ground. And then I watched Laurie come along with the Fergie and he pulled up beside the bag and he jumped off; and he had a little two-claw thing, and he bent down and he put it in and he went to pull it up. Well Laurie stopped. [Chuckle] The bag never moved off the ground, [chuckles] and he turned round [chuckles] and I can still see [laughter] that fist. So that was one of those naughty things you do.

It was a battle all the time; I remember this happening on mills with sacks of seed; with rye corn. You could ram one so tight that two men could hardly lift it off the ground. ‘Cause they were big double-stripers.

Big bales.

So what sort of tractor did you draw the ..?

Well Dad’s first tractor was a … he bought a new Fordson tractor. That would be about … maybe ‘49, ‘50.

So that’d be an E27N …

Big wheels. He bought that tractor to help demolish the Red Bridge. My dad demolished the old wooden Red Bridge, and that was ‘bout ‘49, ‘50.

Yes, I rode over the new concrete bridge. In fact I interviewed the guy who was one of the designers of the Red Bridge, last week.

Gosh! Well Dad pulled the old one down, sold all the timber, and he made a lot of money.

Big timber …

Yeah. So that was his first tractor and mill. Then he bought another ‘62 International mill, and a McCormick International W9, and that was my tractor. Yeah, so as a young fellow I moved from bagging [to] driving. I was only young, but we’d drive down the road together; I’d follow Dad, pass a traffic cop, he’d only look at the front driver. So those were great harvesting days, and …

Oh, absolutely! Those photos of all the men standing in front of the box mill, all in their worsted trousers and all wearing waistcoats. They weren’t sissies; and that was in the heat of summer.

Well in our day it was just shorts. Bare body and shorts, and we turned black, you know – very, very dark. And who knows that might have been the wrong thing he did, because he did have a cancerous mole taken off his back in the late sixties.

They all smoked – the lot of them. Did you father smoke?

Oh, my dad! There’s not a photo I’ve got [chuckle] of my dad without a cigarette in his mouth.

There are other reasons for getting the lurgy, aren’t there?

[Chuckle]

So my grandfather built a small box mill himself, and the quality of seed that came out of it was exceptionally high. It had quite a reputation. And they were doing some threshing out at Mangateretere in a field opposite the nine-hole golf course. So they left the mill there that night – they’d finished the work, left the mill there that night – and ‘bout three hours later they got a phone call to say the mill’s gone up on fire. And then someone said, “We saw Percy Pilcher just driving past there”, not long before the phone call. Now apparently there was a fair bit of competition between my grandad and Percy Pilcher …

Yes.

… and this mill was getting a name for itself as being an exceptional mill. And the family always believed that Percy might’ve put a candle in it, just to … Whether there’s any truth in that or not, I don’t know, but that’s just one of those …

That would have been in Wedds’ paddock that your mill could’ve been …

Well apparently years afterwards – many years afterwards when they turned it over, they’d find … odd bolt and nut, and a bit of steel from the fire. Yes. That was quite interesting.