Wellwood, Guy Donald Joseph Interview

Today is the 8th day of February 2019. I’m interviewing Guy Wellwood of Havelock North. Guy, would you like to tell me something about your family in Havelock North and Hawke’s Bay?

Yeah, I’d love to, Frank, and appreciate the opportunity. I was born in 1953 in Christchurch and my father, Martin Wellwood, was the Field Manager for Birds Eye Foods in Christchurch. He was born in Hastings and was one of the Wellwoods of Hastings, and I can talk a bit about him later.

My mother, Fay, was a qualified lawyer herself; and she was a Matson from the Matson family which was a pioneering family of Canterbury. Her ancestor, Henry Matson, had been the First Officer on a ship called the ‘King George III’, which was a convict ship. They got as far as Tasmania and was [were] wrecked; and he came ashore in Tasmania, met the daughter of the biggest farmer on [in] Tasmania and one of the biggest in Victoria, married her and ended up being part of that family, the Manifold family, for a number of years until his wife’s two brothers sort of took over things and decided that there wasn’t much room for Henry.

So he arrived in New Zealand in, I think, the 1870s, and set up a stock and station business which he called H Matson & Co. It lasted right through the glory days of Canterbury, and was finally gobbled up by the National Mortgage in 1958. So that’s was my mother’s family; her father was Alan Matson and he died at the age of fifty-four, but he achieved an awful lot in his life. He and his two brothers were the partners in the stock and station business which they’d taken over from their father. But he was very involved in the trotting industry, and he was President of the Metropolitan at a very young age; he was President of New Zealand Trotting; he was President of Australia and New Zealand, so ran the Inter-Dominions. He was one of founders of the TAB and he was the first Chairman of the TAB. I remember a bit of him, but he died you know, when I was about four, which was very sad.

And my grandmother, Mum’s mother, was a Piper, and the Pipers had their own valley, Piper’s Valley, on Banks Peninsula near Duvauchelles. And they were very early settlers which has given me a great love of Banks Peninsula, particularly Pigeon Bay which is my favourite place, and [I’m] actually going down there next week for a few days.

Just where is Pigeon Bay?

Pigeon Bay is sort of … if you look at the map it’s sort of right next door to Port Levy, which is next door to Lyttelton; so sort of coming out the northern end of Banks Peninsula, you’ve got Lyttelton, the big harbour; Port Levy; and then you’ve got Pigeon Bay which is quite big … quite a long, big bay.

So that was it. My mother was at Rangi Ruru [Girls’ School] from when she was six ‘til when she was eighteen; she loved every day of it even though you know, she went there as a boarder at a very young age. She was good at everything; she was good academically, she was very good at sport. She went off to law school … graduated in 1951. She was the only law graduate of Canterbury University between the war and 1964. Having qualified she then didn’t want to work as a lawyer, and she went to work for Ngaio Marsh, later Dame Ngaio Marsh, my mother’s theory being it was nicer to write stories about criminals and things than to be a lawyer. So you know, I was brought up in Canterbury, which was a wonderful time and a wonderful place; and I was the oldest of four so I was surrounded by sort of doting parents and grandparents, and aunts and uncles; and I have wonderful memories of sort of those early years.

My father, Martin, was born in Hastings. His father, Arthur Otway Wellwood, had been a farmer but had lost his farm in the Depression. And that’s what sort of got my father’s family down to Christchurch, initially. My grandfather became a journalist and he ended up as the Racing editor, would you believe, for The Press. So one grandfather knew the other grandfather long before my parents were married or I came on the scene, which was quite amazing; and I’ve got a couple of photos of them.

My great-grandfather, if you like, was also Arthur Wellwood, my grandfather being the youngest of quite a number of children. I was always a bit annoyed about that, because the family story was that Arthur’s brother, Robert Wellwood, who was the famous Wellwood – first Mayor of Hastings and things – he got over here quite early on and wrote to his younger brother, Arthur, in Ireland and said, “I’ve found Paradise – come over here.” And so Arthur came over with a number of his children and my grandfather was born sort of very soon after they got to New Zealand, which meant I … you know, I could never sort of claim patriality, or get an Irish Passport, or any of these valuable sort of things. I knew that grandfather a bit; he also died in the early sixties.

The family … that’s my great-grandfather … farmed at the end of Southland Road, where the family farm was; it was Wellwood Road down there. And Robert, you know, my great, great uncle – he’s pretty well documented, and I think I said to you, Frank, I spoke, you know, to the Landmarks group about Robert; you know, died in his nineties; went bankrupt twice, ceremoniously; also married twice and had two big families, the first one here in Hawke’s Bay and the second one in the Wairarapa. So I probably don’t need to talk about Robert too much.

But my father, who died in 1996, having got to Christchurch, you know, with his family in the thirties, was sent off to Christ’s College as a day boy. Loved every moment of it; very proud of the school; knew that he was lucky to be there because his father didn’t have much money. And 1942 he left school on his eighteenth birthday, waited for a mate of his to leave school, and they both joined the Air Force. And his friend had actually just lost a brother … pilot, over Germany. So it was you know … pretty traumatic time. And Dad worked briefly on a farm in North Canterbury; joined the Air Force, and was lucky enough – and I think, you know, it was just – he thought at the time he was very lucky to be sent to the Pacific in ‘44; he was there in ‘44 and ‘45. He tells me that he never ran into anyone who was younger than him, in the Pacific, you know, he was a very young aircraftsman to be sent away. And at the end of the war, you know, all set to be sent to Japan and things, and then suddenly told the war was over. [Clock chimes] Came back to New Zealand; under the rehab [rehabilitation] scheme they said to him, you know, “You seem to have done very well at bookkeeping”, you know, “and you always were top of the class but you don’t seem to’ve done anything else”, you know. “Why don’t you become an accountant, and we’ll push you through and make you qualified as an accountant, ‘cause we need accountants.” Dad said, “Oh no – I’ve had enough of exams and paperwork and things; and I enjoyed my few months working on a farm before the war; I’d like to be a farmer.” He initially worked in Woodville, and whenever we drive through Woodville we can see a row of pine trees that are almost gone, that he planted; we can see a little whare out the back of a group of farm buildings where he lived. And he was in Woodville in the late forties.

Two things happened in Woodville. One was he took up swimming, you know? He’d swum a bit without distinction in earlier years; but he took up swimming and sort of trained and trained and trained, and he ended up being Manawatu Swimming Champion, 1947. Forgotten what distance it was, but he was very proud of that. And the other person he ran into in Woodville, who I think was also a returned serviceman, was Murray McKearney who was working I think for Dalgety’s. And he says he went along to the stockyards one day, and Murray McKearney was having his first go at auctioneering. And he said he was hopeless and he went up to Murray and said, “I’m sorry, McKearney – you haven’t got what it takes to be an auctioneer; [chuckle] you’d better try something else.” [Laughter] And Murray … I don’t know if you knew Murray, but Murray always sort of held it against Dad that he hadn’t shown his initial encouragement. Of course McKearney was a great auctioneer, you know …

He was, yes.

… there was no question about that; one of the greatest, and you know, world class almost. So Dad got that wrong.

He then moved back to this part of the world. He was very keen on getting back to Hawke’s Bay; that’s where a lot of his mates were. An uncle of his gave him the motorbike of his cousin who’d been killed in the Pacific … Brian; so he was pretty mobile. And he worked for a chap called Ewan Ballantyne over at sort of Poraiti … that sort of way. And he learnt a lot of business tricks from Ewan Ballantyne, who I actually met later – he was still farming with his two sons in the area [in] 1980 when I got here. But he worked for Ewan Ballantyne who was very tough – very sort of, you know – pay him a pittance and expected a lot.

Then you know, after the war when, you know … rehab schemes and things … initially they favoured people who were married. But then they sort of said, “Well we’ve still got a few farms around the place”, and a farm came up in Wainuiomata – what is now the town of Wainuiomata was a farm. And Dad was put on to this by his sister who lived in Wellington, and he had everything all sort of organised to buy this farm … family money, [clock chimes] loans, bank loans; you know, all that sort of stuff; and an old aunt, old Aunt Annie, who lived in Southland Road, said, “Oh Martin”, you know, “there’s no need for you to buy a farm down Wainui”, you know. “You’ve got the family farm – I want you to take it over.” You know, and she was at that stage in charge of it all; she was the last …

She was the matriarch.

… yeah, she was the matriarch, exactly. Never been married, but sort of lived there and ran things. And so Dad said, “Oh, that’s very nice.” So back he came to Hastings and sort of worked on the family farm.

[Clock chimes] Next thing that happened is he went down to Christchurch to see his parents, and ended up … and it’s a nice story … ended up meeting my mother and getting married in a time, you know, when everyone was doing that, you know, all his friends. My parents used to say they had six weddings in about six weeks, you know – just of all their friends, many of whom were returned servicemen and things. My father didn’t know my mother, but he certainly knew my grandfather and thought he was getting a really good catch – as he was. So they got married, and the plan was, return to Hawke’s Bay, run the family farm and eventually sort of take it over. So back they came. They actually boarded with a chap called Gordon Beattie, who …

I knew Gordon very well …

Yeah.

… he taught me smallbore rifle shooting.

Oh really? I was hoping that was the case. I’ve met Gordon’s son in recent years, which you know, is part of being a New Zealander in a small village. But Gordon Beattie … I think his wife had just died, and he was alone. So Mum sort of cooked for Gordon and Dad worked on the farm. That’s when I was conceived.

The trouble was Aunt Annie was quite happy with my father but the idea that my father had married was just absolutely sort of, you know, an anathema for her; you know, she couldn’t ask for anyone better than Mum, but you know, it was a very different scene – she didn’t have Martin to himself. [Herself] So she quietly sort of made it known to Dad that you know, he wasn’t going to get the farm – he was no longer the sort of favoured nephew, and that sort of thing. So my parents said, “Oh well”, you know, “back we go to Canterbury.”

Dad applied for and got the job as as the sort of Field Manager for Birds Eye Foods, which was a division of Lever Bros … Unilever … and they’d recently set up in Canterbury and they were doing pioneering frozen foods. His boss was a chap called Ron Cambie who [is] still alive – and Ron and June were friends then, and they’re still alive and we send Christmas cards; they’re getting very old – and he worked in the office. I still remember the day, and it would have been about 1958, when Dad said, “I’ve employed this Englishman as the fish and meat buyer, and he’s going to go round and buy fish and whitebait and chickens, and all sorts of things, and we’re going to freeze them up.” So out we went to the airport and met this new chap, Graeme … what’s his name? G E S Lowe … Graeme Edward [Eric] Selby Lowe; great big tall guy; he boarded with my uncle on my mother’s side, and he became part of the family really. And the accountant in the office in Christchurch was a young North Canterbury boy, been to Boys’ High, called John Foster …

You’re joking!

… Martin John Foster, I think it was. And I’ve got a picture somewhere of the factory, and there’s Lowe and Foster. And anyway, once again they were very sort of happy times. And my father had this job, he worked very hard at it; we were very much part of the small team that were there. We socialised together – I remember the picnics we used to go on … the work picnics and things. And I also remember my mother coming in one morning and I was still in bed, and she said, “Oh, I’ve got to tell you something, Guy – we’re going to go and live in Hastings. The Birds Eye factory has been moved from Christchurch to Hastings.” You know, this is 1959 – it’s a very interesting fact in itself that this English firm had decided that Hastings was a more exciting place than [chuckle] Christchurch basically. And she said, “The second thing”, she said, “that means you’re going to have to be a boarder at Christ’s College.” My mother was – and once again I’m very proud of this – I think she was the granddaughter, daughter, sister, mother, grandmother of Christ’s College old boys; it was a very important part of her life, and to me this was … you know, this was serious stuff.

So up we went, and we had a wonderful trip up; we drove up, two cars, and stayed with various people on the way; called in for lunches and breakfasts and coffee. Came across on the ferry and drove up here, and we ended up staying in Te Mata Motel. And we stayed there for a night, and the next morning we … we had rented a house up in Emerald Hill … and we drove up, and there was Graeme Lowe sitting on the side of the road, and he followed us up to the house. And Mother said, “Oh, Graeme – have you found somewhere to live?” “No I haven’t, I’ve been looking everywhere, but …” She said, “You’re living with us.” So Graeme lived with us; he boarded with us, he was like my brother for about a year, until he met Jenny. John Foster came up, and I remember, you know, John and his wife bought a place in McHardy Street; and you know, it was sort of fun to be part of that whole sort of exercise, and I remember it well.

The Agricultural Manager of Birds Eye in Hastings, which had been going for a while, was a chap called Fred Webb who was one of the Webbs of Webb’s Nurseries, and a brother of Len Webb, you know, who was the accountant. And Fred was a wonderful chap but he’d taken to the bottle, and he couldn’t sort of manage the pace of this business. So Dad, who was twenty years younger than him, sort of took on the role as Agricultural Manager; had a number of staff working for him, including Fred, a chap called Geoff Lowe, and another guy called Cosgrove – I think it was Peter Cosgrove, who went to Australia in the end – and his future successor, a chap called Clarry Napier. And they all had cars with radio telephones and it was really big; bigger than Wattie’s in those days, although Dad had a very good relationship with Bob June who was his contemporary in Wattie’s.

And the pea season was a sort of real high; Dad would leave the house at five in the morning, get home at sort of midnight; get a call to say some machine had broken down. It was really tough, but once again you know, it seemed like forever but it was until ‘63.

And then one day Dad sort of said, “Oh, I’ve had enough of Birds Eye – I’ve chucked it in, and I’m going to form a company with a whole lot of guys that I’ve met.” And they bought Clearmont, which was a dairy farm owned by the Struthers family, between Riverslea Road and Railway Road. It was still a dairy farm when we first saw it, and Dad sort of got rid of all the cows and the dairy shed and things. And he leased some land on the other side of Railway Road, and it was basically going to be sheep, a few crops, vegetables, and he was going to grow peaches, which were really sort of starting to take off then; and apples … dwarf apples. And my younger brother James, who was you know, very young, and I and my older sister – we all sort of worked, you know, we picked asparagus, and we helped out and things. And what happened there, basically, was a couple of bad years with [a] downturn in the economy, and they got frost one year which knocked things around, and expenses were always higher and returns were always lower. And in the end Dad said to his directors and things, “Oh well stuff it”, you know, “I’m getting out of here.”

One interesting thing that had happened was that my dear old aunt who’d sort of turned away Mum and Dad from farming, died. And she left Dad not much, but he had sort of bought out his sisters and his cousins and things like this; and he had a bit of land which he then sold for the exorbitant price of £500 an acre – was enormous money. [Chuckle] So he had a bit of cash, so what he did was he set up a whole lot of fruit and vegetable shops – I think there were four of them, one in Napier, one in Raureka, one in the middle of Hastings, with the idea that, really you know, this is what Hawke’s Bay needed. It wasn’t a great success. He had quite a bad car accident that knocked him around; and generally it all just sort of fizzled.

So one day – it was about the time I got my School Cert [Certificate] results, 1969 – Dad announced at the breakfast table, “I’m going to go over to West [Western] Australia; it’s really happening in Perth. I’m going to go over there for a trip and see what’s there; and I think we should all go over there as a family.” And it was tears for everybody. Mum said, you know, “You’re crazy!” So anyway, a couple of days later it was announced, “No, I’m not going to Western Australia, but I’ll go to Auckland.” So Dad went up to Auckland and looked for a job, and I’ll tell you a little bit about that. What was quite interesting is my mother started practising law. She worked for a guy called Ian Heath. And they were really close, and she loved it. And Ian offered her a partnership, and you know, they were prosperous times for lawyers and things. But she was on her own because Dad was in Auckland; and she said it was very interesting that all the so-called social friends and things just looked the other way. And we rented a little house at the bottom of Simla Avenue … so bottom of Emerald Hill, in Simla Avenue …and all sorts of people who’d been very close to us in earlier years drove up and down the road and didn’t even sort of stop, and didn’t even want to wave, and thought that, you know, Mum was past it. And she always sort of resented that.

My father got a job at the Balmoral Supermarket in Balmoral in Auckland, as the Fruit and Vegetable manager. He did very well at that, and he said to Mum, “Bring the family up.” And so up we went – 1970 it was. And I was a boarder at Christ’s College at that stage, so I was only there in the holidays, but I remember the move up there. Dad had sort of organised things – he’d organised for us to rent a house on the beach at Kohimarama, [chuckle] would you believe. I mean the house was … they ended up taking the house away and floating it off to Waiheke, [Island] and it’s now got apartment blocks and things on it. But Dad organised this, and so life was just a perpetual holiday, and Auckland was fun, and we settled into that.

And it’s quite interesting, because the other day Margaret sort of said, “Look, Guy, there’s piles of stuff, you know, you’ve got to start clearing it out.” And this before I’d been approached by you, Frank. And I was reading a whole lot of letters that my parents had sent me my last year at school; and my father said, ‘Oh, I was called into the boss’s office the other day and told that I was moving from fruit and vegetables to groceries, and I was effectively going to be the sort of assistant manager of the supermarket; and then I was going to be offered a manager’s position.’ And you know, I often think, you know … would we have ended up like the Kellys or the Smiths, or you know … multi-millionaires? Dad said, “Oh, I’ve got to sort of borrow some money, but they’ll set me up and see me right.” And I thought, ‘Well you know, that’s good – it’s not what he’s trained for, but he’s very good at sort of the bookkeeping.’ He was a very good manager, Dad, the workers always sort of loved him. You know, he didn’t have a great business brain but he did the job well. So I sort of thought, ‘Oh, this is going to be interesting, you know; oh, maybe, you know, that’s what I’ll end up doing, sort of you know, working with Dad.’ ‘Cause I’d done a bit of that in the holidays and things.

And anyway, I then got a letter to say that Dad had joined Barfoot & Thompsons as a real estate agent, and you know, that’s what he was going to do. He’d had an offer he thought was far better than long hours in the supermarket or whatever. And so that’s what he did for about twenty years in Auckland.

Then believe it or not, in his late sixties, not in great health; actually he’d had his leg amputated ‘cause he had a sort of very bad ankle that just never could get fixed. And he was quite a large sort of guy, and he’d had a few heart problems and things. He suddenly said, “Oh, I’ve been asked by one of my sort of regular clients in the real estate game if I’d be interested in working for him.” And he was an accountant. So instead of doing this in 1945, he was doing it in 1985, [chuckle] and he ended up working for a firm of accountants in Auckland. And he was the secretary of the Auckland Deaf Association; he was the secretary of the Orakei RSA, [Returned Servicemen’s Association] which was a very big RSA; he was the property manager of the Wesley Trust in Auckland, which sort of looked after Wesley School which is where Jonah Lomu went. He also had a few other sort of little secretarial type things, and he absolutely sort of loved it.

My sister Jo had moved out to Clevedon and bought a few acres out there with her husband, and so Mum and Dad moved out to Clevedon as well; but no trouble for Dad to drive into town every day from Clevedon. But then he just really packed up with his health, and he was seventy-one when he died. But a lot of his new workmates were at the funeral, which was quite interesting. And you know, I often sort of look back on my father, and I think, ‘Well, you know, he could’ve been an accountant; he could’ve bought that farm in Wainuiomata and then sold it to the government, you know, to make Wainuiomata; [cough] he could’ve been a supermarket manager.’ He did all these things, and what I’m most grateful for is, you know, he sent me to what was very much the best school in New Zealand by anyone’s measurements, and I loved it – I loved my time at Christ’s, and … perhaps we can get back to that.

We moved up here; I went to Te Mata School – I’ve still got friends from Te Mata School – people like Mike Toogood, and Sam Orton, and Roger Millward, you know, who runs the garage down here; and quite a few females that you know, I knew there. I then went to Hereworth, which was a bit of a surprise – Dad went to some function, and said, “Oh, I’ve put you down for Hereworth.” I had three years at Hereworth, ‘64, ‘65, ‘66, and they were the most formative years of my life. I haven’t got any children of my own, Frank, but you know, I’d say to any parent who’s got boys, “Send them to Hereworth.” Three or four years preferably, two if you have to, but it’s a wonderful, wonderful prep…

I wasn’t very good at sport; wasn’t in any of the sporting teams; I wasn’t top of the class but I was in the sort of top three or four. But I really enjoyed Hereworth, and then I went down as a boarder to Christ’s. And I walked into the boarding house – there were sixteen of us – and we introduced ourselves, and they’re still good mates. Ironically, one of them was one of my oldest friends – we’ve been friends since we were two. And it was his father who joined the Air Force with my father, you know, so he was there.

What was his name?

The son, my friend’s name was Chris Dampier Crossley – farms at Rotherham in North Canterbury. I see a lot of Chris and we keep in touch; two days older than Margaret, so we always remember his birthday and things.

The other mate who’s a fellow ‘W’, who slept in the bed beside me and became probably my best friend at school, was John Geoffrey Wright, later captain of New Zealand [cricket]; coach of India. And I’ve kept in touch with John and he and I were great mates. In 1971 he ended up Head of House and I was Deputy Head of House.

Another mate who ended up head prefect of Christ’s College is a chap called John McPhee who farms out at Raukawa, and John arrived at College having just lost his mother in a car accident. But John is one of the sort of most capable people – everything he did he was good at; he had that combination. He was a rower; he was stroke of the rowing eight; but he was also a long distance runner. And everyone said, “You can’t do those things – you’re using the wrong muscles”, and things like this, but he did. He broke records for running, and then jumped in the … He played hockey for a couple of years and then said, “Oh, I think I’ll give this rugby a go”; he ended up in the First XV, you know; that was what he was like. And John was a client of mine for a number of years; we keep in touch.

Another guy, Nigel Ensor, I see a bit of. He and his wife run the Kitchen Studio in Hastings, and Nige was you know, in the boarding house, same year, same House.

We have school reunions, you know, every ten years. At the last reunion there were sort of one or two from each House, and thirteen from our House, you know.

And another mate … I’ll just sort of tell you this ‘cause these things mean a lot to me, Frank … Trev Connelly. Trev actually lived in Fiji; his father ran the Fiji Insurance Company. And Trev would come across from Fiji to Christ’s, and I can remember … I mentioned it; but Marg and I got married and we had our honeymoon in the sort of northern part of the South Island, and we came back on the train from Wellington to Auckland. And we got off the train, and we’d organised a little flat in Parnell; went up the stairs and I carried her across the threshold, and the phone went, and it was Trev. Trev said, “Oh look, I’ve just arrived from Fiji, and I was wondering if I could come and stay the night?” [Chuckle] So I remember saying to Margaret, the first night of our marriage … “I’m sorry, but Trev [laughter] needs a bed, [chuckle] so he’ll sleep on the sofa.” And I said, “Look Marg, you’ve just got to realise – there are more important things.” And it’s a bit like, you know, people you know, who fought in the war together, or whatever; you have a group of mates, and you know you start off where you left off, and you’d die for them, you know. And that’s what I had; and as I say, still got it – still look forward to catching up with them all. One’s died, one’s sort of disappeared and doesn’t sort of really want to have much to do with us, but the others are all really close.

So I had my five years at Christ’s – loved it; was in the rowing eight; I was a school prefect, and that was probably, you know, I look back – that was probably the best year of my life, 1971. Very proud of the school, very proud of my House; and I left school thinking, ‘Wow!’ You know – I won a prize at prizegiving which I didn’t know I was going to win, called the Maling Memorial Prize for Outstanding Contribution to the School. And you know, I was thrilled to do that. I didn’t get a bursary; I’d sort of done all these other things and then suffered a bit academically, and it was a big surprise to people when the bursaries came out and I didn’t have one.

But anyway, so it was back to Auckland, and I’d decided to go to law school – not to be lawyer, although I wanted to sort of please my mother, but I had hopes of being a politician and I thought a law degree was useful. So off to law school; struggled at law school … didn’t really pick up a great love of the law; didn’t really like Auckland University, it was a huge impersonal sort of place, but sort of settled into Auckland.

My mother had an old boyfriend who sort of … you know, he was in his forties at this stage and he hadn’t married; but he had a yacht, so I used to sail on his yacht and I really enjoyed that. And that was, you know, 1972 in Auckland. So I sort of settled in and slowly sort of you know, chugged along with my degree.

I remember the 1972 election when you know, National got thrashed and Norman Kirk came in; and Auckland University was a sort of hotbed of Labour activity, and all the lecturers, you know … Michael Bassett, and Bob Tizard, [chuckle] and all these guys, were in the Labour Government; Keith Sinclair, and all these bods. And I felt a bit sorry for the National Party, you know, and I sort of thought, you know, ‘Poor blokes’, you know, ‘what chance have they got?’ So I went along at the beginning of the year – this is 1973 – to the meeting of National Club on campus; and went in there, and that was really the next stage of my life. I was immediately made the Vice-Chairman. The Chairman of National Club that year was Peter Goodfellow, who’s now [chuckle] President of the National Party. So Peter and I have been in touch. Another guy who was there was Murray McCully, with big long hair and glasses; and a few other guys who once again I’ve kept in touch with, or they’ve become lawyers or business people, and I’ve used their services. In fact Martin Gummer, who was a very leading light in the Young Nats [Nationals] … New Zealand president in the National Party … I caught up with him a few months ago. He came down here and we spent the day together.

So that sort of became my life; I got very involved in Auckland Young Nats and we got bigger and bigger during that Opposition period. I was also on the Tamaki Electorate Committee with R D Muldoon. I’ve got a very special feel for Muldoon, you know, there was a side to him that the public didn’t see. I mean he did some [chuckle] outrageous things later in his career but … Socially it was pretty good. I remember going to a … they used to have a dance in Mt Albert, and I got conned into buying a ticket for this dance. And I went to this thing, and they were all sort of old people, and you know, a lot of sort of single women who were sort of desperate for a man, it seemed to me. And it was miles away from where I lived, and I thought, ‘Bloody hell – what am I doing?’ And suddenly I saw a very pretty little girl on the other side of the room; I thought, ‘Oh – things are looking up.’ So I went over and introduced myself; I said, “I’m Guy Wellwood, I live in Kohimarama.” “I’m Michelle Boag, I live in Glen Eden.” And I said, “Oh Michelle, what are you going here?” She said, “I’m dead keen on getting involved in politics, and I don’t quite know how to do it.” I said, “Well, you stick with me.” So I actually introduced Michelle to the higher echelons of the Party.

1975 came round, and our mate McCully was standing in Auckland Central against that dreadful socialist, Richard Prebble. And McCully said, “I really need someone to sort of help – I need a sort of a personal assistant/secretary, someone who just understands what …” He said, “I can’t do all the stuff myself”, you know. I said, “I’ve got just the person for you, Michelle Boag.” And they really hit it off, and they ended up living together in Wellington and things. So that was my big contribution to the National Party. Anyway, the election came, and I suddenly thought, you know, ‘I’ve really sort of done my stuff here’, so I settled … I was in the St Thomas’s branch of the Tamaki Electorate, and I sort of wound down my involvement a bit; because the other thing that had sort of happened in 1975 is I’d met Margaret, who was in the law school. And … once again I don’t mind telling the story … but one of my great National Party mates, Rob Greenfield – he had his twenty-first and he invited along another chap from the law school who’d been at King’s with him. And I didn’t really know this guy very well; I went up to him and I said, “Oh, I see you in the lectures every day.” You know, “I’m Guy Wellwood.” He said, “I’m Richard Stevens, and this is my sister, Anne Stevens.” And I said, “Oh, hello Anne” … very nice girl. I said, “What do you do, Anne?” She said, “Oh, I work for a lawyer in Auckland, but I’m hoping to sort of improve myself so I’m doing a couple of papers at university.” I said, “What are they?” And she told me she was doing philosophy, and I said, “Oh, I did philosophy a couple of years ago; I’ve still got all my books – would you like to have them?” And she said, “Oh, that’s very kind.” And anyway, I said, “Look, I’ll tell you what – when’s your next lecture?” She said, “Oh – next Thursday”, you know, “five o’clock”, or something. I said, “Well look, I’ll come along, and after the lecture, you know, I’ll give you the books.” So I went [chuckle] along to this lecture armed with all my books [chuckle] – huge lecture theatres they have in Auckland – and looked around; couldn’t see her anywhere, so … thought, ‘Oh dear, this is not working”, so out I came. And I was standing there looking at everybody thinking, you know, ‘Wonder where she is?’ And suddenly [I] get tapped on the shoulder, and it’s Anne who’s there with her brother, Richard, who I’d met at the twenty-first, and this other bird. And Richard said, “Oh, this is my girlfriend, Margaret.” Anyway, I said, “Oh, well that’s fine;” I said, “here are the books.” And he said, “Let’s go off and have a drink in the University Club.” So off we went, and Margaret was very sort of chatty, and told me a bit about her and things, and [at] the end of the day she sort of said, “Oh well, we might see each other”, you know, “round the place.” And I remember I brought myself a second-hand Volkswagen, and I’d parked it in Princes Street; and Margaret and Richard came along and said, “What’s this?” I said, “Oh, this is my car that I’ve just bought, and I’m terribly proud of it”, and things. “Oh, very nice.” And they went about three cars down, and Richard had an MGB sports car, and he and Margaret jump in and roar off down the road. [Chuckle] And I get in my Volkswagen … chug, chug, chug … and I thought, ‘Gee, I’ve got no chance there!’

But anyway, she and Richard sort of broke up, so you know, Margaret and I started sitting beside each other in lectures, and that’s how it all happened … 1975. We got engaged – beginning of ‘76; we got married in ‘77, and it’s one of the better things I’ve done – so next week we’re forty-two years of marriage. And we got married. Margaret worked for a little firm in Auckland called Webster Malcolm & Kilpatrick; I worked for a family firm in Auckland called Johnson Prichard & Fee. We didn’t really see great futures for either of us in those firms. We decided to do our big OE [overseas experience] which is what lawyers did, and we planned that and then announced to our firms that we were going to be leaving at a certain time. My firm said, “Well, if you go for a short time, like ten weeks, we’ll keep your job open for you.” And jobs were hard to get, and I was enjoying the job. Margaret’s firm went even further – they said, “If you go for ten weeks we’ll pay you while you’re away, and we’ll give you a big advance before you go.” So we both suddenly thought, you know, ‘Maybe this is the way to do it.’ And once again, you don’t know if it is or it isn’t; but anyway, we went off. We had a wonderful trip; Marg’s brother lived in London at that stage, and we stayed with him; we had a little Eurail Pass, we travelled round Europe – it was the middle of winter, there was snow everywhere, it was freezing; it was dark at four o’clock, but we still thought, ‘This is great!’

Back we came to Auckland in February of 1980, and Auckland was a very quiet little place after London. And we went back to our jobs and as sort of 1980 went on we thought, ‘Gosh’, you know, ‘what’s the future going to hold?’ And I think Margaret applied for a job in another firm, and she got sort of short-listed but missed out. And I sort of said to Margaret, “We’ve got to do something, you know – it’s not exciting.” And anyway I said to her, “Well, look, you know, everyone says, ‘oh the provinces are where it’s all happening’, you know, particularly Gisborne, Hawke’s Bay, New Plymouth – this is where it’s really exciting; it’s all … not happening in Auckland.’” I said, “Well I’ve got a few connections with Hawke’s Bay – I’ll see what I can do.” And the funny thing was I was having a day off … got up in the morning and I had a very bad sort of cough or cold or something, and Margaret said, “Look, don’t go to work today, stay in bed.” And I wasn’t really sick enough to stay in bed, but I got up and started sort of plotting and planning, and I made the decision that we were going to come to Hawke’s Bay, and if I couldn’t get a legal job then I’d go and work in Waipukurau for the local council and drive a grader. You know, I thought, ‘Well it’ll get me to Hawke’s Bay.’

We had had a trip down here and stayed with a cousin of my father’s down in Waipuk, [Waipukurau] and it’d just been a wonderful time. Margaret herself had also come down one Easter when I stayed in Auckland; she’d come down with her brother who was out here at that stage; and she’d met all sorts of nice people. And she said, “Oh, you’d just love it! And we met these people, and we went to this place and that place, and oh!” Because Margaret had a bit of an anti on Hawke’s Bay, because – this is part of her story – her grandfather was killed in the earthquake, so she thought, you know, it wasn’t a very nice place.

But anyway, same day as I’m sort of up and dressed, and not feeling a hundred percent, and plotting and planning and trying to sort of work out what I was going to tell Margaret when she got home, there’s a knock on the door. And who should it be but my dear old father. And he said, “Guy, I just had to come and see you. I’ve just had a call from Denis Hardy, and he wondered whether you’d go and work for him or not.” And I thought, you know, ‘There is a God!’ [Chuckle]

Denis and Margie came up from Wellington with two very young children in their very early twenties, and they bought the Nielsen’s house where they still live, in Endsleigh Road. And we were renting Peter and Shirley Holden’s house, and my parents were very friendly with Gordon and Leah Kelt. And I remember, once again you know … this is going back a bit now, ‘cause this would’ve been in the mid-sixties, and I’d just gone to school. And they sort of said, “Oh, a very young lawyer has arrived in town with his lovely wife, and they’ve got two kids.” And my sister was doing a bit of babysitting and things, and you know … so that was the Hardys, and I saw them in the holidays and things; and Denis was a bit different then too; he is now, but …

He’s always been different.

Yeah.

I’ve always liked Denis.

Mmm. He had a huge amount of time for both my parents, but particularly my mother who was practising. And Hardy would come into court, you know, and he’d been out on the town the night before and he hadn’t done his preparation. And he’d just stand in front of Walter Dougall who was an old friend of my mother’s from Christchurch … Canterbury University days. And Dougall would say, “Mr Hardy?” Hardy would go, “Oh, sorry, sorry, sorry, sorry”, you know, [chuckle] he’d forget who his client was, or he hadn’t … And Dougall would say, “Mrs Wellwood, can you sort of help here?” And she’d say, “Denis, look”, you know “what’s the story?” And he would sort of help him out; and I mean, that was … And my father got him into the Hastings Club, and you know, all that sort of thing, so Hardy never forgot that, he never forgot that at all. Quentin Johnson, who he’d employed and was going to be the great hope for the firm – he and [chuckle] Hardy had fallen out; Quentin had gone off to Hong Kong. And Quentin had taken over a lot of Pen Scannell’s clients, and also, Quentin had a lot of his own clients because he’d practised in Wairoa. Suddenly he was gone, you know, and so Denis had to fill the void; and I filled the void, so … down we came.

Dear old Margaret didn’t know anybody and didn’t have a job; we put out a few feelers but no one wanted to employ a woman. There was one other woman employed in Hawke’s Bay, I think, and another woman had been employed and she was so hopeless she’d left, and everyone said, you know, “Never employ a woman”, so [chuckles] … and that was the sort of whole atmosphere.

But anyway, my parents came down at the time of the Show, late 1980. And the Blackmores were very good friends … Colin and Bea Blackmore … of my parents, you know, from earlier days; and the Lowes of course. Anyway, Margaret was sort of introduced to all these people, and Jenny Lowe of all people rang up and said, “Guy, I’ve just been speaking to Stuart Devine, and I’ve told him about Margaret, and he thinks you know, they can find a place for Margaret in Gifford Devine.” I mean Jenny died last year; she was here and Graeme was here, and everyone said, you know, she was just the sort of little wifey at home; she was the power behind the throne. Wonderful woman. And you know, I thought at the funeral, ‘Guy, you’ve known Jenny longer than anyone else in this room other than her sister probably.’ Jenny was very good to Margaret, and got her this job; used to invite her out for sort of lunch with a couple of other younger females and things, some of whom were married to executives at Lowe Walker and things.

So Margaret got into Gifford Devine, and never looked back, basically; you know, was the first woman to be offered a partnership in Hawke’s Bay; went on to the Law Society Council – first woman to do that; picked up some very big clients and things, and it was all going very well. And I was with dear old Denis, and I was sort of struggling. Initially it’d gone really well; it had, but then, you know, Denis [chuckle] … could be hot and cold. And when he was nice, he was just really nice; but that’s when you worried – you thought, ‘Oh dear!’ And when he was bad you just didn’t want to be in the room with him. And it was really sort of getting me down a bit. I mean I had some wonderful clients; I got on well with John Orton, you know – a lot of good things were happening. But Margaret was just going from strength to strength.

And so anyway, I moved over to Kelly McNeil. I ran into Jerry Gresson one night and said, “Oh, I see you’re looking for a lawyer”, you know. “Would I be any good?” And he rang me the next morning … typical Gresson, and said, “Wellwood, was that the gin talking last night or was that you?” And I said, “It was me”, and he said, “Come to a meeting this afternoon at Laurie Smith’s place at three o’clock”. I turned up at three o’clock and the partners were all there, and MacCallum did most of the talking and I was very impressed. They just sort of said, you know, “We’ll do this, this, this and this for you.” And when it was all over what really impressed me … you just remember these things … is that all the partners – and I’m talking MacCallum, Smith, Rick Grayson, Jerry Gresson and Brian Hancock – they all went in the kitchen and talked to Barbara Smith. And I thought, ‘These are good guys … these are nice people’, you know? ‘They’re human beings.’ So I just said, “Look Marg, I’m going to be very happy in Kelly McNeil.” And she said, “Oh that’s good.”

Then Gifford Devine blew apart. It had established itself as the biggest and the brightest in Hastings and then it all went wrong. Gifford sort of … you know, he’s a difficult old guy, old Peter … and he retired as a partner but stayed on, but got quite sort of selfish and difficult as he could be. And Richard Watson who was one of the strong people in that firm, suddenly announced that he was going to be a Judge. John Wiltshire, who’d come down from Auckland – who had taken Margaret out in Auckland; I knew John quite well because he was a couple of years ahead of us at law school, but he was a very good cricketer; captain of Auckland cricket, and then came down and captained Central Districts – a really nice guy. I remember, you know – it’s funny how you remember these things – I remember my first transaction with John. He worked for a big Auckland firm in those days called Simpson Coates & Clapshaw. John rang up and said, “Oh Guy”, you know, “we’ve got to deal together; isn’t this nice?” And you know, he was a famous person at that stage, and he was quite happy to talk to me. He came down to Hawke’s Bay which was a bit of a surprise, and he came into the firm; but he was very upset with Richard Watson’s decision, and he wasn’t getting on with the others so he left, and the firm sort of emptied out a bit.

And Margaret was sort of left with Jacqui Gray and Jim Ferguson and Dugald Matheson, and she said to me, “Oh, you know, it’s not the same; it’s very different.” Anyway, they had the big chat to her just before Christmas, and said, you know, “We don’t really see you as part of the team.” So this is 1990, so Margaret was out of there. In the meantime, I had a bit of a bust up with Gresson & Grayson who wanted to do their own thing; and so I just said to Marg, “You know, come and join us.” So that’s what happened in 1991 – she came across. Brian Hancock and I were the partners in Kelly McNeil and Margaret came and worked for us. Couple of years later Brian left, so Margaret and I sort of went into partnership; and that’s the way it stayed for twenty years, basically. We were Kelly McNeil. Laurie Smith and Brian went off; Peter stayed. I’ve got an immense amount of respect for Peter MacCallum. He could be a difficult, impossible sort of guy – outstandingly good lawyer, the most outstanding …

If I ever wanted to be defended for my life I would choose Peter.

If you had him on your side he’d fight for you all day and all night; very thorough, very careful, very wise. I spoke at his … it wasn’t really a funeral, it was a celebration of his life, at the Loading Ramp; and I gave a speech which I put a lot of time and effort into. I think Peter is, you know, [an] outstanding man, and I miss him a lot. And he was there with us, and we practised; I mean, we didn’t make a lot of money. At times you’d find, you know, I probably need business; your staff are getting paid and you’re not – all those sort of things. But we went for twenty years, and you know, Margaret had a lot of stature; we had some very good clients. I remember something my mother had told me very early on, you know, ‘Make friends out of your clients but not clients out of your friends’, and I tried to sort of do that. And we always were very reluctant when our friends said, “Oh, would you be our lawyers as well?” We put up an action; when it happened we often regretted it. But you know, that’s the way it works.

And anyway, Graham Cowley came to see us one day and said, you know, would we be interested in a merger. And we said, “Yes.” That was 2013; 2012 were the discussions … beginning of 2013 the merger was announced. And they didn’t want me as a partner, they just wanted Margaret, which at the time I was very disappointed with, ‘cause I’d done most of the negotiating and things. And you know, I thought I deserved to be a partner and I was looking forward to it, but they said, “No, no”, they just wanted Margaret. So that was a real setback.

Probably at that stage I should sort of bring in another person who I’ve been very close to for sixty-three years, and that’s my sister, Jo … Jo Seagar. Jo has always had my interests at heart, I’ll put it that way; we’ve had some real scraps, and we’ve had some periods when we didn’t talk to each other, but we certainly talk to each other now. Quite surprisingly, she left school … she just got UE [University Entrance] by one mark … and she went nursing. She qualified as a nurse; she went off to England for three years; she came back; she set up a restaurant, just at about the time when Metro magazine was starting and they rated it a five star restaurant. So she suddenly became very well known. [Cough] She wrote a book, and then finally got on television, and just sort of became a superstar really, by New Zealand standards.

And one of the things she used to do was go on trips to Italy and take a group of people; and they did a bit of cooking and those sort of things. And I went on one of these trips; her sort of righthand woman, who once again I’m quite friendly with, couldn’t go – she was having an operation on her leg, and couldn’t walk. So Jo said, “Do you want to come? It won’t cost you anything, and flying first class everywhere, and we stay in the best hotels.” I just said to Marg, “I’ve got to go on this trip.” But actually, even though it was a wonderful trip, it was detrimental to my legal future, because I was away, and Margaret had to sort of handle things in my absence. And in the end you know … so we’re suddenly part of Langley Twigg, and I didn’t really enjoy it, you know, I just sort of thought, ‘What’s the future hold here?’

So that was really my encouragement for sort of standing for the mayoralty in 2016, that I thought it was a sort of way out and things. Which I guess is a good time, Frank, if you’ll indulge me, to sort of mention my interest in the political scene. One of the reasons that I became a lawyer was to be a politician; one of the reasons I came back to Hawke’s Bay is I wanted to take Dick Harrison’s seat off him and live happily ever after. I joined the Chamber of Commerce in 1984, ‘85. Quite coincidentally, the first speaker they had at the first Chamber of Commerce AGM, [annual general meeting] was Jim McLean, who I knew quite well in Auckland, and he brought Michelle Boag with him who was his PR [Public Relations] manager or something like this. And so I caught up with Michelle, caught up with Jim. But I also thought the new Labour government was quite impressive. David Butcher and Bill Sutton were on the Chamber of Commerce Council with me, and ‘cause of my love of politics and things, I’d end up chatting to them. So I moved into their camp I suppose, having really not been in the National camp too much. [Clock chiming] I think I still voted National in ‘84, but by ‘87 I thought, ‘These guys have really got it.’ And my old adversary Richard Prebble was doing a great job, and Douglas obviously. I was very involved in the Chamber of Commerce; I was a very young Vice-President in the late eighties, and my old mate Craig Kelt was the President; I was the Vice-President, and we had Lange for lunch and we had Douglas for dinner; they were huge functions, and it all went well.

So anyway, when Labour got thrown out in 1990 and went in two directions – all the sort of right wing guys went to ACT and all the left wing guys went to the Alliance – just as I felt sorry for National in 1972, I felt sorry for Labour in 1990. So I joined the Labour Party in 1991. As I used to say to everyone, I think I was the only person [chuckle] who joined the Labour Party in 1991. I moved very quickly in the Labour Party and I ended up on New Zealand Council, where I served for five years, ‘95 to ‘99. I enjoyed it I guess, and you know, mixed with a different bunch. And ‘99, when they got into government, I actually stepped back from New Zealand Council ‘cause it was taking a huge amount of time and effort. And then I got the chance to work for Jim Sutton as his sort of senior adviser. Rick Barker had a lot to do with getting me the job.

So down I went to Wellington. And I thought I could do both jobs, but it turned out that you know, you need to sleep [chuckle] occasionally. But my life finally got to the point, thanks to Jim who changed things around a bit, where on a Monday at seven o’clock in the evening I would drive to Wellington; get to Wellington at eleven o’clock at night. Had a little flat in Wellington, and I’d work in Wellington Tuesdays, Wednesdays, Thursdays and Friday[s]. On Friday afternoon I’d get in my car and try to avoid the rush hour, and drive home again. And on Saturdays and Sundays Marg and I would work full days in our office in Hastings. And I thought you could keep that up forever, but it took its toll in the end and once again, you know, I knew how hard it was on Margaret. But I had a wonderful time in Wellington, and you know, just like my last year at college was probably my greatest year, 2001 was probably by second greatest year, exactly thirty years later.

I got very involved in the dairy merger – fantastic involvement there. I was probably the sort of leading government person in dealing with Fonterra; I had the closest relationship with the dairy merger team. I was very involved with pipfruit deregulation. One day I got twelve hundred faxes that came into the office from the fruitgrowers of Hawke’s Bay, who were told you know, “Guy Wellwood’s in the Minister’s office – send him a fax”, [chuckle] and they all did. I also had the great experience … Jim was also Trade Minister, and I got involved a bit in that, worked closely with MFAT, Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade. And Stephen Jacobi, who you hear on the news quite a bit – he was Jim’s sort of private secretary for trade; Stephen said to Jim, “Look, we’ve got this trip to Singapore and Hong Kong; why don’t you take Guy with you?” He said, “I don’t need to come”, you know. I’ve always been grateful to Stephen for that, and we’re still good mates … keep in touch.

And so you know, I had the experience of a diplomatic passport, and flying with a Minister [clock chiming] on a reasonably friendly trip. We got to Hong Kong, flew you know, in the pod of a 747; and the plane arrives and the hostess said, “Mr Sutton, Mr Wellwood, come with me.” And you walked to the airbridge; the High Commissioner’s waiting, and you walk straight through the airport and there’s the official car waiting with the flag flying. And I thought, ‘Oh, I could live this life.’ And we had two days in Singapore and that was fantastic; and then we flew to Hong Kong. We were in the early stages of trying to do a trade deal with Hong Kong, separate to China, but it was all designed to sort of move to China, you know. So that was 2001.

2002 I came back to Hawke’s Bay. In the meantime I’d tried for the Napier nomination of the Labour Party. I thought I had all my ducks in a row; I had the local support, I’d done the miles, I was senior in the party, all those sort of things. But the forces of darkness got to work basically, and the union movement went behind Russell Fairbrother, and I suddenly thought, you know, ‘I’m not really a Labour Party person.’ So I sort of walked away from Labour, walked away from Wellington, and came back to legal practice.

And 2005, or 2006 it would’ve been, Johnny Ormond who I’d met through one or two other things I was involved in, said, “Guy, you need a challenge in your life, and I need your help.” You know, “come and help me with ACT – the whole thing’s falling apart.” So I got involved with ACT, and basically I was involved when ACT pulled itself off the floor basically, and rebuilt itself; and was part of that government that John Key bought in … whenever it was … 2008. But once it was done I thought, ‘Well – these things take so much time and effort’, so I sort of walked away from that. But that whole political scene has been an interesting part of my life.

You’ve looked at it from several angles …

Mmm … I have really. I, you know, I mean these days I prefer to be a bit more sort of passive with my politics, and I think there are good things and bad things about all the parties, and I’d rather just sort of sit there and watch. And I’ve got good friends; I mean, I still keep in touch with Rick Barker, you know, I’m a trustee of his trust and so involved with his affairs; and we catch up occasionally. But I’ve got one or two friends in the National Party too, and I think there’s a place for New Zealand First, and all that sort of stuff. So politics has been an important interest in my life really.

These days, you know … I left Langley Twigg in 2017. I just got to the point where you know, they weren’t supporting me on a few things where I wanted their support; and I wasn’t enjoying it, and I don’t think I was of great benefit to Margaret in terms of what she was doing, so I just said, “Look, I’m going to retire”, and she agreed. And I gave up my ticket so you know, I wasn’t a practising lawyer any more. I probably had thirty trusteeships; no one asked me to resign, so I ended up sort of still with those.

And then last year I approached Doug Abraham who has got his own employment business, because it had been suggested to me by someone else. And so I’ve started to help a few of his employee customers, and that’s kept me reasonably busy; I’ve enjoyed that. I’ve still got a few of my trusteeships and I’m trying to sort of crank that up into more of a business rather than just helping them out for nothing.

The other interest I’ve got these days … I mean I try to sort of read; I read political stuff. I’m very interested in sort of military history – I started on the Second World War, and now I’m starting on the First World War; and I just absolutely devour books on that as I’m very interested in reviving rail in New Zealand, and I’ve got very involved with groups of people who are trying to do that, you know, Napier/Gisborne, Pahiatua and things, and that’s another interest I’ve got. People have almost sort of associated me with rail now, and you know, they come up to me and they say, “Oh”, you know, “went on the train when I was in Austria last month”, or something, “if you’re interested, Guy.” I’m not really interested in the heritage stuff, I’m more interested in the modern stuff. So that’s me, really.

Now one area you skirted round and that was your grandfather or father was the Mayor of Hastings.

That was my great-great-uncle. That was Robert.

Any reason for not including him?

Well, I mentioned him, and he’s the famous Wellwood if you like, and he came out from Ireland … quite interesting. They came out from Ireland, I think, in the 1850s. And one of the motivations that he had was he was a Protestant in Southern Ireland, and you know, the Catholics gave the Protestants a hard time, which is often forgotten, I think. And he wasn’t overly strongly religious, but just sort of said, “Well, you know …” And of course it was after the potato blight, it was after the big clear out in Ireland; but as a result of those things, you know, people were saying, “Well you know, we’ve come to America or Australia or New Zealand or Canada, and boy, it’s a great life”, you know, “compared to Ireland.” So he came out here – he actually passed through Hawke’s Bay on his trip down the country, ended up in the gold fields of Central Otago, didn’t make any money so came back to Hawke’s Bay. His great start in life is he was a farmhand for J N Williams, who asked one day if any of his workers would plough a field for him on a Sunday, ‘cause he needed to sort of get his crop in, and Robert said, “Yeah, I’ll do that for you.” So he planted [ploughed] the field obviously, out at Frimley or somewhere, and J N said, “Well Robert, I’m going to give you a block of land for what you did for me.” And he gave him basically what is now the Tomoana Showgrounds. [Chuckle] And so Robert took that over, built himself the house that ended up as ‘Waikoko’, and that was basically his sort of power base, you know. And he started off on the Roads Board as one did, and then he got on to the Hastings Town Board. And then the Hastings Town Board became the Hastings Borough Council, and at the first meeting the heavies, you know, the ‘apostles’ … the families of the Nelsons and the Russells … couldn’t agree, so they said, “Oh well, we’ll let Wellwood chair the thing.” [Chuckle] So that’s how he became the first Mayor of Hastings – just an agreement by the big boys, that you know, he might as well do the job. But in typical sort of Wellwood fashion he was there for less than two years, and I think it all went to his head, you know. I mean, you’re trying to sort of say ‘well he’s my, you know, greatest sort of ancestor.’ So … better be nice; but I think it all went to his head ‘cause he left on a business trip. He said, “I’m going overseas on a business trip”, and so he chucked in the whole thing after two years. He went on this business trip; came back to Hastings, and he set up an auctioneering business. And you read Neroli Boyd’s book or other books, [that] he offered champagne to everybody, and had you know, huge great banquets and things like this. Well that business went ceremoniously boom! You know. And he set up another business later on, more of a sort of a stock and station type business, which also went broke. He was involved with A&P, [Agricultural & Pastoral Society] and he was the President of the A&P Society. He did, I think, spend a term or two on the County Council; and he also was the first President and set up the Hastings Building Society in 1886 – which I had a bit to do with professionally, and I was quite proud of.

But his first wife died, and he married again and they moved to the Wairarapa in his sort of dotage … he’d done enough [chuckle] sort damage really … so he moved to the Wairarapa. And there were a lot of Wellwoods in the Wairarapa, you know; you’ve got a name like Wellwood, which is – probably more so than Cooper – you know, because everyone says, “Wellwood, Wellwood – I knew a few in Masterton”, and I’d say, “Look, I don’t know any of them, but they’re all related through my great-great-uncle.” And I’ve actually got a younger sister, Bridget, who is the brightest of all of us, but she’s also the laziest … dear old Bid. And she is a qualified museum curator; and she is the curator of the Eketahuna Museum, would you believe? And she does a bit of work in Masterton and Palmerston and things like that, and she’s always telling me that she’s found you know, members of the Wellwood family. Well Bid bought a shop in Eketahuna, right beside the tearooms. She also serves coffee, but she never got the sign, you know – I kept saying to her, “You’ve got to put a sign up”, and … “Oh”, you know, “it’s just all too hard”, or something. So she was never advertising herself; and now she’s still got the shop I think, but it’s sort of all closed up, and … you know.

So … oh, that completes the story.

Mmm. Yeah. No, well the other connection with Eketahuna that we had is that my grandparents on my paternal grandmother’s side – you know, my father’s mother – her father ran the pub in Eketahuna, and that was a connection with the Martins of Martinborough, you know. And so we’ve got sort of Wairarapa connections.

So … now, what haven’t you told me?

What haven’t I told you? I haven’t been to jail. No, I think …

Well that gives me a pretty good resume of your life. So you think that concludes the service?

In terms of the notes that I wrote, Frank, yeah, I think it does really; well Bob died a couple of weeks ago, didn’t he? Well, my grandfather’s brothers … the oldest was Bob, and his children included Molly Bark, John Bark’s mother …

‘Cause she lost her husband in the war, wasn’t it?

Her husband, yeah – he was a teacher at Boys’ High, and killed in Italy in the war. And you know, John’s always been very sort of proud of his Wellwood connections and things. And you know, he and I had quite a bit to do professionally. He’s not all that well, poor old John; but a very good tennis player. And Molly was a very good tennis player, and a very good golfer. And of course the Barks were out at …

York Road.

Were they at York Road too, were they? Yeah. Because there were other Barks, and this is where it’s really interesting, because my late father-in-law, Marg’s father, said – he came down here very early on when we moved down here. After my father was killed in the earthquake and my mother was put on a piece of wood and strapped in and put on the train and sent down to Palmerston – he said, “The Bark family had a cake shop”, or something like this, “and they used to sort of keep one eye on us.” We met them, and there was a sister … forget her name now … who we met. And of course one of them married … Bill Timms’ mother was a Bark I think, out at Haumoana. And you know, I knew Bill quite well in the bank. So suddenly you realise you’re part of another thing.

Yeah, so Bob was the oldest, and he had Molly, and Lindsay, who was quite well-known … big huge guy. In fact I think I’m probably the smallest Wellwood ever; even my little brother’s about six foot three, and my nephew is over six foot. And Lindsay farmed out at Ngatarawa, and then retired to York Road. Yeah.

Then there was Jim; and Jim had Longburn Station, or something, which was basically the four thousand acres that’s now Gimblett Road [chuckle] … Gimblett Gravels, and Flaxmere, and all that sort of Omahu area, and he was Margaret’s father.

And then there was Uncle Joe, who never married … Samuel Joseph Wellwood – and that’s where my Joseph comes from; and my father was Martin Joseph – and he never married, and died in the thirties, I think, sometime.

There were a number of sisters … Susan, Annie … and a couple of them were school teachers, and often people say, “Oh”, you know, “I remember being taught by a Wellwood in the 1930s”, or something like that. And they were all very good sports … very good golfers and things like that. Yeah. So that’s sort of where the Wellwoods sort of fit in.

All right, well – I’ll push the button.