Newspaper Article 1995 – Clive trees mark history

Clive trees mark history

Earlier this year the Leader was contacted by a Hastings man who believed the Silver Birch trees along the main road at Clive were planted to commemorate the signing of the Treaty of Waitangi.

Enquiries by the Leader revealed Ngati Kahungunu chiefs from Hawke’s Bay’s Heretaunga district signed the treaty at Waipureku (Clive) lagoon in 1840. The Silver Birch trees however, were planted in the 1930s for beautification purposes for Clive.

One of Hawke’s Bay’s eldest residents, Linsay [Lindsay] Gordon who celebrated his 101st birthday at his home in Clive last week, threw some light on the story.

“We bought enough trees to plant from where the pub is now to the state houses on the main road in Clive.

“We chose the Silver Birch trees because they were quick growers and wouldn’t block anything they grew around.”

Mr Gordon says the trees later became potential sites for motor accidents and when Clive began to develop its highway, the trees had to make way for the road extensions.

Long ride

Mr Gordon was born at Clifton Station in 1884 [1894] and still recalls the story he was told of his birth.

“I was born at Clifton, in the old house. The man that looked after the gardens had to ride on a horse all the way to Napier to get the doctor when I was born.

“So Doctor Moore came from Napier. He used to live about where the Roman Catholic Cathedral is now. There were no hospitals in those days and it was about a 14 mile journey from Clifton to Napier.”

Mr Gordon remembers Clifton station as a “much bigger” home when he was young.

“The station used to be about 1300 hectares, almost stretching all the way back to Waimarama.”

India to Clifton

“My grandfather (James Gordon) made his money in India and in those days you had only two banks to put your money in.

“So he invested his money into this bank and decided to head back to Scotland to live. But by the time he got to England, the bank had gone bung!

“So he arrived back home not a very wealthy man but he had just enough money and he was young enough to begin life again.”

Mr Gordon says his grandfather decided to build another life in New Zealand and soon after bought Clifton station.

“The property at Clifton had no buildings on it, so timber from Napier was shipped to the Clifton beach to build a double story house,” he remembers.

House fire

At three years old Linsay Gordon and his sister, Eileen, were taken to England where his family lived for two years at the time the Boer war broke out.

While the Gordon family was in England their home at Clifton burnt down.

“They thought that a maid we had all loved lit a fire upstairs to keep the house warm and a spark had jumped out [a]nd set the house on fire.

“We never lost a single piece of furniture, everything was taken out of the house and saved. I remember returning home and seeing all of the lamps and furniture under the big macrocarpa tree.”

The Gordon family went to live in a house in Napier while the present Clifton station house was built.

Tradition

Mr Gordon says it was tradition in [the early in] those days to bury coins from farthings to crowns under the piles of a new house.

So keeping in line with this tradition, a set of coins were buried under the new house.

“All of the big houses built in those days each had coins buried under them for good luck.

[…] and I know exactly which pile it is under, nobody else does and nobody will.”

England bound

Ashley [Lindsay] and Eileen were educated at Heretaunga school situated where Nelson Park now stands. Later his parents sent him to England to attend Eastbourne College for four years.

Mr Gordon says he didn’t particularly enjoy going to primary school but still remembers humorous times.

“At school you weren’t allowed to kiss your mother goodbye and I can remember Rupert Carlyle saying to his mother, ‘kiss me quickly.’

“There must have been so [many] other boys around at the time who heard the noise of him kissing his Mother. So from then on his nick name was ‘kiss me quick!.”

French army

In 1915 Ashley joined the French army and went to battle in the World War I.

“During the war my sister’s husband was working at the army cadet camp in Trentham. There was a disease going around so they closed the camp down.

During the height of the war the camp had to [be]re-opened. Eileen’s husband fell sick from the disease and later died.

“So she returned to England, where I was with my father at the time, and she married again.”

After the war Mr Gordon returned home and he was married in 1922.

“I found the woman I wanted to marry and took her away from another man I didn’t like. She was from Gisborne and we used to go and visit her father up the coast quite often.”

Mr Gordon bought what he calls a “run down poultry farm” in Clive and made it his home.

My wife and I wanted to have 10 children, but unfortunately we ended up with none.”

Some of the Silver Birch trees Mr Gordon helped to plant along the main road in Clive still stand today and a few years ago the Hastings District Council planted a line of liquid amber trees behind them so they too would grow to take their place in the history of the district.

Photo caption – Clive man Lindsay Gordon who celebrated his 101st birthday last week holds a photo of himself when he was serving in the French army in 1915.