Petane Grange

PETANE GRANGE OUT FROM BAY VIEW IN THE 1970S

The Kirkland Family who were friends of ours from originally Pahiatua, and then Paihia were always very welcoming to us for a few weeks of our Christmas Holidays. They had three children and so did we. The children were of comparable ages and they had a farm of a few acres so there was plenty for us to do. The house was quite large and had several outbuildings around so quite often over Christmas and New Year there would be up to 20 people staying. With our immediate family at times would be my Mother and my Mother in Law and Peter Kirklands Mother would quite often be on the Ham Radio. She also had a special Goose who was allowed into the kitchen and Goosey loved all the children too.

My husband John could still do work for the Dept. of Agriculture as he was at that time specialising in the trial work for the eradication of sheep and cattle tick in the whole Gisborne region. He would have different programmes going within his section which needed attending to right through summer. If we weren’t staying at Petane Grange we would be camped out at Anauru Bay.

I always took the Kirkland and our Tenquist children into the Summer School programmes in Napier of Drama, Music and Speech. Then, in turn, we would have to go to see the various concerts or presentations from each child. In between times we would go swimming in the Esk river and help with the potato picking up, shearing and anything else that was going on. The children aged from 6 up to 14 with some neighbour’s children had their own fun too. We always had a huge dress up night for New Year’s Eve. Dodgem boats on the Marine Parade and the swimming pool were also an extra drawcard. I made sure the children all grew up with the knowledge of the Napier/Hastings Earthquake of 1931.

Erica Tenquist.