Waiwhare School 1966 Log Book

1966

PRESENT PUPILS

Grant Richards
Shona Kyle
Belinda Hoy
Roger Tough
Barry Neill
John Richards
Wayne Moult
Leslie Buckley
Diane Ward
John Comrie
Susan Richards
Stephanie Hoy
Valda Tolley
Chris [Christopher] Ward
Gregory Marshall
Barbara Ward
Jeremy Smith
Paula Tolley
Robyn Drummond
Lynda Comrie
Stuart Tolley
Helen Richards
Kay Lawrence
Sandra Dampney
Nicola Barnett
Sally Smith
Patrick Ward
Brian Boyd
Russell Tolley
Richard Hoy
Denise Buckley
Janice Moult
Warren Sculpher
Grant Tolley
Gail Buckman
Donald Buckman
Shirley Buckman
Marilyn Buckman
Wayne Buckman
Kirsten Smith
Neville Moult
Anthony Sculpher

NEW PUPILS
Graham Hartley
Allison McPhail
Wendy Kyle
Diane Buckman
Robyn McDonald
Maree Ward
Gary Hartley
Angela Botzen
Dawn Botzen

LEAVING PUPILS
Grant Richards
Shona Kyle
Belinda Hoy
Roger Tough
Leslie Buckley
Gregory Marshall
Denise Buckley
Nicola Barnett
Gail Buckman
Donald Buckman
Shirley Buckman
Marilyn Buckman
Wayne Buckman
Diane Buckman

HEAD TEACHER
Mr WR Taylor

ASSISTANT MISTRESS
Miss EA Gardner (Mrs Hurford)

COMMITTEE
LH Smith, Chairman
RH Dampney, Secretary/Treasurer
HD Tolley
BM Tolley
LA Moult

THE YEAR’S ACTIVITIES AND GENERAL INFORMATION

MARCH   Combined Swimming Sports at Sherenden. Senior Class Room and residence painted.

APRIL   Combined Athletic Sports at Matapiro Domain.
18th-20th: Senior pupils taken to Wellington to Oxford Crescent School. Visited Parliament Buildings, had morning tea with Mr JR Harrison, MP for Hawke’s Bay.  Mrs J Drummond and Mrs M Richards accompanied them to assist.

MAY   Infants and Standard 1 & 2 were taken to NZ Ballet Company performance of ‘Aurora’s Wedding’.
Final concrete path put down during holidays.
5th School Committee function, held at Mr & Mrs LH Smith’s, for presentation to Miss A Gardner prior to her marriage.
26th: Two new stoves installed in classrooms.

JUNE   Children held two Bring and Buys for Freedom From Hunger Campaign and raised over £10.

AUGUST   Radio and record player purchased.
Fluorescent lighting installed in school.
RSA Reading Laboratory purchased.

OCTOBER   Flower and Craft Show held. Attended by most of the district.
20th: New field finally surveyed and fenced through Mr BC Ward agreeing to the Education Board leasing the school grounds.

NOVEMBER   Oxford Crescent School entertained in a return visit. Pupils billeted in local homes. They visited Peach Grove Orchards, Hastings; Aquarium, Napier; farm tours of the district and Blowhard Bush.

BREAK-UP:   Nativity Play

SWIMMING SHIELD:   Angela Botzen.

BOOKS PRESENTED BY:   Mrs S Smith.

Hawke’s Bay Herald-Tribune, 1966

HB School To Visit Upper Hutt

On the 18th of April 21 of the Waiwhare School commence a visit to Upper Hutt and Wellington.

Waiwhare School is situated 30 miles from Hastings on the Taihape Road.

The school will be the guests of Oxford Crescent School, Upper Hutt, and will be accompanied by Mr WR Taylor their teacher, and two parents.

The pupils from Oxford Crescent School will return the visit in October when they will see what life is like on a sheep farm.

One of the main ideas behind the visit is for the pupils to experience for a short time, life in a city and to mix with many children of their own age.

During their stay they will talk and show slides of their own district and will visit many places of interest including factories, Broadcasting House and Parliament where they will be met by their MP, Mr JR Harrison.

Mr Taylor was formerly on the staff of Oxford Crescent School and is now head teacher at Waiwhare School and will be remember in this district for his outstanding work in music and drama for the pupils.

FRONT ROW: Robyn McDonald, Grant Tolley, Allison McPhail, Kirsty Smith, Tony Sculpher, Wendy Kyle, Neville Moult, Gary Hartley, Graham Hartley.

2ND ROW: Helen Richards, Barbara Ward, Lance Tolley, Russell Tolley, Richard Hoy, Stuart Comrie, Patrick Ward, Warren Sculpher, Dawn Botzen, Janice Moult, Nickie Barnett, Paula Tolley.

3RD ROW: Mr. W. R. Taylor, Sally Smith, Sandra Dampney, Susan Richards, Stuart Tolley, Brian Boyd, Jeremy Smith, John Richards, Barry Neill, Lynda Comrie, Diane Ward, Belinda Hoy, Mrs EA Hurford.

BACK ROW: John Comrie, Roger Tough, Wayne Moult, Grant Richards, Chris Ward, Angela Botzen, Robyn Drummond, Shona Kyle, Stephanie Hoy, Valda Tolley

Combined Athletic Sports at Crownthorpe

Football at Waiwhare.  Teams from Waiwhare, Sherenden & Otamauri

Boat Day, March

Graham Hartley & Diane Buckman

Japanese Day

Copy of: LIFE IN A SHEEP FARMING DISTRICT – WRITTEN BY PUPILS OF WAIWHARE SCHOOL, 1966

All members of the senior classes have contributed in some way to this booklet. It has been a local study and is not typical of all areas in which there is sheep farming.

WAIWHARE DISTRICT: Waiwhare district is about thirty miles from Hastings on the main road to Taihape. The district is about one thousand one hundred feet above sea-level.

It is mainly a sheep farming area. During the coaching days, River Road at Waiwhare was sued as the main road, now it is a ‘no exit’ road. There used to be a hotel, general store and blacksmith on this road. Now there is nothing, all the buildings have been pulled down. Valuable antiques of this period can be seen at the Napier Museum. Another stop used to be made at Willowford on the way to Kuripapango which was the last stop before Taihape.

In more recent times a blacksmith used to visit the district and shoe all the horses but this eventually dwindled, either from lack of horses or unsatisfactory work on behalf of the blacksmith.   Shona Kyle.

COMMUNICATIONS: Every family has at least one car and we are an hours drive from Hastings, our nearest town. Napier and Taradale are a little further away. The road is good and twenty four miles of it is sealed. Work is being done on the unsealed part at the present time and it will soon be sealed to the crossroads. We have telephone communications. There are three party lines in the district. It is necessary to ring through to the exchange for all numbers not on the same line. Dial phones will soon take the place of these.

THE SCHOOL: About fifty children go to the Waiwhare School. There are two rooms, the junior room and the senior room. The junior room has 19 children and the rest are in the senior room. Mr. Taylor is the Head Teacher and teaches from Std 2 to Form 2. Miss Gardner teaches Primer One to Std. One.

We have swimming baths at the school. We swim every day in the summer and each year there are swimming sports. The baths are also use[d] by the district. Our playground is made up of a tennis court and gardens. A field is loaned to the school and football is played on it. At the end of each day we all go [do] inside and outside jobs which keep the school looking tidy.

Waiwhare School was opened fourteen years ago. The first teacher was Mr. George Lowe who later went on an Everest expedition as an official photographer.   Valda Tolley

DISTRICT ACTIVITIES: The Waiwhare Country Women’s Institute was started 15 years ago. They meet once a month. At Christmas time they put on a party for children. Last year the school put on a play for this party. They also have a Flower Show once a year which is held at the school.

A horse sports meeting is held once a year and at New Year a woolshed is decorated and there is a dance and supper. The next day some people go and clean up all the mess. Badminton is held once a week in a local hall and there is a social club meeting once a fortnight in the winter.   Robyn Drummond

FIRE UNIT: The Fire Unit is near our school. It has two fire extinguishers on a small trailer. If a house catches on fire the unit is towed to the house to put It out. There have been practices in how to use it. Other country districts have fire units of their own. The fire unit has not yet put out a fire.   John Richards

TYPE OF LANE: The type of land in our district is good for sheep farming. It is fairly well watered. If a paddock has neither a creek or a river running through it the farmer puts in a dam or water trough. It is not very slipable land and It is only when there is very heavy rain that a slip can be expected.

To break in the land, the scrub is cleared by hand or tractor or heavy discs. The flattened scrub is left to dry and later burnt. A cop of chou-mollier is sometimes then sown. The land which has been broken in must be top-dressed with super phosphate. This can be done either when the grass seed is sown or by air top-dressing.

The land is undulating, rolling land. Common soils are pumice and clay. Six miles up the Taihape road it becomes pumice wasteland where the forest cover has been removed and wind has caused heavy erosion.

SIZE OF FARMS:  There are many different sizes of farms in the Waiwhare district. They range from four or five hundred acres to several thousand acres.

Some farmers may have more land than another because the soil may be poorer and it may not be possible to graze as many sheep to the acre as richer soil would.

A farmer with good rich soil and grass could get about four or five sheep to the acre whereas a farmer with poorer soil may only get two or three to the acre.   Diane Ward

GRASS:  The main types or [of] grass are rye and white clover. Sometimes red clover Is sown but it can dry out. Cocksfoot, crested dog and subterranean clover are also grown.

Paddocks which are to be sown are ploughed or disced about November and again in January. After this the grass is sown and the farmer hopes for a nice fall of rain to start the grass off. The rye sprouts first and then the clover. The clover does not grow as tall as the rye for it is a good cover and grows along the ground. Red clover is grown because it is a quick grower and can be grazed before the other grass is ready. Cows and cattle beasts are good for new grass.   Belinda Hoy.

FARM BUILDINGS AND IMPLEMENTS:  Nearly all farms have a woolshed, other farm buildings and a shearers’ quarters. The shearers’ quarters have several bedrooms, kitchen toilets and bathrooms. Most farms have implement sheds and some have storage for hay.

Implements are used widely on farms, some for cultivating, some top dressing, boring, grading and sowing. Tractors are of two basic types, the wheel tractor and the crawler tractor. The wheel tractor has two sets of wheels, the back large and the front small. The crawler type has no real wheels but rides on tracks like a tank.

Many farms have land rovers for farm work and in some cases motor bikes and motor scooters are used on farms instead of horses. All farms require implements of some kind.   Belinda Hoy and Roger Tough.

FENCING: When fencing is done it is necessary to get a supply of battens, posts, staples and wire. There are seven wires on a fence. The two top wires are usually barbed and the others plain. Most people today use concrete posts. There are nine battens between a post and a standard halfway between the nine battens.

Most people around Waiwhare employ a fencer to do their fencing which can be a very hard and tiring job. There are many miles of fence on most farms.   Wayne Moult

TOP DRESSING: The planes usually used for aerial top dressing are Cessnas, Pipers, Fletchers and DC3s. The super phosphate is sprayed onto the ground out of a hatch on the bottom of the plane.

The planes take off from a small grass runway. It can cost a farmer up to £500 per day for to have a farm top dressed. Some people prefer a top dressing truck but it is not so convenient on hills.

Super Phosphate makes the cover grow and the clover helps the other grasses to grow so that more stock can be carried.

Several firms top dress over the Hawke’s Bay.   John Richards and Jeremy Smith

CONTROL OF PESTS:  The main animal pests are rabbits, opossums, deer an[d] pigs. Rabbits can cause a lot of trouble to the farmer. They eat the grass and can cause erosion. Rabbiters are employed in each district [to] keep the rabbits down. There are two rabbiters in this district and they shoot and poison rabbits.

Opossums do a lot of damage to trees and they can eat a large amount of fruit. They are marsupials like the kangaroo. They are mostly seen at night. There are many opossums in the Waiwhare area.

Deer and pigs are found in the Waiwhare District. On many farms deer can be found. They also cause soil erosion if they are not controlled.   Grant Richards and John Comrie

SHEEP: The sheep most people breed are Romney, Southdowns and Dorset Downs are bred for fat lambs. Depending on the cultivation of the farm between two and five sheep per acre can be carried.

Sheep have an average shoulder height of 24 inches and grow about 8lb of wool per year. Ewes have mainly one lamb per year but up to four can be had. The average sheep weighs 110 lbs live weight and is mainly a green matter eater.

Sheep can get diseased and they have to be dosed. They also have to be dipped to kill lice and ticks.   Valda Tolley and Barry Neill

STOCK:  Apart from sheep most farms carry some other animals. Some carry cattle and a few have dairy cows although many people get their milk from town.

Most farmers have a breed of cattle called Aberdeen Angus. These were brought to NZ during the last century. The cows have their calves in August or September and they are weaned eight months later.

There are always dogs on a farm but these are working dogs. A farmer can have as many dogs as he likes but it depends on the size of his farm. At least one dog accompanies the farmer on his rounds of the sheep. Sheep dogs are very valuable and costly to buy. Some farms keep bulls for breeding purposes. On a few farms there are flocks of turkeys.  Diane Ward

HAY MAKING: Lucerne is used for making hay. It should be over two feet high and should not be flowering when it is cut. It is cut, tedded and baled and stored for feeding the stock during winter.

After the grass is cut it is left to dry. When dry a tractor is used to get all the grass into rows. Another tractor with a baler then collects the hay and bales it. It has a long platform that scooping up the hay. It moves onto a belt and travels round until enough hay has been collected to form into a bale. The bales are tied and then stored in a hay barn. Care has to be taken that the hay is stored so that it cannot catch fire as it is very dry.   Paula Tolley and Belinda Hoy.

TREES:  Trees are used as protection from wind and also to stop soil erosion. Trees to be found in the district include many types of pine poplars, manuka, kanuka and others. Native bush can be found on some farms in the district.

Trees have to be looked after. Some trees have to be cut back so that they do not grow too big.  Both poplars and pine trees are easy to grow. Sometimes trees are cut down and taken into town and are used for building timber. There are many trees around the school, mainly pine trees.   John Richards

ASPECTS OF A SHEEP FARMERS’ YEAR

Dipping: All sheep are dipped to stop lice and ticks and to prevent them from being struck by flies for about two or three months. There are three main types of dip, the spray dip, the race dip and the swim dip. The type usually used today is the spray or shower dip which really wet the sheep. This type of tip can take about 30 sheep and they are showered for about five minutes.

New Zealand law states that all sheep must be dipped at least once a year. The best time for the job is during the warm early months of autumn. The reason for this is that the sheep have enough wool on their backs to retain the value of the lice killing agents found in most brands of dipping fluid.  The sheep are less likely to catch a chill at this time of year.

Lice cause a sheep to rub itself and this constant rubbing causes the wool to pull out apart from a great amount of irritation.   Valda Tolley and Barry Neill

FOOT-ROTTING:  When the horn, or the hard part of the hoof grows too long It can crack and allow germs or bacteria to enter. This poisons the hoof and makes the sheep limp.

The main time for foot-rotting is between November and February. If the land is limestone country, the sheep do not have to be brought in so often. If the country is rough, the sheep have to be treated twice a year. The sheep are put into a cradle and their feet examined and trimmed with foot rot shears. If the rot is bad various formulas can be put on. Sometimes the sheep are put through a foot rot trough. Goats can carry the bacteria which spreads foot rot.   Belinda Hoy and Wayne Moult

CRUTCHING: Crutching is performed throughout the year. The first crutch is performed between December and February. This crutch is performed to keep the sheep free from fly-blow and dags. The second crutch is between June and July. This is keep the ewes clean for lambing. When they are crutched the sheep are put in the woolshed and the wool from their faces, tails and legs is clipped off.

The wool is then taken to the wool scourers. The dags are separated from the wools which are boiled in hot water. The grease which floats to the top is later made into lanolin. A shearing gang comes In to do the crutching which Is done with electric shearing machines. After crutching, the sheep are returned to their paddocks.   Diane and Barbara Ward

LAMBING:  During lambing the farmer has to get up very early and go out as soon as it is light. If there are any ewes in trouble he lambs them. The farmer goes round his sheep several times during the day. Any lambs whose mothers die are either taken home to be looked after or are mothered onto other ewes who have perhaps lost a lamb. The ewe identifies her lamb by its smell. The better fed the sheep the more chance there is of it having twin or triplet lambs.

Lambing time is in August and September and it is one of the busiest times of the year and everyone on the farm helps in looking after the sheep. Some farms have a pen for motherless lambs which is warmed by an infra-red light. When the lambs are old enough to travel about they are shifted Into other paddocks. Quite a few lambs die from blood poisoning.   Robin Drummond, Stephanie and Belinda Hoy

DOCKING: The first thing to be done for docking Is that pens have to be put up. The lambs are docked when they are about three or four weeks old usually in September or October. The lambs are either separated from their mothers or are docked when they are with them.

Some people use a cradle for putting the lambs in, other a piece of board or else they are just held on the rail of the pen. The lambs are docked by having their tails removed and having their ears marked with the farmer’s mark. There are several ways of removing the tails. After docking the lambs go back to their paddock again, the tails are counted or tallied and the number recorded. Some people eat the lambs tails.  Gregory Marshall and Belinda Hoy

DRAFTING: There are many occasions when a farmer has to draft his sheep. Drafting is when they are all herded together for some reason. The first draft of the year is to pick out the gummy sheep for selling. Later, the sheep can be drafted to pick out the fine woolled sheep from the coarse woolled sheep. In this way it can be decided which sheep will be mated with certain rams. Sheep can also be drafted to choose thinner sheep which can be put onto better feed than the main mob.

Drafting can be used to select late lambers from early lambers.  This would be done about July so that the early ones can be given more feed. The main mob is usually drafted to make shepherding easier.  After lambing the ewes are drafted from the lambs. This is done when the lambs have to be weaned. Lambs are also drafted before they are sent to the works. Jeremy Smith

SHEARING: Shearing is the cutting off of the wool the sheep has grown during the past year. It is from shearing that the farmer gets most of his money. The sheep are shorn about November although some farmers shear at other times during the year. It takes about three days to shear most mobs.

In shearing the sheep, gangs of shearers are used. The usual gang is made up of three shearers, two fleecos, one presser and one rousie. Their [There] is also a cook who stays at the shearers quarters to cook for the shearers.

The shearer picks the sheep up so that it is sitting on its hind legs. The shearer has his knees under the front shoulders of the sheep which is nearly lying down. The shearer can shear about two hundred and fifty a day. The wool is collected from the floor after it is shorn from the sheep in one piece. It is then rolled up into a ball and put into a big bale. The presser presses about fifty fleeces into the bale and then sows a cap on the bale. This is done in a large wooden press and after the cap has been sown on he opens the press door and pulls the bale out with a hook. The bale is branded with the name of the farm, the name of the wool and the number of the bale. The wool is then transported to town where it is sold at the wool sales.

Most shearing sheds in this district are three or four stand sheds which means that three or four men are actually shearing. Most shearers make about seven pounds ten shillings per day.   John and Lynda Comrie and Wayne Moult

COPY OF ITINERARY:

Waiwhare School visit to Upper Hutt and Wellington, April, 1966

Monday, April 18
8.05 a.m. Assemble at Hastings Railway Station. (Private transport from Waiwhare)
8.25 a.m. Depart railcar.
1.32 p.m. Arrive at Upper Hutt. Met by pupils of Oxford Crescent School. Introduced to billets. Leave station for homes of billets.  Remainder of afternoon free.

Tuesday, April 19
9.00 a.m. Assembly at Oxford Crescent School with billets.
9.15 a.m. Leave school by bus for Tasman Vaccine Laboratories.
11.00 a.m. Leave T.V.L. after tour and travel by bus to Petone.
12.00 noon. Lunch at Petone on foreshore near Settlers’ Memorial.
1.00 p.m. Leave for General Motors
1.30 p.m. Arrive at General Motors for tour.
3.00 p.m. Leave General Motors and travel back to Upper Hutt. Meet billets at Oxford Crescent School.

Wednesday April 20
9.00 a.m. Assembly at Oxford Crescent School with billets.
Depart for Wellington immediately.
10.00 a.m. Arrive at Wellington and visit ship of the Union Steam Ship Co. (Vessel to be chosen later when it is known which are loading etc.
11.30 a.m. (approx) Leave ship and travel by bus to Cable Car. Travel by Cable Car to Botanical Gardens. Lunch.
12.30 p.m. Leave by bus for Upper Hutt.
1.30 p.m. Arrive at Oxford Crescent School. Cultural afternoon follows. Waiwhare pupils will present programme – ‘Life In a Sheep Farming District’ to host class. Other activities, music etc.

Thursday, April 21
9.00 a.m. Assembly at Oxford Crescent with billets.
Leave immediately for Wellington by bus.
10.00 a.m. Arrive at Parliament Buildings. Met by Mr. J. R. Harrison, M.P. Tour of Parliament followed by morning tea.
11.30 a.m. Leave Parliament. Walk to Broadcasting House for visit there.
12.30 p.m. Leave by bus for Upper Hutt. Lunch en route at Percy’s Scenic Reserve, Petone.
1.15 p.m.  Arrive at Oxford Crescent School. Sport afternoon with host class.

Friday, April 22
7.50 a.m. Assemble at Upper Hutt Railway Station for departure.
8.09 a.m. Depart Upper Hutt by railcar.
1.10 p.m. Arrive Hastings. Pupils to be met by parents. Leave in own time for Waiwhare.

Percy Reserve, Lower Hutt

Background: Stephanie Hoy, Mr Taylor, Shona Kyle
Left line: Barbara Ward, Nickie Barnett, Kay Lawrence, Gail Buckman, Robyn Drummond
Right line: Lynda Comrie, Sandra Dampney, Helen Richards, Sally Smith
May 1966

Visit of Oxford Crescent School, Upper Hutt, November

Departure of Oxford Crescent School pupils, November

THE PUPILS OF WAIWHARE SCHOOL PRESENT

A NATIVITY PLAY

Cast:
Mary   Wendy Kyle
Joseph   Richard Hoy
Innkeepers   Stuart Comrie & Graham Hartley
Shepherds   Patrick Ward, Brian Boyd, Warren Sculpher, Dawn Botzen, Anthony Sculpher, Kirsty Smith, Janice Moult, Grant Tolley.
Kings   Russell Tolley, Neville Moult, Gary Hartley.
Pages   Lance Tolley, Maree Ward, Robyn McDonald

Music Group
Alto Melodica   Belinda Hoy
Soprano Melodicas    Shona Kyle, Diane Ward, Stephanie Hoy, Susan Richards, Valda Tolley.
Glockenspiel   Robin Drummond
Recorders   Roger Tough, Grant Richards, John Comrie, Valda Tolley, Barry Neill, Wayne Moult, Jeremy Smith, Paula Tolley, Chris Ward,
Angela Botzen, Barbara Ward, Stuart Tolley, Sandra Dampney, Nickie Barnett, Kay Lawrence.
Plastoflutes   John Richards, Lynda Comrie, Sally Smith, Helen Richards, Gregory Marshall.

Carols
Coventry Carol   Silent Night
Little Town of Bethlehem   Away in a Manger
The First Nowell   We Three Kings
O Come all ye Faithful.

All carols are arranged in three part harmony with the exceptions of Away in a Manger and Little Town of Bethlehem, both of which are in four part harmony.

Note   All aspects of our Nativity Play have involved school and class activity.

The music has provided the core of senior room music for the term. The costumes, designed by Mrs Hurford, have provided work for the senior girls during sewing period over the past few weeks. The scenery has been painted and constructed by the senior room pupils. The spoken commentary and readings from the Gospel have been chosen and arranged by senior pupils.

The school, pupils and staff, wish everyone a very happy Christmas and New Year.