Woolgethering 06 - A fight and a fever

Mount Peel - From Ruapuna

The House where Margan Grew Up

It was eleven o'clock on a summer day at our little country school –the junior children were out for break and we were playing a favourite gamecalled “The Token”. One member of a team carrying a small token hidden inthe palm of her hand, had to try and run across a given line without beingcaught by any member of the opposing team – they, of course, didn't know who carried the token. The others of her section acted as decoys, running with her until she was safely over. If she was caught before crossing the line, the team lost a point, and she forfeited the prize.

On this particular day, I was given a little whistle, and with it I ran like the wind; as I was crossing the line I was pounced on by Dolly Spence.

“Got you!” she cried. But I squirrelled up a nearby tree as she made a grab for the whistle. She followed me more cautiously. I crept along the branch, and as Dolly added her weight to mine, the branch swayed dangerously, so she turned back and climbed down again, leaving me in
triumphant possession of the tree and the whistle. Suddenly she snatched upmy hat, which lay on the grass, and ran with it to the earth closet discretely hidden in the trees, some thirty yards away.

Presently she returned without the hat and called out defiantly, “I've thrown it down!”

I was filled with a terrible rage, and wedging the whistle in the fork of a branch, I dropped to the ground, and threw myself upon her with all my strength. Uproar ensued, and continued until our big sisters arrived to restore order. Hitherto Dolly and I had been the best of friends, but now we looked at each other with hate, tears of anger on our cheeks while our
sisters threatened and remonstrated with us.

The next day Dolly arrived with a new hat for me – her own Sunday hat. This had been insisted upon by her mother, and it was indeed a humiliating moment for poor Dolly, when in silence she made the offering, and I awkwardly accepted it. I never wore the hat, and we never mentioned the incident again, but I imagine neither of us forgot it.

My two eldest sisters were away at boarding school by this time, and the house was being enlarged. Two big rooms and a verandah were added, and work was being hurried on, to finish, if possible, before the holidays began. When Greta and Mary came home, the builders had gone, but the rooms were still unfurnished, the floors unstained. This was fortunate as no sooner had they arrived when they went down with scarlet fever, the rest of us following one by one, my father and Beth alone escaping, and the new rooms were turned into sick rooms.

My mother was the last to get it, and while she was at her worst, her second son was born. For many days she lay between life and death, but gradually she began to improve, though it was weeks before she was able to live her normal full life again. For the first time I saw my mother idle, and perhaps that was why I got my first clear picture of her, and became aware, with a feeling of awe, that she was very beautiful. She wore a pink linen frock with a tight buttoned bodice, and her lovely hands were still in her lap; the baby Richard slept in his cradle at her side.

Richard was not a strong baby, but he soon grew into a sturdy little boy, with a most independent and sturdy nature. While he was still a toddler he stood beside me in the lane, holding in his two hands a thick crooked stick. We were watching our uncle, whose farm adjoined ours, jump his horse over the gate from the main road, and come on towards us at a sharp canter. When he came to us, he drew rein, and stooped to hand me an enormous red apple.

He had deep, dark eyes, and his handsome face was bearded. As he rode away I remarked to no­one in particular, “He's like Jesus”.

Richard immediately began to dance about, beating the ground with his stick, chanting “Jesus, Jesus”.

A brood of chickens scattered, and the mother hen flew at him angrily, but he ran after her with
his stick, still shouting, until he fell on his chin, and burst into floods of tears. Strangely, apart from a few such incidents, I don't remember much about him as a small boy, except that he was sweet, and very fat, and that occasionally, for no apparent reason, his sunny nature would cloud over, with black moods of depression.

All through his life he has had these moments, fortunately rare, and of short duration, but I think as puzzling to himself as to his family and friends.

On Sunday mornings we all went to church – so called, though it was only the parish hall, with a platform at one end, and rows of chairs facing it. We would sit in a long line, all uncomfortably clothed in stiffly starched white frocks, long black stockings and shiny black shoes, and we carried a hymn book. All denominations attended, and the service was simple, leading us to believe that if we were good we would go to heaven, and if we were bad we would go to hell. Hell was eternal fire, and quite unthinkable, and heaven was where a very stern and just God had His Kingdom; but Heaven didn't sound very attractive either, except to the saintly few who were certain of a welcome and a crown of glory.

We had to sit perfectly still in Church, looking straight ahead of us, but plenty of entertainment was provided for us by the occupants of the seats immediately in front. Mrs Jaye and her small son Bobby sat there, and Bobby did exactly as he liked, and what he liked was to eat sweets –lollies, we called them – all through the service, rustling his paper bag, and making loud sucking noises. He also liked to kneel on the seat facing us as he did it. He would put a large round sweet in his mouth, suck vigorously for a moment, and then clenching the sweet between his teeth, he would draw back his lips, and we would see that his sweet was brown. More sucking, the lips drawn back again, and it was pink, then green, then mauve, and lastly white.

When it was quite finished he would loll against his mother while she wiped his sticky mouth, and it would begin all over again. He wriggled about all the time, he smiled at us and whispered, but of course we weren't allowed to answer, so we just stared at him and hoped he wouldn't be
discouraged.

In the evening we would gather round the piano to sing hymns. Mother sat before the keys with the baby on her lap, and waited for us to choose a hymn. We all had our favourites – mine was

“Little Children, Little
Children”, and we began with that.
“Little children, little children,
Who love their Redeemer...”
We sang at the tops of our voices – I remember how enthusiastic we used to
be, each trying to sing louder than the others ­
“They shall shine in their glory
His bright crown adorning
They shall shine in their beauty
Bright jewels for His crown”.

Whether we got the words right or wrong didn't matter in the least, it was the singing that counted with us. Over our childish voices rose our mother's, clear and sweet. I used to watch her while she sang, a smile on her lips, her dark eyes sparkling.

Gillian was serious, and when my father was making another trip to England on a short visit, she insisted that we sung “For Those in Peril On The Sea”. The tune seemed infinitely sad and mournful, and after the sprightly one of my own choice, it depressed me terribly, and I didn't want to sing any more after that. I was glad when my father landed safely in

England and for a few weeks at least, we were spared “For Those In Peril”. Jill was conscientious. I think she must have been a great comfort to my mother because she was generally to be found giving a helping hand with the sewing when it was needed.

Woolgathering 05 A fire

One incredible sight of horror we awoke to find ourselves surrounded by fire; two large blue gas plant stations, one on either side of the house was ablaze. The roaring flames were leaping a hundred feet into the air, and the crackling and crashing of falling trees was terrifying in the extreme.

In the confusion, as we were hastily flinging on our clothing, my eldest sister Greta, remembered her pet lamb, which was tethered to a post on a patch of grass in front of the house, and she dashed out to rescue it; this she did at her peril and was almost cut off by the flames as they swept through the dry grass. Though she remembered nothing of it, part of her clothing, torn and scorched, was found the following morning hanging from the top strand of the barbed wire surrounding the lambs' paddock.

Neighbours rode in from surrounding farms when they saw the glow of the fire in the night sky, and helped to fight the flames. All through the night forty men toiled to keep the fire away from the house, and the crops, which were almost ready for harvesting, and to get the frightened horses out
of the stables to a place of safety. Narrow trenches were hastily dug from the water race to bring the water to more accessible points, but it seemed an almost impossible task, and we felt that a complete “burn out” was inevitable The heat was almost unbearable, and my sisters were kept busy making tea for the thirsty men who fought the flames like demons through the long night. By dawn, all that could be done had been done. The crops, miraculously, had been saved and so had the house, though the walls were too hot to touch; the horses were safe, but some of the buildings and farm equipment had been lost.

The men sat in groups, dirty and red-eyed, many with singed hair and aching burns which were silently bound up by my sad faced mother. No-one spoke; my father sat with his head in his hands. There was no hope of saving the plantations, and they were still alight, bereft of leaves and branches, and glowing like huge red hot pokers against a back-cloth of smoke– they smouldered for days and nights, bursting into sudden flame from time to time, and dying down again quickly.
Here and there as the fires went out, a great branch-less tree stood out black against the sky, making the general state of destruction appear more complete. For days men found small dead animals that had been trapped in the fire, and once, a hen, charred and blackened, still sitting on her eggs.

It was a terrible picture of desolation, but we were lucky to be alive, and the only thing to be done was to start putting things together and in order again as soon as possible. A task my father, characteristically, threw himself into with all his energy, sparing himself neither anyone else.

One remembered incident makes me smile still. During the height of the chaos, the German music master, who was spending the night with us, was to be seen marching round and round the house, immaculately attired, even to a carefully knotted tie, and carrying a walking stick. He remained solemnly on guard all through the night, and in spite of the intense heat and danger, and then retired to bed again.

In our splendid climate, things grew quickly, and it didn't seem long before the bright new green began to cover the blackened earth, and the buildings were soon repaired or rebuilt. A fine new granary was my father's special pride, and while it still stood empty we held a grand dance there all our friends and neighbors came, and a specially warm welcome was given to those who had risked much to help fight the fire, which could so easily have ruined us. Heavy rain had fallen during the day, making the yard wet and muddy, so a long line of planks was laid from the house to the granary, and the guests had to walk the fifty yards in single file. It was a jolly party, and continued till dawn. The band was a motley affair, anyone who could play an instrument joined in. The leader and first violinist was my Uncle William, and my mother played the piano. One of the stable boys thumped happily on a home-made drum, and Andy, the head shepherd, added vocal talent.

Years later I was to be reminded of that terrible night, when in South Africa the veldt fires got out of control, and swept through the long dry grass in a roaring flood. The hot breath of the flames on my face sent my mind racing back over the years.

Woolgathering 04 - Father and Horses

My father often now talked of returning to England for good and taking us all with him – however it wouldn't be yet, and time went on. He had brought a motor car out to New Zealand from England, and they were still a sufficiently uncommon sight on the country roads to cause some excitement amongst the schoolchildren.

It was a big, unwieldy machine, with high wheels, and massive brass acetylene lamps that flared and sizzled in the most alarming way. The noisy engine frightened all the animals, and we used to try and make our ponies approach the car when the engine was running. With a great deal of coaxing and thumping with our heels, we could perhaps get them within ten or twelve yards of it, then with a frightened snort they would spin round, and gallop off with mane and tail flying. It was weeks before they got accustomed to it.

My father used to buy his horses and ponies while they were still unbroken, or breed them from his own stock, but he always broke them in himself. He loved his horses, but it was his policy to sell all his surplus stock, so many of his beautifully schooled horses had to go. He hated to part with them, and I think when it came to the point, it was the one time when he could have put business second to inclination.

One day he had a young pony on a long rope in the yard, that had never been handled until it was brought to the farm from the paddock a few days before. Six of us were sitting, silent and still, on the top rail of the fence, watching. He was the prettiest pony I have ever seen, and he fought savagely for his freedom. He reared and plunged, and lashed out viciously; he tore at the rope with his teeth, and my father fought back at the other end of the rope.

Gradually the fire began to go out of the pony and he stood still, trembling, his proud little head high, and his eyes wide and bright. My heart beat faster and my hands were damp; I felt terribly excited as I settled more firmly on the fence.

My father talked quietly to him, shortening the length of the rope between them as he did so; the pony looked quickly to left and right, backed a little, and then stood still again. Soon my father was gently rubbing his shoulder, and then his neck and head.

He placed a small saddle on the quivering pony's back, and took it off again many times, and the pony stood still. For several days this went on, and the man became the master in the end.


Then, on the sixth day, may father said without raising his voice,

“Come along one of you, and get up.”

Nobody moved.

“Did you hear me?”

The cold note of authority was there, but he never took his eyes off the pony.

“Which ever of you rides him today shall have him for her own.”

Still for a moment no-one stirred. Then Gillian slowly climbed down from the fence, and walked across to my father. He said nothing, but still holding the rope, he helped her up.

For a few moments nothing happened, then the pony seemed to go mad! He gave a shrill squeal, threw his weight on the rope, and by every conceivable means tried to dislodge the burden
from his back. But he could not. She clung tightly with hands and legs, and somehow managed to stay on, her face white. Suddenly he bucked, reared high in the air, and with a sickening thud, landed on top of Jill. By some miracle she was not killed, though her mouth was bleeding.

As soon as they were both on their feet she silently remounted, and there on his back she remained until the pony once more stood still.

We, like five magpies on the fence, were speechless and more than a little frightened. Gradually the little animal became quiet and gentle, and after a few weeks, Jill could do anything with him. She called him Otto – perhaps out of regard for her German music master – and he became her most beloved treasure.

One rainy season when my father was away from home at a sale, it became necessary for a friend's cattle to be moved across the river and my father offered to do it for him. He had done it many times before, but this time it was near the river mouth, and the current in the flood-water was running strongly.

As the cattle swam they began to turn downstream, towards the sea – his only chance of saving them was to swim his horse below them, and try to turn them against the current. This he did to his peril, shouting and lashing at the cattle with his long stock whip. The danger of his being over-run by the cattle in their fear and confusion was very great, but little by little he edged them round and landed them safely.

I well remember the first time I swam my pony across a flooded river – my father at my side, swimming with his arm across the saddle of his own horse. In my imagination I can still feel the water rising cold about my legs, and the strange thrilling sensation when the pony began to swim, his head thrust forward, and nostrils distended. I could feel the ripple of his body as he thrashed through the water. I remember too how on gaining the opposite bank he almost unseated me when he vigorously shook himself free of water!

* * * *

Woolgethering 03 A glass eye, a trip to England and a storm

Once we had a shepherd with a glass eye, who used to go down to the water race, where it flowed between the apple trees, to wash – every now and then he took out his eye and rinsed it in the water. I remember one day I crept up behind him, and sprang upon his stooping back; he was thrown off balance, and we both fell sprawling in the water – his glass eye fell from
his hand, and was smashed on a stone. He never bothered to have it replaced, and anyway, he said he could see just as well without it.

More and more memories crowded into my mind as I sat thinking of those far off days, and as I relived each one I was a child again, feeling every emotion with the utmost clarity. There was the day that John fell down the gravel pit, and I could see his small figure crumpled and motionless at the bottom, and thought he was dead. I flew round the edge to the sloping
track, crying and praying as I ran, “Oh God please don't let him be dead”, and my relief when my efforts to move him were rewarded with a howl of pain. There was the day Gillian was chased by a bull, and took refuge on the top of a huge stone heap in the middle of a paddock and there had to remain with the bull pacing about below her, until she was rescued hours later by one of the farm hands. The time Beth had her wrist broken when she was dragged by her pony. She was driven by my mother to the nearest Doctor – a matter of twenty-five miles, a pale frightened little girl, feint with pain as the trap bumped over the rough country roads. Very different, I remembered, when she returned a few days later, a little superior I thought, with her arm in a sling, and wearing a new red ribbon in her shining dark curls.

Another memory was of an early morning just as I was leaving the house, when one of the men had fallen under the disc harrows when his horse had taken fright, and was being carried in. He was horribly cut about the face and arms – I tottered into the garden and was suddenly sick.

During those first years the development of the farm went on steadily, though there were many heart-braking setbacks. Crops were sewn and harvested, and the sheep and cattle increased in number, as did the employees. The mortgage was paid off, and there was money in the bank, and help in the house for my mother, and it was about this time, when I was five, that my father decided to take a trip home to England; my mother and
the two youngest children, the baby Jane, were all chosen(?) to go with him. I was broken-hearted when I found I was to be(?) left behind with my grandparents; it was the first time I had ever stayed away from home, or been separated from the rest of the family.

The four older girls were to stay with different friends.

The months of waiting for their return seemed endless and when from time to time one of my sisters came to visit me I became homesick and miserable. Living with my grandparents were two young aunts, and an unmarried uncle – Uncle James, my idol. He was gay and handsome, a young man who should have been an artist, just as his brother William should have studied music – music that filled his heart and mind and made him forget his sheep.
Their father was a dour Scot who had no time for the Arts. The boys, he said, should be farmers, so he bought them each a farm, but they were not interested. The one played his music, and the other made his pictures, and wasted his time watching a falling blossom, or a bright bird in a sparkling pool.

Uncle James often took me on the front of his saddle when he went out, and it was he who first taught me beauty of form and colour, and of light and shade, and I spent many happy hours with him. He showed me the loveliness of a windblown tree against a darkening sky, and of a bright green lizard basking on a flat grey stone in the sun. It was he too who kept me out too long one evening when we were overtaken by a storm. The wind came sweeping across the plain in unbroken violence, tearing at our clothes and beating the breath out of our lungs.

It became impossible to stay on the horse, so we dismounted, tied the reins to the stirrup, and set him free knowing he would find his own way home. We struggled along, clinging tightly to each other, and I knew that if he let me go, I would be blown away like a leaf. Every now and again he would
hoist me up and carry me until I had recovered my breath. When we got home, and I felt we had been through a great adventure together, he was roundly scolded by my grandmother, but he laughed and made light of it – as he did on the fatal day when he cut my hair short. It seemed a good idea to us,
but it made us very unpopular with the rest of the household.

At last, after what seemed a lifetime to me, my parents were on their way home, and I was going to Littleton to meet their ship. When I got there with one of my aunts, I found my four sisters already there, and when I saw my mother and father coming down the gangplank, I was suddenly shy. I noticed John was taller and thinner, and that Jane, in my mother's arms, had a bandage over her eyes. Later I learned that she had picked up some infection in England, which in spite of several operations and left her almost blind in one eye. She spent months in semi-darkness, then had to wear tinted glasses for many months more.

As she grew older it was found that she was artistic, and in spite of her impaired sight she painted many beautiful pictures.

Quickly the threads of our old life were taken up again, except that John and I started to go to school. Our days of unrestricted play were over; gone the hours of dawdling through the leafy orchard and playing by the water race amongst the yellow buttercups, with the unforgettable smell
of musk all about us. Instead we bustled off to make the(?) mile ride to school, splashing through the water where the stream became a shallow ford across the roadway.

Pip and Dot were our ponies, and in the winter when the
water was frozen, Dot refused to walk on the ice, so Pip went before her, pawing the surface until he made a hole in which he put his hoof; more pawing, and another hole, and so on, step by step until the ford was crossed, with Dot following sedately behind, carefully walking in the holes
made for her.

Woolgathering02 - Christmas, sheep shearing, play

About Christmas time, with the summer sun beating hotly down, we would be taken for an all day picnic by the river. All would pile into traps and buggies, or onto ponies, and with hampers of food we would set out, often accompanied by friends from adjoining stations. I still remember how excited we used to get when the day dawned, and we were actually on the way. We chose for our picnic a spot where the river, shallow, and almost half a mile wide at the bend, went sweeping round in a great horse-shoe curve. The
hot sun shone down sparkling and dancing on the running water as it flowed chattering over the stony river bed. On the left bank the foothills rose gently, and over them towered Mount Cook, 1200 feet high – on the right the road ran between the river on the one side, and on the other a hill, luxuriantly bush covered. Here and there the dense native bush had been cleared, and the slope was covered with a thick rough growth of tussock, with a few cabbage trees and scrubby bushes dotted about.

The bush was enchanting, and was a riot of brilliantly coloured
flowering trees, shrubs and enormous ferns. Brightly plumaged birds flitted in and out of the shadows. But it was the tussocky slope that drew us, for this was our playground. We tobogganed here and we needed no snow – we simply tore a stumpy branch from a cabbage tree with its thick tuft of fibrous palm-like leaves, carried it to the top of the hill, sat on the leaves, and holding the stump firmly between our legs, away we went. With ear splitting screams we bumped and slithered swiftly over the slippery tussock. It required skill, and a great deal of luck to avoid violent collision with the cabbage trees and scrub that loomed in our path, and to
keep our seats to the end of the journey. Indeed we didn't need to go to Switzerland, or even to the snowy peaks of Mount Cook to get all the thrills and spills of Winter Sports!

Of course the wear and tear on our clothes was considerable and entailed patching and repairing afterwards. We used to eat enormous quantities of cold food and drink delicious smokey tea made over the wood-fire, and then paddled about in the river, trying with only moderate success to leap from one flat boulder to another.

If we fell in, it didn't matter, our clothes were taken off and hung over bushes, where they quickly dried, and we played without them, until it was time to go home. The adults of the party asked for nothing more than to sit restingand gossiping in the shade, or listening to the bush sounds, the movements of small animals and the beautiful ringing note of the bell bird.

At sheep-shearing time we children were always there. Flocks of sheep, thousands strong, were brought in by the shepherds from all parts of the station, collected and penned at one centre where the big shearing shed stood. All the work was done by hand in those days, and it was fun to be present to watch the preparations before the work began.

The shears were laid out sharp and bright, with a little drop of shining oil looking like a jewel, where the blades met; and for each shearer a jar of Stockholm Tar was provided to dab on the wound should any animal be accidentally cut. A large table was placed for cleaning and sorting of fleeces and the wool press was
tested.

The first sign of the approaching flock would be seen as tiny puffs of
dust in the distance, steadily increasing in size, and as they came nearer one could distinguish a rider and hear, at first faintly, the occasional barking of dogs, and the shepherds' whistle. The flocks came in on all sides, and the noise reached its height when the sheep were being drafted into the yards. The dogs ran backwards and forwards on the backs of the bleating sheep, bustling them through the narrow opening, and barking sharply from time to time, their red, lolling tongues dripping with moisture.

The shepherds rode close behind, and my father stood at one side
of the gate counting the sheep as they crowded through; I sat on the fence at the opposite side counting “Tallies”. Every time my father called “Tally”, I counted one. Each tally was a hundred, and at the end I had to know how many hundreds had passed through the gate. I put all my concentration into this, for it seemed that the whole success or failure of the day rested on my accuracy. I remember to this day the curious smell of the wool and hot dust, of dogs, sweating horses and men, and saddle leather.

When all was ready, the gang of men hired for the job would start
work. They stood in a long line down the wool shed each with a pen of unshorn sheep behind him, and a trap door in front through which the sheep were pushed into an outside yard when they were shorn, and the day's work would begin. We laughed to see then as they popped out of the trap doors into the open, looking naked and foolish, their eyes wide and startled.

Very soon the fleeces began to roll off in soft creamy masses, and the only sound in the building was the rapid snip, snip, snip of the shears, a shuffling of feet, and an occasional word of command - “Keep still, you awkward devil” (I can’t help feeling the language was more acid than that – Rog)- from one or other of the shearers.
As the fleeces fell to the ground they were immediately scooped up by a “sorter”, and carried to the table, where they were cleaned, rolled up, and put into the bale, which stood on the platform of the press.

When the bale was full and firmly packed, it was sewn up and stacked ready for removal to the wool market. It took many days to finish the shearing; usually one man clipped from eighty to a hundred sheep a day, but it was not uncommon to find some among them who clipped as many as a hundred and fifty. They stopped only for meals, and at eleven o'clock for “Smoko” - usually cocoa or tea, or something cold should they prefer it, - and a quick smoke.

Later came “Dipping”, and again the sheep had to be rounded up and brought in from outlying parts of the station. At these times my mother never knew at what time my father would arrive for a hurried meal and as quickly disappear again, his dogs always at his heels. The dip was a concrete trench with a slide at one end, and a ramp at the other. When it was all ready and three parts full of nasty looking mustard-coloured liquid, the sheep were shot down the slide, and made to swim to the other end, where they scrambled out on the ramp. As they swam they were ducked with a crutch made for the purpose.

One day my eight year old brother decided to help, and seizing acrutch he stepped forward, only to slip, and fell face downwards on the brink of the bath, now full of swimming sheep. In the nick of time one of the men hauled him back, and having administered a sound appropriately placed smack, stood him right side up on the ground – to which the ungrateful scamp replied with a well-aimed kick.

Most of my childhood was spent out of doors, and my constant companion was my brother John. We rambled about the paddocks and plantations at will, and there was hardly a tree on the place that we hadn't climbed in search of sparrows' eggs. From the sale of these, and the combings and clippings of horses manes and tails, we made our slender income.

At the time, sparrows were increasing at such an alarming rate thatthey, like rabbits, were a source of real anxiety and loss to the farmers, and indeed to the country as a whole.

This New Zealand, a small paradise when the Maoris settled there more than six hundred years ago – a country where the rivers, hills, and luscious valleys were warm in the Pacific sunshine, and where no pests existed until brought by the white people little more than a century ago – pigs, rabbits, deer, and in plant life, gorse and blackberries, were some of the curses imported. Disastrous because of their incredibly rapid increase – they were soon out of hand, and strict measures had to be taken to control them. The damage and loss to crops was enormous, so the Government agreed to pay a percentage price for sparrows eggs as well as rabbits tails, to encourage the extermination of these pests.

Tree climbing was second nature to us – wattle trees and firs were easy, but the smooth Blue Gums needed more skill. We used to wind our bare legs round the trunk, and gripping first with our arms, and then with our legs, slid up until we were in reach of the branches, which were often fifteen or twenty feet from the ground.

Sometimes when we were playing in the vicinity of the orchard we would catch sight of something that made us leave everything and run, helter skelter through the trees, cutting across the corner of the station's exercising ground, and throwing ourselves under the lowest strand of barbed

wire that surrounded it, just in time to escape the pounding hooves of Hector! We were on our feet again in a moment, pelting across the open space to the water race.
Here was our destination; the water plough was at work, and as it was slowly dragged along the stream, it sent a steady flow of thick mud and water onto the banks, and wriggling in the silt were dozens of “bullies”, small fish of anything up to four or five inches log, which we excitedly began to catch, before they had time to slide back into the water.

Every time the water ploughs were at work we used to do this, happily squelching about in the thick mud with our bare feet. I can't think what became of the poor “bullies” that I carried home in my skirt and put in large glass jars in the harness room, but it seemed a splendid thing to do at the time.

Woolgatehring 01 - Introduction and herding sheep

Two long shadows came bobbing towards me over the grass for a moment and were gone again, gone across the sunlit lawn through the gate in the garden wall. The shadows of my daughters tall and fair. These two on the threshold of life, happy in the present, untroubled by the future.
As I sat beneath the old lime tree in our English garden, watching their departure, my mind slipped down the years to my own youth, to my childhood, and I began to remember little by little those early years, spent 7000 miles across the ocean on a big sheep station in New Zealand.

The struggling years, when my parents worked endlessly it seemed – the ups and downs, the bad times caused by fire, flood, bad markets and sickness, but despite all these, the steady progress made by a stern man with tremendous energy and determination, and by a woman whose courage, co-operation and loyalty were steadfast beyond belief.

I remembered I was a shy, wild rather reserved child, and my mother, always anxious for our welfare, would have wished to give us more individual attention, but the claims of the family as a whole were many. There was always much to be done and there were always babies – I was the fifth of eleven – eight girls and three boys.

In addition to the help my mother gave on the farm – she spent many hours in the saddle riding to outlying paddocks – on the occasions when no-one else was available to do it – she had her children to care for, and until things began to prosper, besides the ordinary household duties, she cooked a midday meal for the men working on the station. All this with the help of a young girl and the elder daughters.

My mother rode well, looking slim and graceful on her grey mare – she was a splendid shot too, and often, when she wanted a chicken for the morrow, she would slip into the orchard in the evening with her rifle and shoot a bird through the head as it roosted in the branches of an apple tree. Later as the number of employees increased, the men had their own cook, and their meals were prepared in the Whari – a large wooden hut which stood in the yard, with two tiers of bunks around the walls.

At one time there was a Maori cook, a dear old fellow, very brown and wrinkled, whom we all loved. When time permitted, and, I feel bound to add, when my father was safely out of the way, he would sit on an upturned bucket, telling us wonderful stories of life in the Maori Paa, (The word pā -pronounced pah refers to a Māori village, generally one from the 19th century or earlier that was fortified for defence. Ref Wikipedia) and of his own strange life in particular. Of his restless youth, his weeks hunting in the lower alps, and his fishing trips to the lakes, and once he told us of the death of his fine young son, drowned on one of these same trips.

“My son,” he said, and paused, his busy old hands still for a while, and his face stern and sad, “My son, with life so strong in him” - we were sad too, silently sharing his loss. Wishing to comfort him I put my hand on his for a moment, and he started talking again immediately.

As he spoke, he worked away with a pocket knife on pieces of wood, making little treasures for us – for me a Tiki, and for my sisters large stocky dolls, whom they called Woodeny and Puddeny. The dolls were indestructible, and grew up with us. I can’t remember what happened to them eventually, but for years they were a solid part of our lives. These, and rag dolls, made by our mother were our only toys at this time. There were elaborately conducted funerals at which they figured as the deceased, and were buried in shoe-boxes deep in the ground.
After what seemed a decent interval, they were exhumed, and thrown into the boiler on washing day; and when they were in due course fished out, they were as good as new. Their features gradually became indistinct, and then non-existent. This didn’t make the slightest difference to our affection for them.

My mother was a high spirited girl of eighteen when she married the young Englishman, who in a moment of anger and frustration, had left his home in one of Yorkshire’s loveliest dales to make his own way in the world. Refusing help from anyone, he sailed for New Zealand, arriving with only a few pounds in his pocket. Here on the wide Canterbury plains of the South Island, with the winding Rangatata River his boundary, and the snow-capped peak of Mount Cook rising sharply from the highest ridge of the Southern Alps to the East, they settled three years later, with little but their hands and their courage to help them.

At first my father worked on an adjoining sheep station, to gain experience, and earn a little money, with the fixed idea of having a place of his own soon as possible. Indeed, he was even late for his own wedding, because his stock needed his last minute attention, before he could leave for his short honeymoon. He had an incredible capacity for hard work, and would make decisions and act upon them swiftly and fearlessly. He toiled from dawn to dusk, and was impatient of delay, whatever the cause.

Everyone knew him as a man of iron who would drive a hard bargain, but even those of his neighbours who liked him least respected his judgement, however grudgingly.

As little children we were afraid of him, his sudden rages terrified us, and his word was absolute law. He gave us tasks to do which were far beyond our strength and years, but no-one amongst us ever questioned his authority. Even my mother’s spirited protests were over- ruled, and her angry tears ignored.

When I was ten and my brother not quite nine, we were sent to move a large flock of sheep from one paddock to another about two miles away. Our way led us down a steep cutting on a hillside, and there we were to leave the road and follow a rough cart track across a wide open stretch of land to another road a quarter of a mile further on. We set out on our ponies – one at the head of the flock and the other following at the rear in a stifling cloud of dust.

This would have been simple enough for a shepherd with a couple of good sheepdogs, but we had only our ponies and not much experience. All went well until we got onto the cart track, then suddenly one of the sheep broke away and ran out of the flock. Others followed. I at the front rode back to try and collect the truants, and while I was thus occupied the leaders got too far ahead. My brother and I galloped madly round and round the flock trying vainly to get them bunched up. The heat was terrific, and we were choked with dust; the ponies stumbled over the tussocky grass, and we couldn’t hear each other for the bleating of the sheep. When at last we got them under control again, we were exhausted, our faces were streaked with dirt, and our heaving ponies wet with sweat.

Yet not for one moment had we thought of giving up our task, or going for help.

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