Seeing as I am nearly ninety seven; and before I lose all my marbles, I have been poked, prodded and pushed into recording my memories of my earlier life. I was born in 1913 in a shack at Ohakune, New Zealand, the last of a family of seven. Six boys and one girl. My earliest recollections are when I was about four or five, the first being I think, of my mother fainting in the kitchen on the receipt of a telegram from the local postmaster advising her of the death of her brother Fred at Pachendale in WW1. It shouldn’t of been a real shock because she was of Cornish blood and they say some of them were a little fey. In other words, some of them could foretell the future. Mum had already told us that she knew Uncle Fred was dead because a couple of nights earlier she had seen him appear in her room.
The next recollections I have are of the Raetahi fire. I recall my brother and I waking about six in the morning to a howling wind and the noise of several people in the kitchen. The place was full of smoke, and we learned that there was a large bushfire surrounding the area.Our house caught fire twice but was put out twice by Alf, who was sitting on the roof with a bucket of water and a wet sack, hiding behind the chimney to keep out of the wind. Fortunately the house did not burn down, and heavy rain began at about four o’clock aleviating the danger of fire. All we lost was a sheet of iron from the roof, which was found a month later wrapped around a tall Matai tree about 400 yards downt he road.
My next recollection is the 1918 flu which fortunately, although all the family was ill apart from me, we all survived. Our neighbours across the road lost a child of about five years old; I can remember her ill mother crawling up our front steps to see if we needed any help. The spirit of the pioneers.
Looking back now I can only marvel at the courage of my mother who reared a family of seven under such primitive conditions. Our four bedroomed shackon our few acres was basic, with no modern conviences what so ever. Meals for the family were prepared in camp ovens over an open fire, with the usual corrugated iron chimney, which could often catch fire on the framework outside. Our house was in a small clearing with native bush all around, the house was typical of the early homes. It consisted of a kitchen living area, a bedroom for mum and dad, another bedroom for the boys and a main living room with an open fire. As time went on the kitchen recieved a stove, brick chimney and one of the greatest boons, a hot water cylinder on the side. Despite these limitations we were well fed, and we all survived to adulthood.