Members Stories

Eketahuna

Dad was a Methodist minister. He was born in Auckland but in 1914 when he was 10, shifted to Birkdale where his father grew strawberries and fruit, and built houses. Dad went to Auckland Grammar. Mum was also born in Auckland, growing up in New Lynn and Parnell. She shifted in about 1920 when she was 16, to Seaton Street (Colonial Road) when her father came to work with his uncle Steve Roberts. Later her father had his own grocery business in Hauraki Road (Hinemoa Street). Mum and Dad met at Zion Hill Methodist Church but had to wait seven years to get married until dad was ordained as a minister. In 1930, he spent a year as a probationer at Hikurangi, and went to his first circuit in Inglewood as a married ordained minister in 1931. My oldest brother Brian was born the following year. In 1934 they moved to the Picton Circuit living at Tua Marina. My next brother Neal was born in 1936. In 1938 they moved to Motueka, where both my brother Peter and I were born. During this time my parents became involved in the Christian Pacifist movement. In 1941 they moved back north to Warkworth. At that time there was a NZ Army Camp, as well as US Army and Marine Camps near the town. Dad’s Pacifist beliefs did not go down well and after two years he was moved out of the way to Eketahuna in the Wairarapa.

Eketahuna was a country town with a population of under 1000 that serviced the many farmers around. The event of the week was the sale of stock at the saleyards below the school. About a year before we arrived, there had been an earthquake in the Wairarapa and all the brick chimneys in the house had collapsed. There were fireplaces in each of the bedrooms. Dad, with our help, removed all the bricks and made the old fireplace spaces into wardrobes. The house was surrounded on three sides by paddocks – on the other side was the local maternity hospital in an ordinary house. Between was a row of tall macrocarpa trees that we loved to climb and swing from the tops of. One day, I remember, a boy fell from the top of one of them. I don’t think he was badly hurt though.

Behind the house was the washhouse in a separate shed. Mum always threatened that she would put us in there for the night if we were naughty. I remember once being sent out there – but didn’t spend the night there. In there was a copper and an electric washing machine. Mum had bought this from her brother Uncle Trev (Roberts Electrical) when electric washing machines first came out. Behind the washhouse was a lawn and dad’s vegetable garden. Rabbits used to come in. Various traps were made to try and catch them without success – these were usually boxes containing lettuce and carrots with a door either tripped shut when they entered, or shut with a long string pulled by one of us.

In the house, mum had a black Orion stove that had to be kept stoked up with wood, and when we could get it, coal. This warmed the back area of the house, was used for cooking and also heated up the water. Even at that age, (I was still only 7 when we left Eketahuna) our jobs included feeding the fowls and cutting wood or kindling, although at this stage I don’t think that cutting wood was a regular task for me. Eketahuna was cold. We had some terrific frosts there. The chimney in the lounge had been rebuilt so there was a fireplace there. Dad had a small round electric heater in his study but still needed to wrap himself up in a blanket in winter. We were always short of blankets. At one time to save removal costs, the Church provided all blankets, cutlery, crockery, etc. When the policy was changed and ministers had to provide their own blankets, there were insufficient in the parsonage for our family with five children. As it was wartime, blankets were difficult to buy at any cost. Mum had a standing order with all the drapers in the town to buy any that they could get – she got the occasional grey army blanket. We must have been terrible for mum as we would yell and yell at night that we were cold. Mum would pile coats on us, pinch blankets from their own bed until they went to bed, and when she couldn’t find any other solution, hop into bed with us to warm us up.

Cutlery was another thing we were also short of. When the Church decreed that ministers should have their own, the Tua Marina Church where dad was stationed at the time, refused to give up the new canteen that they had just bought. We never ever had matching cutlery but just bits and pieces as sets were almost unobtainable during the war.

In the town were many stock and station agents who supplied everything the farmers needed. We got our groceries from Reynolds who had shops in Both Eketahuna and Pahiatua. In those days, mum used to ring up with her weekly order and it would be delivered onto our kitchen table whether there was anyone home or not – we never locked our doors.

I started school in August 1943 several months after we arrived in Eketahuna. We lived in Stanley Street and usually walked the mile to school, but my oldest brother Brian would “dub” me home for lunch on the bar of his bike. The route home went past our church, through the main street, down the hill over the bridge and around the corner into Stanley Street. One day, the Dillon twins, two red headed Catholic boys were fighting on the road outside the shops. Brian swerved on his bike to dodge them, but we came off. My arm was hurt so I was taken to the Chemist, as we didn’t have a doctor in the town. He didn’t think my arm was broken so just put in a sling. About a year later as it was still hurting, mum took me to the hospital in Pahiatua and had it x-rayed – my arm had been broken with a greenstick fracture but had healed itself. After we left Eketahuna, one of the Dillon twins was involved in an explosion while making his own fireworks, and lost his arm.

I can’t remember much about my time at school there, except loving the stories in the Progressive Readers. In our last year there, Brian went to the high school there and had a uniform. Two of my friends at school were Edwin Bailey and Kevin Anderson. Edwin went to our church. His father was a cabinetmaker and also the local undertaker. One day, on the way home from school I went to their place and saw a coffin there which was being made. I asked who they were making the boat for!!!!

Kevin lived out at Alfreton and came into school every day by bus. After leaving Eketahuna, we went to Waitara and later Pahiatua. Kevin turned up at Waitara and stayed with his grandfather Ted Zinsley, an old Swiss shoemaker who lived in a run down house near the river in Leslie Street. He used to mend our shoes and mum often did his washing. When we moved Pahiatua, Kevin turned up again in my class at high school – his father was then the sexton at Pahiatua.

While in Eketahuna, we bought a new car, or rather a different car. I can’t remember the old one but we all went down to Masterton to get Chrystabel. She was a 1926 Chrysler, large, square and green, with running boards down each side, and a carrier that folded down at the back. The front bench seat folded down and mum and dad slept in the car when we went camping. When we got the car, she had a winged Pegusus on the radiator cap, but dad had to break off the points of the wings as they were too dangerous. We sold Chrystabel in 1949 when we were in Taranaki. In 1960 when I was teaching at Auroa in South Taranaki, I found that she was still going and had been owned by the teacher that had been at the school just prior to me.

Dad always had a Sunday morning service in “our” church in Eketahuna, and in the afternoon he took a service at either Rongokokako or Nireha and a service at Mauriceville on the fifth Sunday when it occurred. At Rongokokako the service was in the hall. As there was no one to play the piano for the hymns there, dad used to play his violin. Our children Craig and Tanya both learnt to play on this violin which has a lovely picture of a castle in wood inlaid on the back.

I can’t remember much about Nireha, but can remember going to Mauriceville. The road was narrow with grass growing in the centre. The old Scandinavian church was small but had a gallery and bell tower. It always seemed dusty inside. We were told not to go up in the gallery as it was dangerous, but we did anyway and rang the bells. One Sunday, on the way home, we came around a corner and crashed into another car and almost went over the bank. There wasn’t much damage and no one was hurt. The other car had to be towed away.

During the week, if we asked where dad was, mum always told us he had gone to “Visington” because one of us could not pronounce visiting. If the visiting was local, he would put on his bicycle clips and pedal away. In those days, dad always had to dress up in his proper “uniform” with a dark suit and his “dog collar” which was much wider than those worn by ministers today.

Joan was born on October 11th 1944. Mum was taken next door and after Joan was born we all went over there to see her. After four boys, none of us boys believed that mum could produce a girl so we never even considered girl’s names. The new baby was to be called Keith. When a girl arrived, we considered Keita but that was too sissy. We accepted Joan with her second name Keitha. For one reason or another, Dad had baptised all the boys and vowed that he was not going to baptise Joan. He arranged for the baptism to be when another minister was visiting. At the last minute, the other minister couldn’t come and dad had to “do” Joan.

During the time mum was in hospital and for a time afterwards, mum had Betty Traill to help out at home. Betty’s marriage split up and for some years Betty was in and out of Porirua Hospital. Mum kept in contact with her for many years and she stayed with us a number of times when we lived in Pahiatua. The last time I saw her was in Wellington in 1973 after we returned from England and stayed in a motel until the tenants got out of our house. She cleaned our motel.

In those days not everyone had a car. Around town, people either walked or biked. When I was 7 it was my turn to learn to ride a bike. Someone, either Brian or Dad ran alongside me to get me started. I had just learned to stay upright when I set off up Stanley Street, which was long and fairly flat. As I pedalled and concentrated on staying upright, I could see the corner coming closer and closer. I was scared stiff as I couldn’t turn a corner and didn’t know how to stop. I finally decided that I had to just fall off into a bank just before the corner. I then had to walk to half-mile home, as I couldn’t get back on. As years went on, my bike riding abilities did improve.

During the war many things were unprocurable or rationed. We all had ration books of little postage stamp size coupons for things such as meat, butter, cheese, clothing and petrol. Mum never cooked a lot of meat so there were always spare meat coupons but she was often short in other areas. Coffee was one item that was not available so Chicory essence was often used or in our case, mum had us out in the paddocks digging up dandelion roots. I can still smell the rich aroma of those dandelion roots roasting. I don’t know what the dandelion coffee tasted like though as only the adults drank it.

We had very few children’s books, toys or pictures. Our books consisted of a few religious books such as “Thank You For The World So Sweet” or pictures such as “God Make My Life a Little Light” which Mum covered with scraped xray film as this was the only type of plastic sheeting available. I remember have “When We Were Very Young” being read to us.

Dad’s pacifist beliefs meant that he was at odds with his brothers and he kept in touch with other Pacifists in the country. He was the chaplain to the detention centre at Shannon. I remember going there several times. The camp was surrounded by high wire netting fences. We children were not allowed in, so we played in the guardhouse at the entrance. Once I remember playing there with a rope tenaquoit.

Each year dad took us camping at Foxton Beach. We had a large square tent. Dad decided to make his own stretchers out of timber with stretched sacking covering. They looked good but were never used. After making them, he was showing them off to a visitor showing how firm and strong they were. The first one broke when dad sat on it. As this was just an unfortunate incident, he sat on the second one and that broke as well. That was the end of the stretchers. One year he hired a collapsible caravan from people up the road. He found this was great and decided to build one for himself. He found a suitable set of wheels and then scoured the area begging for old angleiron bed rails to build the chassis as iron could not be bought during the war. When he had sufficient, he cut it into the required lengths and had the garage weld it together. In April 1946, when we were due to leave Eketahuna, we had a caravan that consisted of wheels, a chassis and sides. He loaded this up with things to take to Waitara, and found out as we were leaving the town that he actually needed to register it and get a warrant of fitness. Luckily it passed and we were on our way to Waitara.

Alec Utting
July 1999