Overview The younger son of a Canterbury dairy farmer, it was Tony's boyhood ambition to run his own sheep farm. School holidays in the early 1960s were spent on an uncle's sheep farm in Northern Southland where he learnt the basic skills of stock management such as drenching, lambing and shearing. A decade later Tony returned to Southland with wife, Judy, when they moved to their own 500-acre sheep and beef farm on one of the newly developed farm settlement blocks in the Te Anau Basin. This recording,...

Overview Brought up on a farm in Canterbury in the 1950s and 60s, Judy was well-versed in the changing seasons of a rural lifestyle. So it was with some equanimity that not long after she married her farmer husband she was ready to leave the rolling midCanterbury plains for the more rigorous climate and terrain of Northern Southland followed by the remote, uncultivated soils of the Te Anau Basin. As new settlers of the Long Valley Block — part of the government's farm settlement scheme in the Basin — in...

Overview Born the youngest of four sons, Snow's early teens were shadowed by events in Europe. His older brothers on active service during WWII, he left school at the age of fourteen to help out on the family farm in North Otago. Post-war, he continued working as a farmhand on various properties throughout North Otago. A spell of employment with an Oamaru-based limeworks company led to his introduction to Te Anau where lime was extracted from a local site for use on the goverrnment's farm development...

Overview For most of his life, the Hollyford Valley has played a significant role in Murray's life. As a boy it was a distant place where his father, Davey Gunn, tried to make a living as a high country farmer. On the other side of the country, Murray grew up in Oamaru surrounded by women, his mother, aunt and two sisters. His first visit to the Hollyford was as a schoolboy in the late 1930s when he was one of a party on a walking holiday. The contrast between his home environment and that of his...

Overview William Smith was born in Lumsden in 1917. Gives details of his father's gold dredging in the Waikaka Valley. Describes a dredge, its operation and the shareholding of three companies - Lilysleaf, Rosedale and Star Dredging. Discusses associated industries including coal carting to feed the steam engines on the dredges. Mentions the coal came from the Waikaka Valley. Describes the dredge on Cummings' property owned by J A S Aitkin. Recalls the sound and smell of dredges. Describes the landscape...

Overview Stewart Rose was born in 1919. Recalls people talking about the flu epidemic of 1918. Mentions how his father was pushed into the job of funeral director. Gives details of his parent's origins and marriage at Owaka in 1917. Recalls being unwell as a child and his mother not being able to afford to take him to the doctor during the Depression. Describes living in Mataura opposite the freezing works and also living in Roxburgh and Pounawea. Recalls the Proficiency exam in Standard 6 at school....

Overview Lillian Kirby was born in Gore in 1906. Describes her home, schooling, leaving school and being employed at H and J Smith's department store. Describes hours, wages, the various departments in the shop, staff social events, balls in Gore, her ball dress, and reasons for leaving the shop. Gives reasons for stopping work when she married. Talks about the main street in Gore and the shops. Recalls her wedding including the service, clothes and attitudes to engagements. Describes changes brought...

Overview Bert Horrell was born in Gore in 1917. Describes how his grandfather emigrated to New Zealand in the 1880s. Talks about their farm across the Mataura River and the difficulty of crossing it to get to school. Mentions how his father, as a child, had learned how to cross the river with a horse and dray full of school children. Talks about his father buying a farm at Mandeville. Describes going to Mandeville school, conditions, teachers Alan Prentice and Miss Barclay and sitting Proficiency....

Overview Rose Graham was born in 1916. Describes the family home, washday, children's chores, relatives, visitors and clothing including `liberty bodices'. Talks about Baldwin's shop (Premet), her mother's occupation as a tailoress, the Baldwin sisters, the workroom for tailoring and other shops and buildings in Gore. Describes the occupations of her three brothers and sisters. Mentions the water cart and the night cart. Discusses education at Gore Main School including a fire in 1921, being kept in,...