Person recorded: Alexander Donald (Donny) Baker

Date Recorded: 24 May 2004

Interviewer and abstractor: Morag Forrester

Tape counter: Sony TCM 939 Tape 1 Side A

006: Opens discussion saying he was born in WHANGAREI. (Born 1929). Explains his MOTHER came from TE ANAU and lived in the NORTH ISLAND for about a year after marrying his FATHER. Adds that before he turned one year old, she returned with him to TE ANAU.

020: Gives his MOTHER’S name as SYLVIA (neé) GOVAN, the eldest daughter of four children. Mentions that the eldest child, her brother, was killed in a fall from a horse in 1920.

029: Says that his MOTHER’S FATHER was ERNIE GOVAN, proprietor of the TE ANAU HOTEL from 1919 to 1939.

036: States he and his MOTHER lived in the hotel from 1930 till 1935, but he doesn’t remember too much about those years.

045: Responding to question, recalls the women’s staff uniform was longer. “In fact most of the ladies dresses seemed to reach right to the floor in the early days.”

052: Says his MOTHER worked at the hotel, in the laundry, as a housemaid or doing whatever was required.

057: States he remembers his GRANDPARENTS whom he described as “just normal people”. Adds they were hardworking. Recalls his GRANDFATHER ran the hotel bar, while his GRANDMOTHER was usually in charge of the cooking.

069: Recalls his MOTHER telling a story about one of the clientele boasting he hadn’t had a bath for seven years and as a result wasn’t allowed into the hotel’s kitchen or dining area.

080: Apart from the hotel building, mentions there were about six houses in the town. And says that before WWII there were a number of baches or cribs built on the lakefront, mainly owned by people from INVERCARGILL and DUNEDIN.

099: Mentions the road into TE ANAU ran along the lakefront where there were about 20 boats berthed along the foreshore, as well as the TAWERA, which he recalls was the only passenger vessel.

111: States his GRANDFATHER, as proprietor of the hotel (owned by the government tourism department THC), was responsible for managing the bookings of the MILFORD TRACK.

119: Considers there were quite a few TRACK walkers then, most of them from overseas.

124: Agrees his GRANDPARENTS played a part in his upbringing, not only in those early years, but also during the war years when they had left the hotel and moved to their own house on the lakefront.

131: Responding to question, considers they were quite strict compared with nowadays. Admits he would sometimes get into trouble and recalls that whenever he did do anything wrong he was “certainly told about it in no uncertain terms (laughs)”. However, says he was never physically punished.

153: Remembers that in 1936, he and his MOTHER shifted when she took over running a STORE at POUNAWEA in the CATLINS. Says she’d heard about its potential as a holiday resort so thought it might be worth a try. They were there for two and a half years.

162: Talking about his FATHER, says his name was GEORGE BAKER and that he had been working in the TE ANAU area for a couple of years before marrying his MOTHER. Adds they both went north and that although his MOTHER wished it, GEORGE didn’t want to come back and live in TE ANAU because the weather was too cold.

171: Mentions his FATHER came from OMAPERE in the HOKIANGA and that he was one quarter MAORI. Recalls visiting the town (in 1973) and meeting his FATHER’S relations, three UNCLES and one AUNT who were still living then, though they may have passed on by now.

185: Says he wrote to his FATHER when he’d been stationed overseas with the 21st BATTALION during WWII - the regiment that suffered serious casualties in the BATTLE OF CRETE. Says his father survived, but spent about a year in hospital in CAIRO afterwards and was permanently disabled.

194: States he didn’t manage to meet his FATHER because that first visit to OMAPERE in 1973 was four months after GEORGE BAKER’S death.

202: Referring back to his earlier years, says that after POUNAWEA, his MOTHER and he shifted to DUNEDIN for about three years during which time he went to GEORGE STREET, NORTH EAST VALLEY AND CAVERSHAM SCHOOLS.

210: Particularly remembers the TRAM CARS in the city streets.

215: Says he and his MOTHER returned to TE ANAU in 1940. Describes it as a much smaller place then, with perhaps six permanent households. Some of the people he remembers were WARD BEER, TOM PLATO, GUS MCGREGOR, whose children, as he did, attended the TE ANAU SCHOOL.

229: Recalls the last couple of years he was at the school during which he took a correspondence course under the watchful eye of the teacher, JACK ISAACS.

256: After some discussion about correspondence schooling, explains the alternative was to send children to boarding school in INVERCARGILL. Explains that he and his MOTHER didn’t want to take that option especially as she’d just purchased a SERVICE STATION out of the proceeds of his GRANDFATHER’S estate. Says he started pumping petrol at the age of thirteen.

265: The SERVICE STATION was on the site of the present BP garage near the corner by the lakefront. Remembers there were five hand-operated petrol pumps and that they also sold oil and a few accessories.

271: Explains the petrol pumps had a big handle on them that was swung back and forth to release the fuel. “There was a reasonable amount of energy needed to work them (laughs).”

281: During the war years, says petrol was severely rationed and sales weren’t great so they used only one or two pumps.

285: Says the petrol was supplied (mainly by SHELL) in drums from MOSSBURN and it wasn’t until the 1950s that they started getting tank deliveries. After rationing was over, the other oil companies re-started their supplies.

294: Recalls that when they first started, there’d be two or three customers a day on average. The cars were usually older models, FORDS, CHEVROLETS, BUICKS.

305: Mentions there was a public bus service three times a week from INVERCARGILL. Describes it as more or less a social occasion as people would turn up at the depot (outside the hotel) whenever the bus was due in, whether they were meeting someone or not.

310: Adds that all the groceries and supplies came up on the bus, often put on at LUMSDEN or MOSSBURN.

316: Not only was the hotel the bus depot, but he says it was also the POST OFFICE with staff even sorting the mail. It also had a TELEPHONE BUREAU where customers could place a toll call. “You might have to wait a few hours before you got connected.”

321: States there were two telephone lines into the town. WARD BEER had the other one which was a PARTY LINE connected to MOSSBURN. Says it had up to 26 people on it “so if you used that phone, usually everyone listened in.”

329: Agrees that this second line had people linked in from MOSSBURN to TE ANAU DOWNS. “Mainly all the farming folk were on it.”

332: Says the hotel had a different line shared only with the MINISTRY of PUBLIC WORKS.

336: Affirms that the hotel and the MOW were probably the only employers in the town (apart from the outlying farms).

340: Talks about the MILFORD ROAD construction project. (It was begun in 1929 as a government effort to provide employment during the NZ Depression. It was temporarily halted during WWII, re-started and the road to MILFORD SOUND was officially opened in 1954.)

349: Comments that during the war years, everything was shut down. Says the TAWERA was put in dry dock for a number of years and, at one stage, the MILFORD TRACK was closed and staff evacuated. Adds this only lasted for about a year. Recalls the only mode of transport was on foot and if any large bulk had to be shifted, people used a horse and cart or wheelbarrow.

359: Says attempts were made to grow home-produced vegetables, although this proved difficult as the cattle from STATIONS round about the town used to demolish most of the gardens on a regular basis. While most things were rationed, says flour wasn’t one of them. For meat, says many survived quite well on wild pig and deer.

370: Affirms that as children, he and his friends took up pig hunting. Says they didn’t need to go far. “I have actually shot pigs where the PUBLIC HALL is nowadays.”

391: Agrees that part of their school lessons involved going pig hunting. “We’d pile in the back of the school teacher’s car with several dogs and head up the road somewhere – go and snaffle a few pigs.”

403: States that the school roll amounted to about TWO pupils per class and that during the war years it had fallen as low as NINE children. Says that was when they invited a couple of his cousins from MOSSBURN to come and live in TE ANAU to keep the numbers up.

408: Explains that in 1946, he attended SOUTHLAND BOYS HIGH SCHOOL for a year. Thereafter, says he had to return to TE ANAU because with the war over, the town was busier so he was required even more at the SERVICE STATION.

421: Tape 1 Side A ends

Tape 1 Side B starts

001: Continues discussion saying GEORGE SINCLAIR was in TE ANAU as the MANAGER for the local LANDS & SURVEY DEPARTMENT in the early 1950s.

014: Says the first CROWN LEASE section that L&S took over for the FARM DEVELOPMENT PROJECT it embarked upon was the LYNWOOD BLOCK.

019: Agrees the project created much change, even from the outset, because the L&S staff that was brought in expanded the population size of the area.

030: Mentions that in 1951, he lived again in INVERCARGILL. He went back yet again in 1954 until 1958 to complete an APPRENTICESHIP in MOTOR ENGINEERING.

055: Says the APPRENTICESHIP was done at SOUTHERN MOTORS and WAIKIWI MOTORS.

065: Explains that part of his reason for doing MECHANICAL ENGINEERING was that he wasn’t particularly interested in horses and that “when I saw an alternative I thought that was the way to go”.

072: Talks about his MARRIAGE in (OCTOBER) 1952 (to MAVIS WARD). Says they first met when she was weekending in TE ANAU from INVERCARGILL where her father and two sisters lived. (Her mother had died some years previously).

086: States her FATHER was a WARDER at the INVERCARGILL BORSTAL.

092: Reflects that he and MAVIS met at a social gathering in MANAPOURI when he was 22 and she was 20 years old. Adds that at the time he was working in INVERCARGILL so it was more feasible for them to go courting.

106: Mentions that by then, his MOTHER had established a SHOP and built an ACCOMMODATION HOUSE in TE ANAU. Expands on this saying they set up the SHOP in 1948 and offered it on lease to various parties, while the BOARDING HOUSE was built in 1950.

116: Explains the SHOP, which was originally a grocery and POST OFFICE agency, was situated alongside the garage, where there are a couple of shops at present.

126: Referring to the GOVANS, says that after they left the HOTEL, they lived in a house built on the lakefront, near MATAI STREET.

133: States his GRANDMOTHER eventually sold that house and built another place at what is now MOKOROA STREET, although it didn’t exist then. Says she died around 1956. Person recorded: Donny Baker

148: Describing the BOARDING HOUSE, says it was specifically designed for about 20 guests with 10 rooms. “It was just straight out overnight accommodation. There were no cooking facilities.”

165: Says it was constructed by MOSSBURN builder, BOB COUTTS and staff, with some help from himself.

172: Mentions that by the time it was built, his MOTHER gave up working in the SHOP and leased it out. Says for a couple of years someone ran it as a restaurant.

182: Agrees that TE ANAU was not by then linked to the NATIONAL GRID and everyone relied on diesel-powered generators, each home having its own. Says many of them were 12-volt systems worked off a battery. Adds that some were 240 volt, such as they had at the BOARDING HOUSE and PETROL STATION and could therefore run domestic appliances.

196: Describes it as a “very efficient” system as they were able to generate power at a rate of 3d per unit but diesel was only 1s 9d a gallon which helped.

213: Recalls that when the town or any outlying properties were linked to the NATIONAL GRID, it was a “gala event” with people holding “lit-up parties”.

220: On the telephone network, says that in 1952 and 1953 he tried to interest the POST OFFICE to set up an AUTOMATIC EXCHANGE in TE ANAU but they didn’t consider there were enough residents to warrant one. He believes it was only a matter of a year or so when there were certainly enough people in the town.

233: Remembers that at first, the POST OFFICE switchboard exchange operated party lines with three or four people linked together. By then, a PO building had been constructed on the site of the present flag-pole opposite the BP garage.

254: On the layout of the town, says it’s also undergone a transformation - the road to the boat harbour was only a two-wheel track. The main road went from the present roundabout at the lake straight towards the TE ANAU school. Where there are now shops and banks, that was once all covered in scrub, in fact he recalls there were also some deep gravel pits.

265: Continues this theme saying that LUXMORE DRIVE was paddocks and at the start of WWII, the hotel ran cows there to provide guests with fresh milk.

271: Referring back to the L&S development says he worked on the project. Explains he was contracted to establish and maintain water supplies for each FARM BLOCK.

278: Briefly describes how he would fit a pump and run pipelines to the buildings etc.

283: Says he worked on the BLOCKS around TE ANAU, MOSSBURN, and by the TAKITIMUS.

286: States his business was named TE ANAU CONTRACTING LTD., and that at one stage he employed three or four workers.

297: Later on, he says, the authorities created a separate water department that effectively acted as overseer for the type of work he’d been doing. The new setup hired different teams of contractors which meant he had to find additional work opportunities.

302: Says there was an opening for putting in telephone cables for the POST OFFICE, so he switched to that for several years up to about 1974.

307: It was about then, he continues, that he decided to buy a FARM and give up the contracting.

311: Referring back to his first years of married life, replies that at first he didn’t have a separate home for himself and MAVIS. At first they lived at the BOARDING HOUSE and MAVIS helped his MOTHER with the running of it while he worked at the SERVICE STATION.

318: After the four years in INVERCARGILL, they came back and with his MOTHER in poor health, MAVIS took over running the BOARDING HOUSE while he began working for L&S in 1958.

325: Mentions that his GRANDMOTHER had died a few years beforehand and he bought her house which had been lying empty. Admits that as his FAMILY grew, the small house became more cramped.

330: Affirms he and MAVIS had SIX CHILDREN – four GIRLS, two BOYS. They all attended TE ANAU SCHOOL but with no HIGH SCHOOL in the town, they had to go to INVERCARGILL to continue their education. There, he says, they stayed with his MOTHER who had by then moved to LOWE STREET.

353: Back to discussion on the L&S project, recalls some of the first men working on it – CHARLIE CAMERON, DON ROBIE, RUSSELL MCIVOR. Believes the first work on the project was done in 1952 and remembers there was a contractor working for L&S then but he seemed to take a long time to carry out certain tasks.

367: Referring to GEORGE SINCLAIR, the first FIELD OFFICER, says he stayed on a number of years from about 1952 till 1958. He was followed by JACK HOCKEY and at that stage the project increased markedly. Says HOCKEY eventually had about three FIELD OFFICERS assisting him.

376: Responding to question, says he wouldn’t have qualified for a BALLOTED FARM BLOCK. Considers it ironic that if his FATHER had been prepared to return to TE ANAU, “he’d have got one straight off”.

381: On getting to know the new SETTLERS, says that until the mid-1950s “you knew virtually everyone in the area”. In the township, reckons there were about 50 people, but in later years that increased to thousands making it difficult to know everybody.

390: Talking about some of the first town residents, such as CURLY MCIVOR and WARD BEER, says they lived in TE ANAU through the war years and beyond. Adds that CURLY MCIVOR married his MOTHER (SYLVIA’S) SISTER (DOREEN). Explains that CURLY MCIVOR was the local representative for the DEPARTMENT of INTERNAL AFFAIRS.

397: Continuing this theme, says there were two FISH HATCHERIES in TE ANAU, one was run by CURLY MCIVOR, the other by WARD BEER. Recalls as a child going to the HATCHERIES and sorting through the fish eggs.

402: Mentions that one of the HATCHERIES was at the DOC BIRD SANCTUARY (WILDLIFE PARK) and the other was closer to town, where there is now a TROUT OBSERVATORY opposite the DOC HQ.

407: Gives an explanation of the developmental work done at the FISH HATCHERIES until the FISH were mature enough to be liberated into waterways, including LAKE TE ANAU. “It was a very cold painstaking job. You had to sort through the FISH EGGS and take out ones that were starting to go off….you had a pair of tweezers and flicked them out.”

418: Tape 1 Side B stops

Tape 2 Side A starts

002: Talks about the men employed on the MILFORD ROAD project, describing how the surfacemen would travel along the road by bicycle and when they saw a pothole, they’d take their shovel and fill it with gravel. Adds they would also clear out any blocked drains or water tables.

011: Mentions GUS MCGREGOR was the GRADER DRIVER during the war years. Names some of the surfacemen as DIGGER SCULLY, FRED TOPPING, JOE HANNA, ARTHUR CLARK.

025: Responding to question, says most of them didn’t own a car, they would travel on the TRUCKS or BUS. Person recorded: Donny Baker

030: Affirms that GILLIGANS TRANSPORT would cart supplies to the ROAD CAMPS, although TOM PLATO would take regular deliveries in once a week.

040: Explains the road was accessible up to CASCADE CREEK long before the 1950s, then on to the MARIAN CAMP and the HOMER TUNNEL before WWII.

048: States attempts were made to bore the TUNNEL from the east side but the workers were flooded out as they didn’t have pumps to keep the water level down. Mentions the contractor was LETT – DOWNER & CO., who went to the west side of the TUNNEL and bored a smaller hole through the mountain on an uphill gradient of 1/10. So when they got through at the other end, all the water ran out. “If they hadn’t have done that, with technology in those days, they might never have got it done.”

069: Mentions having worked on the MILFORD ROAD for a while and stayed in the road camps, not long after the project was re-started.

092: Referring to the decision to turn to FARMING, agrees it was a big change and that MAVIS wasn’t too pleased at first, especially as it was the middle of winter when they shifted and the water pipes had frozen while their only form of heating was an open fire.

112: States the property covers about 450 acres and explains that FARMING wasn’t completely new to him as he used to help out a friend who had a FARM near WINTON when he was going to school in INVERCARGILL.

126: Says one of the key factors in his decision to take up FARMING was that while he was CONTRACTING, he was never home due to work commitments. So he thought that the change would mean he could be at home with his FAMILY.

131: Replies that it was the right move.

137: As to pastimes, agrees that he has a keen interest in all things MECHANICAL and has collected a lot of MACHINERY over the years. Another interest is FIREARMS.

151: Mentions he’s had some of his TRACTORS for 50 years.

157: As an aside, says when he started CONTRACTING for the L&S project, he was digging in water pipes by hand. “Specially when you started in at one end of a mile-long scheme, it was different.”

162: Responding to question, says MAVIS didn’t really work until the children had grown up, doing housemaiding and kitchen work. Says she worked till about five years ago. “I had to point out to her that it was really not necessary and was too much of a strain on her.”

176: On social activities, says mostly there would be gatherings at one or other house in the district. “Some of them were more boisterous than others…”

187: Mentions that during the war years, the HOTEL and the SCHOOL were the only public venues suitable for a gathering. Says it wasn’t till 1946 that an old hall building from HENDERSON’S CAMP was purchased and shifted out in three sections. That, he says, became the PUBLIC HALL – it was situated where the MITRE 10 shop now stands.

207: Comments that most of the original residents of the town are virtually all gone, either they’ve died or moved away.

215: Believes TE ANAU is forging ahead again, referring specifically to the TOURISM INDUSTRY as having multiplied to something beyond either he or his GRANDFATHER would have imagined. “It’s a really different sort of business nowadays.”

236: As to hobbies, says the latest thing he’s taken up is COWBOY ACTION SHOOTING. Explains that it involves dressing up in “old time gear” (Western cowboy-style) and using antique firearms in competition and various club shooting activities.

251: On the future for his GRANDCHILDREN, considers that TE ANAU is probably not as suitable as it once was as a place for children to grow up. Adds that in his view young people have expectations of having things done for them and that many think their occupation should be sitting in a chair in front of a computer.

257: “The fact is that not everyone’s going to be able to do that; someone’s going to have to do the work and computers don’t do that.”

261: Tape stopped then re-started.

264: Discusses his involvement in the TE ANAU FIRE BRIGADE of which he was an active member for more than thirty years. Now an HONORARY member, says he joined the BRIGADE in 1957, three years after it was set up.

270: Says he decided to join on his return from INVERCARGILL with an incentive being the fact he had a house in the town. Adds that at that time, he lived directly opposite the FIRE STATION and the SIREN “virtually pointed into the bedroom window” (laughs).

277: Explains the FIRE STATION was shifted some years later and the original building is still part of it. It was done mostly with voluntary labour and admits that some of the materials were obtained “without the owners’ knowledge, but we eventually managed to get it put up”.

287: Initially, says there were about eight or nine volunteers signed up and there was only one FIRE ENGINE PUMP – which he called a GWYNNE TRAILER PUMP. Mentions they then got a LANDROVER to supplement the PUMP.

293: Talks about the first outbreak of FIRE at the TE ANAU HOTEL. It occurred in 1964 and he says that it was unfortunate that at the time the FIRE CHIEF was out of town and the deputy was relatively inexperienced. “I think that largely contributed to us losing the HOTEL…fortunately no-one was badly injured.”

300: Describes other incidents the FIRE BRIGADE attends, saying that in recent years it’s mostly been road traffic accidents rather than fires.

319: Referring to BUSH FIRES, says that they would only attend them initially until the FOREST SERVICE got its staff on site and took over.

324: States the FIRE SERVICE is now an ACCIDENT and EMERGENCY unit as well as dealing with fires.

327: Mentions that new recruits are given basic emergency medical training while others have already gained FIRST AID certificates.

331: Says he was pleased to have been involved in the BRIGADE for so many years and had to give it up because of injury and therefore thought someone more active would be better taking over from him.

334: Refers to the injury as “having smashed an ankle up” and that it has proved a handicap ever since. Adds that it happened when “I got off a motorbike the wrong way”.

339: Explains he was awarded HONORARY LIFE membership of the FIRE SERVICE after serving 25 years in the BRIGADE.

344: Interview session closes

Tape 2 Side A stops

Interview session two recorded on 9 July 2004 begins with discussion on the difference between the early days of Te Anau compared with present times.

349: Opens describing how there were only about four or five families living in the town when he was a boy, all with children going to the TE ANAU SCHOOL. Says the social fabric of the town centred on the school.

357: Mentions that any larger social events were sometimes put on at the HOTEL, both venues being the only large buildings in the town in the 1930s/40s.

356: Replies that he didn’t attend TE ANAU SCHOOL until about 1940, before then he went to school in MOSSBURN.

371: Agrees that MOSSBURN was larger then than now, although he adds, it hasn’t grown to the same extent as TE ANAU. “It was always just a local farming community and I suppose that’s true of what it is today.”

379: Also agrees that because travel and transportation was different then, TE ANAU would have been a far more remote place than it is today. Although, he says, there were coach services from the mid-1930s or slightly before. They would have travelled from LUMSDEN, he says.

385: States that the journey to INVERCARGILL would have taken a full day. Considers, though, that people from TE ANAU would probably have gone by rail from LUMSDEN to GORE, then on to DUNEDIN.

393: Mentions that in the early part of the 20th century much of the work was done using HORSES. For ploughing, working the ground, they even had HORSE-powered CHAFF cutters. Recalls that in the early 1940s there were HORSE TEAMS working on the LYNWOOD FLATS.

399: Adds that at that time, there were only two motor vehicles in TE ANAU – one belonging to the MINISTRY OF PUBLIC WORKS, the other to the ACCLIMATISATION SOCIETY’S WARD BEER. “Everything else was moved by horse and cart.”

402: Remembers his GRANDFATHER had a spring cart, called a JOGGER, which had rubber tyres and springs. Adds they sometimes would go as far as HILLSIDE ROAD in the JOGGER, usually on a rabbiting trip. “In fact we were rabbiting over the area that I now farm.”

412: Describes how looking after the HORSES was part of the daily work. Says you had to get up early in the morning, round them up, feed them CHAFF, then harness them and get them yoked into whichever vehicle they were to work with. (Tape runs out)

Tape 2 Side A stops

Tape 2 Side B starts

003: Continues with discussion on HORSE-drawn transport. Says it would have taken up to four hours to reach the WILDERNESS ROAD. Explains that you couldn’t make the HORSE go at full speed all the time, so a reasonably leisurely pace was normal.

015: Mentions JOHN RIORDAN at HILLSIDE who used to do the BLACKSMITHING of the HORSES shoes for the district. At MOSSBURN, it was PHIL RICHMOND and then on each run (station) any horseshoe work would have been done on the property.

030: Replies that on the stations there would have been a COWMAN/GARDENER, several STOCKMEN, a TEAMSTER (who looked after the HORSES).

043: Responding to question, says most of the people who ran or worked on the outlying farms and stations would not have come into TE ANAU, instead going to MOSSBURN. Although, he adds, the CHARTRES (at TE ANAU DOWNS) would have been the only ones to regularly pass through TE ANAU on their way in and out of the BASIN.

054: Mentions that DAVID GUNN of the HOLLYFORD VALLEY would not often come through TE ANAU. Says every year he would drive a herd of CATTLE from the HOLLYFORD through THE DIVIDE, TE ANAU DOWNS, across the BITE and through the DALE BLOCK. In later years, says GUNN had CATTLE YARDS at EWEBURN and would sometimes take the herds across country from there.

071: Says he watched a couple of the cattle drives as they passed. Mentions there’d be perhaps two or three hundred in a mob which would be taken to MOSSBURN and loaded onto railway wagons.

100: Referring back to his days at TE ANAU SCHOOL says the other children were four PLATOS, four MCGREGORS, three MCIVORS, one BEER and himself. Mentions again that his cousins from MOSSBURN attended the school briefly to avert its closure as the school numbers fell.

116: Believes it would have been a major blow to the town if the school had had to close because of its additional benefit as a social centre.

125: Names the first teacher at the school as OWEN MILES who never returned from service in WWII. Says he’d been replaced by JACK ISAACS who taught at the school for about nine years.

135: Explains some of the social events at the school. They included card evenings and dances. There were also tennis courts and a rifle range on the grounds, he says, which also had a rudimentary cricket pitch and soccer area.

147: Recalls that the pupils were each given a little plot for gardening which was part of the curriculum and they could plant whatever they wished in their individual plots.

158: Although the doctor didn’t visit TE ANAU on a regular basis, replies that the school wasn’t used as doctor’s rooms. Says the thinking was that it was hoped you didn’t need medical treatment since the nearest GP was DR. BELL in LUMSDEN. Person recorded: Donny Baker

170: Replies that in urgent cases, the doctor would travel to TE ANAU but this wasn’t very often.

175: Mentions that it wasn’t till about 1950, or thereabouts, that regular clinics were held in TE ANAU and later on these were held in the RADFORD STORE, which had a “wee room at the end”.

183: Says it wasn’t till the 1960s when the MANAPOURI HYDRO ELECTRIC SCHEME got underway that they had a doctor there and people would travel to that neighbouring village for consultations.

191: On the TE ANAU HOTEL being the local events centre before the school was built, explains that in the dining-room tables would be cleared to one side so the floor could be used for dancing with maybe one hundred people turning out for a special occasion.

199: From memory, he says, by the mid-40’s most people would arrive by vehicle as there was greater mobility by then.

212: Responding to question, says his grandparents would place advertisements about the HOTEL as far north as DUNEDIN. He also thinks the MILFORD TRACK brought a lot of people through. Adds that sometimes engineers and surveyors of the MILFORD ROAD would also stay at the HOTEL when that project started up (in the 20s/30s).

229: Agrees that he doesn’t remember the first part of the road being just a bullock track but says he does recall that the TE ANAU DOWNS STATION had its own launch on the lake which he vaguely remembers. Says it sank just after WWII by which time the runholder (JOHN CHARTRES) was less reliant on it for transporting goods.

249: Referring back to the social fabric of the town, says there was no funding in those days to set anything up – materials were obtained by donation and the labour was done voluntarily. “It was the only way you could get anything (laughs).”

265: Considers TE ANAU is now totally commercialised. Says there are voluntary organisations still going but not as many as before. Adds that “everyone wants to get paid nowadays”.

277: On the FIRE that destroyed the TE ANAU HOTEL agrees there were two damaging blazes. Of the first, he knows little, but the one he was involved with in 1963/64 was quite memorable.

283: Says it started in the kitchen and blazed through most of the building, virtually uncontrollably. Considers the BRIGADE was largely inexperienced in those days with fires of that scale. Plus, he blames the way in which the building had been constructed.

291: Explains this further saying there were no firewalls, something that’s mandatory in most buildings nowadays. Without them flames would get into the ceiling cavity and immediately run throughout the building.

299: Again mentions that it was unfortunate the FIRE BRIGADE’S CHIEF OFFICER was away that particular night, although without sufficient fire-fighting equipment, he’s not sure that the CHIEF’S absence made that much difference.

306: The only parts they managed to save, he says, were the old original wing and a newer accommodation block. Ironically, the former was shifted to TE ANAU DOWNS but was damaged by another fire some years later from which it didn’t survive.

315: Mentions a beneficial spin-off of the hotel re-construction along with the MANAPOURI scheme which had just got underway: they provided extra employment and services.

324: Adds that at about that time too (mid-60s) the VENISON RECOVERY industry went into full swing with the use of helicopters. Another innovation, he says, was the introduction of passenger flights to MILFORD SOUND by RITCHIE’S AIR SERVICES.

330: States that IAN RITCHIE started off the service with CESSNA 180s, a DOMINI, and that he operated from an airstrip situated where the MEDICAL CENTRE now stands. Says he had two pilots working for him, BILL BLACK and ROY MCIVOR.

340: Responding to question, considers that although TOURIST AIR TRAVEL were operating amphibian flights from the LAKE, RITCHIES would have been the first commercial passenger operator in TE ANAU.

343: Mentions there were others who attempted something similar before RITCHIES. One in particular, he recalls, was BILL HEWETT from MOSSBURN who went on to do other things.

345: Says HEWETT concentrated more on AIRFREIGHT and AERIAL TOP DRESSING. Adds that the pilot had done his training for service in WWII and thereafter launched aerial services.

355: Among these, he adds, were flying WHITEBAIT out from the WEST COAST. Says HEWETT also had an AEROVAN in which he carted fruit and other freight. Also mentions HEWETT’S FLYING CIRCUS which toured AUSTRALIA.

365: Comments that HEWETT’S schemes were quite enterprising but that perhaps he was ahead of his time.

384: On discussion about the founding of a number of industries in TE ANAU, such as those mentioned, plus TOURISM, considers that a major contributing factor in their development was the opening of the MILFORD ROAD through the HOMER TUNNEL in 1954.

397: Interview ends

Tape 2 Side B stops