Person recorded: Derek Philip Fraser Turnbull

Date of Interview: 09 June 2004

Interviewer and abstractor: Morag Forrester

Tape counter: Sony TCM 939

Tape 1 Side A starts

010: Gives his full name as DEREK PHILIP FRASER TURNBULL and born in 1926, in WAIKAKA, near GORE.

017: States his FATHER’S name as JOHN HENRY (known as HARRY) and was also born in WAIKAKA and his MOTHER’S name was ALICE KATE and was born in INVERCARGILL. Explains that her FATHER was a schoolteacher and that he moved around SOUTHLAND for work opportunities.

029: Explains his GREAT GRANDFATHER left CAITHNESS, SCOTLAND with his family and came to NEW ZEALAND in 1881. He farmed at KAKANUI. Two of his BROTHERS had arrived in NZ earlier; one went to CANTERBURY and some years later, his SON, ROGER TURNBULL bought BLACKMOUNT STATION. The second brother founded a printing firm in WELLINGTON. It was DEREK’S GRANDFATHER who farmed at WAIKAKA.

037: Says his MOTHER’S maiden name was WILD and her connections with NEW ZEALAND go further back than his FATHER’S.

049: Mentions that until the age of two he grew up on a SHEEP FARM in WAIKAKA until his PARENTS moved to INVERCARGILL where his FATHER got a job with the FROZEN MEATWORKS as a freelance DRAUGHTER on a commission basis.

060: Replies he had two SIBLINGS, one older BROTHER (DAVID) and one younger SISTER (ANN), both now deceased. (Another brother, named JOHN, was born in 1922 but died when only a few months old)

068: Considers it likely that his FATHER may have been forced to take up the FREEZING WORKS job because of the NZ DEPRESSION at that time (1929). Explains that he can’t be sure about this because his FATHER never talked about his earlier years.

072: Continues this theme explaining that his FATHER was a WWI veteran but never talked about that experience either. Knows his FATHER fought in FRANCE, mentioning PASCHENDALE and the SOMME, that he was injured twice and to recuperate he was allowed to return to his ancestors’ home in CAITHNESS.

084: Returning to his own early years, says the family lived on NORTH ROAD, WAIKIWI. Recalls there were very few houses in the area then and that the road was very quiet “only a narrow little strip of bitumen with gravel each side”.

091: Remembers having to walk about a half-mile to WAIKIWI SCHOOL. Explains that the UNDERWOOD MILK FACTORY was operating then with supplies delivered by the nearby farmer, DONOVAN (after whom DONOVAN PARK was named). So he and his BROTHER would get a lift to school on the back of DONOVAN’S old DODGE truck.

109: Mentions that WAIKIWI SCHOOL was the only one for a much wider catchment area as COLLINGWOOD and GRASMERE SCHOOLS did not then exist.

117: Agreed the curriculum consisted of ENGLISH and ARITHMETIC. Particularly remembers the SINGING MASTER who would sometimes take the children into PARSONS RADIO STATION in DEE STREET.

137: Recalls that at home, he and other children used to play outdoors, doing such things as building canoes out of sheets of iron and an apple box then floating them down the WAIKIWI CREEK.

141: Rabbiting was a keen interest, he says, mainly around the old homestead at WAIKAKA which they used to return to now and again.

142: Quickly runs on to a memory of 1936 when the DUKE and DUCHESS of YORK visited GORE and he and his brother went to the welcoming parade accompanied by the family’s maid.

159: States that in the early days, his FATHER would bicycle from farm to farm draughting lambs. And that during the off-season when the FREEZING WORKS were shut, he shore a lot of SHEEP.

169: Says the LORNEVILLE SERVICE STATION was once a SHEARING SHED.

177: Considers his MOTHER was a good influence on the CHILDREN.

191: Replies that after WAIKIWI PRIMARY SCHOOL, he went on to SOUTHLAND BOYS HIGH SCHOOL. Recalls that in the first week of each school year the pupils were given ARMY TRAINING.

200: Does not think he was a good student because “there were too many brilliant fellas in the class. I was average, I think”.

205: Lists his preferred subjects as mathematics and related subjects. Replies that he passed the school certificate examinations at the age of sixteen and a year or two later he got University Entrance, athough he delayed his tertiary education.

216: Explains that he after leaving school he helped his infirm FATHER with his LAMB DRAUGHTING business, then moved to HAWKES BAY for two and a half years to work on a FARM.

220: States he then went to MASSEY COLLEGE and gained a DIPLOMA in AGRICULTURE in 1951.

229: Referring back to his teenage years, says that he “got out into the wilds” although for much of the time he didn’t have to go too far. Mentions a brick works, now called SOUTHTILE, where he and his friends “got up to a bit of mischief there”.

Between 1926 and 1955 DAVID GUNN held the runholder’s lease through the HOLLYFORD VALLEY to MARTINS BAY. During that time, he also built tracks and huts through the VALLEY and in 1936 had started a tourist venture taking parties and individuals by packhorse through the near 60kms of bush track through to the west coast.

246: Replies that he first visited the HOLLYFORD VALLEY, in FIORDLAND in 1941. Explains that DAVID GUNN was a friend of the family and on the mentioned occasion was returning to the HOLLYFORD by bus so invited DEREK to accompany him. They went by train to LUMSDEN and caught the bus from there to the MARIAN CAMP.

[Interviewer’s mic accidentally and unnoticed became detached at this point, so her voice sounds dim and distant. However, DEREK’S voice maintains its clarity.]

258: States the relics of the MARIAN CAMP were still there then, but there were only two road maintenance workers living at it. Names them as SON HERRET, and NOBBY CLARK.

266: Says DAVIE GUNN at that stage was living at DEADMAN’S CAMP and that the road workers site, HENDERSON’S CAMP, was empty (it was during the war years when the MILFORD ROAD project had been halted).

280: Explains that DAVIE GUNN would bring his CATTLE out annually and they were always sold by the NATIONAL MORTGAGE COMPANY. Mentions the head auctioneer (in INVERCARGILL) was named NORMAN BROWN (aka BUNNY BROWN). DAVIE had invited BUNNY to go with him and the latter invited DEREK’S FATHER to go along too.

288: “DAD got on very well with DAVIE, ’cos DAD was an outdoor(s) man, a very practical fella and they got on well and DAVIE always came and visited us every time he got out to INVERCARGILL.”

293: Says he highly respected DAVIE. “He lived in a world a young schoolboy could only dream about. I admired him.”

303: Referring back to his first visit, says he remembers getting off at MARIAN CAMP and DAVIE continuing on to MILFORD SOUND.

310: Recalls a young lad, ALAN SNOOK, had arrived at MARIAN with horses and so he rode back with him to DEADMAN’S CAMP.

316: Describes living conditions at DEADMAN’S as “fairly primitive” by today’s standards. Says the bunks were made of logs from the bush, with netting across them and bracken on top with a final layer of canvas. Says there was an open fire, everything was cooked in CAMP OVENS (big pots).

324: Laughs at mention of the old swing bridge that had to be crossed in order to reach DEADMAN’S. “Yes, she was a rickety old thing.” Explains the lower section was wire rope and the upper was only No. 8 wire and the walking planks were hewn out of the bush.

332: Relates a story about when his FATHER took his MOTHER up there the first time. They were crossing the bridge at night, and he’d told her to walk only on the white planks not the black ones. It wasn’t till the next morning that she discovered there were no black planks, just spaces over the water below.

347: Recalls that on that first visit, DAVIE had to replenish the supplies in the huts near HENDERSON’S CAMP, but across the river. They’d be transported to the road end, then he and DAVIE carried them across on horseback.

351: Continues the tale saying that as they stacked the saddlebags on the horses, one of the animals got fidgety and the horse reared up and clonked DAVIE on his head with its front hoof. Although DAVIE never lost consciousness, ALAN SNOOK galloped up to MARIAN CAMP, phoned DOCTOR BELL and an ambulance was summoned to take DAVIE to GORE HOSPITAL.

370: Mentions that at that time, two teachers arrived from CHRISTCHURCH who were old hands at visiting the VALLEY – RUTH BENSTEAD and NANCY HITCHCOCK. DAVIE had sent a message out from his hospital bed telling ALAN SNOOK to take the two women down the track. Says they got as far as LAKE MCKERROW.

376: Affirms he went on some of the CATTLE MUSTERING runs with DAVIE. Whenever he was involved, says mostly they MUSTERED in the PYKE VALLEY, which has more open, grassy areas than the HOLLYFORD.

386: Explains the MUSTERING consisted of getting a DECOY MOB (of CATTLE) then going after others and joining them up with the DECOY. Adds when they got a good-sized number together, they’d shut them in a holding paddock (at BARRIER) then moved them down to the head of LAKE ALABASTER the following day.

393: Describes as “fascinating”, for example, going round a bluff at LAKE WILMOT, looking back and watching the CATTLE coming up the bush trails one at a time.

400: Earlier times, he says, the annual MUSTER involved getting the CATTLE up to DEADMAN’S, then over PASS CREEK, LAKE HOWDEN, down the GREENSTONE VALLEY, and joined them up with GEORGE SHAW’S mob from ELFIN BAY. Then they went over the SLY BURN, along the MARAROA RIVER, past MAVORA LAKES, BURWOOD and then out to LORNEVILLE.

409: Says he was too young then to have taken part, but he remembers cycling up to meet the CATTLE coming out to LORNEVILLE. By then, he says, the CATTLE were fairly civilised and obedient to traffic.

413: Supposes it would have taken about a month to drive the CATTLE from MARTINS BAY to LORNEVILLE, (and when the road was built), stopping at CASCADE CREEK, TE ANAU DOWNS, BURWOOD, MOSSBURN, CASTLE DOWNS and LOCHIEL.

Tape 1 Side A stops

Tape 1 Side B starts

001: Continues discussion about how the CATTLE responded to being moved out of the MARTINS BAY area, says a lot of DAVIE GUNN’S HEREFORD steers were at least three years old and once a calf has been handled it never forgets.

007: Replies that the calves would have been born in the area, and then reared for two years or so in places such as the PYKE VALLEY before being brought out.

014: States the average price in those days for a large steer would be around thirty pounds.

038: Says he visited the HOLLYFORD quite often after that first introduction in 1941.

043: Apart from MUSTERING, says DAVIE GUNN would also do other work such as fencing, general CATTLE handling (for example castrating the young bulls). Adds that it wasn’t till after WWII that DAVIE turned his thoughts to tourism. (However, it’s documented that DAVID GUNN began guiding trampers through the HOLLYFORD in 1936.)

063: Recalls taking one tour group down the VALLEY. They were the WANDERERS TRAMPING CLUB from CHRISTCHURCH. Mentions another group was a few days ahead of his, being led by GERRY HAMILTON.

071: Explains GERRY HAMILTON came from IRELAND and was a teacher at the SOUTHLAND BOYS HIGH SCHOOL in INVERCARGILL. Says he lost his job and “was one of those ones that gravitated up to the HOLLYFORD”.

088: “DAVIE had some rugged helpers up there at times,” he says. Also mentions ED COTTER, father of GUY COTTER who climbed MT. EVEREST. And there was a “one-armed fella” he thinks was called McMURDO who died at MARTINS BAY. Adds that DAVIE put the deceased on a packhorse and brought him out for a proper burial.

104: Referring to DAVIE GUNN’S wife and family who were living in OAMARU while he was in the HOLLYFORD, replies that DAVIE didn’t discuss them. Says the only one he met was DAVIE’S son, MURRAY.

121: Talks a little about the BIG BAY plane crash, which resulted in DAVID GUNN pushing physical limits in order to bring in medical help. Says it happened in 1936 before he ever visited the HOLLYFORD.

[Late December 1936 a plane was flying into Big Bay to drop off a tourist, when it stalled and nosedived into the sea. David Gunn, who was at Big Bay at the time, improvised a stretcher to get all six people ashore before setting out on a marathon journey to raise the alarm. Leaving at 7pm he rode 15kms to Martins Bay where his dinghy was on shore. From there he rowed 15kms across Lake McKerrow and then set out on a 40km-trek over rough bush, in the dark, to reach the nearest telephone at Marian Camp on the Milford Road. The entire journey took him only 21 hours. The bush walk alone takes the average tramper two days to complete in daylight. A commemoration plaque has been installed at the Marian Corner as a reminder of David Gunn’s efforts which resulted in the survival of all but one of the plane crash victims.] 127: Mentions there was a NURSE BUCKINGHAM in the downed plane who administered what help she could to the injured while DAVIE made his way out to MARIAN CAMP to phone for help.

136: Discusses the accident in the HOLLYFORD RIVER which took DAVIE GUNN’S life on CHRISTMAS DAY 1955. Although DEREK wasn’t there, says DAVIE had been escorting a father and son through the VALLEY. The boy had been on the same horse as DAVIE when it fell in the river at what he describes as “normally quite a safe ford” near HIDDEN FALLS flats. (Both DAVIE and the boy were thrown into the water and only the boy’s body was found days later by search and rescue teams.)

160: Agrees that going through the VALLEY on horseback is a different experience from tramping. Certainly, he says, the journey is quicker and that the horses were quite safe for riders to handle.

167: Mentions that DAVIE would often go through the track by horse and sometimes on foot, in the dark.

170: Lists the huts people stayed at as HIDDEN FALLS, LOWER PYKE, MCKERROW. Adds that when he escorted the WANDERERS, he had one saddle horse and a pack horse to carry supplies. These were basics such as bread and flour as DAVIE would stock up the old huts with other items.

186: Considers that although he was providing a tourist opportunity, DAVIE, certainly hadn’t got into it in a big way. In 1952, David Gunn converted the former Henderson’s roadworkers camp into a tourist accommodation venture he called GUNN’S CAMP. For the last fifty years, his son Murray Gunn has maintained this tourist facility and at the same time has collected enough memorabilia to establish a small museum on the site.

191: Affirms he’s a good friend of MURRAY GUNN’S who has been living at GUNN’S CAMP since his FATHER’S death. Says there are obvious changes since DAVIE’S time; additions such as electricity and showers.

197: Says DAVIE didn’t have electricity; he depended on candles or TILLEY lamps.

213: With enthusiasm, says he still visits the HOLLYFORD “every opportunity if I can…It’s the wide open spaces and I love the bush.”

216: Referring back to his earlier days there, recalls a road maintenance worker named MERVYN BROWN who stayed in the neighbouring EGLINTON VALLEY at CASCADE CREEK. Says the worker would often go deer hunting down the HOLLYFORD RD.

232: Says he’s not a deer hunter, preferring to see the browsing animals in the wild.

238: Remembers a walking holiday with friends he took while at MASSEY was down the HOLLYFORD. Mentions some of the others as KEITH JOUSEY, PETER FRASER (not the PM) HAZEL RISEBOROUGH.

242: Describes doing the round trip returning over the HARRIS SADDLE, which was impassable in winter so they walked over the frozen waters of LAKE HARRIS instead.

252: Mentions that after gaining his DIPLOMA he went to ENGLAND, “my OE”. Says he travelled there by sea taking five weeks on a ship called the OTRANTO and that the fare was 125 pounds.

259: In ENGLAND says he worked on an EXPERIMENTAL FARM in YORKSHIRE for two and a half years. Says they experimented with everything, apart from dairy cattle.

272: On his return, says he got married and got a job with a mercantile company in INVERCARGILL, JG WARD & CO. Continued working there for six years but left not long after it was taken over by the NATIONAL MORTGAGE CO.

282: States he was 29 when he got married and says he met his WIFE, PAT, through family connections and a mutual interest in TRAMPING. Replies PAT’S maiden name was CLARKE, originally from BENHAR, SOUTH OTAGO.

290: Is coy about their courting days, but says they were married at ALL SAINTS CHURCH, GLADSTONE, INVERCARGILL and for their honeymoon they went to STEWART ISLAND, another of his “loves”.

298: Explains the last statement saying that in the 1960s a “hunk” of land came on the market there and recalls briefly visiting it then on the same day phoning the agent to buy it. Adds it cost just over 3000 dollars to purchase.

306: Says he farmed SHEEP on it as a sort of outbreed farm for extra stock on his place on the mainland.

310: Mentions the first farm he bought was in 1961. It was near WALLACETOWN on the ORETI RIVER which regularly flooded. However, he says he managed to develop the FARM while the family lived in a house at UNDERWOOD, INVERCARGILL.

320: States it was 1975 that he and PAT decided to move to the FARM they still live at in TUSSOCK CREEK. Says it’s flat land (the kind he’s used to) with good grass-growing conditions for fattening LAMBS and there’s also the nearby bush which he considers a wonderful asset.

333: Replies that he and PAT had SIX CHILDREN; one died in 1985 in a fishing boat accident in FOVEAUX STRAIT.

340: Says he’s lost count of exactly how many GRANDCHILDREN there are, possibly ten or eleven. Adds that all but one of the surviving CHILDREN have left home and live in TE ANAU, DUNEDIN, ARROWTOWN and BRISBANE (AUSTRALIA).

345: Explains that when the eldest CHILD was only 14 months old, the next three were TRIPLETS.

349: Referring back to when they first met, says PAT worked as an assistant in an accountant’s office in INVERCARGILL. After they married, however, she helped out on the FARM. And despite not having been raised in a farming background, “she took to it like a duck to water”.

363: On the wider issue of bringing young people up in INVERCARGILL nowadays compared with his younger times, says that in the earlier years there was much more of a community spirit in the country districts than now.

367: Attributes this to changes in FARMING practice, with a move away from SHEEP towards DAIRYING and SHAREMILKING. With the latter, he says, there’s a more transient population.

373: Explains the changes on his FARM. In 1975, when they took it up, it was still in the first stages of development but they’ve created better pastures, more drainage and improved average STOCK fertility.

387: Believes this is mirrored across SOUTHLAND since the number of LAMBS killed at the FREEZING WORKS has not reduced although the number of EWES is smaller, so there are higher lambing percentages. And this is in spite of SHEEP FARMS being taken over for DAIRYING.

400: Discussion turns to his athletic achievements. Winner of several distance running events, particularly in the MEN’S VETERAN category in recent years, says it’s been an interest since he was at school. “But it wasn’t until what we call the WORLD VETERANS game got going that I took an interest in it competitively.”

413: It was after seeing the results of an international event in TORONTO that he thought he could beat the winning times, so he took part in the next events at GOTHENBURN, SWEDEN. Says both he and PAT went to ENGLAND so that he could join the pre-events training workouts. “I had my first victory over there.”

Tape 1 Side B stops

Tape 2 Side A starts

003: Mentions he suffered ill-health in recent years (a stroke) which has slowed him up a little.

009: Says that as well as running he also cycles, though for “pleasure only”. But he still sets himself goals. Next year, he hopes to return to an event he took part in two years ago, the NZ MASTERS GAMES in WANGANUI, where there’s “a bit of athletics, a bit of cycling and a bit of shearing as well”.

031: Referring back to his visits to the HOLLYFORD VALLEY, says a number of times he along with other runners has completed the 67kms between the road end and MARTINS BAY all in a day. And he considers he could do so again, perhaps at a reduced pace with maybe a one-night stop.

057: Responding to question, agrees that the countryside around the TE ANAU BASIN has changed since his first visits in 1941. Much of it he says has been the transformation from rough country to farmland. “I don’t disagree with it as long as they keep the farming on good country, don’t get away into the….desecrate the NATIONAL PARKS or anything like that.”

067: Believes that if a road was put through the HOLLYFORD VALLEY the area would “just become another QUEENSTOWN”. And says “you’ve got to grin and bear that.”

Interview closes

Tape 2 Side A stops