Person recorded: George Joseph William (Joe) Galland

Interviewer and abstractor: Morag Forrester

Date of interview: 09 December 2003

Tape counter: Sony TCM 939

Tape 1 Side A

000: Sound tests

031 Gives full name: George Joseph William GALLAND; born in 1916; resides at Henry St.

037 States he was born in DUNEDIN

041: First schooling in WAIKOUAITI till 1922 when family moved to DUNEDIN. Lived in CASTLE ST.

053: States he was at school till fourteen years old.

065: Recalls DUNEDIN council filling in LOGAN LAGOON.

076: Mentions siblings. Four BROTHERS, two SISTERS. Twin BROTHERS younger than him.

091: Talks about first job (at ABBOTSFORD STATION). Driving a five-horse team to put in oats on steep country. Over nine years he went from COWBOY to SHEPHERD to TRACTOR-DRIVER to SHEARER.

111: States that in 1937 his main occupation was SHEARING. Still associated with same family.

115: Recalls his first wage was five shillings a week. After eighteen months he got a pay rise of 2s 6d.

122: Mentions meeting his wife, WIN, in 1938. At a dance in EARNSCLOUGH.

136: Talks about the regular dances. Bought his first CAR at age 19 - a 1928 BUICK sedan.

156: Mentions still having the same CAR in 1946 when he moved to TE ANAU BASIN.

163: States date of application to join up for WWII. 1939. Did correspondence course for PILOT’S licence while working at WAIPOURI TUNNEL.

176: Says it was late September of same year his group went to LEVIN to train. As engineer/wireless operators for the airforce.

183: Recalls being issued with call-up papers from LEVIN. Was told he would be sent to CANADA for further training, October 1940.

197: Mentions arriving at CALGARY. Then on to MCDONALD, WINNIPEG.

204 Mentions HALIFAX where the group was shipped out on HMS AURANIA.

219: States the events leading up to the ship running over an enemy submarine in the ATLANTIC.

231: Talks about taking photographs of the action at sea.

236: Arriving at ICELAND, says there were other NEW ZEALANDERS on board. Explains the huts they lived in.

243: Mentions the crew of the HMS HOOD.

253: States that on leaving ICELAND a month later, the wrecked HOOD survivors were on his ship.

257: Recalls docking on the RIVER CLYDE.

273: States being sent to UXBRIDGE. Then granted fortnight’s leave. Recalls going to EDINBURGH, ABERDEEN, then back to UXBRIDGE.

283: On return he was sent O.U.T. to LOSSIEMOUTH. Then back to ENGLAND. Flew from south ENGLAND to GIBRALTAR.

303: Flew from GIBRALTAR to MALTA. Lost the aircraft then, getting raids about every 20/30 minutes from SICILY. Navy rescued them after a month.

308: Recalls landing at ALEXANDRINA – from there to KUBRIT.

312: With new aircraft, recalls flying out to the desert. First aerodrome was 200 miles south of DURNA. They had to shift nearer the coast.

319: Recalls that after the air operations, which were always at night, the crew would return in the mornings and go for a swim in the MED.

333: Remembers being involved in a combined military attack against ROMMEL’S final push into EGYPT. Laughs about the mistaken weather forecasting. An expected full moon didn’t materialise.

352: Explains lead up to his last air mission. A new Sgt PILOT took them out. They got over BEN GAZE about nine or ten thousand feet then lost an engine. Plane was shot down. Explosives came into the cockpit. The pilot and second pilot got hit by shrapnel.

367: Says the crew went south of BEN GAZE to a place called SUEZE and lived with a tribe of ARABS for about a week before being captured by the Germans. They were taken to the Italian lines.

392: Talks about the lead-up to their capture. Despite hiding in a group of thorn bushes, two tanks, three armoured cars, staff cars and 30 soldiers (German) came to camp and ordered them out.

404: Says the Germans produced a two-pound tin stamped with horseflesh (in German) and a mouldy loaf of bread (dated back to 1935/36) for each man. They were taken by truck to DURNA where they were imprisoned.

Side A Ends

Side B Begins

000: Resumes explaining their capture.

019: Talks about friend, RAY MARQUE and his astro-watch. How one of their captors said he would lose it and to hand it over for safe-keeping; that he would get it back after the war. And he did. Two years after war ended, it turned up.

029: Mentions being held as a POW in DULAG 1 for up to four days. Then they were shipped to STALAG LAFF 3 in SAAGEN. He was given a number – 155 SAAGEN. Held there for twelve months. Two camps, one for officers, one for the sergeants. This was in 1943.

047: Says they were shipped to KONINGSBURG, LITHUANIA, for a winter and a half. Pretty grim, he says.

074: States they had little to do, weren’t allowed to work.

081: Describes the barracks at HEIDELBERG. About 90 to a room. Little heating. They made blowers to cook on.

101: Says he still has the envelope his mother received from the Red Cross informing her he was a POW. His family only knew about it fourteen months after he’d been captured.

111: From HEIDELBERG they were sent to POLAND to another camp for six weeks.

121: Says they were moved on to 357 FELLINGSBUSEL – their last camp. Describes conditions.

156: Mentions plans for evacuation of Camp 357. They were marched in parties of 500 or so. Head-to-tail, an hour apart, he says.

167: Recalls they walked about seven hours a day, stopping either at a barn, in a field or a plantation.

172: States that after nineteen days of this, he said to his companions he was going to break out.

189: Explains how one of their captors said the plan was for them all to cross the ELBE RIVER. And he said he wasn’t going to do it.

193: Says the same German organised their escape. They were in a barn in a pile of hay under which they hid. The German said he wouldn’t let on. He’d also drawn a map which outlined a big farm for people being dropped off (ill prisoners etc)

210: States that when his small group got there, there was one doctor, three or four orderlies, looking after about 70 servicemen struck down with dysentery.

214: Explains how his team helped the orderlies with the sick men.

219: Tells story about how he managed to procure a well-fed horse from the farmer by swapping 50 cigarettes for it. He described butchering the horse, taking cuts off it, boiling this up with some peas and next day bringing the soup back to the sick men. (The horse was eaten in three days.)

229: Describes the beneficial effect of this nourishment on the men.

232: States that if it hadn’t been for the Red Cross, the prisoners would never have come out of GERMANY alive. (Food parcels, messages of support)

276: Talks about an old German couple he came across who were SHEARING a sheep. Said he offered to do it for them. He did three sheep. By then, the German guards were looking on, the officer had a bottle of schnapps and was getting pretty drunk. In exchange for his work, the officer gave him some pig-meat and tins of horse-flesh.

291: Describes how the officer gave him a drink of the schnapps and not having had a drink for three years, he was the ‘merriest boy in the camp.’

300: Recalls the arrival of ALLIED troops. He was chopping wood at camp when other prisoners rushed out to say the troops had arrived. They came with cigarettes, chocolate, food to pass round. 1945, towards the end of the war.

310: Describes getting back to an ALLIED army base where they were de-loused and then flown back to ENGLAND.

312: Says his first recollection in getting back to ENGLAND was seeing a dozen women army personnel rushing towards them. “Hadn’t seen a girl for three/four years, and we were tongue-tied,” he laughs.

320: Describes the freer conditions, and how they ate and drank and started quickly putting on weight.

330: Tells story of a woman friend of a friend. She had visited them at camp, and told them they couldn’t stay there (by the way they were putting on weight etc.) So she and her husband had them stay at their home in HORNCHURCH, in the country. She had goats, rabbits, hens and a garden. Gives her the credit for his good health today.

345: Describes how one of the other boys who stayed at the camp ate so much he pushed his diaphragm up to his chest. He died due to the restricted movement in his lungs.

359: Says he returned to NEW ZEALAND. Mentions how the government set up work schemes for returned servicemen.

360: Briefly mentions trying to get a farm in OTAGO first.

364: Says he then found ELMWOOD STATION. Had to go through a board process for that and was allocated it.

367: Describes the appeal of ELMWOOD. “Isolation.” May 1946

375: Talks a little about his marriage. 1945 to WINIFRED WAUGH (WIN). They had been engaged five years before. “I arrived in August and was married in October.”

378: Says the wedding was held in ANDERSON’S BAY. Says some of the airforce boys attended.

386: The honeymoon was spent in DUNEDIN and a tour of the SOUTH ISLAND.

390: Says he went straight back to SHEARING. WIN stopped with a cousin in OUTRAM and went fruit picking.

403: States the price he got for SHEARING in 1946. 35 shillings/100 sheep. Adds that it’s $1.20 each now. Pre-war he was doing 170/180 a day. Thinks he got up to that tally on his return. States that his all time record was also a shed record of 207.

412: Outlines terms of government lease on ELMWOOD. It was a lease with a right to freehold. In total it amounted to 5,200 acres. “A lot of hill in it.” At the time there were only 1400 sheep on it.

Tape 1 Side B ends

Tape 2 Side A (His voice becomes hoarser, dotted with coughs)

006: Comments on WIN'S reaction at first sight of ELMWOOD STATION. “Thought the mountains were going to fall in on her.”

026: Says there was nothing around them. They had each other.

030: States that in 1946 there were thirteen runholders from the GORGE back to TE ANAU.

036: Talks about the hotel at THE KEY, run by a MRS MACAULEY.

041: Mentions the area being overrun with rabbits.

Tape stopped for refreshments

Tape re-started with question about the conditions at ELMWOOD

058: Says the house was warm. Stayed a month with the outgoing leaseholders still in the house.

062: Describes having coal range, water wheel and 12volt battery running off it (for power).

067: Says you couldn’t read by the dim lighting at night.

070: Recalls having battery-powered radio, run off a car battery.

076: States the land at ELMWOOD was very rough.

078: Mentions FESCUE. It is a lawn grass, not much grown now in NZ.

085: “That’s what got me on my feet, was the FESCUE.” Previous owner had put in a mix of FESCUE and clover in a paddock. First year Joe harvested it, he got about five bags to the acre.

091: Gives price for FESCUE. “At 1s 6d, or 1s and something a pound, it was a terrific cheque, especially against sheep which you could hardly sell.”

094: Mentions that if you wanted lambs killed at the freezing works, you had to go to ALLAN SPEIGHT or ANGUS MACDONALD who had shares in the (freezing works) company in INVERCARGILL. They would hold spaces for shareholders. If you weren’t one it was difficult to get in.

106: Refers back to FESCUE. Says some of the paddocks that had been in FESCUE he ‘skim-ploughed’. That enabled another crop to come through without sowing it again.

110: Says he had cleared his mortgage (loans) by 1954.

112: States that it was only through FESCUE that he managed to do so.

120: Recalls he was sent some old ROMNEY STUD ewes which he started to breed from. Sold a few, not many.

123: States that every paddock he could plough with FESCUE he ploughed. Remembers only having a little ALLIS CHALMERS tractor and a single-furrow plough.

130: Mentions buying a single cylinder diesel tractor in the early 1950s. It was economical to run, “but a terrible thing to sit on.”

141: Talks about the SCHOOL they set up before the authorities stepped in and provided a school at THE KEY.

145: States he and WIN had four children, three BOYS and a GIRL. Her name is MERYL. Now married to IVAN SELL.

153: Sons names are GRAHAM, RON (deceased) and MURRAY.

155: Recalls RON shifting stock one morning on his farm. That the neighbourhood was having a day marking lambs for the new settlers. There was a barbecue that evening. RON went home (in the ute) and fell asleep at the wheel. The accident resulting in his death happened about a mile from the house. Says this happened about seven years ago.

174: States when his children were born.

179: Mentions WIN being diagnosed with multiple sclerosis in 1951. She was in hospital in DUNEDIN, completely paralysed. When they discharged her, she was accompanied by a nurse to look after her at ELMWOOD.

185: Recalls WIN finding it easier to move in the swimming baths, so they dammed ELMWOOD CREEK (to create a pool).

198: Talks about people living around them. At the PLAINS STATION, ANGUS MACDONALD, his wife and family. ‘Old ANGUS was a wonderful neighbour.”

204: Mentions HAROLD CHARTRES on MANAPOURI STATION. And JEAN CHARTRES who’d just married HAROLD . “HAROLD was a good neighbour.”

210: Also mentions ALLAN SPEIGHT at REDCLIFF STATIONS. “At the time ALLAN owned the entire 62,000 acres.” Says his (ALLAN’S) children were not at home (boarding school).

229: Mentions the SCHOOL again. Says JEAN CHARTRES and WIN started the school at ELMWOOD. Says he built a school room later. But at first, having just built the house, they had a big garage which is where the schooling was done.

241: Prior to hiring teachers, school-leavers (girls) took some of the lessons, early on.

246: States that JOHN CHEWINGS came up to visit the ‘garage school. It was after that a schoolroom was built. The building is on site at ELMWOOD (restored by the present resident of the homestead, MARIE GALLAND, his daughter-in-law).

251: Says as more people moved into the area, a new school was eventually built at THE KEY.

257: Talks about his children going to SOUTHLAND BOYS AND GIRLS HIGHS. They boarded and came home at weekends.

264: Recalls that GRAHAM came home, but later in his 20s, he went back to live in INVERCARGILL. Got a job, got married and they moved back to ELMWOOD to live in a house built at the top end. He became a partner on the farm.

270: States that RON and MURRAY also came home and then went away again. RON went up north and MURRAY overseas.

275: Recalls that in the 60s, he suffered badly from asthma. Kept him bedridden for a long time. So they decided to build a place in town.

277: Says he always knew they would build on the farm for the boys. That they got in that way, fairly reasonably, compared with today. So they worked it as ELMWOOD BROS for a while.

281: States the boys decided to split the farm, three ways. He had told them he wanted to buy a third property as he didn’t think it would split that much. But they did it anyway. Now the original part of the STATION is around the HOMESTEAD.

287: Mentions that during the 50s, the PLAINS lease came up as it had expired. And the MACDONALDS wanted to freehold it. “They went to the government with the suggestion that they should freehold it from an EDUCATIONAL lease. There’d been a bit of talk going on that FRASER at the GORGE and ROBINSON at WAITUNA and the man that was in my place had looked at the flat ground down there (THE PLAINS)…

“So the government says, right, you give so much land away to THE GORGE, another five or six hundred acres to ROBINSON at WAITUNA and 800 acres to me. Well the 800 acres had only had one top end ploughed and a wee bit at this end. All the rest was rough, no fences on it. Only my boundary fence which I owned half of."

“So I set sail and I got the plough going and from 1400, I think when I passed the place on to the boys there was close on 12,000 SHEEP on the place. But it was the boys coming home and working with me and the good neighbours I had. They were great neighbours.”

308: Says social life was good in the area. MRS SPEIGHT was ‘wonderful’ for having evenings at REDCLIFF. There were dances at TE ANAU in two huts brought down from the TUNNEL (HOMER).

318: Recalls dances at THE KEY. When there was something on in the district, only sickness kep them away.

324: Says they provided their own music. BICK CHRISTIE from MOSSBURN used to come up.

326: States that things changed once the settlers came (in mid 50s). The first block to be settled was on GILLESPIE RD. Says they settled about four or five people at first.

333: Refers back to working life. At the start, he did all his own SHEARING. And he would SHEAR the ‘stragglers’ at REDCLIFF and THE PLAINS. Even for a few years at MARAROA STATION.

340: Says that the time it took to SHEAR would be worked out by the numbers he did per day.

348: Recalls being helped out a lot by the boys at THE PLAINS. They helped with MUSTERING. But, he says, he helped out on their place too.

354: Agrees there was a lot of give and take in the early days.

376: On TRANSPORTATION: Getting from GORE or INVERCARGILL to ELMWOOD or TE ANAU it was a gravel/corrugated road in the early days. Says not much transport either.

381: Says the railway used to come all the way up to MOSSBURN in the 40s.

388: On SUPPLIES: Says the government ran a bus, once or twice a week. The POST OFFICE was in LUMSDEN and they received mail in bags.

390: Recalls the telephone was “stuck on the fence on a manuka pole”. There were two lines. One for TE ANAU and one was the FIVE LINE which came from TE ANAU DOWNS, REDCLIFFS to THE GORGE which had a transfer box.

397: On MEALTIMES: States that everybody who worked on the place was fed in the house. Everybody that came into the house got a cup of tea. That was something learned as children. “Anybody that came in that door, first thing they got was a cup of tea.:

404: Recalls that his generation didn’t expect their wives to work. They looked after the home and the children.

415: Mentions that in the winter at ELMWOOD they were snowed in at times. For the previous owner, in 1939, they had three feet of snow. THE PLAINS lost a lot of SHEEP. WAITUNA lost almost all theirs. THE GORGE too.

Tape 2 Side A ends

Tape 2 Side B starts

000: Opens with continued discussion about the previous owner and the bad snow of 1939. How they couldn’t get out and the owner had contracted pneumonia. Says he died on the property and the nephew carried on until Joe took over.

110: Says he was at ELMWOOD from 1946 to 1976.

015: Talks about the house built at HENRY ST.

029: Refers to making the changes from ELMWOOD to town.

037: Says he wanted to go further north, but WIN wanted to stay in TE ANAU near family and friends.

043: States that eventually the MS took over WIN and she finally had to go into a home.

049: In reply to a question about changes witnessed in the BASIN, he says he’s seen a lot. From 13 runholders to between three or four hundred people in the district with property now.

Tape stopped. End of days’s interview.

Tape re-started on 12 January 2004

080: Talks about lime at ELMWOOD, how he first discovered deposits.

107: Some problems with recording/tape. Says in the early 50s the manager of the CLIFDEN limeworks got permission to open up the deposits. But he died not long after creating another holdup. Then ALEC HAY from OAMARU came in, arrived with equipment. He opened up the limeworks. He had to put roads in first for access into the main hill. Says he began working on a smaller deposit further over, which took almost thirty years to get through.

130: Says HAY moved on to the main hill section and brought in electric power to run the equipment. Before then, it had been operated on diesel power. Because of a road subsidy given to HAY, his freight charges around the BASIN were minimal so all the farms used LIME from his pit.

144: States the works would put out 400/500 tonnes per day.

152: Mentions he didn’t receive any financial compensation for the LIME on his STATION. But says he didn’t have to pay anything for it, apart from the manual work of putting it into his land.

160: Says the LIME made a big difference in the BASIN. With it mixed with SUPER-PHOSPHATES you get an instant response, without the LIME this wasn’t so.

166: Describes the process of crushing the rock deposits.

180: Says HAY did most of the transportation of the LIME until later when other road haulage operators took on distribution.

214: States that apart from the local works, the nearest would have been at BALFOUR or MOSSBURN.

226: Talks about benefits and drawbacks of farming in the TE ANAU district.

232: Mentions the BLACKMOUNT RD. It was first a track/coach road. At BOB’S CORNER which used to be part of ELMWOOD but now belongs to the MACDONALD’S there was a boarding house and a blacksmith’s shop.

239: Recalls first ploughing that area and digging up ‘thousands’ of horse-shoes.

242: Says they’re still there today as he just left them.

246: States there are still thousands of tonnes of LIME deposits at the old works. Describes what’s there now.

268: Revisits discussion about FESCUE. When he first came to the district, the land looked ‘dried up’. That was the aftermath of FESCUE. It was the only moneymaker at that time.

280: Explains the name given it: CHEWINGS FESCUE.

284: Describes the planting and harvesting process of the FESCUE seed.

300: Talks about ‘stooking’ the FESCUE into sheathes.

334: Says he’s seen six bags to the acre, a good crop.

347: Recalls getting good summers in those days (40s/50s) compared with nowadays when so much wind would have blown the seed away.

354: Says FIVE RIVERS still grows some FESCUE.

364: Mentions that most of the FESCUE went to the UNITED STATES pre- and post-war which is why it was a good export crop.

375: Says the US started growing it themselves with improved methods and thereafter didn’t want the NZ crop.

386: Recalls growing it until the late 70s until the sheep markets improved, along with the use of LIME on the imported ENGLISH grasses.

406: Says when he retired, it was for good. But he still likes to see what’s going on.

Tape ends

END