Person recorded: Gloria Margaret Lindsay date of recording: 8 March 2004

Interviewer and abstractor: Morag Forrester

Tape Counter: TCM 393

Tape 1 Side A starts

007: Born 1922 in CROMWELL but doesn’t remember much about being there because her family moved from ALEXANDRA to DUNEDIN.

023: Says their home was in JUBILEE PARK, DUNEDIN, halfway up the hill from the town centre.

032: Mentions being one of eight CHILDREN, and that she was third eldest. There were three BOYS, five GIRLS.

042: States father’s occupation as BREWER of a small family-based firm, although after service in WWI, says he was at home much of the time. He was named ALEC COWIE while her mother’s name was MARGARET.

049: Recalls there being quite a few small BREWERIES in DUNEDIN at the same time as COWIES and that they gradually faded out during the DEPRESSION.

059: Explains the local water was deemed good for producing beer.

067: Says she attended ARTHUR STREET PRIMARY, then on to OTAGO GIRLS HIGH SCHOOL

072: Describes the former as having been opened in the city’s founding era. The education given was based around the three ‘R’s’.

089: Talks about there being some strict teachers and that the strap was administered for bad behaviour, sometimes committed by herself, usually for talking in class.

099: Recalls OTAGO GIRLS HIGH being more regulated particularly on the types of subjects they took.

113: States she wasn’t academically-minded, although it was inherent in her family with her siblings taking up careers in teaching or accountancy.

119: Her preference was for office work. “Loved it.” Mentions going to evening classes at the technical college where she studied book-keeping.

128: For social events at school there was an annual ball for fifth and sixth formers. Says she and her friends would go walking and tramping.

146: Agrees that with a large family, life at home was busy with plenty of lively debate.

157: Mentions again that her FATHER was in the NZ ARMY and that during WWI, he served in GALLIPOLI. Says he never discussed that period of his life.

169: Explains that although her MOTHER didn’t go out to work, she had plenty of work at home. Adds nor had her MOTHER worked before getting married; it wasn’t expected of women in those days to do so, although single women took up teaching and nursing.

184: Things changed during and after WWI when many women would have lost their fiancées or husbands and had to take up work. It was the same, she says, during WWII.

191: What were often described as ‘spinster aunts’, she says, lived with relatives, but a few had their own places after their parents died.

202: Mentions her maternal GRANDMOTHER coming to live with them after her GRANDFATHER died. Recalls she and her siblings would talk to her GRANDMOTHER on their fingers because the elderly woman was totally deaf.

212: Remembers her GRANDMOTHER being quite strict and having the attitude that girls ought to have certain manners, which has probably made her aware of being polite and possibly a bit bossy (laughs).

233: Considers WWII brought about swift changes in the way people lived, particularly for women. Says she was treated as second-rate when she first began working in an OFFICE until she’d risen to the ranks of ‘senior’. And that she doesn’t think she’d have had as many opportunities if it hadn’t been for the war.

242: Recalls her first job was in the OFFICE at PARTELL’S GARAGE in CRAWFORD ST. She was paid 10shillings/week, of which half was given to her MOTHER for board.

251: Says she left school at the age of sixteen and went straight to that first job, which she enjoyed much more than being at school.

260: Was at the GARAGE for three years before moving on to the EXPRESS COMPANY, a courier firm. Says she worked at the head office where she learned a lot and was given plenty of opportunities. Worked there till she married at the age of twenty-four.

280: Says she met her HUSBAND, GEORGE, while she was on holiday in MANAPOURI when she was about twenty-two years old. Recalls seeing him for the first time; he was broad-shouldered though not very tall.

296: Mentions that after the holiday, they continued to meet in DUNEDIN where he would visit his BROTHER.

300: Affirms that GEORGE was twenty years older than she. His family was living in BLUFF at the time they were courting; his FATHER who’d died some time beforehand had been HARBOURMASTER at the southern port.

307: States GEORGE had four SISTERS and one BROTHER.

309: Declares GEORGE’S move to MANAPOURI was a “story in itself”. He’d been working in GLENORCHY, mining with a friend who was killed in a road traffic accident near LUMSDEN. At the funeral, GEORGE met the other person in the wrecked vehicle, LES MURRELL from MANAPOURI who offered him work as a LAUNCHMASTER on a passenger vessel on the lake.

323: States GEORGE was qualified to do the job because he had a MASTER MARINER’S certificate.

326: Responding to question, says they decided to get married in 1946, just after WWII. GEORGE had almost completed building the timber house in WAIAU ST., which she adds was unusual in those days when not everyone had a house of their own.

331: Agrees it was quite a change for her to move from DUNEDIN to MANAPOURI. “It was very quiet, all the people who were living here were quite a lot older than I was.”

337: Mentions they didn’t have a car and the TELEPHONE network hadn’t reached MANAPOURI until the 1950s.

349: Gives details about the house. The timber - beech logs - was brought across from the other side of the WAIAU RIVER. GEORGE built it by hand with neither POWER nor CHAINSAWS. Says his main difficulty was to find straight trees because beech doesn’t grow straight in the way that pine trees do.

359: Explains that GEORGE towed the logs across the river by boat after he’d cut them down, single-handedly. (The area was not part of the FIORDLAND NATIONAL PARK BOARD then). Admits the task took him years to complete.

367: Says he based the design on log cabins he’d seen in SCANDINAVIA. Adds that he had to apply for a building permit from the WALLACE COUNTY COUNCIL.

375: Responding to question about the curved, boat-hull shape of the living area, agrees it was part of the design plan. Explains he had to build the room in one go, instead of wall by wall.

385: Pointing at one of the walls, she explains how each log had to fit onto the previous one, lengthwise. Says GEORGE had a strong build and was able to carry/lift a log without help and without harming himself.

395: Mentions the quarter-acre section belonged to LES MURRELL, who needed some cash and therefore sold a couple of plots – theirs and the one next door. Says the purchase price was twenty-five pounds.

403: Recalls there being only four other families/individuals living in the village in 1946 and that this situation remained until the government opened the area up and sold sections in HOME ST and VIEW ST a couple of years later. States most of the new dwellings were holiday cribs, although one or two people built permanent homes.

411: Explains the road didn’t reach as far as their place in 1946, although there was a road into the GRANDVIEW GUESTHOUSE (MURRELLS) followed by a track that came round and down to the BOAT HARBOUR.

416: States the road to the HARBOUR wasn’t built until 1953.

420: Recalls that while GEORGE worked as LAUNCHMASTER, they decided to also open a small SHOP, with PETROL provisions operated by a hand-pump. They were the first to offer this kind of service in MANAPOURI.

Tape 1 Side A ends

Tape 1 Side B starts

002: Continues talking about their SHOP, saying they opened it about 1947/48 and it was at the front of the section.

021: Says it was a small country store and they stocked it with supplies ordered from INVERCARGILL and delivered by bus (RAILWAY ROAD SERVICES) via LUMSDEN and MOSSBURN.

047: Mentions that although they “did quite nicely”, the SHOP wasn’t a big business.

049: Tape stopped as unexpected visitors arrived.

056: Responding to question, says they kept the shop until 1960 and that over time, especially latterly with the start of construction work for the HYDRO POWER SCHEME at DEEP COVE, business got much busier.

064: Gives an explanation of how development in MANAPOURI was halted because of the government’s plans to raise the lake levels. Says that as a result, no new businesses were allowed to open in the village and that they couldn’t buy suitable land to construct a service station.

079: Explains the MURRELLS bought their shop and then built the garage and SHOP at the site where it still stands further up the road from the HARBOUR.

081: Mentions having two CHILDREN, in 1953 and 1955 and in response to question says that although GEORGE would have been in his fifties, the large age gap between them didn’t figure in their lives at all.

095: Says the two BOYS got on well with him and that although he didn’t play RUGBY (not being a footie player) he was in every way an ordinary FATHER with them.

107: Recalls that GEORGE changed his occupation (mid-1950s), leaving his job with the MURRELLS to work on road construction and maintenance for the MINISTRY OF WORKS. Says it was more permanent work and although not well paid, it was a regular income.

124: Says he worked sometimes on the MILFORD ROAD, adding she went up with him one time and stayed at CASCADE CREEK going on sojourns from there by herself while he was working.

142: Referring back to having the two BOYS, (JACK & GEORGE) they had to travel to LUMSDEN for the nearest DOCTOR adding that by then they had bought their first car.

149: Talks about the HUTCHINS (LES & OLIVE) having moved to MANAPOURI at about that time (1950s) and as they both had children, she and OLIVE became good friends.

170: Laughs at the question of whether her husband, GEORGE, helped to change nappies. “That wasn’t his scene at all…I had to look after the children, that was my job.”

174: As a rider to the above, says he did take the BOYS with him if he was doing home repairs or similar things, letting them “puddle around being helpful, probably being a nuisance”.

179: Mentions again not being linked up to the national POWER grid – it didn’t arrive in the village until 1960. “That was hard going. I never want to go without POWER again.”

182: Describes having a coal range for cooking and TILLEY lamps for lighting. They then got a generator which provided enough power to run the lights and a washing machine.

200: Recalls it was 1960 when they had POWER installed, and 1960 when they got their car. “So life improved considerably that year.”

210: Also remembers getting the TELEPHONE installed, but can’t remember when.

219: Affirms that being small in number, MANAPOURI was a close-knit community, saying the people next door (ROY & BELLE MCDONALD) were particularly good as neighbours and comments again on her friendship with OLIVE HUTCHINS.

233: Says the BOYS went to PRIMARY SCHOOL in TE ANAU. At first they were transported by private car driven by any one of a number of people, including GEORGE RADFORD, DES ARTHUR, one of the CRAIGS.

239: States they went on to MANAPOURI DISTRICT HIGH SCHOOL, as by then, the (HYDRO POWER) scheme had started and the school took children aged from “primmers onwards.”

257: Comments that the difference for children being brought up in MANAPOURI compared with DUNEDIN was that they had a lot of freedom with plenty of places to go and play.

273: After selling the SHOP, says she didn’t go out to work again until she was offered a position at the FOUR SQUARE (SHOP) in 1962 (then owned by the SHELTONS).

283: Mentions that around that time, the whole district had started to come alive, explaining it was because of the development of the HYDRO POWER scheme and the temporary VILLAGE that was constructed a few miles out of MANAPOURI.

295: Briefly mentions the LANDS & SURVEY DEVELOPMENT PROGRAMME and that a lot of the FARMS were broken up into smaller blocks adding to the major changes in the area.

301: Referring back to her working life, says that she left FOUR SQUARE to work as a SECRETARY at the MANAPOURI DISTRICT HIGH SCHOOL where she also taught commercial studies.

310: Recalls the SCHOOL closing in 1975. In 1976 FIORDLAND COLLEGE in TE ANAU opened and the pupils were transferred, as was she to continue working as SCHOOL SECRETARY until she retired in 1982.

323: By then, her HUSBAND, GEORGE had been retired a while after having changed jobs again, some time previously, to work for LANDS & SURVEY. Says he worked with the surveyors.

327: Mentions that his navigational experience stood him in good stead for the task of surveying, as did an ability to upgrade his skills when new equipment was brought in to assist the survey work.

330: Thinks he worked maybe fifteen years for L&S and would have been involved in preparing the BALLOT BLOCKS.

339: On their social life, says once they got a car they could go places. Says she continued to go tramping for quite a few years with “various people roundabout”. Adds she belonged to the NZ ALPINE CLUB and took trips around FIORDLAND.

352: States that while GEORGE would go deerstalking, he wouldn’t go climbing. So they came to an agreement that if he stopped sailing and she stopped climbing, they would play golf together. So they did.

356: Recalls they weren’t foundation members of the TE ANAU GOLF CLUB, but joined the year after it opened. Says she loved it as a sport and has only just given up.

362: Mentions other interests saying she’s a member of the EMBROIDERY CLUB, RURAL WOMEN and helps out with MEALS ON WHEELS.

377: In more reflective mood, describes her thoughts sometimes when she drives up the road and sees the mountains: “Well they’ve been there for a long time, haven’t they and we’re really only a dot on the ocean, the surroundings. We just come and go and they’ve been there for many, many years.”

389: Responding to question on future development of the district, thinks that as an area grows then you grow with it.

400: Interrupted by telephone call

Tape 1 Side B ends

Tape 2 Side A starts

022: Opens with reply to question about residential development plans for the district saying that she believes that for whoever owns the land then it’s their right to do what they like with it.

032: Says she has GRANDCHILDREN and one GREAT GRANDCHILD and that one of her SONS lives in AUSTRALIA. The other lives in INVERCARGILL so she sees him and one GRANDCHILD who’s also living there.

082: Responding to question, says the MILNES had FREESTONE STATION, where HOME CREEK NURSERY now is. The MCDONALDS started up the SEA PRINCE launch service. And later on, she says, the BARNES’ arrived.

108: Describes GEORGE as having been not particularly sociable, although he had had friends, and that she met lots of people through him or through his work.

118: On the future of MANAPOURI, says she would prefer to see fewer “greenies” believing the place has too many already.

125: Says: “We’re all conservationists up to a point, there’s no need to carry it to extremes.”

Interview closes

Tape 1 Side A stops.

Second interview session held on 13 May 2004. This interview was done with a different microphone.

134: Interviewer opens with introduction explaining that GLORIA wished to give more details about the changes she’s witnessed in and around MANAPOURI.

139: Says that about 1953 things began to move, and it was in this year that the road to PEARL HARBOUR was first formed. Previously it had been just a track.

146: Recalls that in the same decade she and GEORGE had a telephone installed. “That was a big jump ahead to have a phone in our own place. It was a party line, of course.”

151: Remembers other people on the line were neighbours, the MCDONALDS, and later the MANAPOURI-DOUBTFUL SOUND TOURIST COMPANY.

162: Responding to question on lack of privacy on a party line, says that: “Everyone knew everyone else’s business round here so it didn’t really matter.”

169: Says that before it was installed, MURRELL’S GUESTHOUSE had the only line and people would have to go over there to make a call, “which meant that everyone knew what you were talking about anyway because they could all hear you.”

186: Moving on, says in the late 1950s the main highway from LUMSDEN started to be sealed. Recalls it was a very rough gravel road and describes how it is driving on them.

207: Mentions it took a long time for the road to be sealed all the way through to MANAPOURI. It was first done to TE ANAU, then from HILLSIDE into MANAPOURI, then eventually MANAPOURI to TE ANAU.

212: Thinks it may have taken about nine years for the job to be completed. Explains that it may have taken so long because there wasn’t a lot of money in the area for it (rates etc). Says as the completion neared, the LANDS & SURVEY DEVELOPMENT programme began and the area started to open up.

221: Expands on earlier comment that between 1952 and 1954, sections were made available in VIEW ST and HOME ST., bringing in a whole new population to the area. Says people came in and built holiday cribs.

232: Says the sections were quarter-acre blocks, with one or two larger than that and some prime sections overlooking the lake. Adds that they were priced starting at 25 pounds.

244: Recalls the buyers were mostly SOUTHLANDERS – from INVERCARGILL, GORE, WINTON, WESTERN SOUTHLAND.

250: Confirms it did make a change to the village, which consisted of only five permanent homes. Considers the place became much more interesting as the population suddenly increased, especially during holidays and weekends.

258: Mentions again that the next big change was in the early 1960s when MANAPOURI was linked up to the NATIONAL GRID and they had a regular POWER supply.

262: Remembers that before then, their home had a diesel-powered generator which supplied energy for the lights and a washing machine, but not a range (cooker).

270: “Once the POWER came and you could flick a switch, that was a very different thing altogether.”

272: Adds that it made life much easier.

280: Among the changes it introduced, remembers it brought an end to the clatter of motors every night when every home had its own diesel-operated POWER plant.

287: Recalls getting an electric range almost immediately to cook on instead of the old coal range.

293: Tape stopped and re-started.

295: Mentions the next major improvement was the installation of a regular water supply in the 1960s. Before then, they used water tanks.

303: Describes their early years of marriage when GEORGE used to carry water from the river by buckets slung on the ends of a long pole. But eventually, he put in a pipeline connected to their water tanks and a water pump down by the river which was their supply source.

319: Talks about how in those early days, if they hit a dry spell, then they would undo the pipe under the sink and put a bucket under it (same with the bath) and the waste water would be used for the garden.

334: Explains that in 1979 she was appointed a JUSTICE of the PEACE, but says there’s not a lot of work involved in the area, most of it being administrative.

342: Mentions the next big improvement (late 1980s) was the installation of a proper sewerage system. Recalls that everyone had to be joined on to it.

348: Remembers that before then, they used septic tanks and you “didn’t dare let anything down there that shouldn’t” (for fear of blockages).

366: Admits that all these improvements have resulted in an increase in the rates bills. “When we first had the section, the rates were something like 2s/6d, and now they’re something like $1200.”

380: “Anything that comes as an improvement, I’m all in favour of.”

Tape 2 Side A ends

Third interview session held on 21 June 2004. Back to using lapel microphones.

Tape 2 Side B starts

004: Discussion focuses on GLORIA’S deceased husband, GEORGE LINDSAY. Explains he was born in AUCKLAND in 1902, the second oldest of a family of six CHILDREN.

012: States that his FATHER (also named GEORGE) was on board ship and had come into port just before GEORGE was born and left not long afterwards. His FATHER was a MARINE OFFICER, and at that stage was SHIP CAPTAIN.

023: Says his FATHER mainly sailed around the PACIFIC, to AUSTRALIA and around the ISLANDS. Adds that his PARENTS had their honeymoon in HAWAII and considers they had a “most interesting start to life”.

028: Mentions his FATHER’S family originally came from SCOTLAND. Says his MOTHER’S maiden name was THOMPSON (her first name was AMELIA, shortened to MILLIE) and she came from OAMARU, adding that her ancestors also had SCOTTISH origins.

046: Mentions that of his one BROTHER and four SISTERS, two of the latter are still living, one in her nineties, the other in her late eighties.

057: Relates that the family moved south from AUCKLAND and that he lived in OAMARU with his maternal GRANDMOTHER and AUNT until about the age of ten. Then the family moved to DUNEDIN for a while, then TIMARU where his FATHER was HARBOURMASTER until he took a similar position in BLUFF and the family moved to the southern port.

070: States GEORGE’S first job was as a TELEGRAPH BOY. However, a keen interest in the sailing ships that came into BLUFF fed teenage “running away to sea” adventures so his FATHER had him enlisted as a MIDSHIPMAN.

097: Says GEORGE was educated at OAMARU PRIMARY SCHOOL and TIMARU BOYS HIGH SCHOOL. Thinks he may have left school at the age of fourteen when the family moved to BLUFF.

110: Describes his MIDSHIPMAN’S job as being similar to an apprenticeship. Says he stayed at sea until about 1923/1924 when the company was subject to a takeover which resulted in redundancies.

132: States his next move was to work for the McKENZIES at WALTER PEAK STATION and other runholders around the WAKATIPU area. Eventually, he went shilite mining in CENTRAL OTAGO.

146: Responding to question says GEORGE gained various ‘sea-going’ certificates while he’d been working at sea. Most of them, she says, he sat at naval college in DUNDEE, SCOTLAND.

162: Commenting on his personal qualities, says GEORGE wasn’t a talkative person. “Over the years I got to know little incidents more than the whole story.”

170: Expands on the story mentioned earlier about GEORGE’S move to MANAPOURI. Says he’d been shilite mining in GLENORCHY with another man, TIP CASHMORE, who went off for a spell but didn’t return. Turns out he’d been doing a number of jobs with LES MURRELL. TIP CASHMORE, however, died in a road accident in an old car he and LES MURRELL had been travelling in. GEORGE attended the funeral at which LES MURRELL approached him with an offer to become LAUNCHMASTER of his DOUBTFUL SOUND tourism company.

187: Dates this at around 1937. Says the work was mainly seasonal and apart from being LAUCHMASTER, he was also a GUIDE on the NORTH ARM track. He also took part in military service during WWII for the NZ Army. Says he was on HMS RANUI which plied up and down the PACIFIC.

211: States that after the war, he came back and picked up his job again with LES MURRELL. Adds that it was on a casual basis; for example one year his total payment was in the form of a sleeping bag.

215: Says that in those first years working with LES MURRELL he lived at the GUEST HOUSE where he also had all his meals.

221: In reply to why he stayed on in the area, she says: “He liked it.” Admits he used to talk about his guiding trips and that she’d hoped one day to walk the NORTH TRACK, but it became disused and the huts weren’t maintained so it never happened. By then, she says, they’d started their petrol pump business and shop.

230: Pause and tape stopped

237: Mentions again that they were married in 1946 by which time GEORGE had started to build their house. Talks about the tourist season in those days.

260: Explains that GEORGE was SKIPPER of the PILGRIM (one of the vessels owned by LES MURRELL). Says it carried about twelve passengers up to WEST ARM and back again. They would take parties to the start of a track and either guide them, or meet them at the other end.

278: Says (DEER) SHOOTING was also one of GEORGE’S main interests and he would go HUNTING around TE ANAU and further. Adds it helped to make money during the winter season when he would sell the skins.

283: Describes the lifestyle he led as “very free and easy but you didn’t make much money at it (laughs)”. However, that changed after they married as he had someone else to consider.

290: Replies that he gave up the guiding work long before LES MURRELL sold the company in 1954 to LES HUTCHINS. It was about 1947, she says, that GEORGE left and got a job with the MINISTRY OF PUBLIC WORKS and very briefly for WALLACE COUNTY COUNCIL.

297: Mentions again that he then took up working for the DEPARTMENT OF LANDS & SURVEY on its development project for the TE ANAU BASIN, begun in the 1950s. Considers his navigational skills came in handy as he worked as assistant to the surveyors.

306: Explains he was involved in collating information on a PEAKS SURVEY around the MILFORD SOUND and LOWER HOLLYFORD areas, so was airlifted in and out. Adds his team also surveyed for water around the BASIN as part of the FARM DEVELOPMENT project.

316: States that he continued working for L&S for a good number of years until he retired at about 70 years old. Replies that he “loved the job, yes, the job was very interesting”.

321: Responding to question, says he did meet a lot of new people that came into the district although being a “rather retiring type of person” he didn’t become friendly with all sorts of people. But, she adds, he had some very good mates.

334: Says GEORGE had no desire to take on one of the new FARM BLOCKS that were being created by the project. “That would have meant he’d have to shift and that appalled him, the very idea of it. It appals me too (laughs)”.

342: Mentions that his FATHER died about 1935, but his MOTHER lived on much longer and the family would occasionally visit.

356: Replies that when he first arrived in MANAPOURI, the only building was MURRELL’S GUESTHOUSE as well as the MILNES’ FARM (by HOME CREEK).

362: Comments that the relative isolation didn’t seem to have a negative effect on him. “He kept himself to himself a lot.” And that “he liked the life”.

370: After he retired from L&S, she says, GEORGE worked on the gardens at the HOTEL. Later, she continues, his eyesight worsened but he still enjoyed life “in his own quiet way”.

Interviewer describes a black and white framed photograph of GEORGE at the wheel of the PILGRIM with an AUSTRALIAN COCKATOO on his shoulder.

380: Explains that the parrot belonged to MURRELL’S GUESTHOUSE and was named JOSEPHINE. “GEORGE being GEORGE, he was always very fond of various animals, birds or whatever…and this parrot used to follow him wherever he went.” Says JOSEPHINE would fly up the lake and land on the boat and would even follow him down to BLUFF whenever he visited his MOTHER.

389: However, the story goes that the parrot was killed on the other side of the river, but no-one knows exactly how. There were various versions of the bird’s demise, one being that she was deliberately shot, another that a hawk might have attacked her. However, all this happened in the days before GLORIA met GEORGE.

Interview ends

Tape 2 Side B stops