Person recorded: James Spence (Jim) McGhie

Date of Interview: 20 February 2004

Interviewer and abstractor: Morag Forrester

Tape Counter: TCM 939

Tape 1 Side A Starts

002: Opens with discussion on spelling of his surname.

012: States that his ancestral beginnings were IRISH not SCOTTISH as he had always assumed.

018: Says he was born in BLACKBALL, on the GREY RIVER, WEST COAST NZ. The town was named after the coal carrying vessels which came to pick up mined coal. They had a black ball on their chimneys.

025: Describes it as a mining town with one mine and a few hundred people, mostly Scots, who came out to NZ during the Depression of the 1920s.

031: Born in 1927. Has three SISTERS, two of whom live in AUCKLAND and one still on the WEST COAST. MOLLY is the eldest, followed by ELIZABETH and WILSON.

044: Mentions his parents came from LESMAHAGOW, LANARKSHIRE, SCOTLAND. They came out on the HORORATA, taking about six weeks to reach NZ through the PANAMA CANAL. Says they used to describe the crocodiles lying in the PANAMA CANAL.

050: Says the eldest child, MOLLY, was born on board ship. (Later he corrected this saying she was born in Scotland, and was only a few weeks old when the family emigrated.)

054: States his maternal GRANDFATHER’S surname was CLARK and he and some of his other relatives had come out to the ANTIPODES, some stopping at AUSTALIA, with three travelling on to NZ.

060: Says they were MINERS. Adds that they hit the Depression here and recalls his FATHER saying they got a subsidy, 30 shillings/week for a man with four kids and every third week was ‘stand down’ when they got nothing.

073: Remembers not having much money when he was growing up. As a schoolboy, he used to cut ragweed, earning sixpence for a weekend’s work. Says it wasn’t much, but things were cheap then. For example, butter was sixpence a pound.

081: Recalls going to BLACKBALL PRIMARY SCHOOL. It had maybe 150 pupils.

088: Says they played football and rounders, but he preferred to go shooting.

090: Mentions being quite young when he first went shooting, starting with an airgun and progressed to a .22 rifle. Remembers it being a shilling/packet for 50 rounds of ammunition for the .22. (Today it’s up to $5 for the same amount).

100: States there were no rabbits on the WEST COAST then, so he and his mates would SHOOT hares.

104: Recalls that before going to SCHOOL, he stayed with his GRANDFATHER who had an APIARY. Says he would take a shovel out with him on his bike to help the roadworkers filling potholes. (There were no bitumen roads, he adds.)

113: Admits he hated being at GREYMOUTH HIGH SCHOOL, despite achieving good marks. He left at the age of fifteen.

120: Recalls his first job was shovelling gravel. Then he went to work for a WALTER NEIL, earning 30 shillings/week. Says he had to bike about seven miles and milk cows before he started work.

130: Says the cows were milked by hand - there were no machines in those days - taking up to twenty minutes per cow.

137: His next job, he says, was working for the council as a truck driver. That was quickly followed by a move to ASSOCIATED GOLD RIDGES at the age of sixteen. He progressed to being a winchman and taught himself to electric weld.

145: Recalls they were clearing “beautiful timber” then, pulling it into dumps and burning it.

150: After a couple of years, he says, it was on to the SAWMILLS – one was HAAN’S SAWMILL the other was at ROUGH RIVER, belonging to SHEADY’S SAWMILL where he was second BUSHMAN at the age of eighteen.

157: Mentions that at weekends, he went DEER shooting.

159: Recalls his first successful shoot “like it was yesterday”. Says it was a RED YEARLING, on CROWN LAND near the family FARM at MOONLIGHT.

169: Says there were a lot of DEER around then, and big ones. Mentions going to PRIMARY SCHOOL with a 32 revolver in his bag and would have a couple of shots on the way to and from home.

175: Remembers it was a “pretty good” feeling to have shot and skinned DEER because they would sell the skins, therefore earn some cash.

180: Describes the BUSH country of the WEST COAST as pretty thick and having to go into the BACK COUNTRY to stalk the DEER. Adds he and his mates had dogs to help run the DEER out. Says that’s how they learned to do “running shooting” which made him learn to shoot better.

187: Says the WEST COAST is a bit different. “You learnt to blow fish (out of the water) with gelignite when you were very young, and eh, blow stumps, and work hard. And, eh, sometimes we used to do more running than the dogs.”

193: Argues the DEER hunting wasn’t for fun; it was to try to make a few bob. Says he would give his MOTHER his paycheck and used to just about keep himself in ammunition money by skinning DEER at the weekends.

200: Says that after his first DEER, he shot a big STAG on the road about a week later. “It was nothing to see them on the road, when you’re driving along or when you’re riding along on a bike. I’ve heard of people being chased up trees with a STAG in the ROARING season, too. They were a bit toey in those days, yeh”

209: Mentions he’s known about people having been killed by STAGS. Recalls one incident he was involved in on the KEPLER MOUNTAINS when he was carting loads of skins and he couldn’t carry another STAG skin, so he shot a HIND. He went down to skin it, leaving his rifle behind. A 10-point RED DEER STAG, he remembers, came up and was ready to “have a go” without any provocation “He was roaring, and if you tried to hit him with a rock, he jumped sideways and would roar again and shake his head at us. And I kept thinking my rifle was a ten minute scramble up the hill.”

228: Says he got interested in the INTERNAL AFFAIRS DEPARTMENT’S CULLING PROGRAMME while he was in AUSTRALIA. He’d heard they were offering to pay a pound a tail for CULLING in FIORDLAND which he considered good money compared with carting a load of DEER skins out on your back. “Far better to just take out a token tail, tie it on your belt and keep going, SHOOT another one.”

240: Describes carrying out the skins, saying you’d carry all you could on your back. Calls them ‘green skins’. Says sometimes if you were up rivers such as the HOUPRI and the TRENT and you’d shot too many, you’d tie them on to a rope and drag them downstream to where you left your vehicle. But more often than not, you had to carry them on your back one at a time because they’d be full of water.

247: Says he used to go away for a week or two and in that time maybe shoot and skin twenty or thirty DEER.

249: Mentions having a MODEL A FORD which cost him 95 pounds. Adds that it could be left for weeks at the start of a trek, with all his gear inside, and no-one would touch it. “Now you wouldn’t have a car when you come back.”

266: Recalls wanting a change of scene after an accident involving his hunting dog, so wrote to LES MURRELL asking if he needed help in his TOURISM business at MANAPOURI in 1946. Says he worked on the DOUBTFUL SOUND track for a couple of years and in between shot DEER.

271: Remembers that after a while, he bought the SEA PRINCE launch vessel in PICTON and sailed it down the coast to provide a passenger boat service.

275: States it was he and MRS ROY MACDONALD bought the SEA PRINCE in a business partnership and he ran it for about three years. It was at this stage that he built his house at MANAPOURI (the timbers came from the WEST COAST).

277: Says he contracted rheumatic fever and was in hospital in INVERCARGILL where he was advised to go to a warm climate for twelve months. So, he went to AUSTRALIA and stayed four years.

280: In that time, he says, he shot KANGAROOS, went droving, CANE-cutting, cutting TIMBER, and ended up in the NORTHERN TERRITORY where he went shooting BUFFALOES, CROCODILES etc.

285: So it was in 1956, he says, while in ROCKHAMPTON, he saw a newspaper article about the pay offered to CULLERS in FIORDLAND. He decided it was back to NZ to make some money.

288: Affirms there’s a difference between shooting DEER and BUFFALO, the latter being easier because of their size. Nor did he have to climb round the mountains to get at it.

294: Says BUFFALO are easy to shoot because “if you walk out on the plain, and (see) a lone bull there, he’s always a bit niggly and you walk up towards him and he charges. When he gets about fifteen feet off he puts his head down so it gives you a nice flat shot at his head, you know.”

306: Tape stopped to reposition mic, then re-started

308: Recalls arriving back in WELLINGTON, along with his HOLDEN UTE carrying some trophies from his AUSTRALIAN exploits. Adds going to see friends, GORDON WILLIAMS and KEN MYERS and explained he wanted to take up the government’s job offer on CULLING.

317: Says he got back to MANAPOURI and started the 1965/57 season at MONOWAI. The field officer was called PURDEN. Also mentions MAX KERSHAW. Says he was appointed HEAD MAN in the GREBE BLOCK, which included the GREBE RIVER, the HUNTER RANGE and all the FIORDS from DOUBTFUL SOUND down to nearly POTERITERI.

328: Describes it as the wettest season for many years, with flooded rivers.

330: Responding to question says the season was marked down as seven months. Says he was doing fine on his own, didn’t see anyone for three or four months. He’d get back to base camp, bake some bread then off again for a week or so on the tops. He’d take 150 rounds of ammunition to shoot 120 DEER.

339: Says he didn’t carry a tent, but only the fly with light wire. “Everything was carried on your back.” Says he would try to shoot a young DEER before dark to have something for tea and breakfast the next day.

346: Mentions the CULLERS got an AIRDROP which they had to pay for. It was packed by them at the start of the season in October, but sometimes didn’t reach them for a couple of months. The potatoes would be ready to flower and the bacon was green, the onions had sprouted. So he lived on VENISON, drank TEA, took SALT and plenty of RICE.

357: With such damp conditions, he says, he just wore his boots, socks, shorts, singlet and a SWANNDRI over that. “If you kept moving it wasn’t too bad.”

369: Responding to question, he describes the routine day. Up before daybreak, breakfasting on the night before’s leftovers. Or porridge from oatmeal. While eating, he’d work out what kind of day it was, whether he could cross a river or if it was flooded. Then set out. In a day he could shoot ten or twenty DEER. Once he tallied 52 in one day.

377: Says after shooting them, he took the tails and some cuts of meat for his own sustenance, leaving the remains.

380: Having described the MONOWAI area as tough country, he explains that particularly around the FIORDS, it was very steep and sometimes he would shoot a mob of DEER and maybe three or more would be lost down the side. “I’ve seen me skin a DEER and just give it a kick with your foot and it would go down to the sea, just spin like a little fly…”

388: Agrees a lot of people have been lost in that country. Self-reliance is vital to prevent an accident.

391: In response to question says his thoughts focused on: “Wonder how many more DEER I’ll get tomorrow.” (laughs). Admits a lot of people couldn’t cope with such a solitary occupation.

403: Explains he preferred working on his own, mainly because unless a co-worker was equally good at the job, he would end up doing the work of both but getting paid half. “If you go in together, I shoot twenty DEER and he shoots none, I’ve got to give him half! I found out it didn’t pay.”

407: After cutting the tails, he says, he’d hang them on his belt and would carry on shooting till returning to camp. He had a base at the mouth of the EMERALD river where he did what he called his “milk run” – up the JACQEURY, shoot the JACQUERY, cross into the FLORENCE, shoot the three basins in the FLORENCE then cross down to LAKE ST. PATRICK, shoot it then come down to the camp at the EMERALD…. Then back up the GREBE, bush shoot probably, get to the CLARK hut, get to the base there, where he kept his stores… a short break, maybe bake a loaf of bread, then take off for another run for a week or so.

419: Says those who couldn’t look after themselves were gone after only a few days.

Tape 1 Side A Ends

Tape 1 Side B Starts

003: Resumes talking about shooting for tails.

031: Says he noticed the difference in the bush cover after being away from the area for years. Particularly after the helicopters had been working the DEER. “It’s completely choked now with undergrowth because the DEER aren’t there.”

039: Describes the DEER as browsers, eating scrub and leaves and that’s how they kept their tracks clear. Says in 1946, the travel tracks around MANAPOURI would be six or eight feet wide and clear of undergrowth. Not now.

054: Explains there was still a lot of scrub in the area when he was CULLING.

072: States that as a good bush shooter, he reckoned there was a DEER behind every tree until he had a look and found there wasn’t. Equates it to digging gold, there’s a bit of gold behind every rock until you have a look.

080: Believes that’s why he could shoot a lot more DEER than many other shooters. Because he paced himself and looked round every tree. Says he often shot DEER that were asleep; they never heard him approach.

098: Agrees that he would take a look around where he was and be thinking: “If I was a DEER now and I was hungry, where would I be, I’d be up in the feed slips there.”

114: Says he had to work the country to suit how the wind was and where he thought the DEER were, for example, in the winter you get more of them on the sunny side because they feel the cold too.

126: Talking about the AIRDROPS, says sometimes their packs would burst open on impact with the ground, spreading the contents about “half a chain”. As for some of it being wasted, says there’s an axe and a case of 303 bullets somewhere in the middle of LAKE ROE. 137: At the end of the season, says that in town, he’d be inclined to step too high after wearing heavy hob-nailed boots. But most of all, with a “fair beard on you, no-one knew you.”

154: Relates a story about meeting other CULLERS in the bush, mentioning JOHNNY RIORDAN. Says they met on the same track.

169: Refers to the occurrence of poaching. Says his friend, JOCK MURDOCH later confessed to poaching some DEER from his BLOCK. They worked on adjacent BLOCKS.

185: Says he had intended to go back and do another season or so. But adds that the IAD didn’t hold to the terms of the contract which were the more you shot, the more you got. It was one pound for each tail.

189: States that before he agreed to the terms, he’d told them in WELLINGTON that he wanted to make some money out of the job. He says they were keen to hire him for his shooting skills.

191: Mentions he was putting in 120 or 140 tails a week. At one stage there were 600 tails on the line at his camp in EMERALD. Says he was left a note by the head ranger that if he didn’t cut back to 90 or less a week, the department would cut his payment by half to 10 shillings a tail. Admits that no actual contract had been signed because he was on the BLOCK before the paperwork came through.

202: Adds that the IAD knew it was tough country at MONOWAI, they would allow payment for one possible (tail) out of three, because of losing so many due to the steep-sided terrain (as explained earlier).

206: Says the tally he was credited with in 56/57 was 1400 tails and considers he lost a lot more. So, he says, they refused to pay him the one-in-three and he handed in 1000 rounds of ammunition.

210: Believes the field officer must have sold that ammunition because he was charged two shillings for two rounds overdrawn. States they then offered him a contract on the BLUE MOUNTAINS which he turned down. “A contract’s a contract, you know….You shake hands with someone, that’s a contract. Your word’s your bond, you know.”

217: Instead, says he took up a contract to go FENCING for the LANDS & SURVEY Department. The pay, he says, was 30 shillings a chain for putting up seven-wire fence, working as far as 60 miles up EYRE CREEK.

224: Says it was tough work, and again he didn’t actually sign a contract, but kept getting the jobs.

230: Mentions getting married and his WIFE JOAN came to stay with him at MANAPOURI.

232: Describes how they met: “She was skinning a BUFFALO with a knife.” It was in the NORTHERN TERRITORY about 1955. Her father owned MOUNT BUNDEY STATION – 2600 square miles – as well as two other properties. “My wife’s not a real good shot, though she’s not too bad. Her mother’s worse.”

244: Thinks he got married about 1960. They spent the next five years or so going back and forth across the DITCH.

254: Says her father went ahead with building an abattoir for the shot BUFFALO and they would cull about 30 of the animals a day.

257: States they had the first export licence in AUSTRALIA for BUFFALO meat though they sold most of it to TOM PIPER in ADELAIDE. Considers it’s the best smallgoods meat in the world as it absorbs twice its weight in water, so that if you buy a tonne of meat, you get three times a saleable product.

262: Mentions briefly that the BUFFALO skins were sold to TURKEY.

263: Recalls an incident in 1965 which resulted in serious injury and brought an end to his BUFFALO CULLING. Explains it happened while trying to lift a tranquillised beast. He tried to lift its huge weight off the ground and wrecked his fourth lower vertebra. “And I’ve never been able to forget it either.”

272: Explains that not long after, his father-in-law had a stroke and the STATION was sold to GRACE BROS. He, JOAN and the kids went back to visit, intending to be away for three weeks. They ended up buying a ranch at LANGLEY, QLD and didn’t get back to MANAPOURI for eighteen YEARS.

284: States having three children. KAY, CLARK and JANE – now all in their forties.

289: Says KAY breeds ENGLISH SPRINGER SPANIELS, winning several prizes. CLARK is more DEER-related and turned LANGLEY into the biggest DEER FARM in QUEENSLAND. But after ten years of DROUGHT, they had to “walk off” it. And JANE went to UNI and became a VETERINARIAN.

302: Referring to DEER FARMING, says it’s not such a good prospect in AUSTRALIA compared with NZ. There was often a lack of feed, and having to buy it in would be prohibitively costly, especially at times of DROUGHT.

309: In response to question, says he used to GUIDE in the FIORDLAND WAPITI country, in the late 40s when he first came to MANAPOURI.

312: Gives detailed description of the wet, damp, mossy overgrown conditions encountered around the SOUNDS.

323: “All round LOOKING GLASS BAY, TWO THUMB BAY, CASWELL SOUND and LAKE MARCHANT and STILLWATER and up through HENRY SADDLE and all that country that’s the range of the WAPITI. I know all that country and the SANDFLIES are thicker there than anywhere else…Keeps you moving anyway…(laughs)”

333: Explains that it was different guiding because you’d be looking for a head. Claims to have seen the first RED DEER in GEORGE SOUND that they’d ever seen in there. Says it was around 1947 when he was guiding with KENNY DALRYMPLE.

337: Says to get there they went into DOUBTFUL SOUND on a launch vessel. Or up the MIDDLE ARM of LAKE TE ANAU through LAKE HANKINSON, LAKE THOMPSON over the HENRY SADDLE and down into the head of the STILLWATERS.

348: Says the year before (1946) KENNY DALRYMPLE shot NZ’s record WAPITI TROPHY. It was at the head of LAKE MARCHANT.

370: Recollects he was GUIDING for about four years. He went with LES MURRELL, who was trying to improve on the record trophy. Adds that they cut tracks for a US-led expedition into the area.

381: Mentions building the JETTY at MANAPOURI to berth the SEA PRINCE. Says there were no roads to PEARL HARBOUR and people would get lost trying to reach the boat. “Quite a bit different to what it is today.”

389: Discusses the changes he noticed after eighteen years in AUSTRALIA. First, there were a lot more people, more houses, streets. But mostly in the bush, there were so many dead BEECH trees that had fallen down due to old age. And for every dead tree there were a thousand suckers growing up from it.

397: Says it seemed as though the bush was going through a lot of change. A lot of the young trees were growing up with no support. Also in the rivers there appeared to be more rubbish.

405: Considers that apart from natural changes, the DEER had done a lot of damage. Yet, he states that with the DEER now gone, he reckons the bush is going to be a “mess”. Explains this by saying the trees are growing so densely that they won’t be able to amount to much because they’re too closed in.

Tape 1 Side B Ends

Tape 2 Side A Starts

007: Considers it would be a good thing if there were more DEER roaming the bush than after the virtual clearance of the animals in the 1970s. Argues it’s a beneficial learning tool for young people to go DEER hunting because it makes them appreciate the country more.

014: Recalls being at LAKE ST. PATRICK where he would get a fire going just before dark. Says he used to call it his “chanted hour” when “you wouldn’t hear another sound, no planes buzzing over or choppers and I think you appreciate being alive more.”

032: Says he taught a few young shooters. His GRANDDAUGHTER, he says, shot her first DEER when she was eleven, last year. Says all his CHILDREN are good shots, and his WIFE.

050: Thinks gun laws are a good thing but they (authorities in AUSTRALIA) may have gone overboard a bit because they’re hitting responsible, registered gun owners. “I’d like to see published how many lawbreakers have handed in their guns.”

069: States there are a lot of good women shooters in NZ. But he believes a large majority of them wouldn’t like to carry stuff on their backs round the hills, although he admits there’s a few that do. As for the CULLING he says: “It’s a bit bloodthirsty and doesn’t appeal to a lot of women.”

080: Mentions in AUSTRALIA it’s perhaps different. Knows a number of women who run their own farms, and recalls one woman saying that if she weren’t allowed to shoot brumbies (wild horses) she’d have to walk off the place.

088: States he doesn’t like shooting horses though he’s had to put down some injured ones. Then adds: “I don’t like shooting, period, but if you’re making a living out of it, if you didn’t do it someone else would.”

105: Looking back to his earlier DEER shooting days, he admits he took a lot of risks; that he had to make life-saving decisions instantly.

131: Reiterates that the principal factor required for CULLING and HUNTING skins was self-reliance. “It’s everything, I think, in the bush.”

135: Describes being in the bush during an earthquake, the sound of the rumble in the distance. And the first thing to consider, he says, is whether there are any dead branches above you. “All the birds stop singing, and you hear it like a train coming, so you make sure that nothing will fall on top of you. Then it comes and there’s this shaking, you know, and away she goes and the birds start singing and you’re right again.”

155: Referring back to the IAD contract, says he couldn’t have gone back to work for them. It was the principle that mattered, he says. “The harder you work, you should make money.….I didn’t mind working hard….but you should get paid for it.....$500 they done me out of then. A contract’s a contract. That was quite a lot of money in those days….And I was quite hurt about it that they went back on their word.”

170: Doesn’t consider he shot a record tally. Gives details about someone working on the SIBERIA BLOCK, who arrived as a new recruit. Says he went out for an evening shot and got about 73. So he doesn’t think he got any records.

188: Makes a correction regarding the packhorses, which he says weren’t used in FIORDLAND by the CULLERS. They were used, he says, in the big rivers in CANTERBURY.

199: States the difference between DEER shooting and shooting CROCODILE and BUFFALO. Relates an incident involving a BUFFALO BULL he was trying to get while wearing jandals. He ended up limping around after that one for about three weeks.

229: Relates another story concerning a DINGO that fell into a swamp and became snack for a CROC. Says he had jogged into the swamp after the dog, which had disappeared, and not thinking he put his arm in to see where it was, but then the penny dropped that he’d put his hand on a CROCODILE, not a log.

250: Says he’s shot maybe a few hundred CROCS, most of them freshwater.

265: Explains it’s harder skinning a CROC than a DEER.

Interview draws to a close.

Tape 2 Side A END