Murray Alexander GUNN

Interviewer: Morag Forrester

Interview date: 13 October 2008

Tape I Side A

011: States he is MURRAY ALEXANDER GUNN, born in MIDDLEMARCH in 1925.

016: His first year, he says, was spent at his family's 1100-acre rural property at SUTTON near MIDDLEMARCH, which he describes as a small (grazing) RUN. He adds that his, FATHER (DAVEY GUNN) had to sell the property (in1926) due to making financial errors on the stock market at a time when FARMING was in a depressed state.

028: "That's what drove him over (to) the HOLLYFORD. I think it was the...shame of it... 'cause the GUNNS were a very proud lot."

030: Replies that his FATHER was DAVID JOHN GUNN who was a third generation NEW ZEALANDER from a branch that emigrated from CAITHNESS, SCOTLAND in 1862. He adds there were three children from the DAVID GUNN (MURRAY'S GREAT GRANDFATHER) family already in NEW ZEALAND by the time his paternal ancestor arrived (aged 56) with the family's eight other children.

045: Goes on to say that his GREAT GRANDFATHER and family travelled by horse and dray across the CANTERBURY PLAINS to the WAIMATE area where they built a house. "There was plenty of timber there to cut up.'

050: The sons that were already in NEW ZEALAND, he says, were SHEPHERDS who had brought their dogs with them, enabling them to shift mobs of sheep into the back country RUNS when they had to be stocked up.

055: Having lost the farm in 1926, he says, he and his two SISTERS (ISABEL and DOROTHY) and their MOTHER (ETHEL MAY WILLETS) went to live with an AUNT (MOTHER SISTER) in OAMARU.

059: Mentions that his MOTHER was the last-born of a family of fifteen children of whom only thirteen survived into adulthood. He adds that her ancestors emigrated from the FOREST of DEAN, GLOUCESTERSHIRE, ENGLAND in the 1880s.

071: The house he grew up in was at THAMES STREET, OAMARU, and he replies that his MOTHER did not work at paid employment - the family lived on an allowance of £3/week provided by their FATHER. He qualifies this by saying that the agreement between his MOTHER and AUNT was that the former's rental was paid by her acting as housekeeper for the latter who ran a successful tearoom and bakehouse.

084: States he was educated at NORTH PRIMARY SCHOOL and WAITAKI BOYS HIGH, both in OAMARU and says he performed better at arithmetic and history than other academic subjects.

097: Replies that his eldest SISTER was born ISABEL GRIERSON GUNN and her married surname is FINDLAY: the other SISTER is DOROTHY whose married surname is PARLANE.

107: Comments that from a young age he "kept himself to himself" because of growing up in a household of women. "Living with four women wasn't a very suitable way to grow up."

118: With an absent FATHER, he mentions a FATHER FIGURE - DONALD STRONACH a sailor operating from the wharf at OAMARU, who had purchased the SUTTON property.

124: Goes on to say that STRONACH, who didn't prosper as a farmer "finished up with a lovely pilot launch (boat) in OAMARU harbour and I used to go and visit him all the time".

128: Replies that his MOTHER was unaware of his friendship with STRONACH, adding that it had come about as a result of his fishing from the harbour. "OAMARU was a town in which young people, then, could go anywhere and were safe. My MOTHER didn't worry about me."

134: States that he saw his FATHER about twice a year "he was just a glamorous figure...he wasn't a FATHER to us at all".

136: Reiterates his opinion that his FATHER took up the HOLLYFORD RUN because of a sense of shame at having lost the FARM at SUTTON. It was through the NATIONAL MORTGAGE COMPANY, he says, that his FATHER was able to secure the LEASE of the MARTIN'S BAY/HOLLYFORD RUN, taking over from the MCKENZIE BROTHERS (HUGH and MALCOLM) of MARTINS BAY.

140: says that by the time his FATHER (and business partner, PATRICK FRASER) took over the LEASE (in 1926), the MCKENZIES had not mustered their CATTLE for a couple of years so, although few in number, they were scattered across 120,000 acres.

147: As well as the LEASES, he says his FATHER also bought a parcel of land at MARTINS BAY.

[The LEASE that DAVEY GUNN and FRASER signed up for cost £50 for the year-to-year GRAZING licenses at BIG BAY and UPPER PYKE (RUN 492) and £10 for the KAIPO RIVER (RUN 495). The GRAZING licence for RUNS 471-474 (25,660 acres) in the HOLLYFORD VALLEY and LOWER PYKE was sold outright for an undisclosed figure. By NOVEMBER 1927, FRASER had sold his rights to the LEASE to DAVEY GUNN. A series of personality clashes led to the authorities advertising for year-to-year tenders to the GRAZING rights of the state forest at MARTINS BAY, and around the coast to BIG BAY. DAVEY GUNN’S was the only one received so he was able to LEASE the 20,450 acres for £10 a year, giving him a total of more than 65,000 acres of grazing land. (from Chapter 2. The Land of Doing Without by Julia Bradshaw. Canterbury University Press)]

154: States that his FATHER held the GRAZING rights until his (accidental) death in 1955 and comments that the authorities "wrecked my FATHER" by neglecting to recruit CULLERS to combat the growing deer population in the area. In the same sentence, he also blames the NZ ALPINE CLUB and its aim of encompassing the area into a planned NATIONAL PARK [the FIORDLAND NATIONAL PARK was formed in 1952].

169: For more than thirty years, he says, his FATHER drove CATTLE from MARTINS BAY through the PYKE and GREENSTONE VALLEYS to INVERCARGILL. The CATTLE, he says, were scattered in the KAIPO, MARTINS BAY, BIG BAY, the PYKE and as far as HIDDEN FALLS in the HOLLYFORD VALLEY. "Anywhere there was a clearing."

180: Affirms that his FATHER built stock fences, using barbed wire, which he brought in by PACKHORSE since he had up to a dozen of them. They were fed mainly on grass, he says. "That's why they had a tough life there…they didn't have any hard feed [oats/chaff]."

193: Replies that by 1938, his FATHER had managed to accumulate a herd of about 1000 HEREFORD CATTLE and of those he brought out about a hundred each year, taking about four months to do so (between JANUARY and APRIL).

206. By the time of his last MUSTER (1954) his FATHER, he says, sold the CATTLE for £28 per head. The following year, he continues, the price dropped to £22 and fell as low as £8 per head by the late 1950s when the last few were brought out by hired MUSTERERS.

211: States that MARTINS BAY was where DAVEY GUNN based himself until the HOLLYFORD ROAD was built and he moved to DEADMAN'S HUT to be closer to the access point for taking tour parties through the VALLEY to the BAY. Later still he moved to the HENDERSON'S CAMP (aka GUNN'S CAMP).

215: At MARTINS BAY, he says, his FATHER lived on land owned by the CATHOLIC CHURCH, although he did own a section across the river (purchased from the MCKENZIES in 1926). Describes the huts his FATHER built as "rough".

220: Replies that his MOTHER did not visit the HOLLYFORD VALLEY until after his FATHER'S (accidental) drowning (in the river). He again says that when he was young he only saw his FATHER twice a year...in the winter and just before CHRISTMAS. The family allowance payment was arranged through the NATIONAL MORTGAGE COMPANY.

226: In later years, he adds, his FATHER had given up visiting OAMARU completely and blames this on a woman who helped with the HOLLYFORD TOUR business, JEAN PRUST.

243: While based at MARTINS BAY, he says, his FATHER managed to have supplies delivered by the government steamer, MATAI.

253: Referring to the 1936 BIG BAY PLANE CRASH and rescue effort by DAVEY GUNN, for which he was awarded special commendation in a memorial plaque, as a boy of eleven living in OAMARU, the participant says he first heard about it via newspaper reports.

260: His first visit to the HOLLYFORD, he says, was at the age of fifteen. "My MOTHER didn't like it because she thought it was a very rough place. And it was too. The first summer I spent in there...l didn't like it. But I knew it did me good...l was a spoilt kid."

267: Says he forced himself to go back the following year because "it was a completely different life". He explains this by saying his FATHER lived in very rough conditions and moved from HUT to HUT which contrasted with a stable home environment in OAMARU.

274: Describes how his FATHER flattened sheets of corrugated iron by foot 'tramped it all down" and put them on the outside of one or two of the HUTS he built. The HUTS also had corrugated iron roofs, no lining on the interior walls and mud floors. Bunks were made from wood with a mattress of fern leaves on top. "They were hard... but people slept well on them."

284: Considers that a lot of income from the TOUR groups was wasted. "My FATHER was no businessman, he couldn't see that. He just had to keep the TRIPS going, even when the HUTS were in such a poor state. I tried to persuade him to just run the TRIPS from MARTINS BAY and leave the PYKE and BIG BAY alone. But no...he had to keep them going.

291: Replies that DAVEY GUNN set up the TOUR business in 1936 after the HOLLYFORD ROAD was formed (by the PUBLIC WORKS DEPARTMENT) "to make the place less lonely" for him.

301: Comments that the fee for the ten-day TRIP through the HOLLYFORD was insufficient, adding that by 1955 the rate was £10 per person.

304: Says the staple diet for those ten days was bread, which usually ran out after about three days. Thereafter, the guide had to make bread in a camp oven after everyone else had retired for the night.

312: The visitors, he says, arrived by bus which would have stopped overnight at CASCADE [where there was an AA hostel/motorcamp] on its way to the HOMER TUNNEL from LUMSDEN. The first night in the HOLLYFORD was spent at DEADMAN'S HUT since the PUBLIC WORKS DEPARMENT camp that eventually became GUNN'S CAMP was still being used by MILFORD ROAD workers before construction stopped around 1940 due to WWII.

328: During the war years, he says, a couple of women helped out with the annual CATTLE MUSTER through the HOLLYFORD. One of them was ANNIE SHAW of neighbouring ELFIN BAY STATION on LAKE WAKATIPU since it was part of the route by which he brought the CATTLE out from the HOLLYFORD.

332: Explains they were taken through to LAKE HOWDEN, down the GREENSTONE VALLEY, LOW PASS into the MARAROA VALLEY, past the MAVORA LAKES then out at BURWOOD along the road past CASTLEROCK, DIPTON and on to the LORNEVILLE MARKET (north of INVERCARGILL). "It was quite an event for people on the route."

349: Recalls one CHRISTMAS during the war years when he and a group of friends visited the HOLLYFORD via QUEENSTOWN. There was a boat to KINLOCH which they reached at three in the morning. From there, they walked to the first HUT (in the GREENSTONE) then over the HARRIS SADDLE.

356: Mentions his FATHER had marked a "blaze-line up the spur there...keep people out of the creeks". However, he says, they took a missed turnoff and ended up spending the night in the bush only to discover the next day that they were close to the road which they reached within minutes after setting out again.

366: Referring again to his life in OAMARU, he says he left school without any certificates at the age of seventeen. "I was too shy a boy to go through a proper education...so very shy." He follows this by saying he enjoyed sports. "That was my way of getting confidence, playing sport." He lists the ones he took up as SQUASH, BADMINTON, CRICKET and RUGBY.

376: Among his achievements was being winner of the SOUTH ISLAND SQUASH CHAMPIONSHIP (1953) the SOUTH CANTERBURY BADMINTON TOURNAMENT (1958) and other local competitions for a few years. On moving to INVERCARGILL, he says, he won the SOUTHLAND SQUASH CHAMPIONSHIP (1957).

380: On leaving school, he says, he became ASSISTANT COUNTY CLERK for the WAITAKI COUNTY COUNCIL. It involved bookkeeping and administering customer accounts. He worked there for twelve years. Earning about £8/week, he says about half his wages paid board and lodgings at home.

398: He left OAMARU to work a season with his FATHER who, he says, offered him a wage of £10/week. "But when he came to pay me, he only paid me eight quid a week." He comments that this was not an uncommon tactic employed by his FATHER. "My cousin, DOUG, was owed money from my FATHER for working over there. He never got the full amount out of him."

404: "He was a 'take-down' really. It's a side that the public don't know about." He mentions an anecdotal tale about JEAN PRUST, a woman who first arrived in the HOLLYFORD in 1951 on a 10-day walking tour and ended up staying on to help the tour business. She remained until a few months after his FATHER'S death in DECEMBER 1955.

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Tape I Side B starts

008: Continues with further comments about JEAN PRUST and says he forced her to leave the HOLLYFORD, adding that this had already been the intention of his family in OAMARU [who reportedly disapproved of PRUST- a single woman - living and working for DAVEY GUNN]. "But in the meantime he got drowned."

022: Before she left, he says, she wanted to stay in the HUT his FATHER had used which was situated away from the CAMP area. "So I let her stay on for a while."

039: Refers to an occasion when JACK JENKINS, a TOUR guide and MUSTERER for DAVEY, reportedly helped PRUST to transfer a large load of supplies from the store room to the HUT. Intrigued about what she had taken, he looked around the HUT after getting in through a window. [She had locked the door.] Says there were some of his FATHER'S diaries and books inside.

053: After she left the HOLLYFORD, he says, PRUST went to the RETFORD cottage at TE ANAU DOWNS STATION. "She tried to drive a wedge between DONALD (CHARTRES) and his father, JOHNNY...she had to leave."

059: Goes on to say that PRUST stayed at CLIFTON for a fortnight before going on to the TURNBULLS in INVERCARGILL but soon left there and found a job at the hospital in LAWRENCE (OTAGO). She moved on from there to CHRISTCHURCH. [PRUST, who was from MELBOURNE, AUSTRALIA, had been trained and employed as a NURSE and according to JULIA BRADSHAW in her book on DAVEY GUNN, worked at ST GEORGE'S HOSPITAL, CHRISTCHURCH. Upon retirement, PRUST moved to LYTTELTON where she lived until her death in 1995 at the age of eighty-four].

086: Referring again to JACK JENKINS, who worked for DAVEY from the late 1940s onwards as a TOUR GUIDE, his comments are also derogatory suggesting that JENKINS was "unreliable" and "treacherous".

093: Over the years, he says, there was an array of "different jokers" who worked in the HOLLYFORD and suggests that the attraction was because "it was a great place to pick up girls". [Elaborates on this for quite some time until the interviewer changes the subject].

139: After spending about a year with his FATHER in the HOLLYFORD, he moved to INVERCARGILL (1954) to work for the SOUTHLAND DISCTRICT COUNCIL. But all was not rosy since he did not approve of his superior. "The COUNTY CLERK ran it as his own fiefdom and people were intimidated."

153: Following his FATHER'S death, he says he returned to the HOLLYFORD. He adds that his FATHER had "promised me a future" but kept the family ill-informed.

167: Refers to an event shortly before his FATHER'S death when DAVEY offered to sell the LEASE to the participant in partnership with JENKINS and COTTER - even going to WELLINGTON to arrange it. But on his return, he says, his FATHER had imposed a whole set of conditions on the transfer of the LEASE that "we couldn't comply with".

175: Agrees that it may have been the authorities in WELLINGTON that imposed the new conditions on the LEASE. He recalls how it came as a shock to him to discover that the LEASES were operating on an insecure two-year basis. "Everybody had the impression that he...had permanent LEASES there that would never run out.'

187: "All this business with my FATHER not co-operating with me...I felt sorry for him 'cause he had nothing to look forward to in life, in the finish. His CATTLE had been ruined by the deer. I tried to keep the CATTLE going 'cause that was the only form of income there, really."

196: Mentions trying to secure better terms with the LEASES and making interminable numbers of visits to WELLINGTON to meet government officials. He applauds the former prime minister, (SIR BRIAN) TALBOYS who granted permission for the participant to continue with the LEASES.

226: States that the creation of the FIORDLAND NATIONAL PARK had resulted in parts of the HOLLYFORD RUN being included as well as about 2,000 acres area around the CAMP and towards the road end at DEADMAN'S BLUFF.

235: Declares that the track itself "never belonged to the PARKS BOARD anyway 'cause it was access to freehold at MARTIN'S BAY...it had to keep open for that reason...had nothing to do with the NATIONAL PARK".

239: Of the 2,000 acres being included in the FNP, he says he thought the future of the TOUR business was secured. "They'd (the PARK BOARD) wanted GUIDED TRIPS to be kept going down the HOLLYFORD...I let them take it (the 2,000 acres) into the PARK without any conditions."

243: But he considers it was a foolish move on his part because "they finished up getting a surveyor in, years later, and marking it out and I only had a couple of acres (leftover) at the CAMP there".

248: Affirms that he was allowed to take over the LEASES from his FATHER and says he'd managed to extend them to run for seven years (instead of just two). He mentions being offered financial support (from undisclosed sources) to help towards building up the business. "But I couldn't take advantage of it...there wasn't enough security for them.'

255: Says he realised that one of the first things the place needed was new HUTS and he considers that his FATHER did not look after the business properly. "It was just his nature...he never did anything to repair boats or paint them."

260: Mentions DAVEY had briefly formed a partnership in 1953 with BILL HEWETT.

[BILL HEWETT was a former WWII pilot who in 1947 operated a charter service (SOUTHERN SCENIC AIRTRIPS LTD) in partnership with FRED (POPEYE) LUCAS, mainly flying whitebaiters into BIG BAY. But by early 1949, HEWETT left SOUTHERN SCENIC and teamed up with his former WWII flying colleague TEX SMITH to form a "flying circus " which toured around NEW ZEALAND and AUSTRALIA. On his return, he set up an aerial topdressing business which became known as HEWETT AVIATION, based at MOSSBUN The partnership with DAVEY GUNN and BRIAN SWETE initiated the building of an airstrip and a TOURIST lodge on the CATHOLIC CHURCH-owned land that DAVEY rented at MARTINS BAY. But the plans fell through, after about £1000 had been spent.

266: Says that the bulldozer that had been brought in to prepare the airstrip broke down after about a week adding that DAVEY removed the gearbox but didn't cover the vehicle.

271: Goes on to say that HEWETT had wanted to build the lodge at MARTINS BAY but DAVEY rejected the idea. "He wouldn't let on that he didn't have any money anyway and he got landed with most of the expenses for the airstrip."

276: Affirms that it was this lack of money that prevented his FATHER carrying out any improvements on the HUTS. "He should never have kept that 10-day TRIP going. It was too hard on the GUIDES and there were too many HUTS." But he explains that the HUTS were needed for the CATTLE MUSTERS.

288: Other GUIDES he mentions were JIM SINCLAIR and JIM SPEDEN. And towards the end, shortly before DAVEY'S accidental drowning, he hired a "more or less stranger to take that party down when the two girls had got drowned". [This refers to an event in early JANUARY 1952 when LENORE ALGIE and DAPHNE WILLIAMS were the two victims who'd been among a group of thirteen people on the 10-day TRIP.]

297: Says the girls were from OAMARU - he had known them through the BADMINTON CLUB. He explains some of the events that led to the GIRLS accidental drownings which happened as they tried to cross a swollen SIX-MILE CREEK.

318: At the inquest held later in OAMARU, he says, the GUIDE (CHARLIE BEAGLE) was exonerated.

320: Interview ceases.

[A second interview was conducted the following day, 14 OCTOBER 2008, at the same place - MURRAY'S home in TE ANAU]

326: As previously mentioned, the participant stayed in the HOLLYFORD after his FATHER'S accidental death. He again says there were no secure LEASES on the property, the place was run down mainly, he adds, because his FATHER had not fully recovered from a serious fall in 1950.

331: Explains that the accident happened when DAVEY attempted climbing a bluff in the dark but failed to reach high enough so fell over the cliff. His GUIDE, JIM SPEDEN, he says, found him during a search the following day.

339: The ambulance staff, he says, had to walk in from SUNNY CREEK to DEADMAN'S and carry DAVEY out on a stretcher to the waiting ambulance which took him to hospital (in INVERCARGILL). "He was knocked about a bit...they reckon his neck wasn't broken but I think it was."

352: Having said he didn't think his FATHER contested the authorities enough over the matter about the leases, he goes on to say that "l didn't hold back though, I got stuck into these officials...and came up against a blank wall." In the same breath, he blames the NZ ALPINE CLUB for seeking to have the HOLLYFORD included in the FIORDLAND NATIONAL PARK.

354: "I traced that back to 1934 when they started advocating (a) NATIONAL PARK." As a result, he says, government officials changed their opinion about his FATHER. "Before that he was an asset but they had to get rid of him eventually."

359: "He wouldn't fight them ...he used to go trekking to WELLINGTON every year (to hold discussions with government officials) and he got nowhere. Mentioning again the offer made by the participant, ED COTTER and JACK JENKINS, he says his FATHER must have realised he had nothing to sell "'cause he put too many conditions on and we all pulled out".

371: Says again that the CAMP was totally rundown with no hot water and primitive toilet facilities that were really just a "hole in the ground and the flies got at you". The first thing he did, he says, was build a proper toilet block.

378: Replies that he had no other choice than to take over running the CAMP because he had "nowhere else to go" especially after having spent his limited funds on a vehicle and other necessities at the CAMP. "My FATHER wanted the vehicle...he never had one.'

387: It was a 1939 CHEVROLET pick-up (ute), he says, which cost him about £500. He adds that it wasn't suitable for use on the MILFORD ROAD (unsealed) and mentions that he ended up in the ditch near the HOMER TUNNEL after trying to swerve round a bus.

395. After his vehicle was retrieved from the ditch, he immediately drove it down to INVERCARGILL and replaced it with whatever he could buy - a FORD POPULAR. "That was a bit of a dray...couldn't get it up to any speed and it had the old buggy springs.. .across the back and front." But he held on to it for a few years, he adds.

403: During those first few years after taking over the CAMP, he says he couldn't do anything with the place because he had no money. "Somebody accused me of not getting going there...well you can't get going in a place like that without investment."

406: Replies that a few TOURISTS still came through to walk the TRACK and he was responsible for about eleven horses, seven of which were still used for packing gear in and out from MARTINS BAY.

411: Unable to employ anyone, he says friends helped out when they came to visit/stay. He adds that the winters were so quiet that with the arrival of SPRING, he resented the visitors/TOURISTS that began to turn up again. "But I talked myself out of that 'cause I wasn't going to jeopardise my future."

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008: Continuing from where he left off, he says that for those first few years at the CAMP he earned just enough to scrape by but not for any extras such as new clothing. "I was happy there.'

013: Concentrating on making whatever improvements he could to the cabins at the CAMP, he says two had to be removed to avoid going the way of a third which was swept away by the river in spate.

030: Although he has forgotten what he charged TOURISTS to stay at the CAMP, he mentions that he kept the fee low because he didn't want a price hike to end up being a reason for the authorities to end the LEASE he held on the place.

[031 -100 Gap in recording]

103: Mentions that ED COTTER returned to the HOLLYFORD in the late 1960s to start another TOURISM business in the VALLEY which introduced the use of boats for transportation along the HOLLYFORD & PYKE RIVERS to MARTIN' S BAY. He also 1 built a couple of TOURIST HUTS.

118: It was around that time that the participant refused to sign the seven-year LEASE on the CAMP when its renewal was due.

124: Considers that his lack of funds proved beneficial in the end because he was the one still there when all those who'd invested money in new enterprises that eventually fell by the wayside, lost out.

135: Despite having no LEASE, he says he managed to go on living at the CAMP as before because "they didn't dare kick me out". He adds that by then, the authorities had ruined the CATTLE which had been his only source of regular income. He qualifies this by explaining that the DEER numbers had been allowed to increase so much there was nothing left for the CATTLE to feed on.

143: By the late-1960s, he says, the PARK BOARD allowed the use of HELICOPTERS for DEER HUNTING within its boundaries, including the HOLLYFORD VALLEY and any remaining CATTLE ended up the same as the DEER. "I was foolish at that time that I didn't ask for compensation."

156: Says he even went to WELLINGTON where he discussed the issue of CATTLE being allowed to roam the VALLEY as before with the then DEPUTY PRIME MINISTER, (SIR BRIAN) TALBOYS. He understood they'd reached a suitable agreement on the matter. He also says the then MINISTER OF LANDS, TERRY CARTNEY, told him that due to the remoteness of the area, the CATTLE could stay indefinitely.

161: But, he continues, the government officials ignored those statements and instead licensed the HELICOPTER (operators) to shoot the CATTLE out of the VALLEY completely. He considers there were probably about four hundred CATTLE in the area in the late 1960s.

181: Meanwhile, he says, the TOURISM business at the CAMP kept up enough for him to make ends meet.

187: Admits he was briefly in a business partnership with JULES TAPPER.

[Along with VIV ALLOT, TAPPER took over COTTER'S failed enterprise and relaunched it as the HOLLYFORD TOURIST and TRAVEL COMPANY. As a pilot and owner of a CESSNA 180, TAPPER flew TOURISTS into the HOLLYFORD AIRSTRIP to start the walk/boat ride to MARTIN'S BAY. The business grew and at its peak was owner/operator of five aircraft and employer of more than a dozen staff. It was sold in 1996 to a business consortium and again in 2003 to its current owner, the SHOTOVER GROUP, which re-named it the HOLLYFORD TRACK GUIDED WALKS.

191: As part of the original re-launch, the participant's involvement was to provide accommodation for the TOURISTS before they started out on the walk. "I'd built a HUT down at LOWER PYKE and he'd (TAPPER) made the use of that. He had (also) built a separate sleeping quarters there."

206: Says his involvement in that enterprise lasted three years until a disagreement arose over the failure of one of the parties to pick up a TOURIST at the LOWER HOLLYFORD turnoff.

[212-266: Gap in recording]

267: Replies that he was busy enough with the number of TOURISTS passing through the CAMP and, through the winters, continued with some renovations such as the building of a new shower block "that ran away with my money but I survived".

275: In one room of the main building the participant created a small MUSEUM which housed various items found in the area. "I packed them out on horses from MARTINS BAY, most of them."

281: They included items from the old MCKENZIE HOMESTEAD, he says. However, most of the collection was lost as a result of fire that swept through the main building in FEBRUARY 1990.

294: Talks about how from MARTINS BAY he would row upriver and LAKE MCKERROW and that it was a two-day walk out to the CAMP thereafter.

298: Says he bought a dinghy which, at first, he kept at the head of the LAKE until people helped themselves to it without seeking his permission. As a result, the first boat he had was left in the wrong place and got smashed up on rocks after a storm. He replaced it with a second dinghy and kept its oars hidden.

305: Reiterates that his continuing to live at the CAMP flew in the face of what the authorities wanted. He adds that when he shifted there permanently, he regularly received letters from the DEPARTMENT of LANDS & SURVEY but tossed them in the fire without opening them.

311: In 1977, he says his life was ''turned around" when about six L&S representatives arrived at his door to oversee his signing a LEASE on the property. But he was not easily persuaded so they left.

318: What transpired, he says, was that the COMMISSIONER of CROWN LANDS (JOE HARTY) reported to WELLINGTON an unfavourable assessment of the participant, including accusations that he told lies.

322: Says he discovered this after discussions with a member of the FNP BOARD who gave him a copy of the letter written by HARTY with which (due to its libellous comments) the participant could have taken legal action.

326: As a result "suddenly they left me alone...never came near me after that"

336: Another reason, he thinks the authorities didn't throw him off the land was because "I had the public on my side if they got too nasty".

344: In his view, both the FNP BOARD and LANDS & SURVEY "should have paid their way into the HOLLYFORD instead of getting it for nothing" adding that nowadays the government pays "millions to people… to own...places that are not scenic".

350: Mentions there had been a serious outbreak of fire at the CAMP - in 1990, and that it was soon after that event that the matter of a proper LEASE was sorted.

360: Says it was ERSKINE BOWMAR (junior) who arranged for the participant to have a thirty-year LEASE with right of renewal.

370: Referring to the fire again, he says it happened (4 FEBRUARY 1990) about midnight, probably caused by someone mishandling a TILLEY (kerosene) lamp. "If you fiddle with those TILLEYS, unless you know, they'll flare up on you... .I think it flared up and they cleared out."

374: Goes on to say that the fire started in the corridor of the main building while he was asleep. "I heard a roar and got up and found this conflagration. Couldn't do much about it. There were people there that should've helped me get some stuff out but they just...put seats out...and watched it. They didn't try and help me."

380: The only thing he could save, he says, was his collection of books. "I got them all out but people tried to stop me. But I knew I was safe."

385: "Anyway, the whole place burnt down...all my possessions went. .I just had pyjamas... it was all I had in the finish." Adds that immediately afterwards he had to live in one of the cabins at the CAMP while clothing was provided by friends such as BOWMAR.

390: On the second night, he says, a meeting was arranged in TE ANAU, organised by people such as BILL NEILSEN (of the THC HOTEL and a TE ANA U community board member) and LES HUTCHINS (owner/operator of FIORDLAND TRAVEL). A committee was formed to organise helping the participant re-build his living quarters, shop and MUSEUM — all of which had been destroyed in the fire.

409: Replies that although the CAMP was full at the time the fire broke out, no-one was injured and that the blaze burnt itself out without spreading to the other buildings nearby.

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009: Explains that he was unable to afford having an insurance policy on the place and those that helped out were aware of his circumstances.

027: Says there had been some talk of putting a water tank on the hill behind the CAMP as a ready supply in case fire broke out again.

032: About a year later, he replies, he was able to move into the new building that was placed on the site of the burnt-out remains. For the intervening period he continued living in a cabin. A small unit had been brought on site which he converted into the CAMP shop.

045: Of the many volunteers and helpers, he says, he remembers CHRIS CARRAN, VERNON and BILL THOMPSON. "There were quite a few...some of them I can't remember 'cause they've died on me."

073: Replies it was his friends who re-built the MUSEUM by contributing funds and materials. "They wouldn't let me pick up a hammer...all I did was cook for them a main meal and give them beer at the end of the day. That was my contribution." He again says VERN THOMPSON did a lot of the rebuilding work.

093: Says the setting up of the HOLLYFORD MUSEUM TRUST (late 2001) had never been his idea. It had emerged after a visit by friends to his property at MARTIN'S BAY. Among the group, he adds, was the former WALLACE COUNTY MP, DEREK ANGUS, who initiated the proposal to form a TRUST in order to prevent it being removed by the DEPARTMENT OF CONSERVATION (DOC) [successor to the FM].

109: Continues that it grew momentum from then on and an INVERCARGILL-based lawyer drew up the papers to form the TRUST. "The trouble was that nobody (in it) knew how to run a TRUST and they ran it as they thought."

120: In 2005 the participant suffered a serious fall at the CAMP and broke a hip bone, which required hospital treatment. He says that while recuperating at KEW, INVERCARGILL, he had time to think and concluded that there was no need for the TRUST, especially in light of a decision by DOC to categorise the HOLLYFORD CAMP as having historical significance (thereby placing it under preservation/protected status).

123: But the TRUST members, he says, saw the financial rewards of the piece of land at MARTINS BAY that was part of the overall property. So, he continues, he was unsuccessful at trying to persuade them to disband as an organisation.

132: There appears to have been some confusion over the terms of the TRUST deed, since he says he discovered only recently that its premise had been nothing to do with ensuring the longevity of the CAMP. Instead, he says, the group had set it up as "a memorial for my FATHER and partly to me". "Well, I didn't think much of that 'cause I had no respect for my FATHER in the finish.'

137: Another complication would appear to be that he signed legal papers which stated he would sell the fifty acres of land at MARTINS BAY to the TRUST for a sum of $70,000. "I didn't think much (of it) at the time because I wasn't feeling well and didn't think I had long to live. And...I was selling to my friends, I thought. Well now I've got a different idea of things."

144 : Says that not long afterwards, the TRUST sold the same fifty acres for $880,000. "I only got $70,000 out of it." Even the house he lives in now, he says, belongs to the TRUST despite his having to place a deposit on it when they bought it (in 2005).

157: Another anomaly, he says, is that he also only recently discovered that the TRUST has no ownership rights to the LEASEHOLD of the HOLLYFORD CAMP as a whole, only to the MUSEUM part of it. "So I've offered them the CAMP as a swap for this place (his home)."

166: Going on to his recent health problems, he says he has been the object of several misdiagnoses from issues surrounding bone density to heart problems — all of which he says he does not suffer from. "Assumptions went on and on."

177: States that although he's been invited to retain his membership of the HOLLYFORD MUSEUM TRUST, he's disillusioned about it all. "I won't go to their meetings and I won't go to the CAMP now."

193: Commenting on the fifty years he lived in the HOLLYFORD, he says it was the quiet that appealed. "I liked the peace and quiet in the winters, without people around you. It used to be lovely there. About once a month you would hear a MOREPORK, it was all silence there."

217: Replies that the reason he never married was because he felt he didn't have enough money to do so (in terms of being able to provide for a wife and family). "I got engaged one time (c. 1980/81)...talked about shifting to QUEENSTOWN." However, he says his fiancée having been married before "got tremors from her previous marriage, so it was all off'.

227: Overall, he considers he "had a good life" in the HOLLYFORD and puts it down to being organised. He qualifies this by saying that he had the SHOP open by 8.30 am and by 10am most people had vacated their cabins or tents and were enjoying the outdoors of the surrounding hills.

Interview ends

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