Person recorded: Terence John (Terry) Gilligan

Date of interview: 9 February 2004

Interviewer and abstractor: Morag Forrester

Tape counter: Sony TCM 393

Tape 1 Side A

001: Opens giving his full name: TERENCE JOHN GILLIGAN and DOB: 21 September 1929 in INVERCARGILL. His parents lived in MOSSBURN.

013: Says his FATHER was a TRANSPORT OPERATOR; he’d started a business in MOSSBURN.

018: Mentions his FATHER (FREDERIC ERNEST, aka BARNEY) was from CROMWELL, adding that his GRANDFATHER came from AUSTRALIA of IRISH descent and drove coaches between CROMWELL and DUNEDIN in the days of the OTAGO goldmining rush.

029: States his paternal GREAT GRANDFATHER, (JAMES LYALL SCOTT) came from SCOTLAND. After emigrating to AUSTRALIA he and his wife moved to OTAGO. He became mayor of CROMWELL at one stage. (See attached document).

037: Mentions his FATHER leaving school at about thirteen years old when he came to SOUTHLAND to work as a shearer. Then after the 1914-18 GREAT WAR he drove a wagon for FRANK CHRISTIE of MOSSBURN. Later he started his own business.

049: Says his MOTHER (EDNA) was the DAUGHTER of ERNIE and EDITH GOVAN, lessees of the TE ANAU HOTEL. His parents met in TE ANAU. (EDITH GOVAN was born in WEST BIRMINGHAM, ENGLAND)

057: Recounts that his (GOVAN) GRANDFATHER’S family was SCOTTISH. His people first set out for AUSTRALIA before coming to NEW ZEALAND.

070: Mentions ERNIE GOVAN started out as a LEATHER-MAKER in a tannery in CHRISTCHURCH, and later in DUNEDIN. His WIFE was a FURRIER/SEAMSTRESS.

086: Remembers the GOVAN GRANDPARENTS well, but didn’t know his paternal ones. Says the GOVANS had a small farm at OWAKA for a while. Then ERNIE GOVAN worked at THE PLAINS STATION as a CONTRACT RABBITER for a while before taking up the TE ANAU HOTEL lease in 1919, which they held for twenty years.

105: Recalls he also administered the MILFORD TRACK and the passenger boat, TAWERA, on LAKE TE ANAU.

114: Says that in 1919, the HOTEL was the original one built by the SNODGRASSES with a room capacity of between 10 and 12. There was a bar and the other usual necessities of the day.

122: States it was constructed following the discovery of the MILFORD TRACK as it was anticipated that TE ANAU would grow as a tourist resort.

127: Mentions that while there was no other accommodation in the town at that time (1919), there were three HOTELS in LUMSDEN, three in MOSSBURN because it was the rail head, and another one at SO BIG near CENTRE HILL, which closed in 1918. There was also one at THE KEY, and one underneath the TAKITIMUS.

144: Explains that as most of the sheep runs had been taken up by the 1860s, there was a lot of to-ing and fro-ing from these properties. And with the HOTEL being the only watering-hole on the way, it was often used by the drovers and other workers.

157: Recalls that as a child he used to sit in the staff dining area and would listen to the older drovers tell their stories of days gone by. They talked of QUINTIN MACKINNON who’d died maybe forty years previously and therefore some of them would have met him.

168: Remembers them musing over what MACKINNON would have done if he’d still been alive then. Also how they talked about some of the explorer’s escapades as a guide on the MILFORD TRACK.

174: Says some of the hotel customers described MACKINNON as having varied moods, that he’d fought with GARIBALDI in ITALY and eventually came to NZ and took a job as a surveyor in DUNEDIN. But that alcohol got to him and he’d left his wife and two children; “just took off as a lot of people had done.” (Later he said MACKINNON had been a formidable footballer for the OTAGO RFC)

189: Continues saying MACKINNON was contracted by the NZ government to find tracks for tourism and exploring.

200: Recalls some of the HOTEL customers talking about MACKINNON’S disappearance on LAKE TE ANAU. His boat was reputed to be hard to handle, with the old-fashioned steering oar at the back. Speculative views included his possibly being clipped by a large wave and tossed overboard, or that he’d perhaps fallen asleep.

215: Mentions there was less discussion about FIORDLAND’S other famous pioneer, DONALD SUTHERLAND at MILFORD SOUND. “He was on the other side of the hill from here.”

223: On a more personal note, says he went to primary school in MOSSBURN, starting at six years old.

235: Admits he spent as much time as he could in TE ANAU staying with his GRANDPARENTS.

239: Mentions the house he grew up in was the present NORTHERN SOUTHLAND office site in MOSSBURN, explaining his FATHER’s business was its founder. The original house was burned down in 1935 when the present building was constructed.

246: Talks about his GRANDMOTHER GOVAN being strict but kind and that she got on well with the HOTEL staff. Also she would feed any “stragglers” that came in.

251: Explains it was the custom in those days that if you weren’t a paying guest you were given a feed free of charge. All the SOUTH ISLAND stations he says also followed this tradition; with sometimes the recipient staying on to do some work for a week or so.

264: Says the drovers would come in to the HOTEL, leaving their firearms at the door. “The only stipulation my GRANDMOTHER had was that you had to be clean to come to her table.”

269: Mentions JACK BEER who like many men, he says, didn’t like water, perhaps taking a bath once a month if required. Says he used to come across from his FARM on the other side of the RIVER WAIAU and “Grandma would say ‘Jack! Bath!’ and he’d said ‘Oh Mrs Govan, you’re a hard woman.’ But he would go away and have a bath….the girls hated it, (the housemaids) because the ring on the bath was black. Took them quite a long time to clean it.”

282: Recalls there being up to twelve girls working at the HOTEL.

290: Mentions having one BROTHER, FRED and one SISTER, DOREEN, he being the eldest. Says his siblings were clever at school. Both are deceased.

302: Refers back to primary school at MOSSBURN saying it wasn’t very big, up to 40 pupils with one teacher, called ARTHUR WHILLIAM HOLDEN, who’d been an ALL BLACK.

307: Explains that in those days the average family didn’t send their kids to secondary school, mainly due to the long distance travel required and the cost.

311: Says many students stayed to Standard Six (aged about 10/11) and that there was a “progressive card” system. He later explains that they were information cards the teacher dished out if he was busy working with other pupils. He would later go back and test them on what they’d learned from the cards.

324: At the age of ten, he says, ill health struck and it was advised he live in a different environment, so he stayed in TE ANAU and went to the local school for about eighteen months. There were only ten pupils then, in 1940.

330: The teacher was JACK ISAACS and the school had opened three years earlier. Says he started at the new school premises which had just been built. Also the previous teacher had been killed in WWII.

341: Recalls that on FRIDAYS it was nature study lessons and the teacher would pile them all into the back of his old truck and they’d go pig-shooting for the afternoon.

347: Says they all knew how to handle rifles; he had his first .22 when he was about eleven years old. Deer shooting for kids over twelve or so was the norm, he says, adding that the girls were just as capable as the boys.

359: Apart from that, though, he says they were taught the normal school curriculum. Swimming was done in the lake, summer and winter.

366: From TE ANAU, he went to SOUTHLAND TECHNICAL COLLEGE (high school) and stayed to the required age. “As soon as I was fifteen, I was out the gate.”

379: Explains that by then his FATHER had sold the transport business and bought the PARAWA HOTEL on the QUEENSTOWN HIGHWAY. (It no longer has a licence.) He was hired as COWMAN/GARDENER/BARMAN.

386: Says his FATHER had also bought a FARM along with the HOTEL but within eighteen months sold up again and returned to MOSSBURN and the HOTEL there.

393: Another eighteen months passed, he says, and it was back to the TRANSPORT business because he’d maintained a financial interest in it and the new operators looked as if they were losing money. His FATHER had started it up in 1925 with a dray, wagon and horses. Then got into motor trucks in 1926.

402: Responding to question, says it would take a couple of days to travel from MOSSBURN to TE ANAU by horse and dray. The road didn’t come over the SADDLE. It would go into CENTRE HILL STATION, up river to MARAROA STATION, then down to THE KEY and across. Then right round MANAPOURI STATION, across the river and up through the WILDERNESS, to the top of LYNWOOD and out to the lake.

413: Explains while it was more circuitous a route, it wasn’t as hilly and swampy.

419: States his FATHER’S first truck was a GMC (General Motor Company) vehicle.

Tape 1 Side A ends

Tape 1 Side B starts

004: Opens with more detail about his FATHER’S business, saying he was continuously overloaded carting stores and chaff to the STATIONS. He also carted their wool out.

013: Mentions there being a FLAX MILL between MOSSBURN and NIGHTCAPS and carting FLAX kept the business going before his FATHER got the contract for the HOMER TUNNEL.

022: States his FATHER was one of the first to build a SHEEP CRATE to carry SHEEP by road. It had been the norm in those days for the runholders to DROVE their SHEEP to MOSSBURN railway station and shifted by rail to DUNEDIN/INVERCARGILL.

027: Explains that an abattoir/meatworks was starting up (at MAKAREWA) and the farmers realised that shipping the lambs by rail was not the most profitable method, so started road haulage from the FARM gate to the meatworks.

046: Says that before the meatworks began, the lambs were not bred for meat, but for wool. They were shorn, and as they got older, they were sent to CENTRE HILL which had a boiling down works that reduced the carcasses down to make TALLOW. It would then be put into large wooden barrels and sent by rail from MOSSBURN.

057: It was when the trend for fattening lambs got underway, he says, that the boiling works closed down.

064: Mentions that during the war years, the HOMER TUNNEL was closed (1940).

078: Recalls the MILFORD ROAD construction work as it edged its way along. As a boy, he often went with his FATHER in the truck. Says they knew all the men, mainly by their nicknames.

093: Explains that as the ROAD progressed, the camps were shifted further along. At first, (1929) it was mostly men living in tents, but later a few women joined them and the accommodation was slightly improved by boarding the sides of the tents and roofing them with corrugated iron.

109: Recalls the weather being colder and wetter then than nowadays. Since about 1970, the little glaciers that used to be visible on the mountains have gone.

116: Says over the HOMER itself, there was a little glacier that would sneak forward and break off every two years, creating havoc. “But it’s all gone now because of the warming, I presume.”

123: Remembers it being warmer in the summer, and always windy.

125: Referring back to the HOTEL, says the government took it back in 1939 and his GRANDPARENTS retired in TE ANAU, although ERNIE died not long after in 1942. EDITH lived on till 1958.

134: Mentions his MOTHER’S SISTERS. SYLIVA BAKER, whose SON, (DONNY) has a FARM near town. The other was MRS DOREEN MCIVOR, whose husband was CURLY MCIVOR, local ranger for the DEPT of INTERNAL AFFAIRS for many years.

163: Discussing his working years, says at seventeen years old, he was employed by his father as a TRUCK DRIVER. To gain a driver’s licence, in those days, he says it was handed out at the local store; no driving test required.

171: Believes that by the time he retired in 1970, he’d clocked up two and a half million miles.

179: Recalls the speed limit for trucks was 25mph (before 1945).

185: Mentions his FATHER re-selling the business in 1949 so he left the area to work for a gravel contractor (based around TUATAPERE) until he returned in 1953.

207: Says he wasn’t really prepared to take over his FATHER’S business at TE ANAU but was advised by their accountant to step in and try to pull it out of debt.

218: Recalls there being two TRUCKS – one for the MOW gravel truck, the other being the freight service between LUMSDEN, TE ANAU and MILFORD SOUND.

221: Says his plan was to stay for a couple of years and see what happened. But it being 1953, LANDS & SURVEY’s development programme began, generating work. Also the MILFORD HOTEL was being rebuilt after a fire.

229: Admits that in the first year, the business nearly went broke. But the second year it began to improve.

246: Mentions it wasn’t until he was twenty-seven that he got married to KATHLYN. Says they met while each was out walking along the lake front during the Christmas holidays.

251: Recalls it was his DENTIST that introduced them.

268: Says it wasn’t long after meeting that he’d decided they would marry (in 1957). And looking back, considers it’s a partnership that’s worked over the years.

282: States he’d built a house in TE ANAU before they married, on a section which is the present boulevard. “It was a brick and roughcast three-bedroomed house. Cost me 4,400 pounds.”

291: Remembers the section came with the business. And that after they’d married and the business was expanding, he had to build houses for their prospective drivers. Recalls that by the time he’d amalgamated the business into NORTHERN SOUTHLAND TRANSPORT, he’d built five houses.

305: Mentions that before they’d amalgamated, his business had ten trucks and three trailers.

313: Instead of being just a straight FREIGHT-carrying service, he says, they went into general cartage; sheep and stock, lime-sowing etc. His business did most of the haulage in the BASIN.

319: Mentions MOSSBURN TRANSPORT was its lead competitor, particularly as it had already been operating in the area before him.

322: It was in 1964, he says, that they amalgamated: TE ANAU TRANSPORT, MOSSBURN TRANSPORT, LUMSDEN TRANSPORT formed the one company having bought out FIVE RIVERS TRANSPORT and GARSTON TRANSPORT. (QUEENSTOWN was added about two years later.)

327: Recalls the main reason for the move was to provide a full service for the MANAPOURI HYDRO SCHEME which was at its initial stage.

332: Responding to question, says that when his FATHER went back into the TRANSPORT business in 1946, he called it MOSSBURN TRANSPORT, a name retained when it was later sold. By 1964, it was owned by CLIFF BENNETT and the LUMSDEN TRANSPORT CO. was owned by GEORGE HEDLEY while he owned and operated TE ANAU TRANSPORT. The amalgamated company was called NORTHERN SOUTHLAND TRANSPORT, a name it still operates under.

349: Mentions NORTHERN SOUTHLAND TRANSPORT eventually bought out QUEENSTOWN TRANSPORT (as mentioned above).

351: By 1970, says he retired from the TRANSPORT business, adding that his reasons were: “We agreed to disagree” From the outset, each of the partners knew the business could not accommodate three bosses so he was the first to go, then HEDLEY. (The third partner, CLIFF BENNETTS had died.) Now the company is controlled from QUEENSTOWN.

361: His next move was to start up an AUTO REPAIR service which he had until 1984. Says he was mechanically-minded and had good contacts and it seemed more like a holiday after the TRANSPORT business. Although, he recalls that the new enterprise developed to become quite a large business, employing four or five mechanics.

370: At first it was called GILLIGANS MOTORS. Later, he took on a partner and they called it MARAROA MOTORS, a name retained after selling up to the other half in the business. It was later moved to the present site on LUXMORE DRIVE. The former business site is now called TE ANAU AUTO REPAIRS.

380: Remembers they carried out repairs on cars, tractors, boats and therefore their business reached as far as MILFORD SOUND. Says they had a terrific rate of business in wrecked buses which broke down often on the MILFORD ROAD.

385: Recalls his WIFE, KATHY, was the office assistant.

392: Mentions their CHILD, PENNY, would have been seven or eight by the time they began the new enterprise.

403: Before then, she would ride round in the TRUCKS with him, learning to swear just as well as most of the drivers.

412: Says TE ANAU was a good place to bring up children in the 1960s. Recalls they made their own fun. Considers they valued things more than children today, for example, looking after their bikes.

416: Mentions PENNY going to both primary and high school in TE ANAU.

Tape 1 Side B ends

Tape 2 Side A starts

010: Referring to days when he was a kid going from MOSSBURN to TE ANAU, says the landscape was very barren. There was a lot of tussock and closer to TE ANAU there was a lot of manuka scrub. Recalls his mother saying that when she first came to the town, the manuka was only about 18 inches high. It progressed and grew.

033: Says trees were planted for shelter. And that with the LANDS & SURVEY development a lot of land was cleared at LYNWOOD STATION and HILLSIDE STATION. Then they set up smaller farms in three to four hundred acre blocks, selling some of them in the early 60s.

065: In response to question about the farms in the 1930s, says at mustering and shearing times, people would come into the area to work through the four or five stations.

073: Says BURWOOD STATION would have had the most number of permanent workers as the owners, the HAZLETTS, also had CENTRE HILL STATION and MAVORA.

081: Adds that the PLAINS STATION, owned by the MACDONALDS, was where his grandfather had come up to work in 1917. Says it was through a letter of introduction from SCOTLAND that he was hired by the MACDONALDS.

096: Mentions DAVID MACDONALD as having retired in TE ANAU and his sons taking over his part of the PLAINS STATION.

103: Doesn’t think the parcelling up of the bigger stations has made much difference to the landscape because he can still drive by and visualise where the old boundaries were. “The only thing that has changed is more fences and more gates with different names on some of the gates.”

147: States the first person to live on the lakefront was RICHARD HENRY in 1883. Says sections were released in the town until 1925 and they were leased with the right to buy. In the 1930s more were released on the south side of the jetty and his GRANDFATHER bought four of them.

162: Says to buy and freehold the sections cost 100 pounds each for a half acre section.

169: Adds that most of the people who bought them were recreational fishermen from INVERCARGILL, some from DUNEDIN. They were businessmen, doctors such as the POTTINGERS from INVERCARGILL.

188: Mentions that the denominated churches then moved in.

198: Referring back to roads and transportation, says they were metal roads till they started the HYDRO SCHEME at MANAPOURI.

205: States the route over the GORGE HILL was started in the mid-1920s. But the coaches still took the old route till the road was properly established. The LYNWOOD flat section, he says, was swampy and had a lot of bog pine.

224: Recalls having a lot of problems with frost, snow and ice on the GORGE HILL road, especially during the heavy snowstorms of the late 1930s.

234: Remembers that time was of less importance then, adding that his FATHER once came in for breakfast (while they were in MOSSBURN) after loading his truck. His MOTHER asked when he would be home later and his FATHER replied that he was going to MAVORA with stores, so he’d be back in a couple of days. (There was no road through, just a track. And it would take him all that time to get up there and back despite it being only forty miles distant because it was boggy country and so he could often be delayed by rain or floods.)

257: Mentions that the first person his FATHER employed was a gate boy to open and shut all the farm gates they would have to go through, just to save time.

263: On the supply of electricity, says it didn’t reach MOSSBURN till 1935 after the MONOWAI HYDRO scheme started. And in TE ANAU there was no power till 1958.

267: Says kerosene and TILLEY lamps were used for lighting, some homes had generators often just a charger with a small bank of batteries.

277: Recalls the HOTEL had a big diesel generator. Also for heating most people relied on coal ranges and open fires.

288: Adds that even INVERCARGILL didn’t have that much power until the MONOWAI HYDRO scheme was up and running.

294: Says when TE ANAU was linked up to the national grid in 1958, it made a big difference. Recalls that when he built his house, it was designed in preparation for the linkup. So for the year or so beforehand, his wife KATHY would walk through putting the switch on and nothing happened.

303: Mentions the town having a ‘lit-up’ ball and inviting the local police officer to join them at the event in the hall to prevent any arrests under the liquor law restrictions of the day. These included only pubs or hotels being allowed a licence to serve liquor and therefore a ban on alcohol at dances.

311: Says the hall was quite small so a marquee was put up and the celebrations lasted a few days for some people.

325: Relates the story of a woman evangelist who addressed a gathering of townsfolk at the HOTEL. Everyone turned out, even the HOTEL’S old cowman/gardener with the “bo-yangs, bent pipe and whiskers”. At the end of the address, the old man got the last word.

345: Mentions other venues were used, such as the school and later the hall which was created out of the old hall from HENDERSON’S CAMP at the LOWER HOLLYFORD in 1948. It was set up on the site of the present COUNTY OFFICES and was used till 1970 when the present hall was built (at the events centre’s construction site).

366: Describes the town layout. The main street was changed from taking its course round the waterfront and up the MILFORD ROAD. The new road (LUXMORE DRIVE) was built out on the hill and that became the main highway.

380: States that in the original plans for expansion of the town, the primary school was going to be moved to join the high school and the vacant site would have become the commercial part of town. It’s the only space for expansion in the town, he says, apart from satellite sites on the edges.

396: Tape stopped then restarted after short review of the interview so far.

403: Following question, talks about taking up a new job after he retired from the AUTO REPAIR business. Says he missed the personal contact of working. He was asked to help out driving coaches to MILFORD SOUND.

Tape 2 Side A ends

Tape 2 Side B starts

002: Continues with talk about working on the tour buses. “Once you got on your bus you were captain of your own ship.”

019: Says the MILFORD ROAD was still isolated and early on wasn’t sealed. Also there were no walkie-talkies (predecessors to cellphones) so the drivers were left to their own devices.

031: Relates a couple of instances involving passengers and misconceptions about where they were and what day it was.

060: Describes another instance with a mix of nationalities and what people’s expectations are. Remembers when one passenger wanted to dispute the seating arrangements, he said: “You’ve got two options and one of them’s walking. They went away and sat down…But they glared at me all the way, I could feel it in the back of my neck.”

100: Says he’s proud of where he lives and so was happy to show visitors around and tell stories. “As long as you’re 95% correct, they accepted it and they seemed to enjoy it.”

127: Describes some of the people who’ve shared the town with him over the years, including former MOW boss, TOM PLATO: “One of the world’s best. He was a comic.”

140: Another, GUS MCGREGOR, was the GRADER DRIVER on the road. He volunteered around town, helping out at events.

153: There was also WARD BEER and early tourism developers LAWSON BURROWS and WILSON CAMPBELL. And the store keeper, GEORGE RADFORD who was in the fire brigade for many years.

179: Mentions JOHN CHARTRES who took up TE ANAU DOWNS STATION in 1919 after the Great War. Says he was a well-liked man. His brothers were from the MOSSBURN district. Says he did a bit of mountaineering and his wife (RUTH) was the same. Says their son, DONALD took over after they died and that his WIFE and SON are still running the STATION although its acreage has diminished.

205: Says in his earlier transport business days, he would cart their sheep and wool.

206: Mentions DAVY GUNN, calling him a boy’s-eye hero, particularly after his well-documented 1936 rescue of survivors of a plane crash at BIG BAY. Describes him as a semi-recluse, he took over the leasehold of the cattle run through the HOLLYFORD VALLEY to MARTINS BAY. Says his son, MURRAY GUNN, is almost a blueprint, and that he’s known the family almost all his life.

221: Recalls it being a sad day when DAVY was drowned (1955). Remembers how DAVY used to drive his cattle through to MOSSBURN to put them on the trucks.

227: Says his FATHER carted a few loads out for him. And describes an amusing incident regarding the horns of one of the steers.

239: Mentions the MURRELLS of MANAPOURI who were running a boarding house at the same time as his GRANDFATHER had the TE ANAU HOTEL. So there’s been a long-running association there, he adds.

249: States the MURRELLS originally had a HOTEL at STAG CREEK on the CASTLEROCK/DIPTON ROAD. And they shifted it to BOB’S CORNER at the boundary of ELMWOOD and REDCLIFF STATIONS. They then leased it and started GRANDVIEW GUESTHOUSE. Says they were a family who were “rather a law unto themselves.”

269: Disputes whether his own GRANDFATHER had the same qualities, describing him as “rather dapper” and “a ladies man” or at least that’s how it seemed to a kid.

280: Says ERNIE GOVAN was one of the first people to land in an aeroplane in TE ANAU. He’d been away somewhere and had to get home so persuaded someone who owned a TIGER MOTH to fly him back.

294: Responding to question says he’s enjoyed living in the area all his life. Recalls he and KATHY had considered living elsewhere after they retired. So they took a trip but on their return decided the sense of “coming home” gave them their answer so they stayed.

301: States they’ve been living in their present home overlooking the lake since 1970. It cost 32,000 pounds to build. They’d bought the section for 1800 pounds.

314: Hopes that TE ANAU would stay as a “greenie destination” describing other places, such as QUEENSTOWN, having been made into a concrete jungle.

321: Admits that some of the town’s older people have a “bit of a chip on our shoulders about DOC” (Department of Conservation) because before it was made into a NATIONAL PARK, FIORDLAND was theirs and they could roam wherever they wanted. But nowadays, he says, you have to sign the dotted line to do anything. But as long as people can use and look after the area, he says he’d be quite happy.

Interview ends

Tape 2 Side B ends