When we lived at Paihia, in the neighbourhood of Te Tii Marae, Waitangi was the climax of summer. Over the holiday period starting at Christmas, thousands of people would visit the Bay; the crowd numbers would build up towards early February, and by Waitangi Day the whole place would be crowded with people.
Each year we would spend part of Waitangi Day at the Treaty Grounds, watching the celebrations and listening to the speeches; Norman Kirk and Rob Muldoon come to mind.
One year the school I worked at was asked to present a re-enactment of the signing of the Treaty and it was my job to produce that, with the help of the navy, who taught the boys how to salute with swords, and fired a 21-gun salute when our acted Governor Hobson came on to the Treaty lawn.
So I have many interesting memories, and lots of ideas associated with the day.
In particular, there are the historical figures who took part in the first events in 1840: Hone Heke, Hobson, Tamati Waka Nene, Williams, and many others. Specially, Colenso, who wrote notes of all the speeches.
And the people I have worked with or known during my life, who were involved in efforts to improve relations between Maori and Pakeha, and in working for the Maori community: Sir James Henare, John Rangihau, Sonny Waru, Bill Kaitoa, and Kath Rangi, among others.
Then there are the questions: why did the settlers come here; why were the Maori leaders prepared to sign; what did those people understand they were doing?
My great-great-grandfather, Joshua Robinson, arrived in Auckland a few months later; I wonder what he thought.
And what were the events going on in the years leading up to the signing, and in countries around the world in similar situations?
Each of these points deserves a long discussion on its own; I will try to post more detail over the next few weeks.
This afternoon the family who are here are heading for the beach at Urenui for a relaxing family time.
Thursday, 6 February 2014
Family History 1.726
(Shipboard diary of my great-grandfather, Charles Gaze, aged 27)
Feb. 5th 1840 Sunday
Somewhat finer than yesterday but still
very misty.
Half p 10. Church Prayers on Poop.
We had our flour stolen, a bag
containing about 101b.
Captain gave orders to steward to serve me
a fresh supply tomorrow. There was also a fowl stolen and a shoulder of the
sheep last killed. Thief not yet caught.
S. Lat. 45 - E. Long 47=40.
3
p.m. Bible Class.
Half p 7 p.m.
Dissenters' Service and address from Col. 3
Ch. 14v in our part of ship.
6th
Very dull and foggy and calm sea, but a
fair breeze remarked to be like sailing on a river; very damp.
7th
Somewhat finer but still foggy all
around, a heavy dew falling in the afternoon.
8th
Fine, stronger winds NE. Cold, and seas
rougher sailing S.E.by S.
Lat. 44=56 E. Long 60.
Wind
increasing towards evening, reefed top sails. Ship
lays very much on one side. Sea washing over deck continually
all of us pretty well.
Wednesday, 5 February 2014
Marriage Discussions
The beginning of 1955 was when I began to realise that
Audrey had some qualities that made her stand out from the other girls in our
circle: she was intelligent and energetic, as well as being attractive, and she
seemed to respond to my friendly overtures. I was impressed by her completing
the first year of her Training College course, and at the same time gaining
university entrance at night school.
Within a few days of the beginning of the new academic year
we were an item, to use a more modern term, and by the end of the year were
planning a life together. Audrey was 18 and I had just turned 22. Nowadays this
would be regarded as exceptionally young; then it was young but not unusual by
any means. We had not told our families about our plans, in fact we were only
just working them out ourselves.
As I have said, I was planning to apply to the New Zealand
Baptist Missionary Society to work as a teacher in India. The Principal of St
Paul’s School, a long-serving missionary teacher, Eileen Arnold, was ready to
retire, and they needed someone to replace her.
Now in those days people became missionaries for life. All
occupations were like that then; you joined a profession, or in many cases a
firm, and worked for them for 40 years until retirement and a gold watch. And the expectation was that one would work
for the missionary society all one’s life.
As well as that, the rule was that young missionaries were
sent to India single. If they were engaged already, the fiancée was allowed to
follow a year later after it was clear the man’s health and progress with
learning the language were OK.
As 1956 progressed, and we were teaching in Hamilton and making
our plans clearer, we proceeded with the application to the mission, on the
basis that we would marry in 1957 before leaving after the end of the school
year. There was a lot of discussion
about the rules and making changes to them, and we were finally accepted on
this basis, but with an unwritten understanding that we were to avoid having a
family until our language studies were well under way.
Another unusual feature of our application was that we had
had no formal theological training. I was taking some papers towards a Bachelor
of Divinity degree from Melbourne University, but the usual requirement was a
Theological College course or at least a Bible College one.
However we had a good track record of skills in leadership
in Church activities. For instance during our year at Training College Audrey
and I ran two camps for intermediate age children at the Baptist Camp at Carey
Park, Henderson Valley. We had good helpers at each of them, Audrey with girls
and me with boys, and the weather that holiday was atrocious, but the camps
went well.
Further complicating these issues for me was the fact that
my parents were good friends with several of the people on the committees that
had to make these arrangements. It did not sit well with them that I was
stirring the pot which was watched over by these family acquaintances.
However, it all worked out in the end, and we were married
at our Epsom Church in September 1957.
As well as our first three months of married life being full
of plans for shifting to India, we were also travelling around the Waikato
taking Church services on Sundays, talking about the work we were going to.
Besides this I had my teeth out, that is all except six bottom ones. Four
successive weekends, a fortnight apart, the dentist took out all the teeth on
one side, top or bottom, and I recovered over the weekend. This was in those
days dental work was hard to get in Agartala, so it was thought best to take
false ones! I have never really regretted this move, and it has been vastly
cheaper than the alternative.
So, by January 1958 we were ready for the great adventure.
Tuesday, 4 February 2014
Off to India
 |
| Arriving in Agartala, February 1958 |
The greatest adventure
was our first trip to India. In late December of 1957 Audrey and I set out on
the Wanganella on our journey which
was to take us to Agartala. We had Janet travelling with us; she was going out
to East Pakistan (ie Bangladesh) to
marry Stuart Avery, one of the missionaries working there.
In those days steamer
was the normal way to travel around the world. The Wanganella did one trip a fortnight to Sydney and back. It took
four days to cross the Tasman.
In Sydney we stayed in
the Baptist Youth Hostel, where I had stayed several years before on my way to
the Conference at Mooloolaba. Then a few days later we boarded the Strathaird, a P+O liner, for the trip to
Bombay. She was an older ship of 23,000 tons and she trundled around the
southern coast of Australia, calling at Melbourne and Adelaide on the way to
Fremantle.
Then we set out across
the Indian Ocean, which was pretty calm. At one stage the engines broke down,
so we wallowed with no power for half a day until the engineers had everything
going again and we set off again, but this time heading north, because we had
been diverted to Jakarta in the Dutch East Indies, where there was a war of
independence going on and a load of Dutch refugees needed rescuing.
We watched the
refugees boarding at the wharf at Jakarta, where we were not allowed to land;
they were all Asians, not a white face among them. All the Indonesians were put
on the lower decks and we were moved up to First Class to accommodate them.
The ship called at
Colombo in Ceylon, as Srilanka was called then, and we went for a sightseeing
tour of the city and the southern coast down to Galle. Then we left for the
last leg of our journey and in a day or so arrived at Bombay, where we got off
the ship and drifted our way through customs.
I don’t remember where
we stayed in Bombay, or even if we stopped at all. But with a minimum of delay
we were on the broad-gauge express for Calcutta. Having wasted time on the
diversion to Jakarta we were already late for Language School in Darjeeling.
The express took nearly two days to reach Calcutta, where Stuart met us; well
he met Janet and we tagged along.
We were all staying at
the Baptist mission in Calcutta, where the Baptist Mission press was set up,
and where William Carey had started the whole idea of protestant missions in
that part of the world in the eighteenth century.
After a couple of days
for shopping, we headed off for Agartala on a DC3. The main shopping item was a
mosquito net. I still remember Stuart taking us to the New Market and being
diddled out of ten rupees by the shopkeeper. Stuart counted the ten rupee notes
out into his hand – 21 of them for a 210 rupee item. Then he counted them back with all of us
watching and only got 20. So Stuart added another one and then the shopkeeper
counted back again and again he got 20. Stuart grabbed the money and we all
started to leave, but the guy realised he had been caught, and settled for the
notes in his hand.
We landed at Agartala
on a fine early spring day, with everything looking dry. We were welcomed by
the missionaries at the airport (a World War II RAF runway), and by the whole
Christian compound when we reached our new home.
Houses
A couple of years ago, the house where my mother was born (1905) was moved from its site in New Plymouth to make way for an extension to the Taranaki Hospice. It has now been set up on a section near Lepperton, where my uncle taught in the early 1930s. Among his pupils, and friends of his two daughters, were Margaret's mother and her sisters.
Here is the poem I wrote when the house was being moved:
Houses
Ripping it off – they are ripping it off
The house off its land
Wrenching it away out of
Its resting place
A hundred years it stood here
My mother’s birthplace
And now they are taking it away
To a strange corner
Somewhere foreign, unfamiliar
Where it will be lonely and sad
Houses are like clothes
We wear them because of what they say
About us and for us
For the messages they tell the world.
“I am me. Look at me
You are not looking at me
Stop thinking about yourself
Stop thinking about them
Look at me!”
“I am so pretty – prettier than all the others
Across the street
Look I’m the only one left here!”
My mother’s house was clean and white
Bright in the sun
I remember several others
Similar in style
Around it from the original subdivision
Called “Soleville”
In David Street
After David Sole
Who owned the land.
She was happy in this house
Had photos of it with her and her brother
And their friends playing
With a hobby-horse
Her long hair
Reaching down to her waist.
She always had happy memories of this house
And eating whitebait in the Spring
And the steamer journey back to the north.
How do we wear our house?
Now that it will no longer be
Bright coloured inside and out.
How do you wear these modern shades
That seem to say nothing at all?
“Excuse me
Pardon me for interrupting
But would you glance at me
Once in a while?”
“I am trying to be demure
And well-mannered,
Can’t you tell?
I don’t want to shout
Or wave my arms
But you are not looking at me.”
My mother’s house is wrecked,
Wracked, recked, rocked
Ricked, racked……
Soon unrecked, with a modern
Blank-walled, colourless box
Set fleetingly in its cosy site.
Like clothes they keep us warm
And safe
Protect us from embarrassment
Define our limits,
Ration our sunshine
And our breeze,
And connect us to the earth.
Those old bright colours were like
Little children, loud and showy
But the modern shades are
Like teenagers: all shyness
And embarrassment and monosyllabic.
When will houses grow up and find
Something suitable to wear in old age?
Why should my mother’s house be wrecked?
The house I began life in is
Still standing well-kept and solid after 80 years – in Auckland
The house my father grew up in is
As good-looking as it ever was
After 120 years – in Auckland
The house my grandfather started off in
Is still there, doubled in size,
After 150 years – in Auckland
But in New Plymouth we
Toss houses aside like waste paper.
In this age of retrofitting
We should be able to keep them alive
Relive the memories they hold
Teach our children
The stories they sing
Why must my mother’s house
Be cast into despair and depression
Neglected and lonely
When it has stood happily
Amongst its neighbours
For a happy hundred years?
Houses can be happy
When a family
Knocks together inside.
Even one person and a house
Can make a happy couple
Better still, two people in a house
Trying to work around each other
Trying to make room
Rubbing off their sharp edges
Becoming real
After all these years
Sitting down after the day’s striving
To breathe with the house
And each other
“Your only security/happiness
Is the breath you have just taken – together”
Family History 1.725
(Shipboard diary of my great-grandfather, Charles Gaze, aged 27)
February
1st 1860
Very fine, wind not so strong.
The iron band holding the Foretop Yard broken, the Carpenter making one of wood
in place of it, several sailors busy helping. It took up best part of the day, consequently the Foretop and Foregallant and Stun Sails could not be
used till repairs were done.
2nd
Very dull
and misty all day.
I was very sick and purged from about 2 a.m. to 8 a.m. and remained very
poorly the rest of day. Took 2 pills that were given me by Mrs Lee which appear to have done good.
A pig killed today.
3rd
Very fine and very light
breeze. S. Lat 40=54 E. Long. 42=40.
4th
Very dull, very calm and misty. The
sea has the appearance of the River Thames on a foggy November day.
A concert in the Second cabin tonight accompanied by Clappers and Tea Tray
(Tamborine).
Monday, 3 February 2014
Clock Museum
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