Otunui district celebrates 100 years

01-03-2010 | Contributor

The highlight of this year so far has been the reunion of friends and neighbours of the Otunui district just west of Taumarunui.

A gathering at the Otunui School and domain on Saturday, January 30, had an absolute ripper of an afternoon celebrating 100 years of settlement. In typical Otunui style everyone was friendly and laid back with lots of good humour.

Keith Sherson and Terry Gawith led the proceedings with a welcome, then the fun began with a grand parade of pack horses, old vehicles, two crawler tractors, wheel tractors and other items connected with the district's development.

The were several highlights for me, the main one being the restored water wheel my father built during the late 1930s to supply electricity to their home in Rangi in the northern part of Otunui.

Trevor Schroeder and his grandson Ceejay rebuilt the wheel and fitted new buckets. It trundled away all day fed by a trickle of water from the school pool. To see it going again was wonderful.

Alec Goodwin's Cat D2 J model crawler was there, bought new in 1939 and restored by his nephew Lennie Goodwin. Lennie was kind enough to let me have a nostalgic drive. It still purrs.

The Oliver Cletrac crawler was under the command of Trevor Schroeder with Geoff Heale providing extra support with his 3/42 Nuffield and a good strong strop. The Oliver did make it around the field finally.

Cliff Harris played it safe this time and had a quad towing his horse sled because at the last reunion 25 years ago, the horse attached gave a fast lap and disappeared after the runners hit the tarseal crossing outside the hall. The performance this year was rather tame in comparison, but then again Cliffy is 25 years older now.

Andy Cameron and Rex Mayor put on their usual show with a big M tooth-saw on a native log on the back of a truck, prime examples of men in long johns.

The boys had mustered some Shrek-type sheep off Port Arthur and they were shorn by Cam Brown with Joe Heale providing the arm power on the hand-cranked shearing plant.

The hall was full of photos and memorabilia and outside there was a great display of objects and tools from the past and present including a great big concrete strainer post that weighed in at 198kg.

The dinner was held in Gawith's covered yards at Lauren's Lavender Farm and some notable speeches with much humour came from Keith and Dennis Sherson as Masters of Ceremony. The Patron of the Valley, Noel Street, spoke with his usual style about history, with reverence for those who have gone before us and some intuitive thoughts as to the future of the valley.

Highlight speeches from Don Buchanan and Bill Smidt nailed the night and it was fitting that we all remembered Pat Sheely, one of my dad's best friends.

Evelyn Heale did a marvellous job of scanning old photos on to a power point display, giving us a captivating look at the past: bush camps, people, droughts, haymaking, shearing gangs, machinery in strange places - all sorts.

In all these types of celebrations there are stories that should be told but time always limits the chance to do so. A couple come to mind.

The butter: My grandfather, Welsford Carter, at 35 took up a block of bush in 1910 in Otunui North. He and some of his brothers began felling bush. They had a tent fly camp just above the Ararimu creek not far from the top gully creek junction on that farm.

They went to town once every six weeks to get the basics - tea, sugar, flour, salt, and some butter which they kept in a rigged-up safe in an old hollow Rata tree.

They cooked for themselves and the youngest brother, George, was in charge of the bread-making and that most precious of commodities, the butter. (George went on from there to World War I and survived Gallipoli, returning to New Zealand to take up accountancy and a business in Stratford.)

One day, as the supplies dwindled, the butter supply became short and coveted. They came back from felling one day, dreaming of camp-oven bread with butter on and the butter was gone! Pandemonium followed as the camp was torn apart in the search for the butter.

Tempers frayed and a bit of a stoush broke out; George was blamed for not looking after it properly. He said: "It's bloody well here somewhere I've seen the bastard stuff I'm sure."

They sat down after a while and had a brew. George put his feet up on a stump and there the butter was, stuck to the instep of his boot. It was carefully scraped from the instep and applied to the bread.

Peace was restored.

The Boar and the Bren gun: Some years later, during World War II, my father became a machine gunnery instructor at Hopu Hopu and Narrow Neck Army camps.

His name was Welsford, too, same as his dad. Wes, as he was known, had a keen sense of fun that generally involved explosives and things mechanical.

He was known to bring the occasional armaments home to Otunui while on leave and give the boys and girls a bit of a burl with them. One day he just happened to have a Bren gun at home, strictly for training purposes, of course.

His friend and neighbour Ossie Quirke phoned him up one day and said: "Wes, bring that bloody Bren gun down here will you, there's a big wild boar in with my sows in the piggery and I want you to mow the bastard down!"

Dad hot-footed it down the road and set up the gun on its tripod. Ossie assumed rank as gunnery officer and barked the order " Gun ready!?"

Dad, as gunner, replied: " Affirmative, gun ready."

Ossie: "Release boar."

Bill Quirke (Chief pig releaser and shed basher): " Boar released sir!"

Ossie: "Bring fire to bear on target."

Dad, and gun: Chaka chaka chaka, chaka!

The boar said "Hough, I'm off" and went like hell.

The boar got away but dad successfully mowed down the piggery, the adjacent fences and the trees, thistles and anything in the path of the bullets. They all reckoned it was the most impressive thing they had ever seen but it took three days' work to fix the damage.

So, all the best for the future Otunui, and thanks for such wonderful memories.

Oh, and the prize for having the most descendants on display on the day goes to Richard and Jackie (nee Runciman) Porritt. What a great effort.

Robert Carter, Kaitieke Valley, Taumarunui.

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