<&>Wellington Corpus of Spoken New Zealand English Version One <&>Copyright 1998 School of Linguistics & Applied Language Studies <&>Victoria University of Wellington <&>side two <&>12:31 it was a most beautiful place heavy timber <,> um voc great deal of puriri <,> old a h wallaces he rode down the coast in <,> oh the eighties as he topped the ridge north of the kaiaua bay he looked down and he saw more puriris than he'd ever seen anywhere and he called it the valley of the puriris and we had eNORmous trees some of <&>13:00 them dead a great many big ones which were dead and if we felled one there was sufficient wood in it to supply us with firewood for twelve months or fourteen months marvellous hot wood and the heat of the puriri is so great that it used it burnt out two shacklock stoves and of course in an open fire it was wonderful for the cold and the heat marvellous your father was doing what there my father had a small farm there <,> my parents went out there in january nineteen seven and they had a <,> sledge they sledged along the base of the hills and then there was a small hill that they went over before they <.>g arrived at the beach and they sledged <,> everything they had over that hill <,> the piano that i have now my mother was teaching <&>14:00 in tolaga er in nineteen hundred and that piano went over that hill on a sledge and the <,> timber for the house was rafted ashore off er a ship er onto the beach and they built a four roomed cottage oh about half a mile inland and the furniture <,> must have been landed on the beach because i remember we had one of those green plush chesterfields and the wave marks were on the green plush <{1><[1>years later my my <.>moth my mother covered it with chintz and that sort <{2><[2>of thing but er it took a long time to <,> get the home together they had no money really and my mother remembered sleeping there's a little <&>15:00 two roomed i think it must be a kauri shack we called the whare and my mother remembered sleeping in that <,> er little shack on the grass seed the night the valley burned the bush had to be felled it was very heavy bush and <,> they were in it and the whole valley was burning and because the puriri trees were so big for many years we had very serious log fires um the roots would run a long way underground and they would burn for a long time <,> when i was about six <,> one night er one of these log fires happened over er just on the place but they were in the next valley it was quite steep and they pulled me out of bed and took me with them up onto the ridge and i remember looking down into this great valley and these eNORmous trees burning to the top and then exploding and <&>16:00 falling <,> and on the skyline we could see sheep and some cattle er my father had just escaped <.>r really with his life that day he was trying to get the stock out and he finally had to ride for his life and the dogs were singed and they did have to kill some <,> sheep but we saw them all along the fence that night and then many times we had those log fires they voc they'd perhaps come over from the maori country <,> and one of the things i think was hardest for my mother to cope with was it was a rich valley but such heavy soil and in the winter the mud was UNbelievable it er it was up to our knees we milked cows was a necessity and made bread and <,> the <&>17:00 inconvenience my mother must have been very great <[1>laughs <[2>mm was the mud <{><[><,> yes <[>oh yes the mud was so hard to deal with and with the clothes and the drying them and trying to keep them mm what were the hardships for you as a child well i didn't have hardships i think my mother did mm um we had a jolly good life we went barefoot i rode from the age of three <,> er at three years old i was being led into tolaga on a leading rein on a little black pony called sammy word <{><[>word <[>how far from tolaga <{><[><.>w er <[>seven miles seven miles away from <{><[>tolaga bay yes <[>yes <,> we'd go in be led in and very soon having lived on a horse i would ride by myself at eight eight years old i was riding into tolaga to get the mail and <&>18:00 sometimes a loaf of bread as a treat we had a saddle bag on the side of the saddle and <,> the one fear i had was cars they slowly began to come and to get the two miles from the turn off kaiaua turn off onto the main road and get into a side road er at tolaga was a nightmare for me one day a car did come and the horses didn't shy they went MAD <{><[>i <.>ha i <.>ha i had this pony by the reins and he TORE along the fence and tore the back of my hand on the barbed wire which made me even more frightened <,> and it was quite a worry and then of course we began to get a a road we got a narrow road over the hill <,> we drove we wasn't a road on the flats for quite a long time we drove round the base the base of the hill we drove along sheep flock tracks on the flat and we <&>19:00 drove around the base of the hill and then we had a very narrow road over the hill JUST the width of a buggy and of course very slippery and VERY deep mud the mud on the main road was SO GREAT right up to the horses' knees and the bridges there were <.>the in those days there were little flat bridges with no edges and the approaches to them were so deep they were right up to the axles people would break their traces <,> we didn't but we had two big grey horses and i learnt to drive them and at twelve i could drive these horses into tolaga and get mail and do things that were necessary but most people didn't come to call on us cos they were too frightened of the road <[>word laughs mm what about getting your wool er down to tolaga er getting it out <&>20:00 well er now the wool my father had a dray with three horses and the wool when i was young i remember seeing it go off in a surf boat er and a <.>s a schooner came for it <,> i seem to think it was captain skinner anyhow the wool went off that way and then <,> i've got a photograph in nineteen twenty two <,> of a bullocky joe lunim had a a bullock team of twelve bullocks and he got his wagon in and took the wool out to tolaga where it was shipped from er the uawa river i don't remember the exact date when the bullock wagon came but i remember joe lunim and i was so angry with him for hitting the bullocks <{><[>i flew across the paddock he was hitting the bullocks and i flew across the paddock and jumped up and <&>21:00 down in front of him and screamed at him and joe's eyes nearly fell out of his laughs head at this small girl and he actually did stop hitting for the moment <[>laughs mm his his language with the bullocks would have been <.>qu choice too <{><[>word <[>laughs it was indeed yes well well lively <,> but the cooking and that sort of thing in a place like that must have been very great for my mother because we had eventually there were five of us and we had a governess or someone to help and we had a <.>m a girl in the kitchen who would help and we had three men at the whare <&>pronounced with w <,> to er a cowboy and others who worked so the er they had to have their breakfast all their meals at the house <,> she had pretty difficult times doing that and she didn't get out much so she gardened she was a wonderful gardener my father used to get up at four oclock in the morning and he kept us in vegetables so that we didn't <&>22:00 buy anything <,> laughs we kept a tin of salmon on the shelf to have if we needed fish pie we <.>w had a fish pie on a friday um and the rest of the time we grew everything you didn't buy things a ship was wrecked <{><[><,> er round about that period nineteen <,> twelve <[>oh yes er somewhere about nineteen twelve i think the tongariro must have been further up the coast because the shoreline i remember the bay north of us was littered with things and the kaiaua beach was too all sorts of things but a lot of barrels of of whisky overproof whisky too and my father saw them and he notified the police who of course would have to ride out but laughs the police didn't get much whisky um there were gangs of maoris who came over our back hill and through our paddock past the house and i remember seeing them with their packhorses they couldn't take the barrels but they filled containers as much as they could and then they would roll the barrel and hide them hide <&>23:00 it behind bushes somewhere bury it and another lot would be watching them and they would <,> er wait till that lot had gone and then they'd dash and get the barrel out and get what they could out of it and there were barrels all over the beach being hidden and being <.>du being dug up and um the stuff there must have been great parties going on further inland and i remember seeing the packhorses go with these people each lot scurrying from the other hiding all over the place on the manuka cos there were in those days there was bush on mana marau and you could hide and watch <{><[>very well so it was really <.>the it was a very lucrative time for them and at that time <,> there it i don't know exactly where the tongariro went down but it must have been further north because up at tuparoa there were hundreds of barrels came ashore i think and the old chief realised that his <&>24:00 people would be ruined if they got such a lot of that so somehow he got it into a cave beneath a hilltop not very high but it was a good big knob and he got this his a few selected people to get all these barrels INside <,> it must have been pretty big and he made it tapu so that nobody could touch it and he sealed it off <,> well not very long later a a pakeha built a hotel on top of that knob and he made a tunnel down into this cave and there was enough whisky in it to run that hotel for a good many years i don't know how long but he um it was enough to supply the WHOLE place <[>mm laughs mm with the liquor he had his his own natural cellar just underneath <{><[>laughs <&>25:00 <[>that was right he had a wonderful daughter who went there at about twelve she cooked for shearing gangs and she also helped in the hotel because they didn't have much money till they could get going and she wrote a remarkable book about it i wish that i'd kept the name of it because she was <.>g a most remarkable young woman at what stage did you leave um er tolaga the tolaga area and move further north you went further north <{><[>didn't you <[>oh yes i married charles williams in nineteen september nineteen twenty six and went up to live at matahia which was fourteen miles IN from ruatoria the land ran ran and still does run right round to the back of aorangi to the base of hikurangi <{><[>so <.>th <[>now charles williams this is a descendant of the henry of henry williams yes he's a great grandson my father in law kenneth williams ken kenneth stuart williams was his grandson mm and a very remarkable person and you moved to to where exactly <&>26:00 to matahia it was fourteen miles round by road well there wasn't a road actually um and six miles across the river matai river it depended on the stage of the river how we whether we could get out or not the the life was ruled of course by the river you had a farm there yes <{><[>they <.>ha they <.>ha er had a farm and if you had to get out we rode round the hills <,> um we had but we still had to cross the arangirai river which if it was too high you just didn't GET out if anybody had an accident they stayed there and during our time before the river was big bridge was built <,> er my husband set four people's legs they happened to break them at that time and he could bring them in one man was right up on the mountain <,> joe hura and they <.>ha they had to <&>27:00 carry joe down <,> er he was a big heavy man and the people went out and carried him and then they put him in a dray <,> on the creek bed which was very big stones and he bunked in a dray right down er till they could could carry him on the flat but the pain and he didn't make one sound <&>27:24 <[>mm