A FULL LIFE

Lake County Mail, Issue 19, 1 October 1947, Page 3

A FULL LIFE

Memoirs of the late Mr S. S. Aburn

Bridge Building I left Waipori in 1911 and joined the Public Works Department as bridge overseer. This work was most interesting, as some important road and railway bridges were constructed in Otago. The Lower Shotover, the Edith Cavell Bridge at Arthur’s Point, Rees Valley bridge, Earnslaw Burn, Arrow Junction, Main South Road, Milton, and over the Gatlins Lake to Hini Hini. Then I shifted on to Tuatapere and built four bridges on the Orawia Railway. I also supervised the building of the Gate Guest House at Te Anau for the tourist traffic, and for two years I was busy on the Kawarau Dam scheme at Lake Wakatipu. You may wonder where I learned bridge-building, as it is not included in a builder’s apprentice’s training. I was six years in the South District Rifles. I then joined the Dunedin Engineer Volunteers and became leader in bridge construction. During tills time we received lectures once a week from a former Imperial Sergeant Major on all classes of bridge construction. These were most helpful and explicit. Looking back over the years I can a ay my life has been full and varied and happy. Sorrow has come my way, but isn’t it Job who says: “Man is born to sorrow as the sparks fly upwards!” So how could I hope to escape. I was married to Miss Bessie Davies, of Dunedin, by the Rev. Mr Lewis, of the Church of Christ. We had three sons and three daughters. One son died after a long illness caused by an. injury to his back at football, and my wife died at the age of 59 in March, 1932. After a second sojour* in Stewart Island building a sea wall, I retired on superannuation in January, 1932. Queenstown —1895 I was introduced to Queenstown in xVpril, 1895, arriving by the p.s. Mountaineer at 11.30 p.m., when the whole country was covered with six inches of snow. The snow reminds me of a coach trip through Central in 1899. I had been working in Alexandra for a few months when the weather turned suddenly dull and cold, and the sun did not show itself for over a month. During June and July it did not cease to freeze continually. The numerous gold dredges that were then at work were laid up because of the ice on the river, so I decided to return to Dunedin. On July 7 the coach started at 10.30 a.m. instead of 12.30 p.m., the scheduled time. As we were about to begin our journey, word was brought to us of the death of two men in the town. They had been frozen to death in their beds. When" we reached the Ophir Hotel another man was brought in frozen to death, so the hotel owner said, “ So and so has loft to walk to St. Bathans. Do pick him up, or he will be found dead to-morrow.” Wo found the man, and, after showing him the whisky bottle, got him .on the coach, and we all arrived safely at St. Bathans about 11.30 p.m., where we had the best feast I’ve over had of roast beef and plum duff, after which we gratefully sought our beds. All too soon wc were called at 4.30 a.m., as we bad to start for Eanfurly by the 5.30 a.m. coach. Wc breakfasted on porridge, steak, toast, and coffee, and then out to meet our driver, who had the finest team of dapple grey horses I’ve ever seen. The driver said to os as wc approached a hill still covered with G to 10 inches of snow, “ Boys, you had better walk up this hill.” After riding a few more miles, Jimmy, the driver, said, “You had better walk down this hill, as my brakes are bo good on the frozen snow.” He then called out to Jimmy No. 2, “Get that rope from under the seat and get tlio boys to hang on to it for a 1 they are worth.” This was repeated at intervals as wo came to each bad hill. The boys began to murmur quite a lot, ,-wA more and more audibly, until the

driver said, “ If you hang on to the rope we will get to Eanfurly; if not, I will have to take out the horses and give them a feed and lot them go home.” There were no more murmurs about working our own passage after that. We eventually got to Eanfurly and were told there was no time for dinner, as it was then nearly 3 p.m. Wo had brought lewt of gold on the coach with us, which had to be transferred to the train under a lot of formalities during which we could have eaten two or three dinners. The guard comforted us by saying we could get dinner at Middlemarch at 4.30 p.m., which we did. This journey took two days, during which we had travelled through snow up to 2ft 6in deep. This is a marvellous trip in summer, but is hardly to be classed as a pleasure trip in winter. Wide Activities I have found many friends in other spheres of labour. I was for 12 years on the Queenstown Borough Council and a member of the Manchester Unity of Oddfellows, Loyal Dunedin Lodge, for 50 years, and a member of the St. Andrew’s Masonic Lodge for 50 years. I have played cricket and football with great zest in my youth, and enjoyed yachting, and when not quite so young have passed many a happy hour on the bowling green. After my wife’s death I came to settle in Queenstown, doing several small supervising jobs in the meanwhile. I was remarried in June, 1934, to Mrs Eliza Davies, who was a widow with three children. This was a most happy thing for me, as it ended the loneliness of my advancing years and gave me a good companion for the rest of life’s journey. Working Years During all my working years I have only had one accident, and that was a crowbar taking off the end of my finger and lifting the nail with it. Only one man working with me was ever hurt, and that one was an elderly man twisting wire on a fairly wide platform when he fell on to a concrete platform below, fracturing his leg. When the Lower Shotover bridge was begun, floods took away the first pillar. It was not on a rock foundation, so during heavy rains it crumpled up and went down the river. The Public Works Department were called to, the job, and I supervised the sinking of cylinders by air pressure for 27 feet under water on to a rock, and there they are to this day. Talking of bridges reminds me of an experience at the Edith Cavell bridge. We had got the plank footway erected and were using it daily for wheeling away barrow loads of scree. One day young Jim Cockburn came to the bridge and wanted to know if he could walk across the now bridge with his bicycle. I said, “Why don’t you ride across?” Jim said, “I’d like to see you do it.” At that I took the bike, and away T went. Imagine my feelings when I discovered there were no brakes on the bicycle, and there was I on the bridge head, with no way of stopping. There was nothing for it but to go ahead. It wasn’t riding the narrow footway that frightened me, but the obstacle at the other end, for the plank bridge ended in a bank which was covered with scree. While pedalling straight across, my mind was busy as to what I could do to avert disaster. I then knew that I must ride straight for the bank and throw myself on it, and clutch the bike before it could fall into the river 100 feet below. This was accomplished without anyone realising I hadn’t meant to do it! This reminds me of a later episode which scared the neighbours. In the old manse paddock there were some very tall trees, one of which had a decided lean on the opposite side to that which the woodcutters wanted it to fall. They asked me what should be done, I said, “ Cut off all the branches on the leaning side and the weight of the others will make it fall the right way.” This they proceeded to do, but found the height too much to give them a steady enough hand. I have been, climbing all my life, and

height meant nothing to me, so I took off my coat, and up I went and lopped off the branches. The neighbours all crowded round, and one rushed into the lady who is now my wife, with whom I was then boarding, saying, “ Come quickly. Your old man will fall and kill himself.” She said, “He isn’t my old man, and I can’t stop him breaking his neck if he wants to.” I lived to become her old man, and perhaps in those tree-tops ended for me the days of risk and adventure. But old age has its joys in happy memories, and the looking forward to the greatest adventure of all when we cross the bar to life eternal.