Growing up in the 30's

Ruapehu Bulletin, Volume 11, Issue 520, 25 January 1994, Page 9

Growing up in the 30's

This article is an extract from the Raetihi Centennial booklet published last year to celebrate the town's 100th year.

By

Rix l

Ridgway,

Hastings. Cont'd from last week Our first temporary teacher at Makakahi was Halvor Holst. He was followed by Dave Priest who was responsible for beautifying the area around the school, teaching me to swim in the swimming hole in the Manganui River down from the school, encouraging me to work diligently and who instilled in me a love of nature. How I remember riding my bike to school through immensely thick blankets of fog, arriving there quite saturated. I recall the severity of frosts, the icicles hanging from the road-side banks and the intricate lace patterns formed on the classroom windows. We used to bank up the fire in the pot-belly stove in our classroom during those cold winter days. Outside we kept warm skipping, playing chasing, keeny-seeny, rounders and in warmer weather, marbles, hopscotch or whatever fancied us, even knuckle-bones. I really enjoyed my school days and the socialising experiences they afforded. Full circle The time came for us to move once more. My father gained title to a leasehold block of land over the Makakahi Hill, to a property about a kilometre up from the junction of the Makakahi Road with the Orautoha Valley Road. This was Maori leasehold land and the cottage was yet another one of Bolstads, of the Ruatiti. It looked as though we had come full circle. On this farm we milked 14 cows by hand and I was responsible for keeping the alfa-laval separator handle turning. I continued to bike down to Makakahi School until the end of that particular school year, after which I returned to the Orautoha School. No wonder I know a great many school age youngsters and something of their families, having attended by now three sole charge country schools as well as time on correspondence.

As well as supplying cream to the Raetihi Dairy Factory we also ran a few sheep, maintained a good vegetable garden and had the benefit of a small orchard too. Although I have not mentioned it, times were tough and conditions fairly primitive, but each move we seemed to better our lot. Candles and kerosene lamps were the norm. Hefted water Open fireplaces and camp oven cooking were regular features. Water from wells, springs and latterly a tank and often a creek or stream, seldom piped, but hefted in kerosene tin buckets. Clothes washing was a chore. Water, boiled in buckets over an open fire and tipped into agalvanised iron tub with handles at each end. All done by hand and hung on a long number eight wire clothes line with a forked manuka pole as a prop. Our supplies, always came in large quantities; 100 pounds (lb) of flour; 701b of sugar; 51b of tea; and initially these were deposited in a large mail 'box' at the junction. Local settlers would take it in turn to deliver goods and mail using pack horses; the locals delivering their own cream to this same box. As progress inevitably reached these out-lying areas, the cream lorry came to the gate and the mail was delivered to the roadside. I saw it all happen. Even though this farming endeavour proved to be my father' s last one, we too made progress. We owned a gig. Our grey mare was a versatile horse. She could be saddled and ridden, she could sustain a pack saddle, she could be put to harness and pull a sledge as well as haul logs and of course draw the gig. It was at this stage, 1 938, that we owned a battery operated radio - the races and wrestling and Dad and Dave taking precedence

over the air waves. I also remember how those benzine boxes were a part of our few sticks of furniture at that time. Two presents I do remember vividly: a meccano set and a watch pouch. There were occasions when I would bike out to Raetihi on a Saturday, shopping for my mother. In those times the road was just gravel and Shorts Hill always seemed such a long climb going up to the plateau. The cattle trough carved out of the clay bank was a useful stop about half-

way up. It is not there now ! My return to the Orautoha School with its steep gable roof when Magnus (Chuck) Henry was our teacher, was limited due to my father' s declining health which necessitated a shift to Wanganui. So it was in my Form Two year my association with the District was severed, but it was not for good. I developed an affinity for the area, particularly the Makakahi, which has drawn me back several times over the intervening years. I often reflect upon those days, described by some as the 'the sugar bag years' and rightly so, and I remember facts and incidents Turn to Page 12

Memories of the 30's

From Page 9 as though they happened but a short while ago. For instance: the Ruatiti School; it is still there but in a dilapidated state; the small wooden bridge along the Ruatiti Road, a gem of bridge architecture, now replaced by a concrete one; the old wooden bridge across the Manganui a TeAo River which in 1938 suffered a collapse when a truck carrying wool broke through its decking; then it was carried away in those disastrous 1940 floods and replaced by a concrete structure; the deviation around the papa bluffs being constructed while I was there; the old Orautoha School now replaced; the Makakahi School, modified by extensions, is still to be seen. The school room

and the shelter shed remain, but upstream the old swing bridge which gave access to properties across the river has been replaced with a traffic bridge. A small portion of the Davis home in which we lived exists and that last cottage of Bolstads up from the Makakahi Junction has been so modified as to be unrecognisable from the four small rooms we used to call 'home'. As we were probably thought to be 'itinerant settlers' never staying very long in any one place I assume we were not well known. It is my intention to rectify that anomaly because with the encouragement that has in recent times come my way I have serious intentions of writing a lot more about the Makakahi !