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Most of my memories seem to do with food, and I suppose this is hardly surprising in a growing twelve-year-old (strangely enough I didn’t actually grow until I started work — I seemed to thrive on it).
Dad kept racing pigeons which had to be culled from time to time, so that one day I arrived back at the farm with a gift of two dead pigeons.
The Smiths were delighted with them. “After they’ve been hung they’ll be delicious!” they said.
This hanging business was a new one on me, so I was quite intrigued when the Prof. hung them from a nail outside the front door of the old house, where they stayed for two or three weeks. I examined them each time I entered and thought they had been forgotten. It was late Spring and rather warm and the birds took on quite an odour. Then one day I noticed maggots on the verandah below them. As Dad would have it, they were walkin’.
I was wondering when they would throw them out when we went in to dinner one night to an unusual and appetising smell — the pigeons. The Smiths ate their portions with relish but I, remembering Lloyd’s cold mutton, was more cautious. However I had an exploratory taste and found to my great surprise that it was delicious. Whether this is the normal way to hang game I have never found out, but, though I would never do same, I must admit that on this occasion the results were fine.
§
Warm weather had arrived and Dave and I planted a small paddock of potatoes. The method of planting, in what was a grass paddock, was quite simple. Dave handled the plough, a single furrow job, drawn by the ever-willing Mary — I can’t help but wonder how our modern city dwellers would handle this back-breaking job. Under every other furrow we placed spuds scattered liberally with blood and bone. Afterwards Moke was harnessed up to help Mary drag the discs repeatedly over the paddock. I didn’t see the spuds harvested but I did enjoy riding those discs and handling the horses. It was a rough ride and my main concern was to avoid being thrown off.
§
One day the Prof announced that some Baconers were ready to be sent to the works. This was exciting. I hadn’t had anything to do with the pigs — the Prof. fed them. The Smith’s piggeries weren’t unusual for those days, consisting of a dirt race about six feet wide, with gateways to pens that lead off it. The pens were quite large and very muddy, with dirty, muddy, stinking wallows everywhere. The pigs seemed to enjoy it.
I don’t recall seeing any concrete on any of the farms I worked on. If there was a mud-free yard, which was very seldom, it was constructed of split totara or kauri, in which case the yard was very small.
At the end of the Smiths’ race was a primitive loading ramp, up to which the truck backed, and, from there to the road, a muddy track about fifty yards long. Not an ounce of metal anywhere.
Billy was the truck driver. A wild young man was Billy, who worked for the local carrier. His first remarks were, “How the hell am I supposed to get a truck in there?” — or words to that effect. Out of respect people didn’t swear in the Prof’s company, but Billy showed not the slightest inhibition. His language was appalling and I remember being quite concerned about it even though I was fairly proficient myself at times.
We had made ti-tree fascines for the worst patches on the track, and somehow, after a good deal of swearing, backing and filling, Billy got the truck backed up to the ramp. Trucks in those days were much more efficient in the mud than the modern variety — and needed to be — very low geared with narrow wheels and tyres. Billy too was skilled at handling the conditions, which he ran into often enough.
If we could have got what followed on film, complete with sound-track, it would have made a fortune from select adult audiences — although the SPCA would have closed the show down.
Getting the baconers out into the race was a fairly simple matter. One just had to avoid the wallows and take care not to slip over — the areas around the troughs, in particular, were stinking cess-pools.
The race was a little better than the pens as it didn’t get the same traffic, but in it were three or four forty-gallon drums into which the skim milk from the milking shed was pumped. One could never arrive there in time to shift the delivery pipe from one drum to the other, so they were constantly over-flowing and the skim, running down the race, added to the odour. The milk was said to be better for the pigs if fed to them stale or curdled, so there was always at least one drum with a generous amount of curd on the top. This, mixed with the whey underneath, was the pigs’ sole diet — garnished with the carcasses of a few dead starlings that had died trying for their share.
(I must say in passing that this gross feed has given me a life-long aversion to what is now sold as cottage cheese.)
With the pigs safely in the race the next job was to get them aboard the truck. At this point the real fun started. On no account would those pigs go up the ramp. They were quite determined and you can take it from me that nothing is more determined than a determined pig.
You can possibly entice pigs with food, but on no account can you drive them if they have other ideas. Kid them, yes, drive them, no. I always compare them to the Irish, and have said that only the Irish could possibly understand them. Mahatma Gandhi himself could have learnt valuable lessons in passive resistance from your typical sullen baconer.
With Billy taking charge and the Prof. and I bringing up the rear we got them up to the ramp time after time — only to have them break back past us. After a few efforts any movement in the direction of the ramp was resisted with the utmost determination. We had started off with sticks but soon Billy was armed with a pick-handle that he had found somewhere. The Prof’s face was crimson. He vented his silent rage with mighty swipes of his stick as the pigs shouldered past him yuf-yuffing and squealing. But only he was silent — the squealing and swearing were horrific.
If Billy and the Prof. couldn’t stop the pigs, I had no show. It was as much as I could do to stay out of the way. Then with a crash the smelliest drum went over, scattering curds and whey and dead starlings down the race — a real picnic. We were soon coated with mud liberally mixed with the smelly contents of the drum. How Billy didn’t kill one of those pigs with his pick handle I’ll never know. He hit them hard and often but they treated his efforts with noisy — deafening — disdain.
Finally Billy and the Prof had to catch them one at a time and heave them up the ramp. I stood guard at the truck door, closing it after each pig as it was hauled aboard. Otherwise they would have been out and down the ramp in a flash. Catching, holding and man-handling a muddy, slippery, stinking, squealing, kicking baconer takes an effort that needs a better pen than mine to describe but it was great entertainment to the boy operating the gate.
By the time we had finished we were exhausted and stank to high heaven. It had been early morning when Billy called. I don’t know how he managed to live with himself for the rest of the working day, but the Prof. and I went in for a bath and a change of clothes.
§
This brings to mind a pig story of later years. Lenny, whom we considered a bit lady-like, was endeavouring with the help of two neighbours to round up some baconers who had escaped from their pens into the neighbouring scrub. They encountered the usual difficulties. Trying to stop pigs, when they have decided against it, is an almost impossible task. In a bid for freedom one of the pigs barged its way out of the scrub and yuf-yuffed and squealed between Lenny’s legs, leaving Lenny holding his crotch with very pained expression on his face.
“What’s the matter, Lenny?” asked Gordon. “Did it get you in the balls?”
“No,” gasped Lenny, “it’s the other thing.” We admired his commitment to decorum but laughed loudly anyway.
§
I couldn’t have always been working, for on a wet day I found myself alone in the cottage with nothing to do. There was absolutely no form of entertainment at the Smiths: no phonograph, no radio, not even a pack of cards. The Prof. was able to produce the occasional joke, but that was it, and I can’t recall breaking into gales of laughter.
I did have a pocket knife, a very proud possession, and with it I liked to carve my initials into things. Leave my mark for posterity, as it were. That day the only available surface appeared to be a window sill, so with great pains I executed “C.B.” on it. It wasn’t really a good effort and I wonder if it is still there and if the present owners wonder who “C.B.” was.
In the army “C.B.” means “confined to barracks”, but when the Prof. noticed the result of my efforts it appeared that much worse was to be my fate. He castigated me in his very effective school-masterly way and then proceeded to work out how much it was going to cost to replace the window sill. He thought he’d need to replace the window itself as well, and the bill was, for me, enormous. I was, it seemed, going to have to work for weeks without pay to cover it. I worried about it for days and was always apprehensive in case the subject was brought up again, but it never was.
Then there was the matter of the fence battens. Dave was doing some fencing over the hill on the other side of the bush and, before Lloyd left, the Prof had made a deal with the two of us that he would give us a shilling for every thirty battens we carried to the fence line. This was to be done in our spare time and would, it seemed, be a profitable side-line for us. Our spare time was limited to Sundays between milkings, but still we should be able to earn a shilling each Sunday, and in those days a shilling was a shilling — a seventh of a week’s pay for me.
I had been up the bush track previously and to me it was a pleasant outing. The track was narrow, with over-hanging bush. Eight battens, I soon found, were more than enough for me to carry. If they had stayed in a neat bundle it wouldn’t have been too bad but they were awkward and each one seemed to twist in a different direction, snagging in the branches and giving all sorts of problems. I was soon exhausted. It seemed to take forever to reach the fence line. I never did earn the shilling and neither did Lloyd.
Another job was to haul basic slag up that hill with Mary in the sledge chains. It was great fun.
It took all my strength to roll a bag of the fertiliser on to the sledge — lifting it was quite impossible. Then we would zig-zag our way up a slope of scattered totara trees to the grassed area at the top. More accurately I should describe it as grass- and fern-covered. The idea was that the slag would make the grass grow, and the grass would attract the cattle who would in turn crush the fern.
The journey up was slow and Mary’s flanks would be heaving by the time we reached the top. The journey down was another matter, however — really thrilling. The sledge would slide about according to the contour of the land — into trees or whatever was in its path — but most likely into Mary’s legs. The idea was that Mary had to go a little faster than the sledge to avoid this. Mary would give it an occasional jerk as I kept her ahead of it and all would go faster and faster until, by the time we got to the bottom, she was at full gallop. Such is the abandon of youth. I should have died young.
§
I was now progressing with my riding ability. I could handle Mary quite well and, after a good deal of prompting, managed to persuade everyone that I could also handle Creamy. With great difficulty, and all hands on the job, we caught Creamy and I was introduced to the horse of my dreams. Could I handle him? I simply had to make a go of this or my every hope and aspiration would be in utter ruin. It was quite obviously going to be difficult. Creamy capered around like a cat on hot bricks. No-one knew how long it had been since he was ridden and he wouldn’t stand still for a second.
My first lesson was that if you didn’t get on his back with the first leap you didn’t get there at all, and by the time you recovered he’d be miles away. He had only one pace, full gallop, and this from his first stride. No saddle, of course, and (as I say) before you were seated he was in full stride. He literally bolted each time you rode him, and he had a mouth of iron. Stopping him required strength, skill and cunning.
On the first few occasions that I rode him, Dave or someone else would hold him until I got comfortably seated. Then with a stern warning to hold him in I was on my own. The first time he got away from me I felt I was riding a load of dynamite. He went like the wind and I wouldn’t have swapped him for Phar Lap. I soon found that I couldn’t stop him, so, using my recently acquired cunning, I just hung on and waited until he tired. There was plenty of clay road in front of me and I was enjoying myself. When he did tire and I was able to stop him and turn him for home, he was in a lather of sweat and so was the seat of my pants. He still didn’t seem to reduce his pace very much, although he must have, but to me it was a victory.
On the first few rides I just held him in as best I could and there were constant tossings of his head as he pranced and sprang sideways along the road. Such style! Soon I would show the Hikurangi boys, especially Jimmy, a really good Tom Mix-style horse.
I rode Creamy at every opportunity. He soon became easier to catch, as I fed him bits of bread and anything else I could acquire that he might fancy. Of course he got some grooming as well. Perhaps my most foolhardy practice was to ride him to the top of the hill and then hell-for-leather along the ridges. He was the most sure-footed horse I have ever ridden. No matter how rough the going he didn’t alter pace and he never looked like stumbling. Still, we should have broken our necks.
§
It was time for hay-making, and Eric arrived. Another farm hand — a man this time, in his twenties. Lloyd had been gone for some time.
Eric was another city slicker. It took him some time to learn about milking cows and I’m sure he didn’t enjoy it. It was a dirty job. Squatting under the cow with a bucket, first starting the milk flow and then stripping her after the cups came off. The Palma Nap or denim trousers which we then wore were inevitably well splattered with milk and dung, and one could scrape the muck off them with a knife. We used to wash them by laying them out on the concrete cow yard and scrubbing them with a yard broom before hanging them on a rail to dry. They smelt quite sour and it’s no exaggeration to say that at times, if the legs were properly arranged, the trousers were capable of standing by themselves. It’s interesting to note that what are now fashionable jeans used to be disreputable labourer’s pants, equipped with metal buttons.
Eric did his best, as we all did, but the Smiths expected more from a grown man and Miss S. showed a good deal of impatience with him. However Eric was nothing if not a diplomat and open warfare was avoided. He was determined to give it a go.
It seems a pity to get back to the subject of food but I must. Miss S., as I mentioned earlier, liked a change of venue for meals and one never knew where one was likely to be eating the next one.
On this particularly bright, sunny morning she decided that Eric and I were to eat breakfast under the apple tree. It would be lovely out there in the sunshine, and a pleasant change, or so she said, and if Eric and I just carried a table and a chair each out to the tree and sat down, she would bring our breakfast to us. She brought all the necessary equipment and laid the table with plates, cutlery — the lot — while we sat back to enjoy this unexpected luxury.
It was indeed pleasant under the tree. We were a bit concerned about the adjacent beehives but the bees were going about their business and ignoring us, so we in turn ignored them and, sitting in our chairs, enjoyed the offerings of nature and those anticipated from Miss S. She could be thoughtful and kind at times and when breakfast arrived we unstintingly expressed our gratitude for her thoughtfulness on a beautiful, sunny morning. Life has its pleasant moments and Miss S. made good porridge. We applied liberal helpings of sugar, milk and cream.
But the first mouthful was horrible. “She probably forgot the salt,” said Eric.
We both applied salt and stirred it in, but that was even worse. More sugar was applied but nothing could make that porridge edible. It was deposited at a distance in the long grass and we made do with whatever followed.
§
I’m sure you must be tired of my constant references to food but I must continue.
Lunch was always looked forward to with great anticipation. I knew it wouldn’t be porridge and there was always the chance of something exciting and different. One day when Eric and I entered the dining room things looked very promising. Set out on the table were the usual bread, butter and scones, but it was also laid with huge dinner plates and knives and forks. It wasn’t going to be stew or anything else cooked, or I would have smelt it as I walked through the kitchen. I had a good nose for food! We sat at the table for some time, waiting for the Prof. to arrive, getting hungrier by the minute.
The Prof. arrived and sat down, and Miss S. entered to serve up. From a small tin she deposited one sardine on the middle of each plate and then the Prof, following the usual pattern, offered thanks to the Lord.
Eric, as I have said, was a diplomat and when he managed to persuade Miss S. that we should have a change from porridge for dinner I considered him a genius. “Certainly,” she said. “You should have mentioned it before.”
How inadequate I am, I thought. I’ve been eating porridge for dinner for months and such an idea had never occurred to me. Miss S. wasn’t such a dragon after all and I simply hadn’t had the gumption to ask. Ask and you shall receive!
We awaited the following night’s dinner with great interest and anticipation.
Miss S. brought it in. “How would you like it?” she asked. “You can have it with cold milk or hot. If you want hot milk I can heat it up in the milk or you can pour it on yourselves.”
Bread and milk! We decided we would have the milk hot and pour it on ourselves.
Miss S. was in a constant state of warfare with grocers, bakers and butchers — in fact all tradespeople. No-one could do anything right for her and she was continually complaining about their short-comings.
The baker upset her badly and she decided that, come what may, she would buy no more bread. She would bake her own. Her bread was barely edible, a solid, doughy mass which would never rise in spite of all her efforts and experimentation. We had to eat it for all that. Despite weeks of practice it didn’t improve and she eventually decided that the yeast supplied by the local grocer was the cause of the problem. There were arguments with the grocer about this. The yeast wasn’t fresh, something or other was wrong. She tried all the grocer’s shops in Hikurangi but the results never changed. The bread remained solid and unyielding. Still it was sustaining and its taste was reasonable — until it occurred to her to make her own yeast. She could do it and she did. The bread still didn’t rise and now it was positively sour as well. Horrid stuff but we continued to eat it. I suspect by now that baker had refused to supply bread. Needless to say my dinner diet of bread and milk suffered some loss of appeal, but I stuck to it and added more sugar.
By then Eric too had gone.