Up Front by Emma Hart

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Up Front: The Home Straight

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  • 3410,

    Hilary's mother's story reminds me of one from my Grandad (I wish I'd recorded his stories.)

    He was an engineer, by trade and inclination, and during the period of petrol rationing had built a contraption onto the back of his vehicle which he called a "gas producer" or some such. In fact it was a small furnace burning coal dust, which somehow fueled the vehicle via a pipe along the side of it, as part of a primitive duel-fuel system, enabling him to drive from Kaikohe to Hamilton on two-and-a-half litres of petrol (or some similarly unlikely combination of distance and volume; I forget.)

    It would aparently peter out from time to time, as fires do, obliging him to alight and stoke the coal-dust fire before continuing on his journey.

    Auckland • Since Jan 2007 • 2618 posts Report Reply

  • Andrew Stevenson,

    My Dad told stories of holidays in the North Island where, with the car and trailer loaded up (5 kids, tent, food, petrol etc etc etc), they could not make up the hills. The solution was to turn the car around and, using the really low gearing of reverse, back up the winding gravel roads.

    Wellington • Since Nov 2006 • 206 posts Report Reply

  • giovanni tiso,

    Lovely story, Hilary.

    Wellington • Since Jun 2007 • 7473 posts Report Reply

  • Sam F,

    @Steven - something like this? I suspect this is a charcoal burner that doesn't actually power the vehicle itself, but still.

    Wood gas was of course the big replacement fuel in Europe when petrol was scarce during the war - any period film set at the time will likely include a truck or car with a wood gas unit strapped on top or behind the cab.

    Auckland • Since Nov 2006 • 1611 posts Report Reply

  • Hilary Stace,

    Further to my mother's story of her 1920s road trip to Christchurch, her mother, aunt and grandparents drove around Britain in a rental car - an open tourer - in 1913. Their diary accounts were recently published for the family and are fascinating on many levels. Apparently, the grandparents thought that taking their daughters on such an OE would be a good way to meet some suitable young British suitors. However, my grandmother was already besotted with my grandfather, the young lawyer from Waimate, who came from the wrong part of Christchurch, and who features as Dad the driver in my mother's story.

    Wgtn • Since Jun 2008 • 3229 posts Report Reply

  • Sam F,

    Sounds fascinating. I'd happily devour more of your mother's travel stories, should you feel inclined to share more, and I'm pretty sure I'm not alone...

    Auckland • Since Nov 2006 • 1611 posts Report Reply

  • Geoff Lealand,

    My sister and I both used to get horribly car-sick, so my parents used to stick a couple of old icecream containers in the back so we could throw up with a minimum of mess.

    Still do. Nothing quite delightful as a download of recently picked raspberries, half-way through the Awakino Gorge.

    Screen & Media Studies, U… • Since Oct 2007 • 2562 posts Report Reply

  • Sacha,

    wet raincoats and widdle in the new entrants' cloakroom

    So that's what that smell was. Rob unlocks another of life's liddle mysteries.

    Ak • Since May 2008 • 19745 posts Report Reply

  • Sacha,

    happily devour more of your mother's travel stories, should you feel inclined to share more

    The next PAS book project, perhaps? I'd say talk with Haywood, but you may need a graceful agent..

    Ak • Since May 2008 • 19745 posts Report Reply

  • Emma Hart,

    happily devour more of your mother's travel stories, should you feel inclined to share more

    The next PAS book project, perhaps? I'd say talk with Haywood, but you may need a graceful agent..

    Heh, I'd been thinking, what would be cool would be a book of stories focusing on ordinary people's stories of the same road, through different periods. No doubt it's been done with very famous roads, but I think it's the ordinary-ness that makes it, somehow.

    Apart from the car, I found Emma, you writing about the houseand the other stationary symbols of the childhood journey, evocative, also.

    Thanks Stephen. I did ask my mother what make the huge old English car we had when I was little was, but she couldn't remember. We used to call it Hercules, and it could get up our steep snow-covered Taihape driveway no worries.

    We couldn't find any photos of the Orari house, but this is the house on Cone Road, at Waitohi. My grandfather is the little boy just to the right of the door. Fred and Sarah raised twelve children in that house, two of whom died in infancy.

    Christchurch • Since Nov 2006 • 4651 posts Report Reply

  • giovanni tiso,

    And that looks like my bike at left.

    Why, were you wondering where you had left it?

    Wellington • Since Jun 2007 • 7473 posts Report Reply

  • giovanni tiso,

    The Triptographer

    Oooohhh... excellent!

    Wellington • Since Jun 2007 • 7473 posts Report Reply

  • Emma Hart,

    Probably a vanguard standard, my guess, did it run of kero?

    Doesn't sound quite right. But I tell you what, you guys tell me, here it is. This is actually driving my mother crazy now I've brought it up.

    Christchurch • Since Nov 2006 • 4651 posts Report Reply

  • Sacha,

    Steven, I like this one of you at work.

    Ak • Since May 2008 • 19745 posts Report Reply

  • Joe Wylie,

    But I tell you what, you guys tell me, here it is.

    OK, I'll be a guy. My best guess.

    flat earth • Since Jan 2007 • 4593 posts Report Reply

  • Emma Hart,

    OK, I'll be a guy. My best guess.

    That does indeed look like the beast, Joe, thanks.

    Christchurch • Since Nov 2006 • 4651 posts Report Reply

  • Joe Wylie,

    Emma, I'm pretty sure it's a Vauxhall. While the pic's a little fuzzy, nothing else had those chrome scoopy things on the engine lid.

    From your story, though, I suspect it might have been a tad gruntier model than the one in the link above.

    flat earth • Since Jan 2007 • 4593 posts Report Reply

  • Hilary Stace,

    One last story from the family archives with a Christchurch/Timaru travel theme.

    Hood and Moncrieff were two New Zealand aviators who attempted to be the first people to cross the Tasman by plane in 1928. My mother recalls the event which happened while she was staying with her Christchurch grandparents for the school holidays. She goes on to mention her own flying experience and her first trip across the Tasman, in the days when flying was an unusual experience, for which people dressed up. This was written for my plane-spotter son. Some extracts:

    “There was a lot of excitement about the flight, but how would we hear if it had landed successfully? There was no TV, not even radio, and our grandparents like many people then had no telephone. The only way you heard news was through the newspapers.

    There was a little shop about ten minutes walk away which sold newspapers, so we thought there would be a poster there to tell us about the flight. So when the plane was due to arrive we walked up to the shop, but no signs, no news. Every hour or so we would walk up to the shop again, but no news, the plane had not yet arrived, nobody had heard anything. Then it was evening and still no news. The next morning we went up again, but still the plane had not arrived.

    The sad thing was that the plane never arrived, nobody knew what had happened to it. Had it crashed into the sea, or the mountains somewhere? Nobody ever found out. Some people said they had heard the sound of a plane, one idea was that it had gone right past New Zealand. We will never know. But I can still remember how anxiously we waited to hear the news which never came.

    But of course before long people did manage to fly the Tasman. Later that year, Sir Charles Kingsford Smith, an Australian, flew from Australia to New Zealand in his plane the Southern Cross. ...Why I remember the Southern Cross so well is that later it was flown all around New Zealand so that people could see it, and they made money by offering to take people up for flights. Which was of course very special and exciting because very few people had ever been in a plane....

    We are now in the early 1930s and I was at school in Timaru when the Southern Cross came to the small airport at Saltwater Creek. We had an essay competition at school with two prizes of a flight in the Southern Cross, and I was the lucky person who won one of them. ...So I had my very first flight. We took off from that little airport and flew around for the whole of ten minutes. How exciting it was to see, for the very first time, the land below us....

    Then in 1936 when commercial flights in New Zealand had just started, I was lucky enough to fly from Wellington to Christchurch. Planes were still very small. First we flew from Wellington to Blenheim in a little plane with six seats and one pilot – there were four passengers, and then we go on a bigger plane, a DH86, to fly to Christchurch. ...We took off from the little old Rongotai airport where there had been a bad flying accident a few days earlier, and two men had been killed. We could still see the wreckage on the ground which wasn’t very cheering. It took us about three hours to get to Christchurch, but of course it was much faster than going by overnight boat...

    The first time I flew across the Tasman was when we went to Melbourne in 1962. We went by TEAL flying boat which took off from the air base in Evans bay. I can’t remember how long it took to get to Melbourne but it seemed hours and hours, but again it was much faster than going by boat which took about three days....

    Sometimes when I see those big international planes flying overhead, I can’t help thinking how much we take them for granted and don’t always remember that things have not always been like this. And I think I am very lucky that I was able to see the world below us so long ago. And I still think what amazing things aeroplanes are.”

    From:
    J Stace (2005) Some memories of early flying days in New Zealand.

    Wgtn • Since Jun 2008 • 3229 posts Report Reply

  • G P,

    We called into Taihape a couple of days ago en route to Ohingaiti; got stuck in a traffic jam after stopping at the New World - 4- no 5 cars passed in a row - reminded me of Auckland.

    What I really wanted to say was, it is still a little jarring as we return home from holidays with the girls to get to the Bombay Hills on our way north to Papakura and feel that we are "nearly there". Having been raised on a farm near Rongotea in the Manawatu, and then living in the Wellington region for many years, it is still (even after 7 plus years up here) a bit disconcerting to find Auckland Motorway exit signs whilst heading north as indicators that our journey is nearly over.
    I still recall the first time I drove up to Auckland with my wife to be for a Toastmasters function, what a relief it was to leave the city to head south again, with appropriately, The Animals singing"Gotta get out of this place if it's the last thing I ever do" on the radio.

    Papakura • Since Jan 2009 • 7 posts Report Reply

  • giovanni tiso,

    Whereas I've come to the conclusion that Auckland doesn't exist. Aside from the motorway and the airport. And the skytower, which is probably made of painted balsa wood anyhow.

    Wellington • Since Jun 2007 • 7473 posts Report Reply

  • Emma Hart,

    Whereas I've come to the conclusion that Auckland doesn't exist. Aside from the motorway and the airport. And the skytower, which is probably made of painted balsa wood anyhow.

    And Point Chev and the Viaduct Basin, but otherwise your theory intrigues me.

    Christchurch • Since Nov 2006 • 4651 posts Report Reply

  • Sacha,

    Damn, they're onto our cunning holographic landmarks. :)

    Ak • Since May 2008 • 19745 posts Report Reply

  • giovanni tiso,

    I've been trying to visit it for ten years, but to no avail. It's like one of those tantalising videogame locations that you ought to be able to explore, but you can't, and they didn't bother to render them up close but only as a distant landscape.

    Plus I hear the mayor is a dick. So maybe Philip Dick?

    It's just a theory, mind.

    Taihape, on the other hand, exists and is magnificent. The Taihape Motel in particular is like one of those videogame locations rendered in perfect detail, I could spend hours flicking all the bits around. Great touch those Greek owners.

    Wellington • Since Jun 2007 • 7473 posts Report Reply

  • Sacha,

    Bloody good cafe in Taihape I recall - down a side street.

    Ak • Since May 2008 • 19745 posts Report Reply

  • Joe Wylie,

    Whereas I've come to the conclusion that Auckland doesn't exist. Aside from the motorway and the airport. And the skytower, which is probably made of painted balsa wood anyhow.

    Brigadorkland?

    The first time I flew across the Tasman was when we went to Melbourne in 1962. We went by TEAL flying boat which took off from the air base in Evans bay. I can’t remember how long it took to get to Melbourne but it seemed hours and hours, but again it was much faster than going by boat which took about three days....

    Thanks for that Hilary, great stuff. That must have been close to the last TEAL flight out of Evans Bay. There's precious little that's been written down about what flying was like then from the ordinary passenger's point of view. There's a nice but all too brief description of travelling to Sydney by flying boat in 1942 in Ruth Park's A Fence Around the Cuckoo. Her "first glimpse of Australia felix" was the sunlit sandstone cliffs of the Eastern beaches. How low they must have flown back then.

    flat earth • Since Jan 2007 • 4593 posts Report Reply

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