A Strange Man
Good afternoon Peter. Did you get the photos I mailed to you — the ones showing how the Gambia’s depth charge netted a harvest of stunned fish?
Yes, they arrived today — the photos that is, not the fish. My brother Fred was very proud of his ship, but he found those wartime days were a far cry from our childhood. We spent a lot of our earlier years in the old College Street house, and we’d walk half the length of the street to get to College Street School. Quite a walk, and we’d march off in bare feet. Even as kids much of life was all very military. At school, during World War 1, we’d line up, then march into school.
We did that during World War 2. They’d play the ‘Colonel Bogey March’ over loud speakers. Military band music. The headmaster would bellow out, ‘Left right left right. Swing those arms! Keep in line!’
That’s what it was like for us, back in our day too. A kind of parade atmosphere. Military.
Peter, in some of your earlier stories you spoke a lot about guns. The other day Kathi accidentally fired off our air pistol inside the house — a few ricochets but no harm done. Did you ever had any accidents with your guns?
I’ve told you how sensible our father was when it came to weapons. He was a good father in that respect. He’d educate us and show how that if you did certain things there’s be some inevitable result. He’d explain what might happen. We were extremely careful.
So you had no accidents?
Well, come to think of it, I suppose there was one little incident that could have been serious, but in the main we knew what we were about. I’d call it an incident rather than an ‘accident’. Some of the woman chided Dad for letting us roam the countryside with a gun. ‘They’ve no right to be seen outside with a gun!’ But for us that was a great adventure.
See, we were townies, brought up in College Street, in Palmerston North. That was our home place, and so it was good to get out and about. Bill and I spent a lot of time exploring the countryside with our little gun. The pea rifle was the smallest calibre real rifle you could buy — it was know as a ‘twenty-two’. It came with a strap on it, and we’d jump on our bikes, and sling the rifle over our shoulder and pedal off to hunt rabbits.
Dad was doing us a good turn. We had our very own rifle. Owning such a thing was quite interesting in fact. We’d sit around and learn how to clean it and oil it and check it all over. And my old Aunt Florrie, she’d just shake her head and say, ‘Guns, guns, guns, it’s a Leyland thing.’
And what about the accident — the, er, incident?
Oh, the accident — yes, we heard all about the mishaps kids had with pea rifles. There was often something in the news. We’d read the details in the paper, so we knew what went on, and that some kid got shot in the face, or a neighbour got wounded. It was fairly common
I’ve had a few guns in my time, and there was one I got that I really cherished. It was a repeater, with what was called a ‘lever action’. Underneath the barrel there was a long tube, all loaded up with shells.
Shells? A shotgun?
No, a rifle, loaded with cartridges — bullets — but sometimes we called them shells. Now the tube had a lever mechanism and after you’d fired a shot you could push this lever down with the back of your hand, a smooth motion, and it would eject the spent cartridge, then you’d flick the lever up again and it would load the next round into the firing chamber with.
I’ve seen those guns in cowboy movies.
Oh yes, they had them in America. And I was quite proud of this gun of mine.
What make was it?
There were lots of brands, and as you say, they were widespread in America. They had the Remington, and they had the Winchester, and there were all different prices. You bought what brand and model you could afford, or, if you were really keen you’d even buy one you couldn’t afford — if you had a passion for it.
There was one popular English brand. BSA. Birmingham Small Arms Company. They manufactured pistols and revolvers and rifles and such.
Was your lever-action a BSA?
It’s a funny thing, but I don’t remember the brand — it’ll come to me. But I do remember I had a BSA motorbike. In fact, after a while I got a second one. Another BSA.
What happened to the first motorbike?
Now there’s a story that upsets me.
Oh, I didn’t mean to …
See, when we were young we had to be careful with our money, and usually, if something was broken, like on our bike or motorbike, we’d have a go at fixing it ourselves. If it wasn’t going, then we’d have to try and do it on the cheap. Improvise. Make do. If it needed repairing we couldn’t afford to rush it off to the experts like people do today. No, if it was severely broken it might have to sit and wait while we saved the money or got around to it.. or figured out what to do.
Now, in those days the clothes got washed in a separate shed or room outside that wasn’t part of the house. There’d be a copper tub in there and you’d light a fire under it to boil the water. The old house in College Street was owned by my grandfather by this stage, by Old Phil, and it had an outside washhouse, and I’d leaned my broken motorbike up there against it. My B.S.A. was waiting to get fixed.
Now when I’d come home after a hard day’s work, I’d feel good. I WAS HOME! And Aunty Florrie would give me a hug, and give me a feed, and there was my bike, leaning up against the washhouse wall like always — waiting to get fixed. You could see it from the house when you looked out the back door. Three steps down and there she was, where I’d always parked it.
But one day I remember looking out the back door, and all of a sudden I noticed my bike was missing! IT WAS GONE! It was gone from it’s permanent home. I asked Aunty Florrie what had happened to it.
‘You grandfather took it,’ she said.
‘What! WHAT!’
It turned out that Old Phil had taken it into his head to have a clean up of the yard. He was about 80 years old at the time, and nearing the end of his working days in the cartage business, but he still had one old cart and one old workhorse, the horse named ‘Dick’. According to Florrie the old man had hitched Dick up to the old cart and loaded all sorts of stuff off to the tip. And along with that he’d dumped my broken motorbike. He just did it. It really upset me. He’d casually hitched up his horse and had a clean out. Dumped my bike, my B.S.A., down by the river.
What possessed him to dump a motorbike?
I don’t know what got into him, and no matter how I tried I couldn’t get an explanation out of him. He was a strange man in some ways, a very strange man. Of course he was reared in Yorkshire as a child, the early years. Yorkshire parents. And he, as a Yorkshireman, was known for being stubborn, very stubborn. I couldn’t understand him. What he did really floored me.
Aunt Florrie seemed to understand the old bugger, or she attempted to, but even she couldn’t really explain him. She tried. ‘Peter, you know that your grandfather owns the house, and he has to pay the rates and do the maintenance and repairs. It’s his place and …’
‘What’s that got to do with it?’ I said. ‘The bike wasn’t his property. It was mine!’
Peter, as you know, I never got to met him, but I got the impression from your earlier stories that he was a sensible old chap. A nice guy. A fine man.
He was a pig-headed old bugger, that’s what he was. What he did back then in the 1930s, it really upset me, and it still does.
Aunt Florrie, she stuck up for me. She said, ‘That old devil had no right to do that!’
But Old Phil had a very strong belief that he could do exactly what he damned well wanted to. Stubborn. Of course he was a Yorkshireman.
Florrie had another angle on it all, a simple explanation to her way of thinking. She said to me, ‘Peter, my father is a horseman. That’s always been his mode of transport. When he lived up around Waipawa he was a shearer, a contractor, and he moved all over the district, and when he went off shearing sheep he always rode on horseback.’
So that’s how Old Phil got around. A horse. He had no time for motors, no time at all for them. So when he moved around shearing — it was seasonal work of course, you did the job when the farmer wanted it done, and it was all done by hand in those days, hand shears, clippers, click go the shears — Old Phil rode the land on his horse. The HORSE was the important thing — the horse, the horse, the horse. And after his horse days were over he never got a car or motorbike. He walked. In fact he became famous for it — got mentioned in the newspaper. He walked to the A&P show, and walked to vote. And when he was very old, in his later years he would walk miles to visit us, and he’d sit for a while and rest, and he might nod off, then he’d up and walk all the way back home.
So to him a motorbike was nothing, nothing at all, and it was just a ‘lad-thing’ — of no consequence whatsoever. That was the angle Florrie put on it.
But no matter what his thinking was, what he did to my motorbike really upset me.
You haven’t got over it, have you?
Not really. I still think about it, eighty years later
Yes, they arrived today — the photos that is, not the fish. My brother Fred was very proud of his ship, but he found those wartime days were a far cry from our childhood. We spent a lot of our earlier years in the old College Street house, and we’d walk half the length of the street to get to College Street School. Quite a walk, and we’d march off in bare feet. Even as kids much of life was all very military. At school, during World War 1, we’d line up, then march into school.
We did that during World War 2. They’d play the ‘Colonel Bogey March’ over loud speakers. Military band music. The headmaster would bellow out, ‘Left right left right. Swing those arms! Keep in line!’
That’s what it was like for us, back in our day too. A kind of parade atmosphere. Military.
Peter, in some of your earlier stories you spoke a lot about guns. The other day Kathi accidentally fired off our air pistol inside the house — a few ricochets but no harm done. Did you ever had any accidents with your guns?
I’ve told you how sensible our father was when it came to weapons. He was a good father in that respect. He’d educate us and show how that if you did certain things there’s be some inevitable result. He’d explain what might happen. We were extremely careful.
So you had no accidents?
Well, come to think of it, I suppose there was one little incident that could have been serious, but in the main we knew what we were about. I’d call it an incident rather than an ‘accident’. Some of the woman chided Dad for letting us roam the countryside with a gun. ‘They’ve no right to be seen outside with a gun!’ But for us that was a great adventure.
See, we were townies, brought up in College Street, in Palmerston North. That was our home place, and so it was good to get out and about. Bill and I spent a lot of time exploring the countryside with our little gun. The pea rifle was the smallest calibre real rifle you could buy — it was know as a ‘twenty-two’. It came with a strap on it, and we’d jump on our bikes, and sling the rifle over our shoulder and pedal off to hunt rabbits.
Dad was doing us a good turn. We had our very own rifle. Owning such a thing was quite interesting in fact. We’d sit around and learn how to clean it and oil it and check it all over. And my old Aunt Florrie, she’d just shake her head and say, ‘Guns, guns, guns, it’s a Leyland thing.’
And what about the accident — the, er, incident?
Oh, the accident — yes, we heard all about the mishaps kids had with pea rifles. There was often something in the news. We’d read the details in the paper, so we knew what went on, and that some kid got shot in the face, or a neighbour got wounded. It was fairly common
I’ve had a few guns in my time, and there was one I got that I really cherished. It was a repeater, with what was called a ‘lever action’. Underneath the barrel there was a long tube, all loaded up with shells.
Shells? A shotgun?
No, a rifle, loaded with cartridges — bullets — but sometimes we called them shells. Now the tube had a lever mechanism and after you’d fired a shot you could push this lever down with the back of your hand, a smooth motion, and it would eject the spent cartridge, then you’d flick the lever up again and it would load the next round into the firing chamber with.
I’ve seen those guns in cowboy movies.
Oh yes, they had them in America. And I was quite proud of this gun of mine.
What make was it?
There were lots of brands, and as you say, they were widespread in America. They had the Remington, and they had the Winchester, and there were all different prices. You bought what brand and model you could afford, or, if you were really keen you’d even buy one you couldn’t afford — if you had a passion for it.
There was one popular English brand. BSA. Birmingham Small Arms Company. They manufactured pistols and revolvers and rifles and such.
Was your lever-action a BSA?
It’s a funny thing, but I don’t remember the brand — it’ll come to me. But I do remember I had a BSA motorbike. In fact, after a while I got a second one. Another BSA.
What happened to the first motorbike?
Now there’s a story that upsets me.
Oh, I didn’t mean to …
See, when we were young we had to be careful with our money, and usually, if something was broken, like on our bike or motorbike, we’d have a go at fixing it ourselves. If it wasn’t going, then we’d have to try and do it on the cheap. Improvise. Make do. If it needed repairing we couldn’t afford to rush it off to the experts like people do today. No, if it was severely broken it might have to sit and wait while we saved the money or got around to it.. or figured out what to do.
Now, in those days the clothes got washed in a separate shed or room outside that wasn’t part of the house. There’d be a copper tub in there and you’d light a fire under it to boil the water. The old house in College Street was owned by my grandfather by this stage, by Old Phil, and it had an outside washhouse, and I’d leaned my broken motorbike up there against it. My B.S.A. was waiting to get fixed.
Now when I’d come home after a hard day’s work, I’d feel good. I WAS HOME! And Aunty Florrie would give me a hug, and give me a feed, and there was my bike, leaning up against the washhouse wall like always — waiting to get fixed. You could see it from the house when you looked out the back door. Three steps down and there she was, where I’d always parked it.
But one day I remember looking out the back door, and all of a sudden I noticed my bike was missing! IT WAS GONE! It was gone from it’s permanent home. I asked Aunty Florrie what had happened to it.
‘You grandfather took it,’ she said.
‘What! WHAT!’
It turned out that Old Phil had taken it into his head to have a clean up of the yard. He was about 80 years old at the time, and nearing the end of his working days in the cartage business, but he still had one old cart and one old workhorse, the horse named ‘Dick’. According to Florrie the old man had hitched Dick up to the old cart and loaded all sorts of stuff off to the tip. And along with that he’d dumped my broken motorbike. He just did it. It really upset me. He’d casually hitched up his horse and had a clean out. Dumped my bike, my B.S.A., down by the river.
What possessed him to dump a motorbike?
I don’t know what got into him, and no matter how I tried I couldn’t get an explanation out of him. He was a strange man in some ways, a very strange man. Of course he was reared in Yorkshire as a child, the early years. Yorkshire parents. And he, as a Yorkshireman, was known for being stubborn, very stubborn. I couldn’t understand him. What he did really floored me.
Aunt Florrie seemed to understand the old bugger, or she attempted to, but even she couldn’t really explain him. She tried. ‘Peter, you know that your grandfather owns the house, and he has to pay the rates and do the maintenance and repairs. It’s his place and …’
‘What’s that got to do with it?’ I said. ‘The bike wasn’t his property. It was mine!’
Peter, as you know, I never got to met him, but I got the impression from your earlier stories that he was a sensible old chap. A nice guy. A fine man.
He was a pig-headed old bugger, that’s what he was. What he did back then in the 1930s, it really upset me, and it still does.
Aunt Florrie, she stuck up for me. She said, ‘That old devil had no right to do that!’
But Old Phil had a very strong belief that he could do exactly what he damned well wanted to. Stubborn. Of course he was a Yorkshireman.
Florrie had another angle on it all, a simple explanation to her way of thinking. She said to me, ‘Peter, my father is a horseman. That’s always been his mode of transport. When he lived up around Waipawa he was a shearer, a contractor, and he moved all over the district, and when he went off shearing sheep he always rode on horseback.’
So that’s how Old Phil got around. A horse. He had no time for motors, no time at all for them. So when he moved around shearing — it was seasonal work of course, you did the job when the farmer wanted it done, and it was all done by hand in those days, hand shears, clippers, click go the shears — Old Phil rode the land on his horse. The HORSE was the important thing — the horse, the horse, the horse. And after his horse days were over he never got a car or motorbike. He walked. In fact he became famous for it — got mentioned in the newspaper. He walked to the A&P show, and walked to vote. And when he was very old, in his later years he would walk miles to visit us, and he’d sit for a while and rest, and he might nod off, then he’d up and walk all the way back home.
So to him a motorbike was nothing, nothing at all, and it was just a ‘lad-thing’ — of no consequence whatsoever. That was the angle Florrie put on it.
But no matter what his thinking was, what he did to my motorbike really upset me.
You haven’t got over it, have you?
Not really. I still think about it, eighty years later