Penwill Properties

Home Life

When Joan and I moved in to the Eden Street house David didn’t want to live with us. He wanted to go flatting with his mates. He was only 16 years old but a person who wouldn’t accept advice and I got sick and tired of arguing. So we let him try. This he did intermittently with the odd stop at home. When he was 18, he met a Maori girl from Gisborne whom he made pregnant. Her parents insisted they get married and he went to live in Gisborne. They had a lot of strife and finally separated. But she wasn’t interested in her child “Tony” so David brought him back to Auckland and promptly left him with us to bring up. Joan enjoyed that until he started school then he became a bit too much for her and he went back to live with David.

David had a series of jobs until he settled to work with the roading contractor “Warren Fowler Ltd” and soon got to driving earth machines. This he enjoyed.

He also met up with another Maori girl and they settled in together. He then had an idea he wanted to tour in Australia. So they moved over there. But settled in a small village with not much work. He got a job truck driving, until a mishap when he tipped the truck over, no more work. Also Tony was becoming a handful for Joan. So Darlene came over from Aussie and collected him. Life there was grim for them and Darlene became pregnant so suddenly they all came back to us. David’s second job back here was as a driver and sales man with a tyre company and he really found his niche. He worked from Otahuhu for the first year or so, then they put him as manager for the Whangarei branch where he worked up the business very well. But there were a lot of hours involved, a lot of hassles and a lot entertaining of customers and they began to wreck his health. He searched around and finally bought the motor garage in Rawene. This suited Darlene as her family lived in that area. He did very well in the garage and still does. He also bought a rough farm with a house on it, where they could live and he could raise beef stock.

His children Tony and Erina, grew up there and are now adult. Tony has moved to England to live and I presume is doing ok. Erina became an unmarried mother, but is quite happy with her baby. David and Darlene have separated now and he has another partner named Christine along with her three children who are in the 14 to 19 age groups.

Meanwhile Joan and I lived on quite happily and after Tony left us, we had more freedom. This allowed is to do some overseas trips after we had seen most of New Zealand.

The first trip was to Cairns in Australia. Had a very pleasant week there doing various tours out. One day was a bus trip to the Atherton Tablelands. Around a lot of Australia, the geography shows a flat strip along the coast, which is often quite wet and jungley. Near Cairns, this strip is from 5 to 10 miles wide back from the coast and ideal for growing sugar cane.

Then there is a steep cliff-like escarpment, which rises from 400ft to 1000ft above sea level. This cliff causes most of the rain to fall on the lower level and on the plateau above the land is much more suitable for dairy farming and agricultural crops. The rainfall levels reduce quite rapidly as one moves back from the escarpment until one gets into dry sheep country.

Another trip we did was in a rack and pinion railway up the escarpment to a small town at the top. Used to carry goods on the railways but now is mostly for tourist passengers. There is a very interesting trip out to Green Island where we spent several hours looking at live coral formations and other sea life. All very colourful. We then went down to Brisbane for a week and toured about there, but now nearly as interesting as Cairns.

Our second trip was to Western Australia. Had a couple of days around Perth before moving off down the coast in a Campervan. Followed the coast or near it to Cape Leellwin then along to Albany. The coastal areas are heavily forested with small areas where agricultural farming is possible. Some dairying and a lot of crops like grapes, nuts and specialised fruits along with logging as the original and ongoing industry. Most timbers are hardwoods like Kauri and Jarrah. Albany turned out to be a small town. Nothing the size indicated on the maps.

From there, we turned north to pass along the “Sterling Range”. A range of hills famous for its display of wild flowers, which was one of the things we had come to see. On up from there onto the plateau areas which are wheat growing area in the good parts and sheeplands in between. All rather dry and barren with the odd water hole and clumps of Gumtrees. We had a look at the Wave Rock; an outcrop of wind scoured granite. Then headed towards the coast north of Perth to see an area of petrified vegetation. Back to Perth for 4 days then fly to Melbourne to visit Joan’s cousin before heading home.

During the middle 1970s, Joan was diagnosed as having breast cancer. She had surgery and cobalt ray treatments, which stopped it for a couple of years. The cancer reoccurred in her left lung. She had to have Chemotherapy. A terrible treatment where they drip-fed about 2 litres of chemicals into her arms over about 4 hours. This left her like a zombie and likely to vomit or diarrhoea. I then took her home to bed. About 11pm, I had to waken her up and give her two pills, which set her off vomiting and shitting. This went on until 2-3 o’clock when she would doze off. Until 8am when the pills and their effects were repeated. She perked up 6-7 days after treatment, then after 14 days went back for another dose. This went on for four or five months then a three-month break before the second lot of treatment. After that, she wasn’t responding so I just had to take her home and watch her gradually deteriorate.

I was also trying to do building when I could and being pushed for time I rushed and got myself a hernia.

Also at the beginning of 1984 my mother was killed in a motor accident. My Dad had died of cancer about two years before that. Not a very happy period. At the end of 1984, it was decided I should have my hernia repaired. To do so, the cancer society arranged for Joan to go into the Presbyterian Geriatric Hospital at Manurewa for 3 weeks. She was admitted on Sunday the 10th November and next day I went for my operation. I was in there for two nights then went to stay with my sister Joyce. They took me to see Joan most evenings but they both went to work. On 24th November, I was allowed to drive myself. So spent the afternoon with Joan. Just before six, she got a bad coughing fit and before we could do anything much, she had died. After her funeral I stayed with Joyce until was fit enough to look after myself, then I went home. Over Christmas, my sisters all said I should get a job where I was with other people.

I answered an advert for a maintenance carpenter of King’s College, which sounded ok. They wanted three carpenters and also had two groundsmen so perhaps somebody to talk to. But I soon found that each chippy was given a separate job to do, and mostly worked alone. Come meal times there was often insufficient time to go back to the lunchroom so on my own in lunchroom. One groundsman only wanted to read his paper during meals and resented anybody talking. The other groundsman never stopped talking, but his accent was Manchester slum. He always wore a cigarette on his lip and never wore his false teeth. Virtually unintelligible to me. Also while he was there one of the carpenters and he always played cribbage. Most of their conversation was abusing and accusing each other over the cards. So no conversation there. Then the other two carpenters left and their replacement was a Geordy with a terrible accent.

Another grouse: the supervisor was always promising to upgrade their equipment but with no intention of ever doing so. I stuck it for six months then for out. The new job was canceled the day before I was to start with them. So I tried self-employment again but it takes a long time to get started.

Then a job became available as “Wood work Instructor” with the occupational therapy dept at Middlemore Hospital. The first 15 to 18 months were fine then things began to go wrong.

The job was partly to provide useful jobs that also acted as an exercise for patients who needed exercises, the other half was to keep a stock of aids for patients to use. A lot of their making was to be incorporated into the first section. The trouble came when some of the OTs wanted an exercise for a specific purpose but expected it to be ready in about 10 mins. This was not always possible as it involved me in preparing materials. Particularly when the OTs didn’t want their patients using machinery. The woman in charge was a spinster who had a hearing difficulty. She had been part deaf from birth and during early childhood had almost invariably misheard instructions. This gave her the impression that no matter what she did it would be wrong so do it and to hell with the consequences. She was also inclined to ball people out as and where she felt like it, so was not at all popular. Towards the end of my time there she had a go at me, including prying and criticising my own private life. Soon after when it suited me I gave notice.

The only good thing for me from that job was meeting Shirley Moody. She started there as an OT aid soon after I started. Part of her job was to collect patient aids from my storage and take them to their area for distribution. We soon found we got along well and as she was divorced, we could spend a lot of our free time together. I had bought a small keel yacht and I introduced Shirley to sailing. She was rather cautious to start but soon found she enjoyed it a lot. After about 18 months, we decided to marry. Caused a bit of a ruffle at the hospital as we had kept everything very quiet until the actual weekend. When I decided to leave, we had planned a tour of the South Island basically so we could meet relatives. My Aunty Elsie lived at Kaiapoi and Shirley’s elder daughter lived at Twizell and we eventually had a week with each of them. It also worked in with leaving Middlemore, and we could stay away as long as we liked. Eventually away 8 weeks and had a good look at most of South Island that we went to and a very pleasant and relaxed time. When we came back, I started self-employment again and Shirley got a part-time job with a chemist’s shop.

Work gradually improved. I was introduced to one of the contract supervisors with Ministry of Works Dept at Papakura (based at the Military Camp). He had originally started with MOW to oversee the painting side, then they changed things so that each supervisor looked after a whole contract. John Lee was rather lost with the building side and when I came along, he found somebody who could cost out a job, provide most of the materials and work on a sub-contract basis. Also being my own boss and no pay until each job was finished, I got on with the work. Not like a lot of their blokes on full-time.

Their work was not confined to the army camp, although I did do quite a lot there. We also did jobs for Education Board, local council, and justice dept, who turned out to be a good connection. Also a couple for social welfare and even private contracts. Anything he could tender for,

But MOW was being reorganised and eventually phased out at Papakura. From this restructuring, I let it be known that I could contract direct with clients and I got a lot of work via that; especially with the Justice Dept in Otahuhu. Nearly all nice semi-joinery type work where I was taking down internal walls and re-erecting them elsewhere. Most of these walls were gibboard clad part way up then had a glazed section at the top in varnished rimu. My joinery knowledge further helped me a lot as I had to make or alter cupboards, counters and other units and some were really good class work. Also I was co-operative about work times. They didn’t want anybody banging about near the actual courtrooms between 9.45 and 4pm weekdays. Another area was around the fines pay-in desks where a lot of people came during the day. So a lot of the main installation happened on a Saturday.

Social Welfare jobs involved space and special provisions for their new computer equipment. Several wanted walls to partition off a computer room all wanted a false floor to go under the equipment with under floor space provided for cabling. Also on one of these jobs I was shown how to do vinyl wall coverings. Rather different from domestic wallpapering but I found it easier even though the vinyl came 4ft wide. Very useful skill.

Other contract came through and things were reasonable until 1991 when government policies began to make everything very difficult. Also the influx of a lot of Asiatic people to Auckland didn’t help. They still looked at costs and tradesmen’s wages as they had in their own countries. Plus they all wanted to bargain and haggle over a price, which I was not used to, so not very good outlook.

During Christmas holidays 1989, we went cruising in “Ithica”, my tiny keel yacht. But weather was not good; lots of wind and heavy rain. We ended up with 2 ½ weeks stuck in “Parua Bay” on Whangarei harbour and bored to tears.

Meanwhile Shirley’s daughter Rae had given her a pamphlet about a group going to Nepal, mainly as backup and concession gainer, to help Gary Ball and Rob Hall, who wanted to climb Mt Everest. We decided to go but didn’t realise what we were letting ourselves in for.

We left Auckland about 1st of March and went to Singapore where we had two-night stop over. Then on to “Kathmandu” in Nepal and a culture shock. All the party were surprised at how poor the people were. Very nice people and very friendly. We had three nights in Kathmandu at a cheap hotel. All clean and tidy but no frills. Meals in restaurants were very cheap with many ethnic varieties to choose from. The only problem was everything we ate had to be boiling hot when you ate it otherwise you had diarrhoea and stomach aches. Couldn’t even use tap water to wash out our teeth. Had to buy sterile bottled water. After a couple of false starts, we flew to “Lukla” in the mountains and the start of our trek towards Mt Everest. Quite an airstrip set on a ridge at the junction between two valleys and very susceptible to cross winds, hence lots of delays waiting for weather.

The strip was not level about 10 degree slope, and after as landed we found it like a backcountry road with gravel up to 2″ diameter. But we made it. The airstrip was at 9400ft up and we went down to 8700ft for our first camp night. We all slept in two man double skinned dome tents. Very cosy.

Next morning we followed an earth and stone track alongside a river. Lots of people living in this valley. Main employment was subsistence farming of vegetables; being a porter and camp assistant to the various tourist groups, or carrying goods up the tracks, mostly from the road end to Namche Bazaar. The vehicle road winds and climbs for about 100 miles from Kathmandu but take vehicles 14 to 17 hours for the drive. From there to Nameche it is a 7-10 day walk according to load and fitness and everything that cannot be made in the area has to be carried in. Very little in the way for building except some glass, and some roofing iron. Only fuel carried in is kerosene and that is mostly for tourist stoves. Locals cook on wood fires and this is denuding the hillsides and causing erosion. When one considers it takes 50 years for a pine tree to grow from first out of the ground to 2-3 inch butt diameter, it is a very sad outlook.

Buildings: I was quite impressed with their workmanship. No electricity. So everything done by hand. Most timber is pitsawn, and used mainly for joinery, where pegged mortice and tenons are greatly used.

Walls were largely of dry stone and up to 18″ thick. All beautifully plumb and square. A lot of dwellings are two storeyed. Roofing as mostly wooden shingles. I presumed the stonework was chinked on the inside to reduce draughts because this area would be pitifully cold in winter. Inside some walls were overlaid with thin boards to improve appearance.

Nepal is like most Asiatic countries, being very much controlled by religious and their myths. There are several different actual religions but very little strife between groups. Around Kathmandu, it is largely Hindu types as in India and I suppose this is from migration from India.

Up the track, where we were there is a lot of Buddhist types that have crept in from Tibet and Chinese dominated areas. Also a lot of the people have a Mongolian facial appearance. These are the people who have become porters “Sherpas”. Quite a lot of small buildings to house a prayer wheel, part of their religion involved saying a prayer while turning the wheel. All very ornate with carvings and bright paint. Also several small water powered millwheels to grind up maize and other grains.

Another impressive structure is the bridges. Here a series of two or four logs are cantilevered out from each bank, then another set of logs cantilevered over these. The final span in the centre rests on both sets of cantilevers. No handrails, but very strong and quite adequate for the strong hearted.

After lunch, we began the real climb. From the river level up a near cliff face had been hacked into a flight of rough and very irregular steps. Rise per step carried from 4″ to 12″ and often adjacent. This stretch climbed about six to 700 feet then became a steep and winding zigzag track through pine trees. Their needles and the odd spot of mud covered frozen snow saw several people take a tumble. I was lucky and only got muddied. We stayed two nights at Nameche Bazaar (11,300ft). The day between is a rest day so we could acclimatise to the thin air. This I needed. Next stage was up to “Kunde” about 2000 feet higher. Here Ed Hillary had built a primitive hospital, When we called there the doctors in charge were a New Zealand couple doing a 3year stint. After a chat with them, we went down about 2000 ft to cross a river and the valley, then up again to Thangboche at 12716ft. Quite a lot of light snow falling as we went 2 nights at Thangboche but missed visiting the very famous monastery there as fire had destroyed a lot of it about a month earlier and so on we went. Up one day and rest the next, then up again. After the next village at 13950ft trees had become shrubs and in turn, these became grass and weeds. Just after Lobuche Shirley began to feel unwell and turned back to sleep in a guesthouse. I continued to Gorakshep at about 17000ft for that night. The last day up was to be a short stint up to Basecamp at 18500ft then return to Gorakshep. I felt that with the rate of progress it would become a very long day. Also my camera had given up and I was worried about Shirley. I decided to go back to Lobuche straight. Two others joined me. Next day started down, which was easier walking and with out rest days we were soon back to Lukla. Up early there and on the first flight out, back to Kathmandu. After another three nights there we flew to Bangkok for a stopover before heading home after a hard holiday. Interesting, but for me a once only trip.

Building work was sort of drying up and during 91 and 93 was very poor at times.

1993 David asked me to do some work on his house near Rawene. Finally agreed and began moving for up there. The first stage was a large deck with an open roof over it, and went reasonably well. Then they wanted the kitchen and lounge opened into one room and generally renovated. Also he and Darlene had a lot of grandiose and strange ideas and neither had the same, nor did they communicate with each other very much. So chaos.

Darlene is a very uncertain person and always wanting to know if it might not be better a different way.

The plumber was co-operative but when suddenly asked to start his side we found he was off for two weeks holiday and couldn’t cancel that. This made a delay and the bit he rushed in to try to start was wrong, so my efforts with that were of no use.

The electrician is very knowledgeable about his trade and in consequence was the electrician for all the important electrical work around Rawene. Like the hospital, the Fire Station and the Council work.

Several times he came on the site and got things all opened up when one of these other outfits would phone up and demand he do their job as it was urgent. He would return after several days wanting to carry on where he had left off, but I couldn’t get on because almost everything had to work around his wiring. Darlene didn’t help either because on those days she could change her mind and did. They already had twice as many lights and power points as anybody else would ever want.

I had to redo the kitchen and lounge ceilings with Michaelangelo tiles. As there was so much rubbish up in the old Pinex ceiling, I decided to leave it in tact and batten over the top. The house had been built in the 1950s before trusses were available. Most of the house framing was in OB Rimu, which twists terribly especially in a ceiling under a corrugated iron roof.

I spent a lot of time hacking off in places and slimming up in others to get the new battens to lay flat. Final job looked very good but a lot of time and effort to achieve that.

Finally in June I had come to a stage where I couldn’t do anything else much, so packed up and quit. I understand they finally had the kitchen units made and installed but the joinery firm nearly went mad with all Darlene’s changed and funny ideas.

Meanwhile while living at Rawene, we made a visit to Kerikeri one Saturday morning. Here Shirley began looking at houses for sale. We were shown photo details of one house at Rangitane a small settlement about 20 minute’s drive from Kerikeri. So drove out for a look at this house. Seemed to have most of the things we required. A pleasant outlook, the section not too large although a but more sloping than I would have liked. House access level with the drive and suitable for a wheelchair if that should ever be required.

There is also a large basement workshop, ideal for my joinery work. After thinking about it for a week we decided it suited us, so agreed to buy. We took possession mid April but didn’t move in full time until the end of June. This allowed Shirley time for carpet cleaning and some redecoration to the interior. The colour scheme chosen by the first owner’s was rather 1950s 1960s type and not our choice. But not beyond alteration and something we have done to all the interior walls.

We also had a lot of stuff to sort out and fetch up from Papatoetoe. We were finally in and began to settle down. Work was not over plentiful as in small settlements like Kerikeri, people wanting building work done tend to ask their friends and neighbours as to whom they would recommend which meant most jobs went to the established tradesmen who were known. But we survived, I got known at several establishments where I got repeatedly called once I was known. I did a lot of little repair jobs for the Polytech when they had prefab dwellings from the High school. I also subdivided one classroom into an office, a resource room for teachers and a lobby.

Top Energy the local power board had me do a lot of jobs at their offices and workshop in Kerikeri. A whole lot of shelving and sizing hessian board to their walls, first at Sylvian House and later at their new additional premises known as Larnak House. So I managed to fill in my time until I could officially retire in June 1997. There was some private work but mostly with people new to the area. I also did quite a lot of joinery for another builder once he got to know me.