Posts by Hilary Stace

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  • Up Front: The Home Straight,

    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

  • Up Front: The Home Straight,

    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

  • Up Front: The Home Straight,

    Emma’s post reminded me of a story my mother wrote for my young daughter several years ago, about the regular summer holiday trip her family took in the 1920s from Waimate to Christchurch to visit both sets of grandparents. She is dead now and I am grateful for these stories (another was about her first plane flight in the 1930s).

    The trip took all day on unsealed roads in their Essex car with its crank starter, the spare tyre strapped to one running board and the petrol can to the other. A box was strapped on to the back for the luggage, the roof was canvas and the fresh air from the flapping side curtains (this was before glass windows or petrol stations) was still not enough to prevent car sickness.

    Here are some extracts from the Timaru to Christchurch segment:

    “…And on towards the Rangitata, the first of the big Canterbury braided rivers, with their wide river beds, their snow fed water. And here we had to climb a steep rise to the plain above. This was one of the danger spots, and we were waiting for it to happen, for the radiator to boil with a great gush of steam. Then we would have to stop, wait for the steam to die down before Dad could get near it, to take the top off and refill it with fresh water. With luck we would have remembered to bring a spare bottle of water with us, and we did have a spare of just about everything; otherwise it meant a walk down to the river – lucky there was some water handy – to get enough to fill it again. …At last the cooled-down radiator would be filled again, and with a few cranks of the crank handle the car would start again, and we would be off, along the straight flat road across the Canterbury plains. … And the day getting hotter and dustier.

    And what about the petrol? We had to keep remembering, Dad had to keep checking, dipping a stick into the petrol tank, and making sure he didn’t let it get too low. Not a matter of looking for the next petrol station, but it was stop on the roadside, unstrap the four gallon tin from the running board, make sure you had brought the pourer, and tip in enough to fill the tank. And amid the petrol fumes, drive off again.

    It was now well past mid day, and we would watch for a more pleasant place to have our lunch, like one of the river beds. And preferably somewhere where another car hadn’t just passed, enveloping us all in a cloud of yellow dust.

    Our travelling speed was about 20-30 mph, so we had plenty of time to view the passing landscape. On either side of the long straight road were paddocks with crops of wheat or oats, or sheep or cows, but mainly it as the shelter belts of trees that gave us something go to watch. A dark row of trees would loom in the distance, gradually grow bigger, then we would pass through them. As they faded into the distance another row would loom in front of us.

    There was one moment we watched for, the first sight of the Port Hills, faint in the distance, but there, that was where were going, we could actually see them, it wouldn’t be long now, only about another two hours. Even Dad was more cheerful, then – whoomph, wobble, creak, groan. What we always dreaded, but had escaped so far, a flat tyre; we had just passed an extra rough piece of road.

    So it was all out, unstrap the spare, our one and only spare, any more punctures meant Dad had to mend it there and then, take out the tube, get out the repair set, find the hole, stick on the patch, get the tube back inside the tyre, and so on. … But this time it was the only tyre he had to change, jack up the car, unscrew the bolts, and all the rest of it, accompanied by huffing and puffing in the afternoon sun, and some muttered swear words.

    So, at last on again, and still one more excitement, the Rakaia River, the biggest of all the rivers, with its one bridge for both cars and train, more than a mile long. If the train was due we would have to wait while a man with a flag came out of his hut and shut the road gate while the train huffed into view and rattled across. Then he would open the gate again, and let the line of waiting cars onto the bridge to straddle the railway lines, and wait in the bay half way across to let the cars coming the other way pass….

    Then at last, the beginning of Christchurch; Riccarton, Fendalton, into the Square, the hills were just ahead of us… It was past five, the heat of the day was passing, it had been a long day, but we had made it, all on one piece, four wheels still turning, petrol still holding, only one puncture … 130 miles all in one day, more than eight hours on the road, and we were there. And two weeks later, the same trip, back again to where we started.”

    From:
    J Stace (1994) Driving to Christchurch – somewhere in the 1920s.

    Wgtn • Since Jun 2008 • 3229 posts Report Reply

  • Up Front: The Home Straight,

    There seems to be some serious automobile nostalgia going on here. As someone who can usually find an autism angle to any subject, can I suggest the website of 'Aspergian' John Elder Robison. http://jerobison.blogspot.com. The older brother of writer Augusten Burroughs, he writes that machines were his only friends growing up and he now has a business restoring European cars in Springfield Massachusetts. But his blog frequently features his favourite cars, motorbikes, trains, tractors etc, among the fascinating information about Aspergers, his life and times (he is in demand as a writer and speaker and his autobiography is called Look me in the Eye). Currently there are photos and descriptions of a range of Indian motorbikes, and even an Indian car.

    Wgtn • Since Jun 2008 • 3229 posts Report Reply

  • Hard News: The Interesting Party,

    Craig, good to see you survived the never-ending nosebleed.

    Wgtn • Since Jun 2008 • 3229 posts Report Reply

  • Up Front: The Home Straight,

    It could have been Chitty Chitty Bang Bang, a 1968 movie starring Dick Van Dyke, based on the book (which was much better) by Ian Fleming.

    Wgtn • Since Jun 2008 • 3229 posts Report Reply

  • Current Status: Holidays,

    Healthline ph 0800 611 116 provides free (at least for now) health information. It's staffed by real health professionals.

    Wgtn • Since Jun 2008 • 3229 posts Report Reply

  • Hard News: The Interesting Party,

    Thanks for that clear instruction Heather. I have been trying to work out how to do links but I haven't the right neuron connections (or patience) to get it right.

    Wgtn • Since Jun 2008 • 3229 posts Report Reply

  • Current Status: Holidays,

    Robbery, I was thinking the same thing about the lack of coverage of the New Year countdown. National Radio did, but TV abysmal. Yet lots of families and kids want to be part of more than a re-run of the Sound of Music, or a public concert.

    Having had Freeview now for two days, I realise that is where public TV has gone. TV6 and 7 have some great programmes, hardly any ads, news programmes at sensible times, and lots of NZ stuff - like coverage of New Year. So it is shocking that it is only available to those who can afford a freeview box. The state broadcaster should be giving them to the citizens.

    Wgtn • Since Jun 2008 • 3229 posts Report Reply

  • Hard News: The Interesting Party,

    50th anniversary of the Cuban revolution today.

    Wgtn • Since Jun 2008 • 3229 posts Report Reply

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