Leslie and Myfanwy
1925 Wedding
Dad also had a trained voice. Some of the songs which I remember him singing on numerous occasions are "The Road to Mandalay" and "Wandering the King's Highway" which he sang with much gusto. Apparently he had sung in a church choir in England as a Boy Soprano before coming to New Zealand.
Shortly after their marriage, Leslie and Myfanwy, moved to Te Awamutu where Leslie joined the late A.J.Sinclair in the establishment of the Te Awamutu Dairy Company. One season in a factory was enough, so when Tom Livingston asked Leslie to look after his farm at Tihikaramea while he went Big Game hunting in South Africa, he was glad to have the opportunity to again work with stock, which he enjoyed and understood. It was while they lived at Tuhikaramea that I, Mary, was born on 6th May 1926 at Tirohia Nursing Home in Frankton. On Tom Livingston's return, late in 1926, the young Kearvell family moved to Hunua Valley to break in a 500 acre property for the Hunua Land Company, owned by Robert Burns of John Burns and Co of Auckland. It was here that the family again increased with the birth of my sister, Olwyn, on 29th February 1928 (Leap Year).
4. THE DEPRESSION
We continued to live at Hunua until 1930 when Robert Burns transferred dad to the Kaikohe Land Company property of approximately 5000 acres in Northland. My first memory of this shift was the trip across Auckland harbour by ferry. Our car, a square shaped Chevrolet was first on to the barge type ferry, so we had a front position with only a chain between us and the water. I can well remember my mother, Myfanwy, being terrified that we may roll off into the sea.
As well as horses, a bullock team was used for heavy work on this large property. Dad was very proud of his own hack which he used to clip with a hand driven clipping machine. At the 1931 Kaihoke Show he received a Highly Commended award in Class 7 for his 11 stone Hack.
Labour from the nearby Maori Pa was used extensively for shearing, docking and general farm work. A delicacy for the Maori folk was the lambs tails, which were actually cut off with a sharp knife in those days. The castration of the male lambs was done with the operator's teeth. My father, who had his own teeth till well into old age, was an expert at it.
This is where I started school as the only white child at the Tautoro Maori school. The Bower family, from a neighbouring property, had maori blood from their mother's side and also attended the school. They were to be lifelong friends of the Kearvell family.
My eldest brother, Francis Owen ("Frank") was born on 20th July 1932 at the Kawakawa
hospital. While Mum was in hospital I stayed in the school house and, while there,
was taught how to knit -
In 1933, the late Dan Bryant was organising a land settlement scheme for unemployed
at Kairangi, near Cambridge, and Leslie was appointed the first Manager of the workparty,
which was to transform a mass of fern, ti trees and ragwort into productive farmland.
The house which was allotted to the Manager was in a state of disrepair so, until
it was made habitable for a young family, Mum and we children went to stay in Whakatane
where Granny and Granddad Jones were living at the time. I was enrolled at the Whakatane
Primary School. The Kearvell family eventually took up residence in the marx homestead
on the property at Kairangi on the 20th November 1933. There were 22 men employed
on the block, including 15 permanent settlers whose children attended the Roto-
Many of the first huts on the settlement were very primitive; corrugated iron with sacking for window drapes. As the land was cleared the building of permanent homesteads was undertaken. With pride of possession the families soon set about beautifying their homes. The roads were just dirt tracks. Children of that time made their own fun. One very popular pastime was bird nesting and cooking the bird eggs in an old tobacco tin over a twig fire.
This was a very close knit community which made their own entertainment. A social club was formed with Leslie Kearvell as Chairman and Myfanwy as Secretary. Many happy hours were spent at the home of the manager, listening to addresses on farm subjects or dancing to gramophone or accordion music.