Signposts – a blog about Te Ara the Encyclopedia of New Zealand

Lesley, Murray and Laurie Mabey riding to school on Great Barrier Island in the 1950s

Early this year we asked people to send us their stories about that great New Zealand institution: the country school. We received a steady trickle of letters and, interestingly, they were all from older people in their 70s, 80s and 90s, remembering schools in the 1930s, 1940s and 1950s. Perhaps that time was the heyday of country schools? Certainly there were many more of them back then.

Those stories are now up on the Te Ara website, attached to the entry on Country Schooling, and give fascinating insights into rural education. Most accounts are written from the point of view of the pupil, but we have one from a teacher, Helen Hirst, who began her career at the tiny Manahune School in North Canterbury in 1947. Many of our contributors also sent us their precious photos for us to scan, and there are some evocative ones. My personal favourite is the photo of Waiharakeke School near Kāwhia Harbour. Eileen Shaw, who went there in the 1940s, carefully labelled the main features, including the pony paddock, the playing field, the school gardens, and even the boys’ and girls’ toilets!

One of the stand-out experiences seems to have been the journey to school – by bus, horse or pony, or on foot. Many of our writers remember an arduous and sometimes rather scary trip – for instance Leslie Rockell’s epic horseback trek to school on Great Barrier Island. And reading about the mischief that Margaret Joll got up to with her brother and sister on their way to catch the school bus in the 1950s makes you realise how much more freedom kids had then – a contrast with modern childhood.

Several of our writers recalled the apples and milk that were handed out to all school children during these years as part of a government initiative to improve child health after the depression of the 1930s. Events unique to country schools, such as calf club day, also feature in several stories. As a gardener, I was particularly interested to read about the school garden projects – Celia Geary talks of the soup children made from vegetables they grew, while Mary Murphy remembers her prize-winning gladiolus. Gardening at school is back in fashion nowadays. But the cane – one of the few painful memories in these stories – seems unlikely to make a come-back, no doubt to the relief of children everywhere.

Part two of a two-part series. Part one was published yesterday.

I left you yesterday on Te Ara’s journey around Mt Ruapehu, having just survived crossing the route of the Whangaehu lahar. Next we began to climb, and before long hit thick snow. It was crampons-on time, and trampers became mountaineers. Once again we were grateful for modern technology. All very different, as the mountaineering entry reminds us, from when Europeans began climbing on Ruapehu in the mid-19th century. George Grey, we learn, climbed the north peak of Ruapehu in 1853.

We stayed the night in Whangaehu hut – apparently, at over 2,000 metres, the highest hut in the North Island. It was so cold that we had to break the ice in the water tank to get water, and my boots froze inside the hut. Surely it approached the lowest recorded temperature in the North Island – a chilly minus 13.7 centigrade recorded just across the mountain at Chateau Tongariro in July 1937. There was a full moon and a clear sky, so one of our party (who I’ll introduce later) lit candles in the window of the hut, and then went outside with his tripod to record the scene.

Whangaehu hut in the light of the full moon (photo by Shaun Barnett)

At lunchtime we reached Crater Lake – a peaceful snowy scene on a glorious winter’s day – very different from what it looks elsewhere in Te Ara – we have no less than 85 image or media items related to the mountain, ranging from awe-inspiring films of the 1945 and 1996 eruptions, through to a benign scene of swimming in crater lake!

We could look across to Mt Taranaki glistening in the sun. What was the famous tradition about Tongariro, Taranaki, and their love for Pihanga? Te Ara tells us several versions: there is a Ngāti Tuwharetoa story; a Ngāti Maniapoto story; a Taranaki story; and a Whanganui one. Choose your iwi and take your choice.

We descended down to the Turoa ski field, where with snowboarders racing and snow-makers blowing, we experienced the most dangerous conditions and worst weather of the whole trip! But who were we to complain, for, as the skiing entry reminds us, large commercial ski-fields are a comparative rarity in New Zealand’s mountains.

It was a classic tramp, but it would have been even better if I had charged the cellphone and Te Ara had been at hand throughout. Though, to be honest, it did not matter too much, because as I quickly realised my three mates were the real walking encyclopedias.

There was Chris Maclean, a fine historian and photographer, and author of the Te Ara entry on Wellington; Geoff Norman, who has just completed a book on John Gerrard Keulemans, the magnificent artist of Walter Buller’s birds and whose lovely image of the kōkako adorns Te Ara’s entry on large forest birds; and Shaun Barnett, whose images have already enriched Te Ara and who was the dedicated photographer to capture the moonlit scene. Shaun is also a talented historian and he has just completed a really excellent biographical entry on Edmund Hillary, which we will release when the Dictionary of New Zealand Biography is fully integrated with Te Ara in several months time.

With this talent around me, I did not really need Te Ara to tell me about the wonderful landscape I was walking through. But next time I may not be so lucky. Te Ara will be at hand – provided, of course, that I remember to charge the cellphone!

Part one of a two-part series. Part two will be published tomorrow.

Te Ara's general editor gives thanks for passing through the lahar-risk area unscathed

Let me make it quite clear: I am not a walking encyclopedia. I would love to be, and it’s one of the occupational hazards of being Te Ara’s editor that people expect me to be, but years of too much red wine have had their effect and the memory is not what it was. When people ask me a question about New Zealand, I instinctively reach for the laptop or, even better, the cellphone, so I can search Te Ara for the answer. This is what I mean by the walking encyclopedia. Te Ara, after all, is ‘the pathway’. Lately, when walking along a bush track or exploring a heritage site, I have been struck by how much Te Ara can enrich the experience.

Take my latest bout of physical exertion. About two weeks ago I was lucky enough to join three other Kiwi blokes (more on them in part 2) on a tramp around the south-east flank of Mt Ruapehu, up to the Crater Lake and back down to the Turoa ski field. If I had not forgotten to charge the cellphone (that memory again!), these are some of the things Te Ara would have told us as we walked.

As we set off with our light, brilliantly designed equipment, we might have learned from the tramping entry how much luckier we were than our predecessors with their hobnail boots, their frameless packs (‘kidney rotters’), their heavy woollen clothing and their inaccurate maps.

We were walking on DOC’s beautifully cared for round-the-mountain track. The walking tracks entry will tell you that for the first centuries of human settlement here, people walked long distances because they had no choice. Māori walked to collect pounamu over southern passes, miners walked along the ‘pigroot’ to get to the goldfields. But at the end of the 19th century people began to walk in the New Zealand bush for enjoyment. One of the first places they did so was in the Tongariro National Park. The park, Te Ara’s National Parks entry tells us, had been gifted to the nation by Horonuku Te Heuheu in 1887, fearful that his sacred volcanic mountains might be divided and sold. By 1904, we learn, there were huts at Ketetahi and Waihohonu, with separate rooms for men and women.

Soon after we started, the Blyth track joined us. Not far from that track, Te Ara tells us, are the remains of an old hut. It was built by Les Bergesen during the Second World War. He was trying to avoid being conscripted, so he hid out in a couple of huts in the area. You can see a photo of the hut and Ashley Cunningham’s full story.

As we wandered across glorious country, with patches of red tussock and moss and clusterings of pink pine (which we can learn contains manool, a chemical used in perfume), we were disturbed to see contorta pines appearing as an unwelcome invader. As our entry on weeds of the bush tells us, contorta is but one of a number of invasive trees – along with buddleia, tree privet, woolly nightshade and Himalayan honeysuckle.

We stayed nights at the Mangaeheuhu and Rangipō huts – the latter with magnificent views over the Rangipō desert. The next day we found ourselves crossing the Whangaehu River, the route of the terrible lahar which swept down on Christmas Eve 1953 and washed out the bridge at Tangiwai with the loss of 151 lives. To see exactly what happened, see Te Ara’s great interactive.

By now we had reached the snow and had become, not trampers, but mountaineers.  So to see what we saw next, and who was the real walking encyclopedia, you’ll have to wait until tomorrow for ‘Walking encyclopedia – part 2’.

Five generations of the same family

Three new Te Ara entries look at New Zealanders of different ages – teenagers and youth, midlife adults and older people. Together with the recent entry on childhood, they explore what it means to move from childhood to adolescence, middle age and old age.

What is it like to be six, 16, 56 or 66? Why did The little red schoolbook generate so much fuss? When did people start to talk about ‘teenagers’? What can older people learn from adolescents? What does it mean to be ‘the sandwich generation’? Who gets to live longest, and what do older people do all day? These entries have answers to these and many other questions.

Find out about bodgies and widgies, milk-bar cowboys, beehives, rugby heads, tweens and what happened at the Hutt Valley Youth Club in the 1950s. Look at statistics on births to teenage mothers from the 1960s and find out about programmes to keep young mothers at school.

These entries show what people of different generations have in common, but also differences among them. People of all ages enjoy being with family, playing games with their friends and physical challenges. Older people as well as children and adolescents are engaged in study – some, like Marie Bell, even complete PhDs in their 80s. But the rates of death are different across these age groups, and for women and men.

New directions for midlife adults include embarking on an OE or a change in lifestyle at home. Older people both receive care and provide services for others. Some, like John Blundell, clean up the beaches while riding their mobility scooter.

Connections across generations are important. In these entries teenagers introduce older people to texting, parents in their 50s help adult children to purchase their first homes and grandparents care for grandchildren while their parents are in paid work. Older people provide emotional and financial support to middle-aged children but also receive help from them.

People of the same age group also enjoy time with one another. You can access a film clip of scouts on their way to the Pan Pacific jamboree in 1959, enjoy the flamboyant outfits of members of the Red Hat Society or connect to the pleasures of skateboarding and the Socialist Sunday School outing.

Political issues are also explored, including strategies to inform children about their rights as citizens and the activities of Grey Power. Debates about raising the driving age and parental support for tertiary students receive attention alongside the leisure activities of midlife adults.

Next month attention shifts to religious institutions with new entries on missions and missionaries, the Anglican Church and the Salvation Army…

Mt Taranaki

Ko whea, ko whea teeraa maunga e tuu mai ra ra
Ko Taranaki pea, nukunuku mai, neke neke mai
Ki taku tauaro kikini ai ee, hai
Aha kekekeke noa, kekekeke noa
E kore e pau he ika unahi nui eee hai!

E te rangatira, Te Miringa
Kua hau ngā rongo kua hinga rā koe
Ko koe rā i takahi ai ngā tapuwae o ngā tipuna
Ko Tohu, Ko Te Whiti
Ngā manu e rua
I patu te hoariri ki te rangimarie
Ka riro i a koe te raukura, tītīa rawatia ki te upoko
Ko koe rā i tū nei hei whakaruruhau mō Te Ara
I whakairo ā-kupu i ngā kōrero a tō iwi
I whakatau mai i a mātau ki Taranaki
Kei te pātuki te tarauma, Kei te riringi ai ngā wai o te kamo
Aue, taukuri e!   Ehara i te aurukowhao, he takerehaia!
E rere rā te motu nei ki roto koia o Parihaka!

It is with great sadness that I heard Te Miringa Hohaia had passed away.

Te Miringa has had a long association with Te Ara. In our first theme, New Zealand Peoples, we were honoured to have Te Miringa write the Taranaki tribe entry. More recently, a small group from Te Ara travelled to Taranaki to launch the Taranaki regional entry. Te Miringa graciously welcomed us during the whakatau at New Plymouth.

He was a humble man who worked tirelessly for his iwi and will be missed.