The end of a care free life

During some weekends I had been going out to a local dairy farmer and helping out where needed. He was running about fifty cows, just a hobby farm that he had inherited and didn’t want to part with.

Alongside the cowshed [where the cows got milked] was his workshop, and he was happier there than anywhere.

His old Fordson Major tractor over the years had broken two of its pistons, there were no spares available, so he got a piece of wood and turned a new piston on his lathe.

It worked, the tractor smoked a little more than desirable, but it was old enough to smoke as much as it wanted to.

Long before the advent of Japanese cars, most cars required a little fiddling with on a constant basis, and a very common task was doing a valve grind.

This involved removing the head off the engine, taking all the valve springs off the valves, and, using grinding paste, grind/lap each valve onto the seat.

When they were all done, reassemble the head, fit a new head gasket, and refit the head back onto the engine block.

This was usually started early to mid afternoon, half way through the valve grind the cows would come of their own accord to the shed for milking.

A quick stop, put the first eight cows into the bails, [no chain behind them, and he hadn’t used a kick rope for years], fit the milking cups, back to the workshop to grind in another valve.

Oops, forgot about the cows, race over to the cow shed, change the cows over for the next lot, back to the workshop. This would continue until all the cows were milked.

Later when we were married we would go over for the weekend to give him a break. I found that if I let the cows sort themselves out, who was first, who wanted which bail, the milking would go like a dream.

If I tried to assert my authority on them I would have to spend the next hour or two cleaning up the yard from their disapproval. One of the early lessons that I learned, it is easier to let a female have her way.

Through him, I paid 50 pounds [$100] for 1939 Chevrolet Coupe. It was another female car, when it wanted to, for no apparent reason it would cough, pause, then continue as if nothing had happened.

Palmerston North had the main railway tracks pass through the middle of the town.

If the girlfriend/wife was in the car, you could bet that the car would cough just as we started to cross the tracks, it only happened when she was in the car, some sort of jinx I think.

After we had been married a short while we managed to get a flat on the Base, and someone offered me forty five pounds [$90] for the car, I was told to sell it, no option, sell it.

My wife was in the Woman's RNZAF as an Aircraft Finisher.

Part of her trade was looking after all the safety equipment used by the aircrew. [parachutes, dinghies, flying suits etc]

When I met her she was in the paint shop repainting all the aircraft as they passed through a particular servicing.

There was pressure to change all the B[I]12s to camouflage requiring weekend work. The paint bay would work until lunch on Saturdays, I would wander down to the hanger just in time to pick up the girl friend and take her to lunch.

There were two women working with about ten blokes so the girls led a hard life.

It was not unusual for a very wet bedraggled figure to be seen running down the taxiway with two guys holding a bucket bump [ about 4 gallons of water in a tank with a hand pump and a short hose fitted], with a third working the pump and hose.

Often there would be a second team acting as back up.
On one occasion they had chased her around the offices before she got to the door and freedom.

Straight into the F/S [Flight Sergeant] I/c [In-charge] of the Paint Bay.

The F/s said to my girlfriend,”Go to lunch” the rest of the guys were told to hand polish all the floors before they knocked off.

A lino floor won't polish very well when it is wet, I think they came back on Sunday to finish the job.

There were movies two or three times a week, cheap entertainment. At half time everybody went out for a smoke, I noticed this attractive young girl and started chatting.

This went on for a while when I suggested: “To hell with marriage, let's just live together”.
Strangely she didn’t slap my face, I was expecting it and was ready to duck, she didn’t say “Yes” either.

Definitively requires more work, after a while, she asked: “Would you like to come up and meet my family”?

There after most weekends were spent going up to Uranui, near Waitara, where her father had a dairy farm.

When hay making time came around he was the local bailing contractor, so he would cut Tuesday/Wednesday, turn the grass on Friday, Windrow[sweep two or more rows of grass into one line to save mileage for the bailer] on Saturday morning.

Start bailing mid to late sat morning, and here’s another helping hand to put the bails onto the truck and away into the shed.

I didn’t find out until years later that he had been paid by all the farmers for my labour as well. Not only was his daughter safe because I was too stuffed to do anything and he was getting paid for it as well.

24 Jan 1963 my wife had her 21st birthday which was celebrated at the farm, about 30 boys, and girls came up from Ohakea to help celebrate the birthday.

This was far too many to put up at the farm house so we booked out the Uranui Hotel, about ten minutes drive away. It was a total take over, and they had the busiest Sat afternoon they had ever had.

As part of the celebrations, a two foot high, dayglo orange, [bright orange sticky paper, that will stick on up to 300 mph] Kiwi appeared in the middle of the hotel sign.

Fortunately the owners thought it was great, otherwise, we would have been in trouble for the night. They were more than happy to let everybody stay there again the following month when we were married.

23rd of Feb 1963 we three showed up at the church, early, you don’t dare be late.

There was nobody there, panic, raced over to the vicarage to find the Father mowing his lawn, Phew,

He looked at his watch, “Still got plenty of time yet, this is my hundredth marriage, I don’t know what you are worried about”.

So we left him to change and when back to the church.

My wife had two of her sisters acting as Bridesmaids and I had two guys from the dorm to make sure I didn’t run away.

The job was done, off for the photos while the guests when to the Uranui Hall for the ‘after match function’, where I managed to get through all the speeches and stuff.

Then back to the farm for a few. We had hidden my car in one of the locals car shed, and fortunately arranged, ‘If they find my car, we could use his car for the night’.

Eventually, we left the party and took the neighbor car back to his place.

Pitch black, no torch, felt down the side of the car and found the door handle.

Opened the door and felt a slight resistance, like masking tape that hasn’t stuck properly. So we borrowed the neighbor's car for the night.

When we got to the hotel room and opened up our suitcases we found that they had been got at as well. The floor of the room was covered in confetti, and talcum powder.

Next morning we went back to the farm returned the neighbor's car and retrieved mine.
It was covered with white paint, streamers, and cans dragging underneath, the front seat was also covered with Talcum powder and confetti as well.

I drove the car down to the cowshed and the brothers in law turned the high pressure wash down hoses on and gave it the best wash it had ever had.

When they were finished, I brought the car up to the house afterward and the sisters in law gave the inside the best clean it had ever had as well. We started out with a squeaky clean car.

That night we went to the Uranui Hotel, everybody had left to go back to Ohakea before we arrived.

We were given a room number and told we were the only ones staying for the night.

When we got to the top of the stairs our room looked like miles away down the dim passage way, and here just in front of us was a nice looking room.

So we changed rooms, next morning we woke to a knock, and tea and toast, and “Sorry I was so long, you weren’t where I thought you were”.

We finally got up, went down stairs and the landlords insisted we stay for morning tea and scones, how could we refuse?.

Back to the farm to load up all the presents and head down to Palmerston North where we had rented a flat in an old house.

About six months later we were given a small flat on base, within two minutes walk from work.

View from front door, our own rose garden, that was tended to by gardeners.

This was very handy, as one of my jobs for the Sqn was to keep the cleaning gear up to quantity. This meant a weekly trip to the Barrack Warden for supplies, toilet soap, toilet paper, floor polish etc.

Call in home for a cup of coffee and decide that I had got to much stuff, can’t take it back, so I might as well leave it here. Saved the grocery bill a bit each week.

Shortly after our marriage, I was moved to 42 Sqn, flying C47s [D C 3s] Harvards [Texans ] Devons, Harvards. And soon Austers