Our divorce was finalised in NZ in November 1982.

Early in 1983 I was getting restless and began weighing up my options. Rosie had purchased a new house in Invercargill and was getting on with her life. The two youngest children were with her while they finished their schooling, and Nicola, our oldest, was attending university in Christchurch.

I decided to move to Australia and start a new life.

I arranged with an Invercargill agent to find a tenant for my house in Manapouri and to auction its contents. I loaded the boot of my car with a few personal items, and with mixed feelings, set out on the seven-hour drive through the night from Manapouri to Christchurch. I arrived at my sister Margaret’s house as day was breaking and stayed for two or three days. Just long enough to sell my car and make final arrangements, before boarding a flight to Melbourne.

I’d never lived in a city before, let alone one as big as Melbourne. I had no idea what lay ahead but like a modern-day Dick Wittington, had no doubt I’d find a way to float to the top.

Before leaving NZ, I made a hard-edged plan. I’d purchase a modest house, buy investment property with the remainder of my capital, and survive solely on what I could earn from finding work. 

I arrived at Tullamarine airport on a sunny afternoon on the 27th of March 1983, my 44th birthday.

End of Book One.

 

Watch your inbox for the first chapter of my second book. I’ve called it, “A Street of Houses,” and hope to publish it next week. Thank you for your support and encouragement to date.

Kind regards – Ken Fife  

e returned to NZ to be faced with a tsunami of problems which by 1983 resulted in the dissolution of our marriage and an end to my life as a farmer, but I’m getting ahead of my story.

I was born with an innate resilience so coped well with the dramas on the Fijian cattle ranch. Most of the time I enjoyed the challenges and the satisfaction that comes with solving problems, and life in Fiji had many consolations.

Expat friends in Suva had bought a cruising catamaran and we spent occasional weekends sailing or working on their yacht. Over the past two years, we had hosted politicians and officials from both NZ and Fiji. We had cajoled NZ army helicopters into assisting with mustering and fence line laying projects. We sipped cocktails on a NZ Navy Frigate and were interviewed by both Fiji radio, and TV NZ for their 60 Minutes program.

The good outweighed the bad, but the relentless hours, the isolation, and the necessity for our family to spend so much time away from each other had taken its toll. We were big fish in a very small pond, now it was time to return to New Zealand.

Cairn Peak

Our farm was a picture when we arrived home in January 1981. It was early summer, there had been plenty of rain, the hay sheds were full, the crops were looking promising and the pastures were beautifully green with stock feed in abundance.  John Robins our interim manager, together with our staff, had done an excellent job.

We were presented with the stock performance figures and pleasingly, 6,000 lambs had been produced from our 5,000 breeding ewes, and the long-term weather forecasts pointed to a good fattening season for our lambs and beef cattle.

Since our acquisition of the farm in 1964 Cairn Peak had transformed from an ugly duckling to a desirable property, and our burgeoning forestry business had transferred 2,000 acres of marginal land into a profitable industry.

Bill Piercy, together with Rosie and myself had been equal business partners since 1966. Bill had a 50% share, and we had 25% each. I was the resident manager and Bill was a public accountant running his own business in Gore, 70kms away. Up until now, we’d had an easy relationship, and I had run the property without interference. However, our partnership agreement was due to expire on 1st June 1981 at which time it would be up for renegotiation.

Six years earlier in June 1975 I had written to Bill notifying him, that on the expiry of the agreement Rosie and I would be exercising our option to withdraw. Bill had not responded, so now with less than 6 months to go, we had some negotiating to do. Over the intervening years, I had obtained two qualifications. I was now a registered Farm Management Consultant and a member of the NZ Society of Farm Management. I had also passed the exams entitling me to practice as a Registered Rural Valuer.

I called a partnership meeting and tabled an aerial photograph of our sprawling property. I had drawn a line bisecting the photograph and explained to Bill why I thought this was a fair attempt at equally dividing our holding. The individual farms on each side had a fair balance of flat and hilly terrain and each had appropriate farm infrastructure.  To back up the integrity of the offer I said I would be comfortable for him to choose which of the two properties he preferred to own. I could tell by his demeanour that up until now he’d never confronted the reality that our partnership had run its course. He blustered and said the offer was ludicrous. He would draw a line on the map in due course, and that he would also have first choice of which parcel would be his.

Trouble was brewing!

Some weeks later he produced a map indicating an insultingly unrealistic portion to be allocated to us with the balance of the title to revert to him and his family.

That was the last time we engaged in a cordial conversation.

For the next 6 months, Rosie and I were to live on the farm under a cloud of disillusionment as Bill’s lawyer and our lawyer attempted to broker an outcome to keep us out of court.

It was finally agreed that each party would appoint a valuer, and an independent arbitrator would be engaged if the valuers couldn’t agree. Once the value was settled, Bill would have first option to purchase the going concern and if he defaulted, Rosie and I would be given the same opportunity.

The valuation went ahead and the valuers agreed, without the need to resort to arbitration. Bill had 90 days, and settlement was set for 23rd December 1981. In mid-October, his lawyer wrote with the news that Bill was adament he had the finance organised for settlement day and he preferred I step down as manager,and leave the farm immediately. We were thankful for closure and with mixed feelings, packed up and moved to our holiday house in Manapouri.

We weren’t surprised when on 23rd December Bill couldn’t come up with the money, but he said it was a technicality, he needed another 30 days and reluctantly acknowledged this would trigger the 17% late payment penalty fee.

Finally, at 4 pm on 25th January 1982, the phone rang in Manapouri. Our solicitor said, “congratulations, you are now millionaires, what do you want me to do with the money?” I was 42, Rosie was 39, and for the first time since I was 15 years old, I was not involved in the farming industry. I was unemployed!

Final Outcome

Bill was not a farmer. He’d had a romantic notion of riding stock horses, and comparing notes with other farmers on a Friday night in the Dipton pub. He’d put two of his sons, both town boys, through a diploma course in an agricultural college and the family battled on for a few short years  before finally succumbing to a mortgage default. The property has since been broken up and sold to neighboring farmers, and sadly at a very young age bill succumbed to cancer. ,

Our falling out had produced no winners.

Moving on

Before our sojourn in Fiji, we had purchased a holiday house in a sleepy village called Manapouri which lies adjacent to the Fiordland National Park. Lake Manapouri is surrounded by mountains that are snow-capped in winter and the lake itself is frequently draped in wispy mist which makes it hauntingly beautiful.

According to Wikipedia, “Fiordland National Park covers an area of 12,000 square km, making it one of the largest national parks in the world.

Lake Manapouri

It is famous for its deep fiords, stunning alpine lakes, waterfalls, rainforest, and unique wildlife. Within the fiords, you can find dolphins, New Zealand fur seals, fiordland crested penguins, and the occasional whale.” There is no mention in the brochures of the ecological threat to the rain forest caused by overgrazing from introduced animals, particularly, possums from Australia, and red deer from the UK.

In the 1970s the establishment of a venison export market, created a new industry in Fordland, and a potential solution to the noxious animal problem. There was a ready sale at mouth-watering prices, for venison shot by ground hunters, and by shooters in helicopters, scouring the mountain ranges and adjoining tussock country.

The introduction of rigorous meat inspection standards eventually slowed down the venison trade, but the recovery industry still thrived, as focus shifted to the capture of live deer from two sources, trapping in the rain forest, or netting from helicopters in the tussock country above the bush line.

Three of us shot these deer in the rain forest over three days, carried them out on our backs to the safe in the picture, where they were transported out to the lake by the pack horses. Hunter Shaw on the left was a professional meat hunter, I’m holding the horse.

 

Deer Trapping

My Friend Lance Shaw was a deer trapper and I helped him occasionally with building traps and recovering captured animals. These traps were made of wire netting too high for the deer to jump over. The pens when built were about 20 yards long, and constructed so that deer using the game trails, couldn’t see the netting hidden among the trees. When they entered, they would trip a wire which released counterbalances holding the gates suspended overhead. Lance would check his traps once or twice a week depending on weather conditions.

 Captured animals were wrestled to the ground, blind folded, and injected with the sedative Vetcalm. This neutralised their anxiety for long enough to be coerced into walking to the boat. Wrestling with an adult antlered deer wasn’t a job for the faint hearted, even when working in pairs. On one occasion one of lance’s helpers was attacked by a young “spiker” and  hospitalised with a serious stomach wound.

My first business enterprise after settling in Manapouri was to act as a middleman between a helicopter company and deer farmers. I purchased live animals straight off the chopper and transferred them to a local deer farmer. He ear-tagged them, and looked after them until they were accustomed to fenced paddocks and ready to sell-on to farmers.

 

Fiordland National Park

 

The Fiordland Triangle

There is a saying in rural areas in New Zealand that could have been coined specifically for Fiordland in the seventies and eighties. “There are old pilots and bold pilots, but there’s no such thing as old bold pilots.” There were fortunes to be made in the venison and live deer capture industry, but as the deer got fewer and wiser, the choppers had to fly closer and bank and turn quicker, and the margins grew too small for safety.

I lived in Manapouri for a little over two years and was acquainted with a number of people who lost their lives or were permanently injured in air accidents. They were larger than life characters, with exotic nick names,, and outgoing personalities, who you’d have a beer with one night, and be reading about in the paper the next day. I was personally involved with two attempted recovery missions. A Jet Ranger Helicopter with a pilot and two shooters aboard, left Te Anau at daybreak and flew low over Lake Manapouri into the mist. For some reason it flew at speed straight into the lake and all were lost. The next day, together with the Chopper owner, Lance and I spent several hours trawling the lake in a spot where a small oil slick had appeared. We snagged something but weren’t able to bring it to the surface. The lake is very deep and as far as I know the wreck and the remains of the deceased are still there.

It’s the same with the Cray (lobster) fishing industry. The West coast of Fiordland is bleak, unforgiving, and pummelled by gale force winds. The Crays are plentiful when a run is on, and fortunes can be made if you can get your cray pots to places where other fishermen won’t go. A local fisherman and his young deckhand didn’t return home one night and Lance and I at the request of his wife, left at daylight the next day, hoping to find them waving to us from the shore. What we found was a pitifully small amount of matchwood scattered along a gravelly beach, and an empty twisted cray pot with one rubber glove in it. His fishing boat had most likely been hoisted by a monster swell and dumped from high onto a submerged rock which wiser fishermen knew to keep away from. Their bodies and the remains of the fishing boat were never found..

Shaylene

Shaylene was a 52-foot cutter rigged sloop, owned by Les Hutchins the owner of Fiordland Travel and Les knew I could be called on to crew for him at short notice. One of our more interesting trips was a charter by National Geographic who were planning to publish an article on Captain Cook’s discovery of New Zealand in 1776. Cook had explored, named, and mapped the principal fiords in Fiordland and we had the privilege of retracing and photographing this part of his historic voyage.  The American photographer chartering Shaylene, realising there were bunks to spare invited some female professional circuit tennis players, to join the cruise. These passengers, including the National Geo photographer, all proved to be prima donnas of the highest order and it was a relief when they finally disembarked.

A few months earlier Les had invited Lance and me to help him crew Shaylene on a voyage up the western side of NZ, around Cape Reinga at the top, and down into the Bay of islands. We were to be accompanied by one of Les’s employees called Des Arthur, which was a bit worrying, because he was known locally as “Disaster.”

We set out from Bluff, New Zealand’s southernmost town, around midday on a blustery sunny day. We were headed for Milford Sound and Les said a front was forecast to the northwest, but we had a fair wind and with luck should make Milford before the worst of it arrived.

The run along the bottom of the South Island went well but when we rounded the cape and turned north, the sea became more turbulent. We shortened sail and headed into a strengthening wind. By the time darkness fell the gale had lifted to a steady 40 knots and was gusting much higher. We dropped the reefed main, raised a storm jib to help keep her head to wind, and motored on. We were sharing two hour watches, one man on the wheel and the others harnessed into their bunks. By now all except Les were seasick but we still had to take our turn at the wheel, and to assist on deck if called by the man on watch. In the end it was easier to remain on deck while Shaylene battled on. By about 10 pm the wind was sitting steady on 60 knots and gusting to 90. We were now in the grip of a category one hurricane and the huge swells at times towered above us. There would be a short period when they’d come in a regular pattern but without warning we’d be knocked down by a massive breaker from a different direction. and with the yacht struggling to right itself, there’d be another bigger wave that would knock us flat.

Below decks, everything not tied down or locked away came adrift and the main cabin floor was strewn with objects sloshing around with every erratic movement of the ship. The crashing of this detritus, and the juddering of the ship were drowned out by the screaming of the wind in the rigging.

Several times that night the railing was in the water and the spreaders on the mast almost touching the sea. Finally in the wee small hours, Lance and Les who were the real seamen, plotted a safe passage through the rocks studding the coast near the mainland, and we limped into the safety of Milford sound. We spent two days recuperating before Les’s daughter Robyn joined us and we set sail again for the Bay of Islands. The weather had settled by the time we ventured out to sea and 6 days would pass before we were to see land again.

Worn out crew, finally at anchor in Milford.

 

The next leg was relatively uneventful except at daybreak one morning, when Les went on deck to relieve Disaster at the wheel. He saw Des had earphones on and was listening to his tape recorder with his eyes closed. Les noticed two other things. There was land on the horizon where no land should be, and Des’s magnetic tape recorder, was nestled snuggly alongside the ship’s magnetic compass. Les plucked the recorder out of the cockpit, Des woke up, and Les steered a safe course out to sea again. And what was Disaster listening to? Of all things, a recording of Winston Churchill’s funeral.

Cruising. Les Hutchins at the helm, and from left, me, Des, and Lance with guitar.

 

There was very little sleep to be had on the final night. The weather was warm, we were making good time, but we were approaching the shipping lanes. We rounded Cape Reinga a little after midnight and made our way south to our anchorage in the bay at Russell in The Bay of Islands.

 I rose early while the others were sleeping. The sun was inching over the horizon and I watched the night slip away. There was a warm summer breeze and it was going to be a beautiful day. The memory of this special moment is as vivid now as it was more than 40 years ago. There were three dead flying fish on deck, I selected the biggest and tossed the other two overboard. I now had bait which I attached to a rod and in twenty minutes had caught two gurnard big enough to provide a small portion of fresh fish each for breakfast. I stowed the fishing gear and reflected on how great it was to be alive, while around me the sea birds and other inhabitants of Russell, came slowly to life.

 

Crossing The Ditch

Chapter 11 of my story will be published shortly. It covers my final months in New Zealand before I decided to start a new life in Australia.

Six months into my contract, I was beginning to understand there was a hierarchical structure influencing all aspects of life in Fiji. The Fijian Great Council of Chiefs FGCC, made up of ethnic Fijians of chiefly rank, held sway over both the country’s political process and its armed forces.

In 1987 a democratically elected Labour coalition ousted the Fijian conservative party, and for the first time in its history the country was to have an ethnic Indian Prime Minister. This was intolerable to the FGCC, and the result was an army coup and a parliamentary disfunction lasting for many months. There were to be three more such coups until democracy held sway and the Great Council of Chiefs was disbanded in 2012.

In my time in Fiji though, the chiefly system prevailed and the Board of the Uluisaivou corporation was chaired by a Suva based appointee from the Great Council of Chiefs. Most of the remaining board members were made up of the chiefs of ten of the villages in the Uluisaivou area, all of whom paid homage to the more sophisticated Chairman from Suva. It was to be my total inability to connect with this chairman that led me to refuse the offer of a two year extension of my contract when it expired at the end of 1980.

In August 1979 the NZ High Commissioner to Fiji Richard Powels, together with his wife and small daughter spent a weekend with us on the ranch. We explored the property together and talked about the problems and possible solutions.

Richard was a good listener and was to be an ally throughout my stay though careful not to overstep the bounds of professionalism. He agreed to my request for an un-budgeted study tour, and he agreed to the employment of an expatriate head stockman, but as he was leaving to return to Suva on the Monday morning, he advised me to consider taking a more Machiavellian attitude to my dealings with the Suva hierarchy.  I nodded wisely, but as soon as he departed, made a beeline for my Arthur Mees encyclopedia to research the meaning of Machiavellian. I found the word was coined after Niccolo Machiavelli, an Italian renaissance diplomat published a best seller, outlining the maneuvering and political chicanery that had underpinned his illustrious career.

I was a gritty young farmer, perhaps a little naive, who’d come here to help the Uluisaivou people establish a commercial cattle ranch. Did Machiavellian mean I should turn a blind eye to nepotism, and the rubbery accounts and optimistic forecasts being presented at our board meetings? If that was the case, it couldn’t have been more removed from my comfort zone.

Diary Notes

Thursday 6th September 1979. 7:00 AM to the office. The stockmen took 100 cows to Koroka. Eramasi’s gang continued with building the Koroka fence. Peni’s gang worked on the new Spring paddock fence. Tevita and I rode around Valivali and Namiqa blocks. We got home at 6:00 PM. To find nothing else had been achieved during the day. I’d sent the Bedford truck to Vaileka for a warrant, but they refused to perform the test because the cheque wasn’t stamped Uluisaivou Corporation, and hand written and initialed text wouldn’t do.

Two men went for their driver’s licence in Rakiraki, but the testing officer didn’t turn up for the booked appointment. Two men were sent by the local nurse for X rays to the Raki Raki hospital but were told it had to be done in Suva. The truck parts due up from Suva to the Vaileka Service station didn’t arrive, and Nalago was hit by a stone flung up by the rotary slasher and knocked unconscious. He seems ok but he’ll need a few days off.

Friday 14th. September. 5 am. start doing office work. I organised staff then went to Vunisea village and discussed the money to be put aside by the cane cutters for the housing fund. Returned to the office, grabbed the vet kit and went to the cattle yards to cut two horses. Was confronted by 6 full grown bulls and 5 horses to operate on. Castrated them all, returned to the office and drove the men back to their villages.

Distributed wages and got home at 7:00 PM.

Tuesday 25th September. Away at 5:30 am. to pick up stockmen and get them to round up steers for sale. Arrived back to be confronted by an Indian farmer on my doorstep alleging that a horse I bought last month from another farmer was his. Pacified him and advised him to get the police to handle it. The police duly arrived with a line-up of dubious suspects to see if I could identify the one that sold me the horse. I couldn’t and we ended up keeping the horse.

Wednesday, October 3rd. Nice weather after the rain. Most of the staff employed turning the Super heaps ready for the helicopter to spread tomorrow.

A series of disasters today. Our cattle have strayed onto Tevita’s garden and caused extensive damage. The 165 Tractor Gearbox has packed up, and the D4 bulldozer hydraulic pump can’t be serviced until Thursday due to lack of parts. Besides that, the Isuzu truck motor is missing badly.

The Nabalabala village people are claiming Isakeli’s house, and our house are starving the village of water, which is patently impossible, and Jone Raicebe has a bad rupture and had to be taken to hospital. To top things off, Epeli was kicked in the head by a horse and will need a day or two off work.

I called the helicopter to organise topdressing tomorrow but couldn’t raise a reply. Knocked off at 7:30 PM.

Wednesday 24th of October. 5:30 AM organising staff.

Another without you day! Isakeli (my deputy) is in Suva. Marika (in charge of Sugar Cane gang) is away with a dangerous attack of a mild sore throat. Kara (my secretary) is off work with a toothache. All tractors are out of Commission for one reason or another. And also our Bedford truck is off the property, carting gravel for the Roko Tui (The paramount chief of the Ra Province.)

We put the bulls out with the cows today. This afternoon Ratu Voata, Fiji Minister of Agriculture, came and looked around the property for a couple of hours.

Tuesday 30th October. Helicopter started topdressing Vunibua-1 block this morning. Usual trouble with workers, mainly because of lack of yaqona. (Kava) Men at quarter speed until yaqona produced.  I feel very old with flu today. Handed over to staff and went home.

Ten of the men in the above photo were chiefs of Uluisaivou villages, the remainder, including myself, were Uluisaivou corporation staff members. The gentleman in the yellow shirt, far right, was my very close friend Josefa Maveli, chief of Raviravi village. It was a great privilege to work with all these people throughout 1979 and 1980.

Friday 14th December. Board meeting in Suva. I tabled my “Ranch Managers Report on Study Tour.”

NOTE: The tour itself was a marathon, lasting 28 days. We visited agricultural research centres and rural development projects in Queensland, Solomon Islands and Papua New Guinea. I’d returned to Fiji with a notebook full of information and was confident I had the answers to the majority of problems I’d set out to solve. I asked the Board to endorse the blueprint I’d circulated, as a sensible way forward. This was deftly deflected by the Chairman who tabled the document and moved on to the next agenda item.

This meant there was no Board resolution, but I’d copied my recommendations to NZ Foreign Affairs and to the Permanent Secretary of the Fiji Department of Agriculture and received no negative feedback. I took this as tacit agreement on the way forward and acted accordingly. Perhaps this is what a Machiavellian attitude meant? I was to learn that the NZ High Commissioner had authorised my study tour, without referring to the Suva based Board chairman, Tom Vuitilivoni, and John Stone, the expat. General Manager. This created a political divide that never healed.

Thursday December 20th. Farewell lunch in Suva for John Stone whose contract had come to an end and he was returning home to NZ. I Saw him off at the airport at 6:00 PM then drove back to the ranch where the staff were celebrating the completion of the new staff bure. (Traditional Fijian grass house.) There was a full blown yaqona session in progress which lasted all night.

                                                  Proud builders of the new staff bure.

Friday 21st December. Late start, we spent the morning distributing the wages and preparing for the Xmas wind up which started at 2 pm. The new bure is a roaring success. We had Yaqona, speeches, beer, dancing, and more yaqona. The helicopter scattered lollies and the pilot and his wife spent the night with us.

Monday 11th, Feb 1980. Arrived back from three weeks holiday in NZ. Very wet, feed everywhere due to 15 inches of rain in January. I was greeted on arrival at work by men trying to start a Landcruiser by towing. Typical Uluisaivou scene!

Spent the day driving around with leading hands. At Raviravi village I was shown two Uluisaivou calves they’d found in the bush with ropes on them. Have reported to police.

Had a welcome back sevusevu (tribute ceremony,) and yaqona session with staff

Friday 4th April

Letter to:
Mr T. Vuetilivoni
Chairman
Board of Directors
Uluisaivou Corporation

Dear Tom,

Over the last three weeks you have made it quite plain that my role here is that of ranch manager only. You reiterated this publicly at the recent Land Development Authority meeting in Suva, though it was me who had to compile the report for the meeting.

I am well capable of performing wider responsibilities than those of ranch manager, and, as you know, have had to do so on numerous occasions since John Stone returned to NZ in December. I have been approached by.M.A.F.to compile five year estimates of development expenditure for
D.P8, plus stock reconciliations until 1985 to be completed by early next week. This is well within my capabilities but is not the function of the ranch manager.

I have in the past. Worked unsparingly for the corporation. However, without your demonstrable support, I would be better to concentrate on the ranch manager role only.

If you wish me to prepare the estimates for M.A.F I will take this as an indication of your acceptance of me as the senior executive here until the New Zealand and Fiji Governments have resolved the question of our general manager.

If you are reluctant to do this, would you please contact Mr C Henderson of M.A.F. and arrange to have someone else compile the necessary report.

Yours sincerely
K.W. Fife

******

Friday, April 18th. 2 inches of rain last night, and very heavy rain all morning. Knocked staff off and sent them home, too wet to work. Went to Yaqara at 3pm after the rivers had subsided enough to get through. 

Horses weren’t ready as promised, so drove the Isuzu truck back empty. Arrived at 10pm with hand break jammed on and the bearings burnt out on the drive shaft.

Monday 21st April. Innumerable problems to deal with today. Toga came back from Nativi village to apologise for his resignation and requesting reinstatement, which was a relief. Qilai came to beg for some fencing gear from the corporation, and when I agreed presented a sevusevu which was touching but time consuming. Leka convinced me to agree to a $10 personal loan.

Then it was time for a Board meeting to attend to a wages negotiation. Local labourers committee rejected my 2 cents an hour wage rise offer and held out for 5 cents. There were other magnanimous gestures we had to make which will increase our payroll by $10,000 pa. I drove the board members to their villages and arrived home at 8pm.

Friday 25th April. Departed 6 am for Suva. Road in dreadful condition due to Queens road. being closed. Delivered report on my thoughts regarding the Memorandum of Understanding to the 3rd secretary at the High Commission. Took a courtesy copy to the board chairman, who, as usual is unavailable for any discussion. Also took a copy to the Permanent Secretary of Agriculture.

Tuesday the 20th. May. A new problem to deal with today. David, (not his real name) one of our stockmen was arrested on a rape charge. This was allegedly committed in a nearby sugar cane field, and I had no intention of trying to get to the bottom of it myself. The police came and took him away and sadly we have possibly lost one of our best stockmen.

Thursday 22nd of May. Picked up David from Vaileka police station. He has been given two days of freedom and may not be as guilty as first thought.

NOTE: David was welcomed back to work a few days later and that was the end of the matter so I suspect a deal was done. The chairman asked me at the time of the offence, “what on earth did you call the police for? This sort of thing with cousins goes on all the time.” In chapter 7, I mentioned the tabu between cousins from one parent’s lineage that meant you couldn’t have physical contact or even eye contact with these cousins. But very close contact and even promiscuity, is tolerated between cousins from the other parent’s lineage. I didn’t understand exactly how that worked, but all Fijians do. I doubt these old customs are tolerated today.

Friday 20th June. Two NZ Army Iroquois helicopters (as seen in the TV series MASH,) arrived and laid out 2,000 fence posts on two adjacent steep ridges in a couple of hours. This would have taken more than two weeks by men with bullocks! We then used the choppers to drive some cattle off the adjoining crown land and back onto our property. The army guys enjoyed the fun – and so did I!

Wednesday 25th June. Today we had a Board Meeting at Uluisaivou that got bogged down because the corporation hasn’t paid the rent again. Another annoying stuff up by our Suva administration. Samuela, the chief of Nayelevus, forbade me to use the cattle yards until the rent is paid.

Friday 27th June. Two gangs still planting and harvesting cane. Organised a mini board meeting at Nayalevu village to discuss the unpaid rent. This necessitated a big Sevusevu with all sides given the opportunity to talk. Face was saved all round. The good thing about Yaqona is if you drink enough everybody feels sleepy and hot heads become cool! The cattle yards are still out of bounds to us but we have permission to load the Roko’s cattle for the function tomorrow.

Saturday 28th June. I Loaded the Roko Tui’s 4 prime bulemakau, (cattle beasts) and drove them to the large fundraising gathering at Nanukoloa. It was a beautiful day and about 500 people had come from far and wide. The cattle were to be slaughtered and the meat distributed to the people. I was asked to provide the carcases at 3pm, but the word got around and when the time came a vast crowd had gathered around our truck. I asked the police to guard an imaginary line and not let anyone past it. I drove about 30 meters back, clambered on top of the steel cattle crate and dispatched the cattle with four head shots. To my horror I saw a bullet from my hunting rifle had passed through the head of one of the animals, on through the steel plated side of the cattle crate and out over the beach where people had been walking a few moments before. Luckily nobody had noticed the bullet hole in the cattle crate and I thanked my lucky stars there wasn’t a body lying on the sand. That was probably the luckiest moment of my life!

Monday, September 1st. I loaded a horse into the truck and went to Raviravi early this morning to look at Rokomai block because we are having real problems with cattle getting away. Was confronted with a lurid tale of a man at the top of the block threatening anyone who came near with a machete. I rode on up the hill to find him pleasant and conciliatory, though I didn’t doubt he could get nasty. This episode took up most of the day because a five mile walk was involved. However, we discussed his grievances, sorted him out, and checked out some good country.

Friday, 5th September. Early drive to Suva in response to written summons from the Board Chairman to discuss our poor relationship. Turned out to be a cordial discussion that belied the peremptory tone of his letter? I think he’d angled to get a copy of a nasty letter on file in case he wanted to produce it later.

Wednesday, 8th of October. Fruitful discussions in Suva with. Board Chairman. High Commission, and permanent secretary of M.A.F. regarding draft Memorandum of Understanding.

Thursday 9th October. I circulated a detailed paper today entitled, “Uluisaivou the next 5 years” It sets out a detailed plan accompanied by budget estimates on my view of the best way forward for Uluisaivou.

Tuesday, October 21st November. Brief interview with Chairman this morning, he says he still hasn’t had time to look at my report. Had a fairly long discussion with Fiji Ministry of Agriculture and the High Commission. Very busy day. Two punctures on the way home.

******

Letter to K W Fife.

Acting General Manager
New Zealand High Commission.
P.O. Box 1378
Suva, Fiji.

17th October 1980

Dear Ken,

The Ministry of Foreign Affairs has agreed that you should receive a higher duties allowance equivalent to two steps in the Clerical Executive Scale, which would put you at the top step of grade 007. 106. The new salary rate will be retroactive to January 1980, when you assumed de facto responsibility for the management of the project from Mr. Stone, whose assignment finished on 31 December 1979. The necessary adjustments in arrears will be made to your salary shortly. We hope that this revision will be acceptable to you, in recognition of the extra workload. You have undertaken on behalf of the corporation.

Kind regards,
Yours sincerely,
Peter Hamilton,
For High Commissioner.

******

Letter to Board Chairman

Mr. T. Vuetilovoni
Chairman of the Board
Uluisaivou Corporation
Suva

27th November 1980

Dear Mr Vuetilovoni

I will be leaving Fiji when my contract expires on 7th January 1981. I decline the offer to stay on for the following reasons.

1. I have had no success at projecting through you to the Government of Fiji, my grave worries about the financial future of the corporation and its very real management problems.

2. Professionally, I am not able to stay when urgent and pressing management decisions continue to be held back by you or ignored.

3. My leaving will I hope, encourage all involved to address themselves urgently to problems at the project site, so that in the future the recommendations of expatriate management, and the opinions of the local board members may be taken into consideration too.

I will be issuing a brief written statement in Fijian to local board members in the near future, setting out my sorrow at having to leave when I still have so much to offer to the project.

Yours faithfully,

Ken W Fife
Acting General Manager
Uluisaivou Corporation

 

Tuesday 2nd December. 6 am. Office work, then staff meeting from 7am, to 8am. Drove to Suva and had 3-hour session with the High Commissioner, the Deputy High commissioner, and the 2nd Secretary. They couldn’t convince me to withdraw my resignation so we will finally be leaving on 7th of January 1981.

Thursday, 4th December. Spent all day with NZ 60 Minutes TV crew starting with early morning shots at sunrise. We drove around a lot of rugged country, the cameramen shot a lot of film, and then they conducted an interview  while men drafted cattle in the yards. They stayed for dinner – an interesting day.

 

Letter to K Fife
New Zealand Ministry of Agriculture and fisheries

December 9, 1980

Dear Ken

I have followed with some concern the recent deliberations and machinations which have grown from the development of the new memorandum of understanding. I can only say that I understand the way you have reacted to the circumstances. While for purely selfish reasons I would have preferred you hadn’t resigned, I think that for your own peace of mind, you really had no other option than to take the step that you did.

I hope that we will have an opportunity to meet on your return to New Zealand, and I assure you that the statement of support which I gave you in Suva is still valid.

Yours sincerely,

Willis Burns
Aid Co-ordinator
Advisory Services Division
NZ Dept. of Foreign Affairs

Wednesday, 7th January, 1980 was the day of our departure. Our possessions were loaded into a large wooden container which was nailed shut and waiting to be shipped back to NZ. We had our last look around and with heavy hearts drove down the hill to Nabalabala village to attend our farewell ceremony. The sky was threatening, and a steady drizzle had set in.

When we entered the village, instead of the expressions of good will we were expecting, there was a general air of angst as though the sooner we were gone the better. There was a brief ceremony, some hastily made Leis were hung around our necks, and some food laid out on a trestle that nobody including us was very interested in eating. The chairman’s farewell speech was short but surprisingly kind, and then it was over.  I sought out Jone Raicembi and asked him what was happening. He told me that a 4-year-old boy had been found floating face down in the adjacent river before we arrived, and it was touch and go whether he could be revived. He was ok now, but in the minds of these superstitious people this event was connected with us leaving, and the ancestors were showing their wrath.

I’ve never been back to Uluisaivou so have no way of gauging the legacy we left in the minds of the people, but on that gloomy day, while our three kids were chatting excitedly in the back of the car, I was speeding along the familiar track to the main road. Convinced I was a failure, and the people were pleased to see me go.

About half an hour into our three-hour trip to Suva we came to a village we’d driven through a multitude of times. A man was standing on the side of the road, and he waved to us to stop. He gave us a beaming smile and said, “We heard you were leaving and I’ve been waiting for you. Come and have a farewell yaqona with us.” We parked the car and walked up the hill to his bure where we were met by a handful of people with welcoming smiles. This village was not connected to Uluisaivou, yet the difference between the two farewells couldn’t have been more marked.

For the first time that day I relaxed, in the realisation I’d done my best, I could hold my head high, and finally leave the problems of Uluisaivou with the moribund Suva bureaucrats to solve.

And life was still good.

 

THE AFTERMATH

ULIUSAIVOU, FIJI, – MANAGEMENT REPORT FOLLOWING DEBRIEFING SESSION WITH MR K. FIFE ON 30. 3. 1981

CONCLUSION –

This report was made up from three main sources:

1.     NZ Advisory Team Report, October 1980
2.     Discussion with Mr. Fife on 30. 3. 1981
3.     Mr Fife’s “Uluisaivou Corporation: The Next Five Years”

It should be obvious to all those interested in Uluisaivou’s future progress that a valuable resource for positive change and reorganisation has been Mr Fife. Many of his ideas have appeared in written reports by other people, and in the New Memorandum of Understanding. Few of his ideas and proposals have been disputed as not being in the interests of the corporation or the Saivou people. It was unfortunate that the management and administrative structure was such, that Mr Fife had to involve himself with so much mundane administration that he could not get on with the job of implementing more of his proposals.

It was equally unfortunate that the Board, and the Fiji and N.Z. Government personnel involved, could not, or would not, at times, give Mr Fife the backing he deserved.

I hope this report, plus all the other advisory reports produced during the past 12 months, get their due attention, and are acted on accordingly.

No amount of report writing will bring about change unless there are key people at the top who can get on with the job of planning and implementing.

Hopefully our next general manager along with a capable executive officer can devote their time to planning change and their subordinates can effectively implement the change, rather than one man trying to do the lot.

D.A.L. Buxton
Farm Advisory Officer
NZ Society of Farm Management

April 1981

******

LINCOLN COLLEGE OF AGRICULTURE
Canterbury, New Zealand

18th February, 1982

Extract from a letter written to me by Stewart Pittaway, (MNZSFM) M. Ag Sc. Farm Advisory Officer.

Dear Ken,

I arrived back in NZ on 31st January. 1981 was a rather busy year. During the last three months I was very involved with Uluisaivou. The reason for this was that virtually nothing had happened on the scheme at a management level since you left. NZ Aid personnel visited in mid-1981 and the new aid director asked that Fiji sort out what they wanted to do with it.

Fiji Ministry of Agriculture and Fisheries then prepared a report. This was finished about Christmas 1981. Largely this report involved. Stuart Revell, Ian Partridge, Forestry Department, Kafoa, and myself. All we tried to do was to sort out a straightforward programme for the place. Much of it is along the lines you suggested in your various writings. Hopefully this will be accepted by New Zealand and the project can proceed.

Too much has happened to tell you in this letter. Some interesting pieces are that, as you predicted, an over-stocking problem became apparent in May / June. When this was realised (too late) they started to sell off everything by which stage the shortage of feed had really started to show.

There has been quite a severe current account problem throughout the last six months of 1981.

Well, I could go on forever, but I’ll leave it at that.

Best wishes,
Stewart Pittaway

Our first year was over, we had helped to make a difference with the people, but the concept of developing a large western style cattle ranch was to my mind unproven, problematic even. I had 12 months left to develop a plan that would turn things around and I was far from confident.

I wrote in the previous chapter some anecdotes illustrating the madcap situations needing to be dealt with on a daily basis, it must be remembered that these events took place over 40 years ago. Many of the villages in our territory were situated in remote valleys and mountain areas several hours walk from civilization. The young people in these villages hadn’t grown up with mechanical things and the concept of taking care of farm machinery was difficult for them.

Early after my induction I had realised I was now the local vet, the after hours ambulance driver, and the conciliator of personal disputes. My wife Rosie, hadn’t bargained on the role she had to play as hostess and caterer for the endless stream of visitors attracted to the project. As a farmer’s wife in NZ she was used to cooking for staff and supplying country hospitality at short notice, but at Uluisaivou this chore assumed industrial proportions. In our first six months, Rosie found herself providing meals, and occasionally lodging, for a range of visitors. These came from such diverse places as the Asian Development bank, the American Peace Corps, WHO staff from Brussels, Ministry of Agricultural field officers from both Fiji and NZ. And on 20th March whilst I was languishing in hospital with a broken leg, Rosie was informed that the Fiji Governor General, Ratu Sir George Cakobau was approximately an hour away and was dropping in for a cup of tea. He arrived with 10 followers made up of family and officials, stayed for two hours, and delivered a warm speech of thanks to Rosie when they left.

On 25th May the NZ Minister of Maori affairs together with the NZ High Commissioner made an unannounced visit in two NZ army Iroquois helicopters, together with 12 followers. We showed them around, and gave them all a cup of tea. Everybody was welcome. The Uluisaivou project was accepted by the local people and endorsed by the NZ and Fiji governments who were funding it. But I was experiencing a growing sense of unease about the viability of the operation. The livestock were for the most part in good condition but with the latest shipment of 530 cattle from NZ now on hand, I could see a looming overstocking situation, but there was no avenue available for me to connect with the chairman to discuss my concerns. And then there were the profit forecasts in the management accounts. I struggled with their authenticity because they had been produced in Suva and were based on theoretical carrying capacities unsupported by actual verified stock tallies.

I touched on these issues in my mid year report to the NZ High-commissioner where I put forward two requests. The first was the creation of a new position of expatriate head stock-man, to work with and train our Fijian team. The second was a study tour for myself and my deputy, to learn about best practice with Tropical Agriculture on comparable properties in other parts of the Pacific. I was elated when both these requests were approved.

Bernard Trumper was recruited from NZ to lead and train our stockmen. Bernard was a good choice. He was experienced and an excellent horseman. Below is a report he wrote soon after his arrival which illustrates the problems encountered when running Brahman crossbred cattle on difficult country.

1979 ranch Manager Diary Notes

9th June – 6am start, helping men straggle muster Yavatu block. Picked up 27 more yearlings. Took Jon Raicebi to cattle yards to interpret for me while I gave the stockmen an impassioned lecture on horse care and cattle handling. It’s not easy for them! Note: The stock-men were fearless riders when chasing down cattle over steep rocky country and through thick bush. But they had no feeling whatsoever for their mounts and no concept of how to look after them. 11th July – To office at 7:15 Had the thin horses brought to the small paddock by the office for treatment, mainly for saddle sores caused by negligence of the riders. Visit this afternoon by Police Superintendent from Adelaide and district officer from Rakiraki. Further heated discussions with Epeli about the two horses he rode to death. Put him on notice and settled on a payment of $20.

A detailed report of the Muster of Koroka – by Bernard Trumper

This was my fourth attempt to muster Koroka. Although this block is only 400 acres, it is fairly steep and is covered in heavy Bush. The previous three attempts were unsuccessful. A helicopter had been used before that, and a clean muster was achieved in about an hour. The steers were left in a small yard for a week to quiet them down, but sometime during that time, towards the end of that week, pig hunters from a neighbouring village left the gate open and they all escaped into the bush.

We decided to re-muster the block on January 4th. And in preparation we gathered 50 cows from Vuniyamunu and took them to Koroko in the hope that the cows would quieten down the wild steers. That job took my men only six hours to complete. On January the 4th, we started at 6:30 AM with 7 stockmen on horses, 9 men on foot from Vunisia village and 4 extra Uluisaivou staff also on foot. All 20 men got into the paddock at 7:30 to begin mustering. Heavy rain fell throughout the day.

After an organizational discussion the 13 men on foot and four Stockman walked up the creek to the far side of Koroko. I and two other men made for a vantage point where we could observe the muster. Walkie talkies were used to communicate between the stockmen and us because as we were at the highest point we could observe all cattle movements. After about two hours the cattle were in a good position to be moved into the 20 acre capture pen. After another half hour, the men were in position to complete the final stage of the muster. The steers were much quieter with the cows present, than they were on previous attempts but when pressure was put on they all broke away once more. Although all the men were in good position and I couldn’t fault the muster, the steers were too fast and wild for the 20 men. They would have trampled anyone in their way. Another attempt was made, but they just broke deeper into the Bush, making matters worse for any future attempt.

1979 Ranch Manager Diary Notes

20th July – 6:30 organising day. Men started burning Vunibua 3 in preparation for planting sugarcane. Examined all our horses, they seem to be picking up. Gave Peni a driving lesson and checked out the leaky roof in the co-op shed. Office work for an hour then took Koro to Nauria village. Due to faulty fuel gauge and my carelessness ran out of fuel by Burelevu, eventually siphoned some from a passing bus. Got back in the dark then took staff home and delivered the wages. Home at 8:45.

6th August – Rehearsed speech then went to Naviti school at 10:00am, and addressed the children on International Year of the Child until 11am. Had Yaqona ceremony and morning tea with staff. An enjoyable morning. Office work this afternoon

18th May – Took Timoci to hospital with cut hand.

There’s a lot more to the story than conveyed by this cryptic comment in my diary. One of the villagers had burst into the office and asked if I could come quickly, Timoci from Nyalevu was badly cut. I found him sitting on the side of the road at the bottom of the hill. He was rocking from side to side in pain and discomfort but gave me a polite smile and asked if I would mind taking him to hospital. He had a deep ugly machete wound running diagonally along the top of his forearm, across his wrist, and over the back of his hand. He wouldn’t tell me who or why someone had done this to him and I never found out, but he wasn’t calling for the police so had plainly done something wrong. I don’t know how far he had walked to get to the road but his clothes were soaked in blood. I had somebody drive while I sat in the rear compartment of the Land-cruiser elevating his arm and keeping pressure on the wound. I hadn’t been trained for this and wished I knew more. If he stays conscious for the next 25 minutes I thought, he might make it, but 10 minutes into the journey he started sweating copiously, Then his eyes rolled back and he passed out. Meanwhile the blood continued to seep through the dressing. We made it at last, with Timoci unconscious but still breathing. He needed several units of blood but against my expectations made a full recovery. He was an extremely tough man!

Study Tour

The study tour took 4 weeks and I was accompanied by two Fijians, Isakeli Naitura my deputy, and John Fatiaki previously my deputy and now General Manager of Yaqara another cattle enterprise in Fiji. We spent our time between the Solomon Islands, Queensland Australia, and Papua New Guinea, and the information gathered was priceless. We learned that calving percentages in other properties of the pacific were comparable with ours which was encouraging. We were shown some new pasture species which could be more suited to the poorer soils in our environment. We learned of the proven advantages in the tropics of continual mating, of cattle, as opposed to seasonal mating practices more common in temperate climates, and we were shown convincing results in favour of villagers farming goats, coffee, and honey on marginal land in the tropics that was less suitable for beef cattle.

I felt a lot more confident after returning to Uluisaivou and wrote a 5-page report to the Board with my findings and recommendations.

Whilst in Papua New Guinea, we flew with Dr Alan Quartermain to a remote village, high in the mountain ranges about 20km from Port Moresby. It was called Ogeramnog, and Dr. Quartermain had introduced a goat farming trial into the village and was conducting a routine weighing and worm-drenching exercise.

The six-seater Cessna aircraft dropped us onto a bush airstrip on a high ridge 5,500 ft above sea level and was to return for us later that afternoon, but a dense fog came down and left us stranded for three nights. We were told this outpost was only visited by 2 or 3 Europeans a year and we were very much the centre of attention as the older children struggled for the honour of carrying our bags.

Dr. Allan Quartermain in hat, Isekeli Naitura from Uluisaivou in dark glasses, and John Fatiaki from Fiji in the middle. The children were very wary of the camera. We were asked to describe where we came from to them while a school teacher translated. The kids soon relaxed and sang us some songs.

Even though we were unscheduled guests we were afforded the hospitality of a small hut reserved for visitors. It had a raised floor with a fire in the middle for cooking and to keep out the cold at night, and a woven matt for a mattress. Cooked meals were provided by a generous woman whose husband was nowhere in evidence.

The next day was market day and people from outlying settlements walked in from near and far to trade produce. Some were in loin cloths and carried bows and arrows. The head man gave a speech in pidgin English to introduce us. He explained to the tribes-people ; that the two black fellas were from Fiji, and “him pella lik lik” (the little fellow, that was me) came from NZ and “him pella mos’ grass” ( the fellow with the biggest beard) came from the university in Lae. Everyone stared at us for a while, we received a welcoming speech, and from then on we were politely ignored. We went walking in the afternoon by following a well worn track and we came across a small coffee plantation and a water well like structure where the coffee berries were steeped in water so the flesh could be removed before the “beans” could be transported to market.

While we were there, a frail looking elderly lady in a ragged dress, with badly betel nut stained teeth, emerged from the steep track below us carrying a huge sack of coffee beans on her back. She did a double take at the site of two white men in the clearing but trudged on past and disappeared up the steep track to the top of the hill. I as a young man wouldn’t have been fit enough to emulate that feat. Nowadays I live in Melbourne, the home of the coffee culture, and I frequently get a flashback to that scene as I sip a coffee in a cafe on a cold Melbourne morning.

We followed her as best we could until we arrived at our village and she diverted to the co-op shed where she sold her coffee beans.

My final diary note on the evening before we left said ”it’s been very hot today but cold when night comes down. The gardens under the tree canopy here defy description with beautiful plants, birds and butterflies. Truly the garden of Eden. Chicken for tea tonight, food has been  plain, but good”.
On the last morning we were woken at 4:30 am to breakfast over a smoky fire of fried chips and coffee. We trooped up to the airstrip once again and were treated to an emotional farewell from these lovely people.

Village Life

Uluisaivou contained 22 villages all loosely connected to a hierarchy in Ra provence. Each village was presided over by a chief and all the villages had a ranking order that was incomprehensible to me. The chief’s house doubled as a meeting place in each village. These houses had three entrances. One in the front for the use of the village people and one in each of the side walls for the use of senior elders and important visitors. Shoes were removed and once inside everybody walked on their knees or in a stooped position in deference to the important people who would be seated on the floor at the rear.

The polite way to approach a village was to stand on the outskirts and call out in a loud voice “Dua Dua Duaa,” with the last word elongated in a drawn out manner. Everyone who heard you would show themselves at the door of their own houses, beckon, and call out “Mai, ni mai,ni mai.” Which means come in come in you are welcome. The initial call notifying the residents of your presence varied slightly from village to village, so the residents could usually tell from where the visitors had traveled when they uttered their greeting call.

Food

– Each family had their tete or garden. The staple foods were kasava, and taro root crops, augmented also by other vegetables such as eggplant, guava, pawpaw, and plantain, (a type of banana for cooking). Meat was scarce and highly valued. Chicken was reserved for a special occasion and was usually served as curry. A little girl from a local school in an essay about the differences between Indian families and Fijian families wrote, “even Indian people eat curry.”

The young men hunted wild pigs and all the village dogs had their ears cut off because the people were convinced this made them better hunters.

Fruit Bats, called Beka, were plentiful and provided another source of protein. The young men caught them by throwing a 300 ml. long hardwood stick at the branches where the bats were roosting. If thrown hard enough and accurately, the bats could be dislodged and once on the ground were cumbersome and easily run down. Fruit Bat meat is not unpleasant to eat, it has a sweet taste similar to the scent permeating from the bat colonies. I was occasionally offered a feed of Beka, not aware at the time that these animals are known carriers of rabies!

The everyday occupation of village women was the hunting and gathering of wild plants and fish. These fingerlings were netted from under the banks of the many creeks and the women didn’t seem to begrudge the hours spent fishing each day, even though the pickings were slim. The weaving of mats was also an important task. Apart from their utilitarian value these mats played an important roll in cultural ceremonies, including engagements, weddings, and funerals.

Personal hygiene was catered for by the reticulation of creek water to one or more public showers. There were also screened off pit toilets, usually sited out of the way at the rear of the village.

On a shopping expedition in Suva I bought myself a pair of aviator sunglasses with gold frames. On Sunday afternoon a few days later we visited a nearby village and after a bowl or two of Yaqona I had a need to go to the toilet. I stood over the deep malodorous pit, glanced downwards, and my sparkling new sunglasses tumbled into a seething mass of excrement and maggots. Half an hour later they were being proudly worn around the village by a grinning teenager. He knew exactly who owned them and was lurking around, most likely wondering how much I was prepared to pay him for them – I wasn’t tempted.

TABUA

Tabua are very important in Fijian culture. They are pierced and braided whales teeth originally taken from the lower jaw of sperm whales. These teeth are polished and rubbed with coconut oil and turmeric to darken them, and according to Wikipedia are considered by Fijians to be a Kavakavaturanga or “chiefly thing.” In times gone by they were important bargaining tools during negotiations between rival chiefs.

Dead people of rank would sometimes be buried with their Tabua, their war clubs, and their strangled wives, to help them in the after life.

As Tabua are a cultural item, their removal from Fiji is highly restricted and subject to permits from the ministry of Taukei Affairs.

One day I was contacted by Josefa Maveli the chief of Raviravi village. He said he had something to discuss with me. Josefa had become a close friend and an important source of cultural wisdom. When I was ushered into his house I noticed there were more elders than usual present, and they were animatedly discussing some pictures in a tattered National Geographic magazine. Josefa passed me the magazine and said “Fife, what sort of manumanu is this?” It was a brontosaurus and they’d been discussing the origin of this improbable animal for some time. Manumanu is the Fijian word engulfing all living creatures and the men were divided as to whether it was an animal or a reptile, and where one could go to see one. Once this topic of conversation was exhausted we came to the reason for my summons. The meeting became formal, a sevusevu took place and Josefa presented me with the Tabua in the accompanying photo. He said in Fijian “this is for you, to thank you for coming all this way to help us. You are now Taukei” which meant one of us.

To me, this simple gesture was the high point of our two-year stint in Fiji, unlike our inevitable departure 12 months later after I’d come to the bitter realisation we would be unable to achieve any more.

Next chapter. After 12 more months in Fiji we return to Cairn Peak to find it impossible to recapture our old life.

We’d now settled in, and I’d returned from NZ with my leg mending but still in plaster. I couldn’t ride a horse but there’d been ample time for me to reflect on what was going to work and what wasn’t. Our family had been made welcome by both the people of Uluisaivou, and our contacts in the High Commission in Suva. We were intrigued by the challenges and determined to make a go of things.

The image above is a Sunday afternoon visit to Nayalevu village. L-R: Nicola, Graeme, Rosie, Me, Joanna, the Trumper family & Villagers.

INTO THE DEEP END

I was christened Ratu Lima. Ratu, according to the dictionary is a title used by Fijians of chiefly rank. And Lima is the numeral five which is close enough to Fife. I had no choice in the matter. My closest ally and friend in Fiji was the chief of Raviravi village. His name was Josefa Maveli, He was a jovial man in his late 60s, with a chiefly demeanor and a marked limp. He just called me Fife.

Late one night during our second or third week I was wakened from a deep sleep by a respectfully urgent voice outside our bedroom window. “Ratu Lima, e dua na lega”. I struggled out of bed and was confronted by Peni who’d been delegated to fetch me. I was to hear the phrase “e dua na lega” regularly. It loosely translates as “there’s a problem.” And the phrase “e dua na lega levu” is more ominous. It means “there’s a big problem.” The problem in this case was a horse belonging to one villager had strayed into the garden of another villager who’d taken to it with a cane knife. Over the ensuing months I had to deal with the result of 4 other intentional machete attacks, one on a man, one on a dog, and two on other horses.

This particular horse was being held by its owner, it was seeping blood, with its head low to the ground. Its stomach wall was visible through the slashed skin of its belly but luckily the stomach itself hadn’t been compromised. It was then I came to realise why we had an industrial strength veterinary kit in our office. The nearest vet was well over two hours’ drive away so the local vet was me, but until now, no one had informed me!

A crowd of onlookers stood around waiting and there was plenty of muscle on hand to help me rope and throw the horse. My mind was racing. I’d need disinfectant……. (tick.) Clamp to help pull the wound together ………., I rummaged through the vet kit…..yes, (tick.) Needle and suture material….yes, (tick.) Skilled knowledge of surgical needle craft…. (blank.) I looked around, no one was stepping up, so it had to be me. I got the job done but by the time I’d finished everyone knew I didn’t really know how to neatly suture a wounded animal, but no one seemed to mind, and the horse survived. The next time we went to Suva I made a bee line for the vet and spent an hour under his watchful eye stitching together the lids on cardboard cartons. We also discussed my veterinary needs and the propensity for the locals to lash out with their cane knives. He suggested some extra bits and pieces for my veterinary toolbox together with some advice on other scenarios I may find useful.

My vet kit came in handy on another occasion. Nicola our oldest daughter contracted a nasty boil on her midriff. We drove to the doctor in Rakiraki about 25km away. The roads were rough, particularly for a short wheelbase 4WD vehicle so these trips were a slow journey. The Doctor said he’d need to administer a course of penicillin. He produced a kidney dish containing a number of used needles, selected the sharpest looking one, dipped it into some medical alcohol and proceeded to give Nicola a subcutaneous injection. Needles in those days were as thick as a small knitting needle so it wasn’t a comfortable experience. He wiped the needle and popped it into the steriliser for re-use and said “you’ll need to come back again over the next two days for another two jabs” I said, “I have a better idea, if you give me some penicillin I’ll administer the next two doses myself.” He was perfectly happy with that arrangement and he gave me the bottle but I declined his offer of a needle. I was able to select two new ones from a fresh packet in my vet kit and so negated the need for two more 50km round trip drives.

THE SEVUSEVU

A Sevusevu or Yaqona ceremony is a pivotal part of life in rural communities in Fiji. These rituals are performed in order to gain spiritual approval from the omnipresent ancestors for any important undertaking. If a new fence line is to be built, there will need to be a sevusevu before the first hole is dug. If sugar cane planting is to commence, it will need to be preceded by a sevusevu. At Uluisaivou there was a sevusevu before every board meeting and a sevusevu each day at topdressing season to keep the helicopter safe, ETC.

Yaqona as it is known in Fiji, is a cousin to the pepper plant. It is commonly called Kava by tourists, and by Pacific Islanders from other nations. The roots are dried and thoroughly pounded into a powder, then ceremoniously mixed with water and filtered through a silk cloth before drinking.

Yaqona is a mild barbiturate. It numbs the lips and has an earthy taste. My job necessitated the drinking of gallons of Yaqona over the journey, and I experienced no adverse effects.

Not all Yaqona drinking requires a formal ceremonial sevusevu during its consumption. If the occasion is only for social or convivial reasons, there will be a short incantation before the presentation of the Bilo, (coconut shell drinking cup) to the people sitting cross legged on coconut matting. Then the events of the day will be discussed and as the soporific effect of the drug takes over, conversation slows, and the cares of the day are forgotten.

It is very poor form to go visiting without taking a gift of Yaqona, and a small ritual is necessary before passing the package to the host.

KERIKERI AND OTHER CUSTOMS

The dwellings in the villages were traditional thatched “bures” or a mixture of dwellings with thatched roofs and corrugated iron. Increasingly workers were negotiating to be paid in “covers” instead of money. “Covers” was the local term for sheets of corrugated iron and you would need to work for many weeks to get enough covers to roof a dwelling. Traditional thatched bures were superior both in looks and in comfort, being cooler and perfectly waterproof when new but they degraded over time and required constant maintenance so regrettably there was a relentless tide towards changing from thatched bures to tin shacks. The downside of course was the stifling temperature inside the tin roofed dwellings and the mortal danger from sheets of flying iron during hurricanes. There were always fatalities somewhere in Fiji during hurricane season, caused by death in this way.

Shortly after we took up residence the Uluisaivou board decided to build a bure alongside our house as a neutral venue in which to hold board meetings. It would also double as a recreation centre for staff (and us ….. we put a pool table in it) The accompanying photos illustrate progress on this project.

Fiji’s indigenous society is communal with great importance attached to the family unit, to the village, and to the vanua (land.) A hierarchy of chiefs presides over villages, clans and tribes, and chiefly positions are hereditary. Wound into this fabric are taboos and responsibilities significant to Fijians, but unfathomable to most westerners. There is a custom called Kerikeri which still exists. If a respected family member expresses interest in a personal asset you own and kerikeri is invoked, you will lose face if you don’t insist that they take it. This is a big factor in discouraging young people from working hard to get ahead. During my time in Fiji, I saw instances of people industriously gathering a stockpile of roofing iron only to have sheets kerikeried away by others.

There is a complicated sociological taboo in Fiji based on relationships with cousins. Cousins on one parent’s side of your family can be strictly taboo to you and if you are a woman, you cannot come into close proximity, you must avoid eye contact and if close you should adopt a subordinate attitude. On the other hand, familiarity is perfectly acceptable with cousins of either sex on the other parents side. This taboo complicated things if I was trying to squeeze people into the Land Cruiser. It would not be unusual for a woman to get out and walk rather than ride with a cousin, or alternatively they would crouch on the floor in the back carefully avoiding eye contact.

RANCH MANAGER’S END-OF-YEAR REPORT TO NEW ZEALAND FOREIGN AFFAIRS DEPARTMENT- DECEMBER 1979
We have almost completed 12 months of our assignment now, and although the year hasn’t been without its difficulties, we are looking forward to our holidays, and to returning after Xmas for our next 12-month stint. We were expecting this to be an isolated posting but the opposite has been the case. The Uluisaivou project has a high profile and we’ve enjoyed a constant stream of interesting visitors.

We had a major setback in May when John Fatiaki my right-hand man, and the one person who had been with the project since its inception, was talked by Fiji Agriculture Department– against his will – into applying for the manager’s position at the Yaqara Pastoral Company. To nobody’s surprise he got the job and this meant that by mid-year I had lost the only other person on the ranch with the training to make informed decisions in my absence.

Supervising labour in a remote location in a developing community has to be experienced to be believed. Our staff here fluctuates between 20 and 40 workers daily. The following are some excerpts from my diary over a busy period, illustrating some of the scenarios that have to be dealt with.

June 11th
Away at 6:00 AM. Isikeli Naitura not working today, as the chief of Rakiraki Village has died. He has to attend. I picked up Koro who didn’t work last week. He maintains his knees were too sore, but has no medical certificate. Went to get Marika but he said his eyes were paining him. He looked OK, so I got him on the job, then took Koro to the bulldozer, but he couldn’t cultivate because the hydraulic hoses on the discs were leaking oil. Sent him to Nawiga to bulldoze roads but he forgot the diesel and was low on hydraulic oil, finally got him started about 10:00 AM.  Peni is fencing with four men at Nawiqa, and Eremosi is fencing with 8 men at Korolevu. Had trouble late this morning with two corporation horses getting into Rupeni’s Garden. He was threatening to go to the police. I mollified him then was told there are two of our cattle in Epeli Raginavatu’s garden and a cow in Inosi’s sugarcane.   Removed these – luckily there was no need to pay compensation as damage was minimal. Sent Alo and Keni fencing – they made one Taranaki gate and put in one fence post for the day’s work. Toga turned up for work this morning with a bad case of boils so was worse than useless. I made some burners after lunch, and sent Jopi and Joe burning reeds in preparation for the sugar cane cultivation, but the reeds wouldn’t burn – not enough wind. Inosi came up to the office to sell us a horse. Good horse – swapped it for a calf.  Sakiusa tells me he wants to buy two yearlings. Six Burelevu men turned up to work to help cart fertiliser for the helicopter, even though I sent a note last Friday to say there’d be no work as the helicopter isn’t coming. They had been waiting for four hours at the manure shed when I discovered them. Apparently Joe forgot to give them the note.  Drove them the eight miles back to the village. Three stock-men mustered the horse paddock for six hours and only got 10 steers out of 14. The other three stock-men mustered Vinibau all day, but came back with no cattle at all, and their horses were exhausted. I treated the stallion’s cut leg after taking Tavita to the cattle yards to inspect the steers mustered for tomorrow. They are really too thin to sell but we are overstocked and have no option. Kara told me the cash-box in the office is $40 short and can’t trace where it is gone. She said she has her suspicions! Went to Radio-telephone shack to call Yaqara to organise a horse buying trip there tomorrow, but Radio-telephone out of order.

June 12th
Woken at midnight last night to take Epeli’s wife to the maternity hospital. Just made it in time due to compulsory Sevu Sevu delaying us from leaving. This seemed to take an age as she was already in labour while we had to drink Yaqona! Back to bed at 2:00 AM, up again at 6:00 AM to organise day. Koro bulldozing Namiqa, and Marika, with two other men, are away cutting and spraying wild Yaqona. Alo and Keni on fence repairs worked better today after finally locating wire strainers they’d left at Vuniyaumunu village. Stock-men tried to muster bulls and New Zealand heifers all day- no luck.  Sent 10 steers to central meats. Bedford truck motor blew up halfway to Raki Raki mill with a full load of sugar cane on board. Off loaded cane and towed the truck to Naisivalagi. Home for dinner at 10:30 PM.

June 13th
Koro not working- sore knees.   Alo started on fence by cattle yards. Keni and Joe weeding pine trees.   Marika to start burning again at Nabalabala.  Severo and Jopi distributing meal for feeding overworked horses and thin cattle. Fiji Pine Commission came to check on seedling survival at the pine plantation. Ligavi and Jopi towed wounded Bedford from Naiseralagi to our workshop. Centre spread in Fiji Times today describes with photos and glowing story, how the corporation’s General Manager who lives in Suva, has single-handedly developed the ranch to its present high standard. Well done, John. No mention of the Uluisaivou present or past Ranch Managers. Koro has made an impassioned plea for a floor boy to help with the bulldozing. I’ll need to think about it.

June 15th
6:30 AM to radio-telephone shack to order supplies. Marika off work due to Methodist meeting at his house. Nayalevu people spraying wild Yaqona. I went to Nawiga to check on bulldozing and fencing. Went to cattle yards and swapped three heifers for three village horses. Sold two heifers. stock-men sorted out cows from mixed sex yearlings. Bedford Motor stripped down- discovered broken oil ring- having difficulty locating replacement parts. Office work for me this afternoon. Just after knocking off at 6:00 PM, had to take Koro to Namara – his uncle has died- so he says!!  Then summoned to Nayalevu  village to stitch up a cane knife wound in a horses flanks, then stitched up dog  with a partly severed foot-all done in the lights of the Toyota.  On to the cattle yards to attend to a cow which proved to have a broken neck. Cow died. Home at 10:00 PM for dinner. Woken up by the men at 1:30 AM with the $60 they had received for selling the meat from the dead cow.

Conclusions
The year has been packed with new experiences I wouldn’t have missed for the world. If one can maintain a sense of humour, the job carries ample reward. I’m pleased to report the madhouse nature of management was alleviated by  the arrival of Bernard Trumper and family. He’s now firmly ensconced in the Head Stock-man roll. Three comments are pertinent here.

1. Prompt action to my request for someone to fill this roll was very much appreciated.
2. Bernard threw himself into his new job with enthusiasm. He has been nicknamed “Gaga” (pronounced Ganga ) by the Fijians which means strong or tough. Very high praise in this environment.
3. To pull him out again as planned in April would be a disaster – I will elaborate.

John Fatiaki left us in June, to be replaced by Isakeli Naitura. Isakeli is a Fijian Government Agricultural extension officer. He’s smart, well educated and capable of filling a senior roll but at present he’s available for only two days a week with the balance of his time being spent supervising his Ministry Extension Officers with village small farming projects. There is no way he is qualified or even interested in taking over as a practical leader of the stock-men.

Tevita my previous head, stock-man is about to leave us to take up farming on his own account. He will be sadly missed and difficult to replace. It’s important Bernard stays on as a permanent replacement. It’s interesting to note that the Yalavo cattle scheme, half the size of Uluisaivou, has five experienced Europeans employed. We at present have two.

Approval for my study trip came at a good time. I was tired and losing efficiency and have returned revitalised and secure in the knowledge that Uluisaivou could be viable, provided a 70%, to eventually 75% calving rate, is proven to be economically feasible. I have written a brief summary of our study tour for the board meeting on 14 December, together with some recommendations. I hope the New Zealand authorities will acknowledge the recommendations and help where they are able.

“I have had a memorable year. One might say the experience of a lifetime. My efforts at delegation are ongoing, and during my absence in November, the farm ran on in good Fijian style. If Bernard Trumper has to return to NZ, though, it will be a return to crisis management.”

KW Fife. Ranch Manager
December 1979

By the end of the 1970s, things were going well on Cairn Peak. Pinnacle Pine forest, our second forestry syndicate was fully subscribed and we now had 2,000 acres committed to farm forestry. Since taking up residence in 1964, we’d trebled our carrying capacity, tidied up the farm purchased from Bob Mitchell and were now able to fatten most of our livestock prior to sale.

We’d negotiated some lucrative barley malting contracts and were obtaining yields on our fertile flat land in excess of 15 tonnes per ha. Rumours of going broke were long dead and one day, after I’d driven up to the Dipton pub in our new Land Rover, I heard the son of a privileged farming family muttering behind closed fingers to a friend, “here comes the nouveau riche.” How things had changed.

On 7th December 1978 I received a letter from Ministry of Foreign Affairs saying they’d been advised by the Fiji government, that my nomination for the position of Ranch Manager for the Uluisaivou corporation in Fiji had been formerly accepted. Our life was set to change as we prepared to relocate our family for a two year stint in the South Pacific.

The Uluisaivou project was funded by the NZ Government under their bi-lateral aid program and was designed to introduce a cooperative farming venture into a remote native land area in north Viti Levu. Two New Zealanders had been leading the project and I was to replace the Ranch Manager who was returning home.

In the preceding three years, remote villages had been opened up with the building of new roads to replace centuries old walking tracks. Most children in the area now had access to schooling and the sick were more easily transported to hospital. In addition some of the physical infrastructure necessary to support a modern cattle farming enterprise was in place, and 2,000 head of cattle were grazing the hills for the first time.

The scheme involved 120,000 acres of hilly native land and approximately 2,000 people living in 22 widely dispersed villages.

My new role as Ranch Manager was to supervise the continuing land development, as well as the sugar cane farming and cattle ranching activities. The staff consisted of 4 stock-men, 3 gangs of 6 fencers, 2 mechanics, 3 tractor drivers, and a typist-secretary. In addition, there were 3 Agricultural Department employees on site, sponsored by the Fiji government. I was to learn in time that rightly or wrongly, the villagers’ expectations of the ex patriot Ranch Manager’s responsibility went beyond managing the ranch.The Uluisaivou scheme was a big deal to these people and by the time I left I drew far more pleasure from my connections with the villagers, than from achievements we’d made in the cattle ranching enterprise. This was hardly a surprise because it wasn’t long before I realised, the cattle farming venture as it was presently set up was doomed to failure.

Back in NZ we engaged a manager to run Cairn Peak whilst we were away. Graeme and Joanna were still in primary school so would live with us on site in Fiji during 1979 qnd receive their schooling by correspondence. Nicolla was enrolled in Southland Girls College in Invercargill as there were no boarding facilities at the international school in Suva. In 1980 Joanna joined her sister in boarding school and the two girls became seasoned travelers, the terms of my employment contract stipulated they would be flown to Fiji for all NZ school holidays.

Suva

In January 1979 we set off for Suva armed with our green official passports. These didn’t grant us any diplomatic privileges, (like red ones), but did put us in priority queues with customs and airport officials. This was just as well as I’d been asked by Foreign Affairs department to take my rifle. We’d occasionally be required to provide meat for village ceremonies, and given that local slaughtering practices were inhumane to say the least, on those occasions it was better for me to assume the role of executioner.

I’ve never walked into an airport Customs hall with a hunting rifle before, but production of our green passports smoothed the way and through we went.

We spent our first week getting acclimatised to a hot steamy Suva and were charmed by its 1970s colonial atmosphere. The pace was relaxed and at mid day everything ground to a halt. It was common to see pairs of policemen holding hands as they walked along, dressed in their white uniform sulus (traditional skirts.)

I’m embarrassed to say I had a safari suit made after I’d been convinced by an Indian tailor that this was the preferred dress for self respecting ex patriots. Mine had short pants, short sleeves, and an impressive jacket with wide pockets on the sides. I wore it a couple of times in Suva but it stayed in the closet once we’d taken up residence at Uluisaivou. This was not only because it looked ridiculous, but also because after 6 weeks in the tropics I’d lost so much weight it no longer fitted.

During our week in Suva we had briefing sessions in the NZ High Commission, we spent some “get to know you” time with John Stone, the project’s general manager. We met some Ministry of Agriculture officials, and were supplied with briefing papers containing valuable information on Fijian culture. Included with this material was a small yellow publication containing common Fijian conversational phrases.

In the early 1800s the missionaries when committing spoken Fijian to a written language, introduced a system for certain letters of the English alphabet to represent Fijian sounds. Here are some examples.

c = th as in that. ……. Sucu pronounced suthu
b = mb as in number. …….. Bau pronounced mbau
d = nd as in sand . …….. Nadi pronounced Nandi
g = ng as in ring ……… Vavalagi pronounced Vavalangi
q = ng-g as in finger. …….. Yaqona pronounced yang-gona

I have no idea why they didn’t just spell the words exactly as they were pronounced. Yaqona spelt with a q makes no sense. It would more sensibly be yangona. The illogical missionaries of the day have much to answer for!

I was determined to learn to speak Fijian whilst I was there and made a concerted effort with only moderate success.

Uluisaivou

We were all excited when the General Manager drove us on an introductory one-day visit to our new home. There we were treated to a traditional welcoming ceremony which also served as an official farewell for Rhod my predecessor.

The largest village in our bailiwick was called Nabalabala (pronounced Nambalambala, those meddling missionaries again!) It was situated at the bottom of a hill near a small river. This was a natural swimming hole popular with the locals and our 3 kids. Half way up the hill and clustered together on a ridge were two houses, plus the company office, and the workshop. This site provided a good view over the valley with the added benefit of exposure to the cooling breezes. The house was unpretentious and comfortable, perfectly adequate for the tropics.

We took up permanent residence 3 days later, and there was a welcoming Meke (celebratory dance) put on for us by our staff that evening. There were plates of fruit and some hot food, and dancing to music provided by transistor radios and guitars. Luckily I’d been warned by the General Manager in Suva what to do when Tevita the Head Stockman came forward and tapped me on the knee (I was sitting down). This was an invitation to dance with him but no, he didn’t fancy me, he was being polite to a newcomer. So Tevita and I boogied away and everyone joined in and a good time was had by all.

Once our possessions were unloaded that first day, Rosie set about turning our house into a home while I went to find the local shop to purchase some white spirits for our lantern. The “shop” was a tiny tin shed at the junction of the main road about 8 kms away.

I drove down the hill in our land cruiser, turned right at Nabalabala and before long came upon a straight backed old man walking along the road. He had bare feet and grizzled hair, he was wearing his best sulu and he walked with a stick. We’d been told there were no private vehicles in our territory and it was polite to offer a ride to people on the road. So I stopped, wound down the window:

Me – “ko via vodo?” Would you like a ride?
Man – “io, vinaka vaka levu” Yes thanks very much.
Me – “ko ca lako i vei?” Where are you going?
Man – “au sa lako ki na bure oya” I’m going to the house over there,” pointing to a small thatched native house in the distance
Me – “OK, koce na yacamu?” OK, What is your name?
Man – “mi yacagu es Ilisoni, ko ce su yacamu?” My name is Ilisoni, what’s your name?
Me – “mi yacaqu es Ken” My name is Ken.

He looked at me, nodded gravely, then couldn’t contain himself, and he laughed and laughed. Finally, he said, “Actually, you’ll find most of us speak pretty good English around here.” Then we both laughed. I’d been so proud of myself, and he’d been humouring me out of politeness. There would have been a good laugh at my expense in his village that night.

It wasn’t long before I threw away the phrase book. Nobody in Fiji used the stilted old-fashioned phrases you find in these publications. I eventually paid Jone Raicebi, an educated Fijian in Nabalabala who’d retired from the seminary, to teach me Fijian and lots of fascinating aspects about the culture. He became a handy source of gossip and a valuable sounding board during my 2 years at Uluisaivou.

Settling In

We quickly learned some new words. Cattle of all sizes and sexes are known as Bulemakau a far more descriptive word than cattle beast! And Mongoose which were imported in the late 1800s to kill the Cane Toads, failed miserably with that task, but did clean out the countrie’s native snakes. Mongoose are called Manapussy and it always seemed a bit odd to hear a grown man say he’d just seen a Manapussy.

Houses in tropical areas throughout the Asia Pacific typically have Ghekos, a type of small lizard, in residence. This is to be encouraged because they love eating flies and mosquitoes. These harmless little creatures scamper around the inner walls and ceilings and you can get quite attached to them. If we were quick enough to catch one we’d give it a name and put a tiny dab of nail polish on its back to identify it from its neighbours in other rooms. Other permanent residents were cockroaches which we’d never see in the daytime but they’d emerge out of the drains from the septic tank at night and scuttle around in numbers on the concrete floor in the bathroom. No matter how many we killed we made no impression on their numbers so we learned to co-exist.

Cane toads were a real pest. Situated as we were on a ridge, the lights from our house at night were a beacon to nocturnal insects, and nocturnal insects are a cane toad’s staple diet. In the morning we’d find toads sleeping inside our work boots and in any other hiding place they could find in the vicinity of the house. Their life consisted of eating, defecating, and sleeping as close as possible to their source of food. In desperation I gave Graeme a chaff sack and promised him 20c for every cane toad he caught within the confines of our house. To my amazement he had 85 in a heaving sack on the first day and it was too heavy for him to lift. On the second day there were another 52. He’d made himself some tidy pocket money for our next trip to Suva.

What do you do with 137 cane toads? I drove about 5 kms away and dumped them in the grass on the side of the road.

In the first three days on the job, Tevita and I rode around the widely spaced cattle grazing areas to give me a feel for the layout of the property and the condition of the cattle. I next turned my attention to the office and the farm records.

The office was Kara’s domain, she was about 22, she’d had some secretarial training and was an accurate typist but she had attitude and could maintain a no talking haughtiness for hours at a time. She was a good friend to Nicola and Joanna when they were in Fiji on holiday.

I spent hours trawling through the office records trying to make sense of things and I made two discoveries. There was a treasure trove of publications dedicated to tropical agriculture and I burnt the midnight oil soaking up this valuable information.

My second discovery was the lack of material you’d normally find in the office of a sizable farming enterprise. Kara had been doing a good job keeping staff records, the cash float reconciliations, and accounts receivables. So a big tick there.

There were copies of the overly optimistic income and expenditure plans underpinning the project when it was signed off by the NZ and Fijian governments. What I couldn’t find was any meaningful information about the actual stock performance figures and what were the plans to redress the woeful 50% calving percentage. In addition I couldn’t get a feel for the death rates because I could find no accurate tallies. Summing up to myself after my first two weeks, I had an uneasy feeling about the feasibility of the cattle ranching dream, but there was an upside.

The Uluisaivou people appeared very supportive of the project. The corporation had provided jobs, roads, river crossings, and better access to health care. A workshop had been set up to maintain the ranch vehicles and machinery, and it earned an income by acting as a repair centre for the numbers of Indian cane farmers who were leasing small plots of native land in the area.

New Zealand is a world leader in obtaining extremely high production per acre from grazing livestock on superior pastures in a temperate climate. Unfortunately you don’t find a temperate climate, fertile soil, and lush European pasture species in Fiji. The NZ progenitors of the Uluisaivou scheme had paid scant attention to these inconvenient facts I concluded, as I poured over the optimistic budget forecasts I’d found in the office.

Australia had a Cattle establishment aid scheme called Yalavo on the south coast of Viti Levu between Suva and Nadi. I decided to reach out to the manager to ask if I could visit and learn about what they were doing. He agreed but was cool when I introduced myself and had no interest in sharing any salient information, so my long drive there and back was an embarrassing waste of time. I can only assume some bad blood existed between the two institutions. Twelve months later the management at Yalavo changed and Rosie and I became friends with the new couple in charge but by then I’d worked out what needed to be done at Uluisaivou. The immediate solution was a study tour to learn as much as I could about tropical agriculture. I was particularly interested in institutions researching cattle breeds and pasture species that could thrive in the tropics. I put my case to the High Comissioner in Suva and he supported me. I will always be grateful for this because I returned to Saivou with a lot of answers I’ll write about in the next chapter.

More Drama

Before we left Cairn Peak I’d ordered a pair of RM Williams riding boots from Australia but they hadn’t reached NZ before we left, so I asked the new farm manager to forward them to Fiji when they arrived. We got a note to say they were now in Suva so when next in town we paid the duty and released them from Customs before returning to Saivou. With the extra freight and the local taxes they’d turned out to be rather expensive.

The next morning around daybreak, in a fine drizzle, the stockmen and I rode out to a thickly wooded block some distance from the house and commenced a cattle muster. We split up on the top ridge at the start, took a beat each, and drove the mob down hill towards a gathering area near the Nyalegu school. About halfway down I encountered a troublesome Brahman bull. He was tired, thin, and intractable after a long season with his cows. By the time I got him to the bottom of the hill he backed into a thicket of high scrub and was determined to hold his ground. I left him to calm down for a while but eventually it was time to move him on. I spurred my horse after him but he’d had enough. Without warning he spun around and charged.

There was a loud crack like a breaking branch, he drove my horse sideways with the momentum of his charge. The horse stumbled but kept his feet, and I looked down at my right leg which was still in the stirrup but flopping from side to side. Both bones were broken through about nine inches above my ankle. Two stock-men lifted me gingerly out of the saddle, laid me on the ground, and when I looked down one of them had his knife out and was cutting off one of my expensive new boots! He couldn’t understand why I was laughing.

That was the beginning of a very long day and I wasn’t laughing at the end of it. When we arrived at hospital 7 hours later we were told they’d finished operating for the day and we could come back next week. Rosie stormed inside and created such a scene they relented. They performed a rough patch up and put me to bed.

Below is a copy of a letter from the General Manager of the Uluisaivou Corporation to the High Commissioner explaining why I had to return to NZ for professional treatment.

 

 

22nd March, 1979.
NZ High Commission
PO Box 1378
Suva

Dear Sir.
Re: KW Fife. Ranch manager.

On Friday 9th March, Mr Fife was mustering cattle with other stockmen. At 9:00 am near the Nyalegu school a Brahman bull was proving difficult to handle, and when Mr Fife attempted to bring him under control with his horse the bull charged and broke his right leg. The local ambulance had already left for Lautoka Hospital so Mr Fife was driven there by Mrs Fife in a short wheelbase Land Cruiser, finally arriving about 4:00 pm. which was after theater time. It was suggested that the leg couldn’t be operated on until Tuesday next, however an attempt was made to set it, but this was unsuccessful. A second attempt was made on Tuesday and a third on Thursday. During Friday night, the plaster broke and the doctor advised on Saturday, that though he was playing golf, if Fife could make arrangements to go to New Zealand he could call him at the Golf Club and the Doctor would write a referral letter to the NZ Hospital.

On the Saturday afternoon 17th. March we found an Air New Zealand plane was due to leave from Nadi to Auckland but it was three hours late. A first class seat was booked for Sunday the 18th. There was no known contact in Auckland so a connection to Invercargill, was taken.

He was delivered to the aircraft at Nadi by ambulance and met by an ambulance at Invercargill.  He was, I understand, operated on by fitting plates in his leg on Tuesday and is expected to be released by week ending 31st march.

J A Stone
General Manager
Uluisaivou Corporation

Post Script: My right leg was in plaster from hip to ankle. I was allocated seat 1B, a bulkhead seat in Business class. The problem of getting me into the plane in an airport without an air bridge was solved by opening the front door on the starboard side of the aircraft and hoisting my wheelchair with me in it, up high with a forklift.

I was away for three weeks after the accident and during that time celebrated my 40th birthday in the hospital in NZ among a very small circle of friends. In the meantime Rosie and Graeme were holding the fort at the ranch. Two days after I’d been taken away there was a knock at the door and a senior villager handed Rosie a fillet steak. My bull had been sacrificed to appease “the old people” (this is what the villagers called their ancestors). Two or three young Fijians would have confronted the bull and hamstrung it by slashing the achilles tendons in its hind legs with sharp machetes. This would have brought it to the ground where the machetes would have continued to do their work until the bull was dead. Every skerick of meat would have been shared out among the traditional owners of the land where the accident had happened.This was sad. The meat would have been horribly tough, and I held no grudge against this expensive pedigreed Brahman bull that had been purchased and shipped over from an Australian stud in Queensland.

Under the terms of my employment contract I had to produce a quarterly report for the Foreign Affairs Epartment. Here’s my first one.

ULUISAIVOU CORPORATION
RANCH MANAGERS QUARTERLY REPORT TO THE NEW ZEALAND FOREIGN AFFAIRS DEPARTMENT
JANUARY TO APRIL 1979

We arrived in Suva on 8th January and settled in at the ranch with the maximum of assistance from Mr Matthews of the High Commission and the General Manager, and a minimum of help from the previous Ranch Manager. The refrigerator contained mould and rotting food, the house was filthy and my overlap period and briefing by the ranch manager consisted of a fragmented series of meetings, including some mustering, totaling no more than three days.

On my take over, there were only three saddles for the use of myself and four stockmen, most of the vehicles were in need of urgent repair, the household generator was only putting out about 160 volts so that virtually no electrical appliances would operate, and the maps and farm management records that one would expect to find were scanty or non-existent.

Early in March, I was attacked by a bull while mustering and the resultant broken leg kept me out of action in Lautoka, and then in Invercargill Hospital in NZ for about a month. However, during my time so far on the ranch, I’ve concentrated on.

1. Cultivating staff confidence and making as much contact as possible with the villagers.
2. Compiling a map of the farmed area and familiarising myself with the office records.
3. Assessment of the property and the formulation of my future management plans and recommendations.

Through a series of staff meetings, I have been able to delegate responsibility to the senior staff members and in the next few weeks to the end of June, I hope to concentrate on putting into practice my ideas on grazing management, including the institution of a simple system of rotational grazing. There will also be sugar cane to be planted, harvesting to commence, and 2000 acres to oversow and topdress.

The constraints are, that with the speed of the fencing programme in the last three years, some of the paddocks are only fenced on two or three sides. They aren’t stock proof and effectively the cattle in these areas can roam into village gardens making the corporation responsible for any damage done. Fencing of new areas will need to be curtailed until these issues have been addressed. Mustering and stock work are far from easy given the ground cover and inexperience of some of the stockmen, and the need to push on with the consenting and fencing of new land is also important, as in my opinion we are on the verge of being overstocked.

The cattle were generally in good condition on my take over. The recent consignment of 406 New Zealand cattle also arrived in good condition, but about 10% are too small for their age and should have been culled. This is a rough developing property, not a dairy farm.

My family has fitted into the environment and the community extremely well and with no reservations. We are all enjoying the assignment and experience. The help given by the General Manager to my family while I was incapacitated is gratefully acknowledged.

Ken Fife
Ranch Manager
25/04/1979

1970 was an eventful year for several reasons. We had been farming Cairn Peak for six years, and though heavily burdened with debt, we had continued with our development program and our carrying capacity had increased significantly.

As livestock numbers increased there wasn’t enough fattening land, which meant we had to sell our calves and lambs at weaning instead of letting them grow into profit over the summer months. This meant revenues were rising but profit remained elusive

Our young family was growing and Nicola our oldest was in primary school. We had no car, however the farm owned an ancient long wheel base, flat deck Land Rover. The cabin was unlined, unheated, drafty and smelly. On work days it was used for feeding out, carting dogs, picking up dead sheep and attending to maintenance and stock work. On town days, we hosed it down, and together with the two toddlers we’d squeeze into the cabin and head off to Invercargill 60 kilometers away.

Tribulations

Early on May 4th that year I loaded the Land Rover with fencing gear, packed a cut lunch, and headed into the hills to finish a stretch of new fence. I dug in the remaining posts and by mid afternoon the job would have been complete once the final wire was fixed in place. Sadly for me fate intervened and a 20mm staple spun into my eye. My vision was replaced by a swirling kaleidoscope of colour and that was when I became permanently blind in my right eye.

I carried on for another couple of hours, It was important to ensure the fence was stock proof. Finally it was finished and I gingerly made my way down the steep hill track to the homestead. Rosie drove me to the Doctor in Winton. He was visibly moved after he’d examined me and notified the hospital of my need for urgent treatment, but there was no ambulance so we drove back to the farm, packed an overnight bag and set off on the long drive to Dunedin hospital 200 kms away. It was late at night when we arrived, there was a team waiting to operate, and it was daylight when it was all over and I was admitted to the ward. I’d had micro surgery on a lacerated cornea and the remains of my lens was removed. The front of my eye was a mess but the posterior chamber was intact so with luck I wasn’t going to need a glass eye. My troubles weren’t over yet though. I went home but after three weeks I was readmitted with acute glaucoma which required an operation on my Iris. I was discharged again then flown once more to hospital, this time by air ambulance. I now had an acute bacterial infection and a corneal ulcer. I was finally released on July 30th, nearly three months after the accident.

When all was over I was secure in the knowledge that farm staff were covered by our company insurance policy, and permanent loss of the sight of one eye attracted a hefty pay out. I was less smug when it transpired I was deemed an owner by the insurance company and not an employee. They’d weaseled out of paying so I received nothing.

Winter

We had an uncharacteristically severe snowstorm in the winter of 1970 and 500 out of a mob of 1500 wethers on the hill perished. In inclement weather, sheep will run before a storm and can end up in deep snow drifts on the lee side of the hill. If they can’t be reached they can become snowbound and die of starvation or asphyxiation. It’s not uncommon for snowbound sheep as a last resort to eat the wool on each others’ backs.

Neighbours

Bob Mitchell had a long boundary with us on the Dipton flat road. I was told he’d been a hopeless alcoholic but had been rescued by the Jehovah’s Witnesses and was now a devout Christian and a church elder.

He was rough and ready with a friendly demeanor, and was always up for a chat. We’d arrived in the district in 1964 and at that time the Jehovah Witnesses were predicting the end of the world would occur on or before 1969. Bob, too, was convinced, but as he said, “no man can predict the exact hour or the day.”

During the years we were neighbors Bob drove relentlessly around the Southland Provence each year, knocking on Farm doors, handing out the Watchtower magazine, and preaching Armageddon. I admired him immensely for his commitment and his friendliness. His wife and two teenage children were just as amiable but I suspect coping with the ever present dilemma. What could be worse? A run down farm due to Bob’s religious fervor, or a run down farm due to Bob’s alcoholism?

He had an encyclopedic knowledge of the Bible and did his best to recruit me, he yearned to facilitate my redemption. This gave me no option but to pour over the bible at nights searching for quotes to counter his arguments. He had all the answers however and I couldn’t convince him of the futility of frittering the years away while he waited for the world to end. It was stalemate. 1969 came and went, the world didn’t end, and Bob’s conviction remained strong.

Time went by, until the topic of our boundary chats gradually changed. One day Bob said “there’s not much time left, I need to spend the rest of my life witnessing. Would you guys by any chance be interested in buying my farm?” Of course we would! I took the gamble that the world wasn’t about to end, which wasn’t all that difficult. In early 1972 we shook hands over the boundary fence and our solicitors drew up the contracts. For a very fair price we’d acquired 263 acres of rich river silt which totally solved Cairn Peak’s lack of fattening and cropping country. It was a win win at the time, Bob shifted his family to Invercargill and continued with his witnessing, but the world didn’t end and he gradually slumped back into hopeless alcoholism.

The last I heard, Bob’s behavior had gotten out of hand, he was stripped of his leadership role in the church, and only permitted to worship if he remained silent in the seats at the back. A sad end to the dreams of a decent human being.

Cattle Wars

One of our more colourful neighbours was Crafty Burgess; he had a hill country property scaling the length of our Northern Boundary. Crafty’s older brother John had a neat, fully developed flat farm on our Southern boundary, so we had a Burgess to the North and a Burgess to the South and they despised each other. I was told the brothers and their wives hadn’t talked for decades.

Crafty was a returned soldier from the second world war His face was badly scarred possibly by shrapnel. He was a rough diamond and a laugh a minute, but quick to anger when drunk. Unfortunately, he was drunk most of the time.

There’s a snobbery among cattle farmers about the purity of breeding animals that still exists today. In NZ at that time the two most popular beef breeds were Aberdeen Angus and Herefords and opinions were strongly polarised as to which was superior.

As with all domestic animals, pure breeds’ credentials are dictated by breed societies and paramount to this is skin colour, together with other useless characteristics which have no relationship to productvity. Scientists of the day were proving that cross breeding traditional beef breeds with other strains resulted in a trait called hybrid vigour in the progeny. This means that on average the offspring grow faster and kill out at heavier weights when slaughtered. But horror of horrors, even unwanted male calves from much despised dairy herds can outperform traditional breeds once hybrid vigour comes into play.

Crafty was a Hereford man and his prize 18 month Hereford heifers were grazing peacefully in a lush boundary paddock. Heifers if well grown can easily conceive but traditional farmers like Crafty wouldn’t let them near the bull for another year because conception can stunt their growth if the mothers aren’t well fed over the winter months. On the other hand the neighbouring farmer, who I’ll call Jim Davis, was perfectly happy with his mob of mixed breed cattle and in among them was a young dairy bull.

It’s an unwritten rule that bulls are kept away from boundary fences, particularly if, as in this case, the boundary fence isn’t all that robust. You can guess what happened. Picture Crafty looking fondly out his kitchen window early one morning, cup of coffee in hand, admiring his heifers. Suddenly a nondescript young dairy bull heaves himself onto his hind legs, and with a mighty thrust impregnates another heifer. He’s no doubt been busy all night!

No one would have wanted to be near Crafty for the next hour or two but around-mid morning, the phone rang at Dipton Transport, it was picked up by the manager. “yes, what can I do for you.” “Burgess hear” “Yes Crafty how can I help?” “Send over a cattle truck and trailer” “ok when do you want it?” whenever you’re free” ” where are we carting to.”I’ll tell you when you get here.” “ok we’ll be about an hour.” The truck and trailer rig performed the tricky maneuver of backing up the road to the cattle yard where there’s a miserable steer, standing in the race dripping blood. Crafty points to the steer and says” load that mongrel bastard onto your truck” and he brandishes a plastic bag containing two testicles, holds it out and says, “put this into the trailer, take it to Jim Davis and send the invoice to him!” he turns on his heel and stalks off and as far as I know, that was the end of it.

Justice is Done

I sensed that Nick Harrison, one of Cairn Peak’s remaining shareholders had lost enthusiasm for his investment. I offered to pay him the equivalent of his purchase price in return for his quarter share. He accepted with alacrity and early in 1973 the deal was signed. I now owned 50% of the farm. Bill Piercy my remaining partner wasn’t happy. Eighteen months previously he’d gained a coveted majority share by purchasing Bob McCartney’s shares, without signalling his intention to we other partners. Since then I’d chafed at the questionable nature of this transaction but now justice was done. There were two of us left and we were both equal.

Forestry – A New Beginning

In 1968 the NZ Forest Service began promoting a Forestry Encouragement loan Scheme. Approved farmers could get low rate finance to convert marginal land into pine forest and the loans weren’t called in until the timber was harvested.

Once we had been accepted by the Forestry Department as suitable candidates I had a new craft to learn. I enrolled in a Farm Forestry correspondence course and was taught that Pinus Radiata seedlings were planted by hand at approximately 600 stems per acre and selectively thinned to achieve a final crop at a density of 120 per acre. Clear felling took place at around 30 years of age or when the average log diameter was 24 inches at breast height.

Pruning was typically undertaken in two lifts during the early years of the crop. The removal of the lower branches at an early age produced a knot free log at least ten feet long. This is ideal framing timber for house building and for the manufacture of furniture. The lower grade timber that towers above the ten foot base logs has a variety of uses, still highly marketable, but selling for a lower price per cubic meter

The forestry industry was a boon to us in that we eventually syndicated , 2,000 acres of our marginal country into commercial forest. Previously it was only suitable for grazing 1 stock unit for every 3 acres.

Syndication

Our first flirtation with forestry, involved the clearing and planting of 106 acres in 1969. All went well so it was time to reap the benefits of our large land bank. I advertised for expressions of interest in a forestry syndication venture. I targeted business people attracted by the tax incentives and had very little difficulty selling unit shares in our first syndicate comprising 860 acres. It was named Benmore Forest Syndicate. Cairn Peak provided the day to day forest supervision at negotiated rates. A committee was elected to handle governance and decision making. It was a great recipe and the syndicate members remained lifelong friends. The planting got underway in 1973 and profitable clear felling commenced 30 years later. This syndicate mostly manned by second generation family members, is now well on the way towards its second rotation harvest

The Pom

The history of Cairn Peak and forestry isn’t complete without paying tribute to Mike Smith. Mike comes from the Midlands in the UK. He was living with a family who dealt with horses in the hunting, and show jumping industry and It was there he met his future wife Donna Menlove.

Donna was a Dipton girl overseas to gain experience. Whilst there she’d been a groom for David Broome, a British contender in the 1972 Munich Olympics. The couple married in England  and after a short working holiday in Dipton, decided to return permanently. Casual work is reasonably plentiful in farming districts, Mike was resourceful and fitted in extremely well. He had a distinctive north country accent and didn’t quite fit the mould of the local blokes. More than one pair of eyebrows were raised when he first appeared around the district, wearing his Englishman’s tweed peaked cap and a pair of gaiters.

There were two other casual workers we used from time to time (I’ll call them Wes and Clary.) They were planting trees for us and in the Dipton pub one night, I overheard Wes tell someone with a smirk, “the Pom’s going to be planting with us tomorrow; we’ll see what he’s made of.” Tree planting on hill country is an arduous task, but no matter how hard they went at it the next day, the indefatigable Pom kept pace with them. At the end of the day, they had nothing to smirk about!

Wes became a little resentful. Mike didn’t exactly fit their mould, but they continued to work together. After they’d completed our planting job, Wes was asked to supply a quote to John Ruddenklau, another farmer. His price was $3 an hour. and the farmer said, “You’ve just finished planting for Ken Fife for $2.50 an hour. I’m not paying you $3.” Wes held his ground, saying to his mate, “he’ll need us sooner or later.” But the farmer wouldn’t budge. The fact was, at that time, $2.50 was the going rate recommended by the Forest Service. To put this into perspective, I was earning $80 a week to run Cairn Peak.

The upshot was a stalemate, and eventually, Mike formed his own forestry contracting and consulting business which has thrived now for 50 years. In that time, he’s been the driving force in the success of our three syndicates and is one of the most respected forestry experts in New Zealand’s Southland province.

As for Wes and Clary, they never did get that $3 an hour planting job.

In the late 1970s, I accepted a two-year appointment as Ranch Manager for the Uluisaivou Corporation in a remote area of Fiji. I’ll be relating some of my experiences during this period in the next chapter of my story.

Ken Fife
24th May 2022

Slowly Going Broke!

My new bosses asked me to pay a visit to the farm about a week after they’d hired me. My task was to count a mob of cattle that hadn’t been mustered when the stock take occurred. It was a typical Southland winter day when I arrived, a biting sou’wester was blowing, and as I approached the Cairn Peak boundary for the first time, I took in the run-down fences and the overgrazed paddocks.

I drove on to the cattle yards where a mob of breeding cows were milling around in a sea of mud. They were skinny, of an indefinable breed, and totally spooked by their hunger, their need for shelter, and the horizontal sleeting rain. I opened the gate and tallied them as they galloped past me, heading to the shelter of the hills. What on earth had I let myself in for?!

Cairn Peak was a hill country run comprising a series of ridges rising to 2,100 feet, with most of these bisected by scrubby gullies of bracken, manuka, and native Beech. The property was purchased in July 1964. The three new owners had mortgaged their houses and paid £53,183 for 5,176 acres of land, 191 head of beef cattle, 2,325 sheep, a dairy cow, one pig, and two hacks.

At the time of the sale, the vendors had split up a 12,000-acre holding, kept 6,800 acres of the superior country to farm themselves and sold the balance to my new employers. This smaller block was named Cairn Peak after the highest peak on the property and, up to this stage, had never been farmed as a standalone operation. The homestead and other improvements had been recently built to make the sale viable, and the livestock had been well picked over before being assigned to the purchasers.

Eight weeks earlier, in May 1964, Rosie and I were married. We’d successfully applied for a farm management position and took up residence a week after the incident above. The weather had cleared, and very early on the first working day of my new job I saddled a horse and set off to explore my new domain.

It was a beautiful morning when I set out and it wasn’t long before three red deer broke cover and scampered off into the distance. My spirits rose immediately.

I concluded after my ride around the property that Cairn Peak was a mixed bag of good and bad. On the positive side, the wool shed, and the sheep and cattle yards were satisfactory, and the homestead was relatively new and comfortable. In addition, two thirds of the hill country was covered in clean tussock and would provide good summer grazing. On the down side the fences were dilapidated and the paddocks in need of drainage. Much of the hill country was scrubby and gorse infested, and there just wasn’t enough cultivated pasture to support the number of sheep and cattle the vendors claimed the property could carry.

The next few weeks were chaotic. I convinced the owners of the importance of purchasing more stock feed to get us through until spring. I drafted the breeding ewes into early, medium and late lambers to help conserve feed and called a meeting with the three owners to present my interim budget. At the end of the meeting, I was heartened by their acceptance of my recommendations but less encouraged by the uneasiness etched on their faces as they poured over the budgets.

The new owners were business people and had been wooed by the size of the property and the attractive tax write-offs available. However, I hadn’t been in the district long before pub talk surfaced that “Cairn Peak had been purchased by a bunch of townies who had paid too much, and were slowly going broke”. There may have been some truth in this, but I was highly motivated to prove them wrong.

The original property, I was beginning to learn, had a checkered history. It was endowment land, owned for more than a century by the Bluff Harbour Board. There was plenty of evidence on file, of the struggle some of its previous lessees went through, to make ends meet.

During the depression years the 12,000 acre run had been leased by a Peter Hogg who in an impassioned letter to the Harbour Board dated 24th February 1937 pleaded for rent remission and assistance to build a homestead on the property. He wrote “my wife and three children are living in tents at the present time and have been for the last four years. Their ages range from 12 to 16 so they have literally been reared in these tents.” He went on to say, “if you can’t support me, bring Mr Langstone (the inspector from Wellington) to see my habitation when he is next in Southland and see if he is proud of his part in our plight.”

So ever the risk taker, and in full knowledge we were over stocked and under capitalised, I called a meeting of the owners and put a proposition to them. I proposed I buy a 25% share of the enterprise for £10,000, to be paid for, (i) by cash from the sale of my brand new Vauxhall Velox, and (ii) by accepting a significant salary sacrifice for the ensuing years until the debt was repaid. They didn’t demur so within six months of our employment, we had became one of four equal owners.

This meant that Rosie and I had chosen to live “on the smell of an oil rag” for the foreseeable future. I was confident that my knowledge of the workings of the Lands Department (I had previously worked as a field officer for them,) would make us prime candidates for a marginal lands loan. Sadly, I couldn’t have been more wrong!

Marginal Lands loans, were designed to assist young farmers into farm ownership. High importance was placed on (i) The worthiness of the applicant,(ii) proof that all other avenues for mortgage finance had been exhausted. (iii) The property was marginal in its nature, and (iv) the provision of a low interest loan would reasonably be expected to result in the applicant becoming a successful farmer.

The Southland Marginal Lands committee paid us a visit, supported our application and submitted their recommendation to the Commissioner in Wellington. The commissioner disagreed with the Southland committee and turned us down on the grounds we were a bad risk financially, and they were not convinced we could service the loan. Rebuttal number one!

Thanks to obtaining 2nd mortgage finance from a private source, to help fund our development program, we managed to remain solvent through another season. Confident of success this second time around, we reapplied for a Marginal Lands loan.

In my submission to the Commissioner of Crown Lands I wrote “We have occupied this property for 25 months now and in that time we have :-

• Erected 6 miles of subdivision fence
• Sod seeded 68 acres of tussock
• Ploughed and grassed 38 acres from native and aerially oversown with grasses and clover, a further 22 acres of sidling within the same block.
• Ploughed a further 48 acres from tussock and 38 acres of badly run-out gorse-infested hill pasture
• Renovated 83 acres of inferior pasture
• Oversown 250 acres of tussock with 10lb of seed and 4cwt of super per acre
• Erected ten major bridges and culverts
• Bulldozed 3 miles of strategic access tracks
• Installed a new homestead water supply
• Caught up on a considerable amount of deferred maintenance on plant and fences.
• In addition:

(i)Average wool weights have risen from 7lb to 9lb.
(ii)Death rate of our sheep has dropped from 8 1/4 % to 6%
(iii) The lambing percentage has risen from 73% to 90%.

Rebuttal number two arrived in a letter from the office of The Minister of Lands Wellington, on 5th December 1966. “The board has now carefully re-examined this case in the light of further information supplied by the management of Cairn Peak Farm Company, but once again has resolved that the application must be declined. The main factor influencing the board in its decision was the very high debt which the property would have to carry if the advance sought was approved. On completion of the planned development program the debt, including the new rental value to be assessed in 1969 would be about £68,000 and members were quite satisfied that despite the high standard of management by Mr Fife, the property could not service the debt.

Not prepared to accept this decision I wrote to our local Member, the Hon Brian Talboys, who forwarded my missive to the minister of Lands, who re- forwarded all the information to the Minister of Agriculture for his comment. The usual merry go round.

On 22nd September 1967 I received a letter from Mr AR Rankin, the Department of Agriculture Field Superintendent in Southland containing the following comments. :- I understand the Minister of Agriculture suggested you obtain comments from me. As I told you when you first approached me, I would offer you no support unless I visited the property, inspected your husbandry of the property and examined your financial situation. Providing I was satisfied that you could succeed, I would be prepared to support your case. I reached the same conclusion as the local Marginal Lands committee namely, that your debt commitment was high but that the skill which you were demonstrating as manager provided sufficient leeway to warrant Marginal Lands finance.

I was particularly pleased, from my own personal point of view, with your efforts as you were demonstrating what could be done on this class of country and providing an example to other landholders in the area. From the National point of view, your efforts were giving impetus to the increased production drive, not only on your property but also by the example you were setting in an area previously not tackled with any enthusiasm. I was indeed sorry to hear that the Board differed, not only with my opinion but with that of the local committee.

Mr Rankin went on to say – the real problem, however, is related to the likely increase in rental due to the reclassification of the property, which is due in 1969. And yes, this pending, exponential increase in our rent was yet another problem we now needed to deal with. We had no option but to tackle the issue through the courts.

At this stage, Rosie and I were worrying about our financial situation and took steps to divest all my personal assets into her name in case Cairn Peak became insolvent. Despite this, they were happy years. We were making steady progress with the farm improvements. We’d gained the respect and support of the Lands Department and the Agricultural Department representatives in the Southland province, and most importantly, I could hold my head high in the Dipton pub. We’d proven to the locals that we did know what we were doing, even if we were slowly going broke!

During these early years, In April 1965, our first daughter Nicola was born. In those days, husbands seldom attended the birth. The matron at the Winton maternity hospital had iron-fisted control and wasn’t having “gormless males” cluttering up the birthing centre while she was in charge. This was despite many of these gormless males being pretty handy at assisting their own breeding stock with difficult births.

The following year in August 1966, our 2nd daughter Joanna was born. I couldn’t take my place with the other nervous dads in the waiting room that day due to a cattle muster held up by the weather. We were waiting on the mountaintops for the clouds below to disperse before we could start the muster. Thankfully, apart from Joanna sporting a bright yellow jaundiced complexion, she and her mum were just fine when I arrived at the hospital later in the day.

Our son Graeme was born in March 1967. We now had three children under three, and Rosie experienced her third delivery once again without me there to support her. I was 300 kilometres away in Central Otago buying Merino wethers at the annual Omarama sheep sales.

Also during this period, one of the partners had lost confidence in our ability to ever be rescued from the treadmill of debt, so he sold his share at cost to his fellow tax accountant, Bill Piercy. Cairn Peak now had three shareholders, with Bill owning a 50% share

Finally, in 1967, three and a half years after the purchase of Cairn Peak, we received the first letter from any government source with good news. Our legal challenge to the classification of our land had been successful, and the Minister of Lands notified us – “Your lease can now be changed to a standard Renewable Lease under the land act 1948, carrying the right to acquire the freehold. The Department is prepared to issue a lease on this basis.”

The effect of this change of heart was significant. There was an exponential rise in the value of our holding which made us eligible to obtain 3rd mortgage finance at an attractive rate from the State Advances corporation. It was almost an anticlimax when the loan was approved in December 1967 and we acquired the freehold right to the property.

We finally had the paperwork to prove that, in the opinion of two separate government departments, we were no longer slowly going broke!

Neighbours

There’s a story among farming people that, on coming to live in a rural community, a new arrival once asked, “what are the neighbors like around here?” The old resident said “what were they like where you came from?” and his rejoinder was “They were great” to which the old resident said “you’ll find them great around here too.”

In the seventeen years we lived in Southland, we found the neighbours to be great, though some a little quirky. There was Gordon Leith who appeared aloof for a while but once invited to share a spot in our hide at duck shooting season became a firm friend. Always insisting on supplying the whiskey to keep out the cold and even prepared to share a slurp from his glass with the labrador each time he swam back with retrieved ducks in his mouth!

I was having a drink in the Dipton Pub in the summer of our first year and was introduced to an old bloke called Alf who lived on his own. It turned out he owned 800 acres of good country further North along the Taringatura ranges. We’d survived our first winter and were earning grudging respect in the district. Alf asked me how things were going and said diplomatically, “I’ve heard you guys didn’t get much of a bargain when you bought your property”, to which I replied, “We’re doing alright but dealing with an overstocking problem”.

Alf nodded wisely, “Yeah, I heard Murray Day (the vendor) had a big celebration when you fellas came along. Tell you what, how many breading cows do you have?” I told him, and he said, “I’ve got far too much tucker on my place, bring them down, and I’ll graze them for you until they’re ready to go out to the bull.”

This was an offer generous beyond belief. I was being offered three months free grazing for all our breeding cows, with no strings attached. He’d taken a shine to me and was happy to be able to help a struggling young farmer. We herded the cattle along the circuitous back country roads to his property and when we brought them back they were in beautiful condition, well primed to survive another winter on the bleak hills of Cairn Peak.

Despite my protestations, Alf wouldn’t dream of accepting payment. Sadly, after all these years, I can’t remember his surname.

I have more anecdotes to share about our colourful neighbours in the next edition of my story.

Ken Fife
6th April 2022

Valediction

Two weeks ago, on March 24th 2022, Denis Carlisle passed away in Canberra. When I was a young man in NZ, Denis ran the local shearing gang and was the fastest and cleanest shearer ever to grace our shearing shed. I once saw him win a bet by shearing a full fleeced sheep whilst blindfolded in under ninety seconds.

Vale Denis. Gun shearer and lifelong friend.

WEST TAUPO

I now lived in Taumaranui and my responsibility as a Field Officer was supervising the development of four blocks on the Western side of Lake Taupo. The four blocks between them comprised about 30,000 acres. This was called pumice country from its volcanic origins. The soil was lacking in both texture and nutrients but In the early 1950s, it was discovered this could be rectified by topdressing with the trace elements Cobalt and Magnesium.

The next problem to solve was the poor health of livestock grazing the rich new pastures. After further trials, a deficiency of the trace element selenium was identified and once this was redressed, the government found itself in possession of hundreds of thousands of acres, easily converted into quality farmland. The Lands Department development scheme became an unmitigated success and over the ensuing years, hundreds of new farms were developed and balloted out to deserving young settlers.

The farm managers resident on each block managed the farm staff and took care of very large numbers of sheep and cattle. I was responsible for overseeing the contractors hired to carry out land clearing, water divining, well drilling, water reticulation, ground cultivation, aerial topdressing, fencing, building and the maintenance of roads and firebreaks.

You may be surprised to learn that the government paid for water diviners. I’m by nature a sceptical person and the first time I watched a diviner at work, I couldn’t help thinking “what a charade!”

He’d break a small Y shaped branch off a convenient bush, strip off the leaves and start walking with a branch of the fork held in each hand. The stem of the Y would be pointing forward. If he was lucky, his hands would start jerking, and the stem would bend sharply downwards. He’d located a water source and would confidently announce its approximate depth and the likelihood of it being permanent.

“Clever acting,” I thought, “fancy paying good money for that!” He sensed my scepticism, handed me the divining rod and invited me to walk down the newly discovered water course. The stick remained limp. “It’s a gift,” he said, “and I can’t explain it. Let’s try it together.” He directed me to hold the wand in the same way as he had but this time he didn’t touch it, but lightly held my forearm and we set off once again. This time the stick lurched down strongly; there was no way I could hold it level! He let go of my arm, and very slowly the force dissipated until the branch was limp again. There’s no way to explain this scientifically, but I’m convinced he possessed a skill that I don’t. It certainly worked for him because he also had a drilling rig and wasn’t paid unless permanent water was located and successfully reticulated to the many water troughs.

Red deer and wild pigs were well established in this region, and on one of my blocks, Whareroa station, good-sized rainbow trout came up the rivers and creeks to spawn in the autumn. I was taught by a Maori ranger how to “tickle” the trout and fling them out of the water when they’re under your spell. There’s a trick to it, and once learnt, it’s not difficult. On one occasion, the ranger and I shared a nice feed of fresh trout cooked for lunch over a small fire on the shores of the lake.

My time in this region was busy and interesting. It was a good life but an opportunity arose to apply for a similar position in the Rotorua-Bay of Plenty area. Rotorua has a lot more to offer a young person than Taumaranui, and I was lucky enough to get the job.

So I packed my possessions and headed off to a new adventure.

ROTORUA

Rotorua is one of the North Island’s well known tourist areas and is rated fifth largest in the world for the range of its geothermal activity.

It’s based in the Bay of Plenty province, so named by Captain Cook in 1769. The area must have seemed the perfect site for settlement when discovered by the migrating Polynesians more than 1,000 years ago because the population of its principal city Rotorua, is 42% Maori, compared to an average of only 16% for the rest of New Zealand.

Mount Tarawera near Rotorua erupted in the early hours of 10 June 1886. Around 120 people were killed, and many settlements were destroyed or buried. The buried village is now a tourist attraction and a sacred site worthy of a visit.

There are three other volcanoes within a 200 km radius of Rotorua and one of them, Mt Ruapehu caused the deadliest geothermal disturbance in recent NZ history. Late on Xmas Eve 1953, seismic activity caused Ruapehu’s glacier fed lake to breech and the resultant flood burst into the Whangaehu river causing the collapse of the rail bridge at Tangiwai.

At 10:21pm the Wellington – Auckland Express hurtled into the river and of the 285 passengers and crew on board, 151 died. One of these was a 14 year old in my year at Hutt Valley High School named Robert Hale. He was a quiet unassuming boy travelling with his mother to spend Xmas with his grandparents in Auckland. He would have died a terrifying death.

My role after settling into the Rotorua office was the supervision of four blocks in the Whakatane and Tauranga areas. These were predominantly working livestock farms rather than land development propositions so the downside for me of moving, was swapping the frontier lifestyle of my King Country posting for a more prosaic existence in a bustling tourist centre. The upside was the social life, with parties that could end in midnight swims under the stars in natural hot pools. These were hidden away in the native land if you knew where to find them..

Soon after arrival, I was offered a house share position on Maori affairs land at Owhata with Ted Wikaira a friend from Massey. Ted was a warm good natured person and he and his girl friend Ruth were engaged to be married. Eventually the date for the wedding was set and in a few weeks Ruth would be moving in,so it was time for me to find new accommodation.

The wedding was held in the Maori Marai at Tauranga. There were a lot of hay bales set up inside the Marai for people to sit on or lie against. There was a hangi (Maori earth oven), plenty of beer and guitars and singing and dancing. From memory it lasted about two days.

Once Ruth moved in at Owhata it was time to move out. I announced my departure date but early the next morning, Ted came into my room and in his shy way said, “Ruth and I have been talking. The three of us get on so well we’re going to be lonely if you leave. We would like you to stay for as long as you like and we can continue to share the living expenses as before.” So that’s what happened and there was never a cross word spoken until the time came for me to move down south to Alexandra many months later.

After Ruth had moved in I’d see them driving away late in the evenings carrying their towels. There were no explanations and it was none of my business but they eventually told me they were going to the “Hirere” at Whaka. Hirere Ted explained, loosely means “healing” in Maori and it’s the name of a small hot pool, fenced away from the public, and widely used by the resident Maori families for bathing in private.

Whakawhaka, or Whaka as the locals call it is, the name of the main geothermal activity centre in Rotorua. One of Ted’s friends, a much older man named Harold McMillan, was an elder on the Whaka tribal committee and we ritually had a flagon of beer and a chat with him at his home on Friday nights. On one of those occasions Ted asked if he and Ruth could take me with them to the Hirere. Harold said to me “make a request in writing and I’ll put it to the committee” I did so and the following Friday Harold said, “the committee have decided to let you use our Hirere. And so I was accepted.

Once or twice a week, before bed, we’d take our towels and soap, and spend half an hour or more soaking in the water under the stars, relaxing in the dark to the sound of the quiet murmur of the other bathers. These were made up of families of all ages, the women often topless, taking no notice of the skinny Pakeha (white) boy sharing their hot pool. The months went by until one night there was a guard on the gate who waved us through when he saw who we were. “There’ve been some unwanted locals causing trouble at night” he told us, “and we’ve decided we need to keep them out.”

All was well until one night a few weeks later, a different guard stopped our car. He shone his torch at me in the back seat and nodded his head then said to Ted and Ruth “he’s ok, he’s got permission from the committee you haven’t, sorry you can’t come in”. There wasn’t a word spoken as we drove back to Owhata. Ted and Ruth were visibly angry and none of the three of us ever went to the Hirere again. I think I’m right in assuming the problem was due to Ted and Ruth being Ngapuhi Maori from the North Auckland area and the Whaka people are Tuwharetoa. I’m sure this could have been sorted out by talking to Harold and the committee but they’d been rejected and were too proud to take it further.

Several months later I received a call from the Lands department in Wellington, offering an attractive financial incentive for me to apply for the position of Pastoral Land Officer in the Alexandra office in Central Otago. I accepted, and was once again leaving a posting I enjoyed to head off into the unknown.

CENTRAL OTAGO

My new office was situated in the rural town of Alexandra. Alex is a scenic oasis set among the semi arid mountains of Central Otago. Despite its Southerly latitude it enjoys some of New Zealand’s highest annual temperatures in the summer and some of the lowest in winter. Annual rainfall is low and the autumn colours and winter hoar frosts give the region a spectacular beauty in the colder months. The Manorburn dam near Alex freezes over in winter and is the only outdoor venue in NZ where the Olympic sport of Curling is played.

If you’ve been to Queenstown which is only an hour west of Alexandra, you’ll be familiar with the towering presence of the Otago mountains These properties are also very large grazing “runs” leased from the government on 33 year terms with a perpetual right of renewal. The lessees are called “run holders” and are a proud resourceful bunch who see themselves in the same light as freehold land owners, and on the whole don’t take kindly to intervention by the government.

The mountains have a fragile ecology and overgrazing, or the practice of burning the native tussock, can cause erosion and invasion by noxious weeds. For these reasons the Lands and Survey Department employed a small team of Field Officers to liaise with the run holders and help maintain the status quo.

In my time there, common sense seemed to prevail and I had the opportunity to visit vast areas of mountainous back country in my official capacity with no unpleasant experiences. In fact the job had some perks. The introduction of red deer to New Zealand in the mid eighteen hundreds was an ecological mistake and in the rain forests and the South Island mountain country, the deer population is unsustainable. Deer cullers were employed by the Department of Internal Affairs and in the 1950s and early 1960s were paid a retainer of £7 a week plus four shillings per deer tail, and three shillings and sixpence per wild pig tail. These men spent long periods in the mountains with supplies dropped in by fixed-wing aircraft about every four months.

With the advent of commercial live deer or meat recovery by helicopter, and the introduction of deer farming in the 1970s, paid professional deer culling came to an end.

Once I’d shifted to the South Island I could combine deer stalking with my pastoral Lands inspection duties and the opportunities were exponential. In my visits to run-holders they would sometimes be happy to drive me around or they’d saddle up a horse for me and I’d take off on my own. If I felt it appropriate I’d ask if I could take my rifle, and no one ever refused. By the early 1960s an export market for venison had been established and clean shot meat could be sold very profitably. That was before stringent meat inspection rules for game meat were established so I was able to build a savings account that stood me in good stead when I married Rosaline in 1964.

Rosaline Peterson lived with her parents in Alex and she had established a hairdressing business. She was personable, popular and accomplished and her work kept her extremely busy.

When I moved to Central Otago I stayed at the Alexandra Hotel for three months until the Government tipped me out and said it was time I paid for my own accommodation. My boss’s wife was getting her hair cut one day and she mentioned her husband had a new employee in the office who was looking for a place to stay. Rosie happened to relate this to her mother and to the family’s surprise her mother said “I’d be happy to have a border for a while until he finds somewhere permanent.” No one was more surprised than Rosie as at this stage I was sight unseen to her or anyone else in the Peterson family. But I moved in, one thing led to another, and twelve months later Rosie and I became engaged. I was 24 and the wedding was set for the day of Rosie’s 21st birthday.

It must have been a shock to my parents when I informed them I had become engaged, and the wedding would be in five weeks time. We’d made our mind up and it suited Rosie’s parents because they had booked to go oversees for a protracted holiday and we would be able to live in their house while they were away. My poor mother must have been in a spin. By the time she got my letter, the wedding arrangements were underway and the two families wouldn’t get the chance to meet until the day before the wedding.

We had no warning of an impending tragedy.

A week or so before the wedding my mother said to dad “what’s that roaring noise?” “what noise?” said dad. There was no reply. My mum slumped to the floor. She’d suffered a cerebral hemorrhage and was never to regain consciousness.

Rosaline and I set out on the long journey to New Plymouth. There were no flights between secondary towns, so we had a six hour drive to Christchurch, an overnight ferry to Wellington, and a four hour drive to New Plymouth. Rosie’s first and only sight of my mother was lying in a hospital bed, unconscious, with a grossly swollen face. We stayed with dad and my sister for two nights then headed back to Alex and our wedding took place two days later.

It was a sad occasion. I kept myself together until Mum’s favorite hymn “Be Thou My Vision” was played during the church service. I stood choking back sobs. Real men didn’t cry.

I’d left home at fifteen years of age and had been so immersed in my own career, time spent with my parents was minimal.

Thinking back it must have been doubly sad for my sister Margaret, she was only 16 and she and mum were very close. Here she was 1200 km away while her mother lay dying.

At seven am on the morning after our wedding, mum’s brother, my uncle Bill rang to tell me that mum had passed away, so our honeymoon was spent in New Plymouth where we attended her funeral.

Life returned to normal. Mr and Mrs Peterson went on their overseas trip, Rosie and I moved into their house, and we became good friends with Rosie’s brother Peter and his wife Karen. My job was going well but something was bugging me. During a conversation with my father in New Plymouth, he had told me how lucky I was to have a good job with the Government and he advised me to hang on to it at all costs. I brooded over those comments in my youthful way for a week or two, and resolved to prove to Dad I was made of sterner stuff. I didn’t need a secure job with the Government to prove myself!

So my decision to resign from the Lands Department was an easy one. I answered an advertisement in The Southland Times for a farm managers job on a 5,200 acre hill country sheep and cattle run in Dipton, Southland. I left Alex after work one evening and drove south for a job interview in an office in Gore. I stood firm on my requirement for a £20 per week salary and after some haggling they eventually agreed. We shook hands and I had a new job, managing a property I’d never set eyes on.

I drove back to Alex thinking “That’ll show dad I don’t need a safe government job to do well in life”. 

Ken Fife
November 13th 2021

Addendum

On 8th November 2021, five days before signing off on this blog, my ex-wife Rosaline passed away in Christchurch New Zealand after a long battle with Alzheimer’s.

Rosie was a town girl when we met and she became a farmers wife after we married. Our daughter Nicola was born eleven months after our wedding, Joanna followed and then Graeme. We now had three children under three years old. I was totally immersed in running the farm while Rosie uncomplainingly looked after the children, cooked for shearers and farm staff, and coped with everything that was thrown at her. In the early years, our life was a difficult struggle financially but she never complained. She is sadly missed.

INTRODUCTION

Legend has it that New Zealand was discovered by Kupe, an early Maori explorer who when seeing some low clouds on a distant horizon announced to his starving crew, “We have found a new land.” They probably said, “Yeah, yeah, whatever,” but as they paddled closer, the snowy peaks of the Southern Alps did indeed loom out of the clouds and Kupe was proven to be right.

He named the new country “Aotearoa” – The Land of the Long White Cloud.

On 29th May 2000, there was an army coup in Fiji in reaction to an Indo-Fijian, Mahendra Chaudhry, being elected as the first non-Fijian Prime Minister.

Fiji’s President Ratu Sir Kamasese Mara, himself a high-born leader of the Council of Chiefs, was not unsympathetic to the coup. Much to his annoyance, a New Zealand warship was dispatched to Suva Bay to keep an eye on things. That was when Ratu Mara retaliated by branding New Zealand, “The Land Of The Wrong White Crowd.” — Clever!

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I was born the generation before the baby boomers. In my teenage years, there were plenty of jobs, NZ was rebuilding and with “the second war to end all wars” behind us, optimism prevailed. We lived in an insular society thousands of miles away from most of the civilised world.

The first time I heard a foreign language was when one of Hitler’s broadcasts was relayed by the BBC in the war’s final months. The second was at high school when our new French teacher said “bonjour” to us for the first time in her broad NZ accent.

 

In those days we were very much an Anglo-Saxon mob on the one hand and an underprivileged Maori minority on the other. It would be a decade or two yet before second and third-generation New Zealanders stopped saying “I’m going home to the old country” when heading off on a once-in-a-lifetime overseas trip to the UK.

I left home permanently when I was 15. At that age, you were old enough to leave school, get your driver’s license and own a rifle. There was a shortage of manpower, and school leavers could walk into almost any job that interested them.

I wanted to be a farmer and happily went off to the Wairarapa Training Farm, an institution providing a two-year training course for young boys to become farmers.

 

Sixteen cadets worked the farm under the watchful eyes of three working instructors and a house master who also had the unpopular task of allotting kitchen and gardening duties.

On Friday afternoons the hawk-eyed housemaster’s wife supervised the scrubbing of our smelly work clothes before we were inspected and then driven into Masterton to go to the pictures.

Our pocket money was five shillings a week in the first year and seven shillings and sixpence in the second year.

 

Time spent at the training farm were my growing-up years, and I remember them fondly.

When my two-year training period was over, and after a short holiday back at home in Lower Hutt, I took off once again on the long train ride to Gisborne on the East Coast of the North Island. There I started my first paid job as a shepherd and farm hand on Te Ruanui Station. I wrote about that in a previous blog, “A Tribute to Working Dogs.”

This is slightly embarrassing to me, but may be of interest. A few years ago, I discovered the document below between the pages of my old dictionary. It was my income and expenditure statement for 1956 when I was 17 years old and working on the farm in Gisborne.

I moved on after my time in Gisborne to spend 18 months at Massey Agricultural College in Palmerston North. Where I scraped through graduation with an Agricultural Diploma, I had an Austin A40 truck, a guitar, three new lifelong friends, and a permanent girlfriend who was confident, witty and attractive. We were to remain an item for two more years.

Towards the end of my last term at Massey, I was offered a job by three businessmen who had bought a 900-acre Hill country farm at Kawakawa Bay. There were good tax incentives for people investing in the development of farmland and these city entrepreneurs needed a manager. Kawakawa Bay settlement is situated near Auckland, at the southern end of the Hauraki Gulf. The farm itself is at the end of a blind road about 5km from the nearest neighbour. The back part of the property fronts Tawhitokino beach which I had to myself because it can only be reached by sea, or via a steep walking track from the road.

After leaving Massey, to fill in the time until the farm property settlement took place, I took a two-month interim job chasing big money as a knife hand at the Ngauranga freezing works near Wellington. There were many colourful characters, and I could watch in awe as prime cuts of meat were pilfered from behind the backs of the white coats. I was particularly intrigued by a Maori boy and his hard-edged mate who raffled off their pay packets on paydays. This would have been a lucrative hustle, and I was highly suspicious of its veracity.

The Shoot Out at Kawakawa Bay

I wonder if you’ve ever spent a week without seeing or speaking to another human? For the first six months at Kawakawa Bay, I lived totally on my own. For company, I had a radio, some chooks, a horse, a couple of dogs, 1,600 sheep and 120 head of cattle. The solitude didn’t trouble me, but even so, Mrs Doran the local shopkeeper made me promise to check in with her once a week. If I didn’t, she would ring, and I would be suitably admonished!

One day, one of the owners announced his elderly mother would be coming to live in the main house, and he hoped we would be good company for each other. The house had a beautiful view of the front beach and was used by the owners occasionally for a weekend stay. I was living in a two-room cabin about 40 meters away.

Mrs Boyd duly arrived. She would have been in her mid-seventies, we got on well, and I enjoyed our occasional chats over a cup pf tea. A couple of weeks passed, and we settled into a comfortable regime until one night about midnight my dogs started barking and a loud wailing was coming from the main house. I scrambled up the track and into her bedroom, where she was screaming and calling “I can’t breath” over and over. She was delirious and didn’t recognise me. I rang the doctor in Cleveland about 20 km away, and he said, “She’s probably having a heart attack. Get her to sip some brandy, and I’ll be there as soon as I can.”

I had no brandy so rang the nearest neighbour and after some convincing, he agreed to give me some whisky which seemed to me to be the second best option. I drove furiously back to the farm, but when I arrived, she had passed away. She’d died a painful and lonely death, and I wished I’d stayed to comfort her instead of taking off on a fruitless search for brandy!

The next night, after she’d been taken away by the undertaker and her family had returned to Auckland, I lay awake, listening to the sea rolling in, and the sound of the wind in the trees, and for the first time ever, I felt a crushing loneliness. I shed a quiet tear for Mrs Boyd that night, and the next day, returned to my solitary farm duties.

Some weeks later, I heard some rifle shots coming from the back of the farm near the Tawhitokino beach. I was annoyed but carried on with my day until at about 6 pm I saw a lost-looking young man at the farm gate. When I challenged him, he said he was looking for directions to the nearest shop. He denied any knowledge of the shooting, so I gave him directions and set about preparing my dinner. At about 7:30 pm, there was a knock at my door. The young man was back again; he pulled a newspaper from his back pocket, and pointed at his photo on the front page under the headline: Five Prisoners at Large. “This is me,” he said!

“Well, you’d better come in”, I said. He was very nervous, so I sat him down and listened to his story. His name was David Robinson; he was a ship deserter who’d been in a holding cell with the other four escapees and had been given no option but to escape with them. They’d looted a boat in the Auckland harbour and robbed two caravans in Kawakawa Bay.

They’d stolen food, several bottles of whiskey, a .303 rifle and 50 rounds of ammunition. Two of them had been drinking heavily, and they were the ones I’d heard shooting at our sheep. “Why are you telling me this?” I said. “Because two of those blokes are crazy,” he said, “sooner or later somebody’s going to get killed. I want to give myself up. The others sent me to the shop to bring them back a newspaper so they can read about what the police are doing.” “OK, fair enough; where are they now?” “Waiting up there.” he said, pointing to a small patch of manuka on top of a small ridge about 100 meters away. “Do you think they might have seen you at my door?” I asked. He nodded miserably. “OK, sit here. I’ll ring the cops, and then we’ll have some dinner. You’re not going to take off, are you?” He shook his head.

So I rang the Papakura police station.

Constable: “Papakura police station.”

Me: “It’s Ken Fife here from the farm at the end of the road at Kawakawa Bay.”

Constable: “Yes, what can I do for you?”

Me: “I’ve got David Robinson here.”

Cop: “Who’s David Robinson?”

Me: “One of the escaped prisoners. His photo’s on the front page of The Auckland Herald.”

Cop: “F—k’n Hell! Do you think you can hold him?”

Me: “No problem, but I’m pretty sure the other prisoners know where he is. The quicker you can get here, the better.”

Cop: “Roger that, we’ll come as quickly as we can!”

Me: “Yes, it’s urgent actually!”

So far, so good. I locked the door, pulled the curtains, loaded my rifle, and we sat down and ate dinner and waited. We washed and dried the dishes, and I slipped outside and removed the rotor from the US-Army jeep we owned in case they decided to nick it. I made sure I had my boots on and a jacket so I’d be able to lead the cops to where they could surround and capture the escapees. Then sat back down and waited. The prisoner wouldn’t talk much and was getting more and more jumpy.

Finally, about two hours later, we could hear a faint wailing of sirens. It got progressively louder until a stream of police cars burst into the solitude of our quiet little cove. The blue and red flashing lights could have been seen from Mars, and the really huge cavalcade of cop cars would have made the car chase in the Blues Brothers look like a funeral procession.

The parade streamed up the drive, burst through the door, and roughly cuffed and marched off the prisoner. They then commandeered my rifle and went into a huddle to plan their next move. Finally, they knocked on my door again. “We’ve decided it’s too dangerous to do anything until daylight. We’ll leave a man here to keep an eye on things. You’ll get your rifle back tomorrow”. NZ cops weren’t normally armed in those days, so I knew why he wanted my rifle. And so, with sirens wailing, the cavalcade took off back to Auckland. The escapees, of course, had long since scarpered into the backcountry.

So “The shoot out at Kawakawa Bay” didn’t actually happen, but the Key Stone Cops were proud to report the successful recapture of a dangerous criminal!

The next day The Auckland star reported, “More than 100 police and jungle-training troops are now searching the six square miles of rugged bush country near Kawakawa Bay where the escapees are believed to be hiding. Five police dogs are also in the field”.

They were led on a merry chase before the last of the escapees were recaptured five weeks later.

Shortly after this episode, my employers agreed to my proposition that we hire some additional help on the condition that we run the place totally on our own.

This included the shearing, the fencing and the land development and negated the need for us to hire contractors. So my role was augmented by one of my old training farm mates, who ended up staying there for the rest of his working life.

I, on the other hand, decided to move on after 17 months. I didn’t get on particularly well with one of the owners, and we had a disagreement over what constituted a fair wage for a farm manager.

Greener pastures beckoned, and with a spring in my step, I headed off to live in the city.

City Life

I moved to Auckland and began to scan the papers for interesting jobs. An added bonus was the arrival of my girlfriend to start a hairdressing course. This meant we no longer had to negotiate the 500 km distance between Palmerston North and Kawakawa Bay.

My first job was employment as a “Stockie” at Westfield freezing works. It paid well and gave me security and time to search for my next career move. I joined a small team whose task was to take charge of livestock on delivery and drive them through the yards and up the race to the slaughterhouse. We were assisted by the trained Judas sheep. These animals were used in most abattoirs to lead sheep towards the smell of blood, which they are naturally uneasy about, and on to their eventual fate.

Lambs to the slaughter as it were.

After a few weeks, I was elevated to the chain gang and became a “Pouncer” at a much higher rate of pay. And no, Pouncer is not a misprint; the term Bouncer hadn’t been invented. Workers on the heavily unionised chain at freezing works had better conditions, shorter days and much higher wages. I won’t go too far into the gory details of what my job entailed; suffice to say the Pouncer stands at a bench between two others, the “Shackler” and the “Sticker.” A lever is pulled, a single sheep slides down the chute, and the result in about 5 seconds, is another lifeless body hanging, kicking, by a hind leg from the moving overhead chain. By the time the next animal slides down onto the bench, the skinning and eviscerating process has started by the next slaughter men down the line. Did this concern me? Not really; butchering animals on farms for consumption by farm staff and working dogs is a regular farm chore.

Finally, after about two months, I saw an advertisement for the perfect job. It was for a Land Development Field Officer in the King Country, which is situated in the centre of the North Island. The employer was the Lands and Survey department, and the job involved supervising the development of four large blocks of government land for eventual subdivision into viable farms for deserving young farmers.

This job ticked all the boxes for me, and after two interviews, my application was accepted. I was warned I was by far the youngest in this position they’d ever employed; I’d better make a go of it!

The position gave me everything I could ever hope for. I had a great boss; I loved the work, and I loved the remote and wild nature of the country we were developing. I loved driving slowly through seldom used logging tracks on the way to and from work, always on the lookout for a deer to provide venison for the pot.

Life was good, but I didn’t know my world was about to be turned on its head.

Coming of Age

There was a reunion planned in Auckland with a few of my Massey mates. I decided at the last minute I would be able to attend. The gathering finished up earlier than I’d expected, so I rang to talk to my girlfriend, who lived in a YWCA hostel. I was told she’d gone out to the pictures and was expecting to be home around 10:30 pm.

She wasn’t home when I called, so I waited outside in my car, which was now a 1953 Chevrolet. It was a light green colour and easily identifiable. It had been a long day after the drive to Auckland, followed by a few drinks with my friends. I was dozing when I was awakened by a rap on the window. The night was dark, I opened the door, and by the time I got to my feet, I had a broken nose and a rapidly closing left eye.

My girlfriend was getting out of the car parked behind, screaming. I never got a good look at my assailant, there were no words spoken, but less than two minutes later, I was speeding away in the dark, stricken by the bitter realisation I wasn’t welcome. My girlfriend had transferred her affections to someone else and hadn’t thought to tell me.

As for the shipwreck left behind. The erstwhile “Sir Galahad” was lying on the road, and he wasn’t getting up. My girlfriend was sobbing and crying, no no, no, over and over! Lights were going on in the surrounding houses, and it would only be a matter of time before the sirens started. I was now on the long two-hour drive back to Taumaruni. My shirt was soaked in blood, mostly mine. Looking back, that was the moment that turned me into an adult.

Footnote. Sometime later in 1964, about five weeks before my marriage to Rosaline, a letter arrived at the office in Alexandra. The writing on the envelope was familiar. It was the first communication to take place between my ex-girlfriend and me since the fall of “Sir Galahad”. The message inside was brief. “I’ve heard you are thinking of getting married. It’s not too late for us to get back together again. What do you think?”

I allowed myself a smile. We’d had a lot of good times, and there were fond memories. But those were our teenage years, and I was now looking forward to a bright new future. The letter was best left unanswered.

Ken Fife
October 2021