Overview Fifty years ago, Lottie boarded ship at a Dutch port bound for Wellington. She and her fellow passengers were New Zealand immigrants under the government's assisted passage scheme for displaced persons following the end of WWII. Embarking on a new life with the help of her first employers, Sir Matthew and Lady Oram, Lottie quickly adapted to the New Zealand lifestyle. A few years later, she crossed the Tasman but unable to adjust to the hot South Australian summers, she returned to New Zealand....

Overview Fifty years ago, while the politicians and planners made board table decisions about the future development of what was one of New Zealand's remotest regions, Chris Carran and his brothers were working on those changes from the ground up. As agricultural contractors, in the mid-1950s they were hired to clear the land and plough paddocks that would permanently alter the topography of former run country in the Te Anau Basin. From those inauspicious beginnings as a teenager, Chris returned to Te...

Overview Dave spent about eighteen years working as a shepherd and farm manager in the remote back country ranges between Mossburn and Te Anau before and after the government's 30-year farm development scheme in the same region. This interview looks at the changes Dave experienced working for an individual runholder whose attachment to, and investment in, the Burwood/Mavora/Centre Hill area could not compete with the government agency that by 1966 had bought the rights to the leasehold properties and...

Abstract Christopher (Chris) CARRANInterviewer: Morag ForresterInterview Date: 5 August 2009Track 100.24 States he is CHRISTOPHER CARRAN, born in 1944 in RIVERTON (SOUTHLAND) where he grew up.00.52 Replies his FATHER was GORDON (ANDREW CARRAN) who worked as a BUSHMAN, including the local SAWMILLS "for most of his life" as well as running a 270-acre FARM. [He later added that his FATHER had worked in GIPPSLAND, VICTORIA, A USTRALIA, from...

Overview More than fifty years ago Ray first set eyes on the Fiordland Mountains while doing a tour of his adopted homeland. As a child growing up in war-time London, he immigrated to New Zealand in 1953 on the cusp of his seventeenth birthday to work on a dairy farm in Northland. Captivated by that first visit to Te Anau and Milford Sound, Ray and his wife, Helen, have lived in the Te Anau area since 1961, with only a five-year separation from the Fiordland Mountains when they worked as managers of a...

Abstract Raymond William Herbert WILLETTInterviewer: Morag ForresterDate of Interview: 18 August 2009Track 100.00: Born RAYMOND WILLIAM HERBERT WILLETT in LONDON in 1936, his FATHER was named EDWARD SAMUEL SCHOOLING WILLETT whose occupation was JOINER by trade.00.3-: Continues that his MOTHER was CATHERINE MARY COLLINS and his two BROTHERS are PATRICK (elder) and CHRISTOPHER (younger). Another BROTHER was born but died in infancy....