Person recorded: Edwin James (Ted) Thomas

Date: 7 September 2005

Interviewer and abstractor: Morag Forrester

Tape counter: Sony TCM 939

Tape 1 Side A

004: States he is EDWIN JAMES THOMAS and that he was born in 1933 at the maternity hospital in RIVERTON.

013: Says his FATHER was RICHARD BENJAMIN THOMAS while his MOTHER was born ELSIE FRASER and that he has two surviving SISTERS (does not disclose their names).

020: Mentions growing up in INVERCARGILL and that he went to ST. GEORGE’S PRIMARY, TWEEDSMUIR INTERMEDIATE and SOUTHLAND TECHNICAL COLLEGE.

035: His first job, he says, was as DELIVERY BOY for a GROCERY company called SELF HELP in INVERCARGILL. Recalls he was about ten or eleven years old and that he was paid an average of between 7s and 10s per week.

049: In 1949, he says, he left school at the age of sixteen with the aim of finding a well-paid job, especially as his MOTHER had become a widow and “times were tough”.

060: After the SELF HELP STORE, he says, he worked for the WOOLSTORE company, JR MILLS, until he decided to become a BUSHMAN/SAWMILLER. After a while, he went back to work for the SELF HELP STORE as a MANAGER.

067: Says he shifted to H&J SMITH (DEPARTMENT STORE) and worked in its furnishing department under the proviso that he would eventually be given a job working on displays.

075: However, he was then apprenticed to furnishings and after about six months was allocated a vehicle with which he could call on customer’s homes and do on the spot measurements. His wage, he remembers, was 1s/6d per hour although the company charged customers 7s/6d per hour.

085: Recalls he requested a pay rise but was turned down because he was still on apprenticeship. In the end, he says, the company accepted his resignation.

094: He then became a contract wool presser which he describes as strenuous but well-paid work. From his earnings, he says, he was able to buy a house in OTATARA, near INVERCARGILL.

099: By then, he adds, he was married (in 1951) to MARIE CONCANNON.

106: His next venture, he says, was a joint partnership in a BUILDING FIRM with RAY LAWSON. Recalls doing some construction on two shops for an electrician named BOB SHEPHERD.

119: It eventuated, he says, that he was the founder of the AVENAL MILK BAR, a fourteen-hour day, seven-day-week operation that “went like a rocket”.

130: Comments that the building is still standing in 2005.

132: After about four years of non-stop working, he says, he sold up (about 1961) and reviewed his options. Aware that TOURISM was beginning to take off, he figured MOSSBURN would be a good spot to set up a café/shop for passing trade.

144: Says he purchased a half-acre section for a reasonable price and built the MOSSBURN DINER on SH94.

148: One of his regular customers, he says, was an IRISHMAN named PADDY KILGARRIFF who operated an excavator/dragline. Adds that KILGARRIFF was also a “mad, keen DEERSTALKER”.

154: Continues that KILGARRIFF would often ask to be allowed to keep a couple of legs of VENISON in the DINER’S freezer, adding that he would sell it to the tourists as COLD VENISON SALAD or the equivalent.

157: “But it got to the stage that there was nothing else in the blessed freezer apart from PADDY’S flaming VENISON.”

160: So after making some enquiries, he located a VENISON buyer in CHRISTCHURCH, JAMIE MADREN.

164: Says the MEATPACKING business expanded to the extent of using up all his sheds on the property at MOSSBURN. But even so, it further increased.

169: Explains that in 1964, he sold out his share of the business and moved with his wife and family to TE ANAU.

173: One of the main reasons for selling up, he says, was because the job again demanded too many hours and particularly during the night as the VENISON was brought back from as far away as QUEENSTOWN and TUATAPERE.

181: Estimates that the MEATPACKING at MOSSBURN processed a couple of tons of VENISON per week at first. But increased business meant moving operations to the current PPCS site, next to MOSSBURN SCHOOL.

187: Reiterates that after about three years there, work again became too demanding so he opted to sell his share of the business and moved to TE ANAU where he built a small VENISON FACTORY in what is now known as the commercial area.

197: Says he bought the section from the DEPARTMENT of LANDS & SURVEY for about 300 pounds and the main building was constructed by the ROBERTS BROS (TE ANAU-based BUILDERS).

205: Replies that the VENISON FACTORY was another partnership…this time with JACK EGERTON.

213: Explains that DEER CULLING had been going on for years in NEW ZEALAND under the DEPARTMENT OF INTERNAL AFFAIRS’ FORESTRY sector but the carcasses were not intended for sale.

218: As the marketing of VENISON was still a fledgling enterprise, he says, he contracted MEAT HUNTERS on a private basis both at MOSSBURN and TE ANAU. They brought the MEAT out by jetboat or amphibian aircraft.

220: Names DAVE PATERSON as one of his regular HUNTERS, RONNIE HOSLIN from GORE, ERROL JOBSON, and several others. Their HUNTING areas, he adds, were mainly FIORDLAND, such as the backblocks of MANAPOURI and the HOLLYFORD VALLEY.

231: Recalls he paid the HUNTERS at a rate of 1s 3d per lb for forequarters, 1s 6d per lb for hindquarters and 1s 8d per lb for saddles. Says the processed VENISON was taken to BLUFF for shipment. He sold it there for 1s 6d for forequarters, 2s 2d per lb on the saddles and 2s for hindquarters.

241: The meat, he continues, was exported to HAMBURG, GERMANY at an insurance cost to the export company of 3d per lb. At the destination, he adds, the MEAT was sold at 3s 6d per lb, twice as much as the SHOOTERS and the FACTORY OPERATORS combined.

252: The best profit he made on the MEAT was 6d per lb for the saddles. For that, he says, they had to SKIN and CLEAN the VENISON, PACK it, FREEZE it and DELIVER it to the cold store at BLUFF.

254: Initially, he replies, he and his partners did all the work themselves but latterly he hired PROCESS workers.

265: States that the MARKET PRICE was totally controlled so it did not fluctuate as it does in today’s open markets. Explains that there were only about three people across the whole of the SOUTH ISLAND licensed to export VENISON which made the price easy to control.

286: PROCESSING, he says, involved SKINNING the carcass, then divide it into the various CUTS which were PACKED in polythene and stockinette then into a “scrim” (a sugar bag) or cartons before being placed in FREEZERS.

292: At that time, he says, there were no government guidelines or regulations about MEAT PROCESSING. “All we had to do was be subjected to a veterinary inspection.”

297: Comments that the GERMAN importers would have been happy to take the carcasses straight off the hills: “they weren’t even slightly interested in all this cleaning and stuff”.

304: Explains that he was out of the business before the introduction of helicopters for bringing out the DEER carcasses in the mid-to-late 1960s, a method which helped decimate the numbers of DEER roaming wild through the FIORDLAND NATIONAL PARK.

305: However, he mentions that while he was still in business at MOSSBURN, a GERMAN named HERBERT DIETRICH was the second largest importer of VENISON into GERMANY. Goes on to say that DIETRICH was keen to buy into the partnership, but that KILGARRIFF was not open to offers on that score.

309: States that in return for his half-share in the business, DIETRICH had planned to set up a helicopter recovery system. Says in those days there were only about two helicopters in NZ.

311: Considers that had DIETRICH’S plan gone ahead, the business would have been two years in advance of its competitors.

313: Recalls that in the early days of helicopter recovery, up to one hundred DEER would be shot in a day from a HUGHES 100 (helicopter) in the EGLINTON VALLEY alone.

319: Latterly, he says, the helicopter operators brought the DEER out live and these were farmed in the TE ANAU BASIN.

323: Replies that the condition of the DEER varied in that those from the TAKITIMUS were large, well-fed animals because the LANDS & SURVEY FARM DEVELOPMENT SCHEME meant they had plenty of “tucker” as a result of new grass and clover.

326: Yet, he continues, around LAKE ALABASTER or LAKE WILMOT, the DEER looked more like rabbits because there was too little feed for the number of them.

337: Apart from DEER, he says the FACTORY also processed WILD PORK and HARES for export. The next on the menu, he says, was EELS which he tried only at the TE ANAU outlet.

340: Explains the EELS came from the WHITESTONE RIVER and describes them as “slimy”. Describes how when they first came in, they were to be “de-slimed” and that this was done by putting them in the FREEZER first to quieten them so that they could be handled. But it didn’t prove successful as the EELS regained their energy and managed to slide away.

351: The main markets, he says, were GERMANY and the NETHERLANDS.

353: Says the product never really got off the ground at TE ANAU, but did at MOSSBURN after KILGARRIFF had an about face and decided to try them.

358: Replies that he had the TE ANAU FACTORY for about three and a half years and that his only competitor in the town was LES LYONS who had a smaller outfit next door.

360: Mentions that they both got caught up in a price war and in the end he sold his share in the business to PETER HENDERSON who had earlier bought JACK EGERTON’S half share.

372: States that HENDERSON invited EVAN MEREDITH (who had been operating a VENISON factory in HOKITIKA) a stake in the business.

376: It was back to BUILDING work, he says, at a time when the district was undergoing major expansion due to the LANDS & SURVEY SCHEME and the MANAPOURI HYDRO POWER PROJECT.

381: Primarily, he says, he was contracted to BUILD commercial properties in the town – many of them in the main street (MILFORD RD) of the town centre.

384: Lists some of them as the H&J SMITH building, the BNZ building, the MEDITERRANEAN CUISINE shop opposite the library, the TE ANAU DAIRY and part of the MOBIL GARAGE

387: Says at first he worked with RON BRANKS, who left to work for LANDS & SURVEY.

393: On the main employment for people in the town in the 1960s and 70s, he says, there were FISHERMEN and MEAT HUNTERS although the LANDS & SURVEY SCHEME was a major employer.

398: Mentions that between the 1970s and 80s, he spent nine to twelve years serving on the local council, now known as the TE ANAU COMMUNITY BOARD, and that much of its responsibility was planning the layout of the town (as it is today).

406: Recalls the council decided to install a bypass road (SANDY BROWN ROAD) for traffic to skirt the town on its way north or south.

411: QUINTIN DRIVE, he says, had a piece missing in the middle and it was designed to link up with LUXMORE DRIVE.

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Tape 1 Side B starts

014: Some discussion ensues regarding the layout of LUXMORE DRIVE about which he recalls making the decision to build the roundabout on the corner with the turnoff to MANAPOURI.

024: When he and his family first arrived in TE ANAU (1964), he says its resident population was about 400, including the GILLIGANS, the EXCELLS, COLIN TAURI, KEITH and GEORGE GREER, and JACKIE CHALMERS.

040: Mentions he has two SONS (DAVID and BRUCE) both of whom attended the local schools.

052: Talks about his interest in drawing and painting (he runs a small gallery in a shop in the town centre), explaining that not long after moving to TE ANAU, he spent 100 pounds on an artist’s easel and a set of paints.

056: His first dozen paintings, he says, he sold to friends and then allowed his talent to lie dormant for a while. Until he realised that if he didn’t take it up seriously, then it would be too late.

065: So “I dropped everything and started painting”. At the same time, he says, he did some freelance BUILDING work for the first few years to help pay the bills but by the third year, he was able to focus full time on his painting.

072: “Getting paid for doing something you enjoy, there’s not many people who can say that.”

076: Recalls that art was the only thing he was good at during his school years.

079: Replies that his WIFE, MARIE, worked as a CHEF in one of the local hotels.

089: Of other community activities, he says he was a PAST PRESIDENT and ZONE CHAIRMAN of the TE ANAU LIONS CLUB, and a charter member of the TE ANAU CLUB and the MARAKURA YACHT CLUB.

107: As well as setting up the VENISON PROCESSING FACTORIES in MOSSBURN and TE ANAU, he says he was also a recreational DEER HUNTER and remembers shooting a few animals at the back of the CENTRE HILL STATION.

114: So, having been “bitten by that bug” he also went HUNTING around FIORDLAND where the place was “full of them”.

117: Recalls one incident in the mid-1960s when he was driving from TE ANAU to INVERCARGILL and had reached the other side of the GORGE HILL in the afternoon and saw about 28 (WILD) DEER standing in a paddock near the roadside. (This was before DEER FARMING had been introduced).

128: Remembers he also did quite a bit of “spotlighting” (for night HUNTING).

161: Comments that it was inevitable TE ANAU would expand in the four and a half decades that he has lived in the town. “I think I liked it better back in the 60s than I do now,” he adds.

170: Interview ends

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