Interviewee: John Robert (Jack) MURRELL

Interview date: 05 OCTOBER 2004

Interviewer and Abstractor: Morag Forrester

A third interview took place again in the lounge at GRAND VIEW.

Tape 4 Side A starts

003: Opens saying that OLD BOB had been appointed as the first CHIEF GUIDE on the MILFORD TRACK after the government took over control of it from the ROSS BROTHERS (JACK and DONALD) [However, DONALD ROSS had been appointed GOVERNMENT GUIDE after a few others had already held this position. Eventually, the ROSS BROTHERS were contracted to take over the maintenance of the track during the 1890s and into the new century. They were cousins of (SIR) THOMAS MACKENZIE. It is reported that the brothers recorded daily activities in their diaries but only some of these have survived. The two were also co-owners of the TAWERA along with CAPTAIN R.MURRAY-MENZIES. In 1898, the TOURIST DEPARTMENT decided not to renew the maintenance contract with the brothers, opting instead to take over direct control and supervision of the track. It was reportedly an unpopular decision in its day with one correspondent to the local newspaper commenting that guides such as the ROSS BROTHERS would be hard to replace. Source: Milford Trails; W. Anderson; published by Reed Books]

027: Replies that YOUNG BOB had already done some guiding or portering for SIR THOMAS MACKENZIE who often explored FIORDLAND and was instrumental in promoting various building projects, such as the road from DUSKY SOUND to MANAPOURI, the cutting of the DOUBTFUL SOUND TRACK and furthering the revenue from TOURISM on the MILFORD TRACK.

050: States it was MACKENZIE who pushed for a railway to be built from LUMSDEN to MOSSBURN and further still to TE ANAU and MANAPOURI. Recalls his AUNT EVA saying that she and her brothers worked out over which paddocks the railway would run and would sit envisaging the rail carriages rolling by.

066: On the MURRELLS’ tenure of the pastoral lease for MT YORK STATION, he repeats the story about the widower (SCOBIE) living there with his children some years previously and that the eldest daughter married JBC DORE.

084: Relates that it is understood the mercantile bank that supported the SCOBIE family wasn’t satisfied with the returns being made from the (FREESTONE HILL) property and following enquiries of potential buyers, decided that YOUNG BOB was a more profitable option.

097: Says he’s not sure when all the titles came together – the MT YORK title to the west was held in (UNCLE) JACK’S name and to the east there was a small property called the RIVERSLEA HOLDING. Says it had been held by a couple who gave it up and so it was amalgamated with MT YORK and the FREESTONE FARM.

114: Explains that at that time, the family held the lease to the 8,000 acre DUNCRAIGEN RUN downriver. Says the title was at first shared with the DORES but UNCLE BOB eventually bought the DORES out.

128: Again he mentions the family view that YOUNG BOB had a weak constitution so the families made sure that some of the land was held in his name and some in his WIFE, MAGGIE’S name as a form of security of tenure.

139: Replies that MT YORK stretched across 16,000 acres. But the overall property held by the MURRELLS was 32,000 acres (plus DUNCRAIGEN’S 8,000ac) Adds that MAGGIE left DUNCRAIGAN to (UNCLES) GUY and STANLEY, while (UNCLE) JACK held MT YORK and in his will (during WWI) left it to (UNCLE) LES and (OLD)BURTON.

157: Says (UNCLE) JACK took part in that war in its last year, 1918. Adds that this same UNCLE often worked as a GUIDE on the MILFORD TRACK and would also take part in mountaineering expeditions.

163: Mentions (UNCLE) JACK’S friend, EDGAR WILLIAMS, – a “noted mountaineer in NEW ZEALAND” – made a serious attempt at a first ascent of MT TUTOKO (in the DARRAN MOUNTAINS) in the FEBRUARY/MARCH of that same year (1918).

178: Goes on to say that fifty years later, he accompanied EDGAR WILLIAMS on a 50th anniversary attempt of MITRE PEAK and that on the way they made the first ascent of the DEVIL’S ARMCHAIR.

188: Describes how the glaciers “boom” as they shift during warmer summer weather.

194: Mentions again that he heard KAKAPO “boom” while climbing MITRE PEAK and realised later that it was one of the last of this type of bird (there are now fewer than thirty in existence).

219: Continuing the theme of the KAKAPO, says that in the early 1930s on the DOUBTFUL SOUND TRACK, his UNCLE LES and an AUCKLAND WEEKLY newspaper photographer saw one of these birds coast down on to the moss. Adds LES went across and picked up the bird, holding its wings out for the photographer’s camera. (See photo in accompanying file.)

237: Responds that his FATHER, BURTON and LES had volunteered for WWI service from the beginning. BURTON became ill during training at the TRENTHAM base so it was LES who served at GALLIPOLI.

245: Says he still has LES’S notebook from that time “carried over the heart in case it was required to deflect bullets” and how he described the BRITISH ships lined up with all their lights on.

272: Returning to discussion of the FARM, he says (UNCLE) JACK and YOUNG BOB shifted the HOMESTEAD on the FREESTONE HILL to a position near the road, closer to the working sheds and the creek.

291: Referring back to WWI, he says (UNCLE) JACK was killed in the last month or so. Adds that he has visited the gravestone in FRANCE beside a village called METZ-EN-COUTURE, near ARRAS.

303: Tape stopped due to participant suffering a bout of coughing.

306: States that LES – who served in the trenches – had noted that they all had to “bivvy” to make a warm, dry place to sleep. Adds that LES contracted severe hepatitis due to poisoned water and was treated in ENGLAND before he was sent back to the trenches. Also mentions that LES had been promoted to CORPORAL and that remarkably, he had been elected SECTION LEADER in the trenches, which was tantamount to CORPORAL-IN-CHARGE of 10 or 20 men. Person recorded: Jack Murrell

320: As for his FATHER, BURTON, he says the conditions at TRENTHAM were poor – wet and muddy – as a result of which he became seriously ill and was sent to recuperate in ROTORUA from where YOUNG BOB took him on a trip to AUCKLAND. Refers to a photograph (see accompanying file) in which both men are seeing strolling down an AUCKLAND street.

331: Recalls a conversation with his FATHER in which he’d said that on that occasion, YOUNG BOB had pointed out a figure some distance away who was “head and shoulders above the crowd on the street” saying it was “old DONALD SUTHERLAND” adding that BURTON met SUTHERLAND then and there.

339: Comments that SUTHERLAND had been visiting north as part of a reconnaissance tour following reports of a scam involving a gold-mining project at MADAGASCAR BEACH, a strip of black sand north of MILFORD SOUND. He later explained that SUTHERLAND and one other person were involved in the fraudulent project in which the victims chartered a vessel from BLUFF to MILFORD SOUND.

345: Tape stopped due to another bout of coughing.

353: Talking about MRS SUTHERLAND (a three times widow before marrying DONALD in 1890) says she was partly NATIVE AMERICAN INDIAN. He later commented that she had borne four children by a previous husband, named MACDONALD, and that he (the participant) knew them all as well as their children.

362: Returning to the MURRELLS, he says his UNCLE NORMAN, who was the next one in the pecking order from BURTON, was shot in the leg and describes this in some detail.

370: Mentions BURTON was wounded five times during the war in EGYPT. KIWIS, he added, were stationed in EGYPT to defend the SUEZ CANAL on account of TURKEY entering the war. At that time, TURKEY governed PALESTINE.

388: States that BURTON had “no idea that he was going to inherit” the MT YORK lease along with LES. This is followed by some discussion on primogeniture.

Tape 4 Side A stops

Tape 4 Side B starts

011: Still discussing his family’s participation in WWI, says he has a letter from (UNCLE) JACK to his GRANDMOTHER, MAGGIE, saying that they were on the BELGIAN border and that his only hope of getting out alive was if he became one of the wounded. (He was killed not long before the war ended.)

031: Provides details of his FATHER, BURTON’S wounds; on the hand, knee and the last one on his forehead where a metal plate was inserted to hold the skull together.

047: Describes the SHELLSHOCK that BURTON suffered as a result of the war. “He’d wake up in the middle of the night screaming and screaming and screaming.”

059: Affirms that when BURTON and LES returned to NEW ZEALAND they resumed working on the FREESTONE. Says at some stage YOUNG BOB had brought their older brother, GRAHAM, back from CASTLEROCK although his children went to school there. He later stated that GRAHAM had married and was exempt from call-up (war service). He managed the FARM for many years.

075: Mentions that (UNCLE) NORMAN was awarded a medal for bravery. Relates a story told by NORMAN about his involvement in the capture of a platoon of GERMAN soldiers.

111: Replies that GRAHAM was managing the FARM while YOUNG BOB and MAGGIE continued to run the GUEST HOUSE. Says there used to be an old road between the two places and that when the lease was eventually sold, some dairy cows and the butter separator were brought down to the HOUSE.

125: States that at the end of the war, BURTON spent several years in hospital and did not return to NEW ZEALAND until 1922. Mentions that the men’s uniforms were kept in the linen cupboard for a long time afterwards.

154: Talks about the “wonderful families in ENGLAND” which billeted the NZ soldiers. Also mentions that one of BURTON’S soldier colleagues, STAN MACGIBBON from GORE, stayed with the same ENGLISH family as the MURRELL men, adding that STAN ended up marrying the family’s daughter.

168: Says his MOTHER, ALICE (née MARTIN) was born in 1906 and was attending school in LONDON during the war years. Brings in her younger brother, (UNCLE) TEMPLE, here as well as her older sister, (AUNTIE) CHICK, saying that together they immigrated to NEW ZEALAND in the 1920s.

180: Replies that it was common then in BRITAIN to despatch sons and/or daughters to the colonial services. Recalls his MOTHER saying that it was as they arrived at the wharf that they know they were going to NZ and not CANADA or one of the other ‘colonies’.

190: States that AUNTIE CHICK (BINA) did a two-year horticultural apprenticeship at the DUNEDIN BOTANICAL GARDENS before leaving NZ for CAPETOWN, SOUTH AFRICA.

203: Adds that BINA served in EGYPT during WWII, as MAJOR in charge of the SOUTH AFRICAN WOMEN’S ARMY CORPS (WACS). After that war she went on to university and later became personal assistant to the CURATOR of the GARDENS of KIRSTENBOSCH at the foot of TABLE MOUNTAIN (SA).

212: Describes a SOUTH AFRICAN plant named in her honour – MARTINII. Adds there’s an alpine shrub named MURRELLII after it was discovered on the mountains above NORTH ARM.

229: Referring to how his parents met, says the MARTINS stayed on STAN MACGIBBON’S FARM near GORE, which required a ploughboy and a housemaid after MRS MACGIBBON contracted tuberculosis and was sent to the sanatorium at WAIPIATA, CENTRAL OTAGO.

240: Describes everyday on-farm events such as killing a sheep for the household. Recalls that at the age of four he witnessed such an event “and I remember staggering away feeling bilious (laughs)”.

246: So, he says, his MOTHER was hired as companion, domestic, child-minder, “lacky around the kitchen”. As a result, MRS MACGIBBON taught her all the necessary housekeeping duties women require for bringing up their own children in remote areas.

265: Mentions MRS MACGIBBON was MARJORY PAXTON whose sister was VERA SPARGO. VERA, who’d been a teenager during the war, many years later left her husband (MR SPARGO) in LONDON and came out to visit MARJORY in GORE. Says she then “raced up here to see UNCLE LES and stayed (laughs)”.

270: Explains that three years after that, LES died of liver damage at the age of 60 (and the participant was 18 years old) and VERA nursed him through the illness. Adds she inherited most of his property. So, he says, she kept the CAMPING GROUNDS. LES, however, had left his share of the GUESTHOUSE to his sister (EVA) only.

286: Recalls the day that VERA moved into the house. Says he was 15 at the time.

296: Refers to LES’S launch business saying that following his return from WWI, his UNCLE saw that the DOUBTFUL SOUND TRACK had become completely overgrown. Comments that there were no jobs to be had and few prospects, although they made quite a lot of money each winter killing RABBITS on MT YORK and selling the dried skins.

302: Says the SHEEP would have been taken off the property while poisoning was underway. Adds that they used POLLARD and STRYCHNINE, explaining how it was done before the days of aerial topdressing.

317: Reports his FATHER saying they’d start with a “cone” of RABBITS six feet high and two of them would spend all day skinning the dead animals. The skins, he replies, were exported.

325: Mentions his FATHER being able to earn 80 pounds in a week on the RABBIT skins “more than people got in a year”.

334: With poor work prospects, he continues, LES bought two 32-foot LAUNCHES, the PILGRIM for LAKE MANAPOURI and the CONSTANCE for DOUBTFUL SOUND.

352: Replies that to pay for the two LAUNCHES, LES probably had some savings and may have been able to get a government loan as a returned serviceman.

357: Remembers the sign for the business - L.A. MURRELL – FINEST ONE DAY WALK IN THE WORLD. The circular 8sq-feet wooden sign stood at the entrance to the driveway of the GUEST HOUSE.

361: Says LES and his brothers cleared the DOUBTFUL SOUND TRACK, and that GUY carried the iron for the hut they built halfway (the HALFWAY HUT). Recalls many times lighting the fire in the hut and boiling the billy for the tourists’ lunches.

370: Mentions another hut that was built at HOPE ARM that was built in the CANADIAN log-cabin style which was subsequently burnt down by the FIORDLAND NATIONAL PARK BOARD “to keep the place tidy”.

378: Affirms that there were quite a few tourists then and sometimes they might have got a tramping club party. However, he admits a few sentences on that the revenue from the business was “never very good”.

387: States that LES employed staff such as a LAUNCHMASTER and a COOK but would also take on youths (such as a nephew or cousin), give them a bag of flour etc., and tell them they were to guide a group of people over to DOUBTFUL SOUND.

398: Replies that BURTON would often give LES a hand in the guiding business. Explains they were possibly closer than most siblings perhaps because they had also been in the same regiment during WWI. He later noted that BURTON referred the military to a HENRY XIII ruling in “KING’S REGULATIONS” (which he would have read while recuperating in hospital) to ensure that LES would be seconded to join his regiment.

409: Mentions that LES stood for parliament as a supporter of “social credit”, but didn’t win many votes.

Tape 4 Side B stops

Tape 5 Side A starts

001: Is halfway through a reply to another question about how his PARENTS met. Again, he says TEMPLE MARTIN (his maternal UNCLE) was the ploughboy. Thinks TEMPLE and ALICE were probably both sent to MANAPOURI for their holidays.

014: Says they would have been given a room at the back of the annexe at GRAND VIEW.

036: Mentions that as well as washing the dishes, his FATHER, BURTON would also do all the laundry, cut the lawns and at night, after doing all his chores, he would go out with a lantern and FISH (with a spear) to provide food for the next day’s breakfast.

053: TEMPLE, he says, went shooting with the younger MURRELLS and they got through the worst of the DEPRESSION by DEER SHOOTING on the other side of the LAKE. They stored the skins for three years till the price rose. By the end of those economically challenging years, they had accumulated some savings. He later added that when cash became essential, GUY and TEMPLE washed gold at the MARAROA RIVER, obtaining 6d (5c) for each cubic yard (just under a cubic metre) of soil, gravel and sand.

061: Also says that whenever they wanted some extra cash, they would go down to the confluence of the WAIAU and MARAROA RIVERS where there were some GOLD deposits.

072: States that TEMPLE made the first journey from the SOUTH ARM of MANAPOURI up the GREBE RIVER through a low pass and down to LAKE MONOWAI. Goes on to say that TEMPLE later learned to fly aircraft and became an aircraft ENGINEER.

091: Adds that after WWII, TEMPLE set up a business in the aero club buildings at BRIDGE PA. The firm, he says, was called AIR REPAIR and when TEMPLE sold it on retirement it was bought by COLIN SMITH who has the aircraft restoration business at MANDEVILLE, near GORE.

100: Recalls TEMPLE taking him on his first ever flight over HASTINGS in the NORTH ISLAND.

108: Says TEMPLE’S widow is still alive and that they had children, although one son died recently.

112: Mentions that his PARENTS married (in 1930) when she was in her 20s and he in his 30s (there was a twelve-year age gap).

117: Replies that they had four CHILDREN; he was the eldest, followed by his younger BROTHER, BURTON, then SISTERS, MARGARET (born 1939) and BINA (born 1946).

127: Responding to question, says his FATHER, BURTON, was scholarly. Recalls his FATHER reading a book a night, mainly non-fiction.

145: Referring back to their period of WWI service, says his FATHER didn’t drink beer and didn’t appreciate being “a bit squiffy” unlike many other soldiers on leave. Relates a story in which his FATHER and LES hired a dinghy on LAKE WINDERMERE.

168: On his PARENTS’ marriage, says they did not display examples of “problem/resolution discussion”. Adds that having just come out of the GREAT DEPRESSION, they were in some ways very well off and in others extremely poor.

174: Recalls, for example, there was always VENISON to eat, some vegetables from the garden and FISH for six months of the year, never taking FISH when the season was closed.

184: Referring back to their lease of MT YORK STATION, says his BROTHER, BURTON, became very ill at the age of four and required long-term hospitalisation. As a result, he says, his FATHER had to sell his share of the lease to the man (MILNE) who had bought the FREESTONE FARM from YOUNG BOB. Adds that LES had earlier sold off his share of MT YORK to the same person.

204: Describes FARMING in the 1930s as demanding. As a paradox, however, he mentions his GREAT GRANDFATHER (OLD BOB) in the 1880s finding time to sail from NZ to AUSTRALIA to watch the MELBOURNE CUP, although he was HEAD SHEPHERD of MANAPOURI STATION.

216: Also talks about the NEW YEAR RACES at OREPUKI (on the sand at TAE WAE WAE BAY during low tide) in OLD BOB’S era.

253: States that by the 1930s the DORES had gone and had handed over the steamer, MANURERE, to YOUNG BOB who, he says, had a rivermaster’s ticket so continued to operate this service. KENNET continued to work as the steam- engineer.

262: Sums up that for about twenty-five years YOUNG BOB managed “THE FARM” (FREESTONE, MT YORK and RIVERSLEA), the HOUSE, the land at DUNCRAIGEN and the passenger boat on the LAKE, all with the help of his children.

270: During the DEPRESSION, he says, YOUNG BOB would store the WOOL rather than sell it since it cost as much to transport to INVERCARGILL. By the time prices began to rise again, he says, three years’ worth was sold at once – same as the DEER skins.

278: Mentions that his GRANDMOTHER, MAGGIE, died in the months between his PARENTS’ engagement and marriage. Says that on the night she died, his FATHER, cycled down to LUMSDEN to report the event (to the SCOTTS).

299: States that his GRANDFATHER (YOUNG BOB) remarried quite soon afterwards to a woman who’d been a nurse for MAGGIE at one stage. Says the family called her CALAMITY JANE and that she was “quite a nuisance (laughs)”.

310: Interrupted in his flow of thought, states that (UNCLES) STANLEY and GUY ran DUNCRAIGEN, living on the property. Adds that STANLEY’S wife built a “beautiful homestead” there with an octagonal wood-lined hallway. The building won an architectural prize.

318: Relates an amusing tale about CALAMITY JANE, the COWMAN/GARDENER and a batch of scones.

328: Mentions that (UNCLE) GRAHAM had been managing the 32,000-acre FARM for his FATHER, YOUNG BOB, but following the latter’s remarriage, was effectively bought out with a house in WAIKIWI, INVERCARGILL and an owner/operator TAXI SERVICE.

335: Recalls an occasion when his BROTHER was returning from a spell in hospital and the family were brought home in their UNCLE’S taxi. Remembers the gravelled road being very up and down, making it quite a long and uncomfortable journey.

347: Refers again to his FATHER having to sell his share of the pastoral lease on MT YORK. “That was very sad for us because, em, BURTON and I would have been very happy to have split half MT YORK between us.” Adds that they would have had about 8,000 acres each, although the government, he considers, would probably have requisitioned 4,000 acres from each of them for its FARM SETTLEMENT PROGRAMME.

352: Is unable to say how much the lease was sold for. “No idea at all.”

362: Replies that YOUNG BOB and his second wife lived on the property for a while and then sold the lease to JAMES MILNE. States that it was really by coercion that it was sold and qualifies this by saying that during the DEPRESSION, YOUNG BOB had put the property up for sale at a certain price.

367: Continues saying that when a new buyer was found, YOUNG BOB, had decided he didn’t want to sell, “but they (MERCANTILE BANK) made him sell the place on a sales order that he’d signed more than two years beforehand”.

371: So, he says, they retired to a suburban house situated between ST KILDA and ST CLAIR beaches in DUNEDIN. Recalls visiting them once during WWII, adding there was an artillery station close by and that the sandhills were full of barbed wire entanglements. Person recorded: Jack Murrell

377: States that the next time he saw a barbed wire entanglement was at CARISBROOK, DUNEDIN to keep insurrections down because of the political furore over the SOUTH AFRICAN RUGBY TEAM being allowed to play in NEW ZEALAND (during the 1970s when APARTHEID still operated in SOUTH AFRICA).

381: Tape stopped then allowed to run on to end.

Tape 5 Side A stops

Tape 5 Side B starts

007: Talks about his UNCLES being skilled naturalists, particularly on botany and says the reason was because of the many questions that visitors would ask about the local environment. Adds that this was repeated at tourist places across NZ where sometimes visitors would be given “some thoroughly silly answers” and gives an example.

027: Explains (UNCLE) JACK and EDGAR WILLIAMS (a NZ mountaineer) walked the MILFORD TRACK on their way to attempt the first ascent of MT TUTOKO. Describes the route the men would have taken and recalls taking the same route with EDGAR WILLIAMS more than 50 years later and noting that evidence of the former campsite near TURNER’S bivvy was still there.

047: Mentions that the same UNCLE spent a couple of summers guiding on MT COOK and that some of the guides wore silver tiepins shaped like ice-axes. Says he still has his UNCLE’S one.

059: States that (UNCLE) JACK had made a number of notable first ascents on terrain that lies alongside the MILFORD TRACK and other places, adding that he can claim to have made even more.

065: Mentions that after WWI, (UNCLE) NORMAN was also a guide on MT COOK and that he’d accompanied another well-known NZ climber and chief guide, WIGLEY, on the first winter ascent of MT COOK.

113: Interview closes

[Abstract of interview continues in Part 3]