Michael Heath-Caldwell M.Arch
Brisbane, Queensland
ph: 0412-78-70-74
alt: m_heath_caldwell@hotmail.com
Rev. Capt C.H.Heath-Caldwell DSO RN aged 68/69
Violet M.Heath-Caldwell aged 71/72
Patricia M.C.Heath-Caldwell aged 37/38
Diana Charlton - (Danny) - (ne Heath-Caldwell) aged 36/37
Rosalind Attwood - (Ros) - (ne Heath-Caldwell) aged 32/33
J.A. Heath-Caldwell (NZ) aged 27/28
D.A.Heath-Caldwell (NZ) (ne Jones) aged 22/23
Vice Admiral Alexander Palmer ADC, DSO, OBE, RN. aged 77/78
Irving Palmer OBE, RN.
Lady Genesta Hamilton (ne Heath) aged 68/69
Madeline Marion de Salis (ne Heath) aged 66/66
Rosamond Heath (Posy) aged 64/65
Rev. Frederick M.T. Palmer aged 70/71 Maitland NSW
Letter - Sunday, 5th January 1958
From - J.A. Heath-Caldwell, Pihama, Taranaki, NZ
To - Capt. C.H. Heath-Caldwell, The Pound House, Cattistock, Dorset, England.
Dear Daddy,
Thank you for letter of the 22nd Dec.
1. Name of Bank in Opunake. Bank of New South Wales.
2. On arrival at Auckland you should get the next plane on to Bell Block Airport, New Plymouth. This plane arrives at New Plymouth at 5.55pm - and leaves Auckland a little after 4.30pm. which gives you time to get through customs formalities etc at Auckland. We have booked your seats on the plane to New Plymouth. You should contact N.A.C. (National Airways Corporation) offices or officials at Auckland who will put you on the right track.
We did receive the Silver Salver intact - I think our letters may have crossed. It was alright but is still bent as a result of its adventures with B.A.D.A. in London I presume.
We received a letter from John saying that Ros was very much better and had consented to take insulin. His worry seemed to be that it was holding you back from coming out here.
As you have read our Mr Nash came out with import restrictions on New Years Day - much to the disgust of English exporters it seems. So far of course there is no obvious affect but it will affect us gradually. I tink our van is safe - it is at the Ford factory being assembled but all the employees are away for 3 weeks on their holidays. We have been promised the van towards the end of the month - a black one.
The "Delphic' is also due to dock at New Plymouth at the end of the month with the fridge on board. I don't think the import restrictions will affect Customs clearance once it gets here - anyway we will give the Bill of Lading to our local carriers who are experts at getting things through the Customs.
You may be looking forward to warm weather - but I hope you will remember to bring it with you. Today the temperatures are in the 60's only (quite cold for the time of year) and it has been showery all day. This time last year we were starting to feed out turnips to the cows because the grass had stopped growing but this year we have tons more grass than the cows can manage and it is quite coarse and rank so the cows are not milking extra specially well.
Our garden is coming on well. The first tomatoes are coming on well and we had our first vegetable marrow today. The strawberries are also doing quite well now though they really want more sun and less damp.
Could you bring a pair of bumpers with you for me? ie shoes with rubber soles and canvas tops that are comfortable in hot weather. I think Daddy did have a pair. You don't see them here, I don't know why and now with import control we aren't likely to see them. They used to cost either 10/- or about £1 - and they were worth it.
You will be able to get gumboots here - though I sincerely hope you won't want them as it should be dry by the time you arrive. Grey flannels and a shirt with no collar are what a lot of people wear - but a tropical suit is also worn by many of the better dressed here. Just lately I've started to wear shorts.
Hope you are all well at home - Love Jimmy - Dora & Hilary.
1958 - New Zealand
We were to have left London Airport at 11am on Tuesday 21st January but our aircraft was delayed 24 hours by engine trouble so we left Cattistock on Tuesday evening. It was snowing and freezing at the Southern Railway from Maiden Newton provided a first class compartment with the heating out of order. The dining car people produced an uneatable piece of steak for which we were charged the price of a good dinner. Mount Charles Hotel (Marble Arch) for the night - London air terminal Wednesday morning (22nd January) where we got rid of our baggage finally taking off in the QANTAS Super-constellation about noon.
The Super-constellation was divided into three cabins, the two foremost ones for tourist class passengers, the larger compartment aft for 1st class passengers. We were in the foremost compartment with about 4 rows of seats, two seats on port side and three in each row on the starboard side. We flew at a height of about 12,000 feet. There was a certain amount of cloud, but we could see some of the country and could make out Torbay and the Bristol Channel. Arrived a Guardia about 7pm local time. On to New York where we arrived in the middle of the night and spent two hours wandering round the airport. (which was terribly over-heated) A lot of paper formalities, and then on. The aircraft was not at all full and I was able to stretch out on the three starboard seats and got some sleep. Daylight next morning saw us over Utah and Nevada (Reno was pointed out) Barren looking mountainous country with a good deal of snow.
We touched down about 9.00 am. local time and then changed aircraft as the original schedule had been that we should stay the night in Frisco. This was altered owing to the 24 hours delay in leaving London. Left Frisco about noon and arrived Honolulu about 9pm (Thursday 23rd January), where we had dinner. It was pleasantly warm in Honolulu. Touched down at Canton Island about 6.30am local time (Saturday having missed out Friday on crossing the date line). Canton Island is a coral atoll about 23 miles north of the equator. Just a few oil tanks and a jetty, but water laid on, showers and up-to-date sanitation.
After half an hour at Canton Island, on to Nandi (Fiji) where we arrived two hours late and found the TEAL DC7 waiting for us. The air-conditioning in the Super-constellation was first class and we kept an even tempurature and fresh air all the way through.
We arrived at Auckland about 6pm, three hours late and missed the plane to New Plymouth. We eventually got into the Waverley Hotel (most unattractive) could get no food but eventually found an expensive and unattractive meal in a fish and chip shop. Amongst other annoyances we found we had to pay for everything in advance at the hotel. It was very hot and stuffy in Auckland (about 90) and we were stuck there till Monday evening. On arrival on Saturday we had telephoned Jimmy who had been rather worried because he couldn't find out what had happened to us. Eventually we arrived at New Plymouth about 6.30pm, Monday 27th January and were met by James, Dora and Hilary.
40 miles drive to Pihama where we arrived about 8pm and went straight on to the Gopperths for supper. Mr and Mrs Gopperth senior, Ivan and (Babbner?). And so to bed.
Jimmy's house most attractive and beautifully decorated, a sunporch, with wash-house and lavatory on the right, on the left door into small kitchen, then on the right the bathroom and the sitting room with three bedrooms opening out of it. From our window we could see Mount Egmont, an 8,000 foot extinct volcano (about 15 miles away). The farms are divided into rectangular paddocks of 8 to 10 acres, with high boxthorn hedges, some of them up to 25 or 30 feet high. There are very few trees and what there are, are pine trees.
Mr Gopperth owns two farms, in all about 250 acres. These two farms have been turned over to two of his sons, Ross and Ivan. Each farm is divided into ten or twelve rectangular paddocks. The cows 113 milking and followers are turned into a different paddock every morning after milking. The only crop grown apart from grass was turnips. At suitable seasons the cows are folded on to the turnips for an hour or two, with an electric fence.
James and Dora leave for the milking shed (about 200 yards from their house) about 5.am and milk 115 cows, ten at a time and get back for breakfast about 7.30am. After that James goes to work on the farm, with a short break for a cup of tea, (I think) an hour for dinner (12 - 1) then back to work again till the evening milking (4 - 5.30) then finish for the day. Milking seven days a week, apart from this Sunday off, and one other day off in the week. 14 days holiday. Wages for one milker about £55 a month out of which £1 a week is deducted for house, free milk and firewood. Tax of 1/6 in the pound social security, no employment stamps or anything of that sort. Social security comes free, maternity treatment and (I think) hospital treatment, but not doctors fees. It also covers compensation for sickness and old age pension.
Labour is highly paid in New Zealand and town workers get more than farm workers, but their expenses are higher.
Generally speaking no work is done on Saturday or Sunday. Shops all close Saturday, but keep open late on Friday evening. The farmers are keen on getting English trained workers.
After a season or two as a worker anyone with ambition taking on share milking receives 29 or 33% of the milk cheque, or 50% if you own your own herd. This is the first step towards owning your farm.
I was assured that people with good references for integrity and intelligence should have no difficulty in getting suitable (priority?) as share milkers.
The milk is taken off to the local milk factory where it is made into cheese the same day and put in store for a fortnight after which it is exported.
A really good cow would yield 500lbs annually, average about 250lbs. Farmers have been getting about 3/- lb and at the moment this is being made up to them by an equalisation fund, export prices having fallen.
Nobody seems to know what will happen when the equalisation fund is exhausted, but Mr Gopperth said sensible farmers have been able to put away something for bad times though many have not bothered. In his own case he said he could increase production if necessary. Up to the present there had been no object in doing so, as it would only mean increased taxation.
Milk recording seems rather crude and haphazard compared with U.K.
The cows are dried off about May. A certain amount of hay and silage is made for feeding in the short winter, but no food has to be bought.
(Price of butterfat - Population. Pihama, Hawera, New Plymouth, Taranaki as a whole)
Although it is usual for farm workers to take their holidays (14 days a year) in the winter, the Gopperths suggested that James and Dora should take a week during our visit and - in fact they told them to take a day or two extra if they wished.
Accordingly we left Pihama in the early morning of Thursday 26th February in Jimmy's Ford Zephr with tents etc on the roof rack.
We drove through Hawera, Wanganui, Palmerston North, Dannevirke, Napier and camped by Lake Tutira about 30 miles north of Napier. (about 250 miles in the day)
The road from Pihama to Napier was fairly level except for a few miles between Palmeston North and Dannevirke where we went through a gorge. The river here runs to the east of the mountains and flows west through the gorge and gives the illusion of running uphill. The explanation is that the river was there before the mountains.
The country from Pihama to the Gorge was green, after that it became increasingly brown and dried up, until we passed out of the Hawks Bay district. Lake Tutira is a bird sanctuary, the lake fringed by Weeping Willows was warm and pleasant to bath in.
My nights rest was disturbed, first by the collapse of my camp bed, and secondly by two hedgehogs munching away at a paper back of apricots.
The only birds I noticed were some black swans and a few ducks and geese.
The next day we stopped in a motor camp in Gisborne. Our tents were about 50 yards from the beach separated by a belt of trees. A pleasant beach for bathing. The camp had a cook-house with electric stoves on the penny-in-the-slot principle. Also showers, baths and sanitory arrangements. We stayed in the Gisborne camp Friday night, Saturday, left early Sunday morning for Opotiki.
The road from Tutira to Opotiki wound in and out of the mountains up and down with heights up to 4,000 feet and numerous hairpin bends.
Arrived Ohope Bay (Opotiki) Sunday afternoon. Surf here made bathing unpleasant.
It began to rain in the night. We left Ohope Monday morning and drove through Rotorua, some of the party looked in at the Maori village at Whakarewarewa with its hot springs and boiling mud, but no one was about, so we passed on, the rain getting more all the time and we were fortunate in getting a cabin at the Wairaki motor camp. James and Dora bathed in the honeymoon pool that evening. This is in the middle of the thermal district as the camp is a few hundred yards from the place where pipes are let down into the earth using the steam to run a power station. This made a tremendous noise and the hut was vibrating like the engine room of a destroyer at full speed. Next morning it was flooded with muddy water.
We had a look at Wairaki hot springs on Tuesday morning and then drove down to the east side of Taupo. Instead of going along the level road we turned and went home by Taumaranui and Stratford, raining hard all the time so we missed the scenery. Most of it up and down and round hairpin bends, bluffs and gorges and so home. After that we stayed on the farm.
We left New Plymouth 4pm Tuesday 25th March for Auckland. This time we stayed at the Strathmore Private hotel (Proprietor Mrs McHughes) in the Bishops Old Palace. There we were made very comfortable.
Left Auckland 9.0am TEAL DC7. Arrived Sydney 1pm. It was hot and stuffy. We were very much at a loose end not knowing where to go. By the time we got into the Newcastle plane at 7.40 I was very ill and did not enjoy the flight or the journey from Newcastle (where Fred Palmer met us) to Clarence Town. Spent next day (Thursday) in bed but recovered Friday morning. Fred Palmer and Nora very kind, drove us around and we had a lovely bathe in the Williams river.
Joe Palmer, aged 12
My parents had left Prim and I in one of those continuous picture theatres, and when we were brought out, we saw Cuthbert and Vi in the back seat of the car. Well we didn't actually see Cuthbert because it was a hot day and he had a hankerchief over his face which stayed in place for the journey home, and left us wondering what he looked like, for days. He softened up when mum had us kids bring him his breakfast in bed.
Memoir of C.H.Heath-Caldwell continues
Saturday 29th March 1958
Flew from Newcastle to Sydney, stayed in the Wentworth Hotel, fairly comfortable.
Sunday 30th March 1958
Embarked on QANTAS Super-constellation - 10.30 arrived Melbourne 1pm. Perth 7pm. Jakarta in the middle of the night. An excellent breakfast at Singapore next morning (Monday 31st March) Bangkok midday, Calcutta 7pm. Karachi late that night.
Cairo, Tuesday morning (breakfast). Athens 10.30am. Stayed at Delphi Hotel (no meals), lunch in a Greek restaurant.
-
1958 - New Zealand
Two months in New Zealand. Some impressions.
We reached New Zealand on the 25th January and left on the 25th March having travelled via the U.S.A. QANTAS Airways returning via the Middle East.
The purpose of the trip was to visit our son who is working on a dairy farm in the Taranaki district.
Taranaki is situated on the bulge on the West coast of the North Island about 100 miles north of Wellington.
The countryside is dominated by Mount Egmont, 8000 feet extinct volcanoe. there is a range of hills on the east side of the mountain: on the south the land slopes gently down to the sea, there are several small streams running down from the mountain. This is one of the best dairy lands in New Zealand and is selling at about 100 an acre. Less than 100 years ago it was a scrub covered swamp.
The owner of the farm on which we stayed is nominally retired which does not mean that he has given up working, but his 250 acres is divided into two units which are managed by two of his sons who work their holdings with a high degree of co-operation. Each unit has a paid worker whose wives assist with the milking.
The owner lives in the homestead surrounded by a bright attractive garden a feature of which is a tall hedge of blue hydrangeas which seem to thrive in the district.
The younger son and his family live about 50 yards from the homestead just off the main road. The workers residence is about 50 yards further on in the corner of a paddock. All the houses are on the telephone which is more widely used than in this country (UK) at much cheaper rates.
Most of the New Zealand houses are one storey timber buildings with galvanised roofs, usually painted white every two years and picked out in bright colours. They are generally built on concrete piles raised about 18 inches above the ground. The effect is pleasing to the eye, and enhances the sense of freshness and cleanliness and light which was our first impression of the country. Even the towns look bright and clean. We saw nothing drab or dingy.
The workers residence where we stayed was naturally smaller than the other houses. It has a fair sized well proportioned living room with three bedrooms, a small combined kitchen and pantry and an up-to-date bathroom opening out of it. Everything is electric, cooker, water heater and automatic pump which brings water from a well in the paddock. At the east end there is a small sunporch with a wash-house and lavatory opening out of it.
There is a roomy garage with concrete approach to the main road, the whole fenced in with a lawn five to ten yards wide round the house. A few yards away a quarter of an acre kitchen garden, also fenced in, the whole being shielded from the main road by a high boxthorn hedge.
The farm is flat except that at the far end there is a belt of sand-dunes leading to the cliffs. The dunes are covered with yellow lupins and scrub.
Apart from the flowering shrubs there are few trees in the district, a few plantations of pinus signus. Shelter is provided by boxthorn (buckthorn?) hedges up to 20 or 30 feet high. These help to shelter the vegetation and the animals from the cold salty winds which prevail during the short winter months.
Everything on the farm is streamlined. Milking shed and implement sheds are close to the homestead, and adjoins a concrete road which runs down the middle of the farm. On either side of the race as it is called there are eight or ten rectangular paddocks divided by buckthorn (box thorn?) hedges. The gates area all made on the farm and kept in first class repair.
During our visit they were milking 113 Jersey cows, ten at a time from 5.30am to 7.30am in the morning and from 3.30pm to 5.30pm in the evening. The milk lorry is backed onto the concrete bay in the shef, and the milk driven off half a mile to the factory after the morning milking. It is poured into tanks on arrival andhas been made into cheese by about 3pm. The cheeses are then placed in an air-conditioned store for a fortnight when they are ready for export, thought they are at their best if kept for 12 months.
After the morning milking the cows are turned into a different paddock each day, though during part of our visit there were turned into a turnip field for an hour. Apart from the one field of turnips nothing is grown except grass. Silage and hay is made for winter feeding.
I was told that a really good cow produces 500lbs of butterfat per season, but that the average yield is about 250lbs. Generally speaking milk recording is less efficient than in this country.
It is usual for farm workers to take their 14 days annual holiday in the winter months, but our farmer suggested a weeks holiday for our worker and told him to take a fews days extra if he wished so that we should be able to see more of the country. Accordingly we set off early one morning wiht our infant grand-daughter parked on the front seat of the car and a couple of tents on the roof rack. the weather was warm when we started with midday shade temperatures of 78 and 84, but nearly always a cool sea breeze.
We drove south through Wanganui to Palmeston North and then turned east through the Manawatu Gorge up the west coast through Dannevirk to Napier in the Hawkes Bay district. Except for the gorge the roads were fairly level with long straight stretches, tarsealed in the middle, the edges left rough and levelled from time to time with a grader. After leaving Manawatu Gorge it got hotter and we lost the vivid green of the west coast. After leaving Napier we found ourselves in the hilly country rising up to two or three thousand feet and following the contours ofr the hills with countless hairpin bends and often sheer drop of several hundred feet.
We camped for the night under the willows by the side of Lake Tutira, about 30 miles north or Napier. This is a bird sanctuary, all we saw were some black swans, geese, and ducks. It was very beautiful in the early morning, with the vivid blue sky and the surrounding hills and the willows reflected in the lake. After a bathe in the lake and breakfast we left for Gisborne, mostly up and own and round steep hills with the usual hairpin bends every fifty yards. We passed several road gangs with bulldozers, cutting through hills and filling up valleys.
At Gisborne we spent two nights in a motor camp close to the beach. The tempurature during the day was high, and we were in and out of the sea most of the time. You find motor camps or motels in or near many of the towns and bathing beaches. They are pleasantly designed wiht trees or high hedges. Sites are provided for tents and caravans, and there are buildings with shower, baths and lavatories, and a cook house supplied with electric or gas cookers on the penny in the slot principle.
The next day we made an 80 mile drive to Opotiki on the Bay of Plenty. We climbed to 4,000 feet and as we crossed the summit we passed from a brown dried up countryside to a vivid green one. We spent the night in another motor camp at Ohope beach. Rain started during the night, and continued for most of the rest of the trip. This was a pity as we missed some of the most striking scenery. We stopped in Rotorua, and some of the party had a look at the Maori village at Whakarewarewa, but as there were no guides to be seen we gave the geysers and boiling springs a miss and drove on to Wairakie which is a few miles north of Lake Taupo. Wairaki is also famous for its thermal wonders, and we joined a party next morning to walk round the valley and look at the geysers and boiling mud. There has been so much rain that one of them had turned from pink to white (or the other way about) during the night. Meanwhile we had been fortunate to engage the last four berth cabin in the Wairaki motor camp, as there was no ground dry enough to pitch a tent. Some of the party had a disturbed night, the camp being a few hundred yards from another thermal valley which has been tapped to provide steam for a power station. The steam escaping never stopped roaring, and the cabin was vibrating all night.
The rain was still coming down in buckets the next morning so it was decided to cut short the trip and make for home. We drove south along the eastern shore of Lake Taupo, then turned west through Taumaranui with an alarming sucession of bluffs and gorges. The road was slippery in places and a skid would have sent us over the bluff and into the river five hundred feet below. As it happened next day some of the towns we passed through were flooded and the roads were closed. The rain continued for another day after our return. On an average we had about one day of rain a week during our two months visit, but usually there was bright sunshine.
During the latter part of the trip we passed close to two volcanoes, Ruapehu and Tongariro, but owing to the rain we did not see them. The visitor gets the impression that New Zealand is a happy country, although some of the legislation is considered socialist, the individual still counts. Given integrity, average intelligence, some initiative and above all a capacity for work, any young man has a reasonable prospect of making a good living and probably running his own show after a few years. No one could have been more thoughtful, hospitable, and kind than our farmer and his family. Indeed everywhere we found friendliness and nice manners.
The standard of living seems to be much higher than in this country(UK).The food was good, margarine and artificial creams is unknown but I did not like the bacon.
The New Zealanders we were priveleged to meet struck us as carefree though doubtless they have problems to face like the rest of mankind. The fall in the prices of butter and cheese is one of them, but the older hands have been through it before, and i was told that many of them can increase production if it is worth while.
I can not write with certainty about the economic aspect. Many imported goods are dutiable, but there is no such thing as purchase tax. I think taxation is generally less drastic than in this country. Tobacco is half the price and petrol is three and ten a gallon.
We shall always have happy memories of our two months in New Zealand.
Letter - Saturday, 18th October 1958
From - D.A. Heath-Caldwell, Colyton Road, R.D.6, Fielding, NZ
To - Capt C.H. & V.M. Heath-Caldwell, Pound House, Cattistock, Dorset. UK
Dear Ma and Pa,
We do enjoy getting your many letters and thank you for them.
I am pleased about Ma's new sink - when you get this she'll probably be so wrapped up in her new kitchen looking for things in their new places etc that there'll be no time to read this. When we moved in here I kept forgetting where everything was as this kitchen is as large as the Pihama sitting room with plenty of cupboards. Jimmy still can't remember where the milk bucket is kept all though he looks for it twice daily! We have decided to use the big oak chest (we got the locks back by the way- we got one and key for which they sent a bill - I replied with a real stinker and they produced the other two but no keys) for a wood box in the sitting room! The fire place is huge and one can practically get half a tree in at a time, trouble is we can't get the tractor into the sitting room to tow the half trees in so we cut them up into quarter trees which makes it easier - it certainly seems to have a large appetite for wood so we are fortunate in having plenty which only needs cutting.
I think Jimmy likes working here and I'm pleased about it too as these people are much more Jim's type - I never like the idea of him being bossed around by a bigheaded 'Professor Nonowt'!! Mr Gander should have been a lecturer as he is excellent at explaining things and always seems to know 'why & wherefore' of things and doesn't get in a furious temper. I helped in the woolshed for three days when they were shearing. I went up to see what they did up there and finished up skirting the fleeces, even got quite adept at throwing a fleece ie. when a sheep is shorn the fleece is kept in one piece and has to be gathered up and thrown onto a table so that the head end is always at the same end of the table - the reason being that a small amount of fleece on the neck is extra fine and is taken off and put into a bag to be sold separately mainly for baby wool, it is all done very quickly, the fleece now being folded and rolled and put into the bales.
We bought a 6yr old bitch called Belle for £25 the other day - she's worth her weight in gold to Jim because she knows more about driving sheep than he does so he hopes she'll teach him a thing or two. So we now have 4 dogs to feed.
Our livestock is also 3 lambs better off, 1 is a Romney ewe and will go back into the flock - the other two are crossbred rams and will go for meat for which we get the cheque. One of them Jim brought home on Tuesday at lunch-time starved, half drowned and to intents and purposes, dead but as there was some flutter still left we used an eye-dropper to force milk and whiskey into it then warmed it up under the infor-red lamp - that same evening it was walking around - very weak but nevertheless it was walking - those infra-red brooder lamps certainly are good as the heat is so penetrating. The lamb (called Nelson as it has black on one eye) is now outside enjoying the sun with the other two. it is still skinny but extra rations will soon put that right. After 3 or 4 days of very welcome rain the sun is now shining beautifully and it's really warm.
Hilary and I both have snorting colds picked up from the Gordon-Crosby family. Fortunately Jim is in good health - I hope he doesn't catch it. All this extra walking has increased his appetite 10-fold and also keeps his bowels regular (a thing which always seems to be on his mind if he's not regular). We are seriously thinking of a Landrover here as constant knocking around on this rough road won't do dear old Bess much good and also her heart's not as good as it used to be (her battery I mean). We frequently have to push to start. Jimmy did think of a Thames or Freighter van but on 2nd thoughts we decided that they really art not sturdy enough and wouldn't stand up to the knocking around but we still have to delve into the matter a bit further.
I have been reading "Records of the Heath Family' and I must admit I find it quite interesting, especially some of the tales of the 1st World War - the last one I read was by Genesta Mary Farqhar - she seems to be quite witty.
It is very kind of you to offer us so much towards a wireless and it is much appreciated. We are going to get a good set of innards and then Jimmy will make the case.
Great bellows from Hilary who was asleep so must get her up now and finish this.
Love, Dora, Jim and Hilary D.
Letter - November 1958?
From - J.A. Heath-Caldwell, Colyton Road, Feilding, NZ
To - Capt CH. VM. & Pat Heath-Caldwell, Pound House, Cattistock, Dorset, UK
Dear Ma, Pa and Pat,
Thank you for Pa's letter of the 16th. Yes we have been very busy lately and time seems to fly by. I'm writing this letter in bed. Outside it is now raining cats and dogs and has been for the past three days - on and off. This has put paid to our little dry season which was causing quite a lot of concern. Now we want it to be dry and all is sodden.
For the past few days I ahve been engaged in mole and tile draining operations. Today we tried to drain our cow paddocks near the house but the ground was so wet that Mr Gander ended up bogging his tractor down in it. The soil is very clay-ey where he has been working and the tractor just dug itself in.
Since I've been here we've ploughed about 60 acres for turnips or rape for feed foro the sheep and calves in the dry period - and early winter. The dry has enabled us to get well ahead with those sort of jobs.
Our hens have gone off lay just lately largely because they have been shut up in an old hen run and we cannot let them out until we have made the garden relatively hen proof which at the moment it definitely is not. Our spuds are now coming up well and we'll get a few out of them - but probably it will be cheaper to buy a few sacks of potatoes in the autumn. That will save labour and will give us more garden room for other things.
Next week we are getting some day old chicks which will be going under a brood hen which has been sitting on eggs for the past two weeks. If she does not take to them we will have to resort to an infra-red lamp I suppose - but that is expensive and also entails quite a lot more labour than an old mother hen.
The bees have been working well - I have been feeding them but they should have made quite a lot of their own honey by now since the weather has been as kind for the tree blossoms and flowers in this vicinity.
Am engaged at present in making two wheel barrows for myself and Michael (Gordon-Crosby) - who works on the farm too. He has a barrow but its rather an unwieldly affair.
The pantry at home (Pound House) sounds a great improvement on the old one. The lighting in the kitchen used to be pretty poor. Have you done anything to that yet?
The Chinese are still playing. Just what are they up to I wonder. Mr Dulles has had his usual shocks but he is quite used to being outwitted - it seems he does not know any more about what the Chinese intentions really are than you or me.
By the way, since we've been here we have received no papers or parcels whatsoever. I don't think anything at all can have been forwarded from Pihama. Must write and find out.
What's Pat going to do now? She's very welcome here. I think she'd like the place.
Love to all, Jimmy
Letter - Sunday, 14th December 1958
From J.A. Heath-Caldwell, Colyton Road, Feilding, NZ
To -Capt. C.H. & Mrs V.M. Heath-Caldwell, Pound House, Cattistock, Dorset, England
Dear Ma and Pa,
Thank you for your letters. This should reach you about Christmas day I should think. It is very difficult to feel Christmasy here due to the hot summer weather - and I rather think we shall be shearing up to Xmas eve.
At home I've been moderately busy lately with the bees. Last Sunday we had a lamb buyer up here who mentioned that he had a swarm of bees just outside his house. So I went over on Monday with a couple of boxes. I attempted to shake the bees off a post - a fenciing post - but most of them went onto the ground and not into my box. So eventually I put a box on top of the post upside down and did the same thing to another. swarm of bees on a punga (a small palm tree like plant). The next day most of the bees had gone up into the boxes so I just put lids on them and brought them back in the car. Luckily I had had time to put a hive together. One swarm I put in the top super(?) of hive and divided this off from the bottom by a piece of newspaper. By now they should have chewed through the paper and united I hope. I'll have to feed them. The other hive - with four stories on now - seems to have a lot of honey in it as the weather has been fine nearly all the time we have been here.
Dora has found a kitten. She shot a wild cat nearby last week which we thought had taken our chicks and evidently the kitten was orphaned. Anyway, although it was very small it lapped straight away and is now quite domesticated and is quite used to be pulled about by Hilary. Its name is Jane.
We are still engaged in clearing rubbish - rotten wood etc, from round the house and burning it all. So the place will look better by next year I hope.
On the farm we have been busy dagging all the sheep prior to shearing. This is pretty hot heavy and exhausting work. On Wednesday - after we had been dagging all day I went to bed and at about 6.30pm we felt an earthquake which lasted for about a minute or two. The whole house shivered or vibrated something like a ship does when traveling at full power.
I was lying in bed at the time and it just intrigued me. At first I thought it was just the dog under the house. From the papers I see that at about the same time there were earth tremors in Italy and California which may just have been co-incidence.
Yesterday we had a few showers - but it was mainly dry but today the rain has not let up since early morning bringing the drought to an end at last. We were forced through lack of grass to wean all the lambs some weeks before the usual time - which does not help their growth rate.
Hilary is as usual full of beans. She is just as fat as she used to be as a baby and is active too. She is nearly out of nappies (continued in another letter).
Letter - Sunday, 14th December 1958 - (part 2)
From - J.A. Heath-Caldwell, Colyton Road, Fielding, NZ
To - Capt C.H. & V.M. Heath-Caldwell, Pound House, Cattistock, Dorset, England (Continued)
We have also had lots of road building, digging etc going on here. About a week ago the peace of the valley was shattered by the arrival of a bulldozer, two graders and a loader. They ripped into the gravel deposits in the river bed at the bottom of te garden. Should it rain hard now we might have a swimming pool where they have been excavating.
The road works are due to widening of the road preparatory to tar sealing it next October. This road may eventually become quite a main road. Anyway it will make our local road very posh and will save car wear etc.
With reference to your last letter about assets etc and selling out at home and also a letter from Lloyds Bank. I think that if every Income Tax Repayment claim works the same as the last one it is best to leave all my money in England as they are at present. If I transfer them out here I'll have to pay more tax - that is if I can continue to claim Income Tax Repayment. The Income Tax people here say that I don't have to declare money from home because it has been taxed already so of course I'll take their advice. This certainly does put a different complexion on financial matter I think.
However I'll use some of that money when I get those sheep that Mr Gander is going to give me free grazing for. This is in lieu of a bonus. In fact it is a very good idea because it means that the return I should get will be proportional to the prosperity of the farm.
I shall just have to hope that a Labour Government won't get back next year in England. I'm sure if one does it will be the final blow to the disintegration of the Empire so called.
I haven't read anything lately about the European Free Trade area. It does seem that France, Germany and the Benelux countries want to go on on their own. It also seems that England has all along been pushed by events rather than been going whole heartedly into European co-operation. At the same time she hasn't been doing much about setting up real Commonwealth co-operation though this may actually be a going concern and consequently does not receive much limelight. Whatever happens the Benelux countries start putting their co-operation in to effect from 1st Jan. next.
The Russians atomic aeroplane seems to have put the wind up the Yanks once again. The newspapers here are asking the Yanks to come down to earth a bit and to start taking the Russians at their word - also they are calling for Western technologists to learn Russian in order to keep up with Russian advances.
Well, do hope you will have a Merry Christmas. Our brew of 42 bottles of beer seems quite successful.
Love from James and Dora.
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Heath-Caldwell All rights reserved.
Michael Heath-Caldwell M.Arch
Brisbane, Queensland
ph: 0412-78-70-74
alt: m_heath_caldwell@hotmail.com