Flo Chapman's Farm Diaries

Flo's diaries, 1935, 1940, 1957

Farm diaries hardly ever survive. Because – if used as the publishers of these practical tools of farming life intended – they were there at the docking race, the hayshed or the A&P show. They, like their owners, had a hard life. Used to record only the dullest and most quotidian details from year to year they, mostly, were discarded as soon as the farm accounts were beyond the reach of auditors and the taxman.

Notwithstanding their usefulness for farming life, in fifty years of publication the New Zealand Journal of Agriculture makes only four references to the farm diary. These references are, however, very telling. The diary is an essential aspect of prudent husbandry [1] and land management [2]. It supports the farm’s business records [3] and can be used to satisfy an inquiring accountant of just when and why that cheque stub recording “Cash  - Repairs and Maintenance” (often abbreviated to “Cash - R&M”) was written out [4].

Perston Collection plan showing Chapman's farm, n.d.

You can therefore imagine the excitement felt by the archivist of the Te Puna Community Archive when, among the items stashed in a cupboard of the soon-to-be-demolished Te Puna Community Library, were found three battered volumes, each, apparently, recording day-to-day activities on George Chapman’s farm along Wairoa Road in Te Puna. The earliest has the scrawled inscription “1935” on its cover. The next carries an advertisement for boot polish and is from 1940, the first full year of the Second World War. The third, in slightly better nick, is confidently labelled, “Whitcombe’s New Zealand Farmers’ Diary for 1957” and carries the exhortation, below an image of exemplary mixed-country industriousness and prosperity: “This Diary will help you to increase your profit very materially, if you will keep a record of the notable facts and incidents, relating to your farming operations from day to day.”

How wonderful, the community archivist (the present writer) thought, in a landscape so changed and fractured by horticulture and life-style blocks as Te Puna’s, to have even three separate years’ record of day-to-day farming on a single farm before, during and in the decade after, WW II.

Vicinity of Chapmans farm, 2024, riverline in distance

George and Florence (always known as ‘Flo’)  Chapman’s farm was close [5] to those of H J Perston [6] and Arthur Todman [7].  If a conscientious record of ‘notable facts and incidents’ on their  property had been kept, the mid-twentieth century rural economy of quite a large swathe of land above the Wairoa River [8] might, by inference, be available to future researchers.

It turns out, not. The diaries are, each of them, Flo’s brief and unemotive account of the doings on, off and around the farm and within her household. There’s hardly a day missed, except for some blank sequences when she is evidently away from the farm. The weather is invariably reported on, but as often in terms of getting the washing dry as getting the haymaking done – or even, being “too wet to work this afternoon”. There are many references to arable crops – mangolds, onions, lucerne - and very few to animals. Pigs are delivered or sent away and the bobby calves are put out for the truck, which sometimes fails to turn up. (George’s carriage-horse hobby, for which he won prizes in 1927 [9], seems to have faded by 1935.) And his activities in the Farmer’s Union, which had been prodigious through most of the 1930’s [10], were much curtailed for the year of the 1940 diary. On January 26, Flo notes, “Men went to a farmers meeting, I went to the pictures”. After that, although they are sometimes in town on the day of Union meetings, Flo does not record any specific purpose for the trip. Fuel was tight in wartime, costs were rising in the war economy, and labour was in short supply. Their farm worker, Richard (Dick) Flavell was called up in early October [11] – nowhere mentioned in the diary – and was still on-farm for Christmas and Boxing Day, because Flo notes he had both days off.

In the easier economy of 1957, or maybe after some hard-won experience, Flo’s farm diary becomes more like the record idealised in the Journal of Agriculture. She notes the cost of baling 333 bales of hay on January 8: “£25-13-0 paid”. One-and-six a bale would have seemed a lot compared to 1935, when George and helpers built a haystack, but, unlike stacked hay, bales maintain higher nutritional qualities and all of every bale is quick and easy to feed out. The herd tester is there for the afternoon and morning milkings over 24 and 25 March. The dairy season re-starts on 7 July, when the first calf is born on a morning of “very heavy frost”. The first can of cream is sent off on 19 July, presumably still in excellent condition after eight successive days of frost that ended only on the 17^th. As the cows “come in” for the new milking season, arrivals of bobby calves and the first lamb are interspersed with car repairs and Flo’s bowling scores. On the same day she got a £2/7/2d cheque for the bobbies, George got measured for a suit. Flo has hot water piped to her wash house and carpet in her kitchen. Things are looking up on the farm.

Flo's handwriting, 31 Dec 1957

Such threads and patches are probably insufficient to support any firm historical conclusions about mid-twentieth century farming life in Te Puna. But, lodged safely as they are in the Te Puna Community Archive, the diaries are valuable as representative examples of rural work and local society, only occasionally resonant of the world a long way away [12] and often silent or only hinting at issues that must have had significant impact on the Chapman’s life on their farm [13].  These humble volumes would repay more considered study.

All images by Beth Bowden

References

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[1] Papers Past | Magazines and Journals | New Zealand Journal of Agriculture | 20 June 1914 | WORK FOR THE COMING MONTH.  Author, Primrose McConnell

[2] Papers Past | Magazines and Journals | New Zealand Journal of Agriculture | 16 June 1947 | STUDIES IN FARM MANAGEMENT  Author, J G Richards

[3] Papers Past | Magazines and Journals | New Zealand Journal of Agriculture | 15 August 1945 | SEASONAL NOTES  Farm Records, author E M Bates

[4] Author’s personal recollection, Ettrick Farms Limited records (private archive).

[5] Trespass warning, Papers Past | Newspapers | Bay of Plenty Times | 28 April 1921 | Page 1 Advertisements Column 7

[6] I am indebted to René Swan of Tauranga City Libraries for finding Perston’s survey drawing in their collection of local maps and plans

[7] https://taurangahistorical.blogspot.com/2021/11/after-demobilisation-arthur-weber.html  Author, Beth Bowden

[8] https://taurangahistorical.blogspot.com/2024/05/maihi-te-poria-and-wairoa-road.html  Author, Beth Bowden

[9] https://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/newspapers/BOPT19270224.2.20 

[10] Papers Past, multiple references; for background to farming politics at the time, see also https://taurangahistorical.blogspot.com/2019/12/putting-matters-right.html  Author, Beth Bowden

[11] https://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/newspapers/BOPT19401003.2.32

[12] Diary entry, 4 October 1935:  “War started between Italy & Abyssinia.”

[13] Farm labour, for instance.  Not only was Dick Flavell’s departure to be a soldier delayed for months after he was balloted in 1940;  Flo’s 1935 entries between the fortnight beginning 30 September – 13 October tersely describe the strains created by worker Reg’s decision to leave.

A Trip Down Memory Lane in the Tauranga CBD

Guest article by John Green.

Back in the 1960s I was a schoolboy with a bicycle and loved to explore downtown Tauranga. There were a large number of motor garages, service stations and wreckers, not to mention a blacksmith’s shop, in what we now think of as the CBD. These are the main ones that I remember. In those times all cars were either from the UK or USA. To buy a new car one had to have access to overseas money and there were long waiting lists for new cars.

Maxwell Motors Ltd, Shell Service
Detail of ‘Rose gardens in Strand weeded by Mr W. Jones’, publ. Bay of Plenty Times, 8 October 1964
Tauranga City Libraries, Pae Korokī Ref. gca-7522

·         Maxwell Motors, corner Harington Street and The Strand. Agents for Singer, Citroen and Jaguar cars.

·         C.F. Washer, corner of Hamilton Street and Willow Street. Agents for Chevrolet, Vauxhall and Bedford.

Teasey’s Buildings, Devonport Road, Tauranga, 1911
Unidentified photographer
Tauranga City Libraries, Pae Korokī Ref. 99-1142

·         Teaseys Garage, Lower Devonport Rd, Eastern side.  (Building still there but now shops)

George Mason Motors, cnr Elizabeth/Durham Streets, Tauranga, undated
Unidentified photographer
Tauranga City Libraries, Pae Korokī Ref. 02-299

·         George Mason Motors, originally in Grey Street then moved to Elizabeth Street/Durham Street corner. (building still there)

·         Dixie Dean’s Motorcycle shop, where Farmers Trading have just built Elizabeth Towers.

·         F.N. Christian’s Garage, firstly in Lower Devonport Rd, later Upper Devonport Rd , west side, Ford  cars, Fordson tractors.  Became Tappenden Motors in 1957.

 

Tauranga Motors, Grey Street, Tauranga, 1950
Unidentified photographer
Tauranga City Libraries, Pae Korokī Ref. 04-190

·         Acme Motors (later Tauranga Motors), Grey Street, Studebaker cars and Ferguson tractors.

Advertisement from NZ Post Office Telephone Directory, Bay of Plenty & Rotorua Distructs, p25
Collection of John Green

·        Phil Prime had a workshop and car rental business in Grey Street and it went right through to Durham Street.

·       Cameron Motors, Grey Street, specialised in used cars

·       Sam Snowden’s Service Station, cnr Spring Street/Durham Streets, also sold International trucks and tractors

·       Smith’s Scooter House, Durham Street.

There were at least two car wrecking yards, one in Grey Street and the other on Cameron Road opposite St Peters Church. Later the Austin agents Bay Motors was built there.

In the course of this trip down memory lane I have discovered many older images of some of these businesses, and these will form part of a future blog.

Tauranga Heritage Collection web site

Landing page of the Tauranga Heritage Collection browser, where you can search the collection in a variety of ways. Image courtesy of Tauranga Museum

Tauranga Museum team are working hard to make the Tauranga Heritage Collection accessible to as many people as possible. The digitisation of the collection is an important part of this goal. The project started a few years ago and we now have close to 16,000 objects available to view online at https://view.taurangaheritagecollection.co.nz/explore

Objects are uploaded nearly every day and we encourage visitors to keep checking in to see what is new. Our photographer, Michal Pinkerton, takes photographs of the highest quality which ensures that the objects are represented as accurately as possible and can be viewed from all angles. Here is a selection of objects which have been added to the website in the last few weeks.

Tobacco cutter 4450/84. Image courtesy of Tauranga Museum

Used for cutting plugs for pipe smokers, this McMillan’s Rotary Tobacco Cutter had more chopping power than was needed for domestic purposes and is likely to have been owned by a grocer or tobacco shop. By the 1920s this instrument was largely obsolete as cigarette sales dominated the market.

Marine Compass, MV Rena 0188/16. Image courtesy of Tauranga Museum

On October 5, 2011, the MV Rena, a container vessel, carrying a mixed cargo from Napier to Tauranga ran aground on Ōtāiti (Astrolabe Reef), 12 nautical miles off the Bay of Plenty coast. What ensued was New Zealand’s worst maritime environmental disaster. This compass was salvaged from the wreck. An investigation found that it was not used by the crew when they took the Rena off course, and this was a contributing factor in the disaster.

Beer advertisement 0585/86. Image courtesy of Tauranga Museum

Founded by W. Joseph Coutts and his three sons, The Waitemata Brewery Co. (later known as Dominion Breweries) began production in Otahuhu in 1929, which is still in operation today. It was the following year that the revolutionary Waitemata Sparkling Ale was produced and only quite recently, in 1999, was it discontinued. Marketing for the beer often made grand claims that it was “a tonic” and “good for you” with one series of advertising promoting the ale as a drink that could prolong one’s life!

The Home Sewing Front and World War II

Photograph by Beth Bowden

The sewing machine pictured here with Bernina mechanic Graeme Philp at his workshop in Twelfth Avenue is remarkable for a number of reasons,  First, and of most importance to home seamstresses, “It sews perfectly,” says Graeme.  Seventy-five years after it was manufactured – Graeme was able to establish the date, 1938-1941, from its serial number – its running stitch, zig-zag, and reverse stitching are performed evenly and without fuss.  It is an early model, released only six years after the Swiss Gegauf factory created the Bernina marque[1] (the name comes from a range of mountains in the Swiss Alps, whose skyline effectively evokes the shape the machines create in needle and thread).

Secondly, and going to the main theme of this essay, it was made during wartime.  Steel everywhere was being dedicated to the war effort.  Even in neutral Switzerland, Gegauf’s insistence on using only the finest steel must have taken some hard negotiations.  The corporate intertwining of Germany and Switzerland was expressed at a high level by a trade agreement signed on 8 August 1940, providing Switzerland with “raw materials, including coal and iron[2]” in return for the Swiss allowing transit of goods from Germany’s ally, Italy.

And Swiss precision-made goods were in demand by the Allies themselves.  Substitute exporting meant that (for instance: sewing machine) factories in the UK and America could divert their production lines to more important, if less refined, war materiel; sewing machines were indeed needed for the production of uniforms, parachutes, tarpaulins, camouflage nets and any number of other military purposes, but new home sewing machines were definitely a luxury item in the middle of World War II.  This one would have been a miracle of rare device to its owner, whether she[3] acquired it during or just after the war.

Photograph by Beth Bowden

Graeme’s machine, which he bought, quite recently, at an estate sale in Te Awamutu, is driven by an electric motor made in England.  He and I suppose that the unpowered machine was exported from Switzerland, then equipped with a motor before its owner emigrated with it to New Zealand. (Or it gained its motor once in New Zealand – sewing machine engines were common items to buy separately and fit on to an older, hand-turned or treadle machine.)

Bond & Bond advertisement, The Bay of Plenty Times, 30 July 1948

Meanwhile, back in Tauranga, sewing machines had been in short supply for years. This 1948 advertisement shows that modernising the household treadle was still a viable option well after the war had ended.  The electric add-on’s price, though high[4], was considerably less than the cost of even a second-hand Singer treadle.  The classified advertisement columns for that year offered a great many of them, all around the same price as a long-shuttle (and therefore somewhat elderly) model whose going price was £35[5].  No wonder advertisements for opportunities to rent machines, whether from a shop, or even in a private home, were also common. 

Late in 1948 Sinclairs’ household goods store, at 45 Devonport Road, managed to secure ‘a few only[6]’ new Jones portable sewing machines but did not put a price in their advertisement; they did, however, offer apologetic inducements to purchase a machine suitable for a child  “(Sorry None for Mother Yet)[7]” at “only 59/6 each”.  And while it is possibly unfair to do so, compare the limited qualities on offer that same year from the “Grain” machine (twice the price of the toy one) with the sleek engineering of the 1941 Bernina.

Bond & Bond advertisement, The Bay of Plenty Times, 31 May 1948

Post-war boom times were reflected not only in goods and labour shortages.  Clearly people were keen to celebrate victory by way of a new consumerism that took hold in the middle of the twentieth century[8], and even at the mid-point of the war were encouraged to do so as their patriotic duty.

Bond & Bond advertisement, The Bay of Plenty Times, 14 September 1943

Five years later the providential planners of 1943, who deposited their instalments of a few shillings a week in a National Savings Account (carrying 3% interest and helping the war effort) were still waiting to fulfil their consumer dreams.

Out in the country, however, home sewing went on much as it always had.  The formation, in 1934, of the Te Puna Sewing Bee proved to be one of those social institutions that continued right across the war years.  Three months before Hitler invaded Poland, Mesdames Chapman, Smith, Sharplin, Lochhead, Lloyd, Ainsworth, I’Anson, King and others gathered at Tom Lochhead’s homestead, “Pine Hill” for the usual competitions and the inevitable “dainty” afternoon tea.  There was much mutual congratulation on achievements to date from the equally usual sales of work: £5 each to the Church of England and Presbyterians, £10 to the Te Puna Hall Committee, £4 10s to the Te Puna School Piano Fund, £1 to the Christmas Cheer fund of a leper colony, and “a large parcel of clothing to Sister Esther”[9].  Tom, who also audited the accounts, made a speech:

Mr. Thomas Lochhead then spoke, also congratulating the ladies on reaching their fifth year. He said that he was not sure which work the ladies were doing but he had heard that they had handed £10 to the Memorial Hall fund. This, he said, was a very good thing as the Hall has been waiting for improvements for the last, approximately, twenty years. He also said that he was very much in favour of these happy little meetings that the ladies have. At this time, with such disturbances in world affairs generally, the ladies should have other things to occupy their minds. He concluded by wishing the Sewing Bee many more happy and successful years in the future.

There is no evidence at all that the Te Puna Sewing Bee matched the war efforts of Mary Munro’s Patriotic League formed in WW1[10].  Many were the worked aprons, tea cosies, babies’ garments, ornamental clothes hangers and crochet-edged tray cloths that changed hands in successive sales of work, always with the funds being applied for charitable purposes – the Leper Colony was clearly a favourite – or for community-building fun, rather than warm socks for soldiers.  The economics of modern mechanised warfare, the same military industrial complex that produced the early Berninas,  had overtaken the home front.

The Sewing Bee seems to have faded away in the 1950’s, but there would have been more than a few youngsters at Te Puna School who remembered the annual picnic days held, not at their local, ordinary beach but in town at Otumoetai, courtesy of the Te Puna Sewing Bee[11].

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[1] https://sewalot.com/bernina_sewing_machines.htm

[2] https://www.archives.gov/research/holocaust/finding-aid/civilian/rg-84-switzerland.html

[3] The gendered element of this remark is acknowledged, and the purchaser might have been a male tailor.  The overwhelming evidence is that the mass market for sewing machines was female.

[4] Just under twice the weekly wage for a female clerical worker in 1948: £4/11/3d - https://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/newspapers/BOPT19481001.2.28

[5] https://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/newspapers/BOPT19480209.2.3.4

[6] https://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/newspapers/BOPT19481116.2.59.5

[7] https://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/newspapers/BOPT19480604.2.4.1

[8] See, for instance, The Challenge of Affluence: Self Control and Wellbeing in the United States and Britain since 1950 by Avner Offer, Oxford University Press, 2006

[9] https://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/newspapers/BOPT19390516.2.2

[10] https://taurangahistorical.blogspot.com/ , “The Te Puna Patriotic League Stands Up for Itself – Mary Munro and Florence Lochhead” by Beth Bowden, 14 June 2019.  Florence, as Mrs Chapman, succeeded Mrs J Wright, the inaugural President of the Sewing Bee.

[11] https://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/newspapers/BOPT19490210.2.56.2