Under Different Skies: The Life of a Wandering Geologist

Chapter 1

The Early Years

I was born in 1931 in Auckland, New Zealand, in the worst years of the Great Depression. Although it started in 1929, it really took some years before its devastating effect was fully felt throughout the community. Depending on which country you select, on average, about 30 per cent of the workforce was on the dole. The misery it caused swept through the New Zealand population far more fiercely than that of the distant war (World War I) that had recently been fought but which, after all, had only touched one in several families. The Depression paralysed nearly everyone.

I’m told my father had gone off to war a fit young man, filled with the promise of a glowing future. He had almost completed his law degree and was widely known as a brilliant cricketer, and Auckland society was more than ready to offer him a position that ‘suited his capabilities’. I think it’s fair to say that he came back from the war a chronic asthmatic with ruined health and was never the same again. At least, so my mother always said. Still, no one who’s fought in a war is ever the same again, no matter how resilient they are.

To have the Depression follow World War I so closely was terrible. Certainly, they were linked together like night and day, one to some extent the consequence of attitudes brought about by the other, but that’s how history happens I expect. One event causes another, and no one expected such a cause and effect. Together they destroyed the lives of generations of people. They certainly shaped my early life, but that’s what this story is all about.

When the war finished, my parents married and built a house on the North Shore of Auckland Harbour. It was architect-designed and made totally of Kauri Pine, which, I was later informed, was the ‘best wood available’. Dad was a junior partner in a law firm, and his hopes were high. My sister was born; then the Depression started and the law firm went broke.

I was told that in 1930 or so, the New Zealand Government cancelled all third mortgages in an endeavour to get the country on its feet and free people from huge debts. The firm had invested heavily in these mortgages and couldn’t survive this loss. Several years later, my busy little fingers discovered a cabinet in the main hall in the house that had reams of paper with the defunct company letterhead. When it became known that I had found this store of paper and was using it to make paper darts, I was sternly told ‘never to open that cabinet again’ and to ‘mind my own business’. I am sure the memory of that setback was very alive, and it hurt to have to answer questions that inevitably followed my discovery.

My father took a ‘lesser’ job as a civil servant in the Maori Affairs Department, and I was born. To make ends meet, the house on the North Shore was rented out and we moved to Ellerslie, a much cheaper and more industrialised suburb where we rented a small house.

My first memories are of Ellerslie. There’s something about being young and childhood memories that is quite different from later experiences. I think with later experiences, everything that makes its way into memory has already penetrated a filter that wipes out all but the most formative events. When young, everything goes in with a huge emotional impact, and these things are never forgotten.

The house was at the end of a street, and the only thing between it and a railway line was a totally ineffective one-wire fence. The other two wires had collapsed and were lying on the ground.

"Don’t you ever go near that railway line, Ronald!" As a wide-eyed toddler, I remember Mum looking very stern and waving her finger at me for emphasis. Every morning I heard that warning. It sank in, but as days passed, it became something I just couldn’t resist. I now remember three things clearly about that house. An old blown-down wattle or gum tree in the backyard that always had ‘sticky stuff’ on its trunk, an old rusted and broken-down motorbike without a seat that leant against it, and the railway line.

The world was huge and I toddled everywhere I expect, but those three things drew me irresistibly. Mum only worried about the railway line, so that’s where I inevitably had to go. By the time I was about three, I knew the times of the trains and used to run to the fence and wait for the huffing, rattling, smelly, and smoky engine to come. I quickly got to know the drivers, and they’d often wave and I’d wave back. That engine was the biggest thing in my world, and the smell of its passing lingered in the air for minutes after it’d gone—oil, steam, cinders, and smoke.

Don’t get any cinders in your eye. They can really hurt. Shut your eyes when the train goes past! I watched the train, got one in my eye, and it did hurt. Seventy years later, I said the same thing to one of my own grandchildren when we went on Puffing Billy in Melbourne. She got a cinder in her eye and of course it hurt.

In those pre-school years as I grew, I widened my ‘range’. Our house was surrounded by farmland that was cut into small fields by barbed-wire fences. There were blackberries, cows, and rickety paling one-roomed shacks with tin roofs scattered about. I couldn’t resist exploring them all. The Depression had done its worst, and I expect many families had separated into survival units and scattered. I found single people living in these huts and used to spy on them in an innocent, juvenile sort of way. Had Mum known, it would have been a smack and another warning I’m sure, but young boys just simply have a way of getting into, and hopefully out of, situations.

I was particularly fascinated by one shack in which an old woman lived alone. She always dressed in black and had a black headscarf, a black dress that almost touched the ground, black woollen blouse with long sleeves, and black shoes. She was small, stooped, had a long hooked nose, and a very white face. My older sister told me she was a ‘witch’ and ‘don’t let her catch you or she’ll probably eat you’. I couldn’t help but spy on her. I used to hide behind fence-posts and watch her. I’d see her leave her shack and wander off to do something… bend to pick something up, stand up and look around. Most of the time, I couldn’t work out just what she was doing, but I never missed a thing that she did. She was like a magnet to me.

One day, I watched her go off on some errand or to do something, but anyway, she was gone. Now was my chance to sneak up and peep into the shack to just see whatever it was that was in there. How can young boys know why they do things? They just happen.

There was a square window hole cut at about waist height, and I knew that I could just stretch up and see in. There was no glass, just a swing-open shutter, and it was open! I took a long look around. No one looking, so I cautiously, step by step, went up to the hut, stretched up on tiptoes, and peered in.

It was dark inside. There were bare floorboards, a rumpled wooden bed along one side, an old enamel basin on a bench under the window and a small table and chair in the centre, a pot-bellied stove in the corner for cooking, and a rusty chimney pipe sticking out through the roof. Looking back, I can see that it was adequate and comfortable, I expect, for an old lady living alone.

I had just taken all this in, when I was grabbed from behind! My collar was in a hard bony hand, and I was almost lifted off the ground!

What’re you doing here, eh? I’ve seen you poking around. Where do you live? Somehow, ‘the witch’ had managed to sneak up behind me and grab me by the collar and one arm. I was petrified and tried to squirm away, but I had no chance. I was almost dangling in the air. I think I was too overwhelmed by my sense of failure and guilt to do any shouting. As I remember it, I just gaped at her.

You come with me. Don’t you struggle. I’m not going to hurt you! I think I was a rather ‘believing’ sort of boy. I’d never had any cause to doubt the good intents of grown-ups in general, so I accepted that I wasn’t going to get hurt and just let her tow me into the shack.

You just stay there. I’ve got something for you. What did she mean? My young imagination went wild, trying to cover all the possibilities. She let me go, turned her back to me and moved over to the far side of the room, picked something up, and fiddled with something else. I couldn’t really see what it was, but my imagination was working overtime. Then she turned around, and in her hand was a full glass of milk! In her other hand was the jug that she’d poured it from. There were no refrigerators in those days.

Here, boy. Drink that down. Bet you’ve never tasted anything like that in your life, eh? She thrust the glass at me and watched carefully as I struggled to drink the still warm, frothy, glass of milk. I’d never drunk milk straight from the cow before, and I was struggling. I was too scared to refuse, and the taste was quite different from what I was used to.

What had happened to the ‘witch’? What was this that was happening to me? Wasn’t I going to get smacked or something? Surely she was going to drag me home and I’d be in serious trouble? I had, after all, done something wrong. I had spied on her and, I expect, trespassed on her property.

Instead of the fierce look and being torn to pieces and eaten, I was getting a rather gentle, kind look. All sorts of thoughts crowded in, and I only remember being totally confused.

"Now off you go, and don’t get lost—do you hear?" So much for a witch!

In those days of the Depression, I now think people responded to the idea of ‘community’ and helped each other. I never told Mum about what had happened. Somehow, it just seemed to be between me and the old lady.

I had plenty of time to wander all over those fields and sometime later, I put myself in a position that I’ll never knowingly do again. The old lady kept a cow in her paddock. It was this that had given the milk. I didn’t know it, but it had just had a calf. The cow was tethered on one side of a fence, and the calf roamed free on the other side. In ignorance, I put myself between the cow and the calf! Not a smart place to be.

All I knew was that one moment everything was quiet, and the next a ‘mad’ cow was bellowing, charging me, and trying to tear me to pieces with its horns. It had pulled up its nose tether peg, and it was after me. I remember I ran like hell and dived under the lowest wire of the fence, right on top of the calf! No wonder she went crazy. After that, whenever I went into that paddock, I always noted where the cow was and stayed well clear.

I first went to school at Ellerslie Primary. It was a pretty tough district but cheap to live in, which was why we were there as a family. It was quickly apparent that I didn’t fit in, and the local ‘gang’ had me in its sights. I was quiet, a bit of a ‘loner’ at school, and every day I had to face up to the fact that I was going to be chased and if caught, ‘beaten up’ to some degree.

Looking back, it was a pretty tough time what with Dad constantly in rages because of his despair at working at a level that, in his eyes, was beneath him, and the terrible introduction to school life. I felt that I lacked something, and wondered if it was like that for everyone. Why wasn’t I a bully? What should I do? I was constantly backing away from situations and avoiding conflicts. My elder sister Shirley seemed to have settled in much better than I did. Perhaps she was just much bigger and stronger, and smarter. I don’t know.

Shirley and I, about 1936

At lunchtime, one particular toughie boy, about my own age, used to pick on me. In this he was encouraged by the older boys of the gang. The boys’ toilet had an entrance at both ends as was normal in those days, and I found it best to run in one end and out the other, and so escape from this bully.

The gang used to urge him on and try to slow me down. I am not proud of that time, but I was desperate and didn’t want to face up to a situation. I was not too sure what might happen at home if I arrived with torn clothes, so I just wanted to escape. That seemed to be the easiest thing to do, so long as I could keep on doing it.

However, as with all such things in life, I finally came to see that it wasn’t going to get any better. I was reluctant to go home after school because I knew the gang was waiting for me. I was reluctant to go into the playground because of this bully boy. Home was little better because Dad was always in a fury. I think that was the worst time in my life. I didn’t know it then, but it could only get better, but what could make that happen? It had to be in my own hands, but what to do?

I’d love to be able to say that ‘I decided’ to do something about it, but that’s not what happened. One day, the answer just forced itself on me. It was during lunchtime.

Come here, ya little sucker… I’m going to bash you. I ran into the toilet. He followed. The gang had assembled and were shouting and egging him on. I ran out the other door. He was close behind me. I ran around in the first door again, and then something just seemed to snap inside me. I’d had enough! Running away from trouble wasn’t getting me anywhere.

I remember I stopped, planted my feet, and waited. In a few seconds, he came charging in, and I let loose at his face with a huge wild punch. It had all my fear, frustration, and hate in it, and it hit him with a ‘crack’.

He didn’t fall down as I rather hoped he would, but he saw my fury and I read in his eyes that he hadn’t expected this and that he was scared! He was scared! He just turned around and ran straight out.

Go on, get in there and bash him! This from the gang.

No way. Nooooo! And he pushed himself clear and ran away.

I walked out of the toilet and glared at all of them. None of them came near me. From that day on, I never had any trouble. All the chasing stopped. For some reason, I had been accepted. I had learnt a fearsome lesson. ‘You can only move away from trouble for so long, and if it persists, you have to go forward to meet it and face it.’ It seems you have no other choice.

Life became better after that. I still had occasional ‘front-ups’ with different boys, but when I didn’t back down, they weren’t prepared to take it any further so they’d just walk away. I did, however, listen to Dad when he taught me a bit of boxing.

In 1938, when I was seven, we moved back to the North Shore. Everything was different there. I was accepted immediately, had no trouble, and loved it. I have never forgotten Ellerslie School.

It’s now over seventy years since I was there, and recently, I just had to go back again to see if the school was still there and to relive the memories. The boys’ toilet is just the same with the same two entrances that offered me both escape and humiliation, but eventually triumph. Much of the rest of Ellerslie has changed. There is no railway line now, and the fields and shacks are no more.

All the green places that I used to ‘explore’ are gone and factory yards have taken their place. Instead, huge concrete pillars support a motorway overpass near where our house was, and plastic junk blows up against barbed-wire fences.

A couple of years after we moved back to the North Shore, in 1939, war was declared. This was to become the Second World War. Poor Mum and Dad. Dad was too old to be called up for this war, but many throughout the district just ‘went away’, or so it seemed to a young boy. I was eight, and no one in our immediate family had to go. Not so for some of our older cousins. I now realise that the war years simply opened the door of freedom to us youngsters.

Military barracks were built near our house to train the men. Live firing was a daily event. Searchlights flashed across the sky almost every evening. Target ‘drones’ were towed across the sky and shot at by anti-aircraft batteries. If a drone got hit, we’d all feel good. Air-raid trenches were dug in most public places, and all these things just added spice to my youth. We used to have special bags hung around our necks when we went to school. The bags had identification and a rubber pad to lock our teeth on to cushion the shock of bomb explosion should there be an air-raid.

We lived near a beach, and from the adjacent cliffs, live artillery shooting was directed out to sea. Occasionally, we’d find empty shell cases, and these were treasured. During the shooting, the house would shake. We’d haunt the fringes of these military activities and ‘Commandos’ was a regular game.

I think my parents never found out about it, but after bedtime, I used to sometimes quietly open my window and carefully climb out. I’d join my friends, and we’d be away to where the guns were firing or the searchlights were highlighting tracer shells across the sky. Nobody told us to but we were preparing ourselves for war. Boys will be boys. Nothing interfered with sport however, and I was soon engrossed in soccer, cricket, tennis, and swimming.

With few young men around, the older people had difficulty finding anyone to mow their lawns. I think I was about nine when I earned my first money mowing lawns. I was pretty solid and so could push the rotary-bladed mowers that were used at that time. Two shillings for a ‘small’ lawn and three for a ‘large’ one was pretty much the standard rate. That’s about 20c and 30c in today’s money. I could do a small lawn in about forty-five minutes and a large one in just over an hour. That money was mine!

At one time, I had three lawns to service and it was hard to fit in all the cricket and tennis. Still, youth and determination are hard to hold down. Occasionally, Shirley, my elder sister, would take over for me if things got to be just too much. That was my introduction to ‘paid work’.

We’ll match whatever you can earn was a standing offer from Mum and Dad whenever I wanted to buy something. That worked out well, and that’s how I got a bike and bought a wreck of a sailing canoe and several other things I wanted. I used to cut wooden figures with a fretsaw, mount them as a matchbox holder, and sell them to relatives and shops. Shirley would paint them. I mowed lawns right through primary and secondary school, and the pocket money I earned allowed me to do many things.

When I was about seven or eight, I was already fully involved with cricket, tennis, soccer, and swimming, as well as all the fringe activities that young people were involved with in those war years. The war was far away and really only came close when we made up food and toiletry packets for relatives in England, or when, as happened, we were advised of the death of a relative who was killed actually fighting.

I had almost total freedom at this time. Many of the men were away, so close supervision was minimal. We pushed the limit between acceptable behaviour and lawlessness. No wonder I was ‘eased’ into sports because that must have seemed to be a good way to offload youthful energy.

I have since said to many that the mums took up the responsibility of policing the doings of us young ones at that time. Dads might not be there, but by God, there was always a mum at a window somewhere, noticing everything. It seemed to me that all I had to do was step on to the road and Mum would know about it. Freedom was one thing, but accountability was another.

Chapter 2

The Call of the Sea

I think I used to develop ‘enthusiasms’. I’d see something happening and I’d start to work out how to get involved in it. Perhaps that’s only natural, but anyway, as we lived near a beach, boating had to feature sooner or later.

I knew a boy who had fairly rich parents. He’d only have to ‘whine’ about not having something and he’d get it. I think we were about twelve. He wanted a yacht, and so he got a yacht—or rather a super-lightweight sailing canoe. He had to show it to me, and, of course, I was envious. They’d paid a lot of money for it, I was told. He ‘preened’ and got the satisfaction he wanted. He was not a particular friend of mine, but he lived close and I used to see him take the yacht down to the beach and sail it, or rather try to sail it.

It looked beautiful, but there must have been a problem, because whenever I watched him, he was always tipping it over and laying it on its side. At first, I thought he just had to learn how to sail properly, but time went by and he didn’t seem to get any better. Then, as happens, I lost interest in him and his yacht. He wasn’t really a friend and didn’t even go to my school.

Two years passed, and by chance, I met him again.

G’ day, Allan, how’re you going?

Hi, Ron. What’re you doing around the place? That was a pretty normal greeting in those days.

Not much. And that’s where it might have ended, but I remembered his yacht. I hadn’t seen it for years!

You still got that yacht?

Yea… it’s down the back. It’s a bit of a mess. A bit of a mess? The last time I’d seen it, it was a thing of beauty. Interest stirred in me. I had to see it; I didn’t know just why, but I think I sensed an opportunity. I’d been taken for an occasional sail by the father of a girl who lived up the road and I’d enjoyed it. He had a little two-man ‘pram’ dinghy, and he enjoyed the company. That had kindled my interest in the mechanics of sailing.

Can I see it?

Sure, but it’s a bit of a wreck. It was useless and didn’t work. In my mind I remembered a new yacht. A lovely sleek thirteen-foot canvas-over-frames almost fully decked sailing canoe. The cockpit was just open enough to take two small people. It could lie on its side without taking in any water. I’d seen this happen to him several times.

He took me into his backyard and showed me the boat. I couldn’t believe what I saw. It had been left lying at the bottom of the garden and was surrounded by weeds. The black paint on the hull had lost its shine, and the canvas was all cracked and, in places, torn. Some of the ribs on the frames were snapped. The woodwork was bleached and warped by the sun… It was a wreck!

Where’s all the rigging and stuff?

Under the house, I think. It turned out to be in pretty fair condition.

The centreboard needed sanding and varnish, so did the tiller, rudder, and mast, but the rigging was a total ‘write-off’. The sails had been kept inside and, although faded and stretched, seemed to me to be usable. I had money from mowing lawns, and I figured I could salvage this boat if I could buy it cheaply. I thanked Allan and went off home.

I thought long and hard about it. Everything seemed possible to fix, but the fore and aft cracked ribs had to be a problem. How to fill in the gaps without tearing the canvas? That was the turning point. I gambled that I could squeeze in new ‘sister ribs’ alongside the broken ones if I ‘cambered off’ the ends just right. The cost of replacing the canvas was just too much to imagine. The centreboard case seemed to be solid however, and that was critical. I tallied up the cost of varnish, sandpaper, rigging, paint, and fittings and wandered down to Allan’s place.

Allan, I’ll give you two pounds for the yacht. I’d made a trolley as most boys did in my day and figured I could make up a cradle on top to hold the yacht. He looked a bit sour.

Doesn’t seem much.

It’s a wreck! I’ll have to spend several pounds on it and work on it for months. He thought I was exaggerating, as in fact I was, but agreed to ask his dad. Next time I saw him, he a told me I could have it for two pound ten shillings. I took it! I’m sure they’d talked about it and knew that I was taking a gamble… ‘and good luck to him’.

I made the frame for the trolley, loaded ‘my yacht’ on it, and dragged it home. I haunted the hardware store for several weeks and could always be found, if wanted, near the boat, but finally, The Rose was ready for launching.

I’d managed to squeeze in the new sister ribs. The canvas had been stretched, but not torn. I had learnt in a library book about the herringbone stitch that pulled torn edges together. I’d used it; then I’d stuck patches over the top. I’d used the best rubber solution glue. The patches never came off and, in fact, I never had any trouble with my repairs. I’d sanded and varnished all the woodwork and painted the hull black. I didn’t change the name because I’d heard that to do so might bring bad luck, and I didn’t need that, so ‘The Rose’ stayed on the bow.

All Mum and Dad saw was intense activity and ‘something’ down the side of the house. Dad came down once to see what it was, thought about it, but tolerated my endeavours. Eventually, I finished my repairs, picked a good day, loaded it on to the trolley, and towed it down to the beach; then I rigged and launched it.

No sooner did I step in than it tipped over! The hull cross section was a complete semicircle, and it just had no inherent shape stability. I worked this out after several failed attempts at boarding it. It had a very long centreboard, all of five feet, which, for a thirteen-foot yacht seemed a lot. Was this the secret?

I let the boom out, loaded the board into the case—ready to push it down quickly, and pushed off. As soon as I could, I shoved the board down. The instant ‘rocking’ was dampened and I could ‘swing my weight’ and keep it upright! That was the secret. It was just like riding a bike. The centreboard gave you the time to swing your weight as needed. When I brought in the mainsail, I was off like a rocket! It was super-light and narrow… just a speed machine. You could never relax in The Rose. Every moment my weight had to be moved and balanced. There was no margin, no tolerance. Just like riding a bike. As you steer to stay upright on a bike, so you did with The Rose, that and constantly changing sheet tension.

In a few months, I had mastered it and was regularly zooming along the beaches of the North Shore. I remember zapping past the ‘Frostbite’ yachts that ‘club raced’ off Narrow Neck Beach. Coming into the beach was the worst part. Once the board was up, it wobbled like a crazy thing, and I had to get a leg out quickly to stop it going over. Going about was also chancy. You had to move your weight perfectly and follow the turning of the boat.

The design allowed for a passenger who could squeeze in forehead of the centreboard case by sliding their legs up under the foredeck. They were virtually locked in there by a backrest that slid down behind them once they were in place. I looked at that place and decided I wasn’t ever going to be in there.

Although it could lie on its side without taking in water in the calm, I reckoned it’d fill up if there were waves. Anyone in there, if we went over, would have a hell of a time getting out. They’d have to lean forward, try to flick out the backrest, then probably take a deep breath because they’d most likely be underwater, and then wriggle out backwards and pop to the surface. Not for me, thanks!

Shirley, my elder sister, had probably heard about my antics in The Rose and one day asked me if she could come too. I thought about that place up front.

Can it take two? Pride was on the line.

Sure. She was a largish girl for her age, and I was mentally measuring the space she’d have and whether she could get her legs up under the decking. It’d be marginal, I figured, but I couldn’t let The Rose be belittled… after all, it had never been tried… yet!

It was a good day—a gentle south-east wind and clear skies, so we decided to give it a try.

How long will you be gone? Mum just wanted a general idea. Oh, not too long. We’ll just go up and down the beach a couple of times. That was the plan. Weather forecasting back then was certainly not the science it is today, but as I say, the day looked perfect.

Shirley must have been about fourteen, and I wasn’t quite sure whether or not she could get her legs up under the foredeck and so squeeze into position.

OK, Shirley, I’ll hold the boat steady, and you try to get your legs up under the front there. I pointed to make it clear what I wanted. She didn’t like the idea but did as I asked. She managed to position herself, and I slid in the backrest.

How do I get out if it turns over? Her imagination was working well.

You just shove up the backrest and get out the same way you went in. I didn’t say that I’d never done it and that I’d never had anyone else with me… yet.

The boat seemed to be very stable, and I figured that had to be Shirley’s weight low down and steadying it. That was good, and I began to feel a bit more confident. The Rose was definitely more solid in the water but a bit down in the bow.

Cheltenham is an east coast beach and trends north-south, so with a south-east wind, the boom was out to port as I pushed off the shore. The Rose loved it and we even managed to go about and zoom along the beach. We went about again and I decided to show Shirley just how fast it could go, so I brought in the mainsail and angled out into the channel on a starboard reach. The Rose simply flew along, and in no time we were out near the main shipping channel. I think Shirley was enjoying it and getting used to the surge and heel of the boat.

Then I noticed the wind was getting up. I looked to the south-east and saw that the sea was darker, a sure sign that there were squalls coming. Then one hit the boat… she heeled, and I let the main out. We simply flew. The bow wave came up over the gunwale and drenched Shirley.

Stop that, Ronald! I’m getting wet! As if I could do anything about it. I was totally occupied with trying to keep the boat upright. The waves were getting bigger, and I knew we were in trouble. Shirley started shouting and screaming every time a wave came inboard. I tried to think what I could do to get out of this mess. I knew I couldn’t go about or jibe, the chance of going over seemed to be just too great. A wave might come over the bow and swamp us.

The flogging of the sails, the lurching of the boat, the waves that had by now got to be quite big made me doubt that we’d make it. There was no way to drop the sails. They were tied firmly up, and anyway, I hadn’t the experience at that stage to attempt that. I knew nothing at that stage of ‘seamanship’ things.

As I have said, the North Shore beaches trend north-south. There are several that together run for about thirty miles. Each beach is separated from the next by rocky headlands. I made a decision.

Shirley, I can’t go back to our beach. I can’t get us around safely. Too much wind. All I can do is run with the wind and try to keep us upright.

She was screaming at me now with every lurch of the boat and telling me, ‘Stop it, Ronald.’ I remember I just ignored her as best I could, but I knew I’d get hell when we