Interview with Mrs Annie Roberts (nee Gorman)of Richmond

Interview with Mrs Annie Roberts (nee Gorman)of Richmond. Mrs Gorman came to Richmond in the early 1930's. She lived for some time in Hope but can remember a lot about Richmond, and the people and places within the Borough.Interview conducted by Lisa van Wessel on 24 August 1984 for the Richmond Borough Council historical research programme, and transcribed by her to manuscript from tape-recording. Typed by Les Slater, principal researcher for the project.

"We used to come down from Hope on our horse and trap or else walk. In the 1930's - well, there was Mays' the grocer and several old houses in the street. Where the doctor and the dentist are now was MrGomie the vet. There was an acre of land there and there was a stable back in the paddock and that was built by Mr Hayes Croucher who owned the bakery opposite. Behind that was Ethelbert Croucher and he had a flour mill. And there was a little old house just nearby that was their office and that was right on the street. I think Wilkes' mill must've been there. And the Star and Garter of course was there earlier on. And of course the post office was on Queen Street, and the fire brigade. I think it was the Eastgates who had the bakery at the time and later the Marshalls had it. And I think Lustys had

Mrs Roberts 24 viii 84

it at one time, but I'm not sure.

Just there near the doctor and the dentist was a creek that came through. A Mr Harry Papps had a blacksmith's forge there and there were quite a few old houses. There was a Mr Frazer who had a boot repairing shop just close by there too. Scotch people I think they were.

Dr Currie was here at the time. Dr Washbourn was here in the wartime. Anyway Dr Currie came after the first war. Dr Washbourn died in the influenza epidemic in 1919.

A matron and sister Kidd had the Hillcrest hospital up on the knob there, just behind Richmond.I think they'd all come from Hamilton I believe it was. Anyway they ran this hospital; it was a medical/surgical hospital and they started taking maternity cases. And in my time in the 'thirties just about all the births were there that were born around here. All of mine were born at Hillcrest.It's gone now; it's all houses there now. The old

3 Mrs Roberts 24 viii 84

Church of England parsonage was just behind Hillcrest Ctf-- on that corner. That house has gone now, hasn't it.The Methodist Parsonage was on the corner of Wesley Street and Oxford Street.

That was the police station, that house with the jail at the back. And on the same side where the next house is going along Oxford Street, right through to Dorset Street, there was a gooseberry garden. Percy Haycock had it. Right on the corner. Of course there wasn't very much on the hill, going up that road, not like there is now.

The road from where we lived down to the main road is Whytes road. We used to come over the clay hills. The roads were rough and they weren't sealed or anything. There used to be a fire bell just on the corner where you go up on to; Surrey Road. Just on that corner there used to be an old Wattle tree and a fire bell. There was a hose reel somewhere but I can't remember about that. But I know we used to see it when we came that way. It was part of the


fire brigade. The main fire brigade was down here on Queen street where it was before they built the new one. I think that at one time the Council Coo buildings were in Queen street weren't they? But that was before I was here. Of course we didn't have much to do with that.because we were in the country.

I did make quite a frew friends here. There was Mrs Papps who used to live down the Queen street, ffipfs L That would be where Wilkins and Field are now, about there. There wes a house back in the paddocks and (■[Papps lived there. I think her name was Gladys.

Some of these old places - that big .>two storied house in Wesley street was there of course.

Opposite the church, behind the County Council building. There's not many houses in Wesley street because Wesley street is only that little piece between Queen street and the Oxford street corner.Gladys Papps1 peole built that two storied housebefore I moved here.


There was Mrs Donaldson who lived opposite me DO/VAldSok, here in Salisbury Road. She was from the Sutton family. And there was George Kidd who had a big K10 0, (5 St-house in Edward street. Number six I think. It's just near where the Brethren chapel is. They had an acre of land. You see all these sections were big. They weren't meant to be chopped up like they are now. Behind here actually there's a three- quarter section. That's what Edward street was like.

Their numbers were different to our numbers because there weren't as many houses in Edward st as there were in Salisbury road. And I think down here near the library there was a creek that ran through. And I think there were some poplar trees alongside that and the Exclusive Brethrens had a hall down there, then they built one up here. We used to come down through here you see. I can remem ber. There was no by-pass you see so we had to come this way to go to Nelson. This was the main road. The buses used to come here of course likethey still do. Crouchers' buses started first as far as I know. Burn's buses went to Wakefield -


the Black and White buses. We used to get on those <;and go to Nelson from where we lived in Hope. You could go to town and back for - I think - about three shillings or something like that. Quite different to what it is now! And there used to be Gibb's buses running out to Riwaka from Nelson. (S/r^6S They were there when we went to Appleby in the 'forties - they were still there.

I think the special school must've been there S/n -t S bt.HOCd-

before that - the g.rls' school - we used to call itthe special school. They call it the Salisbury Girls'School now don't they? I think it has always beenrun by the government. A social welfare type ofthing before there was social welfare.

Going down D'Arcy street, right down Croucher p/Pj/cwfCL( *• street and Florence street, was all Fauchelles farm.So it was all farmland in behind there. And where the Waimea College is, the house that the caretaker lives in, was the farmhouse and that was a 20 acre farm belonging to - I can't remember just what their name was - perhaps Springfellow. But anyway they


sold it to the government to build the intermediate(M'f StfnC&ffHE.. -S'fctUJi.

school and the Waimea college. That's that pieceof ground. Part of it. Thirty years ago they must'vesold it. It was only opened the second year whenLucy, my youngest daughter, went. They started at _iJCVthird form and worked there way up. And she startedat the beginning of the second year.

We used to go to May's shopping, you see.There was Mr May, there was George Baker - I think he was a partner actually - and Les Wells: He worked Mfof-iS^LESthere most of his life I think. And I knew him very well because of what with dealing with him you see.And then he took the shop over later with Joe Hill.The Hill family are old identities. I think they took it over when they came back from the second war and I understand that there used to be a building opposite what was Mays' shop. That was a bacon factory. This is before I knew it. That building was the first dairy factory from Karamea and they bought it up and put it there and it was a bacon factory for Mays' business. They must've moved the whole building because Karamea now has a second


dairy factory. I've got people in Karamea, they told me that story.

There was a fish shop on the corner there, just by that creek where Ogilvies are now. There used to be an old two-storied house - most of the houses around here were old two-storied ones - and this was just by that creek and it was a fish shop, where the lights are now. I don't think the road went throught there then. You see the railway was fa little bit further down and you went down the Queen street and that was the Beach road, as I think they called it, and that took you down to the beach.The by-pass wasn't there. And also Queen street only went as far as Landsdowne road I think it was. There was a dead end. You couldn't go through Queen street like you do now. From there you go to Rabbit island don't you? Well you couldn't go down Queen street any further than that. Now you can go as far as the river can't you?

To get to Rabbit island you went down over theAppleby bridge and out that way. That was there


because there's old houses and that down there.The O'Connors and people like that. I think it was Landsdowne road that was as far as you went. And you had to go along the Landsdowne road to get to the Appleby road. There are some old farms and buildings along there you see. There were anyway, way back then.

We kept mostly dairy animals, milking cows. The cream always went to the factory at Brightwater In the Appleby area there was a cheese factory.In our time people used to take their milk to the cheese factory. The building is still there.There was a cheese and a butter factory. And then the Waimea people bought the butter factory from Cooks who had it at Brightwater. Then they just made the cheese out at Appleby and the butter at Brightwater. Now of course they've got the milk powder as well as the butter. I don't think they had the milk powder when we were supplying them because we stopped supplying them in 1947. My husband died then. We stayed living on the farm but we gave up running it.


When I came up here, the only people I knewwere my brother and sister-in-law in Tahuna and I had and uncle and auntie in Nelson. I didn't know anyone else. But we soon got to know them. When we lived at Appleby we got to know them and then when my youngest daughter went to the mail office to work she got to know her husband, Stephen, as he worked there.

I used to knit and sew and all those sorts of things when I had some spare time. We had the

IWSTtTMTt /Womens' Institute at Ranzau and I went to that for quite a while. I didn't go anywhere much else though.I was always too busy. We only came into Richmond and stayed long enough to do what we had to do and went out again.

And of course way back then the Bank of New Zealand was the only bank that came to Richmond.If you wanted any other banking you had to go to Nelson. See there was no dentist here, there was a doctor, there was one chemist. If you wanted any legal attention or anything like that you had to go


to Nelson. The BNZ had an agency here and someone used to come out from town, I think once a week.They were only out here for a few hours and otherwise you had to go to the bank in Nelson. And the Post Office - you see they didn't have the money order then at the Richmond post office. If you had a post office account you had to be in Nelson to get any money out of it. Because then you couldn't draw money out of post offices like you can now.So it was quite awkward for things like that.

There was a grocery shop on this corner here - Salisbury road and Queen street. People used to call it Newport's corner. I think Newport had the shop, Mr Newport. By the time we came here I think somebody by the name of Flower had that shop but it was called Newports' corner in our day.

Warrincs's garage was the only garage then am that was down the Queen street. You see there was the blacksmith and the one garage. Oh and Mr Warring used to run a taxi because way back then there was no taxi here - not on its own. And then after the


second war Mr Penny started a taxi business here - that was the first taxi because Dr McTavish was the doctor here at the time and Mr Penny was his son- in-law. They lived here in Richmond.

Dr Currie died in the 1930s and they had relieving doctors there but nobody permanent. So there wasn't a doctor here for quite a while. So the Council made arrangements for somebody to come - they said that they would pay their salary for two years if 'Hieyti come to Richmond and work. So Dr McTavish came. He had rooms down in Queen Street there. Then after the second war they started up what is the clinic now in Oxford Street, and three doctors came and started that. But before that Dr McTavish was the only one you see. When there was no doctor here it was very awkward because even some of the town doctors used to have to come out to attend the ones at Hillcrest.

Alexandra Home used to be up the top end of Queen St where all those new houses are built.That was the old peoples' home. When you went up


Queen St there was a house further up but that must've been a private driveway from where Hill St is. You couldn't get through from Queen St along Hill St to what you call Hart's Road. The top piece is Hart's Rd, the bottom piece is Bateup's Road. That was as far as you could get because I remember when they opened that up it was cut up into 10 - acre sections I think it was. Must've been for returned servicemen to settle on. That must've been a bit later.Anyway I think everybody walked off their places.Oh they were no good. There was only about one person who stayed on them. The others had to leave because they couldn't make a living off them you see.

Up there where Marlborough Crescent is, that ^RlFp/,^T

used to be Griffin's farm. They always had good Jersey cows. They had a lovely herd of Jersey cows up there. All along Hill St, I can remember when you went from Williams St through to Champion Rd, there was only one house on the bottom side of that road. I think people called Jenkins lived there when I remember it. Of course now its all built on and settled. On the top side there's some old houses


because there was a Sutton home up there and there still is, I think.

Prosser f That's an old name too. I don't know PtfOS'StK if there are any Prossers about now. There was an old Mr Prosser who died recently. He was ninety something I think. He'd married one of the Sutton family that was up there. Anyway, it was very different then than it is now.

The thirties were a bad time - that's the depression. We had only one horse on the farm.The butter fat went down to about fourpence per pound at one stage. That was the lowest it ever went. Look what they get now I Fourpence a pound is a third of a shilling - that would be equal to between three and four cents.

I think sausages were sixpence a pound. The prices used to be well down. When I lived at Appleby I could buy half a hogget for 23 shillings and sixpence.


They had the rationing through the wartime. I fs/’T.c( OLlf'Oi -can't remember how long it lasted but I know there

was rationing alright because that was when we went to Appleby. There were coupons for clothing, butter, tea, sugar. Being on the farm we always had enough milk and those sort of things. When you did your grocery order you'd have to give them so many coupons for what you got. In having so many children - there were about seven or eight in the house - we got so much each so that we always had enough. But you see people* for example a couple living on their own, who would get only two lots. Especially for tea and things like that. They would be short, whereas we'd i\ have plenty because we wouldn't use all that we had.There were petrol coupons too. You were allowedso much for each type of car. We didn't have a car ofour own but dad had a Hutmobile car. I think he got jJUrp)Orva bit more for that than what you'd get for say a Minior a Morris or some of these smaller cars. So hehad enough but some people found it very hard andawkward. So they used to swap coupons and thatsort of thing.


We used to get our bread delivered to the gate way back then you know, by Eastgates. And we used to get bread from Crouchers; they'd bring it in a van. We used to get it two or three times a week,I think. Eastgates used to have a motorbike and a side car, and they delivered that way.

By the time we moved to Appleby they started zoning to cut out a lot of travelling, because of the petrol rationing. Zoning was when the tradesman could only deliver to a certain area. And then of course if you were on the rural mail - well Denny Marshall had it for a long time - he would kShniL. perhaps bring bread that way from Crouchers.

My children went to Hope, Ranzau and Appleby schools. Richmond was quite a long way - about three miles. Hope was two miles and when we went out to Appleby that was two miles near enough, and so was Ranzau. They used to walk to school of course.

The Wins were the only real estate agents here W/tVSas far as I can remember. Because there weren't


many real estate agents about then, nothing like what there is now. The others have come more recently.

Of course there was Mr Coleman. He had a butcher CoL£NM shop in Gladstone Rd at one time. There were about seven or eight in the family and they used to live on Gladstone Rd. We didn't buy our meat from Coleman's. There was Ted Cross; he used to have a butcher's shop in Queen St. He had a shop there for years. There was a Mr Roberts who had a lot ^of birds there one time, an aviary. I forget his Christian name but his wife is still alive. I think his place was about where the sports shop is now.You see a lot of the places have gone and you're inclined to forget just where those places were.

And of course, where those car sales are now, flip) H OEM ST' ,.(KCb up near the Methodist church, there used to be houses and nice gardens along there.

Fittalls lived where Coopers were. There wasCOoPra big house there, two storeyed. And Mrs Donaldson


lived just opposite here where some of these placeshave been built. Her place was where that small car place is. Where Brydon's is used to be her garden.She had a beautiful garden there with lots of bulbs and nice trees and everything. Now it is all under the cement. And Fittalls lived on that corner.Well you see Mrs Donaldson's mother was a Fittall.The old people lived on the co rner and they built the Donaldson's house when they got married. Well both she and her husband are dead and also the only daughter. Her maiden name was Fittal], but her mother must have been a Sutton. She was Edna Fittall. She was living here when I came. I got to know her quite well.

And of course old Mrs Croucher. Mrs Croucher was the wife of the man who had the flourmill, and lived just along down here. Wilkes' own it now, number thirteen I think it is, just across the road from here.

flourmill was the bakery, and onebrother had the bakery and the other the flourmill.


I remember the flourmill man, funny old stick he was. We went in there once, and you see they used to sell bran and pollard. We used to feed it to the pigs.But you can't buy that now because now all that isn't taken out of the bread like it used to be. The bread isn't as refined as it used to be. We used to take a sack back. I suppose he'd give you what you bought in another sack and you'd return the sack. But anyway, once time - I can see him now - he held it up and said 'Do you call that a sack I?'It had a hole in the bottom somewhere!

There was an old house right on the footpath - there were a lot of them you see, that's how they'd been built in the early days: There was a littlecottage - I suppose you'd call it - and they used that as an office. And she used to take care of the office work.

People called Crock are an old name. Old Mrs Crock used to live in one of these houses in this block. But from D'arcy St corner there weren't many houses. It was all open country on both sides really.


except for the special school, mostly farmland.

I think that around here what they had in those days would be meetings connected with the various churches and that's about all there'd be.We were always too far away and too busy, and we didn't get a chance to partake of anything like that.

The Methodist church must have been built, beforethe 'thirties. I think it must've been built about1912. The Baptist church has been altered. The r'nt "Church of Christ was on the opposite side, and the CChurch of England has always been where it is. There (itukCH ofwas no Catholic church back then, and there was no nDrrL. ,CATTHOUC OiurtcHPresbyterian church. I think the Presytarian’s used to meet in the old fire brigade hall; they were only very few; more of Scots people who had come here over the years, but I don't know much about them.

Up where we lived we had a battery outfit for lighting, at Hope. And lamps we used to pump up with petrol or kerosene, an American brand ^l&HriNG (


but I can't remember the name of it. The power wasput in all around here about 1934 or '35, whenRichmond was wired up, I think. Nelson had its ownpower station down there by the harbour and the Ellises £ LLl$€Shad their little plant up in the Brightwater river.When we lived on the hill we had kerosene lamps and candles, and we had a coal stove and an open fire, and a copper to heat the water.

I met my husband in Ashburton, then we moved up here. His brother was a jeweller and optician.His son became an optician, that's E. W. Roberts in town, my nephew. All the rest of the Roberts family are in England. I've never met them. I think I'm about the last one here anyway. The line has run out and we've come to the next generation.On the fifth of September I'll be eighty. Last year my children gave me that television set for my birthday."

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Interview with Mrs Annie Roberts (nee Gorman)of Richmond