MEMORIES.

Auckland Star, Volume LIX, Issue 165, 14 July 1928, Page 1 (Supplement)

MEMORIES.

KEMP'S ROWS.

BOULTER'S BEA3VOS.

GENESIS OF TWO ANCIENT CLUBS. (By NEVILLE FORDER.) A copy of the '"Star" of Monday, May 28 last, contained a complimentary reference by "'Mazurka" to my writings, and a request tliat I should enlarge upon the genesis of the Ponsonby and West End Cricket Clubs, and, further, tell the story of "the beautiful Cremorne Gardens, and particularly at tne time when the Duke of Edinburgh, with his friends, invaded the dance rotunda, and took charge of the musical instruments and played the dance music till daylight dawned."

I am sorry that I cannot build a story on hie evidently kindly-meant suggestion ; for in 1865 I was still a pupil of my aunt, Miss Lucy Reading, a child of 10 (I did not go to "Flower's Commercial School," in Hobson Street, till I was past my eleventh birthday), and, living where and how we did, in sylvan innocence, ignorant of all outer-world affairs, I had no knowledge of such | affairs as struggling cricketers and their disinterested scrub-clearing efforts; while, to make complying with "MaizurkaV' nicely-expressed request harder, he fails to name the location of the grubbing-bee. Solemn Dignity. I knew Hay and Honeyman'a draper's shop very well indeed in the early seventies, and marvelled greatly, along with the rest of their fellow-townsmen, when both partners—good-looking men, who wore a solemn dignity and a frock-coat and belltopper as to the manor bornpassed as doctors, and kicked away the ladder they climbed on—the drapery counter—sold the business, and lit out for "fresh woods and pastures new." Hay went to Sydney, got in with the owner of the immensely-rich Berry on the South Coast of New South Wales, married old Berry's daughter, on the old man's death, became the owner of everything, lode, stock, and barrel. He died a near, if not quite, millionaire. The rich cow-country of Bodalla, where the best cheese in Australia comes from, was in itself a huge fortune. It was run on "old English" lines.—everybody speaking in awed tones of "the master," tugging their forelocks, and scraping their feet in his presence. But to revert to that 1865 effort to make a cricket-pitch. I know nothing of it; where it was, or who the players, but it certainly was not the foundation of either the Ponsonby or West TfawT Clubs. Joe Macky (afterwards of Macky, Logan, Bteen and Co., Darby Street) was the leading spirit of the infant West End Club, and we used to play on a rough piece of land off Ponsonby Road, about 100 yards along, on the city side, south from where Richmond Road •debouched thereon. But that club did not last long. The cream of the players gave the game up when their business calls became more imperative, joined up with Ponsonby, which had the support of the "famous bat." Tom Masefleld. It was a red-letter with us enthusiastic youths when we could extract " a'' promise from the rapidly-rising ironmaster to play in ai Saturday's match. J

Ponsonby*s start was on a bumpy danSr^ Cll J* the to P of "Campbell's paddock ; and we used to take our girls to sit on the grass and the lines of scrubby tea-tree along the bottom rail of the three-rail fence, to watch their Srh e fi,T ng duckß ' or chasing the bali down a grade of practically on? m five. Very soon after that thev were captained by that wily little, impish, leg-break bowler, Ted Willis. I think it was in the last match Masefield ever played on the Domain Ground, and for West End against Ponsonby, that as stalwart Tom strode out. first wicket down, Willis signed for us to come close. "This is the big gun, isn't it?"—he had never seen him before—and being told it was bid us all to "keep our eyes skinned and our fingers sticky." A Wizard of the Pitch. Then he humped his almost hunchback and bowled one well to leg and with no break on it. Masefield's bat swished like a tremendous swathe through the protesting atmosphere, and the ball was fielded by our long-stop (don't grin, ye pampered pets of 1928. You must note that I am writing of the seventies, when even the greatest team invariably played a mighty carefully selected long-stop), and thrown back to the weazened 5-footer at the bowler's end. A little five-yard pattering run. - two never-to-be-omitted licks at the bowling fingers, and swish! the ball pitched, about sft out and a foot to the leg side, spun like a stray planet, and whacked gently into the centre of Masefield's wicket. It was the fun of the world to be fielding long off, close in. when Willis was bowling. He was a wizard, and, I honestly believe, would have held his own even as a contemporary of Arthur Mailey and Grimmett. And he was a slashing, safe, cunnin" batsman withal. e

-As to "Mazurka's" memory of Cremorne Gardens, I rather fancy he cannot have been reading my earlier articles, in which I dealt at considerable length with those beautiful and cruelly butchered premises which were first opened to the public as "Kemp's Gardens" by an almost dwarf (he touched the beam at 4ft 9in, to be exact) of that name who, as a Londoner of few years in New Zealand, kept a drapery shop m Queen Street, but had other Jt was for this venture that the great rotunda was built, and a magnificent avenue of "box gums" was slam to provide the supports for the dancing floor. It was the best ever, perfectly laid of narrow battens of the best seasoned kauri and sprung under foot like well-hardened rubber. The orchestra sat in a sort of kiosk, a gallery fastened around the only visible pillar supporting the huge mushroom that was the roof, and they often sat , , er f ,wi th short spells for a visit to the bar, which was a slight extension of e verandah of the Marston home |Now, the Duke and his fidus achates Yorke, did not arrive in Auckland in, the Galatea till least ] B\ that time all the gaiety -in" devil was out of Creworne Ibarden, as Publican Joe Boulton had rechristened Kemp s show, and T never heard of hi? Royal Highness—who was a bit of a fid dler—doing what "Mazurka"' mentions lorke, who was a real "lad," was credited with a similar mad escapade but it was a temporary break in tli*-' monotony, and only done by the lurid \ orkc and his mad coterie of sliipboan and* Government Hou>c :>a Is. and it along about 1808 or 1809 and long aftc Kemp started "Kemp's rows," as aunt of blessed memory called the xvih orgies of those gold-mining, drinking fighting days,