CLANS GATHER.

Auckland Star, Volume LXXI, Issue 15, 18 January 1940, Page 6

CLANS GATHER.

NEW WAIPU SCHOOL. REMARKABLE HISTORY. GREAT MIGRATION SAGA. When the clans gathered at Waipu yesterday to open the recently-com-pleted Waipu Consolidated District High School, another chapter of the extraordinary history of this unique community was written. Tlie ceremony was performed by the Minister of Education, the Hon. Peter Fraser, himself a Scot, and he was received among his countrymen in typical •Scottish fashion. The rain was pouring down from a leaden sky when the Minister stepped from the oflicin 1 ear and splashed through yellow puddles to tlie hall entrance. Jiut the downpour meant nothing to tlie pipe baud, in fuH regalia, and the proud strains of "Highland Laddie" skirled a wild challenge to the elements and a warm welcome to a brother Scot., When the Minister and his party entered the hall there was another piper waiting and again there was the skirl of' the pipes. As Mr. Fraser himself said there was more to it than the opening of a new school. Rather was it the realisation of another episode in the saga of the Waipu settlers.

In his address the Minister digressed from educational matters to refer to the history of the settlement. The story of Waipu, he said, was one of the most remarkable in British historv.

In the first, quarter of last century the Rev. Norman McTjeod. then a young mail of 37 years, gathered about him a party of Highlanders from the West, and the islands off the coast and sailed for Nova Scotia, whero they remained for a generation. During the 'fifties

they decided on a change, and bearing reports of Australia, which later proved to have been over optimistic, set sail as an entire community. For this large-scale migration they built their own 'boats and officered, manned and provisioned them themselves. Their six ships brought about 1000 persons, who, after the 'brief unsatisfactory episode in South Australia, landed in Waipu, North Auckland. They subdued the wilderness to establish their homes. They were entirely self-con-tained, with their own preachers, teachers and tradesmen. From this hardy stock grew tlie Waipu of to-day; a community essentially Scottish in its manners, customs, speech and traditions.

There was applause when the Minister stated yesterday that there was every |>ossibility of a second edition of "The CJael (locs Forth," Mr. N. 1!. McKcnzie's account of the migration, being printed as a Centennial gesture. The Nova Scotian Oove.rnment had purchased sufficient of the first edition to place. one in every library in that province. Tree-Planting Scheme. Another move to perpetuate the traditions of thn community was a proposal to plant the grounds of the new school with the' native trees of Nova Scotia. The New Zealand Government had already been in touch with the Nova Scotian Government and, while there was doubt of some of the trees surviving the voyage, a quantity of Canadian maples had already arrived from CTiristchurch at Whangarei, where they would be acclimatised and later planted at Waipu. In opening the new school Mr. Fraser also automatically closed the oldest occupied school building in the Dominion, This was the Waipu Upper School, known locally as the Braigh. This school vras built in 1862 and, although a number of additions have been made, it 1 has been in continuous occupation. 'J he North River School, also closed under the. scheme, has an interesting history. \\ hen he handed over for safe keeping the school Hag, tlie chairman of the committee, Mr. J. A. S. Mackav, said that it had been saluted by the. pupils one day in every week since its presentation after the Boer War. He added that 45 former l>oy pupils and two nurses had left for tlie Great War —from a stJiool that never numbered more than :i0 children on its roll.