WHAKATANE IN PAINT LEAPS TO FAME IN ENGLAND

Bay of Plenty Beacon, Volume 15, Issue 77, 2 August 1950, Page 5

WHAKATANE IN PAINT LEAPS TO FAME IN ENGLAND

During the last few weeks Whakatane has leapt into fame in England. A former resident and school teacher in the town, Mr W. Dreghorn, who is now teaching in Hampshire, has been displaying a collection of his paintings in the foyer of New Zealand House and these have attracted much favourable comment.

In a letter to the Beacon Mr Dreghorn has described his paintings, most of which are of Whakatane or the surrounding district. He thinks this is great publicity for Whakatane and suggests it may be the means of inducing any visitors to New Zealand to drop in to Whakatane while in the country.

His exhibition continues until the end of the month.

Was Well Known Before he left to return to England Mr Dreghorn was well known at Whakatane. He was a popular teacher at t£ie high school and made his geography classes' more interesting with paintings he had made while touring round the country. He was often to be' seen striding somewhere with his painting equipment.

During his stay at Whakatane Mr Dreghorn became very interested in Maori lore and history. He knew more about old battles and pas than most people. An indication that the Maori made an impression upon him may be gained in the fact that he named his one-year-old son after an old pa—Kapu-te-Rangi. Mr Dreghorn attracted attention of the English press. This is what the Daily Mirror had to say about him:—

Spectacled \ 42-year-old Mr William, Dreghorn, senior geography master at Andover Grammar School Hants, has been making many New Zealanders homesick in the past week. ( An exhibition of his water colours at New Zealand House in the Strand •—it goes on till the end of August ■—has given Dominion visitors a nostalgic glimpse of their homeland. What the 500-600 people passing daily through the foyer do not see are the detailed, tucked-away captions to Mr Dreghorn’s pictures. These are the clue to his brighter geography classes. Art Was Poor

For Mr Dreghorn: “I was so bad at art at school that I wasn’t allowed to take it for matric”—has painted his pictures as a background to his teaching. When he tells his pupils about a remote part of the world, they know it doesn’t all come out of a book. He has made it his business to get around and see places. And wherever he has been—Australia, New Zealand, the U.S.A., North and Couth Africa, China, Japan, Manchuria, Hawaii, Samoa and many European countries—he has painted pictures. • Each one illustrates some interesting geographical or geological feature of the landscape. Now he has 1,500 to help him teach geography.

“It goes down well with the boys,” he says.

Occasionally his painting has landed him in a spot of bother. For instance, he cannot produce pictures he made of the Korean scene in 1939—the Japs seized them for security reasons. When World War II broke out he was stranded in the Far East and had to come home through Siberia, Russia, Sweden —but the trip and adventures he had helped to widen his first-hand experience of world geography. Son’s Maori Name

Besides painting 200 pictures during three years’ teaching in New Zealand since the war, Mr Dreghorn picked up a Maori name for his son, now aged one. It is Kapu-te-Rangi„ after a famous chief.

“I don’t know what the boys will do to him at school with a name like that,” he says a little apprehensively.