ORARI GORGE HISTORY

Press, Volume CVII, Issue 31440, 5 August 1967, Page 2

ORARI GORGE HISTORY

Meeting and talking with old identities, and getting their recollections of their early days, was the most fascinating aspect of compiling a social history, according to Mrs Barbara Harper, of Woodbury, South Canterbury.

Her recent publication, “The Kettle On The Fuchsia,” sets out the history of Orari Gorge Station and the Tripp family from 1854 to the present.

She enjoyed foraging in the six tin trunks of diaries, letters and cheque butts. “For-

tunately, they were the sort of family who hoarded,” she said in Christchurch yesterday. But her greatest personal

satisfaction came from meeting and talking to old persons around Geraldine. “If I saw an old man or an old woman in Geraldine, I just used to go and ask them if they had ever worked at Orari Gorge.” “Even if they had not worked there, they might have had some connexion. One old woman told me she hadn’t, but she had gone to the dances there, and she'was some help to me.” She found women were, better raconteurs than men (for her purposes anyway). “They were more interested in the domestic and social side of life,” she said. As the wife of a retired farmer, Mrs Harper had to fit her writing in with her housework. "I used to grab at any time I could,” she said. She compiled her history in 20 months.

“The Kettle on the Fushia” is actually the second historical work Mrs Harper has completed. Her first, “Do Nought Without a Bishop,” was published during the centennial year of the Christchurch diocese, also the centennial of Bishop Harper, first Bishop of the diocese, and grandfather of Mrs Harper’s husband, Robin Harper. She has also done freelance journalism for a number of years, and her daughter, Mrs Pauline Clayton, is also a journalist. Her son is a third year law student at Canterbury University. .