DISTRICT FIELD OFFICER

Press, Volume CXII, Issue 33094, 8 December 1972, Page 8

DISTRICT FIELD OFFICER

The new district field officer of the Lands and Survey Department in Christchurch is Mr G. A. Greig, who first joined the department here soon after World War 11. He has since been stationed in Hokitika and Invercargill. Bom in Glasgow, Mr Greig spent the first eight years of his life in North China, where his father was a medical missionary. With three brothers he came to New Zealand at the end of 1920 to be educated, and he subsequently attended Wellington College, Rongotai College and Whangarei High School. Out of school he worked on dairy farms in Northland and Manawatu for about two years and a half before coming to the South Island in 1933 to work on a mixed farm at Ikawai in South Canterbury, where he remained for five years. In 1938 he took over the management of a farm at Maungati for a year and for

another year he managed Meiklebum behind Clayton station in the Fairlie district. While at Meiklebum snow came in late July, 1939, and lay through until September. Then followed a short period managing in Marlborough and after he was turned down for military service after volunteering early in World War II he spent two years and a half managing lona station at Parnassus. At that stage he was taken into the Army and went overseas with the 10th reinforcements and served with the signals in the 26th Battalion of the New Zealand Division until he was wounded on the Amo, in Italy, and invalided home.

A call at the Lands and Survey Department after his return from the war about a farm manager’s post resulted in his going to Lincoln College and doing a diploma of valuation and farm management after a short period with a commercial firm.

In 1947 he joined the department in Christchurch and was involved in land development and settlement of returned servicemen in North Canterbury. Mr Greig moved to Hokitika in 1952 and while with the department there land development under its auspices began on the West Coast. He became senior field officer at Hokitika and when he moved to Invercargill in 1961 he took up the position of district field officer. In Southland, too, he was involved with land development in the early stages in that area when oversowing techniques were still being experimented with. He was involved in a

decision to oversow 1500 acres of tough terrace country just north of Te Anau. At the time it looked a fairly hopeless proposition but has since proved quite successful. It was also while he was in Southland that in 1962 the department moved into civilian settlement.