LONG CHAIN OF MEMORIES

Press, Volume CXVI, Issue 34089, 28 February 1976, Page 10

LONG CHAIN OF MEMORIES

Links in the Chain: A. H. Bogie. New Zealand Institute of Surveyors. 86 pp. N.Z. price $B.

Archibald Hugh Bogie, who died in 1972 at. the age of 89 was actively associated with tieid surveying in New Zealand for 66 years, and was regarded in his time as the doyen of the profession. He was nurtured and instructed in the “old school” — a Lands Department cadetship and

articled to some pioneer surveyors who founded the profession in this

Without any intent on Bogie's part, much of what is related in this book will serve to contrast rhe old cadettype training of surveyors with the present-day university-based system. Probably older men still in the profession — and some lawyers will comment forcibly on the way in which practitioners of some of the professions are produced. Bogle however, though of the old school, was among the initiators of the establishment of surveying as a university discipline. Bogle was so greatly esteemed, as a surveyor. a character and a personality that the New Zealand Institute of Surveyors which he served in all offices, including president and journal editor, arranged to publish this book in tribute. The appreciation of the man by his friend, Sir David Smith, -gives agreeable perspective to the stature of a great New Zealander. Some. biographical details also engender interest in the family naem.

A. H. himself was a veteran of both world wars, and his three brothers were killed during the First World War. His two sons were Rhodes Scholars and university professors. The hook is not predominant! x about surveying. But it reveals pleasantly the work setting and circumstance early in this century, when surveyors in various parts of the North Island were defining the traverse lines and surrounds of rough bush country. Evidently Bogle kept no diary but he was said to have been a great raconteur, and remembered enough episodes and incidents even in old age to provide the basis of this warmly human story.

What is set out will largely entertain. But as most. of. Bogie’s early field work was in the Wanganui Tonganro, and Taupo regions where Maoris abounded in- a then happier state, untrammelled by European influences, the infusions in the story of facets of Maori history and life, and portraits of extraordinary Maori men and women, are of interest and value

Sir David Smith’s appreciation suggests that the book should also bring home to those who now so readilv motor over* hill, valley and plain, rhe debt owed to the surveyors who first laid out the lines and boundaries. Although Bogie’s style of writing is graced by understatement and modesty, enough is said to justifx the decision to publish a record of this life and experience.