ROUND ABOUT AUCKLAND

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXVII, Issue 20480, 4 February 1930, Page 8

ROUND ABOUT AUCKLAND

HIGHWAYS AND BYWAYS. HOWICK'S SOOTHING CHARM. MEMORIES OF FENCIBLES. No. IV.

BY NIKORA.

We crossed the Tamaki Bridge, from which a boy was placidly fishing. A true fisherman undoubtedly because all the traffic of the busy road could not disturb him. Probably ho is numbered with that enviable band with limitless patience who can sit and bask and dream while waiting for tho fish (o co-operate in the outing, with most of their brain lulled to slumber, but enough of it awake to fie keenly sensitive of a tug on the lino. Marvellous. Of courso tho sub-dividers arid the speculators have their eyes on this land, but tho " frontage and footage " attitude toward land is not yet general. It was pleasant to hear one man referring to a fine paddock not in terms of site value but in terms of production. " Yes," he said, " it would cut throo tens of hay to tho acre." Out that way wheat was grown in the early days. To-day there is a crop or two of oats not far from tile main road to Howick, and at Panmure there are magnificent market gardens, where values are rendered in terms of cauliflowers, green peas, onions, and tomatoes. The Days of Bartor. For the countryside beyond the Tamaki the butter-fat standard of value is tho rule, but tho old hay standard persists and therein lies tradition. In tho early days of barter hay was ono of the bread-and-butter lines of the district. Beforo the ferry was established the settlers across (he Tamaki sent their produce to town by cutters, but where tho ferry opened the way for horse transport, light carts were used. Mangere was the first district which adopted the waggon. Old-timers speak of tho " Howick jogs,*' which were trusses of hand-pressed liay. On the little vehicles known as Sydney carts the " jogs " wore sent to town to be sold on tho spot at Bucklands, the terms usually requiring delivery to be niado to the buyer. The settlers and their boys used to leave home with their load of " jogs " and littlo parcels of butter and eggs in tho middle of tho night to catch the morning sale. Many a time one o1 Howick's oldest identities drove his cart into Queen Street soon after dawn. "Wo were supposed to get a fee for delivering the hay from the market to the buyer if the distance was over two miles," he said. " That fee was pocketmoney for us boys. I mind ono man who had no change, "and said he would leave the 'bob' at Bucklands. But I was 'broke' and had to get something, so 1 went round to the kitchen and told tho girl that I was to get a shilling, which she took out of her own purse. Then I told the boss to pay her." Beauty of Scene. And so we came to Howick, beautiful Howick, the sea view from which might be rivalled, but not excelled, in tho blue Aegean Sea. It is one of Auckland's most glorious possessions. On a summer day when the enclosed waters of tho gulf are a deep blue, when there is haze in the air to give enchantment to the islands and bewitchment to the hills, when white clouds float along through the upper air and bees hum in the hedge rows and the fragrance of hay bathes tho land with incenso ' and the trees, the old trees, throw their shadows and white boats gleam- on the water and the high tide laps reaches of white banks of shell *and the seabirds are diving to their food —then does Howick seem like a dream come true. How restful is the atmosphere of this old settlement! What a haven of peace! ! Of course it should have had a railway long ago. One has it on the best authority that when tho Howick section of the military pensioneres arrived by the Minerva, Sir Robert Sale and Sir George Seymour in 1847 they had been given to understand that, nono of the settlements would be more than seven miles from Auckland. Howick was far more than that and so in the course of time it was felt that the least that could be done to repair tho wrong was tho construction of a railway. Concrete Road Coming. But if a railway had been built Howick could not have grown old in her present character. It seems a sacrilege even to imagine a railway train rumbling into the township. However the motor age has ended her isolation and soon she will start being a proper suburb for authority has been secured for a concrete road. The Manukau County Council will carry it on from Panmure to the Howick boundary, and the Howick Town Board will continue it. But while population will change thb distinctive character of the. place it still retains its special charm. | The original township was not along tho present main street but a little further inland. There the privates had what they called "double-barrelled" cottages, two rooms on either side of a dividing wall, which was on ths line of tho acre lots. It was surprising to hear from Mr. Lemuel White, who. was born in Howick 80 years ago, that originally tho land there was very poor. It was covered with , stunted scrub. "Poor and hungry," ho said, "but no gum, not this side the creek. Over there wo used to take on . ploughing for the gum." | Two schools were established by the Howick Fencibles, ono Anglican and the other Roman Catholic. The .All Saints' j Church records has a list of tho contri-1 butors to the fund for the Anglican j School. It cost a littlo over £3O. The teachers were drawn from the ranks of the settlers with some of whom it was a case of "skip the big word my dear, it is tho name of a foreign country." Early Reminiscences. The lighter side of lifo pleases Mr. White, whoso amazing youthfulness and vigour is, no doubt, attributable, to his habituaj cheerfulness. For many a year he served <fs secretary of local and public bodies on tho terms of "salary nil, and find yourself." Ono of his gayest reminiscences concerns a suicide. A man hanged himself and one of the old women of the settlement sought information after the inquest. She was told that tho verdict was ono of felo de so. "What," sho exclaimed. "The man was hanged, not drowned. Didn't I see liim hanging 4rom a rafter through a crack in tho door." Mr. White remembers seeing the Howick Volunteer Cavalry riding off after the murder of the two Trust boys and the wounding of another, and a Mr. Courtney, by the Maoris. As a matter of fact a brother of Mr. White's board the shots on tho fateful morning. 110 was up tho creek getting a boat-load of firewood but assumed tho shots wcro tho cracking of a whip. And liow with Messrs. B. Paton, E. and D. Page, and Mrs. R. P. White' his sister-in-law, as the last :>f his youthful contemporaries, he lives in retirement but still carries out, tho duties of secretary of tho local Oddfellows' Lodge, a task he has had for 40 years. These old people are the direct link with the hard big-hearted pioneering days. As children they lived among men who woro their King's uniform before Waterloo, bofore theiro was an oceanic Empire. They remember such men as tho Rev. V. Lush (Mr. L. White was baptised by (hat clergyman), and the McDonalds, the. Macleans, o'Haras, Coopers, Greys, Masons Healys,fDowds arid Lewises, who were among those who first, <p| foot, on the ■ soil with rifle, and axe and plough, and according to opportunity and capacity, made then- contribution Coward all" we havq and are, '