A few further memories jotted down in 2002

Bradly Road

As you leave the railway line, heading north, on the skyline against the forestry you can see the two Norfolk pines. These were hit by lightning a few years ago, which altered their shape quite a bit, but they recovered. They are said to have been planted by Bishop Selwyn. On his trips over here from Australia he collected the pines at Norfolk Island. As he journeyed north he also planted two at Pahi, two at Reotahi (across the harbour from the Marsden Point refinery), and also two below the flagstaff at Russell.

The Church of England had a church beside the two pines. It is no longer Church of England land – it was bought by Mr R B McLaren many years ago. I remember seeing the receipt for the land and giving it to my brother Jim for safekeeping.

Down on the little sandflat below the pa, Mr and Mrs Fosbrooke (an English couple) had a camp where the two poplars are. They were schoolteaching at Woodhill School and psed to shortcut through Phillips’ property on horseback to the Woodhill School every day.

Dad formed Bradly Road down to the main road to enable the McLaren children and the Moyle children to get to the railway to catch the train to Helensville School. He cut through the scrub with discs and plough. There was a track there for them to get to the main road but he put Bradly Road through by following the contours of the cattle track. The Council took over after that and made a road of it It wasn’t metalled properly until after the Second World War.

Family Times

When my brother Lin was only about three years old he was in very poor health. The doctor ordered that he should go away to a beach resort somewhere, so Dad shifted Lin and Mum and Jim and me to Muriwai in the horse and cart. Dad put a tent up for us and we stopped there for about three weeks, I think. Muriwai is a different place nowadays!

One night after tea we went down to Fisherman’s Rock and Mum slipped. It was just a big rock on a bit of a slope and she went down – carrying Lin in her arms. Wilf Smith, Eric and Cliffs father, was just behind her and he managed to get hold of her. If she had gone over another five or six feet away she would have ended up in the blowhole!

While we were there, it rained very heavily and the tent got flooded. There must have been 8 or 9 inches of rain in the tent. Jim and I had a great time using the galvanised bath as a boat to float through the tent!

I should mention that my brother Lin was actually a tuìn – his brother Edgar died during infancy. People used to call them “Peter and Paul” because they were so alike.

As we grew up, our time was spent on Saturdays and in the holidays on the farm with whatever work our fathers were doing Horses were our mainstay – either riding or working horses. One of our great “fun” things was to make a sledge each and, if a horse was available, to yoke it up and drive it up to the top place, or just around the farm. The three of us had a sledge each and Frank had one as well. The sledges made great fun on the hill (in front of what is now Barry’s house) in the winter time because it was steep -just sliding down there. I am afraid Mum wasn’t very pleased with the amount of washing that had to be done – gee, we used to get in a mess!

On Saturdays, we used to take our light axes and go up to the bush below Where Pat’s house is now, and cut the cabbage trees. It was good excitement and taught us how to be bushmen… ?!! We also cut down a lot down the Point – only they were mainly Nikau because Dad wouldn’t let us cut the cabbage trees. He pulled a lot of them out and dragged them over and planted them around the edge of the river.

We had a lot of fin in the summertime catching mullet and throwing them out on to the bank with the pitchfork. One day I went down on my own and caught some like that. On the way home I stopped at the artesian well and cleaned them. The next day, Dad put the cows down there and they wouldn’t drink the water! I had to go down with a bucket and empty the two troughs – I suppose there would have been over 100 gallons of water!

In the old days, the Maori people had a camp at Kaituna. They used it for catching eels. Later, when I was about 7 or 8 years old, I remember one day Dad and Tom Pairama came home and they had an eel each hanging down their back. The head of each eel was on their shoulder and the tail was nearly touching the ground. (Both men were six feet tall.) We quite often used to see real whoppers like that down the Kaituna. The Maori people didn’t catch them with hooks, they used to put their hands down into the holes and ffickle” them.

We used to have a lot of fun bowling old tyres around. In those days tyres weren’t as heavy as they are now. We used to make a contraption with a piece of wire with a right angle bend in it, an old pram wheel on it and a bend in the other end so it wouldn’t come off. We put a loop in the other end and an old claw tube on the end for a rubber grip, and we just bowled them around the paddock. They would bounce around very nicely – especially over rough ground!

We always had dogs and other animals around. “Skip” was the farm dog when we were kids. We also had a pet pig (called “Esmeralda”) that used to follow us around and come down the paddock to meet us when we came home from school. Jim had two sows and used to put a chain over their back and ride them around the paddock.

I remember one time when McLarens came up in their old tourer car and we had a

picnic up on the sand flat It is hard to imagine now, but the sand flats were a great place for picnics. There was a stream running down and young kids could swim there. There was also a lake up by Phillips’ where you could have a swim too. You had to know how to swim there, though. It was only about 20 yards wide and about 30-40 yards long but it was very deep and it went straight off the edge into the water.

The Day boys used to come round on a Saturday and, when the “Poorman’s oranges” were ripe, we used to go up to the sandhills (before there was any grass there) and bowl the oranges down the hills – gee, they used to go fast! You could bowl them down three or four times before they exploded – we always made sure we had some left over for eating, though!

We had a happy childhood – they were good days with lots of cousins and family. I hope these reminiscences will record some of those times for the younger generations.

Following on from the publication of “The Bradly Line”, I thought it may be a good idea to jot down a few memories of the “olden days”. A lot of these I remember from hearing the Older members of the family recounting them in my younger days, especially Auntie Lu Vercoe who, while she was still on the farm, used to come up quite often for a yarn with Dad.

In their childhood days, Dad and his brothers and sisters, Jim, Russell, Tess, Annie and Hilda, lived halfway into Helensville – about two miles out Up Rimmer’s Road were Uncle Willy and Auntie Mary. Dad’s cousin Arthur John and his wife Harriet were across on the hill where the old house (which later became McCown’s) still stands.

The children all went to Te Pua School which was up School Road – no school bus, it was a case of “walk”, the roads mainly being only clay tracks, bare of metal in most cases, but they seemed to enjoy themselves, Looking at some of the old photos of those days, it seems a great percentage of the pup Is was made up by the Bradly clan.

I remember Dad saying about his younger days when the river would be full of kauri logs waiting to be shipped away •overseas, and recalling when one day he and Uncle Jim walked practically all the way into Helensville on the logs.

There was a big sawmill right on the river bank, about where the old Dairy Company buildings stand, and they Often saw as many as four ships (three to four masts) waiting to load logs. Some of the logs were loaded on, while others were squared or cut into timber.

The river in those days was wider and deeper than it is now. The trees were cut from further upstream and floated down. Opposite Neil Ellett’s house and across the river was a shute which came down the hill to the river. This was lined with timber and the logs came down it into the river. Dad could recall the smoke rising from some of the large logs as they came down, and he reckoned there were the remains of some large ones that smashed through the boom at the bottom and buried themselves end-on in the bank on the other side. What was left exposed was cut off and the piece left in the

In those days, where the forestry now is – between the farmland and the coast – was all sandhills, and it remained like that until the 1930’s when a reclamation scheme was started as the sand was steadily encroaching onto the farms. Mar-ram grass was first planted, yellow lupin seed was broadcast over the sand, and when this was firmly established, lines were cut through and pines were planted. The initial planting was done by hand and the mar-ram grass and seed carried out on pack horses until more mechanical methods were established. Durban Pairama and Kelly Povey played a large part in this.

Running down the gullies between the ridges were streams which, as they ran down, carried sand with them and were known as “sand flats”. The streams did not have any recognised course but just spread across the flats until the lupin gradually invaded the flats and a permanent stream was formed. In places the sand would be, and still is,

seven or eight feet deep. I remember when we were renewing the boundary fence between ourselves and what used to be Bradly Bros, we struck the top of a strainer post at the full length of a round-mouth shovel.

In the 1960’s a dam was placed across the flat from each side Of the high ground, as the sand was threatening to block the river in time. The same applied all the way along from Woodhill – in fact, the sand was only stopped at Woodhill when it was within less than a mile from the road

These sand flats were a great place for a picnic as the streams would in places form a little lake and the flat between us and Bradly Bros used to be a regular place for Te Pua School picnics.

In 1903 our grandfather and grandmother purchased a block of land from Smith Bros  at Ohirangi and he shifted the house about a mile up from Te Pua with bullock teams. The house is still standing in good order and condition. I remember when I was only young the one-roomed wash-house etc just behind the house, still with the wooden shingles on the roof. It is still there but with new walls and roof, plus an extension which was put on in 1928. That was when Gram, as our grandmother was known by us, bought the Buick four cylinder tourer car. I have never known a car into which so many people could be fitted! It must have been a heavy brute to drive but Uncle Bun and Auntie Hilda seemed to manage it alright. I remember it getting up to 40 mph one day. Mostly the speed was a sedate 25-30 mph!

Dad and Mum were married on 11 November 1912 and about that time Dad bought 50 acres across the side road (Bradly Road) and built a two-roomed house to start with and later added on to it. I was too young to remember it, although I do remember Mum cooking the dinner and tea on the range out in the backyard. Whether or not that was when the extensions went on, I can’t say.

Uncle Jim was keen on engineering and he was apprenticed to A & G Price, and after various jobs, finished his working days as Chief Engineer of Barry’s Brewery in Gisborne. He could tell some good stories of the early days up the East Coast around Ruatoria etc.

Uncle Bun stopped on the farm along with Gram and Aunties Hilda and Annie. Auntie Tess took up nursing, into which her daughters Mary and Hilda also followed. About 1930 or perhaps later, Dad and Uncle Bun split the original farm up and Gram and Auntie Hilda went to live in Auckland, along with the Old Buick.

Getting back to the earlier days and some of the entertainment etc – dances seemed to play a large part. I remember Mum telling us about fundraising for the First World War and going to woolshed dances in a two-horse wagon, one popular place being Phillips Bros’ shed at Wharepapa (the property is now owned by Stanley Phillips – no relation) and going into Helensville in a horse and gig, or riding side-saddle on the horse. A great prank among some of the younger types was to go out during the evening and take the horse out of the shafts of the gig, lead it around through the gate, push the shafts through the fence and harness the horse up again, or loosen the girths of the saddle, or change saddles around on the various horses. I remember Auntie Lu recounting their trip to the Forresters’ Ball. (The Forresters was a friendly society which I think is nearly extinct now.) She and Uncle Jim milked the cows, walked to Ohirangi station (about 1 1/2 miles as the road was too muddy to get to Helensville by road), caught the six o’clock train to Helensville, got changed when they got there, danced all night, caught the seven o’clock train in the morning, walked home, milked the cows then went to bed. They were stayers and players in those days – I remember her saying, “Mind you, there was always a hogshead Of beer in the centre of the supper room”. (A hogshead is 54 gallons.)

The annual A & P Show was also a big day in the year. Dad told us Of one time the brass band knocked off for dinner and on resuming playing found that some of the young bucks had put glue on the inside bands of their caps. The band was made up of locals. Jim Bradly was the cornetist, and also in the team were Pip Bradly, Uncle Bun, Dad, Fin McIntyre, and Simon Fenton who couldn’t read a note of music but once he heard the music he was right. Simon was a Maori chap who lived at Te Pua all his life. He could neither read nor sSTite but had a fairly good command of English but unfortunately got his words tangled up at times. He was always available at haymaking times or ready to help on the farm digging drains, digging rushes etc and was immensely powerful. He lived just over the road from Auntie Lu and, as far as Simon was concerned, her word was law. I remember once he came up home and mentioned he had repainted his kitchen. On being asked the colour by Mum he replied, “Peacock blue with a fawny tinge”. He was never stuck for words!

Of the W W L Bradlys, Jim worked with his father on painting and paperhanging until the end of the Second World War. He used to say there was not a house in Helensville and district he had not worked on at some time. In those days paint was not bought ready mixed but all the ingredients were bought and mixed by hand white lead in 561b kegs, linseed oil in 10 gallon containers and various colours etc. Jim painted our house in 1936 – I remember it took him about a day and a halfto mix the paint for the walls.

Pip spent all his working life as a farrier blacksmith, working behind his brother Bill’s garage in Helensville. Around the walls he would have a pattern of the shoes for each of the regulars who came in to get shod, from the big draughts down to the Shetland ponies. All the shoes were handmade and it was great to watch him put a piece of steel in the forge and heat it, then hammer and mould it into a shoe. If a thing could be made out of steel, Pip would make it.

Harry started as a butcher, and finished up as a stock agent in the Dargaville area. He used to come back to Helensville in the school holidays in August and usually spent a day with Dad and great would be the tales of “DO you remember”. They were the same age and went through school together.

In the early days of milking, milk was carted out by horse and dray to the creamery at the corner of Fordyce Road – just before the Hot Springs – then separated and the skim milk brought back home for the pigs, until a bigger factory was built at Helensville and trucks had made their appearance as the roads had got better. I think it was about 1936 that the road was tarsealed to Auckland. It was also straightened out by having a lot of the corners removed or the road being put through in a straighter line.

Haymaking was done without the benefit of the mod cons we have today. It was cut by a two-horse mower cutting 4’6″ at a time, raked with a rake, and if the crop was heavy it was turned by hand It would be about four days from cutting to stacking ifit was a heavy crop – swept up to the stack by hand. It was great to watch four good men pitching hay onto a stack. They worked in unison. Each had his fork with a six or seven foot handle on it – and they guarded them like gold. Woe betide any rookie that picked up their fork, and it was a disgace if you broke the handle.

Progress was made and stackers took the place of the pitchers. They were like a crane with a grab on the end and were pulled up by a horse. Then came the stationary baler where the hay had to be fed into a hopper and the bale came out the other end. Nowadays the hay is not touched by hand – they were the days when your day’s work was governed by the amount of work the horse could do in a day.

When we started school schoolbuses had not made an appearance and we had to go to school by train. The station was down at the bottom of Barry’s place. The road was in a different place then. It turned left from Bradly Road and went down towards the river until it met the railway line, then turned right and paralleled the railway to Wharepapa. We were picked up at 8.45 a.m. if the train was on time, and arrived home at about 4.30 p.m. – again, if the train was on time, which it seldom was. One year ten pupils regularly boarded the train at Ohlrangi. I think it was about 1935 that train travel was cut out and buses took over. Up until that time, the Herald was also delivered by train. There were about six in the bundle which was thrown off at the station. It was only a normal sized door at the station and the guards were pretty good at putting the bundle through the door with the train travelling at normal speed. Sometimes they hit the wall and the bundle rebounded on to the line and there was no paper to read that day.

Once or twice a year we would have a day out at the coast to get toheroa. All available horses would be caught and we would set off across the sandhills. It was about four miles from home to the beach. After a day at the beach, coming home would not be so pleasant, as you would be very lucky if you had a saddle and you would most likely be sitting on an old draught horse about 2’6″ across the back, on a sack which had both ends tied and slit across the middle so as to put toheroas in each side, and with a combination of sunburn, salt water and sweat from the horse’s back, you were pleased to get home!

Muriwai seemed to be the favourite beach to go to. For three or four years before the war, ourselves, Uncle Bun and family, and Uncle Ed Day and family used to have a combined picnic down there around New Year.

It was around that time that there were lots of 21 ^st birthdays happening. They were usually held in the house, although some were held in a hall. They were mainly attended by relatives and neighbours. At that time there were quite a lot of relatives around – Russells, Days, McArthurs – and much fun was had by all. For those oldtimers who remember “the lancers”, you might think it impossible to dance it in a normal-sized kitchen, but it could be, and was, done – with Jim Bradly sitting in the comer with the old accordian going.

Of the Bradly Bros – Uncle Arthur and Auntie Harriet’s family – they none Of them married until later in life. They stayed on the farm and gradually moved off until the farm was sold, only Oscar remaining in Helensville. Maggy married Dan Stewart, and they had a farm out towards the Springs, until selling it and going to Auckland.

Nowadays there are not many Bradlys left in Helensville. Graeme and Barry – J W and Alice’s grandsons – are farming the old place which eventually grew from the original 50 acres to 500 by taking in three blocks on Bradly Road up by the sand Richard and his father Pat are still farming the original farm of my grandparents, James Lochead and Bridget Teresa Bradly. David Bradly (Pip, the blacksmith) unfortunately lost both his sons – one drowned in the river at Helensville, and the other was killed in action in North Africa in 1943. His daughter, Clare, married Hec Aitkenhead and is farming out at the Springs. Of the rest, they are scattered right through the country, and as far as that goes, all over the world.

These are just a few recollections of mine. I have done my best to be correct as to dates etc and apologise if anyone feels left out, but I thought it may help to let some of the younger ones know what life was like for the older ones. There are quite a few memories I have which I may add to one day.

John M Bradly

1988