Manawatū Conversations

Keith Clark, Part 3. Teaching experience. Bulls, then to a sole charge school. 22 children, 20 coming on horseback. Monthly school trip to Taumarunui. Injured kiwi at the school. Using the new rifle range. Future wife, Leslie - travelling to meet at weekends. Job at West End School, getting married, 1952. Leslie able to teach after marriage. West End mainly men teachers. Motorbike.

Keith Clark, Part 2 of 2. Serious illness, just survived. Recovery. Teaching, sole charge school, 9 children. Social life. Teachers’ College. Back into sport. Learning to swim. Returned soldiers training as teachers. Meeting his wife. Teaching respected then, strong discipline. Greymouth. Moved to Bulls, then Kaitieke. Travelling to meet future at weekends.

Keith Clark, Part 1 of 2. Born Nelson 1928, early pioneer family. Tricycle to shop for sweets, whitebaiting. Spearing flounder. First day at school. Aratika dairy factory. 2 mile walk to school, 50% Maori. Dances. Hop picking. Dairy factory maintenance. Moved ahead in school, with older children. Caught in storm. Athletics, sport. Cadets. Work/school mix. Sharing community. 1945, Canterbury University at 16. Trek with race horses in the bush, yellow jaundice.

Chris Morton. Early life. Airforce cadetship. 1year initial training at Woodburn. Further year at Wigram, then permanent appointment to Ohakea as instrument fitter. Time serving in UK.

Derm Buchanan - Part 4 of 4. Clinical pastoral education, focus on the “human story” and feelings. Current social issues, family, work, policies affecting families. Declining community activity. Church communities. Churches’ participation in politics. Activity on return from US. Hospital chaplain funding. Need for specialist training.

Derm Buchanan - Part 3 of 4. Moved into the ordained ministry about 1970. Chose to become a hospital chaplain. Clinical pastoral education (CPE) training. Also did supervisory training, so spent 3 years in the US (South Carolina). Interaction with medical profession. Types of cases. Some religions giving feelings of guilt and the health effects. Beneficial effects.

Derm Buchanan - Part 2 of 2 - Post-war shortages. Oil exploration near Feilding. After school, working for wool company, wool scouring. Went to Bradford. Airedale Combing Company, 5 canteens by social class. Displaced persons (refugees) arriving in Britain. New job sorting wool. Story of a sorter’s war service, D-Day and liberation of Belsen.

Derm Buchanan - Part 1 of 2 - Grew up in Feilding. Impact of WWII. Rode a horse to school. The Boarding at Wellington College, many rules about behaviour. The cane. Big attendance at reunions. Teachers’ nicknames. Swaggers. Rationing, but farmers could grow things. Trips to Feilding. ANZAC Day. Fear of invasion. American servicemen; one with malaria; different approach to discipline. Few trips to Palmerston North. Parents wanted him to get a trade, went into wool at 14 or 15.

Kevin Burrows and Rod Watt - Part 2 of 2 - School in the 1950s. The cane and notches in belts. Pranks they would do: making bombs, smells from wattle seeds, rubber band guns. Making skeletons in science. Control-line aircraft at PNBHS. Slingshots, fire alarms on lampposts, triggered the alarm in a stone fight. Rod came from Scotland aged 7, impressions of New Zealand, types of fruit not available in Scotland.

Kevin Burrows and Rod Watt, Part 1 of 2. Time at school together from 1948. Polio epidemic. Discipline, mischief. Palmerston North Technical College. Burning the teacher’s cane. PN Boys High, including use of the cane. Nicknames, good teachers. Trick with onions. Army training at school. School band.