Islands of the Gulf

By Shirley Maddock and Don Whyte

The all-time classic telling of life in the 1960s Hauraki Gulf

In 1964 trailblazing author Shirley Maddock and photographer Don Whyte made an extraordinary voyage around the Hauraki Gulf, documenting its people and places. This was a watershed moment in New Zealand history where New Zealanders were given the opportunity to see themselves, not just in the pages of this book but also on screen. It was a time when the way of life on the Gulf islands was a resourceful one, largely cut-off from the outside world. The best-selling and much loved Islands of the Gulf is a precious record of a bygone era, and an enchanting must-have for New Zealand households, baches and boats.

Right on Auckland's doorstep, across 4000 square kilometres of ocean lie some 40 islands - more if you count the gannet perches. In the early 1960s Shirley Maddock joined Captain Fred Ladd, the pilot whose jaunty seaplanes served those isolated island communities, to film New Zealand's first (locally produced) documentary series, Islands of the Gulf, publishing a book of the same name. Maddock would visit everyone from farmers to gumdiggers, rangers to nurses, flying through the morning haze to the rugged battlements of Great Barrier and the dim, bluish mound of Little Barrier; over the top of North Head to the bone white tower of the light on Tiritiri Matangi; beyond to Kawau, east to Rakino and the little Noises; south-east to the long golden lengths of Waiheke and Ponui, and last to the clouded peaks of the Moehau Ranges; and nearer to the inner harbour islands of Motutapu and Motuihe, Brown's Island with its lopped-off crater and, at the entrance to the Gulf, the last great volcano, Rangitoto.

This new 2017 edition is being published to coincide with the remake of Islands of the Gulf showing on TV ONE prime-time later this year with Shirley Maddock's daughter, actress and writer, Elisabeth Easther.

• Language: English
• Publisher: HarperCollins Publishers Australia
• Release date: Sep 1, 2017
• ISBN: 9781775491477

Book preview

FOREWORD

by Elisabeth Easther, 2017

In 1964 the pioneering broadcaster Shirley Maddock explored the Hauraki Gulf by boat, in Landrovers, on foot and by seaplane with the legendary Captain Fred Ladd. Making the groundbreaking documentary series Islands of the Gulf, she turned the camera’s attention on people and places that had previously been tucked away. And what she discovered on her travels was that the island dwellers who shared their stories and lives were not just resilient and resourceful, they were also incredibly endearing and, occasionally, even eccentric. And the people watching at home loved every black and white minute.

But Islands of the Gulf was more than just a television series, it was the first production of its kind to be made by what was then called the NZBC, the NZ Broadcasting Corporation, now TVNZ. And what’s more, it was made by a woman — a woman who not only presented the show, she also wrote, produced and directed it. But she had to fight quite hard to be acknowledged as a producer, because in the 1960s women weren’t allowed to have such lofty aspirations. But Mum did, which meant that after some pushing and shoving she became the first woman in the country to be officially acknowledged as a Television Producer, a title that our state broadcaster had previously reserved for men.

And because Mum found way too much material to squeeze into five half-hour programmes she also wrote a book to accompany the series and thanks to her vibrant, lively text, coupled with Don Whyte’s lush photographs, Islands of the Gulf was an instant bestseller. Enjoying numerous reprints, it still finds pride of place on bookshelves in baches and on boats all over the gulf and beyond.

* * *

Fifty-three years later, I’ve been following in my mother’s intrepid footsteps and, in the course of making a new series of Islands of the Gulf for TVNZ, I’ve been re-watching and rereading her material with an eagle eye, and what has struck me every day, time and again, is just what a brilliant woman my mother was. Her writing, every single page and phrase, just astonishes me; she had such a wonderful way with words and her delightful manner was the perfect catalyst for drawing people’s stories out.

Shooting all over the gulf this summer, I’ve tracked down some of the people (or their relatives) who were in the original series and in the book. In the Great Barrier episode, Mum follows the district health nurse Pia Makiha when she visits a new baby on the island — and possibly that was another television first: full-frontal nudity. Tracking Baby Raewyn down to Waiheke, we took her back to her family home on Aotea (Great Barrier) to talk to her about her feelings for the show, knowing my mother had met her before she could possibly remember. Proudly, Raewyn still has her Plunket book from that visit where a note remarked in capital letters: TELEVISED. Raewyn also told me how she wrote to my mother when she was twelve years old, because it was important to her, knowing she’d been on television when she was so small. Somehow the letter not only made it to my mother, but Mum wrote a kindly letter back. And that was Mum all over. Not only was she terrifically talented, she was also terrifically kind.

Another character from the past was Bob Burns, a man who had the prescience to suggest that if the ferries to Waiheke become any faster, Waiheke would become a dormitory suburb of Auckland. And while Bob has been gone for many years, his son Jim came and spoke to me in the exact same spot my mum interviewed his dad all those years ago, at the end of the old Matiatia wharf. And we both agreed it was incredibly moving to be talking about our respective parents all these years later and to have a way of seeing our respective parents walking and talking so many years after they’d died.

Growing up, I was well aware that Mum had been famous before her three children came along, and that she was accomplished in many fields — not just as a writer and a maker of television but also as a radio broadcaster, an actress and even a co-creator of the Official Information Act of 1984, one of her more unusual jobs. But I don’t think I paid the attention to her work then that I am now and I’m so sorry I didn’t because, aside from not being able to tell her again how amazing I think she is (I did tell her but most likely for other things like tucking me in or baking birthday cakes) today I’d dearly love to ask my mother:

How did you do it?

What was it like in the field?

How did you know what to do?

How many people went on your shoots? How did it work technically?

How much time did it take?

I want to watch the entire series with her sitting beside me and ask a million questions. And I know how lucky I am to have her text to use in voiceovers. When I struggle for the best way to describe something, I turn to her book and pick out beautiful little phrases. I am so grateful to be able to do that and have it be collaboration, not plagiarism.

There are many passages in this book that bring a lump to my throat. There’s a passage where Mum talks to a Mr William McElroy from Mahurangi whose life will now never be forgotten, but the bit that most moved me was when he surmised that Mum would have grandchildren. As a childless woman in her 30s back then, it wasn’t necessarily a given.

They weren’t all hard days, you know. People helped each other. Life was simple, so good, not what you can count up, just treasure in your mind. Then he gave me my nugget of kauri gum, choosing it carefully from a collection arranged along the chimneypiece. Put it where the sun strikes, he said, and tell your grandchildren, when you have them, that once you talked to an old man who remembered the days when they dug the kauri gum.

Another passage that never fails to move me is when Mum is flying with Captain Ladd over Rangitoto.

And when we were aloft Fred handed me a small white cardboard box.

Hold that, will you? he asked.

It was remarkably heavy for its size.

It’s some ashes, he explained. A man from Maungaterkauri asked in his will if he could be scattered over Rangitoto because of the happy times he spent there in his youth.

I sat with the man from Maungatekauri in my lap.

The wind’s more your way Shirley, Fred was saying. Do you mind opening your window and letting him go that side?

Don was loading his film in the rear of the pane and his window did not open. My side? and I looked at the window and back at the box.

Perhaps I’d better then, said Fred and kindly took the box away. It’s a bit awkward but we’ll manage.

We were directly over the summit now and Fred opened his window, covered the top of the box with his handkerchief and gently let our ghostly fellow passenger go off into the slip-stream.

There, and Fred closed the window. So be it.

We all sat in silence for a minute and I reflected on the awfulness of mortality and remembered the piece from Cymbeline about golden lads and girls all must like chimney sweepers come to dust."

* * *

While making the new show, we toyed with the idea of spreading Mum’s ashes as part of the story, to sprinkle her in various places that were special to her. But it didn’t feel right, I couldn’t take her away from my father. Mum’s urn lives on the dressing table in my dad’s bedroom — and they were such a good match. They met late in life for those times, were married at thirty-six and thirty-seven respectively, and when they first met it was love at first sight. Dad was so proud of Mum’s work but it won’t be till he’s gone that I could contemplate putting Mum to rest. They need to be together in death just as they were the most wonderful couple in life.

For all sorts of reasons this book stands the test of time and I am thrilled it is being reissued in all its magnificent glory, because I want current and future generations to enjoy the snapshots my mum took of a time and place, to remember these remarkable Gulf people.

Remaking my mother’s series, I’ve been so proud to follow in her wake, to find out how things have changed and what’s stayed the same, to share with a wider audience how incredible, by necessity, island people are. Of course a fair bit has changed, but island people remain ostensibly the same. House prices have definitely risen, and the wedding scene on Waiheke would’ve been hard to imagine in Mum’s day (the current record is twenty-two in one day), but as a rule these characters still have to be resourceful, ready to help their neighbours in times of need even if their reason for living on an island is to find solitude.

And most of all, I dearly wish my mother was alive today so I could tell her how proud of her I am. So she could see how her work still had currency all these years later. Mum would have been eighty-nine this year, but she died in 2001 at the age of seventy-two — cardiomyopathy, that’s what took her away.

But if I could talk with her again, what I’d want to say would be: Goodness, Mum, but you were astonishing weren’t you? And while I had an inkling all those years ago, it’s really only dawning on me now just how talented and clever you were. And I miss you. Not a day goes by when I don’t miss you.

FOREWORD

by Gwenyth Bellingham and Jocelyn Weatherall, née Whyte, 2017

It was the flying boat, the main form of Don’s and Shirley’s access to the islands of the gulf, that caught our fullest attention as small children, during the 1960s when both the TV documentary and the book were being formulated.

Don Whyte was always behind the camera, and Shirley in the front. On occasions we got to go along for the ride with the infamous flying boat pilot Fred Ladd, whose task was to deliver Shirley and Don to every corner of the islands of the Gulf.

We can recall many humorous stories of the characters of the Gulf. With the journeys came other jobs: distributing supplies; hand delivering the NZ Herald from great heights, allowing the locals to remain in touch with the world; and on occasions the scattering of ashes over a favourite fishing spot. Each journey appeared to be an enjoyable adventure, although not always going perfectly to plan.

Don and Shirley met in the 1960s when New Zealand television broadcasting was just emerging and distinguishing itself from British content. A series of New Zealand home grown Sunday night documentaries were presented to an enthusiastic New Zealand public. Interestingly the book Islands of the Gulf came after the production of the film, quite the opposite from the norm, such was the interest by the NZ public. Some fifty years on, there are many homes that bear the blue books published by Shirley and Don: Islands of the Gulf; As Far as a Man May Go: Captain Cook’s New Zealand; and These Antipodes: A New Zealand Album, 1814 to 1854.

At fourteen years of age Don redeveloped his parents’ basement to create a dark room, where he produced his first prints. Training as an accountant stood him in good stead, entering into business with his business partner, Harry Reynolds, for what was to be an outstanding forty years. Don and Harry operated the iconic Reynolds Film Production business in the Studio building at number 230 Ponsonby Road, Auckland. One of his early projects was to film the very first TV commercial in New Zealand, and one of his latter projects was to apply for a third TV channel licence, such were the pioneering days.

As Don progressed the development of the business, his projects extended beyond New Zealand to many parts of the world: Africa, Asia, Europe, the UK, Japan and the US, where he was assigned to film on commission. In his wildest dreams he might not have anticipated a reissue of this book although, remarkably, every photo he took in preparation for this book was catalogued and still in our care.

Like all successful people, there were some mainstays and supporters in the background. By far his biggest anchor and enthusiast was our mother, Grace, whom he referred to as ‘My Amazing Lady Grace’.

Once a Cameraman always a Cameraman — even in retirement the photo archives grew. Don was fortunate to have worked in a business that was his vision and passion, with colleagues such as Shirley and Harry. Collectively they brought other people’s lives and experiences and enjoyment into our living rooms. We hope that as you venture through these pages this is the case for you, too.

PREFACE

to the second edition, 1983

Going back to a well loved place after a long absence invariably evokes all manner of recollections. Revisiting the islands of the Hauraki Gulf has given me just such an experience.

The television series of five programmes, which furnished the nucleus of the book, was produced in 1964, after many expeditions undertaken in a variety of vessels as well as in the Gulf’s small covey of amphibian aircraft. In the early days of television, facilities and cash were strictly limited and the films could never have been made, nor the book written, were it not for the kindness and practical help given unstintingly by islanders, boat-owners and various officers of the New Zealand Forest Service, Lands and Survey and the Marine Department. Also, without that ebullient and trail-blazing aviator, the indomitable Captain Fred Ladd, I doubt if the project would ever have left the ground!

In retrospect, it occurs to me that a certain colonial innocence lingered on into the sixties and the novelty of television undoubtedly imbued that intrusive medium with an aura of excitement that has worn off now; but, if television was young then, so were we and from first light to last Don Whyte and I toiled away at our task, deploying our modest means to the best of our abilities. Recently I have been looking through the films and the book with the joint purpose of remaking the former and revising the latter. A youthful zest, which may strike some as ingenuous, is the most apparent quality, but the delight we felt in discovering for ourselves those islands on the horizon is strongly conveyed. That eventually we were able to share our pleasure with so many New Zealanders was our best reward.

I am indebted to D.O.C. Williams and George Andrews of Television New Zealand for giving me the chance to go back to the islands and for providing such gifted and agreeable companions to work with. My friend and colleague Don Whyte, who these days spends as much time working in countries abroad as in his own, was not free to join us, but the photographs he took for the first edition of Islands of the Gulf continue to enhance the text.

It is an odd sensation to see yourself skipping about in boats and planes from a remove of nearly twenty years, even if only in black and white. Once having steeled myself to look at all, it recalled to me how carefree life was then. Being single and the youngest of a close and loving family meant that I could be as devoted to my work as any religious to her vocation. Time after time, with not a backward glance, I went darting off to one island or another, owing responsibility to nothing but the job in hand. Now, most happily married but living far from the sea and with three exceedingly active, articulate children, any extracurricular projects must be dovetailed in with household commitments. I have managed, nonetheless, to steal a few days here and there and have spent them renewing old friendships and visiting once familiar scenes out in the Hauraki Gulf.

* * *

Early on a recent morning I set out to catch the Waiheke ferry from Queen’s Wharf in downtown Auckland and found, to my surprise, it was the Baroona making the run that morning. She was a relatively infirm veteran in the sixties, her age being in step with the century, but a costly and extensive refit has given her a new lease of life and she carries her years creditably enough for such an old lady. The Queen’s Wharf was the customary jumble of luggage and cargo — mainly vegetable, it seemed, as a hot dry summer had reduced most island gardens to deserts. So many sacks of carrots and crates of cabbages could have prompted the thought that rabbits, not people, predominate on Waiheke.

Once cargo and complement were stowed, the Baroona gave three short blasts on her whistle and, with wake churning beneath her broad old beam, neither faster nor slower than before, she was under way. It is still an hour’s journey to Waiheke’s entry port of Matiatia and the high hopes of the distance being permanently reduced by the hydrofoil Manuwai were blighted when that elegant craft was permanently laid up by prolonged industrial dispute. The amphibians keep as regular and reliable a service as before and there is now a daily vehicular ferry from Panmure, but costs have soared with the price of oil, making transport in the Gulf worse than it has ever been. Only about a third the number of commuters — about fifty, compared with three times that number in the sixties — have jobs in Auckland nowadays. Two hours is a lot to set aside for travelling time and, while Waiheke’s population of over 3,000 is getting on for double what it was twenty years ago, a high proportion manage to find work nearer home.

It was one of those quiet grey mornings which often turn warm and bright by noon; sea and sky were like pewter and, as we came abreast of the inner islands, passengers, most of them regulars, had settled down to write letters, knit, read or catnap, having nothing fresh to discover from the familiar journey.

Rangitoto, Brown’s, Motutapu and Motuihe Islands have had very little reason to alter, as all have been administered either by the Crown or the Hauraki Maritime Park Board long enough for their basic pattern to be well defined. Rangitoto, however, places more emphasis these days on its role as a sanctuary of New Zealand flora and fauna and the dense mantle of bush has further extended its dominion, notably about the crater area, though seedling pines are as prevalent as before. No private householder lives permanently on Rangitoto now and it is policy to decline the renewal of leases or forbid them to be bequeathed or transferred, so eventually, when the last bach owner leaves or dies, the human population, apart from rangers or storekeeper, will be nil. Over a hundred cottages were scattered about the foreshore when we were working on the films and book; now there are only about a third that number and, as each falls empty, it is either demolished or removed. The extent of walking tracks has increased, a metal road not only encircles most of the island but continues within 65 metres of the top and a compact little bus is available for those who prefer an armchair ascent of Auckland’s most conspicuous landmark. The summit commands a superb panorama of the whole isthmus and its surrounding island-dotted ocean.

Public water transport operates between the city waterfront and Rangitoto, the timetable varying with the season, and in recent summers the Blue Boats have offered evening trips with sufficient time ashore for a barbecue. Rangitoto’s only other industry, as such, is a colony of bees on land leased to a commercial beekeeper, who produces from them the dark-hued and delicious Rangitoto honey.

Motutapu, long a Lands and Survey sheep and cattle farm, has, unlike Rangitoto, more than doubled its tally of human inhabitants. In 1965 there were five families, now there are twelve and the little schoolhouse at Home Bay, which once claimed the smallest roll in New Zealand, has been replaced by a larger one on another part of the island. In the years I have known Motutapu, it has always appeared to be rather short on trees, apart from a few lone Norfolks on the tops of hills and groves of karaka and pohutukawa along the shore, but latterly there has been considerable planting of native varieties in hopes of coaxing birds to live here in greater numbers. Not many now would remember the colony of ostriches established here a hundred years ago, but another immigrant, the small Australian wallaby, is still well represented. Unchanged too are the concrete bunkers and gun emplacements from World War II, much favoured these days by swallows for their nesting places and which make as ironic a contrast as ever with the fine pre-European pa sites on adjacent clifftops.

Archeological investigations of ancient Moa Hunter campsites are still energetically pursued and landing is freely permitted. In keeping with the Maritime Park’s policy of encouraging visitors to enjoy island environments, walking tracks have been made over a wide area and a system of stiles set up, so there is no longer any need to master the bewildering range of gate-fastenings, which was my own well-remembered Motutapu chore.

Motuihe is as favoured an anchorage as ever for pleasure boats and, through the summer months, those good old harbour ferries still in service continue to steam down the harbour laden with picnic parties. It is some time since the naval buildings, used during both world wars, were pulled down. Even the pleasantly proportioned Albert Barracks, a relic of the Waikato conflict of the 1860s, was not thought worth preserving, so the water tower is about all that remains of HMS Motuihe. The olive groves and ranks of Norfolk pines thrive, though, and the routine of farm life follows its accustomed seasonal round much as it did when Don and I depicted it.

At Brown’s Island, or Motukorea, Sir Ernest Davis’s gift to his fellow citizens, a wharf has yet to be built, so very few sightseers come ashore on what briefly was Logan Campbell’s first Auckland home. No change to report here, then.

Nor could much have altered at the Noises, where shags and seabirds of various kinds compete for territory and the tides roar in and out of the numberless caves that pock the cliffs. A new tenant has not been found for the late Captain Wainhouse’s cottage on Otata, the largest of the group, but at night you can still see the light flash on Maria Rock, which by day looks more like a tortoise than an island.

Plans at Rakino for an offshore Utopia were not realised and much of its acreage has been haphazardly subdivided for holiday homes, though the Maritime Park secured a portion of this delightful island as public reserve. Ferries visit at times during the summer.

* * *

As Waiheke’s drought-bleached hills drew nearer, the passengers grouped themselves for assault on the gangways. A variety of fishing boats and pleasure craft were anchored in Matiatia Bay, black Angus cattle browsed the rough grass edging the shingle beach, the piecart backed up against the cliff was ready for trade, a line of weathered buses awaited their fares and everything seemed almost exactly as I remembered. One sign of the times, though, was a notice nailed to the cargo shed advising visitors that the island has been officially declared a nuclear free zone. This was Waiheke true to form, with debate and controversy the breath of local life. Island politics have always generated a high degree of heat, with upsets in council and contentious election campaigns marked features of local administrative affairs, while Waiheke’s weekly newspaper, The Resident, continues to provide a comprehensive cover of most that goes on.

The island’s present-day increased and diversified population means that there are more to take sides and more points of view than in the sixties, when the balance favoured an older age group. Waiheke was known as a great place to retire, services were reasonable if limited, land and living costs were on a modest scale and many, who had started coming as holidaymakers, often since childhood, converted a weekend bach to a permanent home. But, in the last decade or so, a wave of younger settlers have brought with them new ideas and less conventional ways. Hippies or drop-outs are epithets some resort to, depending on the degree of prejudice felt against what others more politely define as alternative lifestylers. Their various methods of sustaining themselves include goats, organic horticulture, beekeeping and crafts of all kinds, but these are only some of the pursuits you can name in a trend similar to that which others can be seen following on the mainland. Several noted professional artists have also established homes for themselves here.

The alternatives are by no means the only new groups on Waiheke. It has also become a favoured retreat for the wealthy and, while many have expressed concern that more and more choice island real estate is passing into fewer and fewer hands, you can detect a hint of local pride that a relatively small chunk of New Zealand can point to a sizable muster of resident millionaries, a few of whom are foreign. In this category, several thousand acres are owned by a member of the Rothschild family. In 1982 heated argument was waged in the community at large, as well as in Parliament, over the question of allowing an extremely rich New Zealand landowner to acquire a further block of land known as Stony Batter. Hitherto vested as Crown reserve, it contains gunsites and a network of tunnels built during the last war and is highly regarded as a local beauty spot. Waiheke is included in the electorate of Auckland Central and their sitting member faced parliamentary censure over the points at issue. Waiheke and national opinion were the victors and the sale did not go through.

Inevitably, some of my older Waiheke friends have died, but the considerable number still very much alive look so remarkably unchanged that they give convincing testimony to the healthful climate here. Traffic has increased somewhat, along with the population, but the exhilarating salt-laden air is plainly better for human bodies than motors — a rust-removing specialist would face a vain struggle and millionaires removing to Waiheke would be wise to leave their Rolls Royces behind. Those here already have.

As you might expect on New Zealand’s third most populous island, there is plenty to do and activities are various enough to oblige less energetic folk to retreat periodically to the mainland to have a rest. For the older group, social life focuses on such places as the large, cheerfully furnished Red Cross Centre at Oneroa, which used to be the picture theatre. At the Catherine Mitchell Cultural Centre at Ostend, an enthusiastic group of men and women, of widely differing age, pot, paint, spin, weave, write, make music or just enjoy each other’s company. They also have an active concert party which they call the Geriatrix! Their headquarters, a random collection of pre-fabs, look across to a typical Waiheke prospect — herons plod about between the boats pulled up on the little beach and a small-scale barquentine, the work of another local resident, rides at anchor up a mangrove inlet.

Years ago I remember a long-term resident and a most persuasive advocate for Waiheke telling me proudly you could stand the entire population of Auckland on Oneroa Beach and still have plenty of room left over. On a more recent afternoon when I walked down to that lovely