Te Ao Wiremu Bill's World

By leftfieldnz rosoman

Te Ao Wiremu Bill's World

by Bill Rosoman

Te Ao Wiremu Bill's World Honorary Black, Thirty years on the East Coast Bill Rosoman Spent 29 years living and working on the East Coast of the North Island of New Zealand above Gisborne. This is his yarn about his life there and the funny and not so funny things that happened.

 

• Language: English
• Publisher: leftfieldnz
• Release date: Dec 8, 2023
• ISBN: 9798223749813

leftfieldnz rosoman

I have written many books and enjoy the process and feedback. My most popular books are on technology. Windows, Linux and Android are the OS of my choice. I also write Travel Books. www.creativekiwis.com/

Book preview

Mihi or Greeting

Korihi te manu   The bird sings

Takiri mai i te ata  The morning has dawned

Ka ao, ka ao, ka awatea  The day has broken

Tihei (wa) Mauri Ora!  Behold there is Life!

Tena koutou, tena koutou, tena koutou katoa

Greetings, thrice greetings

Kia Ora and Welcome to Te Ao Wiremu.

About Bill Rosoman

Bill was born in Wanganui, New Zealand 23rd May, 1948.

His childhood was the usual working class suburban childhood, caring parents, three meals a day etc.

Bill was extremely shy in his youth partly maybe due to being beaten on his first day at school, for being left handed. Good old Mrs Ashton, Infant Mistress at Gonville Primary School kept at it every day till I was forced by brute force to become right handed. In the end it did Bill a favour, it made Bill ambidextrous, mentally tough and a true Multi-Tasker and a natural left and right brain thinker.

In 1970 Bill travelled to Western Europe and North Africa (Morocco), on his return he went to Tokomaru Bay 100km north of Gisborne on the East Coast of the North Island of New Zealand on promotion as a Foreman in the Outside Plant Division of the New Zealand Post Office (Telecom now Spark or Chorus).

Europe certainly opened Bill's eyes to the other parts of the world and to other cultures, languages etc.

In Tokomaru Bay he was given the key to a Landrover four wheel drive vehicle and let loose, with no maps, no radio or cellphone and not a clue of were to go or how to fix a telephone (they were wind up Manual ones). 95% of the roads were not sealed and the telephone lines were usually a pair of copper-cadmium wires strung up on telephone poles sometimes up to 50-60 kilometres long, with Party Lines of sometimes 4-6 houses on the one telephone line.

Landrover

Old Phones I used to work on (they had a handle on the right to ring the exchange and talk to the operator).

Tokomaru Bay made a man of Bill and he became a total extrovert! In Tokomaru Bay you were treated as an individual and it is when they stop talking about you, you started to worry!

Bill really loved the East Coast and spent from 1970 to 1999 in the region. Bill married a local (Ngaire Dewes, 1979 to 1988), was treasurer of the Rugby club, trustee of his Marae Te Ariuru (an honour for a European), Secretary of Tawhiti Blocks (5000 acres of undeveloped Maori land), member Waiapu Arts Council  and on various committees etc.

In 1999, economic necessity drove Bill to sell the house he built in 1979 and to leave the area and eventually the region seeking employment.

From 2002 to 2008 Bill was living in a Campervan in the Hamilton/Waikato Region of New Zealand with trips to Gisborne and the East Coast for employment and to meet my many friends in the region.

August 2008

Email [e-mail]

Telephone [phone]

Ka Kite Ano for now!

Mawhai Point, Tokomaru Bay

Introduction

This book is about my memories of my life and times especially my 29 years living on the East Coast of New Zealand above Gisborne, New Zealand. From 1970 to 1999 and some of my happenings since. They are the truth as I see it. I have no reason to lie about things and it is not in my nature too lie. I guess however others may see things differently.

The phrase Honorary Black is from a remark made at Te Ariuru Marae, that Bill was a Pakeha, but OK as he is an Honorary Black.

They were very interesting times. It was a time of rapid change and the loss of employment and the running down of government services.

When I first arrived in 1970, they had just got TV (two Channels TV1 and TV2) and had wind up manual telephones, the roads were mostly unsealed (95%) and life was basic and as it had been for a hundred years or more. Even State Highway 35 had a section north of Hicks bay that was unsealed.

Tokomaru Bay

Everyone worked on the land or for the government. There were Shepherds, Fencers, Scrub Cutters and Shearers working for the various stations (large farms) like Mangahauini, Huiarua, Makomako, Bremner, Ihungia, Mangatarata and for families like the Jefferds, Williams and Busbys, as well as Ministry of Works (road works), Post Office (post, telephone exchange, bank, births deaths and marriages), Police, Lands and Survey (running sheep stations), Power Board (Electricity), Schools, Chaffeys Transport, etc.

Many families had a large garden and lived off the garden and the sea (Kai Moana).

Bill at the Dargies 1970s

Bill' s Campervan 2008 (Waka Wiremu)

There was even a local dialect with sayings like nearlyabout and riding on the car, never in the car. But alas TV, economic changes  and better communication gradually changed the local community and mostly not for the better.

There were many shops and businesses as well as many sports and social clubs. From three Banks (Post Bank, Bank of New Zealand and The Bank of New South Wales (Westpac), butcher (Heck Rodda), tea rooms, garage/petrol station (Tom Chaffey), two general stores (Edges 4 Square and Sheepfarmers), Mayfair dairy and camping ground, wool store, hotel, motel, fishing boats, harbour master (Captain McCullam), taxi/bus service (Dick Porter), bowling club, tennis club, three rugby clubs (Tokomaru Bay, Waima, Mata), library, local shearing gang, in fact all the amenities that a small country town could want.

Nowadays in the 21st century most of these amenities have gone or are run down, as there is not the population nor the economy to support them.

You can get more information about myself and the East Coast at

www.youtube.com/leftfieldnz and

http://picasaweb.google.com/leftfieldnz

In the Beginning

In 1969-70 I was touring Europe doing my big OE. I had a years special leave from my job as a Lineman with the New Zealand Post Office (Telecom) to travel. Before leaving I left an open letter applying for all positions as a Foreman Outside Plant (I was a Qualified skilled linesman at the time).

Once in my year away I rang my parents. I was in Ireland. They told me I had just received a letter saying I had a promotion to Tokomaru Bay, north of Gisborne on the east Coast.

Well I hardly new were it was. When I returned to New Zealand and called into the depot at Wanganui (my home town) I was given a hard time by fellow workers being promoted to Tokomaru bay. Jokes like they still run round on horses and the place is full of Maoris.

Anyway I accepted the position and in about May 1970 headed east to Gisborne.

I stayed the night in Gisborne at the Coronation Hotel in Gladstone Road (now the National Bank Building) so the next morning I could meet the District Engineer and office Staff,  then it was onto Tokomaru Bay.

I had a yellow mark II Cortina, I remember I had picked up a hitch-hiker north of Gisborne, as I came down Busbys hill just south of Tokomaru Bay, I yelled out there goes a kiwi. I thought that is what it was but of cause it was a Weka (now extinct on the east Coast due to the dry 1980s).

I was staying at the Bank of New Zealand bachelor quarters in Arthur street (now a private home Shangrila). All the single Public servants and Bank guys stayed there. During the winter rugby season we used to have a few parties at the quarters.

The next day I headed to the Post Office and the Line Depot at the rear of the Post Office and Telephone Exchange. I do not remember much about my introduction except that it was brief and I was given the keys to a short wheel based Landrover. I was told I was the one and only Telephone Faultman and to go for it. At the Depot there was a Faultman, an Installing Gang and a Line Gang of a Senior Foreman and some Linesmen.  The senior Foreman was Olly Olsen, some of the Linesmen were, Len Harkins, Tom Pokai, Bruce Kururangi etc.

In those days there was no radio telephone, no cellphone, no maps. My area was Tolaga Bay, Tokomaru Bay, Te Puia Springs and Waipiro Bay. About 80 Kilometres long and 50 Kilometres wide a total of 4,000 square kilometres. It is somewhat hilly and the weather can be dry and dusty or extremely wet and windy. There can be some snow out the back. The roads are mostly unsealed and single lane. You had to learn how to drive properly and be aware of the conditions and other road users.

The telephone exchange behind the Post Office was a manual exchange manned 24 hours a day to answer calls and put them through. Every call had to be put through on a cord, one end plugged into person making the call then plugged into the number to call and to switch flicked to ring the phone.

If I wanted to call my parents in Wanganui, I had to wind the handle and get the Operator at Tokomaru Bay, they would put you through to Ruatoria who would manually ring Napier who would ring Palmerston North who could dial my parents on an automatic line to Wanganui. Quite a mission as most of the way it was just a pairs of copper wires (200lb/mile) on two cross arms on poles and that is if all the operators were talking to each other and not having a tiff, or were not busy. There was only a handful of circuits from Tokomaru Bay to Ruatoria.

It took awhile to get my bearings and find out were the lines went and were people lived.

When