For the purposes of this exercise, it turned out to be fortunate that Te
Puna is bounded by two rivers. Seeking to
promote the Western Bay of Plenty Community Archives [1], I asked for access to its
collection of the Tauranga/Bay of Plenty Photo News, with the thought that browsing
through its early issues would be a certain way to discover many images, long
left hidden, of life in the 1960’s in the rohe west of the Wairoa bridge. After all, I reasoned, the magazine’s editor,
Tony Ahern, lived in Bethlehem – he was bound to find, and frequently, matters
of interest in the next-door neighbourhood, and worthy of a picture or two?
Not so. Tony’s was a big beat to
cover, extending out beyond the growing town (which became a city in a ceremony
recorded in the Photo News of 25 May 1963, Issue 12) to Opotiki in the east and, occasionally, Katikati
and the lower Kaimai to the west and south.
He didn’t look past the riverside very often. Over the first four years’ worth of issues
held in the archive, I found that someone using the search term, <Wairoa>
would be much more richly rewarded than if they sought for hits on <Te
Puna>.
Tony himself wrote, in the 27 April 1963 issue of Photo News:
“Rivers nearly always make attractive pictures and this scene, where the
Wairoa crosses the Waihi highway [i.e., upstream of the road bridge], has
frequently been painted by local artists.”
Browsing through the physical copies, as opposed to searching on-line
using a specific search term, rewards the researcher with a sense of proportion
as well as humility (if that researcher is biassed, as I am). This is a historiographical exercise – where
was the gaze of Tony’s photo-journalism directed? What served the popular imagination in
ensuring the undoubted success and wide appreciation of the Photo News,
franchised as it was throughout the North Island? [2] What – my crucial inquiry – were the things
that got Te Puna a feature image or two as the magazine found its way into the
households of the Bay of Plenty?
As well as rivers: two things, it turns out. Cute kids and mushrooms.
Image: Te Ao Mārama - Tauranga City Libraries, Logan Publishing, Tauranga and Bay of Plenty Photo News Collection Magazine Number 31
I encourage readers to explore the online image, digitised on Pae Koroki [3] - the captions, especially
for the driftwood sculpture displayed by Selwyn Bidois, are well worth reading.
Over the first 62 issues of Photo News, this was one of only two features concerning non-riverine Te Puna, as well as one incidental (and interesting) image of a painting, not of river scenery but of workers in the Te Puna Mill, by a local Tauranga artist, Pauline Peacock-Mills. What has happened to this evocative picture?
 |
| Franklin's Mill, circa 1963, by Pauline Peacock-Mills Image: Beth Bowden |
Photo News spared little to no space to industry in Te Puna, framing it
very much as a pastoral enclave with few indications of the corporate,
monocultural land uses that were to become such a feature of the area (after
the magazine’s demise, it must be said).
One example of innovative and high-tech factory farming, then as now much
appreciated by locals, was the Olivers’ mushroom production unit originally
sited on Clarke Road [4].
 |
| Oliver family's mushroom farm, Te Puna 1967. Bay of Plenty Photo News, June 24 1967. Image: Beth Bowden |
We do know what happened to the Oliver’s mushroom farm. It moved [5]. For while the geography of Te Puna remains
bounded by its two rivers, and its economy is founded on its famously versatile soils, the skills and techniques of land and farm management Tony
Ahern recorded in his scant coverage of Te Puna either died in place – as with
the mill – or found other ways and means of showing themselves. The area pictured below, now designated – and
used - as an industrial zone in the WBoPDC’s District Plan, no longer merits
Tony’s caption of September 1963 [6] But so things go.
 |
| "Down to the Sea. Wide and free, the beautiful Wairoa River flows beside Te Puna station road through quiet countryside of great charm." Tauranga Photo News, Issue 16, 14 September 1963 |
Image: Te Ao Mārama -
Tauranga City Libraries, Logan Publishing, Tauranga and Bay of Plenty Photo
News Collection Magazine Number 16
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