‘Fruit Brought Forth by the Sun’

Mr R. Henderson of Katikati packing tamarillos for export to Brisbane, July 1971
Image courtesy of the Gifford-Cross Collection, NZME, Te Ao Mārama - Tauranga City Libraries Photo, Pae Korokī Ref. gca-19469

When this recipe booklet fell from the pages of my mother’s Des Britton cookbook, I was delighted to discover that it was issued by several local fruit-growers’ associations.[i] At the top of the list of publishers was The Bay of Plenty Sub-tropical Fruits Association. Formed in May 1947, the group’s first resolution was to print precisely this kind of material in a bid to overcome what they saw as a major hindrance to the success of their enterprise - the consumer’s ‘ignorance’ of unfamiliar fruits.[ii]

 

‘Recipes: Sub-tropical and Citrus Fruits’ found in my mother’s 1970s cookbook
Images courtesy of Fiona Kean

Two months later, the first pamphlet featuring the tree tomato was ready for sale. Big things were expected of this ‘versatile fruit’ and in 1949 its production outstripped other sub-tropical varieties by a significant margin – 450 tons compared to 50 tons of passion fruit, 35 tons of Chinese gooseberries (kiwifruit) and 10 tons of feijoas.[iii] It was anticipated that 250 tons would be canned in Hastings the following season. Tree tomatoes grown in the Bay of Plenty were finally going places.[iv]

The historic Ōtūmoetai home, Maungawhare, circa 1900,
just a few years after this advertisement (below) was placed in the Bay of Plenty Times
Image courtesy of Te Ao Mārama - Tauranga City Libraries, Pae Korokī Ref. 03-361

The first mention in the newspaper of a tree tomato growing in New Zealand was in May 1890 when the Waikato Times reported that Mr G. Mason of Claudelands Nursery was growing the ‘novelty’ from seed imported from Ceylon.[v] Two years later, papers were reporting plants for sale in Thames and in 1895 J. J. Bettelheim, a nurseryman and market gardener in Ōtūmoetai, Tauranga, was advertising for customers to inspect his tree tomato plants.[vi]

Astute readers will note that by the time my mother’s pamphlet was printed the fruit had undergone a re-brand and were sold as tamarillos. The new name was first suggested in 1966 by Mr W. Thomson the chairman of the Tree Tomato Advertising and Promotion Committee. It was officially adopted on April 4, 1967, at a ceremony held at Waitangi. Thomson explained the meaning:

“The first section of the composite name Tama, had been chosen as a compliment to New Zealand, the country of adoption. It also had historical significance, Tama being the commander of one of the early migratory canoes which brought the Maoris [sic] to New Zealand from Polynesia … The tree tomato was a native of Brazil and Peru. In these two countries the fruit is known as Paolo de tomate and tomate de arbol, which translated literally means tree tomato … we are endeavouring to get away from the association with the word tomato, but as a compliment to the countries of origin the final portion of this has been retained as Tillo. The letter T was replaced in Tillo make it easier to pronounce.”

Now is the perfect time to learn more about the tamarillo and fruit growing in our region, with the opening of the Western Bay Museum’s exhibition ‘The Food Bowl of Plenty’. To hear more about it, listen to museum manager Paula Gaelic on RNZ. Not to mention that tamarillo season has begun!

References

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[i] Best known in the 70s and 80s as a restaurateur and TV chief, Sir Des Britton was ordained an Anglican Priest in 1983 and served as the head of the Wellington City Mission from 1996 to 2011.

[ii] Calling themselves the ‘Small Sub-Tropical Fruits Association’ the later dropped the word ‘small’. Bay of Plenty Times, Vol. LXXV, Issue 14370, 21 May 1947, p.3.

[iii] Te Awamutu Courier, Volume 79, Issue7139, 30 November 1949, p. 6.

[iv] Bay of Plenty Times, Vol. LXXVII, Issue 15068, 31 August 1949, p.2.

[v] Waikato Times, Volume XXXIV, Issue 2784, 17 May 1890, p. 2.

[vi] Bay of Plenty Times, Volume XXI, Issue 3261, 6 May 1895, p.5.

The Home Sewing Front and World War II

Photograph by Beth Bowden

The sewing machine pictured here with Bernina mechanic Graeme Philp at his workshop in Twelfth Avenue is remarkable for a number of reasons,  First, and of most importance to home seamstresses, “It sews perfectly,” says Graeme.  Seventy-five years after it was manufactured – Graeme was able to establish the date, 1938-1941, from its serial number – its running stitch, zig-zag, and reverse stitching are performed evenly and without fuss.  It is an early model, released only six years after the Swiss Gegauf factory created the Bernina marque[1] (the name comes from a range of mountains in the Swiss Alps, whose skyline effectively evokes the shape the machines create in needle and thread).

Secondly, and going to the main theme of this essay, it was made during wartime.  Steel everywhere was being dedicated to the war effort.  Even in neutral Switzerland, Gegauf’s insistence on using only the finest steel must have taken some hard negotiations.  The corporate intertwining of Germany and Switzerland was expressed at a high level by a trade agreement signed on 8 August 1940, providing Switzerland with “raw materials, including coal and iron[2]” in return for the Swiss allowing transit of goods from Germany’s ally, Italy.

And Swiss precision-made goods were in demand by the Allies themselves.  Substitute exporting meant that (for instance: sewing machine) factories in the UK and America could divert their production lines to more important, if less refined, war materiel; sewing machines were indeed needed for the production of uniforms, parachutes, tarpaulins, camouflage nets and any number of other military purposes, but new home sewing machines were definitely a luxury item in the middle of World War II.  This one would have been a miracle of rare device to its owner, whether she[3] acquired it during or just after the war.

Photograph by Beth Bowden

Graeme’s machine, which he bought, quite recently, at an estate sale in Te Awamutu, is driven by an electric motor made in England.  He and I suppose that the unpowered machine was exported from Switzerland, then equipped with a motor before its owner emigrated with it to New Zealand. (Or it gained its motor once in New Zealand – sewing machine engines were common items to buy separately and fit on to an older, hand-turned or treadle machine.)

Bond & Bond advertisement, The Bay of Plenty Times, 30 July 1948

Meanwhile, back in Tauranga, sewing machines had been in short supply for years. This 1948 advertisement shows that modernising the household treadle was still a viable option well after the war had ended.  The electric add-on’s price, though high[4], was considerably less than the cost of even a second-hand Singer treadle.  The classified advertisement columns for that year offered a great many of them, all around the same price as a long-shuttle (and therefore somewhat elderly) model whose going price was £35[5].  No wonder advertisements for opportunities to rent machines, whether from a shop, or even in a private home, were also common. 

Late in 1948 Sinclairs’ household goods store, at 45 Devonport Road, managed to secure ‘a few only[6]’ new Jones portable sewing machines but did not put a price in their advertisement; they did, however, offer apologetic inducements to purchase a machine suitable for a child  “(Sorry None for Mother Yet)[7]” at “only 59/6 each”.  And while it is possibly unfair to do so, compare the limited qualities on offer that same year from the “Grain” machine (twice the price of the toy one) with the sleek engineering of the 1941 Bernina.

Bond & Bond advertisement, The Bay of Plenty Times, 31 May 1948

Post-war boom times were reflected not only in goods and labour shortages.  Clearly people were keen to celebrate victory by way of a new consumerism that took hold in the middle of the twentieth century[8], and even at the mid-point of the war were encouraged to do so as their patriotic duty.

Bond & Bond advertisement, The Bay of Plenty Times, 14 September 1943

Five years later the providential planners of 1943, who deposited their instalments of a few shillings a week in a National Savings Account (carrying 3% interest and helping the war effort) were still waiting to fulfil their consumer dreams.

Out in the country, however, home sewing went on much as it always had.  The formation, in 1934, of the Te Puna Sewing Bee proved to be one of those social institutions that continued right across the war years.  Three months before Hitler invaded Poland, Mesdames Chapman, Smith, Sharplin, Lochhead, Lloyd, Ainsworth, I’Anson, King and others gathered at Tom Lochhead’s homestead, “Pine Hill” for the usual competitions and the inevitable “dainty” afternoon tea.  There was much mutual congratulation on achievements to date from the equally usual sales of work: £5 each to the Church of England and Presbyterians, £10 to the Te Puna Hall Committee, £4 10s to the Te Puna School Piano Fund, £1 to the Christmas Cheer fund of a leper colony, and “a large parcel of clothing to Sister Esther”[9].  Tom, who also audited the accounts, made a speech:

Mr. Thomas Lochhead then spoke, also congratulating the ladies on reaching their fifth year. He said that he was not sure which work the ladies were doing but he had heard that they had handed £10 to the Memorial Hall fund. This, he said, was a very good thing as the Hall has been waiting for improvements for the last, approximately, twenty years. He also said that he was very much in favour of these happy little meetings that the ladies have. At this time, with such disturbances in world affairs generally, the ladies should have other things to occupy their minds. He concluded by wishing the Sewing Bee many more happy and successful years in the future.

There is no evidence at all that the Te Puna Sewing Bee matched the war efforts of Mary Munro’s Patriotic League formed in WW1[10].  Many were the worked aprons, tea cosies, babies’ garments, ornamental clothes hangers and crochet-edged tray cloths that changed hands in successive sales of work, always with the funds being applied for charitable purposes – the Leper Colony was clearly a favourite – or for community-building fun, rather than warm socks for soldiers.  The economics of modern mechanised warfare, the same military industrial complex that produced the early Berninas,  had overtaken the home front.

The Sewing Bee seems to have faded away in the 1950’s, but there would have been more than a few youngsters at Te Puna School who remembered the annual picnic days held, not at their local, ordinary beach but in town at Otumoetai, courtesy of the Te Puna Sewing Bee[11].

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[1] https://sewalot.com/bernina_sewing_machines.htm

[2] https://www.archives.gov/research/holocaust/finding-aid/civilian/rg-84-switzerland.html

[3] The gendered element of this remark is acknowledged, and the purchaser might have been a male tailor.  The overwhelming evidence is that the mass market for sewing machines was female.

[4] Just under twice the weekly wage for a female clerical worker in 1948: £4/11/3d - https://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/newspapers/BOPT19481001.2.28

[5] https://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/newspapers/BOPT19480209.2.3.4

[6] https://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/newspapers/BOPT19481116.2.59.5

[7] https://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/newspapers/BOPT19480604.2.4.1

[8] See, for instance, The Challenge of Affluence: Self Control and Wellbeing in the United States and Britain since 1950 by Avner Offer, Oxford University Press, 2006

[9] https://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/newspapers/BOPT19390516.2.2

[10] https://taurangahistorical.blogspot.com/ , “The Te Puna Patriotic League Stands Up for Itself – Mary Munro and Florence Lochhead” by Beth Bowden, 14 June 2019.  Florence, as Mrs Chapman, succeeded Mrs J Wright, the inaugural President of the Sewing Bee.

[11] https://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/newspapers/BOPT19490210.2.56.2

 

Finding new appreciation

Working with the Tauranga Heritage Collection over the years, I’ve come to appreciate, if not love, some surprising objects. Top of my list is our Marshall Steam Traction Engine.  I’ll never forget having the opportunity to drive it - to feel the heat from the firebox and the rumble of the ground beneath the solid rubber tyres. It made a traction engine convert out of me.

Marshall Sons & Co Steam Traction Engine (1904) at the Tauranga A. & P. Show, Tauranga Racecourse, 2009
Tauranga Heritage Collection Ref. 1358/85

Recently I’ve been working with the Tauranga Embroiderers’ Guild to delve into our textile collection in preparation for Stitch-a-Plenty, the Association of New Zealand Embroiderers’ Guild’s National Conference to be held in Tauranga July 2022. It has been a wonderful experience seeing the collection though their eyes. And once again, it has given me new appreciation for objects I’ve not considered before. This time it’s tea cosies.

The Tauranga Heritage Collection has a wonderful variety of tea cosies demonstrating nearly every type of embroidery skill from whitework and cutwork to beading and pulled thread (example). However, my two favourites are a lovely Victorian beaded and Berlin work cosy and a cottage shaped silk thread-embroidered cosy, which likely dates from the 1930s. Both were donated by local families.

Victorian beaded and Berlin work tea cosy. Tauranga Heritage Collection, 2928/84

Cottage shaped silk thread embroidered tea cosy. Tauranga Heritage Collection, 1736/84

It came as surprise to me that the first documented use of a tea cosy in Britain was in 1867. I had imagined it would be much earlier. There is some suggestion that covers to keep tea warm would have been in use when tea was first introduced into England in the late 1600s. It was during the Victorian era that the tea cosy craze took hold and no respectable home or tea party host was without one. Anna Russell, Duchess of Bedford, is credited with popularising afternoon tea and, by association, the cosy. But if you think the cosy has been relegated to the past you might be surprised to know that these days, like many old traditions, it is finding a new audience. Hopefully our small collection can provide tea enthusiasts with some inspiration.

References

Richard Rutt, A history of hand knitting. (London: Batsford. 1987).
https://blog.dominiontea.com/2017/04/29/history-tea-cozy/

How the Society’s annual Garden Party began

As the Tauranga Historical Society prepares for their annual Garden Party, to be held on Sunday March 1st, let’s look back at the Society’s first garden party which took place on Saturday December 1st, 1979.

Garden party visitors at the Brain Watkins House, 1 December 1979
Image: Tauranga Historical Society Collection

Hailed as a ‘Victorianarama Garden Party and Picnic’ the invitation promised entertainment for ‘edification and pleasure’ and included the Otumoetai College Choir, a piano accordionist and an organist. Undine Clarke’s dancers were also part of the line-up. Undine, ‘who pioneered the art of dance in Tauranga’, taught ballet, Spanish, musical comedy, ballroom and traditional highland and on the day her students performed ‘period and national dances’, no doubt on the grass between the flower beds. Spinning and weaving demonstrations also kept the crowd, of approximately 150 people, entertained.

Otumoetai College Girls’ Choir with Bob Addison, who was a teacher at the College at that time
Image: Tauranga Historical Society Collection

Spinning and weaving demonstration under the pack porch of the Brain Watkins House
Image: Tauranga Historical Society Collection

Several prizes were awarded to those who came in Victorian dress. According to The Bay of Plenty Times “the best dressed Victorian lady was Mrs Fay Steel of Welcome Bay, wearing the wedding dress of Mrs Harry Graham’s grandmother. Mr B.C. Julian won the best dressed gentleman’s prize and the child’s prize was won by Becky Hyde. Miss Violet Macmillan wore the best Victorian bonnet.”

Mrs Fay Steel and Mr B.C. Julian, winners of the period attire competition
Image: Brain Watkins Collection

Although on the day a great deal of fun was had there was a serious side to the gathering. The goal being to introduce members of the Tauranga Historical Society to the Brain Watkins House. Earlier that year the house had been gifted to the Society by Mrs Elva Brain Watkins. Society President Mr Eagle was reported as saying, “we are still flexible in our plans. It is up to our members to suggest how they would like to see the house used.”

Mrs Flo Pearson and Mr Duff Maxwell of The Elms Mission House wearing Archdeacon Brown’s top hat with Mrs Pat Eveson, the well-known TV personality

More than 40 years later the Society continues to maintain the house for the enjoyment of Tauranga residents and of course hosts a fabulous Garden Party every year.

Talented dancers perform moves from the 1950’s at the Tauranga Historical Society’s Vintage Garden Party, Sunday 3 March 2019
Image: Lee Switzer, Private Collection