Recollections of Dennis George Marsh - Part 2

Second part of a series contributed by guest author Dennis Marsh
(continued from Part 1)

Dennis Marsh, 2 years old, c1941, Photograph by Rupert Connell
Image collection of Dennis Marsh

Some of my earliest recollections of our family was when we were living on an orchard on Moffat Road where Decor Greenworld is now located. Dad was away at the Second World War and stationed at Guadalcanal. Our neighbours across the road were Clarrie and Edith Kiddie and alongside the orchard towards the Kaimais were the Sheeley family.

Dennis Marsh at Bell’s Farm, Cambridge Road
Image collection of Dennis Marsh

Dad was manpowered out of the army to take up a sharemilking contract on Mrs. Kathrine McAlister Bell’s property on Cambridge Road right opposite the old family farm. We had a brand-new house to live in (it cost the Bells £600 to build) and Mum and Dad used to milk about 100 cows and send the cream in to the Tauranga Dairy Factory located on the corner of 12th Avenue and Devonport Road. Later they were founding members of the Town Milk Supply Association. The raw milk was sent for processing and redistribution to the consumers via the milkmen. During the later war years the Government subsidised farm labour with land girls and Mrs. Bell’s daughter Margaret worked for Dad. Our neighbours were Tom Ridder and family on the Judea side and Mrs Pruden on the Kaimai side. Mrs. Pruden had a daughter who lived with her but there seemed to be no Mr. Pruden.

George Marsh, Cambridge Road
Image collection of Dennis Marsh

Dad worked the farm with horses named Molly and Dell most of the time he was on the farm.  I remember when the first tractor arrived – a Farmall – and the fuss the neighbours made when they came to see it. At this time the old family farm had been taken over by Tom Fowler who had married Dad’s sister Mavis. Both the Fowlers and the Ridders had tractors but not as new as Dad’s.

Pop Marsh used to come out and help on the farm with things like haymaking and the young calves when he was needed and I remember one time when he was using the horse sweep when we were haymaking and he caught a wasp nest in the sweep. Boy, it wasn’t just the horses that were jumping around! Pop was a great stack maker. This was an art learnt over the years. How to stack loose hay and finish it off with a gable roof and how to make it rain proof by having all the hay lying in a line from top to bottom. We used to make covers out of old ‘super’(phosphate) sacks. We would split the sacks so that they were opened in to a single piece and we would hand sew with twine and sack needles all the many sacks until we had a cover big enough to cover the haystack. This went over the top of the haystack to hold the hay in place. Over the next months, until it was time to feed out, the cover would rot. By the time that had happened, the hay had settled in to place and the stacks seldom got wet. This is probably why the rats and mice were found when we opened the stacks in the winter.

Dad at Main Road Farm
Image collection of Dennis Marsh

I contracted Scarlet Fever and was hospitalised in isolation for a time. I don’t know how long, but it seemed a long time to a young child. Mum and Dad were not allowed to visit until the risk of spreading had passed. When they did visit, they used to buy me an ice cream from the dairy by the hospital. An old guy called Eddie Christmas used to bring ice creams but Mum and Dad frowned upon it– he may have been an unsavoury character but his ice creams were great!

Anything out past the hospital was considered to be in the country. Cambridge Road was metalled, not sealed. I remember going to visit Cyril Doidge and family who lived at Tauriko but on the other side of the Wairoa River. Driving up to the old mill wharf was like going for a major ride in the car. When we got there, Dad would whistle out to the Doidge family and one of them would row across the river in the boat and take us all over to visit. The Kaimai Rd was also just all metal.

(to be continued)