Local Folk – Barry Torkington

It’s hard to imagine a better childhood for a fisherman than growing up on the shores of Whangateau Harbour in the 1950s. While the area was relatively quiet, with not a house to be seen at Omaha, the bay was teeming with fish and the pipi banks were so dense, “you could hardly get your fingers between them”. Ti Point resident Barry Torkington has been involved in many different facets of the fishing industry over his lifetime, as he explained to editor Jannette Thompson …

Whangateau is an example of how an area can become degraded but still seem ‘pristine’ to some. Each generation assumes that their earliest memory is of an undisturbed environment. When I was a kid, big kingfish were a common sight in the harbour in summer, as well as schools of kahawai, snapper, trevally and parore. Great schools of yellow-eyed mullet were seasonal and flounder were plentiful, and you never had to go far for a feed. A huge population of sprats spawned in the creeks and there was a lot of birdlife. The water was crystal clear and under the water was a marine wonderland. But if I’d asked my father or grandfather, I’m sure their memories would have been different again.

The first Torkington to land in NZ was my great grandfather William who arrived in 1886. He’d been a successful Manchester builder, but living conditions in England were terrible. When his wife died in childbirth, he decided ‘enough was enough’. He put his three sons in the care of family members and jumped on a ship bound for Auckland. When he arrived, he headed straight to the Government Land Office where he heard there were blocks available at Mangawhai and Ti Point. After walking north and inspecting both locations, he decided to take three on Ti Point – the ink was hardly dry on the survey plans. He returned to England, picked up his boys – Arthur, Harold and Joe, who were aged 10 to 15 years – and never stepped foot on England again. In Auckland, they bought a tent and some basic supplies, and set off for Ti Point. William had no experience of being a pioneer and it was probably lucky they didn’t all starve. However, he soon found work as a builder and one of his earliest projects was the Meiklejohn home, on the corner of Leigh and Omaha Valley Roads. He and a chap named Batty also built the royal palace in Tonga, transporting the kauri from NZ.

Meanwhile, the boys were largely left to their own resources. Before long, Arthur headed for South Africa, but both Harold and Joe were happy to stay at Ti Point. Harold was a bit of a character and had an unfortunate love of gunpowder, which nearly destroyed his house. My grandfather Joe bought land in Laika Avenue. Money was hard to come by so the boys had to be innovative. They would row to Point Wells to dig for kauri gum, sell firewood and make and sell charcoal. Joe married Minnie Clarke and they had seven kids. The youngest, Ted, was my father. He married Clarice Guthrie, of Raetihi, whom he met during the war. They raised five kids on a 28-acre dairy farm on the top of the hill at Ti Point.

Crayfish were in abundance in the waters around Kawau and Omaha in the 1950s so Dad started fishing them after the war. He made ti tree pots and set them along the shoreline. He’d pack the crays in wet sacks and put them on the weekly Lister service to Auckland. In the best pot he ever had, there were eight crays, which together weighed 64lbs. His brother Ernie got involved and when Leigh Fisheries opened, sending smoked fish to shops in Auckland, they started long-lining. Their last boat, called Foam, was a 36-foot kauri launch, which they built by hand just above the wharf and she’s still in the water at Ti Point. Meanwhile, Mum and us kids milked the cows and kept the farm running. The radio was always on when we were milking and that’s where I first heard bluegrass music.
I attended Leigh School and Mahurangi College, but the institutional nature of school was never a good fit for me. In the late 1960s, I packed my bag and headed for Australia. Jobs were plentiful and I tried my hand at everything from delivering groceries to working in a steel works. It was a fantastic learning experience, plus I met my wife Dee (Denise). When we returned to NZ, I decided to go fishing so we headed to the Queensland coalmines to earn the capital to buy a boat. Being a commercial fisherman in those days was very simple – I bought a $5 permit and then just had to submit a monthly catch report. That was it!
My Dad was always concerned about the industrialisation of fishing and introduced me to the idea of managing fish stocks when I was relatively young. When you have to pull fish up one hook at a time, it imposes a natural, physical limit. But as the trawlers and seiners got bigger and better, a lot of small fish were being discarded and he worried about the sustainability of the industry. I think it was a concern shared by a lot of small coastal fishermen at the time – they could see the fishing power coming in. My involvement with the politics of fishing started at the Leigh Hotel in 1979. Out of curiosity, a couple of mates and I went along to the Leigh Fishermen’s Association annual meeting. By the end of the night I was the president and, once that door opened, I found I was far more interested in fisheries and fish management than I was in being a fisherman. I continued as president for a couple of decades. In the beginning, our agenda was pretty local – making sure the wharf was properly maintained and that sort of thing. But gradually, the role took me into regional and national forums, and eventually international.
In 1981, a few local long-liners heard on the grapevine that the Japanese fishermen working out of Tauranga were getting 10 times the price for their fish than we were. We clubbed together and bought me a plane ticket to Japan to find out what was going on. I went to the Tokyo and Osaka fish markets where I learned how the Japanese wanted their fish in a particular condition that involved freshness, colour and attention to the way the fish was treated when it was caught. We started experimenting, collaborated with an Auckland packing company and set-up a buyer in Tokyo. It caused a revolution – suddenly, fishermen owned the fish until it was sold and we no longer had to rely on intermediary traders. We saw a four-fold increase in our returns within a year and it lead to a 10-year boom in long-lining economics. Any fish that weren’t good enough for the Japanese market went to Taiwan or Australia. It was a fantastic time that drove innovation in catching and marketing fish. I came ashore and never went back.
About this time, a live fish in Tokyo was worth about $200 a kilo, so I started to look into the feasibility of doing it.

The first live fish from NZ were caught in Omaha Bay and within 40 hours, they were in the Tokyo market. We started with 30 or 40 fish in a batch, but as we perfected the techniques, the trade built to 300 to 400 at a time. It wasn’t all plain sailing though. There were plenty of disasters to learn from, and the students at the Leigh Marine Lab often had fish on the menu as a result. Somehow, through all this, I became known as a “fish expert” in Japan. I helped out with an abalone problem they were having and then I was an “abalone expert”. This led to jobs in Alaska and California, and from there I got involved in the shrimp industry in Hawaii and aquaculture in Greece. One thing just seemed to roll into another. I’m now involved with Aqui-S, a company that specialises in an aquatic sedative.

After crisscrossing the world so many times that United Airlines gave me a gold card, I’ve no desire to travel anymore. Dee and I spent five years living in the United States, reputedly to help rescue a company owned by a friend, but it was really just an excuse. Our son Nat was living in Houston, and later Colorado, and had just produced our first grandchild. But I started to pine for Ti Point, so eventually we all decided to move back. Nat and his family now live next door, and our shared love of bluegrass and folk music led to the formation of the band The Pipi Pickers a few years ago. We regularly play at local events, as well as festivals in NZ and Australia. Our daughter Bree and her family live a few 100 metres down the road, so there is definitely a feeling that we Torkingtons belong at Ti Point, on the shores of Whangateau Harbour.