In the early 1950s, when Ian Morrison started school in Warkworth, there was little, if any, knowledge of learning disabilities such as dyslexia. Students who couldn’t learn “the normal way” were called “stupid”, a term that has haunted Ian for most of his life. But rather than succumb to the bullying of fellow students and the cruelty of teachers, Ian has shown that dyslexia can be a gift that leads to creativity, resourcefulness and out-of-the-box thinking, as editor Jannette Thompson discovered …
I’m the fourth generation Morrison to farm in Hepburn Creek Road. My great, great grandparents, John and Janet Morrison, arrived from Scotland in the 1840s and bought 27 acres in Auckland, part of which became Myers Park.
John was a plasterer and the purchase of a property in Warkworth gave him a source of kauri and papa-rock for his plastering work. His son Edward grew fruit and it’s on his land that we built our farm. He was, in many ways, a man before his time. He planted 180 acres with pip fruit, mainly apples and pears, and built a three-mile long railway along the Mahurangi River to shift the fruit from the farm to the packing sheds and the Warkworth Wharf. Most of his produce was exported and he became somewhat of an authority on orchards. But, unfortunately, he was blamed for introducing fire blight to Australia – an accusation he vowed and declared was without proof. I have a letter where he is pleading with the Agricultural Department to get another opinion. He was forced to burn thousands of trees, including all his nursery stock. It must have broken his heart. It took 90 years and a challenge by New Zealand in the World Court, in Geneva, before Australia’s ban on NZ apples was finally lifted in 2011. What’s interesting is that a several pear and quince trees from that era survived and are still bearing fruit, showing absolutely no sign of fire blight.
My grandfather Selwyn turned the property into a dairy farm during the Depression. He died while putting out a scrub fire where the Warkworth Golf Club is now. There’s a plaque in his memory in the clubhouse. My father Peter married Una Harvey, of Auckland, and I have more or less lived my whole life on the property where I was born. My earliest memory of the farm is of the house being re-piled when I was about four. When the workmen knocked off for a cup of tea, I had a crack at the jacks they were using to lift the house. I guess I was too young to get into too much trouble, but I remember my father wasn’t pleased. When I started school, we’d catch a lift into Warkworth on Harold Edwards’ cream truck. The factory was on the river in Kapanui Street. The river was terrible then compared to now – farmers used to wash their cowsheds straight into it; it was where everyone dumped their rubbish.
School was not a good experience for me. I was dyslexic although we didn’t know this at the time and struggled to read and write, and several teachers made it clear that I was stupid and useless, and no one would ever want to hire me. They were only allowed to strap a child six times in one day and I’d get six cuts every day, because I couldn’t spell, even though I was good with my numbers. I was bullied relentlessly and by one older boy in particular. It came to a head in the playground one day and I let loose and nearly killed the guy. I hate to remember it, even now. There was a flash before my eyes and once I started, I couldn’t stop. I was shocked to realise what I was capable of and I decided I never wanted to hate anyone like that again.
My first foray into business started with my Dad. The Hepburn Creek farm adjoined another farm we owned over the hill where the satellite stations are now. It was hard to move the stock between the two properties because of scrub growing over the track. I measured out how long it would take me to clear it and told Dad I’d do it for £80. This was at a time when a man’s average wage was £7 a week. Dad was a hard man but fair. He agreed, but told me I wouldn’t get paid until the whole job was done. I was 14 and still at school, but by working weekends and holidays, I got it done in a year. I bought a rotary hoe with the proceeds, rented two acres off my father and started gardening instead of sitting my School Certificate. I had 3000 ti tree poles from the scrub cutting and used them to make wigwams for the beans, and I also grew cucumbers and beetroot. My first year was fantastic and I bought a little Bedford van to make deliveries. By 17, I was also shearing full time for Bill Tomlinson. I ended up taking over the run with 75,000 sheep, working with Graham McDonald and Les Greenwood. About this time I met the love of my life, Jyl. I turned up at the Martins Bay caravan park with some mates who’d made the acquaintance of some Auckland girls at the dance in Matakana the previous night. Jyl hadn’t gone to the dance so wasn’t expecting this visit. She popped her head out of the caravan with her hair in porcupine curlers and a plastic bag over them! All I could think to say was, “Do you want a Topsy?” and, as they say, the rest is history. We were married when she was 19 and I was 20, we have two beautiful daughters and we’ll celebrate our golden wedding anniversary in October.
After we married I worked on the farm, but Dad, who’d chain smoked all his adult life, wasn’t well and was losing interest. He didn’t want to spend any money on the property and it was getting run down. I wanted to travel, but those words “you’re useless and no one will ever employ you” were etched into my brain, so we ended up leasing and then buying the farm in 1971. I borrowed money, bought a chainsaw and then a bulldozer, put in drainage and a reticulation system. We worked our guts out and then, in 1973, the beef prices crashed and we were in the poo big time. We were so broke I considered buying a motorbike so I could take a job at the Westfield freezing works. I thought we were going to lose the farm and we would have, but for Jyl’s interest in art.
She had started painting on kauri bark scales so I got her some swamp kauri that had been stacked up on the farm for years, sliced it with the chainsaw and polished it. It came up beautifully. Friends saw the work and said, “You could sell that.” It was like a light bulb moment. We looked at each other and you could see we were both thinking, “Wow”. We set to work that day and worked solidly until we had a suitcase full of coasters, mug holders and other small pieces made of swamp kauri and puriri. We set off for some gift shops in Auckland to see if anyone was interested, calling in to an Orewa shop on the way. When the guy saw our stuff, he bought the whole lot on the spot for $350, which was double what we’d been hoping for. I guess you could say we were in the craft business from that day onwards. We were amazed at the response everywhere we went. We went to exhibitions throughout the North Island where we would always sell out, and we started getting orders from all over NZ. We made tables, bowls and sculptures, and buttons were also very popular. We had our own swamp kauri, but farmers were burning it to get rid of it, so I collected it by the truckload. We got a lot from the Whistler brothers at Point Wells. Eventually we opened the Red Bluff Gallery in our woolshed, which we ran for 16 years. It was an exciting time, but we both developed carpel tunnel in our hands and by 1996 we realised it was time for a change.
A few things had also changed in our personal lives by this time. Our marriage had been through a rough patch, with too much partying and drinking. We came close to going our separate ways, but independently we became Christians and life took us in a different direction. In the early eighties we started smuggling bibles into Romania. We’ve been there 10 times, working in the orphanages under World Vision. In 1996, we invested in a motel in Rotorua, which would help finance the work we were doing. Unfortunately, the leasee ran it down and it became insolvent so, in 2009, Jyl and I took it over. In three years, we completely redecorated and despite knowing nothing specifically about the hospitality business, we eventually got the place to number one on Trip Advisor and last year we received national recognition when we were named Accommodation Host of the Year.
In 1984, we set-up the Berakah Retreat on the old family farm, providing mainly short-term accommodation for not only people who need it but also visiting missionary, pastors on study leave and so on. The retreat is built on 115 acres, which we gifted to the trust. We recently built ourselves a new house on a piece of the farm that runs along the river and the old homestead is now a guest lodge. I’m turning 70 this year – even though I still feel 21 at heart – and thanks to my efforts to read the Bible, I can read reasonably well now. But I don’t regret the fact that I was born dyslexic. In fact, it’s a gift that gives a person a wonderful advantage. People talk about ‘thinking out of the box’, but for a dyslexic, there is no box. They have boundless horizons and I would encourage anyone with dyslexia to embrace it.
