My Account
When TVNZ went looking for someone to feature on their lifestyle show Kiwi Living, a relative of 94-year-old Ida Dunning, of Warkworth, thought her Great Aunt would be the perfect candidate. Six weeks later, with a schedule interrupted when Ida fell and broke her hip, the filming and photography was finished, and the results went to air late last month. But there is a lot more than a bedroom makeover to uncover about Ida, as Jannette Thompson discovered ….
I grew up on a 386-acre sheep and beef farm at Kaipara Flats that my grandfather took up when he arrived from Scotland in 1859. My father, John Wyatt Thomson, gifted four-and-a-half acres of the farm to the Crown in 1967, which is today known as the Thomson Scenic Reserve. At the time, it contained 25 mature kauri and some were six foot in diameter. My grandfather loved the grove and Dad said he couldn’t bear to think of them ever being cut down. The kauri furniture in my bedroom is a reminder of my family’s connection with those magnificent trees. We loved playing in the bush as children, and one day we found a tui’s nest. We blew all the eggs and then strung them up like a necklace. It’s awful to think of it now! We’d go eel fishing and anything that we caught would be boiled up and fed to the hens.
When Dad bought an old Model T Ford, we would come to Warkworth from time-to-time. The roads were very rough so it was always an occasion for celebration when we finally hit the piece of concrete that had been laid near the showgrounds. One of the biggest events on the calendar was the annual swimming carnival, which was held below the old bridge. There would be relay races with teams from Kaipara Flats, Matakana and Warkworth, and I did my 50 yards certificate there. The first school in Kaipara Flats was Pai Kauri, which became Kaipara Flat School when it moved to its current site, closer to the train station. I used to sit next to Gordon Mason who, of course, went on to become Sir Gordon. He could be quite a tease, threatening to poke me with pens and when I made a fuss, the teacher would ask what was wrong with me. Once a year, our family would holiday to Sandspit where we would stay in the motor camp for the summer. It was very much the era of children being ‘seen but not heard’, and I remember when my little sister Jessie was born, matron didn’t allow families to visit at the Warkworth Cottage Hospital. Dad held me up to the window outside my mother’s room so I could peer in to see my baby sister.
Tudor Collins, who was a great character of Warkworth, was also a friend of my father’s. He had the radio business in town and one day he came out to our house, put on his spiked boots and climbed up a tall kauri tree to install a radio aerial. He did this around the district, giving out radios so that people could ‘try them out’. No doubt, most people bought them when the trial came to an end. Mother cooked on a coal range and the house was lit with kerosene lamps until electricity arrived in 1936. Occasionally we would catch the rail car to Auckland, which went via Helensville. My eldest brother Don served in the fleet air arm during World War II but was killed during a training exercise, off the coast of Maine, when he was just 24 years old. My younger brother Gordon took on the farm, but had to sell after he suffered a stroke. I go back and visit occasionally. Our house has gone, but it is still a lovely property.
After primary school, I attended Warkworth District High School for a year and then I was enrolled at Auckland Girls Grammar and boarded with my aunt. I didn’t care for it much, mainly because my cousin didn’t make me feel very welcome. Many years later she sought me out and apologised for her behaviour, but said she had been jealous of me at the time. My parents valued education and I enjoyed school, and decided to become a school dental nurse. I think I liked the idea of wearing the uniform, which in those days included a white veil, pressed tunic and white stockings. I did two years training in Wellington and then my first posting was to Richmond Road School in Auckland. Later, I was based at Mangonui, Kaitaia and Waiuku, and often it was a sole-charge clinic. The children used to refer to the dental clinic as the ‘murder house’ and I am sure many children from that era have some quite horrible memories of the dental clinics, but I always tried to make it as painless as possible. We used foot-operated drills and there was a primus so the instruments could be sterilised in boiling water. If children were good, we would let them play with the “silver fairy” – a little ball of mercury, which they would push around in their hands. I had a lot of contact with mercury over those years, but fortunately, haven’t suffered any health consequences. Funnily enough, I still notice people’s teeth today.
When I was in Kaitaia, I was also responsible for the sub-base at Te Hapua. It was the most northerly school clinic in New Zealand, and to get there I would have to ride on the cream lorry to Te Kaeo and then catch a launch, lugging all my equipment along with me. It was a very strict rule that we were only ever allowed to treat children, but one time when I was at Te Hapua, a Maori chap came to the clinic with his lower face swaddled in an emerald scarf. He had an abscess on his tooth that had become infected, and was obviously in a lot of pain. I reluctantly agreed to extract the tooth and was very grateful that it came out in one piece.
I met my late husband Ronald at a dance in Matakana. The Dunnings were all good at sport and Ronald played cricket for Northland and hockey for NZ, touring to Australia. We have a scrapbook full of the family’s various sporting achievements. We didn’t see much of each other initially, because I was working in Waiuku and he was on his farm, in Leigh Road. We were married in the Kaipara Flats Presbyterian Church and the reception was held in the hall. My 90th birthday was held in the same hall four years ago. Initially we lived in the lovely old kauri villa on the farm, but as the children started coming along, we decided we needed more land and bought a farm on Golden Stairs Road in Maungaturoto. We had four children – a boy and three daughters.
When I’m reminded of my age, I sometimes find it hard to believe that I am 94 – it seems to have gone by very quickly. I’m thankful for the life I’ve had and I still believe we have the most wonderful country in the world. I feel I’ve lived a blessed life with good health. Over the years I’ve been involved with a number of groups and still belong to the Red Cross and the Women’s section of Warkworth RSA. I still have my driver’s licence, which has to be renewed every two years. Good health is the most precious possession any of us can have and I think it is also important to care for one another, help where you can and enjoy the company of your fellowman.
