My Account
Lynley Civil is a talented artist and her watercolours of local scenes are sought after by friends, family and exhibition visitors. Her artistic streak was apparent from a young age and it prompted her mother to arrange a patternmaker’s apprenticeship for her when she was 15. Mother of two, foundation member of Warkworth Inner Wheel and former PA to the general manager of the Town Milk Producers Federation of NZ in Wellington, Lynley reminisces about post-war fashions and Warkworth in the 1950s…
I was born in 1934 at the end of the last depression, on a bathtub. Down the road from Mother in Westmere there was a little private maternity home and the midwife had a board over the bath. I suppose she washed the mums first and then they had their babies on the board. The midwife’s name was Lynley and that’s where Mother got my name from; she said she was just lovely. If she hadn’t had her for a midwife I would have been Briar. I was brought up in Westmere, went to Pasadena Intermediate then on to Auckland Girls’ Grammar. I loved being at school and was always well behaved. My aunts told my mother “there’s something wrong with that child – no child is as good as that”.
I left school at the time of the Empire Games in Auckland because Mother had arranged for me to do an apprenticeship in patternmaking with Milne and Choice in Queen Street. I could have trained as a chef because I was a very good cook, but I thought it wouldn’t be good for my figure – not that it’s made much difference in the end! Milne and Choyce was the most wonderful store, the leading store in New Zealand and I don’t say that just because I worked there. We’re talking about when the war was just over and Milnes came up with so many innovative ideas. We didn’t have teenage clothes in those days – you wore children’s clothes until you were mature and then you went into adult’s clothes. I remember at a work function there was a discussion about teenagers being the new market to hit in the clothing industry.
In those days everybody had a ball. Most cultural, business, arts and sports groups put on an annual, charged five pounds, provided a sumptuous supper, and great music. You weren’t allowed grog – well, you weren’t allowed any more than you could get under your skirts. There were debutante balls and the young debs and their mums would need a new dress. When I first started there were dinner dresses, then we went to cocktail dresses because cocktail parties were in vogue. When you went to the races you would need a new hat and a new suit and you wore a spray of flowers. Everyone went and they put extra trams on. This was the time of the New Look, masses of cloth over stiff petticoats, such a contrast to the war when fabric was scarce. There was a vogue at that time for square dancing and that called for big skirts as well. The fabrics are easier today. We used to have to iron and starch everything, but the other day I did a whole wash and out of it came one shirt to iron. Everyday fashions were more fitted and tailored because we didn’t have these stretch fabrics, so things would be lined. When you put on your coat the silk lining would let it float over you; I recently bought an unlined coat and when I put it on it felt like Velcro. Garments had to last a long time, and they did.
I spent five months in the finishing department, hand sewing, sewing on sequins and finishing hems, but I also had to do my turn at the huge button-holing machine and that was nearly the end of my career because I was terrified of it. You would put the fabric under the foot, press a pedal and it would whirr and then clonk, and that was the guillotine coming down to cut the hole – it was very nerve-wracking and you might have to do 14 buttonholes down the front of a dress. We made exclusive garments and the ones that had universal appeal were made into stock garments, and I was eventually promoted to stock-cutter. I laid out layers and layers of cloth and cut it with something like a circular saw, but I wasn’t afraid of that. I did that for perhaps a year and then moved on to patterns and samples. No sooner had I started on patterns then I was taken off to help the lady who did their blouses. To put it politely, she was very eccentric and almost impossible to work with. She made fabulous washable crepe blouses and they sold as soon as they were delivered to the store. They had big insets of fine lace, guipure lace, and her pin-tucking, insertions and the proportions of the blouses were absolutely exquisite. If you didn’t have one of these blouses, you didn’t have much in your wardrobe. I learned about designing clothes from her and also how to get along with people who were very different.
In the end they took pity on me and I was able to make patterns for Milnes. We had girls come out from England to take part in fashion parades at Milne and Choice. Barbara Goland was the one I remember and she could make a sack look fashionable. The fashion parades were wonderful and always ended up with a beautiful wedding dress. When it came to getting married I bought my white brocade fabric from the stockroom; I paid 17 shillings and sixpence a yard. We had beautiful, exquisite fabrics, tweeds, taffeta, all imported from England.
My mother was brought up in Warkworth; her name was Myrtle Williams and two of her sisters were Amy Blair and Eileen Grimmer. I spent some holidays up here with Aunty Eileen or Aunty Amy. Rex and I have been married 54 and-a-half years and I met him through a cousin at the school centenary dance. I wore a beautiful straw cloth dress, with bows on the shoulders, cut low in the front and back. The bows were to hold the bra straps in place. Rex invited me to the Warkworth centenary ball in the town hall, our photo was in the Times. My dress was a pink striped empire line with a black velvet ribbon threaded under the bust and through a collar at the centre back to form a ‘floating panel’.
We bought a farm up the road from Rex’s parents. Rex was involved with the A&P Show when it was a two-day affair. It seemed show day was always wet, so they hit on the idea of running a rodeo to support the show. We had been visited by Lance Skewthorp from Australia, who was great rodeo rider and used to put on big riding exhibitions. Stan Grimmer was friendly with him and went to Australia and brought the information back. Stan organised the cattle and horses, Jim Ferguson, Bob Blair, Darkie Bennett, Jimmy Ellis, Rex and the Early boys were some of the others involved. Years later Rex and I went on a bus trip to Mt Gambia in Australia and the bus driver called out “Has anyone heard of Lance Skewthorp?” I called out “Yes”, and he drove for a bit in silence then asked “Did someone say yes?” I said I had and he drove for a bit longer then said, “I’ve been driving this bus for 16 years and I’ve asked that question every week and no-one has ever said yes until now… and what’s more it’s a Sheila from New Zealand!”
I remember Mr Gilltrap coming for the show with Genevieve (a 1904 Darracq), it must have been late 1950s, and he parked her outside our place. She was a film star, in the hilarious comedy ‘Genevieve’ about a race from London to Brighton. It was quite wonderful to see this car and I’ve been interested in old cars ever since.
Rex had a vertebra disintegrate which put the kibosh on farming so he joined the Dairy Board in Auckland and was promoted to Wellington. We lived there for 23 years and absolutely loved it. Rex was with the Dairy Board and I was with the Town Milk Producers so we were a very milky lot. We kept the farm; our farm manager Lawrence Nunn has been here nearly 39 years. We moved back to Warkworth in 1984. I had been doing oil painting in Wellington and a friend said there was a very good artist in Warkworth, Brian Millard, teaching watercolour. I had become very staid with oil painting and thought I’d never manage watercolours but I got hooked on it and could never give it up now. That was 15 years ago; think of the paint I’ve wasted in those years. I designed a wine label for our son Matthew’s fiancee, who grows grapes in Central Otago. I’m working on another one with just the bare vines. I sell some paintings but do a lot for friends and family. We went to see a friend in Rotorua who has an old shed on his farm and he told me his sister said the shed needs painting. I said “No, leave it, all those lovely colours” and when I came home I painted it and sent one copy to him and said, “There, you can tell your sister that the shed’s been painted”.
