My Account
For five generations, the Dawson family has lived in Snells Beach and their name has become synonymous with the history of the area. Brian Dawson, aged 63, is the great grandson of the original settler John Dawson, a young Swedish cabin boy who jumped ship for his first taste of life in NZ around the mid-1800s. Brian, his wife Carolyn and son Alan live on a 16ha property on Dawson Road, almost opposite the site of the proposed Dawson Creek marina. Here he talks about life on the Mahurangi East Peninsula in the early days.
After looking around NZ, John and his brother travelled to Australia where he met his wife-to-be and returned with his future mother-in-law “Granny Williams” to take up about 100 acres on the edge of the Mahurangi River. This eventually became John Goodall’s farm. Granny Williams lived to be 102 and is buried in the Te Kapa Cemetery (Mullet Point). He and Helen had a son Stewart who married Annie Barker and they had 11 children. My father Fred was one of the seven boys in that family. My uncles Len, Percy and Tom all farmed in this area, and Stewart (jun) farmed at Hoteo but he died in the war. We owned a lot of land at one stage but slowly over the years, the properties have been sold and sub-divided.
Dad was born with a clubfoot and spent a lot of time in Rotorua and with his legs in iron. As a result, he was given the horse to ride to school at Mullet Point while his brothers had to walk. As the story goes, one day they hid in the scrub and spooked his horse. Dad came off, badly hurting his shoulder. When his brothers got him home, Grandma put him in the long boat and rowed him up the river to Dr Shoesmith in Warkworth who said ‘he’ll come right” and sent him home. He didn’t come right though so Grandma rowed him out to meet the steamer because she knew there would be a nurse on board. He ended up in hospital with a broken collarbone and the steel they put in him went to his grave with him. Grandma must have had a lot to cope with. As well as looking after a big family, she used to rear wild ducks and chooks and export them to Auckland on the steamers.
Money was sort of short when we were growing up but we had a good lifestyle. We didn’t have electricity until about 1955 and Dawson Road was just a clay mud track. When I started school, we had to walk to the store (where the doctors surgery is now) and Gubbs had an old Dodge 30-seater which did the school run. I rode on old Number 7 all my school life. Summer was a wonderful time because Dad had built a bach by the waters edge at Snells. If it were still there today it would be at the end of Gerontius Lane. It was supposed to be a boatshed but it turned into a bach, and every year just before Christmas we’d throw everything onto the back of the truck and move in – the cutlery drawer was taken ‘as is’, the washing machine, fridge and bedding. We lived there until Easter, spending our summer swimming, boating and fishing. I always associate summer with Mum and Dad bottling peaches. Dad would go to the orchard and come back with enough to almost have one bottle for every day of the year. I’ve still got the old pan they used to cook the peaches in.
Snells Beach was mostly farmland then, with a few tents and baches along Dalton Road. On a clear morning we would wake to hear the milking machines – Geoff Lawrie, Albie Luscombe and Lucy Phillips. We had a cart – just an apple box on wheels really – which we would take out on the flat in front of Snells Beach and fill with cockles. They were thick under your feet – it didn’t take any time to get a box full. After the summer was over, we virtually had the place to ourselves.
If we were isolated, it certainly didn’t worry us. There were plenty of cousins to play with when we were young and as teenagers, Mum used to drive us in the old Commer truck to dances in Warkworth, Matakana, Pt Wells and Leigh. On alternate Sundays we’d attend church in Ridge Road. It was a lovely building which could seat about 90 people and the overflow of the congregation would sit outside on the gravestones to hear the service over a loud speaker system. It caused quite a stir when a storm bowled the church over and the decision was made to demolish it. We’ve attended the Presbyterian services in Warkworth ever since.
I stayed at school until the Fourth Form, then worked for Keith Hay Homes and at the Matakana Sawmill for a short time. Eventually I got a job driving a 1920s roller when they were upgrading the Sandspit crossroads. This lead to 38 years on road construction with Rodney County Council, and later the District Council, working mainly from Waiwera to Topuni.
We’ve always been a boating family – Dad and his brothers were members of the Kawau Island Yacht Club, my great uncle rang the school boat and my uncle ran the cream boat to Warkworth. I bought Bob Wech’s old long boat made of kauri rickers about 30 years ago and we used to like to row up towards Warkworth at the slack of the tide and pick out all the old landings. Most of them have all but disappeared now. Chessum’s, opposite Robertsons Boatyard, used to have a sandstone landing with a little shed on site. On Hamilton’s landing there was a turnaround for a horse and dray, built on a ti tree fezzine. Morrisons had one to service their apple orchard at Duck Creek and another on the other side of the river called Red Bluff where there was a rail line running from their packing sheds, in Hepburn Creek Road, to the landing. You could see how the river was once just like a main road.
People grizzle about run-off into the Mahurangi but Dad used to reckon that the problem started when the boats stopped going up to the Cement Works. When they were using the river, they’d stir up the silt and it’d disburse. There’s no doubt that the channel is narrower than it used to be. Dawson Creek falls from about 12 foot at fulltide to about 18 inches at low, but if the marina goes ahead and they dig out that 50-60 acres of reclaimed land, it’ll change the tidal flow. I’d imagine it could mean there’ll be less silt in the river. I think the marina is a good idea even though it’ll mean the roads are busier.
Dad did a bit of commercial fishing for awhile and sometimes we’d give him a hand. It’s hard to believe that we could catch all we needed just using hand lines. Nine to 10lb snappers were the norm. If Dad went floundering in the river, he’d be disappointed if he didn’t come home with a sugar bag full.
I guess I was a bit of a hoon in my day. The natives around Snells Beach when I was a teenager didn’t appreciate us, I know that much. I got my first car at 14 – an unregistered, unwarranted 1927 Essex Super 6. We used to have terrific fun whipping around the paddocks in Snells Beach and Martins Bay. A couple of times in the tide finished her off though. I like to see young people enjoying themselves but I think it’s sad that drugs have come onto the scene. We used to like a beer or two, but it didn’t seem to cause the problems that drugs do.
