Sign In / Register
Tony Moore was enticed away from a high-paying technical job at TVNZ by an historic house at Te Hana that he never meant to buy, only to discover he’d inadvertently returned to his ancestral roots as an Albertlander – living in an Albertlander’s house and looking out on what was originally his great grandfather’s 40-acre allotment. A motorsport enthusiast turned bus driver, a keen photographer and self-confessed “research nut” who prefers to go barefoot, he lives by the motto “take the chance”, a philosophy that has led him to explore a wide variety of opportunities, as Adele Thackray discovered.
I was brought up in rural Bay of Plenty and at 17, applied for a technician’s job at a Rotorua radio station. However, having agreed to work anywhere, I was sent to work for television in Auckland instead. I started on January 9, 1961, six months after New Zealand television began. We were broadcasting a single black and white channel from about 7pm to 9pm and if you weren’t within range of the transmitting aerial on the roof of the Shortland Street studio, you couldn’t get reception. In those days technicians did a bit of everything. One day I’d be sound operator, the next a cameraman, projectionist or a videotape operator. I liked being a cameraman best but ended up being a lighting director, ultimately working in technical production for 25 years. One of my last jobs as cameraman was recording the opening of the Auckland Airport in 1966.
Live rugby broadcasts weren’t allowed at the time, but we used to record important matches with just two cameras and show them the next day. In September 1965 I was the on-air camera at one Eden Park test between the All Blacks and Springboks, when a quick All Black throw-in led to a try. Many of the crowd missed it and when they tried to watch it on television the next day they found out that I had too. As a lighting director, I worked on numerous shows, including Happen In and C’mon, as well as on location at the likes of Hudson and Halls’ Ti Point home.
I met my wife Colleen at TVNZ and we had two sons. We were making good money and decided to invest in land by the beach that we could eventually retire to, but in Easter 1985 nothing was available. However, a picture of a Te Hana house caught our eye and although we had no intention of buying an old house, we decided to drive up and take a look. We soon bought it, both resigning from TVNZ to make the move. We hadn’t been here for long when I agreed to host local genealogists for their annual meeting and to view our historic home. Albertlander Edward Browne built it in 1867 on 80 acres, after he and his wife came out from England as 21-year-olds in 1863. His skills as a wheel-maker wouldn’t have been much use in what used to be known as the roadless north, before “the winterless north” became the preferred slogan. However, he was kept busy building his 260 square metre kauri house, marked as “carpenter gothic” style by its high-peaked roofs and fascia board decorations, as well as other houses in the district. Edward and Eliza filled its eight bedrooms with 12 children. Every downstairs room has a fireplace and in 1880 a bay window was added to keep up with trendy Auckland villas of the time. While previous owners did some major restoration work, Colleen and I decorated throughout and created a garden from scratch, including a perennial border and the croquet lawn that I thought Edward and Eliza would appreciate.
I knew about the Moore family arriving in Wellington because my dad had a book about it, and I’d also read a book about Albertlanders that included our house. However, I didn’t realise that the book also included my great grandfather, William James Raven, an apprentice watchmaker who’d come out here on the William Miles in 1862. Research revealed he’d probably done a runner from England after getting a girl pregnant. Conditions of his apprenticeship indenture included that he would “not contract matrimony during the said term, not play cards or dice tables or other unlawful games, and not commit fornication”, the latter clause subsequently crossed out – probably by him. After the baby was born, the girl followed him out and married him, but sadly, their baby died. Ultimately, he would have two wives and 13 children. My grandmother was from the second family and my father was one of her six children.
Although a lot of people think the Albertland ships came up here, in fact they arrived in Auckland, where William turned up on the brink of the Waikato War and signed up for a volunteer regiment before joining the Forest Rangers commando unit. Like all Albertlanders, he got his 40 acres of land and we can almost see what was once his block from our front door. I thank William for helping me to integrate into the district. You can easily be a newcomer several years after you get here, but saying your great grandad was here in 1862 gives you instant ‘cred’. I’ve been a really keen genealogist ever since. As a result of my family research I discovered that I’m one-sixteenth Maori and organised a family reunion with the Marlborough-based tribe Rangitane O Wairau to acknowledge our links, which were news to 95 percent of the people there.
I’ve also gained new research skills as a volunteer archivist at the Albertland Museum, where I helped to get the new Harold Marsh Gallery up and running.
A keen photographer myself, I joined the local photographic club where I took the declaration by local chemist Maurice Gorbey that the district didn’t offer good landscape shots, as a personal challenge and found quite a few. Nowadays I enjoy the added possibilities for improving and restoring my photos with Photoshop. I’m also a motorsport enthusiast and used to compete in car trialling, the only off-the-track motorsport for cars before rallying. You followed a list of instructions and had to be at checkpoints at exactly the right time. One event started at midnight at the Chateau Tongariro and ended up in Auckland about midday the next day. At that time, my red Triumph 2000 was my pride and joy. Trialling later included rally-style legs on closed roads. I got quite a buzz out of those flat-out stages, but gave up when I turned 30 and bought my first-ever new car, a Citroen GS, back in the days when there was a 40 percent tax on imported European cars.
Driving accidentally became my job after a joking comment from a relative. He was a teacher in charge of buses at Rodney College and said that if we moved to Te Hana, I could fill in as a driver for a few weeks. I began driving school buses and found I loved it. Early in the morning the road from here to Mangawhai is empty and you can see Coromandel in one direction and almost to the west coast in the other. Meanwhile, Colleen has continued as a spinner and weaver and has a shop upstairs. We have also run a B&B, hosting some interesting visitors including Naomi James, the first woman to sail single-handedly round the globe. However, we’re now ready to revert to the original retirement plan, trading in Te Hana for a beachfront bach at Raglan. Our house here is on the market and we’re ready to go when it does.
