My Account
When we visited Port Albert in the early 1950s, once in a while Dad would take us home via Wellsford Valley Road and show us the house he was born in. After we passed it, he would say: “This is the road I walked to school”, and as we rounded each dusty metal corner (it’s still the same today) he would say, “I was still walking”, until eventually he arrived at the main road and pointed out the little building which was all the Wellsford School was originally.
It was quite some time before I realised that when he attended school, it was at the site of Old Wellsford at Whakapirau, so he didn’t have quite so far to walk. In any case he often mentioned the stray horse he would find on the road – he rode it to school and then it would wait for him and he would ride it home. He never knew to whom it belonged, but it evidently enjoyed its outings.
Handling horses was something all small boys learned. It was this skill that led to him being given the punishment one day of saddling the schoolteacher’s horse. He wasn’t impressed with this task, so after carefully fitting the saddlecloth and before adding the saddle, he put a piece of gorse between the two. He said he stayed around just long enough to see the horse and rider part company, then made tracks for home.
My late father-in-law also had a tale about horses. They had a very prim and proper schoolmistress and, being boys, decided to do something about it. During the lunch break they carefully fed her horse beans they had brought from home. After school, when the horse and rider left for home, she had the embarrassment of the horse “backfiring” as she rode down the street. The combination of beans and exercise upset its digestion and certainly left a red face on the teacher.
Some 40 years later, another intelligent boy considered the problem of a barrel of tar that had been left in the corner of the school grounds. It was surplus to requirements and was the focus of much attention by the boys as they tried to get the tar to flow from the barrel by making holes in the side. Each hole would ooze a little tar, then seal over. George Henson decided it would help matters to make a hole in the top of the barrel and did so with spectacular results as each original hole sent out rivers of tar. The schoolmaster, Percy Keane, reckoned he knew the culprit and tackled George. He replied that yes, he had put a hole in the barrel, but there was no tar coming out of it. He got away with it, as Mr Keane didn’t realise that the top being opened released the pressure and was in fact the cause of the mess.
Boys and mischief have always gone hand-in-hand although with the passage of time, the type of mischief has become more sophisticated.
Fun with skateboards, computers, and all manner of media devices including cellphones and other technology are the present day attractions. It has been great to see the energy and enthusiasm from local young people for the new Wellsford Library. It’s the best thing that could have been provided for them so let’s hope they cherish it and continue to make full use of it.
