New Zealand horses in the Great War

Between 1914 and 1918, New Zealand sent more than 10,000 horses to Europe to serve in the Great War. Only four of those horses ever returned to New Zealand, and of that group only one served with New Zealand forces for the whole of the war, in the Middle East and later in Western Europe: Colonel Guy Powles’ horse Bess. Bess stayed with Colonel Powles for the rest of her life, eventually dying quite peacefully in 1934 while out for a ride with the Colonel.

Horses were also sent to South Africa with New Zealand troopers in the Anglo-Boer War (I send an imaginary trooper with his horse in Settling the Account), and at least one of those horses is known to have made it home.

More on the New Zealand warhorses, including photographs of Bess, here (warning: sad accounts of the fate of most of them).

Mining Country

On our way back from Opotiki we stopped for the night in the Karangahake Gorge, an old gold-mining area that has some nice walks.




It's a lovely, peaceful setting, with the hills gradually being reclaimed by the forest, and the mining ruins weathered with age.




We left the main track alongside the Ohinemuri River, and followed the course of the Waitawheta. It's a stunningly beautiful walk along paths carved into the hillside, with a fresh view around each bend. In places the path goes through a tunnel, with holes (the "windows" that give this section of the walk its name) cut into the rock overlooking the stream.




This lovely place was very different a century ago, when mining was at its height. The little village of Karangahake was a town then, where the Waitawheta flows into the Ohinemuri, with shops, hotels and dance halls; it was busy, bustling, and above all noisy. These paths weren't cut for walkers, but for the miners and their machinery.

Gold mining here was not the alluvial mining that conjures overly romanticised visions of gold panners by rushing streams, searching for that elusive glitter amongst the pebbles and sand. These steep hills were threaded with tunnels—the slope on the right of this picture had more than a dozen levels of them one above the other, carved deep into the hillside.




Ore was brought from the tunnels in wagons that ran along rails down to Karangahake for processing, and the walking paths have such an easy gradient because they were built for those wagons. Those rock windows with their lovely views were cut for the miners to heave waste rock down into the Waitawheta River below.

Karangahake did not give up its gold readily. It meant crushing the ore in stamper batteries powered by coal-fed engines, pounding it into a fine powder, then using cyanide to extract the gold. Those batteries roared and thundered, shaking the ground, and the air must have left a foul taste with each breath. Some workers died of phthisis from the ever-present dust.

In Settling the Account I send a character into this Blakean vision; a fifteen-year-old farm boy who's spent his life roaming around the bush and the paddocks, never far from the sea, used to a wide horizon and to a palette of green and blue. I'd always known coming here must have been a shock to him, but until this visit I'd never quite appreciated just how terrifying such a place would have been. I now picture him standing at the entry to one of those deep tunnels, perhaps for some time too terrified to move. Stepping into that black, yawning mouth was one of the bravest things he ever did.

I strongly suspect he never did tell his mother just how dreadful it was. He wouldn't have wanted to upset her.

The history of one of the Karangahake mines, with some old photographs, here.

This week in New Zealand history: NZ troops in the Boer War

The first contingent of New Zealand troops embarked for South Africa on the 21st of October 1899. On the 9th of December that year, the New Zealanders had their first engagement with enemy troops.

By the end of the war in 1902, New Zealand had sent almost 6,500 troops and 8,000 horses in ten contingents. To that total I've added one more soldier: in Settling the Account, a young lad's desire for adventure and loathing of home make him long to sail off to South Africa.

It's no easy task for him; not only is he underage, but would-be soldiers had to come up with the daunting sum of £25 for their equipment. My boy does find the money, from a source he would never have thought of. And then there's the question of whether or not he'll manage to smuggle out the horse he thinks of as his own, but about which his father feels quite differently.

Most of the soldiers came home again. None of the horses did.

This week in New Zealand history: women vote

On the 28th November 1893, New Zealand women voted in their first General Election, having gained the right to do so when an Electoral Bill was passed two months earlier. Concerns had been expressed by opponents of the Bill, no doubt with varying degrees of sincerity, that women voters might be jostled by unruly fellows when exercising their new right, but the day went smoothly, with no unpleasant incidents, and (despite opponents' claims that few women were interested in voting) a large turnout.

More details of the campaign for women's suffrage can be found on the Women and the Law page of my website. And a fictionalised account of that first voting day is included in Chapter 31 of Mud and Gold.

Greeting Saint Brigid

Writing brings many rewards. There's the pleasure of the writing itself, when things are going well. There's the delight of a reader who gets what I've tried to say; who tells me s/he really cares about my characters.

And then there are unexpected pleasures like the gift of seeing the world a little differently because I'm seeing it through the lens of my own sub-creation. Like my small ritual of greeting Saint Brigid.

On Thursday mornings we often walk up the hill to a nearby church for Holy Communion. It's a small, intimate gathering in a chapel behind the main altar; generally only four or five people are there. Afterwards, as we walk out down a side aisle, a row of stained glass windows is illuminated by the pale light of early morning. Each small window shows a saint, and I always pause for a moment before Saint Brigid. Because, without my quite intending it, Brigid (or at least an image of her) has made an appearance in my writing.

There's a character with a minor role in Settling the Account who appears again in A Second Chance; again in a small role, but with a little more page space. Here's an extract:

Bridie was propped up against the pillows. What Frank could see of her looked a good deal cleaner than on the previous occasions they had met, but the skin was stretched taut over the bones of her face. Her hands rested limply on the bedcovers, all knuckle and sinew. Her hair had been cut short; it stuck out around her head like a dark halo.
...
‘Who’d have thought I’d end up with the nuns, eh? Do you see who I’ve got here?’ A slight tilt of her head directed Frank’s attention to a small painting on the wall above her bed. It showed a young woman dressed as a nun, smiling mildly down as if on the bed’s occupant. ‘That’s Saint Bridget. She’s me name saint, see? The nuns put her up there to keep an eye on me.’ Bridie smiled, and Frank saw a trace of the spark he had once noticed in her dark eyes. ‘Ah, but she’s an Irish lass, so she’ll not be one for passing judgement on the likes of me.’

Brigid (or Bridget; both forms are used) does seem to have been a large-hearted woman, readier to dispense aid than judgement. My mornings seem a little brighter whenever she and I exchange a smile.