Charles was Mum’s grandfather who worked on sheep and beef farms from North Canterbury,
through Hawkes Bay and ended up on the Wairarapa coast. I remember stories of Gran riding a
horse with others through the back of Hawkes Bay to Poporangi station in Kereru where Charles had
worked not far from Maraekakaho where my three brothers and sister Anne grew up on Bon and
Arn’s sheep and beef farm. I farmed the property from the early 1970s until mid-1990s.
As kids we used to watch 8mm films taken by mum’s father. The movies included horse breaking,
hay making with draught horses, loading lambs for the works into small trucks, the first bulldozer in
Wairarapa and many other farming operations of the 1930s. One movie showed mum as a child and
her little creamy pony at the beach at Paraparamu. Another showed the family heading off to the
Wairarapa coast at Glendhu from their farm at Taharoa, Long bush. Mum used to talk about the
tents they stayed in with beds of canvas spread over the “springy grass” (Meulenbekia) that grows
on the sandhills. Charles worked at Glendhu from 1922 to 1935 when Bon would have been 12 years
old.
Edward Jolly’s story related in the next section gives interesting insights into his relationship with
Charles Caverhill’s father John grazing sheep on the land called Cheviot Hills that was freeholded by
a Mr Robinson that meant John (who was leasing it at the time) lost the use of the land. This led to
John buying Hawkswood that lay between the Waiau and Conway rivers. Ironically, he did this with
assistance from Mr Robinson, the man who forced him off Cheviot Hills.
Map of the Cheviot Hills and Hawkswood areas that John Scott Caverhill Farmed