New Zealand Listener – June 08, 2019

JUNE 8 2019 LISTENER 29

says Mutton. “He didn’t even have a licence.

I gave him a few driving lessons; he was all

right. He said he could handle it. I left him

in Taupō, and he carried on and wrote the

car off.”

This was not a major loss to his Greek

friend, who made more money from the

gambling sessions on the Wanganella than

from his wages. He was the sort of card

sharp, says Mutton, who “could give you

an ace or whatever card you wanted. He

showed me his bank book one day – and

this was in 1965 – and it had £27,000 in it.”

Mutton, just in his early twenties, made

enough to pay off his parents’ mortgage and

renovate the house, as well as spending a

good deal on cars and drink. The workers

made regular trips to the fleshpots of Inver-

cargill. Often they would take a taxi from

Manapouri, a distance of 155km.

“It used to cost £5 between four of us.

We could stop at the pubs. We could just

drink in the car. We might even give the

driver an extra quid. If he went over 100

miles per hour, we’d give him extra money,

all these silly sorts of things. Oh, the taxi

drivers loved us, mate.”

Prostitutes from the north heard about

the high-rolling Manapouri men and shifted

to Invercargill to welcome them.

The husbands and boyfriends on the

Wanganella spent months away from their

loved ones. Mutton frequently found men

crying with a “Dear John” letter in their

hands. “A lot of that happened. Oh, Christ,

yes. There were a lot of divorces and separa-

tions from that job.”

The spirit of comradeship among the men

lasted a long time after the project finished

in 1971. Mutton still keeps in touch with

old mates from the Wanganella.

A fair number of the immigrant workers

married New Zealanders and settled here.

“A Yugoslav married my sister. Took him

home for the weekend and that was it,” says

Mutton. l

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The workers made

regular trips to the

fleshpots of Invercargill.

Often they would take

a taxi from Manapouri,

a distance of 155km.

Hats off to the miners:

safety helmets went flying

when Justice Minister Ralph

Hanan detonated a blast

to mark “hole-through” of

the first Manapouri tailrace

tunnel in October 1968.