At home at Westshore, Rob and Hiraani Logan recall some of the life on the farm where they lived. Photo
At home at Westshore, Rob and Hiraani Logan recall some of the life on the farm where they lived. Photo
The notion that you can take the boy out of the country but you can't take the country out of the boy seems apt for Rob and Hiraani Logan, even after more than two decades in retirement beachside at Westshore.
In their 90s, and married for 72 years, they stilltalk fondly of the days at Pukekino, the land bought southwest of Hastings by Mr Logan's father, Frank, in 1912, and developed over the next half-century despite the advent of two world wars, the Hawke's Bay earthquake and the Great Depression.
"Well and truly in the back-blocks, dirt road all the way to Hastings and Napier," says Mrs Logan, not-quite a city girl and with a touch of country of her own.
The couple met in 1938 and married at The Grange in Haumoana, where she had lived, in September 1943 after his return, initially on "furlough" to use the war term - temporary leave in any other language.
She had by that time become used to Auckland, where she worked during World War II, and it was with some reluctance she agreed to move back to the Bay where Mr Logan had started work before the war, at the age of 16.
He had previously attended Hereworth School and, for a short time, Wanganui Collegiate.
He worked for Williams and Kettle, and eventually returned to the farm, but says: "A doctor would have been my preference, but I never had the education."
Establishing the farm was about clearing gorse and grass, and saving "every penny" for the big items, such as the first D2 tractor, with a cheque for the whole amount of about 2000 in 1950, and the couple's truck in about 1965.
As time marched, on the inevitability of having to leave the farm as the idea of a successor in the family to run the property passed, and they moved to Napier.
"It was a big wrench psychologically," says Mrs Logan.
Mr Logan says: "I went through heartache.
"I'd done a bloody lot of hard work. But, we simply couldn't go on. It was the most sensible thing to do."
