Ten Heighway with pipe with an unidentified man at the Hastings Blossom Festival around 1954.
Ten Heighway with pipe with an unidentified man at the Hastings Blossom Festival around 1954.
At its zenith, Hastings retail in the mid-1950s was arguably the envy of New Zealand – its 15 block retail central business district was well patronised and flush with money from the farming sector due to the Korean wool boom.
There were also many personalities in the Hastings retail backthen who knew how to have fun.
One of those was Tennyson (Ten) Heighway (1893‒1964), motorcycle and later bicycle dealer at 312 Heretaunga St West. Many will still remember him, and he is seen in the photo in a 1950s Blossom Festival Parade.
Not only was Ten Heighway known for his sense of humour – but his kindness.
One day a young disabled girl called Kathleen came into the shop and said she walked past and looked at the bicycles and wished so much she could ride one like other children. She told Ten she was saving money up to buy one.
Seeing Kathleen could not manage a two wheeler, Ten set to work and built her a three wheeler.
Michael Fowler
He got word to her parents that he had a surprise for her. When she came in and saw the bike, she was overcome with delight and asked how much she owed him. "Nothing," replied Ten. "It's all yours."
The 1954 Hastings Blossom – 65 years ago and the fifth one since it was started in 1950 by promotional organisation Greater Hastings (yes, perhaps a subtle dig at Napier) had 63 floats take part.
The idea for the Blossom Festival came about as a suggestion from an ex-air force man who was in Canada for training during World War II, and had seen a Blossom Parade there.
At its height in the 1950s and 60s, estimates were that 40,000 to 50,000 people crammed the streets of Hastings to view the Blossom Parade's floats. Four large Blossom Festival express trains came from Wellington in that era.
The only blight on the Blossom Festival was the so-called "Battle of Hastings" or "Blossom Festival riot" of 1960, when wet weather disrupted the festival and fire hoses were turned on revellers outside the now demolished Albert Hotel.
Originators of the first Blossom Festival, Hastings menswear retailer Harry Poppelwell and Daily Telegraph reporter Ed Culver, if they were alive today, I think would be well-pleased that their wish to do some about Hastings' "glorious inactivity" of the post-World War II years continues today.
The editor of the Hawke's Bay Herald-Tribune wrote 65 years ago: "Perhaps more than any other district in the country, Hawke's Bay has a special reason to greet the arrival of spring. For in this 'Fruit Bowl' of New Zealand with the orchard trees bursting into masses of pink and white blossom, the season is spectacularly beautiful. Certainly there could be no more glorious setting for a spring festival."
- Signed copies of Michael Fowler's Historic Hawke's Bay book are available at $65 from the Hastings Community Art Centre, Russell St South, Hastings and Wardini Books Havelock North and Napier.
- Michael Fowler FCA (mfhistory@gmail.com) is a chartered accountant, contract researcher and writer of Hawke's Bay's history.
