Swansong for a lost Aucklander

By MURRAY GRAY*

Maurice Shadbolt's short story, Dove on the Water, is a beautiful rendering of the real Henry Swan's lost years. Swan was an Auckland lawyer who, in September 1902, appeared to sail out of Auckland Harbour in his boat the Awatea, on a much-anticipated solo trip around the world. But Swan's first and only port of call was a secluded tidal stream in the upper reaches of the Waitemata Harbour, where he had earlier bought land. There he remained in seclusion, presumed to be lost at sea.

Nothing was heard of Swan until the summer of 1910 when two teenage boys, mucking about in their leaky boat, paddled their homemade craft through the upper reaches of the Waitemata Harbour.

Shadbolt wrote: "Squeezing through mangrove forest ... they found themselves in an unfamiliar stretch of water. Magically sequestered there was a vessel of substance ... Its name, barely legible amongst the peeling paint, meant nothing to the boys. They were more interested in the apple, plum and peach trees set back from the tideline and generously screening the approach to the boat."

Henry Swan had returned from the dead! Sightseers from Auckland cruised up the harbour to catch a glimpse of this strange boat and its equally strange master. Swan had established himself in the creek, growing, harvesting and storing fruit and vegetables and gathering the bounty of the fertile mudflats.

To provide storage space for his winter food supplies, and to keep his extensive library safe, he built sizeable tunnels in the banks of the estuary out of bricks that had been lost off the many scows that carried the product of West Auckland kilns to the city.

But the most dramatic structure he built was an archway, still just visible from Central Park Drive in Henderson. It is a substantial brick structure with beaded pointing on its face, showing evidence of considerable skill and craftsmanship.

David Reynolds, of the Historic Places Trust, suggests it was a portal for a tunnel Swan was planning to build as a shelter for his boat. Contemporary photographs and council archival documents suggest this building was carried out by Swan in the 1920s.

Heavy flooding destroyed most of Swan's extensive gardens and some of his structures, but he carried on living on his boat until his death in 1931, aged 75.

This year, the Going West literary festival's famous steam-train ride will chuff to a halt at the New Lynn Community Centre, where actor Paul Minifie will read from Shadbolt's Dove on the Water and where a pictorial history will reveal Swan's unusual legacy.

Until the 1990s the area in which Swan chose to spend all those years was not easily seen, but the new road that now runs along the edge of Henderson Creek exposed Swan's home. At the same time the road works reduced the impact of the arch and there is now only the central arch standing in a small reserve, while the last of his cellars are water-filled and overgrown. Swan's boat, Awatea, was rescued from the mud in the late 1930s, restored, and was still sailing at the end of the century.Murray Gray

* A Full Head of Steam, Auckland to Helensville, Sunday September 22, 9.30am to 5.30pm. Programme also includes Peter Simpson reading Alan Loney, Wayne Mason singing, a celebration of Peter Cape, Geoff Chapple. For further information phone (09) 836 8000 ext 8780.

* Murray Gray is the programme director of the Going West festival.