Born on the Denniston Plateau, Olga Fleming celebrates her 102 birthday

Liston Heights resident Olga Fleming celebrated her 102nd birthday on October 16, 2021. Photo / Rachel Canning

The Duchess of the Bush is now 102.

Until two years ago, Olga Fleming lived in her own home and was active on social media. Now a resident at Liston Heights, Olga has just celebrated another birthday in an extraordinary life.

Born in the West Coast coal mining town of Denniston on October 16, 1919, Olga trained as a shorthand typist and worked for the Public Works Department in Wellington. It was the beginning of a lifetime of high fashion, hard work and high jinks.

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When the Second World War broke out, her mother Bessie Dillon made her move back to Denniston. But Olga soon went to live in Nelson and worked as a shop assistant at a jewellery shop.

"I got dressed up to the nines every day, and went to work on the bus," she said.

The war ended and in 1949 Olga went to work for the Public Works Department in New Plymouth and met the love of her life, returned naval man and submariner Alex Fleming.

"I was at a dance. I flicked a Heards lolly paper and it hit Alex in the face and he asked me to dance."

The next day Alex asked Olga to come home and meet his mother.

Six weeks later, Olga was met off the train by Alex, supposedly to look at his home. But Alex had other ideas.

"He got on the train and we went to Hamilton to get married. I was aghast as I wanted to see where he lived first."

Alex grew up on a farm in Taranaki, and after the war he moved to Waimiha, where he was splitting totara battens for fences. He had recently taken up the opportunity to buy a General Motors Company truck (GMC) and had started his own business carting for logging company Ellis and Burnand. He was based in Pukemako, a bush camp in Pureora Forest.

"He said we were going to live in Te Kuiti, the lying cow! He got the G.M.C. and took me to live at Pukemako.

"There was no road when we first got there. The bulldozer had to tow the G.M.C. through the mud on that first day but otherwise you had to catch the loci [locomotive] to Bennydale.

"My five suitcases were covered in mud. I had brought all my lovely clothes and our house had no power, no running water, cooking was on a coal range and there was a communal long drop."

They stayed for nearly two years, during which time she had her first child, Murray, and learned how to sew on a Singer sewing machine. In late 1950, the family moved to the nearest town, Bennydale.

"Bennydale was like a city after Pukemako. The first thing I did was turn on an electric light switch."

Olga Fleming in Wellington, before she was married in 1949. At Pukemako she was known as the Duchess of the Bush. Photo / Fleming Family

She had four children in four years and continued her well-groomed appearance, affectionately earning her the nickname The Duchess of the Bush by the bemused locals.

By 1960 Fleming Contractors Ltd were running 14 trucks, three D8 bulldozers, one TD15, two TD9 tractors, two draglines, a public service station in Bennydale employing six men, and a farm at Mangapehi.

Olga paid the wages and did all the accounts.

"I would put the accounts in a big circle on the sitting room floor, then pin them together. That's how the accounts were paid."

She said some of the best years of her life were in Bennydale.

"We were always out at parties. Sometimes the parties were at our house. I learned how to drive _ I was the only woman to drive in Bennydale. I would take a car full of women to the pictures at Bennydale or at Mangapehi.

Daughter-in-law Denise Fleming says Olga was well known for her cooking and baked the best shortbread in town.

The family bought a farm at Mangapehi and Olga took up an administration position at the Bennydale District High and Area School.

Soon afterwards, she was asked to work on the Poro-o-Tarao railway tunnel construction. Olga was the only woman on the workforce and she was there when the tunnel broke through.

"There was a lot of young bucks in the workforce and they wanted an older woman to keep them in check.

"I bossed them around and made them do as they were told."

Olga and Alex were married for 50 years before Alex died in 1999. They had four sons and today Olga has eight grandchildren and 10 great-grandchildren. Her son Murray says his parents both had a work-hard-play-hard ethic.

Granddaughter Cathy Gulliver said Olga always had a great sense of humour and had faced up to many challenges in her early years. She said the family often asked her to recall stories from her years in Wellington, Pukemako and Bennydale.

"She's remarkable - when she was 80 she went to community classes to learn how to use computers and was on Facebook until two years ago.

"On her birthday she was saying 'I'm 102 not out!'"