Workmates remembered with respect

Workmate George IssItt. PICTURE / NOELINE ISSIT

After a lifetime of working in the streets of Whanganui, former council worker Stewart Gray remembers the people who shared his vocation. Part 3

The regular gang I was part of consisted of Mason Ngatuere, Ian Whanarere and Arnold Potaka. Mason was the leading hand. A natural sportsman, clever with an apparent easygoing nature, he was well liked by all the workforce. Older workmates called him Slips, or Slippers, because on the first day of his employment in the early '60s he arrived at work in a pair of slippers. His casual demeanour disguised his perfectionism and he would always be the last to leave a job in order to touch it up. Ian was young, loud, boisterous, exuberant and able. And with him in the gang everybody in the street knew we were around. Arnold was one of those people in my life that I really respected. He was well read and had a humble appreciation of a wide range of subjects and was a pleasure to know and work with.

I really enjoyed working with those guys. They each knew their jobs and competency was never an issue but alas, my style and manner, I now understand, was not something that Mason was comfortable with. On occasions I would introduce politics into a conversation which would usually take the composite form of a sermon, a lecture, a rant and a rave. Likely topics would be the Vietnam War, sporting contacts with South Africa, the French nuclear testing in the Pacific and the National Government. A political diatribe that in the earlier Pakeha gangs I worked with would be seen as the amusing ramblings of a young radical but in Mason's gang it may have been inappropriate. I was with that gang for about a year but, I guess by reason of incompatibility, my days there were numbered and in the early 1970s I became a streetsweeper/area-man in Whanganui East.

The council would have been one of Whanganui's largest employers at that time, employing at least 40 drivers and a similar number of labourers as part of its outside staff. Each of those two groups had its own Union negotiated employment document that had a grading schedule that specifically identified a job by its importance, skill level or onerous nature. Many of its provisions were influenced by what had been achieved in other documents but invariably the negotiations only involved local personnel and genuinely reflected local conditions. And if the Personal Grievance procedures were invoked lawyers weren't involved.

The range of work duties the entire workforce was required to perform should not be underestimated. The staff at the Ridgway St depot had three divisions — Waterworks, Sewer and Drains, and Streets; and the Parks and Reserve department managed various sporting venues, gardens, parks and the city's trees. An array of different skills and qualifications were needed for their proper function and were in addition to institutional knowledge. Even in my job as a street-sweeper I performed miscellaneous duties that ensured my involvement with the local community in Whanganui East.
I estimate the yard staff at the Ridgway St depot had amongst its drivers at least 40 per cent Maori and that figure would have been similar amongst the labourers. Dave Karina, Alfie Williams, Koro (Tai) Taiaroa, George Wereta and Johnson Hamahona were part of a significant contingent of workers from Ratana.

Later in his working life Dave played an important role in Union affairs and Alfie became the City Council's first Maori foreman. Bill Allen, Willy Turner, Bobby Whanarere, Bunny Hiroa, Johnny Philips, Jimmy Jackson and Sammy Smith were other Maori who came from the wider community who worked alongside Pakeha workmates Ron Joblin, George White, Bill McKay, Jack Wallace, Roy Edgecombe, Charlie Goldfinch, Morrie Dixon, Les Ross, Willy Jones, Charlie Wilcox, George Issitt, Doug Dean, Ron Isted, Cyril and Rube Roydhouse, Jack Tindle and Henry Horn.

The Parks and Reserve department operated out of its Peat St depot and sometime in the early 1970s Bruce Crichton became Parks Superintendent. Before his appointment sheep were used to control grass growth in the southern portion of Kowhai Park and there were long sections of grass verges throughout Whanganui that were only mowed twice a year. As an example, in Whanganui East, on that section of Anzac Parade from the railway bridge to the northern city boundary, grass growth on the river side was left in abeyance for most of the year. Bruce Crichton changed that and Johnny Caird as a gang mower operative would have been part of that process.
Digger Joyce, Jeff Gardiner, Clarry Howes, Rodger Healy, Athol Guy and Leo Van de Lubbe were others from that department. Digger was a one time caretaker of Cooks Gardens, later a foreman and a man about town; Jeff was caretaker at Kowhai Park and Clarry likewise at Moutua Gardens.

The names I have proudly mentioned throughout this article represent but a passing parade of local men (up to that time, no women in those jobs) who once upon a time gave value to the community and through the 1950s till the early '70s added colour to my life. Doubtless they have many descendants living in this town. Their names may mean nothing to those in our society who pronounce the wonders of our heritage, who laud the luminaries and celebrate the celebs. I guess there is no reason why they should. There are no bugles and drums for those who labour. But for me the endeavours of the hoi polloi should be noted, not with a jibe but with respect. I had reason as a four-year-old to be proud of the work my father did; and subsequently to the work history of his and my contemporaries. And no reason to change my mind.