The honeymoon was spent in a little shack near the river mouth. Alf having married one of the Jones girls from a family famed for their cooking ability was shocked when she confessed that she didn't even know how to cook potatoes. He had to teach her how to cook and although during her lifetime she picked up a good knowledge of basic meat dishes she never did become an accomplished cook like most of her sisters. She immediately became pregnant and Bill was born in October that year. Being estranged from Uncle Son Meyrick Jones had not had contact with any of his grand children but soon he had both Bill (Alfred Willie) and Karl who was about the same age. It did not last however as soon the mill closed and Alf took a job in the King Country where Peter Wynne was born in August 1914 at Horopito.
By Xmas Day 1915 when Noel (Noel Glendower) was born the family was at Kohukohu on the Hokianga where Alf was employed as a tally clerk shipping out kauri to Australia. Then followed moves to Glenfield growing strawberries and then New Lynn where Evelyn was teaching at the New Lynn School. It was there that she performed a public service by persuading the father of the late Professor Blakelock to allow young Eddie a further year at Auckland Grammar. He had failed matric and his father wanted him to get a job at the brickworks. Together with his mother she pleaded with him until he relented and thus saved a brilliant career.
By now Alf was engaged in spec building and made some bad decisions which caused marital disharmony. When Meyrick Liewellyn died he left all his money to the girls. This was felt to be unfair and those still on the Coast decided that the money should be pooled and divided evenly. Evelyn and Venus held out and it was this money that Alf was using to finance his business ventures. At one stage he pawned some of her jewellery and she felt that he didn't get enough for it. The first bit of bad luck was when he built a house in Egremont St. Belmont.
In those days the builder put up the money and was not paid until the house was finished and handed over. The owner couldn't pay so Alf was left with the house and section. We went to live in it and while there I was born. Next he built a house on about 45 acres running from Crown Hill right up to the Pupuke Golf Course and extending down into the Wairau River gully. Paddocks owned by the Entrican family adjoined the land and went up to what is now Forest Hill Rd. Again there was no payment and he became a farmer. He let the Belmont house but had little luck with tenants. He had raised a mortgage with a lawyer who was later struck off and although he signed the house over to him the lawyer kept the house in Alf's name so that it couldn't be seized. Many years later the then tenants approached the Council demanding that a flush toilet be installed. Council approached the owner, Alf, requesting that he do something about it. In the end Noel took it over and when it became vacant renovated it and sold it. Meanwhile at Crown Hill Alf became a farmer something he had always wanted to be. He started a town milk supply run and for a while things looked up. He progressed from a dray to a milk float and finally bought a Chevrolet car. The share market crash in 1929 spelt the end of this. He was hopelessly under capitalised and in the end walked off the farm.
Auntie Venus and Uncle Leslie were also in difficulties and it was decided to rent a farm on what is now Auckland International Airport. Peacock's farm was in Watea Rd. and the farmhouse was a picturesque 'piano' house.. There was a huge barn and large concrete dipping tanks full of water. The farm included an island which could be accessed at low tide. This was used for dry stock and I remember the harrowing time when one got bogged and we spent many anxious hours trying to get her free and keeping her head above the water, but in the end she died of pneumonia. This was 1932 in the depths of the Great Depression and things only got worse. However Auntie Venus got a job as a cook at the Auckland Aero Club and shortly after this the manager was killed in a car accident in Westney Rd. This resulted in Venus becoming the Manageress. They quit the farm and Alf and Evelyn went into a fruit shop on the corner of Jervois and Ardmore Rds in Herne Bay.
This was a flop so they shifted to Te Papapa and Alf ran a fruit round hawking vegetables around Remuera and other affluent areas. They lived in Edinburgh St at first but the Chevrolet started to rust through exposure to the sea air so they moved to Waitangi Rd, where there were about six empty houses for rent. They chose no. 5 because the car would fit down beside the house and bought it and lived there for the rest of their lives. The fruit round came to an end when the loan company repossessed the car. Alf then had to go onto Relief Work at 27 shillings a week. Together with other unemployed men he worked on laying concrete footpaths in the area. One of his workmates was Norman L. Norman who later went straight from Relief Work to being Town Clerk of Onehunga. He was a Chartered Accountant and there were many other talented men among them. It was decided that the country could not afford to pay men to lay foot paths and Alf was put onto Sustenance at 14 shillings a week. He could stay home and do nothing but this did not suit his restless spirit and he began threshing grass for the seed. He shifted me into the dining room to sleep and used my bedroom for his work. He would cut the grass on the road verges carry it home and leave it to dry. Then he would beat it against an old spade handle and collect the seed on an old sheet. I have no idea how much he got for it but it kept him sane. By 1935 the depression was starting to lift and suddenly he got a job at a sawmill. It
was at a place called Te Haehaenga close to Mount Tarawera. He was the Mill Manager at a wage of 5 pounds a week but that was for a five day week and the mill only had enough orders for three days. He had to keep a home in Auckland as well as feed himself but it was better than what he had been doing. He wanted Evelyn to join him but she hated sawmills and as luck would have it on the change of Government the school starting age was lowered from six to five and she got a job as a relieving teacher. For several years as the depression lifted they lived the sort of life they had been used to before. Alf bought an old Rugby tourer which had the hardest springs I have ever known. The road to the mill branched from the Rotorua Whakatane Rd between Lake Rotoehu and Te Teko. It was seventeen miles long and for three of them it followed the Military Track which had been cut by the soldiers during the Maori Wars. It was below the normal surface and a raised strip on either side giving protection to soldiers as they marched along. When the road reached the Tarawera River it followed the terrain without much sign of engineering at all with the result the while heavy logging trucks could negotiate it with difficulty light cars could only do so with extreme difficulty. All the trouble spots had names resulting from past mishaps.
The most famous of these was Lizzie's Leap a fearsome sort of downhill chicane. At last the way became flat and pleasant passing through a delightful bush area before climbing the hill to where the mill was situated. By this time the Rugby had given its passengers the ride of a lifetime. Despite the rigours of the road it was magical to travel at night. It consisted of two wheel tracks with a grass strip between. At night the wild flowers came out and you travelled along a ribbon of colour that was picked out by the headlights of the car. Later Alf graduated to another Chevrolet, a National I think and in 1938 to a Vauxhall 14 (I think it was or it was a Super 6 or both?} It had knee action and was lovely to ride in. In 1938 Fenton's mill was a delightful place to holiday in and summers there were full of simple pleasures among nice folk.
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