Shepherd Ash Orr mustering in the Kaikoura range. Photo: RNZ / Alexa Cook
Jack Perkins from the RNZ Spectrum programme is talking to Phyl Christie and Joan Poulton about their childhoods growing up on Clarence Reserve Station, inland from Kaikoura.
Their father Percy Acton-Adams brought his family to Clarence Reserve just before WW1.
Station life was a quaint and leisurely reminder of the 19th century, mixed in with hardships and hard work.
It was a large station along the lines of Molesworth and Erewhon. One-hundred and forty-eight thousand acres with one sheep to eight acres.
There was a tightly structured community with stationhands, shepherds, aunts, a governess, cook and nurse. An intuiative horse saved two young girls from being swept away in a sudden river flood and towing cars out of pot holed river crossings dominated their lives. Sundays always ended with a hymn singing session around the piano.
Mustering hereford cattle on Muzzle Station Photo: RNZ / Alexa Cook
