Gaynor and Dick Kerridge at The Lost Spring.
Gaynor and Dick Kerridge recently returned to their bach in Kuaotunu, to celebrate their 71st wedding anniversary. They were married at Old St Paul’s in Wellington on May 21st 1955. Dick and Gay are an alert, sprightly 92 and 91 respectively. Both still hold driver’s licenses.
While in the area, Gay was invited to share her memories of old Kuaotunu with the Mercury Bay Historical Society at The Lost Spring. With a phenomenal memory, Gay recalled the people, their houses and even the flowers they planted.
Gay’s father was Ross Simpson from Kuaotunu. Ross married Gay’s mother, Viti in Fiji and Gay was born on the island of Taveuni, where Ross managed a farm and later a copra plantation in Suva.
When Gay was 9 months old her mother brought her by ship to Kuaotunu, to meet her grandparents, Charles and Jane Simpson. Gay has fond memories of that house on the dunes at Kuaotunu, where she returned many times over the years.
“I have always loved the sea, but Mother hated it,” Gay says.
Her sister Rosalind was born at the Mercury Bay Hospital on
Buffalo Beach.
“She was born on Boxing Day, so grandma took turkey and plum pudding to the hospital.”
In 1941, with the war in the Pacific, the Simpson children were evacuated with many others. Gay was 7, Rosalind, 6 and brother Daine, 5. They lived with their grandparents for three years and were taught at the Kuaotunu School where their Auntie Win was the teacher. The school was about a mile away on Waitaia Road.
“These were the days of kerosene lamps and having to empty the toilet,” Gay recalls.
There was no general store in Kuaotunu, but there was a Post Office. It was near the bridge. The Postmistress was Mrs Ritchie. The scow Mercury Belle used to come in from Great Mercury for the Mizen family to collect mail, but they had to go into the Bay for provisions. Smith and Ross ran the grocery store in Whitianga, where Subway is now. That later became the IGA store.
Boy Smith drove the cream truck over to the dairy factory in Whitianga, and he brought parcels back to Kuaotunu. He planted blue hydrangeas at the roadsides. You can still spot them when they’re flowering.
“Ali White drove the service car from Whitianga to Thames and back every day – a better service than we have now!” The road man, Tim Mayclair, lived at Ring’s Beach. He repaired the roads and cleaned out culverts up to the top of the Kuaotunu Hill, with only a shovel. He rode a bicycle with a pikau (sack) on his back.”
Gay still looks out for ‘the flag pole’, a kauri tree near the top of the Kuaotunu Hill, where the boys raised a flag when the war ended. “In the 1920’s uncle Henry Simpson planted roses in the hedges near the bridge at Simpson’s Beach. They’re still there.”
Gay completed her education to sixth form level in Suva, and in 1951 she came to work as a land girl for the Hinds family at Whenuakite. She met Dick at agricultural college, and the couple began their farming life in the King Country. They built their Kuaotunu bach in 1999 and many family reunions have been held there. Gay says many of the old homes are still there along the beach, reviving very happy memories of the people who lived there.
