|
29 September 2007
In the Steps of Jack Leigh
Chapter 18: Takapuna to Milford
page 2
A soft green curtain of iceplant has established itself despite the force of the storms.
Just along here a little we pick up the sewer line, which doubles as walking track for part of the way.
The thick transparent walls of this section generate a rainbow on our path. You could quite easily converse with the occupants of many of these houses without their needing to come outside.
Jack points out an interesting feature of the lava flows along here - round holes which are believed to have been trees overtaken by the eruption and long rotted out.
Alice is attempting to investigate the inner reaches and I remove her promptly before she gets stuck. There's the heart of a terrier beating somewhere in that schnauzer body. Top left of the pic you can see a karo
(Pittosporum crassifolium) in out-of-focus flower.
From time to time small plaques recall earlier residents.
Jack mentions also the dramatic surge in value of land along here, some commanding "six figure sums". These have long been up to seven figure sums and no doubt will eventually hit the eight figure mark as the upper and lower 10-15% of New Zealand society grow steadily further apart.
The fishing village intimacy that Jack describes in Thorne Bay, the shark jaws tacked onto a boatshed, is probably gone for good. It's hard to conceive of such a trophy on any of these buildings
The big pohutukawas are still there and so is the rug and pillow in the shade.
In ther middle of all of this splendour, and fronted by a rickety-looking but quite firm boardwalk
is what could well be one of the original baches, old, wooden, peeling paint, its spouting filled with grass, and a tangle of unkempt vegetation in front.
As I pass along the boardwalk, just through the hedge I can see a small table and chairs, and a tray with a couple of wineglasses and an empty plate. Yes!
Postscript
An email from a friend who grew up with the Firth family tells me this is the Firth Cottage, built in the 1930s by Clifton Firth, one of New Zealand's pioneer photographic artists, and a friend of Rex Fairburn, Ron Mason and other members of that wonderful collection of artists and creatives who populated New Zealand's early-mid 20th century.
I think of a tale about Rex, arriving more than a little drunk at Firth's house in the early hours of the morning and demanding entrance. On being turned away by the previously sleeping occupants he began walking round and round the house singing bawdy songs at the top of his voice until Firth, out of consideration for his neighbours, finally surrendered.
I think, too, about Mark Firth, 6'7" tall plus a bit, and a prominent member of the Auckland University Underwater Club trips I was part of in the 60's. He died at 20, of a heart attack, on the Auckland Harbour Bridge on the day I sat the Shakespeare paper for my M.A. exam. I learned of his death about half an hour before I went into the exam. It was the only one where I scored less than 50%. It had come right out of a blue sky. People don't die when they're 20!
But he'd known for a long time it was coming. It was an almost inevitable result of a condition he'd suffered for years. Only a few very close friends knew about it.
We used to take Mark into pubs with us and bet that the barman couldn't guess his height. More than one free beer. I recall one diving trip that was stormed out and we wound up checking out a horizontal gold mine shaft near Thames to pass some time on the way back. I got about 5 or 10 yards in and my native claustrophobia asserted itself and, as I turned to come out, I saw, silhouetted against the light from the tunnelmouth, the hanging whiskers of hundreds of cave wetas. Mark emerged very soon after, and we waited for the others.
I'd seen him head into underwater caverns and emerge triumphantly with a crayfish, but above ground, he was just as subject to claustrophobia as I was.
My friend's email went on: "Clifton finished up embittered by his failure to achieve the recognition he wanted. He died about 15 years ago. As an old man he would sit in a black mood, rocking his rocking chair, just looking at the sea.
Melva Firth, Mark's mother died about three years ago. She was a feisty woman who occupied her time challenging authority in whatever form was handy. ....
Next time you go past Firth's cottage, notice that this is the only residence on the North Shore sea front that has pruned pohutukawa trees, very heavily pruned trees. The penalties are draconian and apart from Melva there have been no exceptions. ("You stupid, stupid man", she would say to bewildered council functionaries, "how do you think a decrepit old widow like me could climb such a tree and lop off branches?")
You mentioned that the properties adjacent to Firth's cottage "extend to mean high water mark," So did Firth's cottage, and in the 1980's Melva decided to claim this right. A public path ran across the front of the cottage, so she barricaded both ends, informed the news media (newspapers, radio and television) and then shackled herself to one of the barricades.
Now the council was going to have no part of this - it would set an unacceptable precedent. But they reckoned without Melva, who declaimed with much bathos to the cameras - you may remember - it became national news and dragged on for days.
In the end the council capitulated and built the boardwalk you photographed. Melva then barricaded the boardwalk because people walking on it interfered with her view. That is why it was rebuilt with the big dip you see as it passes Melva's front window. "
So, Firth's Cottage. Marks brother and sister, also part of the Underwater Club trips, still reside there. I haven't seen either of them for many years.
|
I can do no better than quote Jack's description for the next bit:
"High up on the cliff as we move on is a single Norfolk pine — and beside it, Algies Castle.
This exuberant outcrop, with towers and battlements was the private expression of John Alexander Algie, who retired here after leaving the postal service. Contractors built the house in 1924, but John Algie himself toiled on the ornate outer walls.
His grandson Don now lives in the castle and Don's son John in the house on the lower part of the section.
A rock swimming pool outside the lower defences was built by John Senior for his wife, "a Scots lady who was a bit timid about going into the sea," says grandson Don. The old man died in 1963 at 91."
There are still Algies in residence
|
|
