I am now in my 90th year and I have decided to get my stories out of the biscuit box and into print. When my mother was in her early forties, she became not so well for about two years and the doctors of those days decided she should have another child. I was that child. It didn't happen like Topsy; I was born in 1901 with terrible asthma and eczema and also crooked legs which had to have steel splints fitted. My hands had to be tied so I couldn't scratch myself. I had been told by my parents that for two years I was not expected to live.

In my bedroom in the old house there was a picture of a big moose, almost standing over a hunter who was lying in his sleeping bag, gazing up at it, and his rifle was out of reach. I used to wonder what I would have done, but it gave me the inclination to be a real hunter.

Gradually I survived to become quite a healthy, stunted 5ft 4in, but thickset and strong for my size and I have lived fairly well ever since.

ADDENBROOKE OF THE LEE

The motto on our family's old Coat of Arms is "Nec temere, nec timide", "Neither foolhardy, nor timid". Our family has been traced right back to a noble or 'Adden' who was a stalwart of King Alfred. One branch of this Adden family lived and farmed near a small stream or 'brooke' near Halesowen Abbey on the borders of Worcester and Staffordshire . They became known as Addenbrooke of the Lea.

My grandfather, Edward Addenbrooke, was a solicitor who lived in Sutton Coldfield near Birmingham. He had a family of ten - three boys and seven girls. I remember seeing an old photo of his house, a big place with grey stone walls covered in ivy.

My father, Henry Addenbrooke, was the eldest of the three boys. He was born in 1854 and came to New Zealand in the late 1870s by sailing ship. He settled in the Wanganui district where he bought a property called Otiangiangi at Mangamahu. The former owner of this property, a Mr Walker, had built a two-storey house in 1879 and only a few acres had been felled to make room for the living area.

My mother, Marion (Polly) Peake, was born in New Zealand in Wanganui in 1855. Her father, John Peake, owned a big part of St John's Hill overlooking Wanganui and Mother grew up there in a lovely mansion of a house with a beautiful antique winding staircase. In later years I loved sliding down the bannisters there. My mother was a beautiful kindly woman and was the belle of many local balls. Father fell in love with her and they married and went to live on their Mangamahu property, riding out there on horseback when the roads were only bridle tracks.

There were eight children in our family: Cyril died at 18 months and the remaining four boys and three girls, Hugh, Gwen, May, Jack, Sidney, Lucy and myself, lived to our seventies and eighties. I, being the youngest, am the only one still alive. My oldest brother was eighteen years older than me.

MANGAMAHU

Mangamahu was an isolated district on the upper reaches of the Whangaehu River, twenty eight miles from Wanganui. It was all solid native bush country. My father, like the rest of the pioneers, had to fell the bush to make his farm.

There was one pioneer in particular who came from England with the knowledge of electricity, which those days was hardly heard of, especially in New Zealand. This man, Mr Alan Robinson, in the 1880s put a channel along the side of the Mangamahu Creek so as to get enough fall to drive a water-wheel and a generator. Electric light was supplied to the whole village of Mangamahu. This I believe was the first or second electric plant in New Zealand. I can remember all the lights everywhere in the village, for the power plant was near our house over the creek from us, but we didn't have the electric light ourselves.

CHURCH AND TENNIS

About once a month the clergyman come to our place, usually on a Saturday, to spend the night with us ready for church service next morning. My mother always played the organ for the church services. After church many neighbours and friends came to play tennis and quite a few would stay for dinner. They seemed to manage well, for I think most visitors lent a hand. Those were the days when the ladies used hat-pins about a foot long to hold their straw hats or any other kind of hat. The pins were pushed through the hat into a bun of their hair, with the point sticking out two or three inches on the opposite side of the hat, which seemed to me to be dangerous.

SHOOTING KAKAS

My older brothers and cousins used to go game shooting in the season from May to July. They used to go for a weekend on horseback, leading a pack-horse to carry gear and bring home the game. Bird game was plentiful, pigeons, kakas, quails, ducks, teal, the odd pheasant and some times some pork. I remember my brothers sitting under miro trees to shoot pigeons at their leisure when the birds came to feast on the miro berries. There were no restrictions then against shooting the beautiful succulent pigeon then. My father, being an Englishman, liked game hung for about a fortnight and us kids used to have to pluck the smelly things.

I went to my first school at Mangamahu over the river at what was always called the township. It was named the township because it was a very large piece of flat land where a town was supposed to have been built, but it had no bridge access over the river at first. A bridge was too costly, so the village shot up on the opposite side. My brothers and sisters all went to school in the village hall which was to make do for a few years until a bridge was built over to the big flat.

THE RUNAWAY CART

As a child, about six or seven, I can remember some rather frightening experiences. Father had purchased a huge, bell-shaped contraption weighing about a ton, which rested on big cogs that propelled a chaff-cutter while three big Clydsdale horses each attached to a long pole went around and around in a circle. They provided the motive power and when the impetus of the machine slowed, Father would crack the whip. When the horses tired towards the end of the day, the machinery would have a sluggish sound, but when at the right speed it had a high pitched tone.

My brothers fed the sheaves into the machine while another sewed the chaff sacks. The machine had a riddle that shook backwards and forwards to get rid of the longer straw, and shake the dust from the oats and chaff. There were clouds of dust which must have been rather stifling to the men and horses.

One nice fine day I was left in the block dray, which they used to cart the chaff to the stable where it was put into a high loft above the feeding boxes. While I was sitting in the dray, a sheet of iron on the building made a sudden noise. The horse got uneasy and bolted over the rough hillside paddock. I hung on for grim death, yelling blue murder. The horse pulled the dray partly across on the hillside, then tore down to the flat. My brothers did not hear anything because of the noise of the chaff-cutter, but they saw the horse and cart had disappeared. They rushed out to the rescue and managed to stop the horse. How I stayed in that cart I just don't know.

JACK IN THE TANK

When I was little, most country homes had huge concrete underground tanks to collect the rainwater for dry periods. My brother Jack was wheeling a wheelbarrow across the iron top of our tank, when all of a sudden an iron sheet gave way and in he went, wheelbarrow and all. Mother heard the commotion, came out, grabbed the garden rake and held him above water for two hours until help came.

MY BEDROOM IN FLAMES

The old house at Mangamahu had two attic bedrooms upstairs. My sister May slept in one and I slept in the opposite. In those days we only used candle light for all rooms except the big living room which had a kerosene lamp. I had taken the lighted candle up to my room when I went to bed, and put it on the window sill. My sister May usually came in to blow it out when I was asleep.

This particular night, I was in bed but could not get to sleep for a long time. A breeze must have started and blew the curtain into the candle flame. Flames shot up the wall from the curtains and set alight to the wallpaper. My father was sitting in the big room downstairs with his feet up, keeping warm by the big wood fire. I suddenly saw the flames tearing up the wall near me. I rushed out to the stairs and yelled "The house is on fire. The house is on fire." All I heard Father say was "Why aren't you asleep, so go to bed." I kept on calling, but got no answer. In the meantime my sister May rushed in, grabbed a rug to smother the flames and managed to get the fire under control. Buckets of water were carried up to douse the smouldering boards. Had the flames got away, the old timber house would have perished in no time and someone could have perished with it.

VISITING THE CITY

Although our home was a halfway place for riders, gigs, buggies, wagonettes and even the big wool-wagons, we were an exceedingly shy lot. Us younger ones used to run and hide when visitors came and our parents would come calling for us.

The family used to go to the city about once a year in the family wagonette, pulled by two shafters, and sometimes three leaders for a heavy load, and for pulling us out of the occasional bog. It used to take a day to get there and a day to get back. We always looked forward to the trip, especially us younger ones as we got to eat chocolate, lollies, bananas, oranges and other things we rarely had at home.

When I was very little, my mother and I went from Mangamahu to Fordell by coach and then on to the city by train. It took a long day to get there. We stayed with relatives who lived a fair way from the shopping area, so Mother ordered a taxi (those days called a hansom cab) to get to places that were too far to walk. The cabs were closed in with a door each side for us passengers to enter. The driver sat perched high up in front over looking the horse, while I sat inside with Mother, and looked out through the windows of the doors on either side.

THE COACHING HORN

My father had a coaching horn and knew all the proper calls for it. I re member going to Fordell when I was very tiny, in the wagonette with all the family. It was to a show, and as we were going past the grounds my father pulled his coaching horn out (it was a good three feet long or more) and started playing some of the coaching calls. All the crowd just looked around in amazement (there were a lot of English men in the crowd who recognised the calls) and all of us kids were so bashful that us younger ones tried to hide under the seats of the wagonette.

But I remember when I was little I used to think it was great to ride in the trams in town. I would be given a few pennies and I would spend them riding in the trams, especially to Castlecliff, where I could fish under the wharf and catch herrings where the freezing works overflow was.

And I used to fish for herrings later on, when I went visiting George Harper and his wife, who now had a place called 'Featherston' up the Wanganui River near Makirikiri. I used to go there sometimes for the school holidays, where George got me out on a pony to chase fallow deer in the gorse hills with him.

I liked George; we were great cobbers and got on well. In later years he died without a will, and his wife was worried he may have left most of his money to me. But I heard no more about it.

EDISON GRAMOPHONE

We used to have an Edison 'His Masters Voice' gramophone which played cylindrical records. It was the only other instrument we had besides a piano. The gramophone was played so often that I came to know all the tunes off by heart and could play them well on the mouth-organ at eight years of age. I could not read music, but played everything by ear. Some of the tunes I learnt from the gramophone I still enjoy playing on my old mouth-organ to this day.