To the Editor of The Press 

Sir, 

Letters in The Press remind me of what has been told me by pioneers.  Darfield was first named Hordon, and the name was changed to Darfield because of confusion between Hordon and Hornby.

When water-races were first suggested by Mr Mathias, the idea was pooh-poohed because they said the water would just run into the ground and not through the Canterbury Plains.  Then when they arranged to prove that was absurd, a small water-race was made and a law was also passed that if a horse was seen drinking at the water-race the owner would be fined 50 pounds.  The water-race scheme was started about 60 years ago.  As time went on they widened it and it proved very beneficial to man and creatures.

Before the advent of the water-races people camped or settled near rivers.  Some years ago an old lady of 83 years (Mrs Wyatt) said, "I had to carry the water some distance from the river Avon to do my washing."  I guess there were not so many washing days then as there was no coal and wood was scarce.  They had to go to the Waimakariri River for sticks.  My grandfather was coming home from the river-bed with a load; the roughness and unevenness of the road caused him to slip off, the dray passing over his body.  He was taken by dray to the Christchurch Hospital where he died.  My grandmother was left with 5 children, the eldest not much more than 7 years old, the youngest baby only a few weeks old.

In those days bread was baked with a straw fire.  They had no stove, only an oil drum turned on its side.  To make the oil-drum stationary, clay and stones were mixed together and put round it.  They dried hard and were a substitute for cement.  On top boulders were used to rest iron bars on which the cooking utensils were placed.  The lid acted as an oven door, and a very narrow shelf had to be made which would hold three small loaves of bread.  Straw was burnt underneath as well as on top of this home-made stove to cook the bread.

The children had to go to work very early, getting 2 shillings a week.  The dray was the vehicle to take them to Christchurch.  A man from Waddington, Mr Gamble, told me he took his bride from Christchurch to Waddington in a dray.  He found on arrival that there was no water to drink, so he put a tank on a dray, yoked in another horse and started out for the Waimakariri River.  Darkness fell suddenly, so he turned back in case he lost his way, as there were no roads to direct him to the river, the sand being covered with tussocks.  He set off again at sunrise for the water.

It was only about 1900 that the Darfield schoolchildren saw the first motorcar pass through the district.

A man at Charing Cross, I was told, brought his whare home with two horses and at night he tied them to the whare because there were no fences.  At that time the pioneers had to build up sod fences on which to plant gorse.  On getting up the next morning the man found one of his horses dead from the cold, the horse having been on the south-west side of the whare.

Yours, etc. 

Thankful

July 20 1939