Obituary:
Dolly Coutts
Very sadly
one of our longest serving members of the Society, my aunt, Mrs Dolly Coutts passed away recently aged 92. After her marriage
to my uncle, Peter Coutts in 1930, she was a staunch supporter of the Society, serving on the Committee for a short time after
the 2d Word War. Her twilight years were spent in Levin and she always retained her interest in Shetland, joining in with
the Manawatu Society activities whilst she was still able. In 1982 she was accorded Life Membership of the Society in recognition
of her long membership and service. Aunty Dolly will always be remembered with love and affection by all those who knew her,
and our condolences go to all her family.
Jim
Coutts
Forthcoming Functions
Sunday 21 November 2pm
Wellington's Christmas Parade
We hope our application for
inclusion in this year's parade will be accepted as it is now a few years since we paraded our Junior Galley and Viking Squads
in Wellington. We will be in touch with squad members as soon as we hear the outcome of our application.
In the meantime please let Jim (ph 388‑3705) know if there are any members (or member's children) who would like to
be included in our squads.
Saturday 4 December 7pm
Christmas Dinner
Mark your diaries now! As usual
we are offering gourmet dining with a chance to get together and enjoy some Christmas socialising at a very reasonable price
($25.00 members, $30 non members) which includes some refreshments.
Sunday 5 December l pm
Children's Christmas Party
Yes, it's all on the for same
weekend so make sure that you keep it free! If you haven't returned your form for the children's registrations for the Christmas
Party, please do so now (or ring Margaret Jenkins ph 476‑8102). Margaret has to let Father Christmas' elves know how
many children (and their ages) he needs to bring presents for!
A novel for young adults
Out of Tune by Joanna
Orwin
....... .
In Out of Tune
Joanna
Orwin tells two parallel stories: the contemporary story of teenage Jaz and her reaction to her father's redundancy, and the
other historical, about the teenager's great‑great‑great‑grand
mother's experience at the same age.
Jaz' attempts to balance independence
with rebellion is contrasted with the account of Jaz' ancestor, Maggie Mouat's immigration from the Shetland Isles to Stewart Island in the 1C Century.
Orwin has created a convincing
portrait of the tensions, hopes and disappointments of a small immigrant community transported from a treeless land, only
to arrive on an island where the impenetrable bush meets the shore. A place where Maggie's father's treasured violin
which he transported from home fails silent.
Jaz' struggles in comparison
with those of her ancestor are minor and the story sees Jaz increasingly absorbed by Maggie's life and weighing her own problems
against what Maggie had to endure.
Joanna Orwin is an award winning
author. Four times short‑listed for the Children's Book Award she won the Book of the Year Award in 1986 and the Senior
Fiction Award in 2002. Orwin is known for her careful research and although the work is a novel everything that happened to
the characters at Port William on Stewart Island are true. They were either taken from official records or from
taped reminiscences from a grand‑daughter of one of the original Shetlanders.
SHETLANDERS IN ISLAND BAY
"Situated on Wellington's
south coast is a place of rugged beauty; on a hot calm summer's day it can resemble a sleepy little fishing village in
the Mediterranean, yet on a day when the wind is howling from the south the resemblance is instead more to the coast of northern
Scotland. This place is Island Bay ... " So began Emmanuel Makarios on his chapter
"Pioneer Fishermen of Island Bay in his book, Nets,
Lines and Pots. No wonder then, that Island Bay attracted both Italians and Shetland Islanders.
100 years ago Island Bay was slowly developing
from the small fishing settlement established during the late 1890's. There was only a small permanent population, with
a handful of fishermen living in huts along the shoreline.
It was a popular picnic destination
(in fine weather), and in earlier years there was a race track that had attracted visitors. By 1900 however, the track had
fallen into disuse and it eventually became part of a housing estate. A culvert draining the swampy land around
the bay, a new coast road, and the extension of the tram line to Island Bay terminus in 1905
encouraged more and more people to settle there.
One of the earliest of the
Shetlanders to settle in Island Bay was Jack Tait, who emigrated to NZ in 1913
with his wife Barbara. Jack was the first Island Bay fisherman to be
known as "Mr Cook Strait" as he acquired a tremendous knowledge of the fishing, tides and conditions in Cook Strait. One of the first
boats he owned was the Foula, followed by the San Marco which was owned with another Shetlander, John William Pottinger. In
1924 Jack Tait had the River Nile built so that the San Marco was sold in 1927 to another Shetlander,
Lew Irvine and the Wilson brothers, who were Scottish immigrants.
Later the Wilson brothers bought
out Lew Irvine and eventually they were to sell the boat to another Shetlander, Jack Mouat but the San Marco dragged
her moorings and was wrecked upon the rocks at Island Bay before the transaction
was completed.
Another early migrant was
Laurence (Magnus) Johnson who had The Norna built by B J L Jukes at Balaena Bay
in 1922. The Norna went on to be owned by Andrew Tait after Laurence Johnson had
died of pneumonia after being caught out in a storm in Cook Strait. Laurence's brother Robert (Bob) was a member
of Andrew Tait's crew on the Norna as was another Shetlander, Jack Hunter. In 1927 the Norna
was
successfully salvaged from near Barrett's Reef where she had sunk after hitting a submerged obstacle. Fortunately all the
crew were rescued suffering from little more than exposure.
William Bruce arrived in Wellington
in 1920, but by1922 he had already become disillusioned with the prospects of fishing and late in 1923 he and his Shetland
partner Magnus Arthur sold their boat the Lerwick.
In tracing the boats, their
owners and crews we find connecting lines to many Shetland families. It is interesting that in many cases the original name
of the boat was kept, for example, the San Marco which had originally been owned by an Italian
and had requested that the name be retained. Later we find that the Foula was owned by an
Italian, Santo Saffioti.
But if the boats present an
interlacing pattern of ownership, it is nothing compared to the web of relationships in the Shetland community. By 1922 we
know that there were at least 250 Shetlanders living in Wellington when the Shetland Society of Wellington was incorporated,
and already there was a fair representation of Shetlanders living in Island Bay. The lives, marriages
and partnerships became intricately intertwined as the closely‑knit community lived and worked together. To understand
the family histories of the Shetlanders living in Island Bay in the 1920's
and 1930's is like trying to untangle long fishing lines after a southerly storm!
If we look at Jack Tait's family,
we find that his brother Peter and Andrew
drew also came to NZ. Also
Jack's wife Barbara (Babsie) was an Isbister before she married. Her twin brother Tommy ..... also emigrated to NZ, as did
another brother Peter. When Lew Irvine sold out his share of the San Marco to the Wilson brothers (one
of their sons was later to marry a Shetland descendant!) he did so to join Peter Isbister in setting up Cook Strait Fisheries. Tommy
Isbister joined the venture when Cook Strait Fisheries provided the capital for his boat, the Southern
Cross, to be built, which then fished for the company under contract. And Babsie, Tommy and Peter had a step‑sister
Jemima Pottinger (from their mother's first marriage), who was to marry Laurence Stewart, and yes, they also emigrated
from Shetland to
New Zealand. Their sons Jimmy
and Bobby were to play a prominent role in the Shetland Society in future years.
The stories are even more
complicated when we find the practice of naming sons after their grandfathers or fathers, so that the same name is repeated
through several generations. The most notable of these is the Inkster family.
About 1921 or 1922 John Inkster
emigrated to NZ with his widowed mother and sisters. They become friendly with Laurence Duncan who had arrived in NZ
in April 1921 with his family of four boys and three daughters. Not surprisingly, John Inkster marries one of the Duncan lasses, Meg, and
in 1928 their first child, John is born.
And just to add to the confusion,
John's mother was Agnes Pottinger before she married, and her eldest daughter Agnes (who is an Inkster) then marries
Arthur Pottinger!
The family history then takes
another turn after John Inkster fails ill with pneumonia and dies in the Chatham Islands in 1937. His widow Meg, returns
to the family home in Island Bay with her two young children, John and Margaret, and subsequently marries Jack Mouat ‑the
same Jack Mouat who was to buy the San Marco! And when John (son of John and Meg) marries
Kathleen, what do they name their first son, but John! As well as sharing the same name, all three John Inksters; were (or
are, in the case of third generation John,) fishermen, and all three lived a large part of their lives in Island Bay!
As Island Bay expanded rapidly
in the 1920's, so did the numbers of Shetlanders and Italians. The two communities worked, played rugby and cooperated
together. It is generally accepted that the Shetlanders taught the Italians their methods of long‑line fishing
using canvas hand‑stitched buoys.
The Italians, more
used to net fishing in the Mediterranean, were not used to the strong rips and tides of Cook Strait and found that
their metal drums and barrels could not stand the pressure of the Cook Strait tides. And they often consulted Jack Tait about
the prevailing conditions in the Strait! Jack Tait's River Nile was the first fishing boat to be fitted with a winch ‑
made from a rear axle and differential from a motor vehicle! Although this particular winch was reputed to be rather temperamental,
winches were soon fitted to many of the fishing boars, saving the men many hours of back‑breaking work pulling in the
lines by hand.
......
The number of boats fishing
out of Island Bay also increased rapidly, reaching a peak at the beginning of the
early 30's. Although many of the fishermen did well and prospered, it was not the case for all of them. As mentioned, William
Bruce decided very early on to sell up his share of the Lerwick because "The fishing is very slack". In a letter
to his father in 1922 he writes that wholesale fish prices were low (3d per lb) but the retail too high (10d per lb) for the
general public to be able to afford to buy fish. He also notes that there is no export market and the market was often flooded
with an inferior quality of fish caught by trawlers.
Edna Irvine,
the newly married young wife of Lew Irvine, writes in 1993 that in 1927 "The fishing was not so good that year ‑ 1 can
remember only one month when the 4th pay packet even approached £50.
The 4th share was allotted to the boat ‑ to cover
cost of fuel, bait, etc." Then in the summertime the discovery of the Mana Bank (off Paremata) and the subsequent over‑fishing
"spelt disaster for the industry". That was when Lew Irvine decided to sell his share of the San Marco and go into partnership
with Peter Isbister in setting up Cook Strait Fisheries.
Interestingly,
Edna also describes how she made Lew's "smookies" ‑ the home‑made fishing smocks that the Shetland fishermen preferred.
She wrote 7he material was aero. plane linen, garment past knee‑length, high collar, with a 'V inserted between the
two 'skins' [outer jacket with a lining], at the neck opening, to ensure the garment would be water‑tight ... and when
completed, heavily, oiled and hung to dry for some weeks." She was very proud of her efforts as an "amateur machinist" especially
when Lew left the fish in and was able to sell his for £2 each!
The Depression hit the fishing
community very hard. It forced Lew and Edna Irvine t leave Cook Strait Fisheries, and for many was a time of barely surviving
‑ subsistence, living if they were lucky.
Some of the Shetland families
looked for alternatives. The Inksters, Duncans, Mouat and Pottingers went to the Chatham’s, where
they joined other Shetlanders such as the Abernethys and Mainlands.
Another outcome
was the formation of the Wellington Fishermen's Co‑operative 1 which Jack Tait, Alec Wilson (who had bought the San Marco) and Antonio Dellabarca setting up a scheme that ensured the fishermen received a basic wage.
This Co‑operative continued until 1963.
There are many stories to
be told ‑ and this article has only touched upon the lives ( some of the Shetlanders in Island Bay u until the 1930's.
We'll just have to featured some more in a later newsletter!
Society News
AGM
.After some mild almost Spring like days the
weather returned to winter close to our AGM on the 15 August. Just the weather for tattie soup which was much enjoyed by those
who came for lunch and a sheeks before the meeting.
The meeting
was a brief event. A comprehensive President's Annual Report which had been circulated prior to the meeting needed little
elaboration and was appreciatively received. The statement of financial position for the year ending 30 June 2004 showed a pleasing balance and members
voted to retain Society subscriptions at the same level as last year. Office bearers and the management committee were re-elected
unopposed.
Jim Coutts
raise two issues for consideration. Jim has served as President for many years and feels a replacement would be desirable
in the future. A chance for one of our member's to take on a new role! Jim also believes it is less than ideal for the President
and Treasurer to belong to the same household. If anyone is interested in becoming an assistant treasurer and working with
Rose in this capacity, the management committee would be interested to hear from you.
The meeting
was pleased to award life membership to Edna Irvine, our soon to be centenarian, in recognition of her long membership and
interest in the Society.
Management
Committee & officers
Patron
President
Vice President
Secret
Treasurer
Committee
Gideon Anderson, Andrew
Clark,
Pat Dixon, Jane Dowson,
Ross & Rut
Mainland,
Margaret Pitt, Marie Warner.
Mary
Christie as Immediate Past President also serves
on
the Committee.
John Smith
Jim Coutts
Barbara Baker
Margaret Jenkins
Rose Coutts
Hon Solicitor: Ian Laurenson
Hon Auditor Marc Warner
FAMILY DANCING
On Saturday the 4th of September
my Mum, Dad, brother and 1 went to Scots Hall for a family Scottish dancing night. We wanted to see the dances Mum and Dad
did at the annual Shetland Ball. After a slow start five to six families eventually turned up and the dancing began.
The first dance was called’ Strip the Willow'.
1 had no idea what was coming
for me. It turned out to be a lot of fun. Jim and Rose walked us through it several times and we started to get the hang of
it. There were lots of children from ages 4 through to about 12‑13 so you can imagine we got into a few tangles. Everybody
needed a break and then we tackled the next dance. 'The Dashing White Sergeant was another I remember. Lots of people
forgot what the number 8 looked like (including my Dad).
After all this dancing we had
worn ourselves out so had a yummy supper and lots of orange drink to finish the night.
1 had a really neat time and
when we got home 1 fell asleep as soon as my head touched the pillow. 1 hope we have another dancing night and that lots more
families can come.
Lil Henderson
BLOSSOM FESTIVAL*
Once
again the Society accepted the invitation to be part of the Hastings Blossom Festival early in
September. Prior commitments
prevented many junior parents from being able to make the trip so
reluctantly
it was decided not to take the galley as there were insufficient Junior Vikings to man the
oars! Instead, Shetland members from the Wellington and Hawkes Bay Societies made up a
combined squad of Senior
Vikings led by Jim Coutts, resplendent in his Up Helly Aa squad
uniform. Banners depicting
both Societies were carried by two youthful Vikings and the squad
was well received and
soundly applauded by the crowds lining the route.
In the evening most of
the squad members and partners attended the dinner/dance and again enjoyed
a great night's entertainment.
We even managed to get the 16piece jazz band to play
some of our dances! It
was a great weekend thoroughly enjoyed by all even if the dreaded flu
bug did strike deep into
some of the squad members!
News fae kin
(News from
Kindred Societies)
Auckland
The Auckland
Society had a great opportunity to promote Shetland when Blackwood Distillers offered them their booking at the Auckland
Food Show. They decorated the booth with posters, maps, photos and knitwear as well as printing off some Shetland recipes
‑ Haggamuggie and Tattie soup. Nearly 30,000 visitors attended the show and they attracted many enquiries, including
an order to knit a shawl! Well done, Auckland! What about reprinting the recipes and sharing them with the other Societies?
Canterbury
Their spring meeting in September
was to feature members wearing their favourite spring hats and a guest speaker who was for many years the Court Reporter for
"The Press". We're sure there would have been some interesting stories told and no doubt some eye-catching headwear!
Hawkes Bay We certainly
enjoyed the opportunity to meet some of the Hawkes Bay Society at the
Blossom Festival. After hearing Andy Copland's yarns about his recent trip to Shetland we're sure that the Hawkes Bay AGM would have
been a very interesting meeting as Andy re‑
Kiwifruit Coast
Their latest newsletter
featured a lovely tribute to Mabel Barclay who passed away in July. She had been a staunch supporter of the Society and
was a well known character in the wider Shetland community. Her daughter Joan (who lives in Fielding) had been a member
of our Society for many years and we join with the Kiwifruit Coast in offering
our condolences to the family.
Manawatu
Heather Reichenbach, who is
a member of both the Manawatu and Wellington Societies, featured in the local paper following her talk about her trip to Shetland
to the Manawatu Society earlier this year. A copy of the article featured in their newsletter along with the news of Dennis
and Judy Milne's forthco
