Spectrum 106. Tea shops and horse buses

Rights Information
Year
1974
Reference
30138
Media type
Audio
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Rights Information
Year
1974
Reference
30138
Media type
Audio
Duration
00:24:39
Credits
RNZ Collection
DOBSON, Ethel Mills, Speaker/Kaikōrero
Perkins, Jack (b.1940), Interviewer

Journalist Ethel Mills Dobson recalls her childhood in Edwardian Wellington where her journalist father's newspaper work brought the family into contact with several literary figures including the Australian writer Henry Lawson, and a young Kathleen Beauchamp (Katherine Mansfield).

She grew up in Buckle Street, Newtown and describes Wellington Harbour, catching a train from Te Aro station to Thorndon around the waterfront, and seeing ships such as the inter-island steamer Rotomahana and the sailing ship Pamir, and the wreck of the Belle Isle [sic. possibly La Bella? - wrecked in 1904 in Owhiro Bay.]
She recalls the Italian fishing fleet of Island Bay and buying ice-creams from Days Bay - which were the first in Wellington.

She talks about meeting Australian poet Henry Lawson who stayed at her home for three weeks and recalls learning his poems.

On Aug 4, 1904 an earthquake hit and a large piece of concrete fell off the Wellington Technical College building and nearly hit her.

She used to see Richard Seddon riding his horse through Newtown towards the Town Belt. He was a big man and rode every morning on a large grey horse.

She met Kathleen Beauchamp with her father at Carroll's Tearooms on Stewart Dawson's corner. Mr Beauchamp had asked her father to evaluate some of Kathleen's writing. She describes Beauchamp as beautifully dressed but rather condescending. She says her father liked her writing and sent them to an Australian magazine, which published them.

Sister Mary Aubert used to be seen at the Sisters of Mercy convent and Ethel recalls her collecting left-over food from tearooms to distribute to the poor.

She discusses visiting entertainers, including a German opera company and the 'castes' of Wellington at the time, with the well-to-do living in Kelburn and Karori. There was a lot of home entertaining.

She studied typing and shorthand at "Wellington Tech" and says these classes were the start of women finding office work, which was a fashionable thing to do, even if most of the students did not go onto have careers.

She talks about York Bay and a grand home built there called Ballywick Castle and remembers the many salesmen who would go door-to-door.