Michael D.Heath-Caldwell M.Arch.

1957 - 1958 - 1959

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Rev. Capt C.H.Heath-Caldwell DSO RN aged 68/69

Violet M.Heath-Caldwell aged 72/73

Patricia M.C.Heath-Caldwell aged 37/38

Diana Charlton - (Danny) - (ne Heath-Caldwell) aged 36/37

Rosalind Attwood - (Ros) - (ne Heath-Caldwell) aged 32/33

J.A. Heath-Caldwell (NZ) aged 27/28

D.A.Heath-Caldwell (NZ) (ne Jones) aged 22/23

Vice Admiral Alexander Palmer ADC, DSO, OBE, RN. aged 77/78

Irving Palmer OBE, RN.

Lady Genesta Hamilton (ne Heath) aged 68/69

Madeline Marion de Salis (ne Heath) aged 65/66

Rosamond Heath (Posy) aged 64/65

Rev. Frederick M.T. Palmer aged 69/70 Maitland NSW

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1958 - New Zealand
We were to have left London Airport at 11am on Tuesday 21st January but our aircraft was delayed 24 hours by engine trouble so we left Cattistock on Tuesday evening. It was snowing and freezing at the Southern Railway from Maiden Newton provided a first class compartment with the heating out of order. The dining car people produced an uneatable piece of steak for which we were charged the price of a good dinner. Mount Charles Hotel (Marble Arch) for the night - London air terminal Wednesday morning (22nd January) where we got rid of our baggage finally taking off in the QANTAS Super-constellation about noon. 

The Super-constellation was divided into three cabins, the two foremost ones for tourist class passengers, the larger compartment aft for 1st class passengers. We were in the foremost compartment with about 4 rows of seats, two seats on port side and three in each row on the starboard side. We flew at a height of about 12,000 feet. There was a certain amount of cloud, but we could see some of the country and could make out Torbay and the Bristol Channel. Arrived a Guardia about 7pm local time. On to New York where we arrived in the middle of the night and spent two hours wandering round the airport. (which was terribly over-heated) A lot of paper formalities, and then on.  The aircraft was not at all fulll and I was able to stretch out on the three starboard seats and got some sleep. Daylight next morning saw us over Utah and Nevada (Reno was pointed out) Barren looking mountainous country with a good deal of snow. 

We touched down about 9.00 am. local time and then changed aircraft as the original schedule had been that we should stay the night in (Frisco?). This was altered owing to the 24 hours delay in leaving London. Left (Frisco?) about noon and arrived Honolulu about 9pm (Thursday 23rd January), where we had dinner. It was pleasantly warm in Honolulu. Touched down at Canton Island about 6.30am local time (Saturday having missed out Friday on crossing the date line). Canton Island is a coral atoll about 23 miles north of the equator. Just a few oil tanks and a jetty, but water laid on, showers and up-to-date sanitation. 

After half an hour at Canton Island, on to Nandi (Fiji) where we arrived two hours late and found the TEAL DC7 waiting for us. The air-conditioning in the Super-constellation was first class and we kept an even temperature and fresh air all the way through. 

We arrived at Auckland about 6pm, three hours late and missed the plane to New Plymouth. We eventually got into the Waverley Hotel (most unattractive) could get no food but eventually found an expensive and unattractive meal in a fish and chip shop. Amongst other annoyances we found we had to pay for everything in advance at the hotel. It was very hot and stuffy in Auckland (about 90) and we were stuck there till Monday evening. On arrival on Saturday we had telephoned Jimmy who had been rather worried because he couldn't find out what had happened to us. Eventually we arrived at New Plymouth about 6.30pm, Monday 27th January and were met by James, Dora and Hilary.

40 miles drive to Pihama where we arrived about 8pm and went straight on to the Gopparths for supper. Mr and Mrs Gopperth senior, Ivan and (Babbner?). And so to bed.

Jimmy's house most attractive and beautifully decorated, a sun-porch, with wash-house and lavatory on the right, on the left door into small kitchen, then on the right the bathroom and the sitting room with three bedrooms opening out of it. From our window we could see Mount Egmont, an 8,000 foot extinct volcanoe (about 15 miles away). The farms are divided into rectangular paddocks of 8 to 10 acres, with high boxthorn hedges, some of them up to 25 or 30 feet high. There are very few trees and what there are, are pine trees.

Mr Gopperth owns two farms, in all about 250 acres. These two farms have been turned over to two of his sons, Ross and Ivan. Each farm is divided into ten or twelve rectangular paddocks. The cow, 113 milking and followers are turned into a different paddock every morning after milking. The only crop grown apart from grass was turnips. At suitable seasons the cows are folded on to the turnips for an hour or two, with an electric fence. 

James and Dora leave for the milking shed (about 200 yards from their house) about 5.am and milk 115 cows, ten at a time and get back for breakfast about 7.30am. After that James goes to work on the farm, with a short break for a cup of tea, (I think) an hour for dinner (12 - 1) then back to work again till the evening milking (4 - 5.30) then finish for the day. Milking seven days a week, apart from this Sunday off, and one other day off in the week. 14 days holiday. Wages for one milker about 55 a month out of which 1 a week is deducted for house, free milk and firewood. Tax of 1/6 in the pound social security, no employment stamps or anything of that sort. Social security comes free, maternity treatment and (I think) hospital treatment, but not doctors fees. It also covers compensation for sickness and old age pension.

Labour is highly paid in New Zealand and town workers get more than farm workers, but their expenses are higher. Generally speaking no work is done on Saturday or Sunday. Shops all close Saturday, but keep open late on Friday evening. The farmers are keen on getting English trained workers. After a season or two as a worker anyone with ambition taking on share milking receives 29 or 33% of the mild cheque, or 50% if you own your own herd. This is the first step towards owning your farm. 
I was assured that people with good references for integrity and intelligence should have no difficulty in getting suitable (priority?) as share milkers. 

The milk is taken off to the local milk factory where it is made into cheese the same day and put in store for a fortnight after which it is exported. A really good cow would yeild 500lbs annually, average about 250lbs. Farmers have been getting about 3/- lb and at the moment this is being made up to them by an equalisation fund, export prices having fallen. Nobody seems to know what will happen when the equalisation fund is exhausted, but Mr Gopperth said sensible farmers have been able to put away something for bad times though many have not bothered. In his own case he said he could increase production if necessary. Up to the present there had been no object in doing so, as it would only mean increased taxation.

Milk recording seems rather crude and haphazard compared with U.K. 
The cows are dried off about May.A certain amount of hay and silage is made for feeding in the short winter, but no food has to be bought. 

(Price of butterfat - Population. Pihama, Hawera, New Plymouth, Taranaki as a whole)
Although it is usual for farm workers to take their holidays (14 days a year) in the winter, the Gopperths suggested that James and Dora should take a week during our visit in - in fact they told them to take a day or two extra if they wished. 
Accordingly we left Pihama in the early morning of Thursday 26th February in Jimmy's Ford Zephr with tents etc on the roof rack.

We drove through Hawera, Wanganui, Palmerston North, Dannevirke, Napier and camped by Lake Tutira about 30 miles north of Napier. (about 250 miles in the day) 
The road from Pihama to Napier was fairly level except for a few miles between Palmeston North and Dannevirke where we went through a gorge. The river here runs to the east of the mountains and flows west through the gorge and gives the illusion of running uphill. The explanation is that the river was there before the mountains. 
The country from Pihama to the Gorge was green, after that it became increasingly brown and dried up, until we passed out of the Hawks Bay district. Lake Tutira is a bird sanctuary, the lake fringed by Weeping Willows was warm and pleasant to bath in. My nights rest was disturbed, first by the collapse of my camp bed, and secondly by two hedgehogs munching away at a paper back of apricots. 

The only birds I noticed were some black swans and a few ducks and geese.
The next day we stopped in a motor camp in Gisborne. Our tents were about 50 yards from the beach separated by a belt of trees. A pleasant beach for bathing. The camp had a cook-house withy electric stoves on the penny-in-the-slot principle. Also showers, baths and sanitory arrangements. We stayed in the Gisborne camp Friday night, Saturday, left early Sunday morning for Opotiki. 

The road from Tutira to Opotiki wound in and out of the mountains up and down with heights up to 4,000 feet and numerous hairpin bends.

Arrived Ohope Bay (Opotiki) Sunday afternoon. Surf here made bathing unpleasant. 
It began to rain in the night.  We left Ohope Monday morning and drove through Rotorua, some of the party looked in at the Maori village at Whakarewarewa with its hot springs and boiling mud, but no one was about, so we passed on, the rain getting more all the time and we were fortunate in getting a cabin at the Wairaki motor camp. James and Dora bathed in the honeymoon pool that evening. This is in the middle of the thermal district as the camp is a few hundred yards from the place where pipes are let down into the earth using the steam to run a power station. This made a tremendous noise and the hut was vibrating like the engine room of a destroyer at full speed. Next morning it was flooded with muddy water.

 We had a look at Wairaki hot springs on Tuesday morning and then drove down to the east side of Taupo. Instead of going along the level road we turned and went home by Taumaranui and Stratford, raining hard all the time so we missed the scenery. Most of it up and down and round hairpin bends, bluffs and gorges and so home. After that we stayed on the farm. 

We left New Plymouth 4pm Tuesday 25th March for Auckland. This time we stayed at the Strathmore Private hotel (Proprietor Mrs McHughes) in the Bishops Old Palace. There we were made very comfortable.

Left Auckland 9.0am TEAL DC7. Arrived Sydney 1pm. It was hot and stuffy. We were very much at a loose end not knowing where to go. By the time we got into the Newcastle plane at 7.40 I was very ill and did not enjoy the flight or the journey from Newcastle (where Fred Palmer met us) to Clarence Town. Spent next day (Thursday) in bed but recovered Friday morning.Fred Palmer and Nora very kind, drove us around and we had a lovely bathe in the Williams river. 

Saturday 29th March 1958
Flew from Newcastle to Sydney, stayed in the Wentworth Hotel, fairly comfortable. 

Sunday 30th March 1958
Embarked on QANTAS Super-constellation - 10.30 arrived Melbourne 1pm. Perth 7pm. Jakarta in the middle of the night. An excellent breakfast at Singapore next morning (Monday 31st March) Bangkok midday, Calcutta 7pm. Karachi late that night. 

Cairo, Tuesday morning (breakfast). Athens 10.30am. Stayed at Delphi Hotel (no meals), lunch in a Greek restaurant. 
 

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1958 - New Zealand
C.H.H.C 
Two months in New Zealand. Some impressions.

We reached New Zealand on the 25th January and left on the 25th March having travelled via the U.S.A. QANTAS Airways returning via the Middle East.
The purpose of the trip was to visit our son who is working on a dairy farm in the Taranaki district.

Taranaki is situated on the bulge on the West coast of the North Island about 100 miles north of Wellington.

The countryside is dominated by Mount Egmont, 8000 feet extinct volcano. there is a range of hills on the east side of the mountain: on the south the land slopes gently down to the sea, there are several small streams running down from the mountain. This is one of the best dairy lands in New Zealand and is selling at about 100 an acre. Les than 100 years ago it was a scrub covered swamp.

The owner of the farm on which we stayed is nominally retired which does not mean that he has given up working, but his 250 acres is divided into two units which are managed by two of his sons who work their holdings with a high degree of co-operation. Each unit has a paid worker whose wives assist with the milking.
The owner lives in the homestead surrounded by a bright attractive garden a feature of which is a tall hedge of blue hydrangeas which seem to thrive in the district. 
The younger son and his family live about 50 yards from the homestead just off the main road. The workers residence is about 50 yards further on in the corner of a paddock. All the houses are on the telephone which is more widely used than in this country (UK) at much cheaper rates.

Most of the New Zealand houses are one storey timber buildings with galvanised roofs, usually painted white every two years and picked out in bright colours. They are generally built on concrete piles raised about 18 inches above the ground.  The effect is pleasing to the eye, and enhances the sense of freshness and cleanliness and light which was our first impression of the country. Even the towns look bright and clean. We saw nothing drab or dingy.

The workers residence where we stayed was naturally smaller than the other houses. It has a fair sized well proportioned living room with three bedrooms, a small combined kitchen and pantry and an up-to-date bathroom opening out of it. Everything is electric, cooker, water heater and automatic pump which brings water from a well in the paddock. At the east end there is a small sun-porch with a wash-house and lavatory opening out of it.

There is a roomy garage with concrete approach to the main road, the whole fenced in with a lawn five to ten yards wide round the house. A few yards away a quarter of an acre kitchen garden, also fenced in, the whole being shielded from the main road by a high boxthorn hedge. 

The farm is flat except that at the far end there is a belt of sand-dunes leading to the cliffs. The dunes are covered with yellow lupins and scrub.

Apart from the flowering shrubs there are few trees in the district, a few plantations of pinus signus. Shelter is provided by boxthorn (buckthorn?) hedges upto20 or 30 feet high. These help to shelter the vegetation and the animals from the cold salty winds which prevail during the short winter months. 

Everything on the farm is streamlined. Milking shed and implement sheds are close to the homestead, and adjoins a concrete road which runs down the middle of the farm. On either side of the race as it is called there are eight or ten rectangular paddocks divided by buckthorn (box thorn?) hedges. The gates area all made on the farm and kept in first class repair.

During our visit they were milking 113 Jersey cows, ten at a time from 5.30am to 7.30am in the morning and from 3.30pm to 5.30pm in the evening. The milk lorry is backed onto the concrete bay in the shef, and the milk driven off half a mile to the factory after the morning milking. It is poured into tanks on arrival andhas been made into cheese by about 3pm. The cheeses are then placed in an air-conditioned store for a fortnight when they are ready for export, thought they are at their best if kept for 12 months.

After the morning milking the cows are turned into a different paddock each day, though during part of our visit there were turned into a turnip field for an hour. Apart from the one field of turnips nothing is grown except grass. Silage and hay is made for winter feeding.

I was told that a really good cow produces 500lbs of butterfat per season, but that the average yield is about 250lbs. Generally speaking milk recording is less efficient than in this country.

It is usual for farm workers to take their 14 days annual holiday in the winter  months, but our farmer suggested a weeks holiday for our worker and told him to take a fews days extra if he wished so that we should be able to see more of the country. Accordingly we set off early one morning with our infant grand-daughter parked on the front seat of the car and a couple of tents on the roof rack. the weather was warm when we started with midday shad temperatures of 78 and 84, but nearly always a cool sea breeze.

We drove south through Wanganui to Palmeston North andthen turned east through the Manawatu Gorge up the west coast through Dannevirk to Napier in the Hawkes Bay district. Except for the gorge the roads were fairly level with long straight stretches, tarsealed in the middle, the edges left rough and levelled from time to time with a grader. After leaving Manawatu Gorge it got hotter and we lost the vivid green of the west coast. After leaving Napier we found ourselves in the hilly country rising up to two or three thousand feet and following the contours of the hills wiht countless hairpin bends and often sheer drop of several hundred feet. 

We camped for the night under the willows by the side of Lake Tutira, about 30 miles north or Napier. This is a bird sanctuary, all we saw were some black swans, geese, and ducks. It was very beautiful in the early morning, with the vivid blue sky and the surrounding hills and the willows reflected in the lake. After a bathe in the lake and breakfast we left for Gisborne, mostly up and own and round steep hills withy the usual hairpin bends every fifty yards. We passed several road gangs with bulldozers, cutting through hills and filling up valleys. 

At Gisborne we spent two nights in a motor camp close to the beach. The temperature during the day was high, and we were in and out of the sea most of the time. You find motor camps or motels in or near many of the towns and bathing beaches. They are pleasantly designed wiht trees or high hedges. Sites are provided for tents and caravans, and there are buildings wiht shower, baths and lavatories, and a cook house supplied with electric or gas cookers on the penny in the slot principle.

The next day we made an 80 mile drive to Opotiki onthe Bay of Plenty. We climbed to 4,000 feet and asw we crossed the summit we passed from a brown dried up countryside to a vivid green one. We spent the night in another motor camp at Ohope beach. Rain started during the night, and continued for most of the rest of the trip. This was a pity as we missed some of the most striking scenery. We stopped in Rotorua, and some of the party had a look at the Maori village at Whakarewarewa, but as there were no guides to be seen we gave the geysers and boiling springs a miss and drove onto Wairakie which is a few miles north of Lake Taupo. Wairaki is also famous for its thermal wonders, and we joined a party next morning to walk round the valley and look at the geysers and boiling mud. There has been so much rain that one of them had turned from pink to white (or the other way about) during the night. Meanwhile we had been fortunate to engage the last four berth cabin in the Wairaki motor camp, as there was no ground dry enough to pitch a tent. Some of the party had a disturbed night, the camp being a few hundred yards from another thermal valley which has been tapped to provide steam for a power station. The steam escaping never stopped roaring, and the cabin was vibrating all night. 

The rain was still coming down in buckets the next morning so it was decided to cut short the trip and make for home. We drove south along the eastern shore of Lake Taupo, then turned west through Taumaranui with an alarming succession of bluffs and gorges. The road was slippery in places and a skid would have sent us over the bluff and into the river five hundred feet below. As it happened next day some of the towns we passed through were flooded and the roads were closed. The rain continued for another day after our return. On an average we had about one day of rain a week during our two months visit, but usually there was bright sunshine.

During the latter part of the trip we passed close to two volcanoes, Ruapehu and Tongariro, but owing to the rain we did not see them. The visitor gets the impression that New Zealand is a happy country, although some of the legislation is considered socialist, the individual still counts. Given integrity, average intelligence, some initiative and above all a capacity for work, any young man has a reasonable prospect of making a good living and probably running his own show after a few years. No one could have been more thoughtful, hospitable, and kind than our farmer and his family. Indeed everywhere we found friendliness and nice manners.

The standard of living seems to be much higher than in this country(UK).The food was good, margarine and artificial creams is unknown but I did not like the bacon.
The New Zealanders we were priveleged to meet struck us as carefree though doubtless they have problems to face like the rest of mankind. The fall in the prices of butter and cheese is one of them, but the older hands have been through it before, and i was told that many of them can increase production if it is worth while.

I can not write with certainty about the economic aspect. Many imported goods are dutiable, but there is no such thing as purchase tax. I think taxation is generally less drastic than in this country. Tobacco is half the price and petrol is three and ten a gallon. 

We shall always have happy memories of our two months in New Zealand. 

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Tuesday 24 June 1958
Evening News (London)

Newcomer
The 10s. shares of Excess Insurance Co. are expected to get a market quotation shortly.
The businessw dates back to 1894 and has built up a big overseas connection, especially in the U.S. Though it has never raised new capital its investments total over £5,000,000 and net assets over £1,000,000.
Dividend last year was 17½p.c.

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Wednesday 25 June 1958
The Scotsman

Excess Insurance Co.- Application has been made to the Council of the London Stock Exchange for permission to deal in the whole of the issued capital of £750,000 in 1,500,000 shares of 10s. each. Company carries on the business of an insurance company, in all forms of insurance other than life insurance, and derives its business almost entirely through Lloyd's brokers. Net assets at 13.12.1957 were £1,246,335. From 1948 to 1956 dividends on £500,000 capital rose from 12% to 25%. For 1957 a dividend of 17½ & was paid on £750,000.

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Wednesday 25 June 1958
The Scotsman

Excess Insurance Co.- Application has been made to the Council of the London Stock Exchange for permission to deal in the whole of the issued capital of £750,000 in 1,500,000 shares of 10s. each. Company carries on the business of an insurance company, in all forms of insurance other than life insurance, and derives its business almost entirely through Lloyd's brokers. Net assets at 13.12.1957 were £1,246,335. From 1948 to 1956 dividends on £500,000 capital  rose from 12% to 25%. For 1957 a dividend of 17½ & was paid on £750,000.

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Wednesday 25 June 1958
Daily Herald

The courage of Cuthbert egged on Lloyds

The appearance of a new insurance company for Stock Exchange quotation is something of a rarity these days. But today one comes to the City and brings with it some of the romance of the past.

Its name is the Excess Insurance Co., which will surely mean nothing to at all to most people. But the founder of Excess, the late Cuthbert Eden Heath, was a man with great courage and foresight.

Until Cuthbert Heath started quoting premium rates for other types of business, Lloyd's was happy to deal mostly with ships and fires.

Today, of course, thanks largely to Mr.Heath, you can insure most anything at Lloyd's, from a film star's eyelashes to her vital statistics. Or against rain during a Test Match!
Started 64 years ago by Mr.Heath with a capital of only £5,000, Excess now has assets of £7½ million.

Arrangements are in hand for a quotation for the 1,500,000 shares of 10s. on which a dividend of 17½ p.c. is expected.

1959

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