Ellicott's School memories; Compiled form the letters of Les Boisen, 1981
I attended the school at Ellicott’s and remember most of the pupil’s names.
The roll would be: Bill Print, Dave Print, Albert Print, Frank Pierce, Stan Carlyon, Ted Carlyon, Bill Nicol, Ernest Nicol. I think two young Ellicott girls and of course Leslie Boisen. A girl, 18-20 years, a relative of Loves. Frances Adams may have attended, but I am not sure. All the eight boys named were 20 or 25 or so. There had been no school where they previously lived and I think that it was greatly to their credit that they attended school at their age.
When Ellicott’s sold their farm to the Clark Brothers (George and Jim) there was no school, so my parents sent me to relatives in Auckland and for just under a year I attended Bayfield School in Herne Bay.
When the school opened at Penny’s I was brought back.
The teacher Mr Brownlie chose a motto for the school “Floreat Tokirima” which I understand means “Advance Tokirima”.
I attended school at Penny’s with my sister Marjoire. Mr Brownlie boarded with the family.
There was a small lean-to building which I gathered was to have been a play shed, but an iron chimney was shoved on one end, and it was then the teacher’s residence. Mr Bownlie, Mr Weiss and Mr Heath all lived there, so we never had a play shed. On wet days lunch was partaken in the school room.
Mr Brownlie was the finest Christian gentleman I have known. He was middle aged to elders, of a gentle nature, a good teacher and we thought the world of him. He provided the school with a complete set of cricketing gear, marbles, (glassies and all) for each boy and various games for both boys and girls. He also taught Sunday school and presented each child with a bible. I have just looked mine up. On the first page in my mother’s handwriting is the legend “Leslie Boisen, Tokirima Jan. 1st 1911”. This could have been added some time after I received the book.
From what I can make out he may have been the first Postmaster, but I am not sure of this.
A tiny addition was built on the back of his residence, and there I saw my first telephone. He let me and my mate Eric O’Brien talk to the Postmistress at Matiere and we were vastly impressed. After his reign the P.O. was located at Fred Blanks and was there as long as I was in Tokirima. Mail day was on Saturday, by pack horse from Ohura (then known as Mangaroa). It was due about five o’clock, but was often late, and Mrs Blank would hospitably invite us inside if the weather was inclement.
It was about this time (1910) that Halley’s Comet was a spectacular sight in the sky. There was talk that the tail would sweep over the earth with dire results to us all. But it continued on its seventy five year journey to goodness knows where and is due here again in 1986 I think.
Our next teacher Mr William Lyor Weiss, as he liked to introduce himself, was something else again.
An elderly man, he could qualify as the Board’s worst teacher. I believe that he was a likeable scamp away from school, a gay spark who attended dances at Ohura and other places, and on Monday morning was often the worse for wear. He would shout at the children, grab a pupil’s ruler and smack knuckles, often hitting the desk and breaking the ruler. If a book was handy (The Pacific Reader) he would throw that. One pupils book had a leaf or two come loose after this treatment, and when he did not know his spelling he (more than once) would gleefully say “That page was missing after you threw the book at me.” Mr Weiss would turn a delicate puce shade and hurry on to the next pupil. He did not use an ordinary pen, but made his own from a quill (goose, turkey?) that went into action with a most annoying squeak. He spent most of his time with the primers. I was about standard 4 and when he left, I think after about two years, I was still in standard 4, and everyone else had stayed put also!!
I think that I may have unwittingly contributed to his downfall. An inspector was looking through my exercise books and chided me for not dating lessons in an orderly manner. I said they were in order. “Do you mean to say that you had this geography lesson on Feb. 8th and not another one till March 2nd?” “Yes sir.” Ditto History, drawing, etc. “Hmm. Hmm. Lets see your arithmetic book.” Full of sums, none corrected or marked.
Things happened very fast after that. When parents found that their little darlings had not learned a darned thing Mr Weiss suddenly disappeared from the scene, and I never heard of him again. Strangely, I believe that he started both the Ohura and Martiere Schools before going to Tokirima, but how he succeeded there I never did hear.
So ended an era and we had a new teacher, Mr Phillip Heath who saw me through the final two years of my education.
After leaving school (with Proficiency) I was friendly with a later teacher Arthur Huse. He kept telling me that I would be able to get a job teaching, as teachers were in short supply, so whilst in New Plymouth I went to the Taranaki Education board to apply.
At 19 I was a bit old for a probationer and a bit young for a Sole Teacher. However I was accepted and finally came the urgent telegram ‘proceed to Waitaanga at once’. This was D.Day if I wanted to be a teacher, so I went.
The train took me to Tahora, which was the end of the line, and with my worldly possessions, and an oilskin coat (it was raining) I walked through the Tangarakau Gorge to McKays (now Paparata Station) where I borrowed a horse and rode the final 10 miles to Tokirima. Next day I rode the 25 miles to Waitaanga where I taught for some eight years.
I will pass over my efforts to fool the children that I was a clever bloke, but I did, though it often meant working until midnight, and taking correspondence lessons for my teacher’s certificate.
Inspectors Valentine, Ballantyne and Griffen were wonderful educators, as were Organising Teachers Mr Insull, Mr Curteis and Mr Ridling.
I went there about 1920. I used to ride to my parents place at Tokirima at
the weekends and would help on building the Hall, and later attended dances
there.