In 1940 my father was transferred from Hastings to Hawera in South Taranaki to become the manager of the Post Office Saving Bank and the local Customs Agent.

          We had no accommodation at the start. For many months we lived in an old, musty smelling boarding house, while a new State House was built for us.

          It was not easy starting at a new school with a lot of strangers.

          Shortly afterwards I joined the local scouts,  and a boxing club. The scouts certainly changed my life. I made the first rugby XV at High School – this helped build my confidence.

          During my school holidays I had a couple of spells working on farms. One was on the Wilsons sheep farm at Waverley – a kindly family.  The other was a more primitive dairy farm out of Taneatua.

          I had enjoyed the rural life so my scout master Harry Schapper, who managed farms for the Taranaki Farmers Co-op., suggested I become one of his farm cadets.

          We became friends for the rest of his life. He ended up a university professor at the University of Western Australia in Perth.

          For many years I visited Perth as we had a daughter living there and I passed through heading for Singapore to run my 32 workshops for the Singapore Institute of Management. We always had a walk, a chuckle, and a meal together. He became a close friend until he died.

          When I was working on a farm at Waitotara I played rugby for Waverly. We played in the Whanganui competition, so we travelled in by train most Saturdays.

          On one such train ride I met George Sargent, one of my Hawera scout patrol leaders. He was returning from final leave in the Fleet Air Arm and heading for the UK for additional training. I was envious so that is why I applied for Navy training and how Hawera scouts changed my life. It gave me a remarkable career and a world tour.

          I last met with George while working in Samoa where he was a South Pacific architect. We dined together and I told him how he had made a difference to my life.

          That was the end of my South Taranaki stay. I had enjoyed this part of my life.

          When I came out of the Navy my father had been transferred at Invercargill.

          Lets skip my study years. My first field job for the Department of Agriculture was in Whanganui where I worked the wild Waimarino. That would be 1953-59. I was married in 1955 and got sick of never being home when we were having a family.

          I noticed an advert for Trade Commissioners so I applied and was called to Wellington for an interview. At the same time I had a phone call from our head office offering me the senior farm advisory job in North Taranaki. I suspected these two events were related.

          I was delighted to return to Taranaki – I accepted this new position immediately.

          We drove to New Plymouth not knowing the city. On the way in we called on June Oliver. June had been Joyce’s technician before she went nursing. Rodney, June’s husband and a great enthusiast showed us the section next door.

          I stood on a tree stump and gazed in wonder, I had never seen a view like it – a river, a mountain, and farm land full of animals.

          Believe it or not, with Rodney’s help, within two days we had bought the section, found a builder, accepted a house plan, and obtained a rehab. loan. That is hard to believe but true.

          The best part was that our builder Bruce Simpkin offered us his beach cottage at Bell Block beach to live in while he built our house.

          From the junior in Whanganui to the senior in Taranaki was a big move and I had inherited many new tasks . For example I was a judge at the A&P shows, the turf advisor at Rugby Park with a free season ticket. I was seconded to the local council of Federated Farmers. I had to report on all rural deaths and I was on the Marginal Lands committee.

          I had hardly sat down in my new office when there was a knock on the door and two farmers came in. They had a request. The spokesman Bob Mantey,  said, “We had a great respect for Angus Burgess, your predecessor, so we thought we would like to break you in.”

          That was the start of my first discussion group. The Norfolk Road group was my nucleus group.

          That’s what I did. I set up discussion groups throughout my district.

          A group consisted of about a dozen farmers.    

          About once a month we would visit one of the farmers in the group, discuss his production, and his problems and comment on his style of farming – they taught me much.

          Each group would elect a leader, who would set dates and muster farmers. They would often bring in a struggling farmer to a meeting and help him with labour, or lend him equipment.

          I also inherited many small farm schools. Which I considered a waste of time because of the small numbers of farmers that attended.

          Because of my many discussion groups I knew what farmers wanted to know so I convinced Federated Farmers to put up the money to run a large farm school at Waitara in their large sports hall.

          This was a two day affair. One day for dairy farmers, and one for sheep and beef farmers. It was very successful and at one stage it became the biggest farms meeting in the country.

          In a good year there would be an attendance of 1,500 to 1,700 farmers.

          The recipe for its success was very simple. We dealt with farmers’ topical concerns and brought in the leading authorities to recommend possible solutions.

          We banned long lectures. No one could speak for more than 10 minutes at a time. We concentrated on panel discussions with plenty of time for questions and answers.

          These meetings were given maximum publicity – we even organised a newspaper supplement.

          We developed a cunning scheme to deal with large numbers at lunch time.

          Catering was done commercially, and set out in the adjoining basketball hall. Sharp at noon the doors were thrown open to the mob.

          We did not charge people going in, thus alleviating queues.  We charged them when they drifted out slowly.

          When I was a student for many years I ran the dances and balls – especially the capping balls. This was perhaps the most important thing I learned at university – how to organise an event.  

          Presumably to the success of this Waitara farm school I was invited to join four other farm advisors to attend a five month management training course, held largely in Wellington.

          We had built a new house, had four children and I was not keen to leave home for two week out every three but I suspected they were going to break up the district and New Plymouth may be the hub so Joyce encouraged me to attend.

          I had the luxury of  five month management training – very few people have had such an opportunity.

          At that time I didn’t fully  appreciate it until I was asked to teach this topic at the University of the South Pacific. When my final year students asked for a text book I couldn’t recommend one so that’s when I wrote ‘Survival Skills for New Managers’ from my lecture notes.

          This was published in 8 countries and the Singapore Institute of Management asked me to make it into workshop course for them. I converted it into a workshop and I ran this in Singapore 32 time and in other Asian countries.

          I was relieved when my 5 month training was over and was looking forward to returning to my usual life once again but it was not to be.

          I accidentally met the Director-General, in the toilets, and he said to me “Moss you are to transfer to Wellington immediately.” I said, “I am very happy in New Plymouth and I don’t want to move.” He said, “You have been replaced. There is no job for you in Taranaki now. We have invested a great deal of money in you. It is now time to repay it!”

          I did not want to move to Wellington – I was conscripted. Joyce was in Auckland looking after a sick child in hospital.

          I sold the house I was so proud of and moved to Wellington with the two oldest children. Joyce had the two youngest in Auckland.

          I bought the first house I looked at. It was twice the price of the new house I had build in New Plymouth and I was the third owner.

          Joyce didn’t see the house I had purchased for a month after I had moved in.

          Before I left New Plymouth we sat down and worked out exactly the house specifications I should buy, such as four bedrooms, sunny, handy to city, and a good school etc.  This first house ticked all the boxes. I am still living in that house and I have done so, on and off, since 1965.

          With hindsight transferring to Wellington was the best thing that could have happened to me – it certainly changed my life. Despite that, the old Hawera school song still lingers in my ears, praising the mountain with ‘its cap of glistening snow, its skirts of native beauty and the green fields far below.’

Geoffrey Moss(mossassociates.co.nz)

“Waste no time in vain regrets”