History of 45 Sunderland Street, Clyde

Historical Recollections by William Roberts Clarke Sutherland

Sutherland Family home - 45 Sunderland Street, Clyde, Central Otago. Occupied by William Sutherland and his wife Janet (nee Cornon) period about 1908 to 1928, when the family shifted to Dunedin. Prior to living in 45 Sunderland St, I understand the family lived in Hazlett's home as outlined in the Historical Guide written by Miss Annan titled "A Walk thoughCentral Otago's Historic town of Clyde."

My Father - W. Sutherland started a business about 1907 in a small shop east of the Dunstan Hotel between Nos 7 and 8 in the Historic Guide, later moving across the street to where the garage is now situated. The business comprised: Haberdashery, Crockery, Toys, Confectionery and Soft Drinks, a Billiard saloon, News Agency, Benzine (sold in 4 gallon tins) and a car for hire.

The Family consisted of : Ronald George Sutherland
Dorothy Helen Sutherland
Olwyn Joan Sutherland
William Roberts Clarke Sutherland - Born 1914 (The writer of these notes)

45 Sunderland was a fine family home that, for the writer, still holds fond memories of the family life and our various activities.

At present, the home is owned by Miss Christine McDonald who kindly showed the writer and his wife through 'Our Home' (as Miss McDonald calls it) when we visited Clyde in April 1987. Miss McDonald's special interest in the old home has stirred the memories of the writer. These notes have been prepared as a result of her desire to learn more about the home and the family who lived there during the period 1908-1928.

A plan of the home and garden as I recall it. is attached and these notes are not in any order of date, but plucked from theb memory of the writer of his early childhood.



Room 1 - The Kitchen.
I had the impression the home was built in three different stages, but when we lived there no structural changes were made. We used the stone section as out kitchen and living room. The kitchen having one window only and french doors. The lighting at night was from kerosene lamps and my mother bent half a hair pin over the top of the glass section of the lamp apparently to help provent the glass from breaking.

I recall my mother used to put the milk billy out onto. the window sill and the milkman would comet through the back gate and fill the billy and my mother had only to open the window to get the milk. Ice would form on the milk in the winter. The milk was always scolded before use and how I enjoyed the cream that formed on the top on my porridge the next morning.

All the cooking was done in this room and prepared on a large kitchen table, which had a well scrubbed wooden top. On bath nights a large oval galvanised tub was brought into the kitchen and used in front of the stove. I can remember lifting my knees and whipping up the soap bubbles until they frothed over the top of the tub, and appreciating the heat from red hot embers in the coal range while steaming kettles and pots were being heated for then next bath.

My Mother was much more gentle than my father when drying me. I remember the wash stand in the corner served as a hand basin when washing our faces before going to school. In summer time the french doors used. to be wide open. Gas lighting was installed in the kitchen and living room in later years. An outdoor cupboard was fitted to the wall below the kitchen window which contained a cylinder and pump. I don't know the details but it seemed to be my job to pump the tank each day until required pressure was showing on the gauge. this lighting was much better than the kerosene lamp at meal times.

Thursday night was something special when we would have Barton's pork sausages from Dunedin and quite often go off to Hull's pictures in the Town Hall at 8 o'clock. Thursday night was the only night we could go to the pictures. The smell of backing was often a welcome greeting when I came home from school, if there was no baking done that day, we always had a piece of bread and jam on our return home.

During the oyster season my father would organise a sack of oysters to be sent from Bluff and he would take out his order, deshell them and send the rest on to other neighbours and friends who had ordered some. My brother Ron was a keen gardener in his second year at Alexandra District High School - he believed that rabbit carcasses made good manure. so we would bring home as many rabbits as we could carry, skin them, and he would bury the carcasses in a trench in the garden to gradually fill the vegetable patch outside the kitchen door.

However, one warm night after rain on opening the kitchen door it almost looked as if it had been snowing on the path and doorstep and to our horror we realised it was maggots, we jammed sacks under the door so they wouldn't enter the home and mother boiled kettles of water and doused the maggots with them. On getting up the next morning there was no sign of them, evidently the birds had had a banquet early in the morning. We use to have fancy dress dances in the hall.

I can remember my mother getting me ready as a Minstrel with striped pyjamas, a black long tailed coat, black gloves, and the hair was made from black wool sewn through a black stocking. My face was blackened with a scorched cork rubbed on my face. All the ironing would be done on the kitchen table, with several irons sitting on the range with removable wooden handles.

Room 2 - Living room/ Dinning room.
This was dominated by a large extension table which had 3 extra leaved to extend it, but only one was normally used, and i remember inspecting the mechanism one day and found a long winding tread which was cranked to adjust the opening.

Used for dinning, we also did our homework on this table when it was available, as often my father used this surface to work on his book-keeping for the shop as well as being Secretary of the Vincent Hospital Board. When we had visitors we had meals in this room and when at times I couldn't eat all my meal I would gaze out of the French doors at the Asters in bloom and wish that all the pumpkin on my plate would go away. One time in particular I remember on one end of the table was a big jug of lemon syrup and on the other a big jug of water.

However, I was very partial to the lemon syrup that my mother used to make and drank a full glass of syrup. One of my sisters saw this and said to me " You will be sick drinking all of that, you should drink it with mainly water." So I rushed outside and drank a lot of water from the garden tap and then ran around the front lawn to mix it up, much to the amusement of the visitors.

One time I recall I came onto the room and found my father sitting in one of the chairs looking into the garden through the French doors and the dentist was busy pulling out his teeth. I can recall some of my school friends coming though those French doors to see me as I had not been to school and I was laying on the couch feeling miserable.

The previous day on our way home from school a group of us noticed a large swarm of bees attached and dangling from the side shoots of a poplar stump situated on our neighbour's property and the lady wasn't happy about it, so i must have decided to move in them on and managed to dislodge them with the aid of a long stick, everybody scattered but I didn't move away quickly enough and they caught up with me and stung me viciously about the face and hands, and when my friends came to see me the next day, they said I looked like a chinamen with slit eyes.

Another time I finished up on the couch to recuperate was when I was taking part in a game of Hares and Hounds and ran up the Railway embankment behind Olivers of today, unaware that the line of fencing was going in beside the railway line. The top wire was barbed wire and there was only one line of wire on at the time, and I caught the wire across the mouth and the barbs penetrated both my cheeks.

Whenever we felt off colour my father's answer was to give us a dose of Castor oil and I recall I would gradually back along the couch into the corner by the fireplace before completely swallowing my dosage. We used to play cards and games in this room and in one corner was the piano and each of the family used to play it from time to time. I recall my mother used to play it in the evenings and I especially loved listening to her playing when I went to bed of a night. Mother also played the guitar sometimes out under the willow tree or on the verandah.

At one time I noticed a small scratch on a narrow front edge of the piano. I tried to remove it by scraping with a kitchen knife but soon realised I had done the wrong thing. Between this room and the hall there were heavy velvet drapes and in one corner at the bottom near the floor was a hole, a convenient size for the cat to jump through. On the wall above the couch by the french doors was the telephone.

Room 3 - Dorothy and Olwyn's Bedroom
My earliest recollection occurred in this room. As a young child I must have been in my cot for an afternoon rest and I recall a bird flew in through the window. I apparently cried and it seemed ages before my mother heard me. However, all was well after she assured me that nothing would happen. Sometimes, I would be allowed to go nto the girl's double bed and my sister would read Grimms Fairy Tales.

Room 4 - Parents Bedroom
Between the ages of 5 and 7 my bed was occasionally shifted into this room when I wasn't feeling well, and a couple of times for standing on a nail from a benzine case or a piece of rusty iron as my parents were concerned about blood poisoning. With plenty of bathing in hot water and poultices I always recovered without complications. sometimes my Father would read from Pearsons or Punch magazines from the shop. The furniture comprised a double brass bed, dressing table, large scotch chest and bedroom chairs and ottoman.

Mother also had a cane traveling trunk with leather straps and metal handles, which she used when we went on holiday, it travelling on the running board of the Dodge car my Father had for hire. My Brother at one time was very ill with pneumonia and he was shifted to this room when the open fire was lit for warmth.

Room 5 - Harold's Room
This was known as Harold's room. Harold assisted my Father in the shop and also drove the hire car as Chauffeur. He used the room but he had his meals at the Hotel.

Room 6 - Ron and William's room
When I was old enough I was in this room with my older brother Ron. The window at the side of the house looked out on Craig's yard. Craigs was an early coaching and wagon company and this yard seemed to be only used on rare occasions when travellers kept their horses or stock in there overnight. It was a very interesting area to explore because as it had been a coach and wagon depot there were all sorts of bits and pieces of wagon accessories which would hang on the wall or across the benches.

I don't remember the ever being closed or anyone interested in the care of the material. We used to have a marvellous time looking and playing with these things and when I was very young I would say I would go over and see the 'Hammersings'. One day I didn't want to go to school and I spent half the day over there and the other part of the day in the cellar.

The window at the back had been badly damages and Ron had put wire netting in to stop the hens from getting into our bedroom. He would have been about 14 years old at the time. In the scotch chest in our room my brother Ron and his friend Walter Keddell would hide fruit in the drawers. They would pick pears from a tree on the river bank at the back of the then Commercial Hotel (now Dunstan Hotel) and hide them along with peaches in the draws to ripen them. I wasn't supposed to know about this but from time to time I helped myself.

Ron also had a tool cupboard in this room and he found me using them so he put a lock on one door, but I soon realised that by opening the other door I could get through to his shelves. On one occasion when I cam home from a Fancy Dress Dance at the town hall when I was dressed as a cowboy, I had to go to bed in the dark as we had no electric power. I was carrying a spring air rifle which I propped up against the wall and prepared to get into bed in the dark when I heard a strange sound which appeared to be coming from something on Ron's bed. I imagined it to be a wild cat so I tried to judge where the sound was coming from, I grabbed the rifle and came down with some force on the bed with the butt of the rifle to scare the animal away.

Thankfully, I didn't strike the source if the sound because I found it was my brother playing tricks on me, while i thought everyone was still at the dance.

Hall
One time my father had been to Dunedin and had brought me back a bag of shells from thee beaches of Dunedin. I remember sitting on the two steps in the hall looking at these shells. At this stage I had never seen the sea, so my Father told me that if I put my ear to the shells I could hear the sound the sea made. I believed him and I thought it might be something like a telephone.

In the hall was a chest of drawers and this is where photographs were kept. We would sit on the box ottoman alongside and look at the photos for hours. Also in the hall my father kept his shot gun on a high shelf along with cartridges.







Garden
I imagine originally the garden was laid out quite effectively with a variety of trees including fruit and nuts. The front area was partially obscured from Sunderland St., by a Macrocarpa hedge. The ****** about midway under the hedge arch. On towards the Western boundary the hedge was replaced by a stone fence with medium sized hardwoods forming a canopy, just inside the fence.Apart from a break in the middle at at the river end the hedge formed the eastern boundary. on the left of the path leading from the gate to the house were various hardwood trees further on was a small redwood tree and mulberry towards the two rows of cleopatra apple trees. On the right of the path in the front of the house a spreading willow tree with two mature poplars near the front of the fence line between the poplars was a lilac tree which Olwyn and i used as a playhouse.

Hanging from the willow tree was a swing. Over the main pathway to the house was a series of rose arches and my Father was a keen grower of roses. Down the path towards the living room doors was a trellis fence and archway separating the front from the back garden. Two walnut trees dominated the back garden and the still remain today. These were favourite climbing trees and we carved our names on them. Beyond the walnuts was a clothes line and nearby was a Hazelnut tree and a Laburnum tree. Beyond that was a small orchard of Golden Queen peaches. At the back by the laundry and storage rooms were two fig trees the dog kennel was just near the fruit trees.

On the main stretch of lawn in the front garden, during the summer we would play croquet and we used to sit in the willow trees whittling whistles and shanghais. As the macrocarpa hedge had patches where the trees had died, it was used as firewood for the billiard saloon. My brother and I used to chop it with an axe and the chopping block indicated on the plan. Among the activities other than sport, were tramping, fishing, swimming, rabbiting and bird nesting. The County would pay us about 2/6d. for 100 eggs to reduce the number of birds eating the fruit. We would catch rabbits with traps and ferrets and by the time I was 10 I was shooting and we would skin them in the field, peel the fat off and carry the skins back home and dry then by stretching over a wire hoop, linking together two and hanging over a wire fence or clothes line. After drying they were stored in the store shed at the back of the house along with the goat skins tacked on to a board, until they were ready to be sent to the agents in Dunedin. The winter skin would fetch at the most 2/6d each and the summer skin was 6d. We utilised rabbit skins by tying them on handles of our bike and using them to put our hands during winter months so keeping them warm. We sold the rabbit carcasses sometimes to the hotels for 6d. each, other carcasses were thrown in the river to encourage the eels.

I don't remember many floods in the Clutha river but on two occasions the water seemed to be almost lapping the bridge and the roads up to the orchards on the Earnscleugh side was severely threatened. We used to go to the fence at the back gate to see the rushing water and try to identify different things that were being washed down - logs, animals, bits of gold mining machinery and on one occasion a part of a building went past with a rooster still clinging to it.

Just after World War 1 when peace was declared i remember a parade we had from the town hall to the school down the river road past the post office. Ron split the sides of benzine cases (which had been brought into New Zealand from America) into small sticks and these were used to attach at a small Union Jack which we waved going along the street in the parade.

In front of 45 Sunderland St., the children used to gather for a game of Hares and Hounds in the summer time and it was always a popular place for a game of football after school.

All kinds of entertainment we held at the town hall. The floor was always very slippery because dancing was popular. Picture nights was Thursday so when Mr. Hull the projectionist arrived from Alexandra he would offer a free seat to the one who would go around the town ringing a bell and calling out "Roll up, tumble up. Hull's pictures tonight." There was a rush for this job and it usually happened about 6 others would accompany the caller. If we had a good response other free tickets would be given out. Miss smart would often accompany the picture with music on the piano. She lived in the house marked No 18 Charles Henry Guy's and her Father was the local saddler.
 

History of Clyde