A two-part Spectrum documentary. Gordon Willis Johnson crammed a lot of living and working into the years between 1940 to 1946. At the age of 15 dissatisfied with a farmhand's low pay, he became a timber worker in a King Country sawmill. Then he put his age up to join the 2nd Waikato Battalion, based on Great Barrier Island.
Part 1.
Gordon Wills Johnson describes his years as a teenager in the 1940s. Gordon reads a few lines from a poem he wrote about 40 years ago. He began his career at the age of 14 as a farm labourer north of Wellington working 14 hour days, six days a week; milking cows, haymaking, cutting down trees, mowing and sheep dipping.
Attempting to find easier work with better pay by the age of 15 Gordon hitched to the saw mill at Arohena in the northern King Country. He explains that the work was geared to the pace of the mill itself; boys had no value except to do menial labour and got pushed about a lot. If you were a ‘townie’ you also received a lot of flak. Accommodation was a cold, draughty wooden hut and for 30 shillings a week they got everything they could eat before work which began at 8 o’clock sharp. Everyone was very fit from the mill work, from boxing in the evening and pig hunting.
Gordon describes the slip-truck work, the grading of rimu, matai and miro (a cross between matai and rimu), rough justice, the dangers of the saw mill, clothing and equipment and his impressions of working in the bush.
Part 2.
Gordon Wills Johnson continues to describe his years as a mill hand in the 1940s. He explains back then there was no idea of conservation because there was so much bush - they could never see the end of it. Gordon explains how there was no hot running water and men showered using a perforated Golden Syrup tin piped with both live steam from the boiler and cold running river water. Washing clothes was done in a four-gallon kerosene can boiled over an open fire.
Gordon talks about weekend axe competitions, women and the King Country as a dry area. He talks at length about how those that couldn’t be sent overseas formed the ‘Arohena Home Guard’ who carved their own rifles from wood and practiced marching and Morse code before the government eventually sent them three old fire arms and some grenades anticipating the arrival of Japanese troops.
Later Gordon put his age up so he could join the army; partly because his mates had already joined and partly due to the patriotism felt at the time - he was placed in the 2nd Battalion 16th Waikato Regiment and posted to Great Barrier Island. The programme ends with Gordon reading the last few lines from his poem, ‘On the Loose'.