From the back country. 1993, Jim Hayter D’Urville Island pt2

Jack Perkins continues his interview with Jim Hayter who grew up on a remote farm on D'Urville Island in the Marlborough Sounds.

Local Māori and itinerant workers provided the main labour force on the farm, which was at Greville Harbour. Jim talks about the hard work and low wages they received during the Depression. He talks about bush-felling and says many areas in the Sounds should never have been cleared of bush. He says the island's Māori community did all the shearing and fencing on the farm.

Pig-hunting was one of the main pastimes, along with playing cards, reading and swimming, despite the presence of sharks.

He talks about Māori sites on D'Urville Island, which had been a trading post for argillite adzes. He says they sold about 300 artefacts to the Dominion Museum in Wellington. Local Māori asked them to never go on to Bottle Point at Otu, because a leader had been killed there. There was also a burial area at the southern end of the island which was tapu.