Happy Birthday Dear Old Rag!

The region’s favourite community rag since 1990 February 2010 Happy Birthday Dear Old Rag! It seems fitting in a way to open the first put it together in the old fashioned cut edition of the Rag for 2010 with a birthday and paste way. “I printed out what I notice, as some locals may remember the wanted, pasted it onto the page and put Rag used to be full of residents’ birthdays on stickers to jazz it up a little.” About and anniversaries. 300 copies were produced in this way We caught up with the original every month and distributed throughout publisher of the Rag, Sue Sheat, online Hampden and Moeraki for 17 years, until and asked her a few questions about the the end of 2006 when Sue moved to live early years (full interview with her on in Oamaru and the Rag production was our website). When asked first how she taken over by Graeme Youngman of NEO feels about something she began turning Computing. 20, she replied, “that means I am 20 years The current Rag production team is older.” unsure whether it will be able to keep The reason Sue decided to start a going for that long, but certainly shares newsletter was to remind the locals the reason that kept her going. “Each of meetings and other events in the month someone would come up and say village, after she kept hearing people that they enjoyed it so that was great. I had missed them saying “I forgot.” loved the community and continued to be She knew a newsletter told that people looked forward to getting would work because it. As long as people it did in Lumsden in were submitting to Southland where she the Rag I was happy came from. compiling it. I am just The Rag in those pleased that obviously days was not like the community still it is today. It was wants to keep up with compiled by Sue what is happening and photocopied and that businesses at Moeraki Motor see the value in using Camp. It was one side it as an advertising of an A4 sheet. Sue tool.” collected submissions from the locals, and Happy birthday Rag. February 2010 Hamraki Rag 1 U-Choose Not (A Bus Story #1) In the November issue of the Hamraki Christchurch to book. There is no 0800 Rag, we published a bus timetable for number. Another resident tried to cancel travel in and out of Hampden. In an a booking made with the pass but was accompanying piece, we discussed the told on ringing the Christchurch number bulk purchase passes. that no cancellation was possible if you A couple of Hampden residents had booked using the pass. decided to have a go and purchased the If you market an online product, you U Choose passes offered by the Atomic have to have a manageable website and Shuttle bus company. reliable online set up. You just cannot The Atomic Shuttle’s website says: keep using “computer failure” as an “With the U-Choose Pass short hops excuse, if you expect customers to book are more accessible and affordable, online. Making it easier to go places you had never To the company’s credit, when thought of when you planned your trip.” challenged about their failure to mention Sounds ideal, doesn’t it, for people the one hour minimum charge, they wanting to make the short trip to Oamaru offered to refund the cost of the travel and back? But beware. What the website (which has not been done at the time of fails to mention is that the minimum printing). However, until Atomic Shuttle charge is one hour ($9). So, a trip from states clearly on its website what it Hampden to Oamaru, even though charges its customers, people will it takes only half an hour, costs the continue to sign up without being aware equivalent of an hour. What a rip-off! of the pitfalls of using the pass. Shouldn’t the company be obliged to The Hamraki Rag transport team state that? regrets that it might have misled the One resident also found that the readers that a return trip to Oamaru could website would not allow the booking to be cost as little as $9 using the Atomic’s made with the U-Choose pass and that U-Choose pass. We would like to hear the return bus was not even listed. This from readers about their experience of meant they had to make a phone call to using buses. HAMRAKI RAG The Hamraki Rag is a community paper published on the first Wednesday of every month by the Hamraki Media for the area between Shag Point to Herbert including Hampden and Moeraki, Te Waka o Aoraki of New Zealand. 415 copies are home delivered in the area while extra copies are available from the library, Hampden Motors, Hilltop store, Toby’s Fresh Fish in Hampden, Moeraki Tavern, Herbert Service Station, and Oamaru public library. The Rag welcomes submissions. Write to us at 70 Norwich St, Hampden, 9410. Electronic copy can be forwarded to [email protected]. We reserve the right to edit the submission for clarity and for style. Please keep the format of your submission as plain as possible. The cut off date is the 20th of each month. All the pictures are taken by our staff photographer, Bent Jansen, unless otherwise stated. Hamraki Rag is published and printed by NEO Computing, Hampden. 2 Hamraki Rag February 2010 Old Cribbing Tradition Lives On by Shirley Lyness Are we able to contest the title of the oldest In the Depression of the 1930s family of crib owners in Hampden? Granny painted old biscuit tins Do many others have family for food storage, knotted rag regularly holidaying here rugs for the floors and since the early 1930s? embroidered sacking to The crib was first bought cover wooden crates by our grandfather, to serve as cupboards. Dr Owen-Johnston All are still used as are in 1935. Granny and the flour sack pillow Grandfather had cases. stayed here as guests Our grandfather of the MacRitchies left the cottage to his several times before daughter, our mother, this, fell in love with it and Shirley Lyness, who brought when the sisters decided to sell, her children for three months made a quick offer. A big draw card for during the summer of each year to Grandfather was no telephone! For a busy attend the Hampden school until 1955, doctor this was bliss. As the Invercargill under the tyrannical reign of ‘strapping’ honorary vet and a racehorse owner, New Smithy and the warmth and caring of Year’s Day racing at Waikouaiti drew Dora Malthus. Shirley modernised the him too. cottage a little, adding a bathroom and The crib came fully furnished, and still inside toilet where the MacRitchies’ horse today most of the old Victorian cutlery, and cart used to pull in, and leaving the china, brass bedsteads and furniture outhouse to be hidden by a climbing remain in use. We think the macrocarpa honeysuckle. The old coal range in front hedge is well over one hundred of which we used to be bathed in years old, and many of the the old hip bath was removed orchard’s laden plum, and a modern window apple and pear trees are inserted. Shirley in also from this period. t u r n p a s s e d t h e Two large olive trees cottage on to us four prov i d i ng sha d e children, John, Peter, were brought back Mary and Robin. by Grandfather from We had wonderful Trieste where he had childhood holidays served in the Second here, picnicking at World War as Lieutenant- continues on page 13 Colonel. February 2010 Hamraki Rag 3 LIFE IN MOERAKI WITHOUT A CAR (A BUS StorY #2) by Alison MacTavish Our car died about a month ago, and since assisted bike. then we’ve been testing the feasibility of We are growing wiser and more living in Moeraki without a car. resourceful. After our first painful The Hamraki Rag’s comprehensive experience, we no longer accept, guide to bus timetables in the November without thought, invitations to meet issue gave us a great kick start. We have up with friends out beyond Herbert or bought Intercity’s 15-hour flexi-passes Palmerston. The raggy old foam blanket ($11.20/hour of travel) and have travelled in the attic has proved useful at last, to Oamaru and Dunedin on them, but called into service as extra seat padding, have not yet had the gall to ask to travel and comfortable backpacks are on the from the Moeraki turn-off to Hampden! shopping list, as getting ‘stuff’ in and There are hurdles, of course. Getting out of this place (including the petrol anywhere on time has always been a which, at least for now, makes our other challenge for us, and getting to the bus machines go!) is our biggest headache at is no exception. And, having achieved the moment. the challenge of punctuality ourselves, One of our aims is to understand the waiting beside the highway for a laggardly full extent of the problems experienced bus can be trying even in summer and we by rural people who do not have access imagine it could be a misery in winter. to a car (and there are more people in this Would a little shelter at the Moeraki category than we had realised before) and turn-off be a good idea? to try to find which are soluble.

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