Issue 53 • January 2021 PO BOX 77-002 MT ALBERT AUCKLAND 1350 • PH: 09 846 4509 • WWW.MTALBERTHISTORICALSOCIETY.ORG.NZ Honouring Richie: Richmond Newman Afford 1922–2020 Richie Afford was presented with a Paraphrasing Ewen Cameron in the Certificate of Life Membership at the ABS Journal of November 2020: 44 2014 Mount Albert Historical Society of Richie’s pressed herbarium specimens Christmas Function on 29 November. were held in the Auckland Museum He was a member of the inaugural herbarium. Two thirds of them were committee for the society in 2006 collected in National Park in 1933, and generously donated significant when he was only 10–11 years old. funds to assist in its setup and get the They were collected during summer writing of Mount Albert Then and Now school holidays, no doubt with Uncle underway. He continued to be a strong John. and active supporter of MAHS, and In 1937 Lucy Cranwell signed Richie was regularly attending meetings up up to membership of the newly-formed until COVID-19 intervened in 2020. Auckland Botanical Society, when We will miss him. he was a 14-year-old Mount Albert In June of 2020 I talked with Richie Grammar School boy. Richie Afford, with one of the trees he at his home in Mount Albert Road planted at Gribblehirst Park in 1938. In 1932 she established the annual for a couple of hours. It was amazing Cheeseman Memorial Prize Native Richie’s writing group at U3A had to listen to a man in his late 90s speak Flower Show, in which Richie and suggested he do this, and it was with with such clarity and enthusiasm about Uncle John were involved from 1934 some diffidence that he asked if I his life, and his continued interest in to 1937. In the Reminiscences Richie would like them. I was delighted to getting some of his old friends and wrote for the ABS in 1987, for its 50 have my request for members’ writing peers from Mount Albert Grammar year celebration, he describes some answered. I thoroughly enjoyed the School days acknowledged. Richie of the work he and his brother Tom piece on the Afford kitchen table, in died two months after our meeting did with their uncle for these prizes: and I could not help thinking how the July 2018 newsletter, and know wonderful it was that he was able to that it will have triggered similar I have brushed off Cheeseman live such a full life right up until the memories for most of our members. Prizes from 1934, 1935, 1936 and 1937, with visions of the work end, something most of us wish for. Richie also belonged and donated to that went into gaining them, the other historical societies and special One person he acknowledged in our cultivation of a wide variety of interest groups. The Auckland Botanical conversation, and who was largely native plants, the hiring of a large Society (ABS) was seminal, as his responsible for his enjoying his last covered truck to convey them to association with it lasted 83 years. years so much, was fellow MAHS the steps of the Museum, the A major focus of our conversation member Beth Wood. She took Richie struggle to carry them up to the was the experience he had, from a to the various gatherings and events, exhibition hall and the setting up very young age, with his uncle John and her role in his last years was of the displays. incredibly important to him, and to Attwood, a self-taught amateur botanist those of us who were able to enjoy who lived and worked in the King My uncle would arrive on the his company, because she made sure Country, spending most of his spare overnight train from Ohakune he got out and about. MAHS also time in the National Park area, with crates of alpine material acknowledges Beth’s care and kindness, gathering alpine seeds and plant sufficient to fill one complete bay even though we know that she shuns specimens and keeping in touch with with a reproduction alpine scene. everyone with a botanical interest. Our reward was a prize and a the limelight and any praise. handshake from the Mayor of Lucy Cranwell, Curator of Botany at Since I have been writing the MAHS Auckland, Sir Ernest Davies, or Auckland Museum, as it was then, newsletter, Richie has periodically the Museum Curator, Sir Gilbert was a close and much admired friend. left pieces of his writing in his letter Archey. Richie and his brother Tom were box for me to pick up, in case I could include them in future issues. often involved in plant searches with her and Uncle John. 1 Issue 53 January 2021 MT ALBERT HISTORICAL SOCIETY INC. We were dedicated youngsters and the boys he wanted remembered, to the guns – you had to know joining in field trips and entering his time in the services, and the something about trigonometry. into correspondence with Lucy family home he and his wife, Leola, It was all experience, I suppose. on numerous botanical questions. created in Mount Albert. It was very primitive – at Waiouru In 1939–40 Lucy went on an expedition Richie came in from Avondale on a on the mountainside you had to Stewart Island to collect plants, bicycle or by train to school. He one groundsheet and you did not and took Uncle John and Richie. remembered Headmaster Gamble know whether to sleep on it or We collected plants for all over and his Deputy, Mr Caradus, known put it over you. We were still by the boys as Grannie. Murray Nairn, using WW1 equipment. the world. another teacher at the school and a Richie became a pilot in the Air She was tireless in her energies, subsequent long-serving principal, replying personally or through Force and was about to go overseas, taught Richie in the Air Force: “in when they said the war had taken a her Native Wildlife Circle in the Rotorua – navigation, I think.” newspapers. Saturday mornings turn for the better so they were not were devoted to helping her with Richie went from school into the needed in England. He flew a few the museum herbarium and, with army but transferred to the Air Force. times to the Pacific and then returned any luck she would give me a ride “You put up with things. You went to civilian life, which was somewhat home if she was spending the from school into the army, there was difficult. “You went to the war, you weekend in her weekend retreat no between, no planning for the future. became a pilot, then when you came in the hills above Henderson. When we came back to school after home you were an office boy. Very war was declared, Freddie Gamble humiliating”. There was a famous occasion when addressed us: Boys you will all be He considered becoming a commercial Richie was enjoying a ride home with expected to do your duty. You just Lucy when they ran out of petrol in pilot, but his Father suggested he work went. You were conscripted really.” for the government. He was accepted Owairaka Avenue. She asked Richie to get out and push, and he had to do so in the Lands and Surveys Department and the Land Sales Court. until Lucy could coast down Richardson Road to Sampson’s Garage, on the I had just got established with corner of Richardson Road and Weston my young family. The Department Avenue. She had 2/6 in her purse, wanted to send me to Hamilton enough to get petrol to get her home. and I did not want to go. So I went The front page photo of the MAHS into insurance and stayed with November 2007 newsletter is of a that and am still on their pension group of Mount Albert Grammar fund – a non-contributing fund. School boys planting a tree in I am still hanging in. They tried to buy you out but I didn’t bother. Gribblehirst Park, in observance of Arbor Day 1938. On the extreme When Richie and Leola got married, right is the young Richie, already a they rented a place in Morningside rather experienced botanist, as we and then moved to a house Leola had now know. owned before they married, in One Tree Hill. In 2013, MAHS members took Richie back to Gribblehirst Park, to take One day in 1953, after visiting his photos of him with one she-oak that parents in Blockhouse Bay, Richie he planted. “My, how it has grown in and Leola drove past 18 Mount Albert the ensuing 74 years!” he commented. Road, which was pretty derelict. On 31 October 2012, Jim Mora talked They thought it looked interesting, on National Radio with Mike Wilcox Richie in town, just after the war. bought it, and lived there for the rest and Richie in Gribblehurst Park, on of their lives. “We stuck it together.” th the occasion of the 75 Anniversary To transfer from the army to the Air Only after they moved in did they of the ABS. The recording is still Force, you had to get your parents’ find that the house had historic available at https://www.rnz.co.nz/ permission. Richie’s Mother was importance, going right back to the national/programmes/afternoons/ reluctant but eventually gave in. 1860s and the Phillips brothers, of audio/2537192/auckland-story-for- Phillips and Impey (see MAHS April I had time in the army beforehand 31-october-2012-botanical-jubilee-75 2015 newsletter).