House & Garden

The plum trees around Onga Onga are loaded, their red cheeks blushed from sunstroke and standing out boldly against the long dry flaxen-coloured grass. I brought some land out in Onga Onga. It has an old whare (house) on it that was the original Blackburn School, opened in 1855, making it a grande dame of a lady at one hundred and fifty-five years young.

I can’t find a letter from the Queen tacked to her walls to mark the occasion but there are at least eight different types of wallpaper that are. My plan is to remove them carefully from the scrim and cut samples of each and put them in black frames under white mount board. They’ll be a reminder of her checkered past.

From what I’ve been able to gather, and in the notes of Malcolm Ross (deceased now, who was writing the history of Onga Onga before his passing) it was only open for a brief period of time, it was dismantled and rebuilt for a School at Makaretu. My reading of the times suggests that there was simply not the funds to keep the school running based on such low roll numbers. It’s difficult to ascertain without some indepth research. According to Malcolm’s notes, no other records of this School are known to exist.

Actually many do. I have seen that correspondence was received from the Onga Onga Committee by the Hawke’s Bay Education Board “pointing out that the much-overcrowded state of the Makaretu School, and again urging that the Blackburn School building (now disused) should be removed and added to the Makaretu School. The Inspector stated that when he examined Makaretu School half the children were sitting on the floor.”

Further Mr. S Bridge wrote to the educational Board in 1884 that “the case in Makaretu School is a very hard one. We have desks for 27 children; and 55, I think attended at the last inspection. We have a spare school about two miles distant, and ask for sufficient funds to move it where it can be used …” Mr S. Bridge subsequently found while looking through the Annual Report that “every year a large sum is distributed among the teachers as what is called a bonus. Said, S Bridge went on to ask, “Now, why is this?” Why is the money not spent on urgent requirements like ours?

According to Malcolm Ross’ notes, “the second School at Blackburn was built in 1889 on a site on Hardy Road, just north of the intersection on Hinerua Road on the site of the first School. It was open for 19 years before finally closing in 1908. In keeping with the times, the School had only one classroom and an entrance lobby that also served as a cloakroom as it is thought that no accommodation was provided for the teacher of the School.

No records of the school are known to exist but it’s known that six young Fletcher children from Pendlehill attended the school and that Mrs Jane Doar who was the wife of the farmer at Hinerua was the first teacher at the second Blackburn School for many years.” In my own personal note, to that made in Malcolm Ross’ writings, I am in receipt of a newspaper item that lists a Miss Lillian Doar as the teacher and this is qualified by a rememberance by local Onga Onga identity Nancy Reidy (nee Fletcher of Pendle Hill) in a chat I had with Nancy recently.

According to Malcolm’s writings, “Mrs Hardy, the wife of the nearby farmer Mr Harry Hardy taught for the last few years of the second School. The Hardy home was conveniently situated opposite the school. The roll peaked at 30 children and after the School was closed in 1908 the children attended the new School at the nearby Hinerua.

The Blackburn building was then, in about 1930 sold to Mr Bill Cook who dismantled it and used the materials to build a small cottage on a section on the way to Onga Onga on Waipukurau Road, not far from Herrick Street intersection.” There’s a delicious story of the property acreage being a half acre block instead of the quarter acre section it is now and that’s because Bill lost it to the neighbour on the North side in a card game.

Mr & Mrs Cook lived there for many years and until the mid 1950’s the cottage remained their although it was in some need of repair. It was until recently owned by the Ripaki family. There is a photo of the old Blackburn School on the wall in the old Onga Onga School Museum.”

Today, this derelict, in need of some love and attention property belongs to me. I couldn’t be happier. I filmed the previous owner Nancy Ripaki as she told me her story of how she came to buy this property. We sat in chairs, among the wild flaxen tresses of grass under the plum trees. My own House and Garden. It was a beautiful moment-in-time and I was home.