The letter detailed that I was to be at Bigg’s Corner on 12 January 1957. I travelled by New Zealand Road Services bus from Greymouth, stopping at Murchison to take on extra passengers. We were dropped off at Bigg’s Corner and I met a group of other lads – all Woodsmen to be.Introducing ourselves, I met Bill ‘Pinetree’ R. who had grown up in Murchison, as well as a bunch of other lads. Peter ‘Beefy’ G., an older Woodsman arrived in a J1 Bedford and drove us all to the hostel where we met the OC and the Matron (Len and Mrs C) – plus about 40 other newly arrived first years (we had 81 in total), and a bunch of second year Woodsmen who were looking us over and awaiting the first opportunity to start our indoctrination. This started on our first night tipping out of bed, buckets of water thrown in through doors… the usual sort of rubbish. A few of the more belligerent characters were dragged off to the showers for a bit of argy bargy, pushing around and the odd punching.
Before leaving for the Downs I had fortunately had a bit of heavy work experience at a timber dressing plant in Hokitika, so I was no longer a skinny 16-year-old weakling and I was able to ‘stand up’ to some of the bullying from the bigger second year guys.
Arduous arsenic
Our first job was low and medium pruning, and in the summer months in the hot Nelson sun we were very grateful for the low canopy of the treetops. We were mainly pruning Radiata; the branch sizes were not too large and relatively easy to cut. Much more difficult to prune was the Douglas Fir or Oregon Pine. This species had very unyielding branches, which we had difficulty pushing our way into and through, before we could begin to cut the branches from the tree. There were many pockets and lumps of sticky gum on the branches and tree trunks, which would get all over our hands and clothes – we needed to wash this off with kerosene or petrol at the end of the day. If left on the skin it would turn very hard and black.
We also had some serious exposure to arsenic. Some head office type person decided it would be good to save costs on thinning operations by using poisons and so, in a remote radiata block, we used the old ‘Indian’ firefighting Water Knapsacks. We mixed the arsenic, filled our packs and then used a variety of methods to apply it to the trees. Cutting a notch in the tree, very much like a small scarf, and then pumping a bit of arsenic in was the most often used method. It was pretty unworkable as the knapsacks leaked and we all got covered in arsenic. Often we worked all day with small leaks down our backs, but when we had a major spill, maybe got soaked from head to foot in the...
