A plant for all purposes
Southland’s Friendship mishap occurred on October 16, 1961, when the undercarriage collapsed on NAC’s new Fokker F27-100 Friendship ZK-BXB Kotuku.
Shortly before passengers and crew were due to board at Invercargill airport the port undercarriage retracted.
The plane collapsed, damaging a propeller, wingtip and fuselage.
It was repaired and continued in service until 1979, then serving with the RNZAF until 1992. ZK-BXB had been with NAC only eight months at the time of the accident as the airline was progressively replacing its DC3 fleet.
Being Dutch rather than British, the Friendship was subject to heavy tariffs but it proved superior to its contemporary and British rival, the Handley Page Herald.
Apparently Fokker was averse to any publicity of the Invercargill accident as it was trying to build a world market, so this may be the first photo ever published.
Princess Iwa
Southland’s forgotten songbird is Evaline Jane Skerrett, known as Princess Iwa, who was born on Stewart Island in 1890.
In 1910 she sailed for England as a member of a Ma¯ori concert party, destined to sing at the coronation of George V.
She remained in Britain and for 20 popular years she was ‘‘the New Zealand contralto’’, ‘‘one of the most beautiful voices in the world’ and ‘‘the Ma¯ori nightingale’’.
She wore a feather korowai, a tiki and a huia feather and was also a pianist, actress and music teacher. Her friends included Charlie Chaplin and Nellie Melba.
Iwa had planned to return to New Zealand in 1915 but the war intervened and she died in London in 1947, never having visited her home country again.
For all her popularity, there is no memorial to her.
Perhaps it’s time Southland reclaimed one of its lost daughters.
Post box
Southland’s oldest post box is outside the Southland Museum and Art Gallery.
The initials on it, ER, are those of King Edward the seventh – Edwardus Rex.
The initials were reportedly altered from VR (Victoria Regina) on the death of Queen Victoria but this seems unlikely.
Since then there have been only four monarchs: George Vl, Edward Vlll, George Vl and Queen Elizabeth.
Prince Charles will not necessarily become King Charles as he has several names to choose from – Charles Philip Arthur George – and his grandfather was Prince Albert before being crowned George Vl.
Edward Vlll had a good selection of names – Edward Albert Christian George Andrew Patrick David. Worldwide there are at least 30 species of the plant we call raupo¯.
It was one of the most important plants used by Ma¯ori.
The leaves of the raupo¯ are light and filled with tiny air cells.
When dried they made an ideal material for thatching walls and roofs.
In the centre of the photograph, below, between the two typical seed-heads or spikes, is part of a seed-head that has been broken open, showing a sample of the mass of fluffy ‘‘down’’ that surrounds the tiny seeds.
This was excellent for fire lighting and stuffing poi used in action dances.
Early European settlers used the down for filling pillows and mattresses.
Ma¯ori also used the pollen from the spikes to make small cakes.
Raupo¯ plants grow best when submerged in freshwater habitats, providing shelter for eels and birds including the rare bittern, ducks and sometimes nesting sites for the harrier hawk.
It’s reported that raupo roots are edible – but only when there is nothing better at hand