40 years on from the end of the works Pātea remembers its defining days
Many people predicted the town would die, like so many other freezing works towns. But Pātea had the Pātea Māori Club,
Asteam-powered whistle that hasn’t been heard for 40 years will echo across Pātea today, as the community remembers the freezing works and the closure that nearly brought the town down.
But it held on. Just. And so the weekend is one for both nostalgia and celebration.
The works were the economic backbone of the town for decades and right up to the end there was nothing to indicate it wouldn’t continue being that backbone for decades to come.
But when the company was required to undertake substantial upgrades to meet European Economic Community standards it instead pulled the pin.
On Friday, September 3, 1982, the Pātea Freezing Company closed after almost 100 years of operation.
The impact on the town was immediate. Without employment to keep them there, hundreds left in search of work, many commuting to other towns with meat works around the North Island.
Those who remained struggled to find jobs and within weeks businesses began to close.
From a thriving rural town Pātea became an example of 1980s rural decay.
Many people predicted the town would completely die, like so many other freezing works towns, Pātea Historical Society president Jacq Dwyer says.
And it very nearly did. To look at the town remains a shadow of its former self. But its heart and soul remains.
The difference in Pātea was the Pātea Māori Club and that held the town together, she says.
It was helped in this by their 1984 hit song Poi E, with words by Ngāti Porou composer Ngoi Pēwhairangi and music by Pātea local Dalvanius Prime.
The song is still widely played – it’s one of the country’s most recognisable tunes, an unofficial anthem that’s become part of the Kiwi culture.
‘‘It kept the spirit of Pātea, they had a reason to come back with Poi E and the other amazing songs they have sung,’’ Dwyer says.
The song was later expanded into a musical that told the story of the freezing works closure and the town that held on to its identity once it left.
That identity, that connection with the works, remains even if the buildings have gone.
In February 2008, the abandoned and deteriorating freezing works buildings were destroyed by fires that broke out the night before Waitangi Day.
This led to the evacuation of 300 townsfolk because of fears of toxic smoke.
After extensive negotiations, a cleanup of the site – contaminated with asbestos and other toxic materials – began in late 2009 and was completed in mid-2010.
Today, there’s little on the wide flat site beside the Pātea River to indicate it was once the site of a major industrial facility that for 100 years was the lifeblood of the town.
One of the oldest people to remember the town’s heyday is Rex Ansley, 95, who was just 13 when he started at the freezing works in 1941.
‘‘At that stage when you got out of standard two, you got out and found a job, no high school for me,’’ he says.
‘‘I did six months in the engine room, going and taking the temperatures of the freezers and into the paddocks in the dark checking water levels.’’
Once he turned 16, he got a job on the slaughter floor.
‘‘Those were good years. There were 250 people and everyone had pointy and very sharp knives, but I never saw any trouble. If anyone started having an argument, the workers would put a stop to it.’’
Frail now, and cautious about the cool breeze, he remembers one cattle beast escaping after it wasn’t stunned properly on its way to get slaughtered.
‘‘It ran down the corridor and through the freezers, then jumped over a parapet and landed on the roof of the butcher’s shop,’’ he says.
‘‘Its four legs were hanging down from the rafters.’’
Despite missing out on high school Ansley eventually became the pay master at the works.
‘‘I was privileged to know they were going to close before anyone else did, because I did the calculations to advise the manager how much money was needed [to pay the workers out].’’
Harvey Gibbs remembers the stress of his role as the works’ first production manager.
‘‘They were very heady times, there was a lot of union unrest at that time,’’ he says.
This wasn’t unusual. In 2009, Hāwera historian Russ Standing, who won a government grant to write the history
of the works, said it was seldom out of the public eye and became renowned for strikes, lockouts and disharmony.
‘‘It was my job to organise the production of whatever cuts they [the company] wanted off the floor,’’ Gibbs says. ‘‘The orders had time frames, and with the unrest and walk-offs, these quotas often couldn’t be met.’’
He left the job and returned to farming not long before the closure.
Former freezing worker Ngapari Nui was 15 when he started work in 1975.
‘‘My whole family, all my brothers, were here.
‘‘The company had just spent over $1 million building a new smoker and sheds, so it [the closure] came out of the blue,’’ he says.
‘‘It was a sad day for us walking out the gates for the last time.’’
Nui looks across the flat site where curious cattle graze, and remembers a massive complex, including beef and mutton floors, the boning room, a butcher’s shop, huts down the back used as single men’s quarters and the old chimney. ‘‘When the works closed a lot of us left Pātea. Half a dozen of us went to work at Whakatu, in Hastings, others went to Oringi and Longburn,’’ he says.
‘‘We were all spread out in the end. Some of us were commuting. I was working in Hastings and travelling home for the weekend, and going back again.’’
Now, some of his grandchildren work at Silver Fern Farms’ plant in Hāwera. ‘‘I suppose when you look at it now, we have whānau all around the world. The memories are still there.’’
Syd Kershaw, a foundation member of the Pātea Maori Club, was a meat inspector. He remembers the camaraderie on the job. ‘‘We all got on very well. We did calves, sheep, beef, pigs, we did all of these. It was a big shock when it closed.’’
His connection with the Pātea Māori Club meant he was part of its success when Poi E became a massive hit and he joined them on a tour around the country. ‘‘We did very well. People from Wellington and up north wanted us to go there, everything was as good as gold, they loved us wherever we went. We even did a show on a boat at Bluff.’’
Hemi Ngarewa helped organise the reo Māori wording for a plaque on the rock to be unveiled today in memory of the people who worked there who have since died.
‘‘It talks about the last 99 years and also the comradeship over the years between the workers, the love and all that, the aroha they had for one another,’’ he says.
He remembers the annual works picnics, where staff and their families travelled by train to Opunake, or to Kōwhai Park at Whanganui. ‘‘There would be 1000 people in a dozen carriages, there was ice cream and fruit for the kids, from one year old to 15 or 16, that was the bright side,’’ he said.
A lot of families were affected by the closure, but he prefers to talk about the success of the town and its people since then.
‘‘A lot of families went away to find jobs. I was fortunate to get a job with PEP, then I went to training college and Massey University.’’
Later, he worked in Sydney, Wairoa and Rotorua, before returning home.
■ A community gathering outside the old gates on Portland Quay at 9am today will kick off a weekend of remembrance, with the unveiling of a memorial rock and a sign that tells the story of the freezing works, and the sounding of the works whistle.