At the reunion of the Kiritaki and Maharahara schools on Sunday, Alison Mary Kelly (nee Power) from the Hawke's Bay and her sister Sue. The sisters' brother is international singer Patrick Power. Photo / Christine McKay
At the reunion of the Kiritaki and Maharahara schools on Sunday, Alison Mary Kelly (nee Power) from the Hawke's Bay and her sister Sue. The sisters' brother is international singer Patrick Power. Photo / Christine McKay
Despite the Kiritaki and Maharahara schools closing in 1952 there was no shortage of former pupils turning out for a school reunion on Sunday.
"We've had a great turnout, with 90 people here, 66 of them ex-pupils of the two schools," Graham Gimblett, a member of the organising committee, said. "We never believed we'd get these numbers"
Don Gibson, at 95, was the oldest at the reunion, enjoying the company, but remembering former classmates no longer alive.
Murray and Roy Caswill and John Burn all started at Kiritaki School in the early 1930s.
"There aren't many I know now, they've all gone. I'm the only one left," he told the Dannevirke News. Mr Gibson, who now lives in Palmerston North, was a pupil at Maharahara School from 1932 and recalls walking four miles to and from school every day. Walking three miles to and from Kiritaki school was the norm for brothers Murray and Roy Caswill, while John Burn, who started at the same school in 1937, aged six, remembers his two-mile walk.
Roy began at Kiritaki on February 3, 1931, the day of the Napier earthquake. Brother Murray started 1932, but only attended for a month before being sent home again - not for being naughty - but because it was the depression era and schools with less than 40 pupils lost a teacher.
Don Gibson, 95, was the oldest person at the reunion of the former Kiritaki and Maharahara schools on Sunday.
"Kiritaki went down to one teacher so I had to stop my schooling and didn't start again until 1933," he said.
The Joblin brothers Maurice and Gary shared their memories of Maharahara School.
"Once a week the boys had to get spades and dig a hole under the macrocarpa trees and dispose of the contents of the long drop," Maurice said. "Can you imagine the kids of today doing that?" Sweeping the school and keeping the rooms tidy was just "something we did", the brothers said.
Maharahara and Kiritaki were described as real communities, the heart of their districts.
"There was a chess club and one winter's night Jim Whibley threw a canvas over the top of his Ford utility truck and everyone from the chess club clambered on board and off we went to Takapau," Maurice said.
Noeline Hartridge (nee Gimblett), remembers the school train trip to Wellington for the great exhibition.
"It was a real treat," she said.
But not all the tales told were of the school, the Maharahara and Kiritaki communities had a rich history, with plenty of stories, including one about well-known butcher George MacKay.
"George would go around the district delivering meat in his van and he'd love to stop and talk," Noeline said. "At one stop he closed the lid of his van and chatted to the Whibley's, but at his next stop when he opened the van out jumped the Whibley's cat."
Gerard Murray was one of the younger generation at the reunion and remembers the great days at Maharahara.
"During the war years the home guard, Maurice Power and a few others, met at Galloway's woolshed," he said. "They had boulders stacked away under the trees, ready to roll out when the Japanese came. We also had a fellow who started in the primers at Maharahara one day, decided he didn't like it and biked to Kiritaki School the next day and then on his 12-inch bike he rode to Te Rehunga School on the third day."
