Treasure trove of World War II memories uncovered at Seaforth Station

Guy Laver and son Edwin with French visitor Arthur Ferte inside the whare.

Countries under siege, New Zealanders under severe restrictions and serving in the front lines! No, not the Covid-19 Lockdown but at another time of global crisis – World War II.

By coincidence, just as New Zealand emerges from the Covid-19 lockdown, memories have been stirred by a remarkable find of photos dating back to the 1940s when the world was in another war.

The worker's quarters in which a treasure trove of pictures were found on Guy and Jane Laver's Seaforth Station at Weber.

This treasure trove of pictures drawn largely from 'The Weekly News' – a pictorial newspaper of New Zealand in the 1940s-50s - was found in worker's quarters stuck to the weatherboards when a hardboard lining was removed during Lockdown.

The chance discovery was made by Guy Laver and family as they sought to renovate these worker's quarters prior to moving them up on to a ridge of his Seaforth Station to become a hunting lodge.

The quarters date back to the earliest times of European settlement at Weber, the neighbouring homestead said to be the first European building erected.

Guy Laver believes the pictures were glued to the walls to keep the draughts out and probably to remind the residents of the traumatic times they witnessed both at home and overseas.

Many pictures have experienced the ravages of time but there are sufficient good ones to represent events of the war overseas as Part One and Life back in New Zealand as Part Two. (See next week)