FOR OLD TIME’S SAKE
PAM GODDARD (73) CHOOSES HER DECADESOLD APPLIANCES AHEAD OF ANY MODERN, NEW-FANGLED WHITEWARE
Pam’s low-tech life
Well firstly, I don’t like anything automatic. I like to be in charge and the thought of an automatic washing machine just fills me with horror because I’ve used a ringer machine for 44 years.
With an automatic you can’t see what’s happening inside and whether the rinsing water’s dirty. I just couldn’t imagine being without my ringer machine to be honest.
We bought it second-hand and my husband David (75) has mended it several times with parts of other old ones that people put out on the side of the road.
You don’t see them now − I think they’re all in museums − so when it broke down the last time he said, ‘That’s it, it’s history if it breaks down again.’ I thought l better have a plan B. That’s when I rang our local paper thinking that maybe somebody had an old one under their house, and that’s
exactly what happened.
A kind lady in Cambridge rang and said, ‘I have my mother’s washing machine here. It’s exactly like yours. She died in 1989, it’s never been used since and I can’t bring myself to get rid of it. Would you like it?’ Incidentally, her mother’s name was Pam as well, so it looks as if it was meant to be.
There is definitely a technique to using a ringer machine. If you let wet clothes lump up it will snap the bar on the ringer which will make the top fly up, and if you’re leaning over you could very well end up with a cracked jaw. And it’s very easy to get your fingers trapped. My fingers once went in, but I had the presence of mind to knock the bar up with my arm, otherwise it could have been nasty.
We also have a 1954 tractor that we’ve had for a long time and use for all manner of things, mainly towing the boat or pulling out stuck cars, but my husband has also made a firewood saw to go on the back of it so he can chop firewood − it runs off the engine and splits up the big knotted logs that are too dangerous to cut with an axe or a chainsaw.
But we’re not total dinosaurs. We have a TV and also a microwave − someone gave it to me (I’m a bit suspicious of it; somebody said they give off radioactive waves) and I do have a cellphone. It’s a little cheapy one my daughter pestered me to get so she could send text messages. But I concede it’s useful in an emergency.
I had to use it when I broke down while out fishing. I was quite a way out in the Manukau Harbour. It was a lovely day and after catching some fish I went to move but the engine wouldn’t start. There’s an auxiliary engine for emergencies but that wouldn’t start either, so I had to ring up my husband, tell him the engines wouldn’t start and he instructed me on how to get the auxiliary started.
I wasn’t a fisher until I came to live in Cornwallis. I come from Yorkshire and only saw the sea once a year when on a day trip to Blackpool.
We lived in a row of houses − like the ones you see on Coronation Street − with people both sides and at the back of us. I went out one night for a walk and all I could see were chimney pots and I thought, ‘We’ve got to get away from here.’ I went home to my husband and said, ‘Let’s go to New Zealand.’
Our daughter was four at the time. She’s now 51. I look at the life she’s had here and the life she would have had if we hadn’t moved and there’s no comparison. The quality of life is just so much better. It was the best thing we ever did.
Because we were right on the beachfront, the first thing we did was buy a boat. The old man
who lived next door taught me all about fishing and how to set nets and I’ve been doing that for about 33 years now.
We’re quite self-sufficient. We have chooks for eggs, hubby does all the gardening and grows everything organically while I’m the hunter-gatherer.
I’m vegetarian so I don’t eat meat, but I do eat fish. We’re very lucky that when it’s the season we get scallops, muscles and oysters from the rocks, and cockles and pipis off the beach.
My favourite thing about living in Cornwallis is probably the fishing life and being close to nature. It sounds a bit trite, I know, but it just feels natural and normal to live like this. I couldn’t imagine living in an apartment block or a pensioner village or anywhere like that. It would feel like living in a prison.
We feel privileged to be here. It was pure luck we found this place and we never take it for granted.”