Wairarapa Archive

The Wairarapa Archive is a great source of photos of anything to do with the Wairarapa as well as tracking your ancestry in the area. As well as donated photos and those from other sources, they also stock all the negatives taken by the local newspaper (The Wairarapa Times Age) up until about 2000, from memory. If you know the date of something appearing in the paper (either exactly or approximate) they can provide you with, not only a copy of this photo, but also any other photo taken at the same time, even if not published. Here are some recent finds.

10th February, 1968, this photo of a proud Ian Maxwell standing by his new Bedford bus was published...

...but the rest of these photos were also taken, but not published.

No 11, was probably the first bus to appear in Masterton, without opening side windows. Ventilation was provided individually to each passenger by an overhead, adjustable vent.

The large one piece side windows, windscreen and rear window were very modern for the time.
The front and rear caps, I assume were molded fibre glass and appeared to be a copy of the British Duple bodies.
The chassis was a Bedford VAM, petrol powered, with a four speed gearbox and two speed differential.
VAMs were front engined.

In June, 1966, this picture of Transport Wairarapa's AEC Mammoth Major loaded with 303 sacks of peas appeared in the Times Age, with Doug Grey alighting from the cab.

Unpublished was this photo of Doug, sorting his ropes.

24th, June, 1970 this photo of my granddad, Norman Jones passing his driving test, at age 83, was featured...............

.... but it's great to see these previously unseen photos of him standing by his Vauxhall, while the MOT officer does the paper work on the bonnet.

Now he has noticed the camera...

...and although he was small in stature,  he was big on sense of humour and appears to have cracked a joke here, with the officer.

All photos on this page are from the Wairarapa Archive, Times Age collection.

Foden Photos.

Jim from Alexandra used to drive this Foden for Gore Services. He was hoping to find a clearer picture of it to use on his website...http://www.jimspage.co.nz/history.htm
He would particularly like to find one of it towing the trailer which it did quite often.
If anyone has anything, contact me or contact Jim directly at  sjimc@xtra.co.nz

Catching Up.

I've been letting this blog slip a bit lately, partly due to spending more time on facebook, but mostly due to having a fault with my compact camera. This is the one I carry to work and anywhere else that the size of my good camera is an inconvenience.The fault in the camera is fixable, but it is a fiddly job and I've just got to make time to do it. The fact that my small Proxxon drill has also decided to stop working doesn't make it any easier.
Anyway, here's a few pics I've dug up lately.

At Queen's Birthday Weekend we did a trip, up through Pongaroa and then on to Porangahau, in the car. At Pongaroa a local Holden Club had gathered at the hotel. Here are some of the cars there.

At Porangahau the river was glassy smooth.

We get a variety of cars to service at my workplace, like this early Ford Mustang.

Mini and V6 Capri, were in on the same day.

I always liked Chrysler Australia's styling for the Valiants.

Here are some pics I found on some old transparencies.
This one was a workmate's pride and joy, a Suzuki GS450, back in the 80s

My friend Hans, bought this brand new BMW K100RT in 1985.