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Unpublished was this photo of Doug, sorting his ropes.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.