Charlie James

Charlie was at the Herbert Forest reunion but since then, unfortunately he has died.

Charlie was a local boy, born and bred in Herbert and because he was roughly the same age as me, and our kids are roughly the same age, we shared company in the social things that went on in the district. 

I guess we can call them 'the old days' because the social structure of the district has changed, especially since the closure of the Otepopo Primary School.

'Back then' the population was mainly stable whereas today it is more itinerant with farms changing hands more regularly and the dairy industry bringing in temporary/casual labour.

The James family was a large and I did not know them all and Charlie followed his father in becoming an agricultural machine operator and when I first knew him the was driving a bulldozer for J R Bishop.

I first saw him clearing the steep hill owned by Bert Bennett, opposite the Forest Headquarters.

Bert had a small TD6 dozer and Jimmy Blair, who worked for Bert was also working clearing the grose on the hill. 

Charlie and Jimmy fooled a bit. Jimmy was able to halt Charlie's D6  - the bigger machine - as it climbed the steep hill! It looked steep and dangerous to me but they were obvious having fun!

Charlie bought his own bulldozer and went out on his own and he was useful to us for forming firebreaks and helping us out from time to time - when I had become stuck either on a dozer or in a vehicle. He helped us fight fires.

When he sold his dozer (there was a downturn in the finances of farmers) Charlie was employed by Bert Bennett to drive the logging truck and as the mill increased capacity, Charlie took on the cartage contract and increased his fleet and included the firewood/sawdust truck.

So we had plenty of contact with Charlie and there was mutual cooperation.

Changes happened, as they do - NZFS became history, Bert Bennett sold up, there was a downturn and I was off to Africa and so was surprised to find Charlie was away from the district.

He ended his life in Ashburton.

We had a lot of history.