1943-1966 The Beginnings - Tramping and Rugby

1. In the Beginning – 1943-1965

Life is made up of many experiences, and in hindsight my early life was about the many accidental and planned events and experiences, and that laid the basis for handling my later life in conservation.

1.1 Early Life

I was born Bruce Edward Jeffries in Wellington in 1943 on September 13th, a very auspicious day! I had two older sisters and two younger sisters, so I was “the meat in the sandwich” or “the son in the sandwich”?

My father was Leslie Edward from Wellington who worked for many years as a projectionist in Wellington movie theatres. He worked quite long hours, some days four sessions a day 11am, 2pm 5pm and 8 pm.

My mother, Mary Ann Jefferies, was from Hawkes Bay. Her most traumatic early experience was coming through the Napier earthquake way back whenever. So, whenever Wellington shook, so did she. She was very nervous of the tremors, but she did not talk about it. When Wellington had at one of its regular earthquakes, it all came back to her.

Heather was my oldest sister, the second was Elizabeth or Beth, Glenis was the third and Margaret was 4th.

I was born just towards the end of the war. My dad had a job throughout the war as a reserve in the Army but continued working as a projectionist. The war was never mentioned and did not seem to impact on the family in any way.

I grew up in Kelburn up on the hill, near the Victoria University in Landcross Street.

A very close friend and colleague was just up the road, Paul Green. He was a longtime member of the Wellington Tramping and Mountaineering Club, and later he had a long career, first with Lands and Survey Department, and later with the Department of Conservation. Rumour had it that we first met each other when we were about three years old and we still keep in contact. A special guy.

1.2 School, Baking, Tramping and Rugby

I attended Te Aro Primary School and Wellington Technical College (High School). My early recollections of life revolved around a paper run, working in a local bakery on Cambridge Terrace and, of most relevance, playing rugby.

I was never a fan of school, with its challenges of Math and English, but it gave me the chance to play rugby, which I was reasonably good at. I clearly remember my maths teacher leaning over my work one day, looking at it, shaking his head and remarking to me ‘as mathematician you are a pretty good front row forward’. High praise indeed!

Even before I left school one of my customers on my paper around offered me a job at is business, Lorraine’s Cake Shop on Cambridge Terrace, I would go in at 4 or 5 AM and work until it was time to go to school often going back after school. Rugby and tramping were my favourite weekend occupations. Rugby was a real passion, and I played for the Athletic Rugby Football Club.

1.3 Getting into Tramping

My oldest sister, Heather joined the Wellington Tramping & Mountain Club (known locally at the “Tongue and Meats”). She got me involved when I was about 15 and this was probably the key to my future work in conservation.

I remember the timing Heather was working with DSIR as a field assistant for a scientist, Mavis Davidson, who was doing research on possums mainly in the Rimutaka Forest Park. It would have been in the late 50s, and from that an interest of tramping developed. Mavis Davison was one of New Zealand’s outstanding women. I only met her a few times, but as well his/her science credentials she was a mountaineer and a very a good researcher.

When Heather joined the Wellington Tramping Club, I sort of went along for a few tramps under her supervision while I was at school. We did not have outdoor experiences as a family. My mother was very much a wife and was busy enough looking after five kids. She and my dad weren’t really interested. They didn't discourage it, but I don't think they really understood. We would sort of pack our gear and head away for on Friday night for a weekend tramping or went skiing at Ruapehu or whatever.

1.4 Balancing Act

The thing I liked about school, in particular, was playing in the 1st Fifteen rugby team. When I took up tramping with my sister there was always a balancing act. It was great discipline. Life was always full on.

I worked for a Baker while I was at school. It wasn't probably the best for your health, but I'd go to work at 3am and work until 8:00 and then go to school. I also worked at the same place in school holidays, sometimes in the winter I'd play senior rugby, which was quite intense and finish at sort of five whatever. I didn't drink, I wasn't unsociable, but I didn’t have time.

I left school quite early, and because I had a close relationship with a guy that ran a bakery, I just sort of fell into doing an apprenticeship in the bakery business with him, and that took me through to when I was about 19. I was still actively tramping through that time and climbing and hunting, so it was busy life.

Because of, the job I was doing as an apprentice meant starting at early in the morning I'd try and grab a couple of hours, sleep the afternoon, then go to rugby practice at 5 or 6 pm. From that get to bed as early as I could, but often only 3 to 6 hours sleep, then back again.

There was no pressure from my mum and dad to go on to the third level education. They seemed happy enough with what I was doing. Those decisions were never really discussed. I never thought about it that way, but it just happened. It would be sort of like the mid to late 50s by then, so not many of my peers were going on to higher level education.

From that point the outdoors almost completely dominated my interests and balancing these against playing rugby became a constant juggling act.

On many occasions during the winter season, I would play a competitive senior rugby game on Saturday before heading into the local hills on Saturday night to catch-up with a tramping club trip to join them for a Sunday tramp. We would then come back Monday and do it all again. In retrospect, I guess it was a bit crazy, but that's just how it was.

1.5 Bakery Apprentice

A colleague and friend I previously mentioned, Paul Green, was working for a family business that were doing deliveries. Then he went to university for a short time and then dropped out. Most of the people that I was tramping or playing rugby with were doing some sort of work, but many of the tramping Club people were obviously slightly older than us, and University wasn't a natural progression then, as it is now. The folks I was mixing with primarily in Wellington were mainly in trades and the courses I did at high school were focused on engineering trades. I went into the bakery and finished my apprenticeship and got the certificate. Later on in life it made people laugh.

My initial career came up the other day when I was in Queenstown at the Conservation Board meeting. One of the board members who put on a barbecue for the Board on Wednesday night had been told by somebody else if I served my time as a in a bakery, so he delegated me the job of cooking the barbeque, so it comes back.

The progression from baker to ranger did not seem to make sense, I was not ashamed, but it was not part of my upbringing that was foremost in my mind because it was sort of quite contrary to the protected areas National Park work that I was doing later.

1.6 More Tramping and Climbing

The weekend trips were to the Tararua Ranges and on one of these I met Margaret my future wife. She was a keen and active member as well as a competent mountaineer. We completed many trips into the Southern Alps as well as epic tramps in the Tararua, Kaikoura, Kaimanawa and Ruahine ranges, as well as Tongariro National Park

The club ran alpine instruction courses, and then as I became more experienced, we moved on from tramping to scrambling and climbing, often with Margaret as my climbing partner.

1.7 Wellington Tramping and Mountaineering Club – Tongue & Meets

The first time I went tramping was into the Tararua Ranges, into the sort of peripheral areas and following these people up and down hills and thinking, this is sort of senseless, but it's quite good fun. I mean, it's rather trite in a way, but I clearly remember looking back after a tramp seeing, our boot prints showing on the soft mud where we had walked along the track and I thought yeah, that's pretty good, making your own tracks.

There was a definite connection there with your environment. There are lots of club huts and later on Forest Service huts, and that just led to longer trips. Easter trips would go to Nelson Lakes and the Richmond range, or areas like that, and it just sort of progressively developed.

I became aware of the FMC because Wellington Tramping Mountaineering Club was part of FMC, of course. There were members of the Tramping Club who were on the FMC executive. Nick Jennings was part of the organisation. FMC was a bit peripheral, became as my I developed my career.

What became more and more obvious was that more time you spend it in the outdoors and the more you do, the more you develop your competencies.  Dave Cooper and I were the first to complete the Schoemanns to Kaitoki track in a weekend (see photo).

We did a lot of these trips through the tramping club. We had people with the competencies to do the basic stuff but some of the some of the instructors my peers on those courses went onto be quite notable climbers.

Alex (Bruce) Miller was one who was working in advertising in Wellington at the time. We always used to chuckle at Alex when he arrived in his tie and sports coat with a briefcase. We were good mates and I did quite a few trips with him as he was very accomplished mountaineer. Alex went on to be a Ranger in Westland National Park and Abel Tasman and was a staunch conservationist.

Margaret, my wife was an accomplished climber as well. That was how we met tramping and did a lot of trips together. Our relationship started off as friends and we were going away regularly, and if I asked won't you come, she was always up for a trip. That was the thing about these clubs, it was not only the whole environmental experience, but the social thing was so important as people shared a common interest. Margaret was very fit and we did 2–3 week trips in the Southern Alps. Then one day it was a question of, “What are you doing tomorrow? Well, do you think we should get married sometime? Some weekend when we're not tramping. Let’s see if we considered into our schedule.” The nickname for the tramping club was WT&MC stood for Wellington Tramping and Matrimonial club.

1.8 September 1965 Marriage

Marg and I were married on 11th September 65. At the same time there was a search and rescue taking place in the in the Tararua Ranges. Some of our friends were participating in what turned out to be a large rescue effort, and as soon as the rescue was successfully completed, they hurried back to Wellington and turned up late in time for our reception - still in their shorts and tramping boots.

Marg and I had somehow scraped enough money to raise a mortgage to buy a small house on a section in Johnsonville (a suburb of Wellington). We were poor so we had remained home over the holidays to save money and work on the house and were breaking in the section.

I was becoming increasingly disillusioned with the long-term future as a Pastry Cook and through word-of-mouth and advertisements in the local paper for park ranger positions. I applied. On my first application, I missed, but that explains what happened next.

1.9 December 1965 Search and Rescue a turning point in my life

At Christmas time there were always big trips organised with other club members. One was to Mt Aspiring National Park with Norm Clarkson, Norm Whiteside, and Kelly Yip. This was probably in 1964/65.

In December 1965 many members of the WTMC as well as many other Wellington tramping clubs were on extended tramping and climbing trips in the Southern Alps. That particular year over the Christmas period there was a huge snowfall on Mt Ruapehu.

A Malaysian Colombo plan student wandered up to the Crater Lake for a walk and when the weather suddenly closed in, rather severely, he got lost. National Parks staff initiated a search using local resources and backup was arranged through the New Zealand Police. The police In Wellington contacted us looking search and rescue members those with alpine and skills and experience. We were approached by the police and whisked away in a police car to Tongariro National Park as part of a team of SAR volunteers. The police drove us to Whakapapa and the TNP headquarters in two cars. We were briefed at TNP HQ by John Mazey, then the “big fast boys’ team”, made up of a strong group of experienced people including myself as Team Leader, Dave Capper, and John Patchett, headed up the mountain to search the upper slopes including the summit plateau and if possible, the check the Dome Shelter.

Marg’s team were sent to search different areas and unbeknown to the search controller were instructed to prod mounds of snow in case the search party I was leading, and the lost climbers, had been overtaken in an avalanche all similar.

As noted above our task was to get to the Dome Shelter where, if, the missing person was still alive he was probably holed up. Another search team had been sent out to look for him a few days earlier, and they had also lost contact, so John Mazey the Search Controller was getting a little bit worried.

As we progressed towards the upper slopes the weather got worse and worse because we were entering into a Jetstream of very extreme wind speeds.

Our party got to the ridge leading to the dome shelter, within 50 meters, I reckon, in pretty atrocious weather and were literally blasted across the ridge down onto the summit plateau area where we put up a tent and managed to crowd inside. We got off the Dome shoulder, but the jet stream winds made progress virtually impossible.

There was no, radio communications in those days, no helicopters, no cell phones. We spent an uncomfortable night in blizzard conditions. The next day conditions were, if anything, worse and so our group peeled off down the Whangaehu glacier to the old NCC translator station on eastern side where an emergency phone attached to building that provided a micro-link to Wellington. We reported our position and that we were OK and got a message back to the Chief Ranger / Search Controller. He in turn he arranged for a national park vehicle to come around to the Tūkino Village to meet us and take us back to PHQ.

In the meantime, the missing student, who had been located by Ian Blackmore and some of the park staff( see photo), who had gone up as a search team were all stuck in the Dome Shelter and couldn’t get down due to the weather. In the end, they all walked out.

1.11 Applying for a Ranger Position

I had developed an interest in becoming a National Park Ranger and wondered what the job involved. When the search was completed, and we were back at the Park Headquarters, I made an appointment and had a chat with John Mazey, the Chief Ranger. I told him I had applied for a ranger’s job at TNP previously but was not selected for an interview, and could he give me some advice? In those days, 1965, each park was managed under a National Park Board, and each board appointed its own staff, there was no ranger service as such. He informed me that “we’re advertising ranger positions and I think with your credentials you should at least get you an interview so if you are interested try again”.

In retrospect, I think John, as the Search Controller, was impressed by the skill of the SAR team I was a member of, and he advised me that at that time each National Park Board independently appointed Rangers and other park staff. In April 1969, both Reserves and National Park Rangers transferred to the Public Service - to all intents and purposes, this was the beginning of a unified Ranger Service. was about to advertise for additional ranger positions, and that I should apply for these.

Some weeks later, Margaret and I were called for an interview with the TNP Chairman and several members of the National Park Board. The park boards in those days actually employed the rangers and we were given a rigorous interview by the panel which included Vincent Patrick McGlone (Commissioner of Crown Lands Department of Lands and Survey Wellington), LD (Bill) Bridge Chief Inspector New Zealand police in charge of search and rescue, Ken Myers Forest Service, Environmental Division and John Mazey TNP Chief Ranger - this was a formidable panel.

The normal practice was to interview wives in those days because of the remote locations that staff were based in, and to see if woman could handle this. Marg, I was confident would be fine having been, tramping and mountaineering for several years.

1.12 Offer of Basic Ranger Position

We left the interview not knowing how we had done and were walking along Lambton Quay when we saw the interview panel, which had broken for a lunch break, walking towards us. We stopped to chat, and Vince McGlone turned to the other members of the panel and said “shall we tell them now or make them wait a bit longer” in those few moments our life completely changed, and we set out on a new and exciting phase.

On reflection my appointment as a basic grade ranger in Tongariro National Park was based on “fate, luck and chance” (a trait that I’ve relied on for a long time). I knew the guy they appointed from the previous interview; he was from the Waikato. When I first started he was my boss but there was no problem because he was a more senior guy, I was junior, and all I wanted to be was a grunt.

I had made it clear at the interview that the Rugby Club I played for had, for many months, been organising an overseas rugby tour and I would need the time off if I was offered the position.

1.12 The World Tour & Personal Thoughts

The 1966 world tour by the Wellington Athletic Rugby Football Club felt like stepping off the edge of the map. For many of us it was our first trip beyond New Zealand, and the sheer scale of it - suddenly we were crossing oceans, touching down in strange cities, and carrying our club colours out in stadiums we’d only ever heard about—was both exhilarating and faintly unreal.

Wellington Athletic Tour UK Ireland and Japan

By the sports editor

The Wellington Athletic rugby club is to undertake a tour, the enterprise and scope of which is unprecedented in New Zealand club rugby. Twenty-two of the champion club’s top players- including its Jubilee club squad will play matches in England, Ireland, Japan and Hong Kong during October and November.

The tour, estimated to cost several thousand pounds, probably running into five figures, has been planned since the beginning of the season.

The club is raising the finance through the sweat of its brow and by various enterprises. At this stage games in England, Ireland, Hong Kong and Japan are definitely arranged with the game on 8 October against the Harlequins at Twickenham will be a feature of the famous English clubs centennial celebrations

(MacEwan, 1966)

We travelled as a tight bunch of young blokes—proud of our rugby, wide-eyed about the world, discovering in equal measure the thrill of competition and the simple wonder of seeing how other people lived, and hungry for whatever lay around the next corner.

What lingers now isn’t just the matches—though there were some bruising encounters—but the camaraderie built on long flights, rattling bus and train rides, shared meals, and the laughter that filled the evenings and the endless yarns that filled every spare moment.

Without realising it, we became ambassadors of sorts, met everywhere by a warmth that surprised us, offering in return our best rugby, our best manners, and our best attempts at navigating foreign languages and customs with good humour.

Looking back, that tour marked a distinct turning point in my life. It widened my horizons, gave me a sense of the world’s breadth, and planted in many of us the first seeds of a lifelong curiosity about places far from home. For a group of club rugby players in the mid1960s, it was more than a sporting adventure—it was an early education in the richness and diversity of the world, carried home in stories, friendships, and a deeper appreciation of where we came from.

From my personal perspective, the trip marked the end of my rugby-playing days as I had already applied for and been appointed to a ranger‘s position in Tongariro National Park. Luckily, John Mazey and the Department of Lands and Survey somehow saw value in the experiences this trip would provide and agreed that I could take six weeks' leave without pay to participate.

1.13 Athletic Football Club Reunion

Many years later we had a reunion, and a book was written about the tour with lots of anecdotes and laughs.