Len McConnell

I was born in Wellington in 1928, and we shifted down to the South Island, my father was on the Kaikoura to Christchurch railways, we went down there in the early 30’s. The line got as far as Kaikoura we shifted north. I went to primary school in Oaro and in 1943 we went to Wellington, and I went to St Pat’s College, left and worked in the Post Office for a couple years, at age 15, and then for the Union steamship company.

Then I went to Australia for a year hitchhiking and working, cutting cane. In 1954 I came back to NZ and went down to see a buddy and started deer culling in Lake Monowai, Ahuriri, Haast, Eyre Mountains, Wilberforce. I knocked off and went over to the Olympic Games and spent a year or so knocking round, came back flat broke and went shooting again and got a few bob, went over to Tasmania and married my wife, I met her in Spain.

We came back to NZ and went to look up a mate in Tuatapere and ran into Murray Schofield and I applied for a job as a Park Ranger and was lucky enough to get it. I was there for 6 years in Clifton. I was the first resident ranger down there. Someone else was appointed before me but he didn’t like it, something happened, and he went back to Nelson.