By Ashley Blair

Southern Africa to Egypt. 

Place and country names are those Joy used in her diary.

The incredible story of the New Zealand midwife Joy McKean who rode a 150cc Bantam Major around the world alone continues:

On Saturday 2 June 1956 Joy finished night duty at the Lady Chancellor Maternity Hospital, Salisbury at 7:30am and by 10:45am she was on her way to London. She passed through Southern Rhodesian Immigration and Customs and was told that the Mozambique customs post was 90 miles away. She was also told that the road would be sand for 30 miles, then sand and corrugations to Tete and once over the Zambezi River there would be potholes that would be the worst of all. At Tete Joy crossed the Zambezi River on a pontoon pulled by a launch. Later the road became much rougher and a pannier broke off the carrier which she repaired the next morning. She rode for five miles through very winding steep hills to the Nyasaland Customs Post where she found the customs officer had been in the Royal New Zealand Navy in Auckland! This was a very remote area and Joy was asked to take a note to a garage from a driver whose car had broken down 20 hours before – she was the first person the driver had seen since then.

Joy on the morning she left for London in front of Lady Chancellor Maternity Hospital, 2 June 1956. Photo Steve Ede.

After Blantyre Joy rode through Zomba, Dedza, Lilongwe and just before Salima she could see the sparkling water of Lake Nyasa. Each night she slept just off the road under a tree to keep the dew off. She made a quick visit to the shore of Lake Nyasa before heading back to Lilongwe. The Bantam was not running well as it was using a lot more petrol than usual and the spark plug had to be changed frequently. That night there were no trees nearby and she got very wet from the dew. The next day the Bantam ran out of petrol. She tipped the motorcycle on its side, “played about with the points” and managed to start it again. A truck driver gave her petrol and oil which she paid for before crossing into Northern Rhodesia.

On the road to Lusaka. Photo Steve Ede.

At first the road to Lusaka was much better but became worse the further she rode with large trucks almost blinding her with dust. Joy had to change the spark plug three times in 20 miles and finally stopped to clean out the carburettor. She slept under a tree in the grounds of Lusaka Hospital and next day tried unsuccessfully to find someone to look at the Bantam. She did get the chain cleaned and bought more spark plugs. The day after she headed north on what was to be her longest one day ride – 275 miles. The road climbed and she passed amazing rock outcrops, saw an antelope and later while riding in the dark, eyes shining in the dark. She stopped about 9pm near a hotel. It was cold, windy and later when the wind dropped she was wet with dew – her worst night by far. The following day she ran out of petrol but two Italians heading to Kariba to work on the dam gave her some.

The Immigration Officer at the border was a young Scotsman who offered Joy a bed for the night and stamped her passport at breakfast the next morning. He asked Joy where she had slept the previous night and when she told him it was under a tree near the Mpika Hotel he was horrified. “Oh never, never do that! Did you look up the tree? That’s where leopards are.”

The turn off just north of Kapiri Mposhi 10 June 1956. Photo Steve Ede.

Mbeya in Tanganyika was a large town and the Bantam still needed to be sorted. Joy changed the gearbox oil, cleaned the carburettor, took off the cylinder head and exhaust and cleaned them, then cleaned and tightened the chain. A mechanic thought the loss of compression was due to broken or worn rings, something that could not be fixed in Mbeya. Joy headed off to Nairobi. She rode to over 7,000 feet above sea level and started to descend just as it was getting dark. She slept under a tree near African homes. Next day the road was sandy and dusty in places until just before Iringa where there was really deep sand as well as corrugations. The Bantam was missing so Joy changed the plug, adjusted the points and let it cool but it was no better. At Dodma she adjusted the points again. Joy was unaware that she was now in the area where the South African Motor Cyclist Corps were operating on their BSAs during World War 1.

On the road to Arusha. Photo Steve Ede.

Nearing Arusha Joy was thrilled to see heads of giraffes poking up above the trees as the sun set. From Arusha she detoured 48 miles on a good road to Moshi at the foot of Mount Kilimanjaro. She passed about 100 zebra and antelope and was delighted when, “The mountain cleared as the sun set with a pink glow in the snow.” That night while camping out she could see Kilimanjaro in the moonlight. The night before reaching Nairobi she saw in the moonlight an animal the size of a large Alsatian quite close to her. It leapt away when she shone her torch and threw a rock towards it. Worried at the time that it may have been a lion (although told later it was probably a hyena) Joy packed up and moved away to spend the night under a tree in the glow of lights from a Mau Mau detention camp.

Nairobi June 1956. Photo Steve Ede.

She reached Nairobi after riding 3,000 miles in 16 days, all except 700 miles on dusty gravel roads. A mechanic found the Bantam went much better with the silencer off – because it was filled with sand and oil. After the silencer was cleaned the Bantam ran much better. She took the bike to the Lucas agent who found a lot of the electrics needed attention including replacement of the ignition coil bracket. She was not charged anything. Back at the mechanics the carrier was welded and the charge was eight pounds! This left Joy with just ten shillings to get to Kampala.

An extract from Joy’s diary of Wednesday 20 June 1956:

Got petrol and left Nairobi, 400 miles to Kampala. I climbed through beautiful dairying and cropping land with some forest plantations. I reached 7000ft. It was cold but fine. I have never seen such large clean African huts. They were everywhere, spread out like towns. After about 20 miles I reached the escarpment of the Rift Valley. A fine view from the top extended west into haze. A good road and grade led 2 to 3 miles down through dense tropical growth. Stopped on the way down to look at red flowering lilies. Once down on the flat it was desert-like growing thorn bushes, but not devoid of grass and herbage. Climbing and passing a volcano to the south I came to open land where zebra and antelopes grazed. To the west a lake appeared and I passed small Indian towns and a dairy herd. In the late afternoon sun I could see a storm gathering to the NW. Soon the wind changed to a cold NE and I ran into the outskirts of the storm. I passed through hills like another escarpment and from Gilgil reached Nakuru at 5.45pm. It was an attractive town with avenued streets, fine homes and schools. Noticed barbed wire around the railway station and at level crossings. Got petrol. A shower of rain caused me to expect trouble. On my way again the road climbed gently through open farm land for 20 miles. Then the sealing ceased and the road ahead was under construction. Mud, mud, mud after all the rain. On a rough road I made a long slow climb in the dark with light rain falling at times. Eventually I reached the Jolly Farmers’ Inn. Carried on in open land to just below the summit when my wheels were so clogged with mud they would not turn. It was 9.00 pm and the moon gave some light. I tried to free them with my knife. It was a terrible job. I remembered the same problem with my first Bantam on my way to Perth. A transport lorry stopped and we yarned. He was going via Eldorat to Kampala but I wanted to go via Kisumu. I got going but was soon stuck again. I partially freed the wheel but it was no use going further. I went up the bank and put myself under pine trees and left the bike on the road. It was a miserable night and for no reason I did not feel safe. I never got warm. Nothing passed during the night.

Next day just before Kisumu the Bantam stopped with no spark and although Joy tried everything it would not run. She pushed the bike two miles to a road junction and waited there for an hour and a half until she was given lifts on trucks to Kisumu where two Indian motorcyclists took her to the only motorcycle shop in town. The Sudanese mechanic found a loose wire from the coil but would not take any payment. At Kampala the British Passport Office said that she might be able to get into Sudan without a visa but she could just as easily be turned back. She knew when she set out that Sudanese visas were very hard to obtain. She already had a ticket for a ship on the Nile from Juba. At Woblenzi, north of Kampala, she stopped to buy a pineapple and admire a woman’s cross stitch embroidery. Joy showed some of her embroidery and through a translator the woman asked where to get embroidery transfers.

Sudan Uganda border 23 Jun 1956. Photo Steve Ede.

Joy kept riding into the night as she was anxious to get to Juba before the boat sailed. Just before Juba she almost ran over a large python which she thought at first was a tree branch until it crossed right in front of her. Joy arrived on the east bank of the Nile not knowing that Juba was over on the west bank. When crossing the Nile next morning on a barge she was convinced the boat had already sailed but soldiers directed her to an office where she was told to follow a ute. This led her to the back of a building where she was asked for her passport and visa. She apologised profusely for not having a visa but the driver of the ute laid out a set of stamps on the front seat, which seemed to be his mobile office, stamped her passport and issued her with a visa for fifteen shillings. Everyone seemed very happy that she was in Sudan. She was approached by a white man who shook her hand, said his name was Watson and he was a teacher in Uganda. He explained that the Nile was very low and the paddle steamer could not reach Juba. Everyone, as well as the Bantam, would be taken by truck 50 miles north to where the ship was.

Atura Ferry 23 June 1956. Photo Steve Ede.

Joy, who always relished ship voyages, said later that the week sailing down the Nile was one of the greatest trips she had ever done in her life. She saw crocodiles, hippopotamuses and herds of up to 80 elephants while passing through the Sudd. The birdlife was “tremendous”. The paddle steamer towed passenger barges with people who slept on the deck; 50% of the men and about 25% of the women were naked.

Nile steamer that Joy travelled on for six days. Photo Steve Ede.

Joy on the Nile steamer. Photo Steve Ede.

There were only four Europeans on the voyage: Joy, Mr Watson, an American Jewish violinist who had played for the King of Nepal and a red headed South African chemist who was going to Holland. Malakal was the only stop on the voyage and everyone went ashore. When Joy came to board the boat two young men were waiting, one with a syringe.

“We will vaccinate you,” one said.

“You’ll do nothing of the sort,” was her reply.

“We have smallpox. The Governor has been vaccinated.”

“I’ve got a valid vaccination certificate. I’m not going to have this,” said Joy. She showed them her certificate, but she was not sure they could understand it.

A policeman standing near told the two to let Joy go on board – without vaccinating her. None of her European colleagues had been accosted by the vaccinators.

Juba on the banks of the Nile. Photo Steve Ede.

At Khartoum she met the Medical Officer of Health for Lagos who was on an official visit. He took Joy to meet Government health officials. It was at Khartoum that Joy, who wore her hair long with a head scarf, washed her hair for the first time ever on the trip in cold water – from a tap in the grounds of a hotel. A train took Joy and the Bantam on a 29 hour dust laden journey from Khartoum to Wadi Halfa and from there they went back on the boat to the Aswan High Dam. There she found that the petrol tap had been broken at Juba when the tank was drained. She usually emptied the tank herself but on this occasion did not have time. After the tap was repaired she had trouble finding her way and was followed by hordes of children.

Nearing dusk she reached a place where rocks had been placed right across the road. A group of men were standing nearby and she could hear donkeys and dogs. Two of the men came over to her and putting their hands on the handlebar indicated it was time to sleep. Joy switched the engine off and the men wheeled the Bantam over to where they were spending the night. They brought out what Joy described as a “middle eastern bed” which she slept on under the stars. In the morning Joy washed in the canal and one of the men took her into a compound where there were children sleeping and a calf tied up. The man’s wife greeted her, gave her water which she used to have a second wash. After brushing away dust and ants from the compound floor the woman brought out a low table and put out glasses of milk and tea and a flat loaf of bread which each person passed around after breaking off a piece. Although Joy was shown great hospitality by all Arab people she met, she remembered with great fondness this particular encounter with lovely people whose hospitality she was very grateful for. She was reluctant to leave them at 6am but wanted to be away before the day became too hot.

She visited Luxor, Karnak and Thebes before leaving Alexandria by ship for Beirut. Just before the dock gates at Alexandria Joy skidded on tramlines and “went flying”. It was a slow fall and she was more worried about the Bantam than herself. She hurt her elbow, the back of her head and her right shoulder. Suddenly it seemed to Joy that everyone on the dock had rushed to assist her. She was helped up, offered water and the bike picked up. After recovering she walked the remaining distance to the ship, pushing the Bantam.

Note: Photos are screen shots from a video of a slide presentation Joy gave to relations in Australia.

Extracts from Joy McKean’s diaries of her 1955 to 1957 world trip, as compiled by her niece Catharine A. McKean and following Joy’s death, have been included with the permission of Catharine A. McKean’s estate and Julian K. McKean as the trustees of Joy McKean’s will. These diaries reflect the views and impressions of Joy McKean only and the language is that in use at the time her diaries were written.

Acknowledgements

Suzanne Barnaby

Geoff Clarke

Annice Collett, Vintage Motor Cycle Club

Steve Foden, BSA Owners Club librarian

Lynda Goulden

J. McKean

Bernard Kerr

Liz Robertson

Jane Skayman

Heather Woods, New Zealand Nurses Organisation

References

McKean, C. Midwife on World Safari. Privately printed for the McKean family.

Interview with Naomi Margaret (Joy) McKean, Date 21 May, 10 July 1984. Ref OHA-2175. Alexander Turnbull Library, National Library of New Zealand.

The Motor Cycle.

Trove. https://trove.nla.gov.au/

By Ashley Blair

Riding in Africa.

The incredible story of the New Zealand midwife who rode a 150cc Bantam Major around the world alone continues:

On the way to Beira in Mozambique the Kampala called in to Seychelles, Mombasa, Zanzibar and Dar Es Salaam. Joy was not one for the highlife as she wrote that cocktails with the captain were “rather dull”. The Bantam had to come ashore on a lighter and that, combined with all the paperwork, took almost two days. It was after 4:30pm on 26 November 1955 when she left for Umtali in Rhodesia*.

Joy spent her first night in Africa in her sleeping bag on a concrete floor beside a river – but underneath a shelter. It was hot, there were mosquitos – except when the wind was blowing – and she did not have much sleep. Part of Joy’s diary for the next day, Sunday 27 November 1955, reads:

A cloudy day. Got up before daylight. A car arrived before 5:00am so I went over on the punt with it. The punt was pulled across by men who pulled on a wire cable, but the Pungue River was not wide. The road was unbelievably rough for about 6 miles and then a good bitumen surface commenced. It was straight flat going with the railway on my left through cultivated and wet areas and small African settlements. There were beautiful cream and pink lilies along the roadside – as large as Belladonnas and similar to ones in Ceylon. After about 70 miles the bitumen ceased and low hills commenced; they were covered in trees and a dry savannah grass below which the land had been fired. The road became terrible – bog, water and deep ruts every hundred yards. Detours were at every creek where a bridge was under construction. One detour was nine miles. The grade was good but the further I moved towards the mountains the steeper it became. Made a halt at Gondola, a small town and railway centre. It was just after 9.00 am. Continuing, the mud ceased after a few miles and except for creek detours the road remained fairly good to the border.

A couple she had met invited Joy to stay with them in Umtali. At 3,000 feet the Umtali night was cold and two blankets were needed. The following night she slept under a tree just off the road on the savannah and had to put on all her clothes to keep warm. At Salisbury the South African High Commission were non-committal about her chances of getting into South Africa as her registration papers from the South African Nursing Council arrived in New Zealand after she had left. However, the Nursing Division of the Medical Services for the Federation of Rhodesia and Nyasaland said she could take up a nursing job in Rhodesia.

The road from Salisbury to Bulawayo was surrounded by farms with black headed sheep, red pole humped shorthorn cattle, dairy cows and she also saw donkeys pulling ploughs. At Bulawayo she stayed with a member of the Registered Nurses Association who told her about nursing conditions in Rhodesia.

Strip road on the way to Victoria Falls, 3 December 1955. Photo Steve Ede.

Joy headed off to the Victoria Falls where she came across strip roads for the first time. These were a Rhodesian invention where the road was tarred in two narrow strips, one for each wheel, with signs which said: “Cars give way one strip to motorcyclists.” From a ridge she could see the spray from the Falls rising from the bush about two miles away, reminding her of the thermal area of New Zealand. Joy visited Victoria Falls one hundred years and two weeks after they were first seen by David Livingston.

This photograph of Joy was in the Bulowayo Chronicle on 5 December 1956. Photo Geoff Clarke.

At the South African border at Beitbridge Joy was told she needed more proof she was a nurse before they would let her enter South Africa. She walked back to the Rhodesian side and telephoned the Nursing Council at Pretoria before going back to South African Immigration. She embroidered while she waited. On her tour she embroidered for relaxation and created a stitched map of her travels. After four hours the officials heard from Pretoria and she was allowed through but was told to go straight to Immigration in Pretoria. Just on dark she had a puncture and spent a cold windy night in a bamboo hut beside the road. She was up at 5:00am to fix the puncture.

Road in Rhodesia between Fort Victoria and Umtali. Photo Steve Ede.

At Pretoria, after visiting Immigration, the Registered Nurses’ Association and the Nursing Council, Joy decided she would rather work in Rhodesia and wrote to Salisbury asking about a job after her tour of South Africa. She visited the Voortrekker Monument and rode to Johannesburg en route to Durban. On her first night out from Johannesburg she had trouble finding a place to camp, eventually settling in a grove of gum and wattles with the Bantam near the road camouflaged with branches.

In Durban she stayed with the aunt of two nurses who worked at Waikato Hospital. Joy called in to S. & W. Killerby, the BSA agents for Natal and discovered they had heard about her tour and were trying to find her. They offered to overhaul the Bantam the next day and when she arrived she was introduced to Mr Stansfield of Stansfield, Ratcliffe & Co., the BSA agents in Cape Town. She also met Mr Andrews, Natal supervisor for BSA. They were very interested in where Joy had been, where she proposed to go and gave her helpful advice. She was also given the names and addresses of all the BSA agents in South Africa. At 4:00pm she left with a spare chain and the Bantam serviced – all for free.

On the road south of Durban 15 December 1955. Photo Geoff Clarke.

South of Durban Joy detoured up a very rough road to visit the Oribi Gorge, a spectacular canyon on the Mzimkulwana River. The ride to Cape Town was relatively uneventful, apart from misty, foggy weather, until at Grahamstown where the Bantam would not start as there was no spark. Joy “fiddled with the points and did a good job” and was soon on her way again. Each day Joy continued to make detailed entries in her diary about the places she visited, the weather, the road conditions, the people she met and the places where she camped. When she arrived in Cape Town Joy went straight to the BSA agents. Everyone there was very kind to her and she returned in the morning to have the Bantam overhauled, new tyres fitted and to find out about road conditions and travel in the Middle East. She stayed with people who she had met in Beira. Joy had been riding non-stop since she left New Zealand, apart from the sea voyages, and this was the first “rest” for her. In the seven days in Cape Town she managed to visit most of the tourist attractions in the city and surrounding district. Two days after Christmas she headed toward Kimberley.

Above Cape Town 21 December 1955. Photo Geoff Clarke.

Photograph that appeared in the Cape Town Argus, 23 December 1956. Photo Geoff Clarke.

Part of Joy’s diary for 27 December 1955 reads:

Made the short detour to Worcester, got petrol and ate. Then carried on through uncultivated desert country where some bushes were a mass of yellow flowers. Crossed a low Pass at 3100 ft. De Doorns was particularly fine with miles of vineyards and attractive whitewashed homes dotted among the green of the grapes. African children were gathering berries from a shrub. I continued in poor flat desert-like land into the evening. Only a little wheat and barley grew and mountains were less striking and more distant. The wind was strong and cold and I was now out of habitation except for the railway station houses and a store selling petrol at about 20 – 30 miles apart. It was obvious that the Little and Great Karoo were desert-like. It was much like parts of Australia where there are salt and blue bush only. All rivers and creeks were dry but it was said to be good sheep country. I stopped at Laingburg as the sun set and camped under a pepper tree not far from a riverbed and the railway line. The moon was almost full. Trains passed all night and a strong wind continued. Three people passed near me in the evening but said nothing. I had a job to keep warm.

The next day she met a motorcyclist on a 500cc Ariel who had left Cape Town only that morning – but he was travelling very much faster than Joy’s 30 mph. That evening as it was getting dark she wheeled the Bantam into the shelter of trees but an Afrikaans farmer appeared in the darkness and told her she was trespassing. Although he said she could stay at his home, Joy did not want to upset his household and packed up all her gear and rode eight miles to bed down by a bridge. The next morning, when she was just across the Orange River she stopped, made a fire, cooked vegetables and “relaxed with embroidery”. A few hours later the engine of the Bantam was missing, sometimes quite badly. Joy discovered that the carburettor “had not been tightened; so much dirt had got in”. She cleaned the carburettor and rode off with the engine running perfectly just as the sun was setting. She was showered with dust by every vehicle that passed until she turned off to camp under a bush. Although it was beside the railway with trains going through all night, Joy recorded in her diary that she had a pleasant night as there was no wind and a cloudless sky with a full moon.

In Kimberley the next day she rode around sightseeing, stopping at a park to wash under a tap and eat pineapple before visiting the Kimberley Mine where she obtained a pass to see uncut diamonds. She was impressed with the diamond display and the commentary. Afterwards she talked with the Bartletts, an American couple who invited her to visit them at Fire Island, New York, and many months later Joy did visit. At Bloemfontein she bedded down at about 10:00pm in a park but as it was not very private she got up early the next morning. At Dewetsdorp Joy stopped to eat in the main street under the shade of a tree and was surprised when a Lebanese man came across the road from a shop and gave her a lime drink. She was even more surprised to discover that the man had a sister in New Zealand.

Emely Semoko. Photo Geoff Clarke

Just past Mafeteng in Basutoland Joy asked some women if she could take their photo and they gave permission on condition she sent them a copy of the photo. Emely Semoko wrote her name and address in Joy’s notebook. When Joy was back in Salisbury she sent three photos to Emely and received a letter back from her before leaving for London. This began a life-long connection between a New Zealand midwife and the village of Ha Ramohapi. Joy had a very enlightened and empathetic attitude to all African people she met. She often referred in her diary and in her recordings to African homes rather than the more usual term “huts” used at the time.

The roads through Basutoland were very rough and somewhere before crossing back into South Africa the Bantam lost a fork nut. Joy rode into Golden Gate National Park, north through Kroonstad and stayed at Parys with a widow she had met at Victoria Falls. Next day she rode north to Johannesburg where the BSA agents replaced the right-hand fork spring and greased the bike. She was most disappointed that there were no vacancies on gold mine tours but when she got to Pretoria a woman at Immigration managed to make her a booking for a tour in four days’ time. Joy rode back to stay at Parys where she washed her hair, wrote letters, wrote up her diary and decarbonised the Bantam as it had not been running well.

Joy at Parys in the Orange Free State, 4 January 1956. Photo Geoff Clarke

On the day of the mine visit she left the Bantam outside Shinwell Bros., the Transvaal agents for BSA, with a note telling them of the poor running. Joy found the mine visit fascinating and wrote almost 700 words in her diary describing all she had seen and heard. The BSA agents had her motorcycle ready when she arrived in the afternoon. They had put in new points, a new spark plug and cleaned out the silencer. At 4pm she headed north. Joy’s diary for Wednesday 1 January reads:

Up at 5:30 am and made my way to Warmbaths through fields of peanuts, maize and open thorn bush land. The town was situated at the foot of a line of hills and was named for the hot springs there. Got petrol and then went and had a hot bath for 1 shilling. It seemed a very popular place. Ate and wrote my diary before getting on to Nylstroom. Becoming very hot. The hills began and the land became poorer. Few areas were cropped; thorn bush and large outcrops of rocks as usual. Africans sold baskets on the roadside as well as watermelons. Near Nylstroom the bike stopped and I changed the plug. More hills. I was surprised to see how little I had remembered from my journey through Naboomspruit and on to Potgietersrus. Here I bought food and carried on a few miles when I lit a fire and had boiled eggs. The sun was very hot but by 2.30 pm the clouds had become heavy and it seemed rain could fall. The road passed through a valley of African farms and kraals. Citrus orchards and maize crops continued till the road climbed over a low line of hills and dropped onto cleared open land. After 20 miles I reached Pietersburg. Short stop, then continued on flat road with long ups and downs and odd rocky hills about. The Africans were tending their cattle and maize. Their kraals were nestled against granite rock hills with succulent trees growing between the rocks. A little rain fell. Reached the Tropic of Capricorn about 6.00 pm and took a photo. Then carried on until dark. I was 10 miles from Louis Trichardt, so seeing a good place off the road in unfenced land, I spent the night in scrub. It was warm and overcast.

At the Southern Rhodesia border the Immigration officers, although very diplomatic, were not keen to let her in. She had £19 which she thought was a lot of money as she had only spent £15 during her 36 days in South Africa. The officers assessed her living expenses at £2 a day and they thought £19 would not go far. Finally she was given a form stating she was required to find work in a week and to report to the Immigration Department within that time. Joy turned off the main road to visit the Zimbabwe Ruins and like all travellers was both amazed and mystified at what she saw.

Joy in Africa. Photo Steve Ede.

At Salisbury she was told she could start work at the Lady Chancellor Maternity Hospital the next day so she had to quickly buy stockings, uniforms and a veil. The matron was very happy with Joy who wanted to work night duty in the labour ward. During the four and a half months she worked there Joy spent many of her days touring on the Bantam and managed to see most tourist attractions. She revisited Victoria Falls twice more as well as the Zimbabwe ruins again, climbed 8,300 foot Mount Nyangani and rode north to Lusaka. She bought herself a second hand 35mm Voigtländer camera to take colour slides. However, when the films were processed in London Kodak put a note with them to say they had been ruined by the heat.

All the time she was planning her ride to London with help from AA and Cooks Travel. She also read a number of books on Africa at the public library.

*Place and country names are those Joy used in her diary.

Extracts from Joy McKean’s diaries of her 1955 to 1957 world trip, as compiled by her niece Catharine A. McKean and following Joy’s death, have been included with the permission of Catharine A. McKean’s estate and Julian K. McKean as the trustee of Joy McKean’s will. These diaries reflect the views and impressions of Joy McKean only and the language is that in use at the time her diaries were written.

Acknowledgements

Annice Collett, Vintage Motor Cycle Club

Bernard Kerr

Geoff Clarke

Heather Woods, New Zealand Nurses Organisation

Jane Skayman

J. McKean

Lynda Goulden

Steve Foden, BSA Owners Club librarian

Suzanne Barnaby

References

McKean, C. Midwife on World Safari. Privately printed for the McKean family.

Interview with Naomi Margaret (Joy) McKean, Date 21 May, 10 July 1984 Ref OHA-2175. Alexander Turnbull Library, National Library of New Zealand.

The Motor Cycle.

Trove. https://trove.nla.gov.au/

Map of Southern Rhodesia Joy drew showing her travels. Photo Steve Ede.

By Ashley Blair

Ceylon and India*.

*Place and country names are those Joy used in her diary

The incredible story of the New Zealand midwife who rode a 150cc Bantam Major around the world alone continues:

Joy left Fremantle on 3 September 1955 for Ceylon and spent twelve days motorcycling around a country she thought was wonderful. Just after the Bantam was unloaded, she met two Australians who had ridden Bantams from Britain via the Persian Gulf and India. Joy was very keen to find out from them the problems and difficulties of traveling in India and they were just as interested in what Joy had planned. India and Ceylon were the only countries where she did not sleep outside under the stars, preferring to stay at YWCAs or Government Rest Houses. The Young Women’s Christian Association (YWCA) was a long-established international organisation that provided budget accommodation for women travellers. Each day Joy’s detailed diary entries show her intense interest in the people she met and the places she travelled through.

Joy at Fremantle about to board the Oronsay, 3 September 1955. Photo Geoff Clarke.

Part of Joy’s diary for Friday 16 September 1955 reads:

From Balangoda I was in heat and coconuts again. Carried on to Pelmadulla and turned back through low hills of tea and coconuts, alongside rocky rivers and through small villages until the road ran due south through a stretch of dry land and jungle. I ran into a heavy shower about 1.30 pm. I stopped to put on my coat. It was the first time in Ceylon I had stopped and not had anyone watching me. I continued through a dry area to the coast at Ambalantota. I passed very big irrigation ditches and banana plantations. All the grass along the roadside was brown. There was little for cattle to eat and they seemed to need water. Lantana had spread and was a pest. The Sinhalese industries of weaving and pottery were passed and earth homes with thatched roofs were being built. Passed an elephant being ridden and at the coast, four monkeys ran across the road. Went to Hambantota, eight miles east along the coast travelling through dry land growing rice under irrigation. Where the rice had been harvested, buffalo and cattle grazed – there must have been hundreds of them. Crossed several rivers in which I was told there were crocodiles.

After Kandy she was forced to stay at a rest house because as she said, “I felt I could not go on as the insects in the air were terrible”. She was impressed with several very ancient temples.

The highest point in Ceylon near Nuwara Eliya, 14 September 1955. Photo Geoff Clarke.

The second to last day in Ceylon she had a tough ride as she wrote in this extract from her diary on 20 September 1955:

Had gone about five miles when the rain fell as I have never experienced in my life. It was terrible. Thunder cracked and lightning lit up the road and the jungle like day. I carried on in the dark. It was one of the worst runs I have ever done. I would have hated to have had to stop for a wild elephant on the road. (The locals say elephants stand on the road to get the warmth as the steam rises). At times I was in hills and the road twisted and turned. Later when the rain stopped, the steam from the hot bitumen rose higher than my head, adding to the difficulty of visibility.

Joy rode 1,056 miles during her twelve days in Ceylon.

In India there was a new problem as many of the village dogs chased the Bantam. Another problem was she did not have a map of India. The Automobile Association was only able to give her written instructions, and she did not get a map from them until she reached Delhi. The morning after spending the night at Palamcattah she put the last of her oil in the tank and as the petrol station did not have the correct oil she asked for only half a gallon of petrol but they only sold it in whole gallons. She pushed the Bantam four miles to a Caltex station then went in search of Shell 50 oil and topped the tank up. Unfortunately Joy did not mix the oil and petrol thoroughly and the engine stopped. She had to clean out the carburettor with an audience of over fifty youths and children before she was able to set off.

She rode down to Cape Comorin the most southerly point of India. Joy was very impressed with the standard of living in Travancore which she thought was way above the rest of India. On her fourth day in India the Bantam was not running well: spitting, missing, getting very hot and it could only be started by pushing. Joy dropped the throttle needle to the fourth notch, surrounded by the usual curious crowd, and found it ran slightly better.

At Trichur Joy made the first of what became a regular practice for her on her travels. She turned up at the public hospital, introduced herself and asked to be shown around. The detailed report in her diary went right down to the monthly payment for cooks and the feeding routine for babies. Further north at Coonoor in Tamil Nadu State she visited the Pasteur Institute of Southern India, established in 1907 to produce rabies vaccine.

Highest point reached by Joy in India in the Nilgiri Hills. Photo Geoff Clarke.

After leaving the town of Octacamundi at 7500 feet above sea level the narrow, sealed road became slippery in the rain and Joy came off on a corner, grazing her arm and thigh and bending the clutch lever. She knew the tread on her tyres was worn and was quite philosophical about her accident when she recorded in her diary: “It showed me the need for more care – I could not afford to have an accident (had no insurance)”. She was impressed with the road signs over this high area – “Drive carefully and stay alive to enjoy a Players”, and “Death overtakes the careless driver on these roads”. The same day near to Guladlur, while riding past a small herd of cattle, a cow appeared to “go mad” at the appearance and noise of the Bantam. Joy thought it was going to knock her over as it bellowed and frothed at the mouth while following her, at times running parallel to her, for about 300 yards. All the time Joy was looking for some protection and when she saw a stone wall on the opposite side of the road, she headed over to it and got off the Bantam. Luckily the cow then lost interest.

Nearer to Mysore she rode through a hilly area of jungle and bamboo where there were said to be elephants and tigers but all she saw were two monkeys. At Mysore she was impressed with the Maharajah’s Palace. While on her way to Madras she spent a morning being shown around the Christian Medical College and Hospital at Vellore. There was great excitement at the Madras YWCA where she stayed as Prime Minister Nehru was due to visit and his cavalcade was expected to stop at the YWCA where he would be presented with garlands of flowers. All the women, in their best saris, were making garlands. The crowd waited but a great sigh went up as the motorcade swept passed without even slowing down. A lady holding garlands of flowers near Joy said, “Here, you deserve them”, and put them over her head.

Joy called this a “Lovely shaded road between Bangalore and Madras.” 30 September 1955. Photo Geoff Clarke.

Joy spent most of the next day visiting the Madras General Hospital and was amazed at the size of the hospital which, she was convinced, had specialists in every single part of the human body. The only thing that did not impress her were the crows standing on the benches in the windowless kitchen. She set out late in the afternoon for Calcutta.

Near to Calcutta with floodwaters everywhere, 21 October 1955. Photo Geoff Clarke.

Part of Joy’s diary for Thursday 6 October 1955 reads:

A fine day. Up at 6.00 am. Saw more of the Mission and got some good advice. Left 9.00 am. Back to the main road by direct route. Before I had gone 10 miles I had to get off and push through some deep running water about 100 yards wide. This I did three times before reaching the main road. Noticed a buffalo swimming for its life apparently unable to find a place along the bank where it could get out of the canal; just its nose and horns were visible. The main road followed alongside hills for many miles. About 10 miles were unsealed, rough and full of potholes. Tall shady trees prevented the road from drying. Again, after reaching a sealed road I had to wade through shallow water and after a further 10 miles or so I reached the river I had been told about. The bridge had gone and the soft sandy bed made the crossing difficult. The water was about 18 inches deep in the deepest part and 100 yards wide. I waded across first, then returned and with the help of a young man pushed the bike across. Continued with much water lying about and evidence of the damage done. I entered the hills about Vizagapatam. I was soon zigzagging about the river, wharf and railway line and so reached the town. Got petrol, bought and ate bananas.

The next day was a “rest day” when she caught up with the news, decarbonized the Bantam, wrote letters, went to the bank – which would not cash her travellers’ cheques – went shopping, talked and read. At this time she was living on bananas and sweetened condensed milk. Flooding made it necessary to travel by train for part of the journey to Calcutta and on arrival she took the Bantam to the BSA agent near to the YWCA. The next day she visited the Eden Maternity Hospital. This hospital stood out to Joy because there were beds for patients although there were mattresses on the floor between each bed. Even more impressive to Joy were the maternity statistics for the previous month of September 1955. There were 837 admissions and only 3 maternal deaths. It was a hospital, Joy said later, she would have liked to work in.

She set out from Calcutta on the Grand Trunk Road for the 900 mile ride to Delhi. Joy spent two days at Benares which she said was an old city with the narrowest and most fascinating streets. She considered it the most amazing city she had seen so far in India. The delay at some level crossings could be 15 to 30 minutes while trains passed. There were ‘Complaints Books’ in little boxes by the crossings – but complaining did not seem to be effective. She also saw complaints books in post offices and public buildings in India.

Just before Delhi there was more flooding as this extract from her diary on 22nd October 1955 records:

Much floodwater lay on each side of the road and crops were partially covered. I passed through small villages and towns until within about 5 miles of the Jumma River where the traffic was heavy and congested. A sign indicated that the road had been washed away, so I had to detour through narrow market streets with buffalo carts behind and in front of me. By walking with them I got through quicker than cars. Then through muddy back lanes I met about 1/4 mile of floodwater still flowing. The muddy part was about 18 inches deep. A kind man hailed a buffalo cart and lifted the bike onto it. For 1 Rupee I was taken over. So my troubles were over quite easily. Continuing, I crossed the Jumma River bridge which had a railway bridge on top, a bullock cart lane to the left and vehicles to the right below. Once over the river I was in Delhi by the Red Fort.

Five days in Delhi were spent sightseeing but taking it quietly as Joy thought she had malaria. The Bantam had a clutch plate replaced and other minor work. The clutch still had problems after the work done on it and her headlight bulb failed but both were sorted in Agra.

She saw the Taj Mahal by moonlight and again by daylight – exactly three months after she had left New Zealand.

One of the two Indian motorcyclists Joy met 150 miles north of Bombay, 1 November 1955. Photo Geoff Clarke.

On the way to Bombay Joy stopped in a hilly area and spent a long time talking to two Indian motorcyclists going in the opposite direction. They had heard about a lone woman motorcyclist at a Shell service station at Berhampore and had been looking forward to a meeting. The only blemish to their trip was a spill that very morning which had left them with skinned knees and feeling stiff.

Further on, after stopping to admire the view, she noticed her back tyre was flat. She pumped it up and went on to a village where a large crowd gathered to watch. A ‘public carrier’ stopped to help. She would have preferred to have mended the tube by herself as she would have gone slower – and not pinched the tube causing it to go flat again.

Closer to Bombay while she was riding down a slope a boy driving a buffalo whacked it just as Joy was riding past. The buffalo started and Joy collided with it. She went flying off the bike across the road, bending the brake lever and right-hand footrest as well as grazing her right elbow. The damage was minimal because Joy was travelling at her usual 30 mph. The buffalo boy fled.

Joy had stayed six days in Bombay before sailing on the Kampala to Beira in Mozambique and she spent that time working through the red tape for exporting the Bantam, visiting the Post Office repeatedly to get a parcel she had posted to herself from Perth, sightseeing and having the Bantam serviced. The Bombay BSA agents did not charge for this. She also visited two maternity hospitals and again her impressions were recorded in great detail in her diary.

Joy had ridden 5908 miles during her 50 days in India.

Extracts from Joy McKean’s diaries of her 1955 to 1957 world trip, as compiled by her niece Catharine A. McKean and following Joy’s death, have been included with the permission of Catharine A. McKean’s estate and Julian K. McKean as the trustee of Joy McKean’s will. These diaries reflect the views and impressions of Joy McKean only and the language is that in use at the time her diaries were written.

Acknowledgements

Suzanne Barnaby

Geoff Clarke

Annice Collett, Vintage Motor Cycle Club

Steve Foden, BSA Owners Club librarian

Lynda Goulden

J. McKean

Bernard Kerr

Liz Robertson

Jane Skayman

Heather Woods, New Zealand Nurses Organisation

References

McKean, C. Midwife on World Safari. Privately printed for the McKean family.

Interview with Naomi Margaret (Joy) McKean, Date 21 May, 10 July 1984. Ref OHA-2175. Alexander Turnbull Library, National Library of New Zealand.

The Motor Cycle.

Trove. https://trove.nla.gov.au/

The map Joy drew showing her route round India. Photo Geoff Clarke.

By Ashley Blair

Early life and travels, start of the world tour.

The first of a six-part series recounting the incredible story of the New Zealand midwife who rode a 150cc Bantam Major around the world alone.

Homemade panniers, homemade sleeping bag, no stove, no tent (but a groundsheet), slept under the stars (except in India and Sri Lanka) no helmet, rode in a tweed skirt and travelled through 32 countries covering 54,000 miles.

Joy McKean had an unconventional childhood on a farm at Rangiwahia 40 miles north of Feilding in the Manawatu, New Zealand. Her mother had no medicine in the house and neither she nor her children ever visited a doctor but there was an extensive library of nature cures in the house. Raw food was the basis of their health and Joy became a life-long vegetarian. Her real name was Naomi Margaret McKean but she was, “Always called Joy because I was a joy compared to my overactive brother”.

Joy had what she later called “haphazard schooling” with only three years formal education from age 14 when she was a boarder at the Seventh Day Adventist School at Longburn. There she had a good grounding in English, anatomy, physiology and music but missed out on mathematics and science.

At 18 Joy left New Zealand with a round-the-world ticket from her mother. Her older brother Rawhiti accompanied her as they visited relatives in the United States and Canada before arriving at Southampton on the Empress of Britain in September 1937. The Second World War meant she could not travel further and in 1941 she began four years nursing training at University College Hospital, London enduring the Blitz in the process. On 23 June 1944 she became a State Registered Nurse before qualifying as a midwife at Simpson Memorial Hospital, Edinburgh. During her training in London Joy bought a Rudge-Whitworth bicycle for five pounds nineteen shillings and six pence and used this to explore much of the United Kingdom and Ireland. She rode from Edinburgh to London through snow to take up a job as a District Midwife at Plaistow Maternity Hospital in East London, a very challenging area to work in following the war.

Joy McKean cycled 18,000 miles in the UK, Australia and New Zealand before she bought a D1 Bantam. Photo Steve Ede.

After almost ten years away Joy returned to New Zealand. She arrived in Wellington in October 1946 and thought New Zealand was “old fashioned.” She worked at Waiuku Hospital for seven months but was uncomfortable with the small hospital techniques and enrolled for Plunket training in Dunedin. After qualifying she cycled from Dunedin to her bonded job in Pukekohe and made the most of the trip by deviating to Milford Sound. The Homer Tunnel then was just a rough hole through rock littered with abandoned equipment. With water up to her ankles and dripping from the roof she walked through the tunnel to Milford and back the same day. She later recalled this as one of the most frightening things she had done in her life. She pushed her bike over the 3530-foot Crown Range and found the Lindis Pass road very rough although she liked eating the wild gooseberries growing near the road. From Christchurch she rode over the Lewis Pass to Reefton and later in the North Island visited her brother at Rangiwahia.  

Joy wanted to see more of the world and moved to Brisbane where her sister Patience was living. Before leaving for Australia she cycled around East Cape and back to Waiuku through Waikaremoana. In April 1949 she began work at Brisbane Women’s Hospital. Joy really enjoyed her time there and said it was a “tremendous experience because of the number of babies born.” The medical superintendent was “marvellous” and the matron very good to her – possibly because she gave Joy time off for traveling. In August 1950 Joy set off on a cycling tour which took her to Mt Isa, Darwin, Alice Springs, Adelaide and Tasmania. She had no tent, slept out under the stars and cooked over a fire. This style of travel she carried on into her later motorcycle travels.

Joy arrived back in Brisbane on 23 December 1950 after cycling 9,000 miles. She had lost a lot of weight and was very thin. Her brother-in-law, a keen motorcyclist, said, “You should have a motorbike. There are plenty of little ones around that would suit you fine.” After further urging from her brother-in-law Joy recalled, “I bought this little BSA – only 125cc, the smallest that they made.” The Bantam D1 was an ideal choice for a person used to bicycle touring. BSA advertising at the time noted it was, “Attractive in appearance and amazingly economical, the BSA Bantam has a brilliant performance, is comfortable to ride and easy to handle. In every way the perfect lightweight.” After cycling a total of 18,000 miles in the UK, Australia and New Zealand Joy became a motorcyclist. When Joy bought the Bantam her mother, assuming Joy wore trousers while riding, wrote her a worried letter saying it was very wrong and immoral to wear trousers. However, Joy always wore a tweed skirt while riding and assured her mother that she had never worn trousers.

Joy McKean with her first BSA D1 Bantam. Photo Steve Ede.

On 1 October 1951, after owning the Bantam for only a short time, she left Brisbane on a motorcycle tour of Australia. The destination was Perth via Bourke, Wilcannia, Broken Hill, Port Augusta, Ceduna and Penong. Even today with satellite phones, GPS and detailed information for riders, crossing the Nullarbor is a significant ride. The Rough Guide to Australia warns “do not underestimate the rigours of the journey in your own vehicle. Carry reserves of fuel, and water, take rests every two or three hours and beware of kangaroos and other wildlife”. Joy called in at sheep and cattle stations to get petrol, a gallon a time, and only saw about 12 vehicles each day. At Eucla she stayed with Mrs Gurney who kept the telegraph station and then went on to Norseman, down to Esperance on the coast, back up to Kalgoorlie and through to Perth where she arrived 29 days after leaving Brisbane. At Mortlock Brothers, the BSA agents in Hay Street, she asked for a service, casually mentioning that she had just ridden across from Brisbane. She was told she was only the second woman known to have ridden solo across the Nullarbor Plain.

Joy in Brisbane starting her ride to Perth. This photo was in the Brisbane Courier-Mail on 2 October 1951. Photo Geoff Clarke

Next it was north for 550 miles to Carnarvon then back south before turning inland in a move she soon regretted. The road was well formed but not sealed and the corrugations were “absolutely terrible”. The frame of the Bantam broke and the engine “dropped down. Fortunately I was near a railway line and only had to push the bike three or four hundred yards to a station siding where I waited.” A train came along and stopped to pick up Joy and the Bantam. She travelled in the guard’s van with a guard who was an avid bird watcher and who entertained her by describing all the birds they passed. At Northam she had to change trains before arriving back at Mortlock Brothers who welded the frame. The repair completed, she rode to Cape Leeuwin the most south-westerly point of Australia before heading back east.

Her second crossing of the Nullarbor Plain Joy later described as “horrible”. The wind from the north was “like a furnace” and the movement of the Bantam was not enough to cool her down. She tried to get water from an underground tank covered with corrugated iron but the rope on her tin was not long enough. Desperate for water she climbed down a very spindly ladder. She realised afterwards that this had been most unwise. She tried to eat an apple but with both her water bottles now empty her mouth was too dry. She took off all her clothes, except for petticoat and undies, and lay beside the bike for four hours until she heard a car coming from the east. The driver gave her water which she was grateful for even though it tasted “muddy”. They talked for about 15 minutes until clouds came over and there were spots of rain. Later back at Eucla, Mrs Gurney told her the temperature had reached almost 50 degrees.

The BSA agents in the cities were a great help to Joy and in Adelaide the agent even took her sightseeing around the city and surrounding district. Back home in Brisbane, after ten weeks away, Joy noted she had ridden 10,031 miles. As she never rode faster than 30 miles per hour her fuel consumption was an amazing 189 miles per gallon. Her longest day’s ride was 264 miles. The rear tyre was replaced in Adelaide as it had signs of wear and the spark plug needed to be changed only once. Joy said in a newspaper article the Bantam was an excellent machine and, “It gave me very little trouble, has been most satisfactory, and the engine has all the power I need”. It was no surprise that Skeates & White, the New Zealand BSA agents and Mortlocks, the Perth BSA agents, both used the tour to promote Bantams with this advertisement:

10,031 miles Brisbane to Perth and Back Again on the world’s most popular 125cc motor cycle, the invincible BSA Bantam.

Three days after securing her driving licence, Nurse McKean left Brisbane on her 125cc BSA Spring Frame Bantam for what she termed a See-Australia tour. Traveling via many a sight-seeing detour, she eventually reached Perth, had a look through our South-West and then turned for home, which she reached after covering 10,031 miles. The Bantam took every road hazard in its stride, deep water, sand, rough tracks and at the end of the 10,031 miles was going better than ever. No wonder Nurse McKean is enthusiastic. No wonder thousands of Bantam users acclaim this remarkable BSA as the best of the 125cc machines, and with good cause, for it is built with the inherent BSA qualities of unrivalled dependability and unparalleled durability.

Joy returned to work at Brisbane Women’s Hospital until July 1952 when she rode to Sydney and sailed back to New Zealand. She headed for Te Puke where her mother lived, crossing the Kaimai Ranges about midnight. The road, under construction, was just mud. A truck driver stopped and asked if she was all right to which Joy replied, “I think so – when I get out of this”.

Joy worked for a short time at Te Puke Hospital but preferred large hospitals. In March 1953 she began work at the Campbell Johnstone Maternity Ward of Waikato Hospital. She was very happy there and became an active member of the Nurses Association, now The New Zealand Nurses Organisation. She remembered a doctor coming in during a delivery to announce that Edmund Hillary had climbed Mount Everest and what wonderful news it was right after the coronation.

During her time at Waikato Hospital Joy began thinking about a motorcycle tour around the world. Planning took a whole year and during this time she upgraded to a BSA Bantam Major. Advertised by BSA as the “Bantam’s big hearted brother” the Major was an improvement on her first BSA Bantam with a 150cc engine compared to the previous D1 at 125cc. The twenty percent increase in power and corresponding top speed did not change Joy’s usual cruising speed of 30 miles per hour.

On 28 July 1955 Joy, the Bantam and her gear left Auckland for Sydney on the Wanganella. She was met at Sydney by Mr Meyers, the Sales Manager for Bennett & Wood, BSA Motorcycle Agents in Sydney. On her second day, and only 250 miles from Sydney a noise developed in the rear hub. She could not find the cause so loosened the chain and carried on to a motorcycle shop in Macksville where the owner, Mr Peterkin, found the rear wheel bearings had been installed without any grease! He telegraphed to Sydney for replacements to be sent on the overnight train and gave Joy a meal and bed for the night. The bearings did not arrive the next day but Peterkin scoured the town, found replacements and sent Joy on her way.

About to set off from her sister Patience’s home in Brisbane 6 August 1955. Photo Geoff Clarke.

She rode across the north of Australia heading first to Rockhampton where she met her sister and family before heading west. Between Duaringa and Blackwater, while riding on the edge of the road to avoid corrugations, Joy ran into sand and had a spill landing on her head and right shoulder. She was quite shaken – her shoulder was painful for another six months – and the glass on the Bantam headlight was broken.

Some of the creeks and rivers were unbridged and Joy walked alongside the Bantam with the motorcycle in low gear. Only once, going over large and slippery rocks, did she drop the machine. Joy had arranged for a new headlight glass to be sent to Mt Isa but none of the garages there would install it for her and she was directed to the Mt Isa mining barracks where there were “bikies” who did the installation for her.

Filling up at Banka Banka Station Northern Territory, 14 August 1955. Photo Geoff Clarke.

The road was familiar to Joy as she had cycled that way five years earlier. She called in at Banka Banka Station north of Tennant Creek to visit Mrs Ward who had shown great hospitality to Joy on her cycle tour. At Elliot she changed the gearbox oil and decarbonized the engine. Joy had become a very competent motorcycle mechanic and was able to mend punctures, adjust the chain, check the timing, dismantle and clean the carburettor, adjust the carburettor needle setting, change the gearbox oil as well as decarbonize the engine. She also carried a range of spare parts. The “road” was now a sandy track and Joy talked to drovers about the conditions she would encounter. Just before Top Springs there was a noise from the back wheel. With the help of a ute driver who turned up she found the connecting link in the chain damaged but was soon on her way again with a spare installed.

An extract from Joy’s diary of Wednesday 17 August 1955 gives an indication of the conditions she was experiencing:

Hot. Away at the usual time. Twelve miles of rough going brought me to the Victoria River, here not running, but looking very pretty where a long stretch of water and lovely gums marked its course. The crossing was on stones but the approach sandy. Immediately up the other side was the Wave Hill police station. The policeman was at Katherine but an Aborigine tended the garden and across the road were his wireless and women folk, together with the usual collection of children and aged. I had mistaken the ‘road’ but he soon put me right. Continuing, at times I was in open country, grass or spinifex, sandy or black soil. On this section there are quite a number of ridges and distant barren hills. Some areas of the ground were devoid of vegetation and had been swept clean by floods. Inverary Station was 123 miles away, only one bore marked, but I was told I would find sites holding water. I moved slowly, at times in low gear over rough rocks and along creek beds. Some of the billabongs were very pretty. I reached a bore by midday – found I had lost a cardigan. Through the trees I could see a truck stopped and several people lunching. Before long, Joe the German truck driver from Vestey’s came over for a talk. He was giving a family from No. 3 bore, and a hitchhiker, a lift.

Two days later she had engine problems which were not cured by changing the spark plug and cleaning out the carburettor. The Bantam would run for 10 or 20 miles then stop and could only be restarted after it had cooled and the plug changed. The next day she met a mechanic who thought there may have been dirt in the petrol tank but draining the tank and straining the petrol made no difference. That evening a Bantam-owning missionary went over the motorcycle with Joy and the next day it was running properly.

Just after Broome there was very heavy going through sand. Some of the river beds were dry but others carried water with hidden rocks. Cattle drovers she met laughed and said, “Wait till you have to climb the stairs.” She wondered what they meant until she came across a hundred-yard incline covered with rocks eight to ten inches high looking just like a giant set of stairs. Joy had to stop, put the Bantam into bottom gear, lift the front wheel onto the rock, let out the clutch and move up to the next rock. She climbed the whole incline in that manner.

Saying good bye to Ray Mortlock before sailing on the Oronsay, 3 September 1955. Photo Geoff Clarke.

Just under 300 miles southwest of Broome, Joy decided that the Pardoo Sands would be quite impossible to cross with the Bantam and reluctantly accepted a lift on a cattle truck to Port Hedland. From there it was easy going to Perth – except that she had developed mumps. She had caught them from her 14-year-old niece at Rockhampton, even though she tried not to get too close to her. Joy had written ahead to Mortlock Brothers as she “wanted them to give the bike a good overhaul before I put it on the Oronsay for Ceylon”. The Bantam, found to be “full of sand”, was given a rebore and had several parts replaced.

Joy had ridden 5489 miles from Sydney.

Extracts from Joy McKean’s diaries of her 1955 to 1957 world trip, as compiled by her niece Catharine A. McKean and following Joy’s death, have been included with the permission of Catharine A. McKean’s estate and Julian K. McKean as the trustee of Joy McKean’s will. These diaries reflect the views and impressions of Joy McKean only and the language is that in use at the time her diaries were written.

Acknowledgements

Suzanne Barnaby

Geoff Clarke

Annice Collett, Vintage Motor Cycle Club

Steve Foden, BSA Owners Club librarian

Lynda Goulden

J. McKean

Bernard Kerr

Liz Robertson

Jane Skayman

Heather Woods, New Zealand Nurses Organisation

References

McKean, C. Midwife on World Safari. Privately printed for the McKean family.

Interview with Naomi Margaret (Joy) McKean, Date 21 May, 10 July 1984. Ref OHA-2175. Alexander Turnbull Library, National Library of New Zealand.

The Motor Cycle.

Trove. https://trove.nla.gov.au/

By Ashley Blair

The early twentieth century was the beginning of the “golden age” of cycling in New Zealand. Bicycles were affordable and used for getting to work, for recreation and for racing. A 20% tariff on imported bicycles encouraged local manufacture and in 1900 there were 25 cycle factories in Christchurch from a total of 71 in New Zealand. Canterbury, relatively flat compared to other provinces, was the centre of cycling in the colony with its very own cycling magazine The New Zealand Wheelman, published in Christchurch from 1892 to 1902 by Alex Wildey. This magazine, together with the cycling columns in newspapers, reported early developments in motoring, and in particular motor bicycles which were initially regarded as an offshoot of cycling. Every town had at least one cycle shop with fully equipped workshop serviced by highly skilled mechanics. Most of the early initiatives with motorised vehicles in New Zealand originated in cycle workshops.

In July 1899 Raymond Henry Every, a 21-year-old cycle mechanic, formed a partnership with Charles Thomas Jessep, a cyclist of local fame. Jessep set the record for riding from Temuka to Winchester and return in May 1899. His time for the eleven miles was 22½ minutes, “a really splendid performance” according to the Temuka Leader. Jessep and Every started the Stella Cycle Works in a wooden building on the main street of Temuka. A large crowd gathered for the Saturday night opening of the Stella Works, attracted by the novel sight of acetylene lighting which showed the American made Potomac and Envoy bicycles in the showroom windows “to perfection”.

Raymond Every was born in Oamaru on 9 September 1878 the fifth of nine children of Frederick, a carpenter, and Henrietta Every. He studied engineering through The American School of Correspondence based in Boston, U.S.A. In December 1901, at the height of his prominence in newspapers, Every was happy to endorse the school by saying, “I have come to the conclusion that the money spent in joining it is the most profitable investment that I have ever made.”

As apprentice at the Federal Cycle Works in Oamaru, Every learned the practical aspects of cycle mechanics. B.S.A. parts were used to make custom bicycles which sold for £17 10s. In November 1897 the Federal Cycle and Engineering Company won an award for their display of bicycles at the North Otago Agricultural and Pastoral Association Show. In his spare time Every gained a reputation for trick cycling and gave demonstrations at events such as the Oamaru Gymnasium Club’s public evening and a social organised by the Temuka Bicycle Club in the Drill Hall where he gave a very clever exhibition of trick riding.

Every became the “thoroughly efficient” manager of the Federal Cycle Works before he moved to Temuka and joined Charles Jessep to form the Stella Cycle Works. He was in charge of building and repairing bicycles. Two months later they advertised in the Temuka Leader that they were building to order high grade bicycles from B.S.A. parts. Birmingham Small Arms were world leaders in bicycle components at the time and many New Zealand cycle shops built up bicycles using B.S.A. components. The first of these bicycles built in Temuka was displayed in the window of the Stella Works in September 1899 and was described as being thoroughly up to date and fitted with the best B.S.A. parts, Westwood rims and Dunlop tyres. This bicycle was called “The Stella”. The business was an immediate success with an additional mechanic employed four months after opening. In February 1900 Jessep and Every were congratulated by the Temuka Leader for their success and enterprise. The company gained a reputation for the high standard of their bicycles, so it was somewhat of a surprise when in August 1900 the partnership was dissolved by mutual consent. C.T. Jessep and Company now ran the Stella Works while Raymond Every carried on as an employee in charge of the workshop.

Every would have seen the first car to arrive at Temuka on the evening of Monday 17 June 1900. Constructed by another cycle maker, Fred Dennison of Christchurch, this small single cylinder vehicle was mounted on four bicycle wheels. Dennison drove this vehicle, the first motor car constructed in New Zealand, from Christchurch to Oamaru¹. After seeing Dennison’s vehicle, and reading about developments overseas, the possibility of fitting a motor to a bicycle would not have escaped Every. At the November 1900 Timaru Show the Stella Cycle Works display of bicycles built by Every was well received and attracted a considerable amount of attention. C.T. Jessep and Company were now the largest bicycle manufacturers in South Canterbury. Late in October 1901 they announced, “We shall have on Exhibition at the Christchurch, Timaru, and Oamaru Shows a MOTOR BICYCLE, which is the first manufactured in the colony.”²

This motor bicycle was constructed by Raymond Every. He used a Minerva motor, one of the 3,000 produced during 1901 at the Antwerp factory in Belgium and imported by A. G. Healing and Co. of Christchurch. Minerva sold a kit consisting of a 211cc 1¼ h.p. motor and all the accessories needed for operation. The Minerva motor, regarded as one of the most reliable at that time, was clamped to the bicycle down tube by four bolts. Included in the kit was a flat sided tin box which hung from the top tube and contained the oil tank, petrol tank, surface carburettor, battery and trembler coil. The controls were mounted on this box and a separate smaller triangular box underneath was the silencer which also warmed the petrol.

Wednesday 30 October 1901 was the momentous day when Every’s motor bicycle, which he named “The Stella”, had its very first run on the road and later on the Temuka cycling track. It was only a brief test and although further work was needed the trial was a success. This was the first successful run of a New Zealand made motor bicycle reported in a contemporary newspaper. The Temuka Leader squeezed the report of this historic event between an item covering a local wedding and news of the Temuka Croquet Club:

The generating fluid is “petrol,” and the nominal power is equal to that of an engine of 1¼ horse power. The bicycle is similar in shape to the ordinary machines in use, for the special mechanism, which is carried on the saddle bar, can be attached to any machine. If desired, the ordinary pedal action can be used.

The reporter went on to record that:

…universal attention was directed to the speed and smoothness with which the machine travelled, and there being little noise or vibration horses which were passed showed no fear.³

Twenty miles per hour was the usual speed but under favourable conditions 30 miles per hour could be reached. There were no springs in the front forks and Every said later that riding on gravel roads was diabolical as his hands were paralysed by the vibration after just a few miles.

Raymond Every recalled making the frame of The Stella:

I built a heavy one out of B.S.A. fittings. When I say heavy I reinforced all the joints – poked a bit of tube in and brazed round, fish tailed the ends of all those insertions and brazed them all in carefully and built up the machine which made it quite a bit heavier. I put heavier spokes in the wheels. In the back wheel, of course, the drive was taken up by the spokes because I had to clamp a rim all around to the spokes.

There were some difficulties to overcome:

Well, when I put this machine together I’d got the machine all ready and when I clamped the rim, the driving rim, on the back wheel and tried to put it in the forks of the bicycle there wasn’t room. So I had to go to the local blacksmith and ask him to forge me a U shaped piece and cut the back fork and file it all up, no emery wheels, all had to be done by file. File it all up, fit it in and braze and that gave clearance for the rim, the driving rim. And then the belt was twisted hide and if the belt slipped all you did was jump off, undo the clip that held it, the two ends and give it a few more twists.⁴

Early in November 1901 Every took The Stella by train to Christchurch for Carnival Week. Its first public appearance was at Lancaster Park on Monday 4 November at The Canterbury Athletic and Cycling Club carnival meeting held under electric lights. The evening began with a procession from Cathedral Square to Lancaster Park. There were cycle races, a race between a local scorcher (current slang for a cyclist who rode furiously) and a trotting horse, highland fling, hornpipe and piping competitions, fireworks and musical selections by The Woolston and Engineers’ Bands. One of the highlights of the carnival was Raymond Every’s demonstration of The Stella. The 23-year-old Every, described in one newspaper as “a lad”, circled the track several times at almost 20 miles per hour. It was regarded as “a particularly successful debut.” A motor bicycle was such a novelty to many people that the Star published a description for readers:

a motor bicycle may be roughly described, as an ordinary bicycle, upon which has been placed a motor that makes the machine self-propelling; all the rider has to do is to give it a start and then attend to the steering. To the motor-cyclist the head-winds and up-grades have no terrors, he simply turns the tap at full steam ahead and proceeds merrily, fanned by the additional breeze his motion causes. ⁵

On Wednesday 6 November 1901, the Canterbury Agricultural and Pastoral Association Show opened at the Addington Show Grounds. This was the day for machines, implements and articles manufactured in the Colony. The Stella, considered by the Star reporter to be one of the most attractive machines in the cycle section of the Show, was on display in the tent of Christchurch cycle dealers Messrs Barker and Lewis.

Four thousand people turned up at Lancaster Park on the evening of Friday 8 November 1901 to watch fireworks as well as cycling and athletic events organised by the long-established Pioneer Bicycle Club. The sensation of the evening was an “automobile handicap”. This was the first official motor race ever held in New Zealand and probably the first in Australasia. The distance was three miles and although six entrants were expected, on the day only four turned up: A. Lowry with a “motor-quad”,  Nicholas Oates with his 4½ horsepower Voiturette, H. J. Shaw, with a Comiot motor tricycle purchased two years previously from Mr Acton-Adams the Christchurch lawyer and financier and R.H. Every with The Stella motor bicycle. The handicapper had an impossible task. The Stella was given 150 yards and won by almost a lap in 11 minutes 18.2 seconds. The New Zealand Wheelman, in their “Maoriland Motorist” section, described The Stella’s performance: “The motor’s beautiful running qualities were seen and lustily applauded by four thousand people, the excitement recalling vividly the early days of racing.” At the same time traditional cyclists, “felt a pang of regret as they reflected on the fact that the days of the good old bike were numbered.”⁶

It is hard to imagine the impact a motor bicycle had on people who had only ever seen steam powered transport. The day after the race Every parked the Stella outside a shop while he went inside. Shortly after a policeman went into the shop to ask whose bicycle was parked outside. Every was told to move it as the large crowd admiring The Stella had almost completely blocked the road.

After his Lancaster Park success Every took The Stella on to the Timaru Show. They attracted more attention on the way at Ashburton where he had “a few spins through the main streets”. The Ashburton Guardian reported that the motor was easily manipulated, speed could be regulated from a walking pace to 25 miles per hour and any intelligent cyclist could learn to ride it in half an hour.⁷

Great interest was shown in The Stella at the Timaru Show. It was only run occasionally on its stand as the ground was unsuitable for riding. Every rode The Stella from Temuka to Oamaru and then from Oamaru on to Dunedin, a total of 135 miles. The Otago Witness of 11 December 1901 published a photograph of Raymond Every with The Stella. In 1968 Every recalled, “if you came to a hill that was a bit steep then you pedalled. Going from Oamaru to Dunedin all the pedalling in the world was no use. I very nearly pushed the thing over the bank and let it go to the bottom. It was hopelessly under powered; it was only one and a quarter (horsepower).”⁸

In mid-December Every demonstrated The Stella outside the offices of the Timaru Herald. The Herald reporter noted that, “To see the rider sailing by at a good pace, comfortably idle, furnished a strong temptation to break the tenth commandment. The motor is not exactly silent, and there is a visible vibration of the rider’s lower limbs.”⁹ The reporter was intrigued with the question of how the battery, known as an “accumulator”, would be charged “up country” as the Stella had no generator. It was speculated that on tourist routes hotelkeepers might have small dynamos run by either a waterwheel or a windmill or even large batteries which could charge the smaller motor bicycle battery.

People of Temuka were now used to the Stella “puffing every day in the week.” When Every rode the ten miles between Timaru and Temuka it took him just over half an hour. The Timaru Herald reported that the machine was, “an unqualified success. The machine is always ready. It can be set going in the twinkling of an eye, or stopped with equal readiness. All that is necessary is to switch off or on the electric current, and the desired effect is produced.”¹⁰

The last newspaper record we have of Raymond Every riding The Stella is at the South Canterbury Caledonian Society New Year’s Day Sports Meeting at Timaru in 1902 where he made several demonstration runs on the track.¹¹ Among the newspaper clippings saved by Every and now held by his grandson is this notice:

For Sale, A Thoroughly Reliable Motor Bicycle, which has been well tried; it runs splendidly at any speed between 6 and 24 miles per hour. A trial may be arranged. Apply. MOTOR, Temuka.¹²

This advertisement which ran for four days in the Lyttleton Times can only have been for The Stella. This was a few weeks before Every left New Zealand.

Every’s success with his motor bicycle motivated him to travel overseas to gain experience in the new field of “automobilism”. On 8 May 1902 he left Lyttleton aboard the Athenic for London. From there he went on to Antwerp to work briefly at the Usines Minerva. His reference from Minerva stated that he had “been working in our shops to get an inside view of erecting and repairing small motors and we consider that he is now perfectly posted for doing such work.”

After he left Minera, and for the rest of his working life, Every was involved with cars rather than motorcycles. He joined the Swift Motor Company at Coventry in September 1902. Within a few weeks he was an observer for Swift on the 1,000 mile trial organised by the Automobile Club of England and Ireland and he worked on the Swift stand at the 1903 Crystal Palace Automobile Show. He became manager of the finishing and testing department, took part in many reliability trials and won seven gold medals. While working for Swift he took out two patents, one in 1906 and the other in 1911, both for improvements to carburettors for internal combustion engines. When he left Swift in June 1912 he was presented with a gold watch.

On his return to New Zealand he became foreman at P. H. Vickery Motor Works, Invercargill. This was one of the first garages in New Zealand to recondition motors and Every also gave evening lectures on car mechanics to drivers at the Southland Technical College. In 1918 he moved to Carterton and set up his own motor garage which he ran until he retired in 1954.

Many motorcycles are known by the maker of the frame and running parts rather than the engine maker. Marques such as HRD, Zenith, Brough Superior, Rex Acme, James, Francis-Barnet and Excelsior all had engines by other makers. In 1902 the first Triumph had a Minerva engine. It is quite reasonable to claim that R.H. Every’s motor bicycle was New Zealand’s very first B.S.A. motorcycle. But was it the first motorcycle constructed in New Zealand?

The October 1899 issue of The New Zealand Wheelman had a headline which read “The Pioneer Motor Cyclist of New Zealand.” This was the report of an interview with William Acton-Adams who had just returned from Paris with a “motorcycle”. It is only near the end of the article that it becomes apparent that the Comiot he brought back was a tricycle.¹³

In June 1900 there were brief reports in Auckland newspapers of “a motor cycle that goes humming along like an oil launch on wheels”¹⁴ but further reading reveals that this was the De Dion and Bouton tricycle owned by Service and Henning.¹⁵ In late September 1901 Percy Skeats of the Auckland cycle firm Skeates and Boekaert, returned to New Zealand with one American and two English motorcycle but these were complete machines.

Cecil Walkden Wood of Timaru claimed to have constructed a petrol engine in 1897 and then “applied his motor to a bicycle, quite possibly creating the first motorcycle in New Zealand and apparently managed to run it for about 100 yards.”¹⁶ However there are no contemporary newspaper reports or photographs of this vehicle even though Wood’s later vehicles were reported on and photographed. With his “motor-cycle engine Wood at first experienced great difficulty with the accumulator and coil, but this was mastered, and the first engine attached to a cycle was successfully placed on the road, on 20 May, 1900. He then built a three wheeled motor-car, with tiller steering wheel, which was first run in Timaru on 4 June, 1901”.¹⁷

Wood used newspapers to promote his business such as when he built a tandem and later a bicycle for a customer who weighed 127 kilograms. He imported a novel replacement for a bicycle bell powered by an air pump driven by the front wheel. The noise was supposed to be loud enough to “warn a dead cow to get out of the way.”

A search of Papers Past gives February 1897 as the first time Wood is mentioned in relation to motor vehicles when he was “looking forward to the arrival of motor vehicles, and he intends to undertake the fitting up and repair of the new means of locomotion.”¹⁸

The next mention is not until July 1901 when Wood displayed a working petrol engine he had built at his Tourist Cycle Works in Timaru. Both the South Canterbury Times (20 July 1901, p.2) and Timaru Herald (20 July 1901, p.2) reported that:

A large crowd was attracted to the window of Mr C. W. Wood’s cycle establishment yesterday to view a very interesting working model of a gas engine shown there, and very complimentary remarks were made regarding the perfection and smoothness of its working. The engine stands about 14 inches high by 19 inches long, both measurements including a 14-inch fly-wheel. The fittings are perfectly and neatly made, the workmanship put into them being most painstaking and delicate. The cylinder has a two-inch bore, and allows a four-inch stroke for the piston-rod. ….. Mr Wood intends also to build another model, for attachment to a bicycle, and promises that at no very distant date a “motor cycle” will be seen on our streets.

It is highly likely that the engine described in this report, from its size and the 14 inch flywheel, is the engine in the well-known photo of C. W. Wood on a three wheeled, tiller steered vehicle outside the Tourist Cycle Works.

Wood’s “motor cycle” was not completed until December 1901. The Timaru Herald reported that “Messrs C. W. Wood and Co., of the Tourist Cycle Works, have completed the construction of a motor bicycle, which only needs the correction of some defect in the electric coil used for ignition to be brought into use.”¹⁹ He built the motor from imported rough castings and made the frame stronger than a normal bicycle. The motor was placed within the frame between the saddle tube and bottom tube, an arrangement commented on by the Timaru Herald reporter as the neatest and most convenient as any he had ever seen. This machine was, as Wood claimed at the time, the first frame and motorcycle engine built in New Zealand and it attracted a great deal of attention when displayed in his shop. He announced he was going to manufacture motor bicycles that would be far cheaper than any imported and already had several orders.²⁰

The Tourist Cycle Works was well set up to build both engines and frames. The two storied brick building in Stafford Street housed a blacksmith’s plant, brazing and jointing furnace, case hardening furnace, plating baths and an enamelling room. Lathes, emery wheels and polishing buffs were powered by a 4 horsepower Tangye gas engine.

The problem with the coil prevented Wood’s motor bicycle from running until Wednesday 18 December but he only went on a short ride as Timaru horses were unused to the noise.²¹ As reported in contemporary newspapers Cecil Wood’s first ride in Timaru was seven weeks after Raymond Every first rode The Stella in Temuka. Wood and Every actually rode together at the South Canterbury Caledonian Society New Year’s Day Sports Meeting in 1902. “Mr Wood’s machine did not go well, seemed sluggish and inclined to jib, owing, Mr Wood thought, to some mistake in using mixed oil. Mr Every’s machine ran without trouble, and much easier than the other.” Wood must have worked on his machine overnight as it was reported to be running much better the next day.²²

In April 1902 Wood sold a motor bicycle with a Minerva engine to W. J.  Huggins, manager of Charles Begg and Co., Timaru. This was the third of his six orders for motor bicycles.

Mr Huggins had his trial run last Thursday and was more than satisfied. For short distances the speed reached was 25 miles per hour. There was very little noise, no smell, and no more vibration than in an ordinary bicycle. The bicycle is built of B.S.A. fittings throughout, with the necessary modifications to suit the motor.²³

The use of B.S.A. fittings makes this the second recorded B.S.A. motor bicycle built in New Zealand. Wood advertised that they were taking orders for motor cycles the same as the one sold to Mr W. J. Huggins. The cost was £40. The advertisement went on to say “we claim to be the first in New Zealand to build a cycle motor throughout.”²⁴ From the evidence in contemporary newspaper reports the motor bicycle Wood rode on December 1901 was the first with both motor and frame built in New Zealand and the second B.S.A. made in New Zealand.

Like Every, Wood moved on to motor cars, but his distinguished career has been well recorded including an entry in Wikipedia.²⁵

In May 1902 Charles Jessep sold the Stella Cycle Works in Temuka to local cyclist John Connnell but a year later re-purchased the business with C. S. Elmsly as partner. By October 1903 ten Stella type motor bicycles had been made at the works and with Elmsly riding they even had some racing success. In July 1904 the company became known as the Stella Cycle and Motor Manufacturing and General Importing Company, Ltd with a branch in Timaru. Jessep relinquished management in 1907 to J. G. Buttolph, a 25 year old coach builder from Gore, to “enter into another line of business.” A year later the company was in financial difficulties. On 15 August 1908 a notice appeared in the Temuka Leader:

The Stella Cycle and Motor Manufacturing and General Importing Company, Limited. Notice is hereby given that Mr J. G. Buttolph is no longer authorised to receive moneys on account of the above Company.” 

Buttolph must have absconded following financial impropriety. Six months later C.T. Jessep was offered £1 reward to anyone who knew where he was. The liquidation of the company was a sad end to a cycle business that had made New Zealand motorcycle history. The name Stella lingered on with the cycle shop that took over the premises. A Stella bicycle was made as late as 1913.

Based on contemporary reports in newspapers including the Temuka Leader, Oamaru Mail, Star, Press, Ashburton Guardian, Timaru Herald, North Otago Times, Evening Star, and Otago Witness as well as cycling magazine The New Zealand Wheelman, three different contemporary photographs and a later recorded interview, The Stella built by Raymond Henry Every was:

• The first successful motorcycle built in New Zealand – with an imported engine
• The first B.S.A. motorcycle built in New Zealand
• The first motorcycle in New Zealand to make a significant tour (270 miles)
• The first winner of an organised motor race in New Zealand

Raymond Henry Every was an enterprising yet modest engineer and mechanic who has a unique place as a New Zealand motor cycling innovator. He deserves to be given credit, to be far better known and to be celebrated for his pioneering achievements.

¹ Temuka Leader, 21 June 1900, p.2

² Temuka Leader, 29 October 1901, p.3

⁴ Every, R.H. (1968). Recording of interview with Gordon Powell.

³ Temuka Leader, 31 October 1901, p.2

⁵ Star 5 November, 1901, p.2

⁶ The New Zealand Wheelman, 13 November 1901, p.9 and p.20

⁷ Ashburton Guardian, 12 November 1901, p.2

⁸ Every, R.H. (1968). Recording of interview with Gordon Powell.     

⁹ Timaru Herald, 13 December 1901, p.3

¹⁰ Temuka Leader, 17 December 1901, p.2

¹¹ Timaru Herald, 2 January 1902, p.3

¹² Lyttelton Times, 14 March 1902, p.1

¹³ The New Zealand Wheelman, 4 October 1899, p.9

¹⁴ Observer, 2 June 1900, p.5

¹⁵ Auckland Star, 30 May 1900, p.4

¹⁶ McCrystal, 2003, p.21

¹⁷ Anderson, 1916, p.468

¹⁸ Timaru Herald, 6 February 1897, p.2

¹⁹ Timaru Herald, 12 December 1901, p.3

²⁰ Timaru Herald, 12 December 1901 p.3, Lyttelton Times, 13 December 1901, p.5

²¹ Timaru Herald, 20 December 1901, p.2

²² Timaru Herald, 2 January 1902, p.3, Timaru Herald, 3 January 1902, p.3

²³ Timaru Herald, 22 April 1902, p.2

²⁴ Timaru Herald, 24 April 1902, p.1

²⁵ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cecil_Wood_(engineer)

References

Adshead, Rona and Rex Murray (2002). Replicar! A century of motoring in North Otago and beyond. Dunedin: Square One Press.

https://www.ancestry.com.au/

Andersen Johannes C. (1916) Jubilee history of South Canterbury. Auckland: Whitcombe & Tombes.

Caunter, C.F. (1970). Motorcycles A Technical History –2nd Edition. London: Her Majesty’s Stationery Office.

Every, R.H. (1968). Recording of interview with Gordon Powell.

https://www.familysearch.org/

McCrystall, John. (2003). 100 Years of Motoring in New Zealand. Auckland: Hodder Moa Beckett.

Papers Past https://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/newspapers

Porter, Rex. (1974). Early N.Z. Constructors. Beaded Wheels, April/May.

Porter, Rex. (1957). Reminiscences. Beaded Wheels, March.

Sheldon, J. (1961). Veteran and Vintage Motor Cycles. London: Batsford.

Sullivan, Jim. (2007). Canterbury Voices. Christchurch: Hazard Press.

The New Zealand Wheelman

Acknowledgements

Christine Allan-Johns

Alan Brehaut

Christine Hall, Archive Assistant, Waitaki Museum and Archive

Nigel Every

Shirley Armstrong, Temuka Courthouse Museum

Tony Rippin, South Canterbury Museum

This event is held every year and typically attracts over 50 riders. The ride starts at Clareville near Carterton, circa 0930hrs and there is an awards dinner in the evening. The entry form is at: https://www.sporty.co.nz/wairarapavcc/Upcoming-Wairarapa-Events/2021-Gold-Medal-Motorcycle-Rally

This will take place in the Christchurch area over Friday the 26th Feb to Sunday 28th Feb. Entry form can be downloaded below, which when completed can scanned and emailed to Thomas Brown (text him for his email address).

On behalf of the club secretary notice is given of the clubs Annual General Meeting, to be held on the 8th March 2020, at 9:30 am, at Sixtus Lodge, Limestone Rd, Apiti, Manawatu.

The AGM is taking place at the same location as clubs 2020 National Rally, on the last day of the rally.

In addition to the email sent out, a bbq will be held at 1/54 Akatarawa Rd. Members and partners welcome. Email Damian to rsvp.