Meg and Alistair Campbell

Meg and Alistair Campbell moved to Pukerua Bay in 1961. They previously lived in Tinakori Road but had become concerned about the effect of increasing traffic volumes and attendant exhaust fumes on their young family. They borrowed £2,600 from State Advances Corporation, bought a section and engaged local builder Bob Lewis to build their house. The section was at the top of a hill at the north end of Rawhiti Road, with a magnificent view out over the sea to Kapiti Island. For a time, their house was the highest in the Bay. In those pre-resource management days, it was a simple matter to create a flat area for the house. A bulldozer was used to shape the area and the spoil was simply pushed over the edge of the cliff. This created a scree slope that ran almost all the way down to the beach, and the children were able to utilise this as a quick way to get down the cliff, providing you didn’t mind arriving with your shoes full of stones.

The landscape created by this process left an ugly scar on the hilltop, and in the early days, the sand blew around the section and into the house with ferocity. However, the Campbells were keen gardeners and started the gradual process of beautifying the section. By the 1990s, the property boasted many mature native trees and the scree slope had been reclaimed by nature.

Alistair commuted into Wellington on the unit to his job at School Publications and later at the NZ Council for Educational Research until his retirement in 1987, while Meg kept house, taking a part time job at Victoria University Bookstore when the children were older. The four children went to Pukerua Bay School and later to various local secondary schools. A further child, Andrew, lived with his mother, the poet Fleur Adcock, in London.

The right-of-way, a private extension of Rawhiti Road, was home to a close-knit community, including (from the end), Sue and Ross Renner, Eric and Olive Southern, Don and Dianne McAllister, Jane and Peter Baker and later Tina and Jon Callwood. Meg, along with several of her neighbours and their children, took part in one of the first and most successful environmental protests, the “Battle of the Rocks”.

Life on the right-of-way was not without incident. On one occasion Meg drove the family car, a Ford Popular, a little too close to the edge of the road, with the result that it tipped over on its side. It was apparently righted without too much damage to vehicle or occupants. The Campbell’s driveway, being steep and unsealed in the early years with a sharp bend near the top, presented an interesting challenge for drivers. The trick was to keep your speed up.

Alistair was already an established poet and writer when he moved to Pukerua Bay, and the proximity to Kapiti Island inspired a new direction in his work. In 1963 the volume of poetry Sanctuary of Spirits was published, exploring the history of the local tangata whenua. Ashley Blair, then a teacher, remembers Alistair’s youngest daughter coming to school saying, “My dad’s been having nightmares about Te Rauparaha coming in a window”. His next work which explicitly referenced the area in the title was the 1971 collection Kapiti.

Meg had always been interested in literature and over time, came to establish herself as a poet in her own right. In 1981 she published her first collection of poems, The Way Back and this and subsequent collections were strongly grounded in her location in the Bay. Meg was a faithful member of the St Mark’s congregation and many of her poems reflect her Christian faith.

The Kapiti Coast had its share of literary figures with whom Alistair and Meg were friends. The poet Sam Hunt turned up on their doorstep as a teenager in the mid 60s and became a regular visitor, later living for a time in a bach on the beach below the house. In the 60s, poet and publisher Denis Glover lived in Paekakariki with his partner, Khura Skelton. Poet Louis Johnson lived in Te Motu Road until his death in 1988 and his widow Cecelia lives there still. The artist Sylvia Bowen (later Daun), who was a friend of Meg’s, lived on the beach. In its heyday, the Garden Bar of the Paekakariki pub provided a gathering spot on many a Saturday afternoon, with the kids drinking raspberry fizz and waiting in the car or roaming the nearby streets.

Meg and Alistair became involved with the Pukerua Drama Club which was very active in the 60s. With neighbours Peter and Jane Baker and others they constructed a stage in the gully below their property and this was used for a number of events including a production of Snow White featuring Meg on a white horse as the princess and local children as the dwarves. Later, there was a production of The Importance of Being Earnest at the old Scout hall in Kotipu Place, which also featured son Gregory.

Meg was a talented singer and guitarist and was very active in the local folk club. For a number of years, she sang with a group of local musicians including neighbours John and Tina Callwood, Frank Beaufort, Helen Avis (now Durie) and Gregory. Daughters Josie and Mary and son Andrew were also keen musicians.

Another of Meg’s interests was pottery, and for a time she had a well-equipped workshop with an electric kiln in the house. Clay for this undertaking was sometimes sourced from local stream beds.

Until the late 1970s, there was no water reticulation in the bay, and the Campbells had a concrete water tank under the house fed by water collected from the roof. This did not always facilitate hygiene, and on one occasion a possum carcass in the tank required it to be drained and cleaned. Visitors from the city would be interested to hear an electric pump under the house start up periodically to replenish the header tank in the ceiling – this required regular greasing to ensure reliable operation and occasionally a blob of grease would find its way out of a tap. In dry years, water would run out, necessitating a visit from the water truck. This also mean that conservation measures were permanently in force, with a family bath occurring once a week, with shared water usage prioritised by seniority.

The location of the house on the cliff edge meant there was ever present danger of bushfires in the dry summer season, which was particularly hazardous given that the Bay was not on mains water supply. There were three fires during their time there, one so intense that heat from the flames blistered the paint and melted the plastic guttering. It was terrifying to watch the flames accelerate up the cliff and shoot up metres above roof height.

The Campbells were always keen pet owners and owned many dogs. Some came to a sad end due to traffic accidents or worrying sheep. There was also a cat called Pussy Galore who lived to the venerable age of 25. The Campbells also owned horses and at the peak, five pedigree springer spaniels which carpeted their small lounge and required visitors to step around them.

The Campbell children, Gregory, Aurelian, Josie and Mary, were left largely to their own devices to roam the neighbourhood. There was the beach, and in summer it was common for them to leave the house at 8.00am, returning for dinner. No sunscreen, lifeguards or parental supervision in those days. There was also the bush in the gullies or the farmland to explore. The town’s roads provided a safe environment for cycling, provided you avoided the dreaded main highway. Visitors were also surprised to see the children clamber around the cliff like mountain goats, although on one occasion Gregory fell headfirst, only managing to save himself by grabbing onto a flax bush.

Gregory used these experiences and his photographs to write a school reader called The Beach Picnic. The story centres around his sisters and the Beaumont family who lived next door.

Meg died in 2007 and Alistair two years later. Fortunately, the house has remained in family ownership, with daughter Mary taking over and living there still with partner Rongopai Dawson and son Arita.

By Greg Campbell