Pictorial Parade no. 89

It's a great day for Auckland, 100 years after the first plans were drawn the Harbour Bridge is ready for opening.

In 1860 a wooden bridge would have cost £16,000. This one costs six million pounds.

One of the last vehicular ferries to run before the bridge is opened leaves for the North Shore.

The ferry, Albatross, has traveled around the world 21 times just by crossing and re-crossing the harbour.

Driving into the Northcote toll plaza, the governor-general Lord Cobham arrives to perform the opening ceremony.

A Harbour Bridge being more-or-less nautical, the Navy provides the guard of honor.

With Lady Cobham is Sir John Allum, chairman of the Harbour Bridge Authority.

Outside the authority's Administration Building Sir John addresses guests, and the Prime Minister, the Right Honourable Mr Nash, pays a well-deserved tribute to the thousand men who built the bridge.

Lord Cobham pulls a tassel and the great moment has come.

Such an occasion calls for celebration and Aucklanders pack the streets to watch a procession that travels through the city, along the new southern approach motorway, and over the bridge to Northcote.

Not surprisingly many floats feature a now familiar motif, and one well-known beverage is closely followed by another.

On the Northern Freeway motorists queue for six miles waiting to cross the bridge for the first time.

Many are people who from now on will make the journey twice daily.

At the end of the bridge there's a big toll gate and all the drivers that go through there have to pay the man some money. Toll fees are automatically recorded and drivers giving the correct money need barely pause in their journey.

Every hundred yards is an emergency telephone which drivers may use in the event of a breakdown or accident.

First aid, firefighting, and breakdown trucks, are on continuous call.

First days toll takings totalled £5,000, 51,000 vehicles have passed through the booths.

Four years after construction began the Auckland Harbour Bridge is open for business.

190,000 people come to see what's new on the market at the Wellington Industries Fair.

Need advice about your sewing machine? Ask the man and he'll give it to you.

Interested in pottery crockery, or little china ornaments? Plenty of it here, and a potter to show how it's made.

A showcase for manufacturers and retailers, the Industries Fair brings the latest products right into the public eye.

Kitchens displaying locally made sinks and stoves get a thorough going-over.

As do the boats, and in the middle of it all a dance band backs the fashion parades with sophisticated swing.

New Zealand Styles capture the attention of every New Zealand girl, well almost every girl.

There are quite a number of cars on display and attracting the men folk, and his wife wonders 'can we afford it?'

A boon to householders with discontented goldfish is this underwater gramophone.

Music, say the makers keeps goldfish happy.

Up to her neck in hot water, what better way to advertise than by using a pretty girl?

And it makes people react to the product.

Free shave! Be in gents.

The candid camera men are working overtime.

There's money to be made from taking photographs, and from running a sideshow.

It wouldn't be a fair without the candy floss, the two bob in the slot machines, and all the other clever things that entice people to part with their pocket money.

And, if at the end of it all your head's inclined to spin, surely it's all in the fun of spending an evening at the Industries Fair.

Wherever the pioneers of South Canterbury settled and made their homes, there you will find the little churches.

Built strong and sure with iron from the old country, and the natural materials to hand.

Shaping boulders from the riverbeds, timber from the surrounding bush, and limestone from the coastal cliffs.

The first settlers raised the churches of their faith in a new land.

At Arowhenua, near Temuka, the Māori people of South Canterbury built their first Christian Church in 1866, following Bishop Harper's pastoral journeys through the province.

And it served them well until it was replaced by the present Church about 30 years ago.

Another square towered church dedicated to son David, patron saint of shepherds, stands on a hillside near Cave township.

It was built in 1930 as a memorial to the pioneer Burnett family of Mount Cook station, and all the early settlers who transplanted their faith and their families from the highlands of Scotland to the high country of New Zealand.

Services are held regularly at St. David's and flowers are brought for its decoration by people who live nearby.

Mrs. Eric Isler, whose husband gathered most of the river bed boulders which were used to build the church, arranges flowers in the font.

This is a centuries old Scottish mortar used for grinding oats and barley by the Highland ancestors of a Burnett family.

It rests on a hub of the bullock dray used by the Burnett's for their first journeys in the Tasman Valley.

The pews, solid and massive, are of red birch, rough adzed.

Around the walls are memorial tablets of stone bearing the names of the earliest run holders of South Canterbury.

The windows at the western end are dedicated to the pioneer women of the McKenzie country, whose descendants come to church from 20th century farms and townships to keep alive the old traditions and forms of worship.

Below the church at St. David's Sunday school the age-old truths are taught to a younger generation, and in Pleasant Valley near Geraldine children from the local primary school learn something of the history of their own little Church of Satan.

Erected in 1865, and consecrated by Bishop Harper in that year, St. Anne's is the oldest existing Church in South Canterbury.

In the nave and chancel are memorial panels dedicated to local families who have given many years of service to church and community.

Nearly a hundred years ago, before Barry's grandparents were born, these earthen walls were hardening in the Sun which ripened the first crops of wheat in the valley.

All the timber in the church is hand-sawn. From the window frames to the outside weather boards, which have covered the original cob walls since the end of the last century.

So today in, the centennial year of South Canterbury, the lights of St. Annes still shine out over Pleasant Valley on Sunday evenings, and services are still held as they were in the days of the pioneers, whose faith in the Christian message inspired them to build the little churches in their new settlements across the seas in the high country of New Zealand.

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