Stories
Your stories - and stories
from the Fletcher archives
An American view of New Zealand in the 1950s
Jack Cutler, a specialist in communication, had been in New Zealand for 16 months to help Fletcher establish its new teleprinter communication system.
"It goes without saying that people here are undoubtedly the most sincere, honest and amiable of people anywhere. Values are in their right relation and the way of life is good. The fact that there are so many antiquated methods, customs and controls is relatively unimportant. The vital thing is the attitude and approach to the problem of changing them to maintain stature in an ever-improving society. It is encouraging that in some circles there is a definite and constructive attempt to improve and Fletchers seem to me to be pioneers in this respect."
An English view of New Zealand in the 1950s
Colin Beaton (Quantity Surveyor) returning to England after a 20 month sojourn with us left us with this parting shot:-
"One has found the scenery extraordinary, the weather great, the hotel service average, the licensing laws puerile, the Maoris essentially New Zealand, public transport inadequate, the school education standard high. Drivers' signals are sloppy (including one's own), the girls the same as at Home; skiing first class, fishing grounds unbeatable; it does not pay to be single; a car is absolutely necessary (to lead a normal life.) Building and housing costs are completely out of proportion to the rest of the country's economy. Night life is non-existent; the commercials are the funniest items on the radio; politics too petty; for the country to prosper there must be an increase in the wages of the skilled; underwater fishing is the coming sport; athletics standard high; long-distance car driving seldom dull; traffic officers annoying; airways efficient; the latitude allowed radio announcers amazing; a smoker's paradise. Rotorua is a gem. What a good thing for Britain that Abel Tasman had a cold reception."
Recollection of a Hawkes Bay businessman, after the Napier Earthquake
"We were dazed. Then in came Jim Fletcher, calm, confident and full of realistic ideas for getting our most important businesses going again not within weeks but within days. Amid the wreckage of my own business he picked up a piece of blank paper off the floor, brushed the grit off it and with a pencil sketched a plan. 'Would this suit you in the meantime and enable you to produce?' he asked. It did suit and it did work. In the middle of it all he asked how my son could swot in matriculation year in a rebuilding town. He insisted on my son going to live with him in Auckland and going to the Grammar School there. Big hearted even in the midst of a big rush job."