Spring fever - love is in the air, Spring is everywhere (Elvis)

Spring's emergence at Maple Grove 2025

Wie geht's

Spring at Maple Grove. 

While I've been resting up during the week (see this Baggy Trousers' post for details) I've had enough mindfulness to notice the gradual changing of the season (winter into spring in the southern hemisphere).

The days are getting noticeably longer, the lambs and daffodils are kicking into gear, and the blossom is emerging on the plum trees at Maple Grove.

As well as all that, the WTW Music Club has continued to build their 'Spring in their steps' playlist quietly in the background. Sixty songs, so far, to accompany the emergence of spring.

You're welcome.

Love and peace - Wozza

This is the end, beautiful friend (The Doors)

A sign that hung in WNP's office at Reimers' Ave.
Seems to have resonated with him. 

Wie geht's?

The more I look into my great grandmother's story, the weirder the story gets, but the more real she becomes, and the more I like her.

First some further corrections and further information:

Her 1900 and 1930 marriage certificates both have her maiden name as Emma Meakin (a correction - it is not Meachen as Tom Purdy spelled it in his genealogy which is what I went by previously). 

In 1900 she was a cotton weaver. Her father was James Meakin, a master painter, and her mother was Mary Ann Lett.

In 1900 she was listed as 18 (born 1882), but 30 years later in 1930 her age is listed as 46. That would mean she was either 18 or 16 when she married William Purdy (my great grandfather) in 1900 or else 48 or 46 in 1930. How can birthdates be so fluid? I'm going by the 1900 date and figuring she undersold the 1930 version of herself or else it was a clerical error.

In 1929, it was only Emma who attended the divorce hearing (William was a no show). William was ordered to pay costs and Emma waved the right to alimony or maintenance. I guess because William had custody of the boys. My colleague, Susan,  tells me that this was not unusual for the times. In fact in Victorian England fathers were given custody in the majority of cases. Anyway, there is nothing in the documents I have that mentions custody.

In a sworn statement Emma says that she was abandoned 'without just cause'. She also says she is 'domiciled in New Zealand and resides in Auckland' in 1929 (but she had bought the Mereweather property in NSW in 1927).

Florence and Will. We two.

In 1930 Emma's new husband was 10 years (or 12 years) older than her, but Florence Charlotte Northington (William's new wife) was 22 years younger than him!

William (a 'plasterer') is listed as age 49 on the marriage certificate, she is 27. She is from London, and divorced. 

Florence and William

Interestingly, the marriage certificate has her maiden surname as both Northington and Worthington. Clerical error, I'm picking.

Weirdly, William is listed in 1929 as residing in Auckland, but in 1930 he is living in Turramrra, NSW.

Now to the speculation:

Something seriously went down in 1908 (Emma mentions that the abandonment started three years before 1911). They had only just landed in New Zealand in 1907 - 1908 (Edward was about 1 years old, Harry - my grandad was 4).

Irene Purdy's suggestion was that Emma was a Kleptomanic,  but would that result in an abandonment without just case? Probably not. 

Same goes for an affair by either party. An affair would certainly qualify as just cause, right? 

Maybe this wasn't even Emma's fault. Maybe William had already met Florence Northington and abandoned Emma as a precursor to hooking up with the much younger Florence (born in 1903, like Harry).

Emma's handwritten note in 1929

I find myself leaning more and more towards Emma. She comes across as quite a tough person, very resilient, confident, resourceful (buying a house in her twenties), quite independent, and frugal certainly (mum and dad witnessed that at first hand when they visited, staying one night only, with her and Rube in Mereweather). 

I like her, a lot!

She also looks lovely! In an era when people didn't smile in photos - she does!

For that matter, so does Florence. I presume that is her in the photo captioned 'we two' above - in her handwriting. She was obviously around for quite a few years but there are no pictures in my collection of her with Harry and Edward (a.k.a Eddie and Ted later in life).

No Florence. Just Harry, WNP, Edward

You can certainly see Emma in that photo of Harry and Eddie (Eddie's smile is very similar to hers). I have another when Eddie was a boy at Reimers' Ave - in front of those famous steps. A good looking kid! 

There are similar blind alleys in other family histories, I dare say. This is just one in mine. I wonder if there are others in either the Adsett line (my mother's maiden name) or grandma Purdy (the Curson line).

Probably. 

Love and rest in peace Emma - WNP

Weird scenes inside the gold mine (The Doors)

Briefly a happy family in Rochdale with
Harry, William, Edward and Emma Purdy1907

Wie geht's?

This post is a continuation (and a much overdue correction) of Emma Purdy's history. My great grandmother - remember. Married to William Purdy (somewhat briefly as it turns out).

I've been delving into some legal papers that I've had since 2009. Until this week, I've not read them intently and Emma's story now comes into much sharper focus (out of the mists of time).

What I've been previously led to believe, turns out to be a smokescreen of stories.

So, to the true facts!

Emma Meachen was born in Rochdale in 1882. When she was 18, in 1900, she married William Purdy - he was 20, and so she became Emma Purdy.

A baby, James Purdy, died in infancy. My grandfather, Harry, was born in 1903 in Rochdale, and a third son, Edward, was also born in Rochdale, in 1906 (he passed away first of March 1998).

Sometime around 1907-1910 they (Emma, William, Edward, a baby, and Harry) all travelled from Rochdale to Wellington, New Zealand.  

In August 1911 William 'willfully' deserted Emma 'without just cause'. We don't know why.

From 1911 to 1929 Emma lived off and on in Auckland, as did William. The divorce papers indicate that William 'continued to desert me without just cause'. She petitioned for divorce in 1929. 

Emma's activities in Australia prior to 1930 are murky to say the least. It appears that she remarried in Australia prior to her divorce and subsequent third marriage to Reuben Davies. Which would make her a bigamist!!

The facts: this according to sworn testimony by Reuben's son -Emma Jones, in 1927 bought the Merewether property. Apparently, according to him, she had married a William Jones at some point. He believed that when she married his father, Reuben Davies, she did so as Emma Jones, not Emma Purdy. The marriage certificate certainly lists her as her maiden name - Emma Meachen.

The lawyers dealing with the later sale of the Merewether property ascertained that Emma Jones and Emma Davies were the same person.

The NZ Supreme Court divorce documents from 1929 indicate in a special closing notice that 'Notice is hereby given that if either the Petitioner (Emma) or Respondent (William) herein contract marriage before the within-written decree nisi be made absolute she or he will be guilty of bigamy'. 

Holy homework, Batman!  

After her divorce from William came through in 1929, she remarried in 1930 to Reuben (Rube) Davies in NSW. So, she then became Emma Davies. She was 46, he was 36. There were no further children. Whether she was divorced from William Jones is unknown.

Reuben Davies died 22 December 1980. He continued to live in the Merewether property until 1977. Upon his death in 1980 the property went to Harry and Eddie as per Emma's will. Other tenants in the property paid rent to Emma until her death in 1959 and then to Reuben Davies.

As to William and the boys? The two brothers stayed with William, it seems. Indeed, Harry's younger brother, Eddie, according to my dad, did not even know of Emma's existence until he was forty years old! So, Emma had also abandoned her young sons it seems. 

My dad remembered how William and the two boys lived in Greymouth for a while and how, by the time he came along, Emma would make regular visits back to NZ. She was always ready with presents and stayed with my grandmother's mother of all places during her visits. So, she was never ostracised by the family, so that supposed abandonment is called into question. 

I have no idea how she was presented to the boys who were then in their late twenties/early thirties with their own children. There must have been some sympathy for her because she eventually went blind as a consequence of her diabetes.

And William? Well, he also remarried - to Florence Worthington, in 1930, and also in NSW, Australia. They didn't have any children. Little is known about her and her relationship with Harry and Eddie, but she was their stepmother (or maybe to Eddie - his mother, until he learned of Emma). 

In the mid-fifties my parents visited Emma and Rube in Australia. As stated above, Emma Davies died in Australia in 1959. She was 77 years old.  The Merewether property in Australia was bequeathed to her two sons, as previously mentioned, and was eventually sold by my father and Eddie after Harry passed away. 

Regardless of what went on, my four children and me and my brother all owe Emma huge respect and gratitude. Without Emma, we wouldn't exist. Maybe there are more revelations to come, but I'm sorry that the family stories have painted her as the cause of the rift between my great grandparents.  

We will never know the precise reasons for the abandonment in 1911, but it seems that a divorce was needed in 1929 by both parties so that they could remarry, which they both did a year later.

Time works its magic on family secrets. My father must have known this timeline (the divorce papers were in his possession), but he didn't communicate any of this to me or my brother.  Maybe he was still doing his protective bit. Who knows. He always maintained that Emma was left behind in Australia and didn't come to NZ with William and the boys but that is false. He told me that 'whatever happened we will never know but I'm sure he (William) was very bitter towards her.

In other discoveries:

William wasn't the only Purdy to come to New Zealand. His younger brothers Samuel (born 1887) and Richard (born 1894) also emigrated. 

Samuel was a house painter who married Clara Smith. They had three children: Phyllis (one son - Benjamin), Ronald (married Irene Roberts - two children: Brent and Linley), and Annette.

Richard married Alice Beesley. There were no children. According to my dad, Richard worked as a sound engineer on the famous NZ film Rewi's Last Stand (the 1940 remake with sound).

There is also Jonas Henry Purdy (one of William's uncles) who emigrated to Auckland about 1914, after first travelling to Australia (a popular destination for our family it seems).

So, William, at least, had some of his relatives in close proximity in New Zealand and Australia.

Aside from all that, I have no other details, but it's added another layer of mystery - given there are other Purdys out there in NZ/Australia that I have little knowledge about. 

Certainly, I'd be keen to hear from any other NZ/Australian Purdys who want to reach out with their own histories.

Love and peace - WNP

ad died and never really looked at them closely. Now I wonder why William deserted her in 1911. Coincidentally (!) he also remarried in NSW in 1930 to Florence Worthington.

My hat is off - won't you stand up and take a bow (Andrew Gold)

Wie geht's?

I don't often check the statistics bar for my blogs but when I did that recently I was gobsmacked to discover the July stats for Baggy Trousers. Then I checked the others and two blogs had even more views! What the???

Goo Goo G'Joob - 42,916 views 

Baggy Trousers - 38,053 views

The Purdzilla Show - 2,069 views

Wozza's Place - 41,677 views

Jewels for the Thirsty - 7,946 views (as I only publish it each Saturday, that equaled 4 posts)

Destination Records - 5,438 views

I generally write about twenty posts a month for Goo Goo, but only about 7 posts a month for Baggy and Wozza's, so those numbers are puzzling. Maybe it's caused by AI bots searching for content. Maybe it's actual humans.

Basically, if you are tuning into my blogs - then a massive tip o the hat! Thank you!

I often think I'm basically writing to myself and Jacky (and a few of my colleagues and students) but, no - the map of those views is all over the planet.

So, thank you for being a friend to the blogosphere.

Love and peace - Wozza

I heard your voice through a photograph. I thought it up and brought up the past (Red Hot Chili Peppers)

WNP x 2 with my younger brother on the steps of Rochdene.

Wie geht's?

For some reason, I've been thinking about my relationship to my great grand-father lately.

We share the same initials - WNP, and I feel a strong bond to him. I even wear his marriage band. I'd wear one worn by my father, but I don't recall him ever wearing a wedding ring.

William Purdy was a kind of shadowy figure from my childhood. We visited Rochdene (his house in Reimers Avenue, Mt Albert) every Saturday after football because Grandma and Deedoo also lived there.

That photo above is a perfect representation of our relationship. Bemused great grandchildren and distinguished elderly gentleman (he was in his early eighties at that point) standing a bit behind them. Looks like he was off to bowls and dad had managed to get a quick photo. 

There are plenty of things I don't know about the other WNP. 

What was his early life like before coming to New Zealand?What was his relationship like to my dad? What was his relationship like with his sons Eddie and Harry (my grandfather)? What did he think of my grandmother? What was he called by my dad? Were they close? Why did he allow Grandma and Deedoo to move into his house? That's a few.

At the Rochdene archway.
The dog was long gone by the time
we came along.

I do know a few things but I can only guess at the answers to those questions above. Maybe a family member from Uncle Eddie's side of the family can help me out?

William was born July 17, 1880 in Rochdale.

He married Emma in Rochdale and they had three sons (one of whom died in infancy). Out of somewhere they made a crucial decision when my grandfather was very young (8 or 9) to move to New Zealand from Rochdale in the early 1900s. Basically -the farthest point away from Rochdale. The other end of the earth. Not like moving to Scunthorpe or something. To my knowledge, he never returned to England. He was in his early twenties. Extraordinary.

During the long passage to NZ via Australia, or else when they reached Australia, something happened to cause him to leave Emma, my great grandmother, in Sydney and come to NZ with his two very young sons. No one knows what really happened. 

He later remarried but there were no further children. Florence was not around by the time we came along.

Like his own father (James Purdy) back in Rochdale, William was a skilled builder/ painter/ wall-paperer/ plasterer and he eventually started a business in Auckland - Purdy and Sons Plasterers. The business ended when my grandad (Deedoo) retired.

In Rochdale

My memories of my great grandfather are exclusively of him in his house in Reimers Ave, Mt Eden, Auckland until his death in the mid 1960s when I was 9 and Ross was 7. I don't have any memories of him coming to our house in Royal Oak or of his meeting us anywhere.  
 

While visiting Rochdene on Saturday mornings we never really encountered William that I can recall. He had a room at the front of the house (remember, it was his house) and he must have stayed in there, or else he was out but he was pretty old by this time so I doubt that - did he even have a car? Not sure, but we didn't come across him at all and we never went into his room. Never ever. Not once.

So, as I said above, he was always a shadowy figure, just on the edge of my childhood consciousness. I certainly knew he was there, but we kept out of his way (or he kept out of ours, not sure which).

WNP with grandma and Deedoo

Our dad we called 'dad', our grandfather we called Deedoo (my pet name for him that stuck), but our great grandfather had no pet name. We obviously didn't call him William or great grandfather; so we didn't call him anything that I can remember. As I say, he was a shadowy presence.

No surprise then, that I didn't ever get close to forming a relationship with him. Looking at other photos of him, it is obvious that he did get out - bowls for instance and he was by all accounts a pretty social guy and my dad (and mum) got on well with him. There was never ever any tension associated with our visits, so it's all a bit strange really.

Four generations 

Given the age range of the four generations, it's pretty remarkable that he was even part of my consciousness. BTW I love how I'm fully present on that bottom step with my crooked fringe (thanks mum).

WNP is a guy I never really knew. But...I feel a real bond to him. Apart from sharing the same initials (was that deliberate by my parents?), we look similar (strong Purdy genes and that old Apples thing again) and we share overlapping history.

And I love him dearly for his legacy. Symbolically, as mentioned above, I wear his gold wedding band on my right-hand ring finger. It's no nonsense - plain and beautiful, and comes from a solid north of England, Rochdale origin. It permanently connects me to my ancestral roots. It makes me feel that a little bit of Rochdale is always with me.

That's important to me because Rochdale feels like home in ways that I can't articulate. I had a very very strong sense of belonging when I visited for the first time in 2003.

Along with my other family members, he looks down on me and is with me during the daily grind. He put in a shift, and I aim to make him proud.

Love and peace - WNP

Human teachers must remain central in students’ education and must take responsibility for students’ learning. (NZ Ministry of Education)

Wie geht's?

Artificial Intelligence (AI). I haven't written much about it to date and if I have it has tended to be on Baggy Trousers.

I guess I'm suspicious. I like humans and human interaction. Machines though?  Not so much. 

So, I have not to date engaged willingly with AI. By that, I mean I have not used AI to write anything, mark anything, or make anything.

None of the material on my various blogs has been written by AI. That's the truth, Ruth.

This is my preference, but it is not the preference for many. I respect that. BTW - I was interested at the view of my previous employer - AI was strictly prohibited in any form at school, yet all of the parents' businesses used AI. If we were supposed to be preparing them for life after school, shouldn't we be embracing its use at school?

The Ministry of Education warns me about AI on their web page: 'AI can create content that seems plausible but contains nonsensical or incorrect detail'. It also warns about cultural bias: 

AI models are trained on huge amounts of data from different countries and cultures. This means most AI models are built on dominant cultures and languages. The tools may not accurately reflect indigenous knowledge. From a New Zealand context, they are likely to be weak on Mātauranga and Te Reo Māori, as well as Pacifica languages and Polynesian cultures.

Therefore, by definition, many students at my current school are disadvantaged by AI marking.

And yet the MoE is using AI to mark student work and plans to expand the practice to all Year 11 to 13 internal and external assessments! Whaaaat?

Double standards abound. We don't allow students to use AI in assessments, yet teachers at my school use it to mark, set work and create content. The Ministry of Education uses it to mark their work.

Maybe we should just let the genie out of the bottle (oh wait - it's already out). Let's openly allow students to use AI in their learning, let's educate them to use AI well, and let's do away with the pretense that it isn't happening already. While we're at it, let's get rid of all exams too.

I have digressed into Baggy Trousers territory, slightly.

Back to me:

The term 'AI' refers to computer systems that do tasks which seem like intelligent behaviour, such as finding patterns or categorising.

I am aware that Facebook, Google, Pinterest et al use algorithms to target me, i.e. their data-tracking systems of my internet search history and browsing habits are used to show me similar or related material. They're doing it right now!

I tolerate that because I have no control over it. Willingly, I choose to use all three of those platforms, and Blogger. My choice.

So, bottom line, when all is said and done, at the end of the day, all things considered, in the final analysis - let me restate my position*. Just as I have never smoked or vaped anything, just as I have never been drunk (self-control is the only control I have), I now make a solemn vow to the blogosphere - I will never use AI on my weblogs.

Love and peace - Wozza

* A sentence that Chat GPT would never write.

I'm a daaaay person (Elaine Benes)

Wie geht's?

Spring is coming. To prepare for that seasonal change in September, the three amigos are collaborating on a Spotify playlist (you can find it here).

The basic idea being we are celebrating the arrival of spring. That season is usually associated with increased energy, optimism, happiness, well-being, hope, and a sense of renewal (rebirth). Nice huh. As Laney says, "I'm a daaay person", who happens to like The Sunny Side of the Street. In short Here Comes the Sun!

It's been fun researching the 30 songs that I want to contribute to the playlist. They tend to be happy earworms that I end up singing all day long. Like Bruno Mars' The Lazy Song: all day long I walk around singing Today I don't feel like doing anything.

So, if, like me, you live in this Wonderful World, having a Wonderful Life on a Beautiful Day, you may also want to be further Lifted by songs of Hope and Good Vibrations. 

Love and peace, sunshine and rainbows, and hosts of golden daffodils - Wozza