1950s Images
This morning we put ourselves in the shoes of passengers preparing for a train trip on Christmas Eve 1953 from Wellington to Auckland. We each created a character description in our minds of a passenger that might have been on the train. We decided on who our passenger was, their name, how old they were, whether they were male or female, who they were travelling to see, what things they could have had in their suitcase, and a thought that may have been going through their head as they boarded the train with their suitcase. There was a lot of attention to detail. We used a number of picture cards to get us started that included some Christmas Card designs of 1953, some photos of New Zealand families on summer holidays, an image of a box brownie camera, photos of a 1953 children’s Christmas party, a1953 advertisement for a watchmaker advertising watches as the perfect Christmas present, and pictures of men and women’s fashion. Names of popular books, board games, record titles etc were researched and described in detail as part of the luggage. Some of us wrote letters and Christmas cards that their passenger was also carrying in their suitcase. We will publish this work as images of suitcases with the items drawn on next week.
Here are some of the thoughts of the passengers that were created:
“I can’t wait to meet the new baby in the family. Bob and Holly will be excited to meet their new baby cousin”
Oscar
“I am so excited. I can’t wait to get back home from work”
Olivia
“I can’t wait to see the look on my mother’s face when she sees my new baby Rosemary”
Emma
“I can’t wait to see the look on their faces when I’m home! I just miss them heaps. I’m looking forward to the trip as much as they will like the toys I got them”
Ben
“I can’t wait to see Nana again”
Rose
“I can’t wait to introduce my mum and dad to my new son in Auckland. Wow, it’s been a whole year”
Louis
“Do I have to move away from my friends? At Christmas too. That Chirstmas party Nick planned was going to be so fun”
Kieran.
“I can’t wait to see my new grandson. I hope he likes my bear. And I hope that John hasn’t been on the sweets again, I don’t understand why he eats so many sweets…. and he better have been looking after Ellie and Rosa.”
Jared.
“I wonder what my new baby cousin Mia looks like. I can’t wait”.
Hannah.
“I can’t wait to show them the new jewellery I’ve got for Christmas. And I wonder how they will react when they see their presents?”
David.
“I can’t wait until I get to meet my sister and my nieces. I wonder what they’ll look like? I haven’t seen them in about a whole year. I really hope they enjoy the Christmas presents I bought. We are going to have so much fun tomorrow!”
Zara.
We shared with each other the items we had chosen to pack in our passenger’s suitcase and read aloud the thought to see if we could guess the details of each passenger for example their gender and age.
RESEARCHING
Next we had a very focussed research session in the library. We all worked together to research the Tangiwai Disaster using websites, books, atlases, newspaper articles, sound clips and even some video footage. We collated all the information we found on to a central whiteboard. Everyone worked together to confirm or correct each other’s information and to build on what each other had found. The collective research effort was fantastic!
Research Team at Work
ANALYSING A POEM
On the Train to Tangiwai
By Jillian Sullivan
All night the river wept,
Moving in its dream world state,
All night, the train approached the bridge
While Lillian slept.
As she woke she shifted in her space,
She thought of Christmas, turned,
And caught her smile in the glass –
The last time she would see her face.
For all night long, the mountain stirred,
The crater broke,
And mud swept down – a lahar bound
For Tangiwai.
Lillian thinks of family, gifts,
Of how the tree will look, what they will eat,
But water takes the bridge, and only one man sees
Too late the treacherous rift.
And there, as Lillian dozes, sleeps again,
Fury explodes in water, bridge, rock, train –
The detonating of so many dreams,
The hopeless collision of nature and machine…
The river slides by now, as ever,
The mountain broods, another song to sing,
And on my finger, I wear
Lillian’s ring.
Next we read this poem about the Tangiwai Disaster that Olivia had brought in to share. It was great timing following our research session and we were able to understand the detail of the poem. We recognised the reference to ‘weeping waters’, the meaning of Tanigwai, in the first line of the poem. We knew the mountain that stirred was Mt Ruapehu and the ash wall of the crater breaking away. We recognised Lillian’s thoughts as similar to the thoughts of our own passenger character descriptions we had written earlier. We wondered if the one man who saw ‘too late the treachorous rift’ was Cyril Ellis or Charlie Parker, the driver of the train. We thought the line ‘the hopeless collision of nature and machine’ was a particularly powerful line to describe the natural disaster of the Lahar washing the train (the machine) away. The last line of the poem made us think of all the people involved in the tragedy, not just the victims but the families and descendents of the victims.
A LETTER TO CYRIL ELLIS
In the afternoon we thought about who we might approach, as New Zealand Documentary Designers, to get some more first hand accounts of the Tangiwai Disaster. From our research Cyril Ellis had been highlighted as a hero of the event and it was decided that we write to him to request an interview. This is the shared letter that was written:
Dear Mr Ellis,
We are New Zealand documentary design experts who are currently creating a documentary about the Tangiwai disaster. We feel that your role in this tragic event was very important to the country. We think you are a fantastic New Zealand hero so we would like to interview you about your life saving actions and what is was like to experience the disaster first hand. We would really appreciate it if you could send us a response.
Warm regards,
The Principle Research Team at New Zealand Documentary Designs.
Hopefully next week we will get to ‘meet’ Cyril Ellis (a teacher in role) and interview him to get some more information for our documentary.
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