By Rhonda Bartle

'Biggles' in the Westgate Watchhouse

You'd think a bloke called "Biggles" would be interested in planes not ships, but Robin Maindonald of Westgate knows enough about Port Taranaki to put its entire history on CD.

The story of Port Taranaki is the story of people and the sea.  Maindonald, Communication and Security Officer at Westgate, is pretty keen on both. 

A popular Westgate employee, he's a gun at multi-tasking. A visitor to the watchhouse might get to see him do a heap of things at once.

Liasing ship to shore, co-ordinating staff, putting people in touch with people, all the while keeping a close eye on the security cameras that scan the port complex.

And a flick through his computer files might unlock a few surprises, like the unexpected mark of a perceptive and witty cartoonist. Everyone Maindonald works with has been caricatured at some time.

And then there's his skill as a smoko cook. Chances are, upstairs in the kitchen, he might even have scones in the oven.

The CD Story

But it's his CD of port history that has earned him a claim to fame.

 "It was just a project that I set myself," he says. "The history of Westgate on the Westgate Website was one page, only four or five paragraphs long.

"I wanted to collect the information, put it together on CD, and prove to myself I could do it. I thought, with the power of computers and this age of technology, I would try to keep up and achieve something."

Prior experience with web-page construction and photography helped, and after gathering data over several years, a Port Taranaki anniversary kicked the CD project off. 

Celebrating the port

It began in 2000, when Maindonald found himself one of the main organisers of a social function celebrating 125 years of the port.
 
"Perhaps I planted the seed,' he says quietly, before adding in different voice; "I got right into it!

"The barque Endeavour (the replica of Captain James Cook's ship) arrived in July and then there was The Big Day Out, a port open day, a month or so later."

He realised he had a personal agenda when one of his sons, diagnosed with dyslexia, needed to research port history for a school assignment. 

Though two good books exist, Harbour at the Sugar Loaves and Port Taranaki - 115 years of Years of Elected Control, both by A.B.Scanlan, his son was reluctant to read them.

"I said, 'You should read this book,' and he said 'Yeah, right.' He could read all right but it prompted me to do some research on dyslexia and I thought an electronic book would work."

His up-dated version of harbour days became a labour of love that resulted in A Brief History of Port Taranaki in electronic format.

The view from Biggle's window

All quiet in the watchhouse

Robin Maindonald is 48, with a background in the army.  Despite sitting the naval entrance exam as a young man - and passing it - he decided to go into the army as a member of the transport division. 

"I don't know why I joined the army, instead," he says.  "It might have been because my father and uncles were ex-army and no one was in the navy, aside from an uncle by marriage, so, I didn't pursue a career as navy cook."

He left the army in 1978 to begin a career with Shell BP & Todd Oil Services (now Shell Todd Oil Services) as production technician. 

There he stayed for 17 years until he joined the Westgate Security department.

It was a good job to have, he says, especially once he started getting into port history and putting the information together. 

Back in 1995, security at the port was less demanding and quiet moments in the watchhouse, with a computer in front of him, made it easy to take notes from Scanlan's books. 

"On a nightshift or evening shift when it was pretty quiet and everyone had gone home and my partner was out patrolling, I started typing them up," he says.

After five years of collating material and three months of putting it together on CD, the newest version of port history was born.

Old details in a new format

For the most part, Maindonald is pleased with what he's done.

The CD can be viewed two ways - as a PowerPoint Slide Show or a PowerPoint Presentation.

A main index page means viewers can click through easily to find exactly what they want.

"I could have made it longer," he says, "but I thought I'd give the basic insight into how the port was established."

Along with historical details, the CD takes sidesteps into smaller, lesser known stories, like the flags that were flown from Mt Elliot to signal which ships had docked and the man who built an exact miniature replica of a working dredge.

It holds photos of the prime movers and shakers - past and present - and early settler ship passenger lists. 

There's a section on Frederick Carrington, the "father of New Plymouth" and one on wharf construction. 

Black and white photos reveal the quarries at the base of Paritutu rock.

It tracks Colin's Cat, the harbour's famous feline, on her unexpected trip aboard a tanker bound for Korea. 

MainDonald was the man who gave her a website of her own.

And there's the large cache of information on the petrochemical industry, beginning with Maui A.

Fascinating Ancient History

The CD also tells of how the harbour passed from harbour board control to become the hugely successful Westgate of today, with its viable container industry.

"Dennis Hibbert, my shift partner was a great help with his vast knowledge," Maindonald says. 

"He's almost an encyclopaedia of shipping.  I remember when I wanted to find out what happened to a particular dredge and he could tell me. He even found me a photo."

Ask Maindonald which slice of history appealed the most and his answers spill out:

"Dicky Barrett. He was a character.  When they decided to put the port where it is - it was going to be out Waitara way or towards the Huatoki Stream - until someone said why not put it where the whaling boats go, by Dicky Barrett's whaling station. So that's why it's where it is today."

Personal history, too

As it turns out, Maindonald can claim a connection to the whaler.  "I have Te Atiawa blood on my mother's side and Dicky Barrett has a lot to do with that. 

"I go back to Marsh, who was one of his original crew, and who helped fight in Otaka Pā. 

"There was a woman in the battles and she had a cloak and she threw it over this little, skinny, shrivelled-up Pommy joker, and when the cloak went over him, it told the warriors he was protected and not to touch him. I come from there."

Though research took him well down this very ancient track, he chose not to include it in his book. 

"I decided not to go there. That's too much history," he laughs.

Amazingly, his research took him across another ancestral path.

"When I went through the crew list for the first ship, William Bryan, there was a man by the name of John Pepperell, who is an ancestor of mine, also on my mother's side. 

"Her father's name was Lew Pepperell, and his father was John Junior. My ancestor came out as John Pepperell."

Real men and skeletons

At least three other men, who weren't related, sparked a special interest.  One was C.A. Hood, an early harbour master, who turned out to be a bit of a skeleton in a closet.
 
"I couldn't find a photo of him," Maindonald says. "When I went through the past harbour masters, there was a period of time missing.

"I couldn't find any information. I approached Ray Barlow, who is the current harbour master because I thought they might not have had one for that time.

"Ray said they did, so I did a bit more research. Hood was put in charge of the ferry service and the story is that he took the funds, hid them and shot through.

"There was no actual proof, but because they believed that at the time he was abolished and there was no further mention of him. He was just erased."

Puke Ariki Help

Finally, Ron Lambert, a Puke Ariki researcher, found a photo.  "Ron was so patient and of immense help to me."
 
But being part of the Freemasonry brotherhood, as Hood was, still makes Maindonald wonder if Hood was actually guilty of the crime.

Strict rules means anyone with a criminal bent is unlikely to be accepted as a Freemason. 

"I've ended up with an open mind on it," he says.

Then there's Levi Sarten and "the menace of the sand".

"He's interesting, too. I reckon if you look at his picture, you'd think he had Māori blood, but he had none at all. 

"He called a spade a spade and he led a one man campaign to rid the port of sand."

Maindonald developed a liking for the earliest New Plymouth medic, Dr Weekes. 

"It was a rough voyage out here. What he did on board to help the mothers…well, when they got here, they didn't want to leave the ship. 

"So he thought about human nature being what it is and said, 'We'll get them off the ship.  Take the children first and the mothers will follow…'"

Biggles: A little busier these days

All's well at Westgate

As union delegate for the Maritime Transport Union, a story of the early surf boat company amused him, too. 

"The year was 1884 and the story reads, 'The board would purchase from the lighter company one of their surfboats and such articles of plant as to establish a landing service at the breakwater. Certain lightermen would be engaged and they were to work on other jobs as required." 

Maindonald grins. "It's still like that today, with people who come in as tradesmen, who go on to do relief work on the tugs. 

"And the Harbour Board actually bought the lighter company and employed some of their staff. Some things never change."

It's fair to say that Maindonald seriously enjoys his job - in ten years he's not once woken up moaning that he has to go to work. 

He finds his duties interesting, with no two days the same, and post 9/11 and the New York terrorist attacks, security has been tightened which keeps the pressure on.

Though the port has been through many changes he believes port industry is alive and well and continues to make progress.

Westgate is soon to be rebranded from Westgate Transport to Port Taranaki - The West Gate, which will give it a regional stamp.  

Maindonald expects one day to have to update his Brief History of Port Taranaki, but it can wait awhile. 

These days he's a little busier at work, and at home he's working on See - Food Guru, an electronic recipe book of iconic New Zealand dishes.