By Rhonda Bartle

Sitting across the table from John Honeyfield, I think he must wear the same kind of twinkle in his eye that Dicky Barrett did. John is a direct descendant of the Barrett family - his great-great-grandmother Caroline, was Dicky Barrett's daughter.

John Honeyfield at Barrett's grave

It's interesting to meet John Honeyfield. We have a few things in common. My great-great-great-grandfather, George Ashdown, sailed with Dicky Barrett on the schooner Adventure and fought beside him at Ngamotu.  He, too, took a Maori wife, so John and I share the same iwi connections.

When I ask if he is anything like Dicky Barrett, he smiles. 'When I first left school I had a strong ambition to go to sea!'

At sixteen, not much older than the legendary Barrett when he embarked on his first voyage, John sailed as Deck Cadet on the Shaw Savill Line, but gave it up after an 'unfortunate year.'

'On my first trip back from England I had appendicitis. And then sailing across the Tasman next time, I had an infection in the throat and had to be hospitalised in Melbourne.'

Could there be a connection between Barrett's whaling and John's wish to sail on sea-faring vessels? 'Who knows... maybe...?

 'Some of my uncles loved wheeling and dealing.  Buying and selling things. They were farmers but they really enjoyed going off to the sales. That could come from the trading side of things.' 

The Honeyfields are a big bunch, and John has always been interested in his famous forebear. Contrary to popular belief, he believes the whaler was well educated for his time. 'He could read and had a fine hand of writing. I've always understood he wrote his own will.'

Does he believe the story that Barrett had two illegitimate sons, supposedly born at the same time?  'I have no knowledge of that. That story was never told to us as children.'  Somehow, he doubts it. Barrett appeared to have been such a family-oriented man. 'He brought up Love's children after he died.'  Love was Captain of the Adventure and Barrett's best friend.

John says not many family stories exist because Barrett was already dead when the Honeyfield brothers married the Barrett sisters, Caroline and Sarah.  'Dicky died six years before the Honeyfields even arrived in New Plymouth, something people can forget.'

He is still asked occasionally, to go down to Moturoa's Waitapu urupa to identify the unmarked graves. Only Barrett's and one other Pakeha grave are marked, though records show at least 70 people are buried there.  'Mostly Europeans and some Maori, though it's hard to know.  Maori didn't keep records.'

He says he was always told Barrett died from pneumonia, resulting from injuries after his encounter with a whale.  'It makes sense. The story is he fell into the boat. Perhaps he cracked his ribs.'

He grins broadly.  'Although it could have been from that infernal pipe he smoked.' 

It's exactly the kind of joke that Barrett might have made himself. Perhaps some of Barrett's traits did come down the line.