An inbetweener: About process...
A slightly different post this week. I thought I'd write about the process as opposed to the product. How I go about gathering the raw material for this blog.
More often than not it feels like a duck swimming - all calm and serene on the surface, paddling furiously below. So I am just one step ahead. I try to post something each week but the amount of time I (don't) have to work on this, plus the nature of the research required, means I am often lagging behind. This week I wanted to publish the first of several posts on Charteris Bay but I simply need more time to unravel the puzzles around its jetties. So I'm stalling...
This whole project is bigger than just the jetties. I could find out details about them, get some old photos and that's it. I like jetties as structures. They form a punctuation mark at the intersection of land and sea - a connector or a hinge. But my real interest is in the lives of the people who relied on these jetties to survive. So the complexity compounds.
I started with Governors Bay, Allandale and Teddington because I already knew something of the area from my research for Head of the Harbour. Then I moved into less familiar territory - Little Port Cooper, Camp Bay, Purau, Diamond Harbour, Church Bay. Eventually I will move around the whole harbour (minus Lyttelton which is a completely other enterprise). As I move on to Charteris Bay, first ports of call are Mary Stapylton-Smith's From Adderley to Bradley and Gordon Ogilvie's Place Names of Banks Peninsula. Also indispensable have been Oliver Hunter's The Magnostic Philosopher of Church Bay (complied by Mary Stapylton-Smith) and A Sort of Diary by Orton Bradley. All of these I had read before but not from the perspective of the work I am currently doing.
Next port of call is Archives New Zealand. I search their Archway database from home and order up any files that appear to be relevant. Then I go out to Hornby (lovely new building but not as handy as the old central city site) to work with those files. Some can be hefty and involve a lot of wading through for small but precious finds. I use my camera a lot in this process.
The Lyttelton Harbour Board files are held by Archives NZ/ECan. The have been digitised and can be searched online. It's a time-consuming process but this archive has been the source of the early jetty plans that appear periodically through the blog. Coming across another one of these is always exciting. The plans themselves are just lovely to look at and, of course, they are vital pieces in the jetty jigsaw.
Other online searches include Christchurch City Libraries, City Art Gallery, Alexander Turnbull Library, Hocken Library... I long for the day when the Lyttelton Museum is up and running and its images are all digitised and publicly available.
Papers Past is a glorious, time-wasting resource, full of treasures.
The image archive at Canterbury Museum is another visit. I express an interest in a certain topic and book in for one of the monthly public research days when there will be files waiting for me to view. I can order images I want and they will be sent through to me digitally. Because I am writing a blog the images are free of charge. If they are to be reproduced in a commercial publication I would have to pay for each image. That is the case with all public institutions. Is there a book at the end of this? I would like to think there might be...
The Diamond Harbour Historical Association files, held at the Community Centre, require special access and I am very grateful to Frances for giving up time to enable that.
In the heat and excitement of the moment I don't always file and label photos efficiently and that can cause much frustrating and unnecessary work further down the track. Everything needs to be carefully documented. Sigh. I'm not sufficiently meticulous.
Then there are 'site' visits. My partner Russ and I walked into Little Port Cooper from Camp Bay in order to get a sense of sense of the place where once there was a community of signalmen and their families serviced by a surprisingly long jetty, the only evidence of which are a few pile stumps on the foreshore. More recently we walked the Charteris Bay foreshore to document past and present jetties. A trip to Quail Island is pending.
Perhaps my most important source of information is people. Once local residents (or ex local residents) become aware of my interest, all sorts of great material comes out of the family archives. Recently Mary Harrison has given me access to the extensive Oliver Hunter archive. I have had such wonderful help from those whose lives have been shaped by the southern bays of Lyttelton Harbour. And made lovely new friends in the process.
Then I have to put all this together in some comprehensible form. That is a messy and slow process. And I am constantly aware of what might be but is NOT included. Transferring writing/images to the online medium has its own challenges but I do enjoy shaping a post, choosing and placing images to complement text.
Making what I am doing public via the blog keeps me at it. It provides a sort of self-imposed deadline (which I can break conveniently at any time!). The other things that drive me are sheer curiosity and delight. I love the harbour and learning more about it enriches my experience of being here. I look at where I live a little differently and love it more as a result.
More often than not it feels like a duck swimming - all calm and serene on the surface, paddling furiously below. So I am just one step ahead. I try to post something each week but the amount of time I (don't) have to work on this, plus the nature of the research required, means I am often lagging behind. This week I wanted to publish the first of several posts on Charteris Bay but I simply need more time to unravel the puzzles around its jetties. So I'm stalling...
 | ||
| Work-in-progress on Charteris Bay - which jetty was this?? Jessie Holloborn, Early Morning Charteris Bay, Lyttelton Harbour |
I started with Governors Bay, Allandale and Teddington because I already knew something of the area from my research for Head of the Harbour. Then I moved into less familiar territory - Little Port Cooper, Camp Bay, Purau, Diamond Harbour, Church Bay. Eventually I will move around the whole harbour (minus Lyttelton which is a completely other enterprise). As I move on to Charteris Bay, first ports of call are Mary Stapylton-Smith's From Adderley to Bradley and Gordon Ogilvie's Place Names of Banks Peninsula. Also indispensable have been Oliver Hunter's The Magnostic Philosopher of Church Bay (complied by Mary Stapylton-Smith) and A Sort of Diary by Orton Bradley. All of these I had read before but not from the perspective of the work I am currently doing.
Next port of call is Archives New Zealand. I search their Archway database from home and order up any files that appear to be relevant. Then I go out to Hornby (lovely new building but not as handy as the old central city site) to work with those files. Some can be hefty and involve a lot of wading through for small but precious finds. I use my camera a lot in this process.
The Lyttelton Harbour Board files are held by Archives NZ/ECan. The have been digitised and can be searched online. It's a time-consuming process but this archive has been the source of the early jetty plans that appear periodically through the blog. Coming across another one of these is always exciting. The plans themselves are just lovely to look at and, of course, they are vital pieces in the jetty jigsaw.
 |
| Example of material from Archives NZ/ECan |
Other online searches include Christchurch City Libraries, City Art Gallery, Alexander Turnbull Library, Hocken Library... I long for the day when the Lyttelton Museum is up and running and its images are all digitised and publicly available.
Papers Past is a glorious, time-wasting resource, full of treasures.
The image archive at Canterbury Museum is another visit. I express an interest in a certain topic and book in for one of the monthly public research days when there will be files waiting for me to view. I can order images I want and they will be sent through to me digitally. Because I am writing a blog the images are free of charge. If they are to be reproduced in a commercial publication I would have to pay for each image. That is the case with all public institutions. Is there a book at the end of this? I would like to think there might be...
 |
| An early photo of Charteris Bay from Canterbury Museum |
The Diamond Harbour Historical Association files, held at the Community Centre, require special access and I am very grateful to Frances for giving up time to enable that.
In the heat and excitement of the moment I don't always file and label photos efficiently and that can cause much frustrating and unnecessary work further down the track. Everything needs to be carefully documented. Sigh. I'm not sufficiently meticulous.
Then there are 'site' visits. My partner Russ and I walked into Little Port Cooper from Camp Bay in order to get a sense of sense of the place where once there was a community of signalmen and their families serviced by a surprisingly long jetty, the only evidence of which are a few pile stumps on the foreshore. More recently we walked the Charteris Bay foreshore to document past and present jetties. A trip to Quail Island is pending.
 |
| Exploring the foreshore at Charteris Bay, January 2019 |
Perhaps my most important source of information is people. Once local residents (or ex local residents) become aware of my interest, all sorts of great material comes out of the family archives. Recently Mary Harrison has given me access to the extensive Oliver Hunter archive. I have had such wonderful help from those whose lives have been shaped by the southern bays of Lyttelton Harbour. And made lovely new friends in the process.
 |
| Oliver Hunter as a young man (Hunter archive) |
Then I have to put all this together in some comprehensible form. That is a messy and slow process. And I am constantly aware of what might be but is NOT included. Transferring writing/images to the online medium has its own challenges but I do enjoy shaping a post, choosing and placing images to complement text.
Making what I am doing public via the blog keeps me at it. It provides a sort of self-imposed deadline (which I can break conveniently at any time!). The other things that drive me are sheer curiosity and delight. I love the harbour and learning more about it enriches my experience of being here. I look at where I live a little differently and love it more as a result.
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