Hurricane Tim by Neville Peat

Author:Neville Peat [Neville Peat]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781775531951
Publisher: Penguin Random House New Zealand
Published: 2013-01-15T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter 9

Winging It

1980s

Four sons under five … bighorn sheep rescue … helicopters galore … tax shocks … The Helicopter Line emerges … Mararoa sold … BNZ comes calling sharemarket crash … Ranginui entertainment … incident at Cast-off Point … live trapping … Reid Jackson’s death

FOUR SONS were born to Prue and Tim Wallis in the five years from 1975 to 1980 – Toby, Jonathan, Matthew and Nicholas. Before Toby went to school he had three brothers at home. Toby (September 1975) and Jonathan (November 1976) were born 14 months apart and Matthew came along in January 1979, the month after Prue and Tim moved from Matai Road to Beacon Point Road. Nick was born in June 1980. In their preschool years all four went to the Wanaka Playcentre for a few hours a day, and they all attended Wanaka Primary School.

A kind of Cinderella to Queenstown, Wanaka was not the outdoor adventure centre, year-round playground and tourist resort that it is today Compared to Queenstown, Wanaka had a quiet backwater feel to it in the late 1970s. And for all its physical appeal and potential, the town had little cultural stimulation for a mother of four preschoolers used to the pizazz of London not so long before. But her involvement in the boys’ activities provided new friends and interests for her.

To assist with looking after the boys and the housework, Prue engaged 17-year-old Shirl Flynn, the daughter of a duck-shooting mate of Tim’s, former Southland policeman Jack Flynn. Shirl worked for just on seven years as a nanny and home help, first at Matai Road, where there were two toddlers, and later at the new house at Beacon Point Road, where Matt and Nick joined the family. Shirl loved working with the boys and they loved her, and she would sometimes be in charge of them, with a helper of her own, when Prue joined Tim on a trip.

Tim’s business had grown steadily larger and more complex through the mid to late 1970s. He travelled frequently. Somehow he had to fit fatherhood into his business imperatives, but it wasn’t always an easy fit. Occasionally, Prue and the boys joined him on a trip. The first time all four sons went overseas with their parents was to the United States, where they visited Disneyland and Sea World in California in conjunction with a business visit Tim made to the Telonics firm in Arizona. Notwithstanding the delight he felt at the arrival of each son, Tim pursued his business life and the development of Alpine with vigour, and before he knew it, the babies became toddlers then fair-haired little boys.

Like his father before him, Tim involved the boys in his business life when and where he could. Sometimes he took the older ones with him in his Hughes 500, registered HOT, on net-capture operations. Sometimes one or two boys turned up at a board meeting or they would fly with him in his Cessna 210 to business meetings in other centres and

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