(Founder of Pain and Kershaw)
Part 2 Edited by Ineke Kershaw
I put in a year altogether with Mr Smith at Wainuioru(e) and then left him and found employment with his brother Wally Smith to whom I had applied earlier. I put in a year with him also, shepherding, or perhaps I should say minding sheep on the Wharekaka Plain.
Here began another chapter of my life and it may be a good place to speak about my mother. She was a sweet, simple woman whose kindly nature looked out from a pair of childlike eyes. I loved her dearly, she was a woman of transparent character and although she has been dead many years, her memory is with me as a living power and I often feel her presence.
I always treasured in my heart her advice when I left home, she said “now George, you are very keen and one day you may be a rich man and I want you to promise me one thing. No matter what happens or whatever money you make, make it honourably. If it comes to the question of losing your money or doing a dishonourable thing to save it, let the money go, then if you live to be a wealthy man, you will be respected by high and low.
If you make it dishonourably, you will have the disrespect of all worthy people”. This advice I have endeavoured to follow and I have made it the foundation stone of whatever success I have built. She and I were like two chums; when I went to Wellington, I used to discuss my business and plans with her and if there was at any time any little thing we could not agree upon, she used to say in her inimitable way: “ Well George, you’re a man and I’m a woman and perhaps you know best.”
When I had been on the Wharekaka Plains a year, I began to chafe at the slowness of life and like all young fellows I was looking forward to getting a wife. I felt if I were to make money faster, I must try somewhere else. While on the station I had saved about £100 as I had done a little buying and selling houses. With my tiny capital I went to Wellington and laid out the money in men’s clothes and started around the coast selling them.
I did not care for the life very much and just about this time the Thames gold diggings broke out. Leaving my horses and saddles behind me on the station, I duly arrived at Thames where I was to make my fortune more rapidly. Within 3 months I had not only lost my carefully saved £100 but I found myself £100 to the bad. I had to work my passage back to Wellington on a steamer.
From Wellington I made my way back to the “Windrop” and had a look around. Seeing some of my chums, I told them the whole story of my bad luck and they said “Look here George, you go down to Wellington and get a pack of men’s clothes. Its nearing Christmas and we shall all want new clothes and we’ll buy them off you.”
