Saturday, December 4, 2010

Saturday, November 20, 2010

1928


Click on the image to be taken to a collection of photgraphs taken in 1928 - mainly while on a school excursion

Sunday, November 14, 2010

Excursion to Matucana and Casapalca

A few days past students along with Dr. Money made a trip to the cities named, [a] colorful and healthy adventure that appealed to the youthful spirit of both: long train rides, getting to know one of most interesting areas of our mountains, climbing hills, horseback riding, adventures with a mad bull, a bull fight, which Dr Money refused to attend, walks in Casapalca and Matucana, and finally, one of the more interesting highlights of our visit, the large mine of the Company Backus and Johnston. Here are two interesting pictures of this excursion.
(Source: Leader (the school magazine) August - September 1931(there was only one photograph) Translation approxiamate. Author may have got his companies mixed up - Backus and Johnston are in the beer business.)

Monday, November 8, 2010

Colegio Anglo - Original Premises (Photos and Map)

(Refer to the post below for a description of the Premises)



Sunday, September 12, 2010

Meeting the President - With Annie Soper

Annie Soper (L)  Rhoda Gould

19 December 1928
Dear Mother
[Extract]
Miss Soper who is on her way back to the jungle is in Lima just now. She has done such good work there that the President wished to see her when she was on her way home. However she had left Lima before this news reached her so sent a message this time to the President to say she was here again. He accorded her an interview and I had the honour of taking her to the Palace to see the august little man Augusto B Leguia. He was very nice to us and showed a sympathetic interest in her work and in our school too. He promised to see that she was not hindered in her work by the priests – though that may not mean much since he owes a lot to the support of the Church. Still he means well towards her, and seemed quite grateful for the work she is doing. Did I ever tell you about here? She went out 6 years ago to Moyobamba leaving Lima and all traces of civilisation behind and pushing out into the wilds with her companion Miss Gould, a fortnight’s mule journey from Cajamarca. It was a tremendous step. But their nursing skills stood by them. A practise grew up. A demand for meetings arose and before long Miss Soper (who was brought up as  Brethren ! – but was kicked out for attending a Baptist Church because there was no assembly in the town where her hospital was) was holding meetings and preaching almost every night. The Free Church then accepted the services of these ladies who previously had been independent and three years ago they sent out Dr [Calvin] Mackay to assist them as physician, surgeon and pastor. Another nurse later joined them and now Miss Soper’s niece is going out to start a school there. It is quite a flourishing work now.

Note: Some of the story of Annie and Rhoda is told in "Dawn Beyond the Andes" by Phyllis Thompson and published by Regions Beyond Missionary Union. Theirs is an unsung pioneering, frontier mission story yet to be fully told.

Monday, August 16, 2010

Excursion to Chosica, July 1928

(L-R) Herbert Money, Boy Scouts Galanza, Moran, and Patino, Isabel Rodrigues


Staff (L-R) Isabel Rodrigues, Miss MacCulloch, Mr Renwick, Herbert Money, Miss More

He had in fact taken a group of Scouts out on an excusrion one week after arriving in Lima. This extract from a letter home the week following the adventure.

30 August 1927
Dear Dad
I had a very good lesson over the weekend. Monday is a fiesta – we only have twenty saints days during the school year and all of them are compulsory. The Scouts – quite an unofficial body which exists in our school for the purpose of making camping excursions to various places round about – wanted badly to go to Choisica – a place about forty five miles inland, up the River Rimac, and as no one here was able to go with them I took them.  It was great being out with a crowd of boys speaking another language but we got on alright. They behaved themselves well, not causing any trouble and I learned a lot of Spanish into the bargain. We set off at six o’clock in the evening on Friday and walked until midnight when we arrived at a little place called Santa Clara – about half way.  Here we camped along the railway line, flanked on either side by extensive sugar cane plantations. They irrigate all this land of course otherwise cultivation would be impossible.

Friday, July 23, 2010

Colegio Anglo Peruano - 1928

1928 was a critical one for the Colegio Anglo Peruano. At the Assembly of the Free Church of Scotland in May of that year the subject of the college was hotly debated. The McNeilage brothers led the faction that wanted it closed but there were others in favour not only of its continuance but also of its expansion. Fortunately the latter elements prevailed. In the meantime it was fast becoming imperative to look for another site. Many avenues were explored and several properties looked at. I accompanied Mr Renwick on one of these searches, which took us beyond the limits of the inner city to the south of the Spanish Arch. From the Avenida 28 de Julio at this point ran the Avenida de la Agriculture more or less parallel to the Avenida Leguia. It was called Agriculture because it led to the School of Agriculture which overlooked a park on Camilo Carrillo. Land in this vicinity was quoted at between nine and eleven soles per square metre but at that time few people could predict this being built upon in the foreseeable future and we were not among those few. The site of the Ministerio de Trabajo and the Ministerio de Salud Public was bare pampa. An ex-teacher of the Colegio Anglo, Dr Elias Ponce Rodriguez, was an exception. He purchased a block on the Avenida Mariatequi a few blocks further south and near Avenida Salaverry, on which he constructed his boarding school which he called ‘Residentia Lima’. It was about ten blocks south of the Spanish Arch on a bare and dusty pampa that more like ‘no mans land’ than anything else. Campo Marte in those days was occupied by the Hipdrome (sic), racecourse, where races were held every Sunday afternoon. It was her ein 1928 that the first mail plane carrying mail touched down one Sunday afternoon bearing mail from New York. I saw the plane land. It had taken four days to make the journey.

Wednesday, July 21, 2010

Pacasmayo

As soon as the news of our engagement reached Cajamarca, Rev and Mrs Calvin Mackay, who were in charge of the Free Church mission there, wrote back inviting us to spend our vacation and celebrate the marriage there which we did. The journey to Cajamarca was quite an adventure in itself, although prior to this it had been still more so. We travelled by sea to Pacasmayo on a coastal boat, which called at every port loading and unloading cargo. First class on the boat was only recognisable by comparison with third class which was much worse. On the deck immediately below our cabins were the stalls of cows and pigs. Nowhere on the ship could we escape that stable smell.  Third class passengers lived in closer proximity still to the animal cargo. Loading and unloading the animals was an interesting experience. A loop of spliced roped was placed under the animals horns and attached to a winch. The signal was then given to hoist and the animal was pulled up head first. It’s eyes would bulge out like a couple of fried eggs and its feet would stick out at right angles in front of it as it is spun giddily above the lighter and was hoisted on board. Three days later we reached Pacasmayo.

Pacasmayo in the ‘good old days’ was quite a primitive place on all counts. The water supply was obtained from a little creek which served every purpose under the sun. The women washed clothes in it, the children bathed and the pigs wallowed in it and at relatively clear spots, water was baled out for household purposes. One look at the source of the water supply was more powerful than a law against intoxicating spirits. A friend of mine, who would not trust the water even when it was boiled, bought a half bottle of beer each night with which to clean his teeth and gargle. Naturally we did not remain in Pacasmayo any longer than was strictly necessary. Next day we took the train up the Jequetepequi Valley to the railway terminus at Chilete. The hotel there was even more primitive than that at Pacasmayo. On our return journey, our bedroom, which opened out onto the street could only be closed properly by propping a broken chair against it. A drunk tried to force his way in during the night but was unable to dislodge the chair.

Sunday, February 7, 2010

A Courting We Will Go

There were three ladies teaching in the Colegio. They were Miss Mary Hitchenson of Cambridge, Flora MacLullich of Argyleshire, who is now Mrs Thomas Graham of Dublin, and Netta Kemp of Black Isle, Ross-shire, who was shortly to become my wife. She arrived in Peru in 1920, being the first teacher to join Dr John A. Mackay, after the founding of the Colegio Anglo Peruano. By the time of my arrival she had just returned for her second period of service, having preceded me by exactly a month. She already had a good command of Spanish, which she spoke like a native and was an exceedingly good teacher, besides being popular among both pupils and staff. In these circumstances it was not altogether surprising that by October the second do the same year we were engaged. On January 11th we were married in Cajamarca by Rev J Calvin Mackay.

Our courtship, though brief, was not entirely free from adventure. One evening we sent for a walk in Miraflores along the marine parade, which skirts the shore at the top of the cliffs, some 100feet above the sea. A gully leads from the ’Melecon’ to the bathing sheds along which passes a road flanked with trees. We were looking for a nice quiet place in which to sit and talk, when we came to this gully which struck us ideal for our purpose, since there were seats under some of the trees. We therefore selected a nice shady tree and were really enjoying the beauty and solitude of our retreat. Above, on the Malecon, a policeman was walking his beat. Hearing the murmur of voices belo win the gully , he set out to investigate. Suddenly we became conscious of someone stalking us. We could hear the crunching of the dead leaves under stealthy feet and, looking in the direction we could see the figure of the guardian of the law as he slipped from the shade of one tree to the other with his revolver at the ready. We waited in silence until he reached our tree. Then, placing himself before us and keeping us covered with his gun he spoke. “Que hace Ud. Por aqui, Senor calallero?” he asked. I was only making my first steps in Spanish at the time, so left the talking to Miss Kemp.
‘As you can see’ she replied, ‘we are sitting on a seat’.
‘I can see that.’ He said. ‘But don’t you know this is a very dangerous place for a senorita to be at night?’ Miss Kemp promptly replied that she thought it was an ideal place.
‘No’ said the policeman, ‘this is a terrible place, anything could happen here.’
‘What sort of things’ she asked.
‘Things I could not tell a senorita,’ he replied.
‘Well, just tell me,’ was her rejoinder.
The policeman had met his match. He had intended getting possession of my identity papers, which I would only be able to retrieve upon conditions highly unfavourable to me. But since I had not yet taken out my identity papers, but did not wish to admit this, my lady friend stalled him off again. Finally, finding that his ploy was not going to work, he made a compromise. We must vacate this shady nook and look elsewhere for a seat, which we promptly did.  Neither of us repented our conduct that evening and indeed we both came to the conclusion that looking down the barrel of a gun together wasn’t as bad as some people might think.

Sunday, January 31, 2010

Colegio Anglo - The Original Premises

The building of the Colegio Anglo was a rambling old colonial residence, converted into classrooms. A heavily timbered doorway opened onto a large patio on to which the classrooms opened. It was a two storied edifice, with a balcony around the patio on the second story. The primary department occupied the ground floor and the ‘medi’ or the high school section the upper floor. A wide stairway led from the street entrance to the second floor. The offices of the Director and secretary overlooked the Plaza. A small back staircase led from the high school department to a little back yard, which was designated ‘el estadio’ or stadium. This was the high school playground. The primary department used the large patio. Halfway up the small winding staircase was a broom cupboard, known as the ‘calabozo’, in which particularly bad boys were locked up. There was a hole in the door where a knot had been knocked out. It was about eye height. One could tell whether or not the calabozo was occupied or not by the gleam of the recreants eye. The whole building reeked of petroleum, which the caretaker liberally applied to the floors to keep down the fleas. I was soon to learn how necessary this precaution was. After a brief inspection of the premises I was convinced that there was a vast difference between schools in Peru and schools in New Zealand. I had yet to learn that it is not the building that makes the school but the teachers.