Emanuel Christopher Londrigan (1892 - 1966)

To my knowledge he never used his first name, everyone called him Chris. All mail & documents were all addressed to me as E.C Londrigan.

On return from the great war 1914-1918, together with his younger brother Len, they went with the main body in the Canterbury Mounted Rifle Brigade.

He purchased a farm, 112 acres, from Joe Smith who moved to the farm next door a half mile across the hill. There was a 3-bedroom 2-story house on the property which had a wooden slate tile roof, 2 bedrooms downstairs & 1 very large room upstairs.

There was a large kitchen with a coal range & a living room which became home for chooks, outside walls on 2 sides were altered & chicken wire replaced the boards. The chooks were let out during the day & those that didn't lay egs were destined for the cooking pot!

There was an abundance of fruit trees around the old house. They all seemed to be prolific fruits: Black Doris Plum, 2 Cherry Trees, 1 Greengage, 3 Pear Trees including Boncretian, 3 Peach & my mother planted Black Currant & Red Currant Vines which were productive. Together with raspberries & a couple of Gooseberry Bushes there were also 4 Apple Trees.

All over the valley were the remnants left from the saw milling in earlier years (i.e) huge tree stumps left in the ground, mainly Totara. My father Chris used Jelicnite sticks, using a long Auger bit, drilling holes deep into the stumps & placing charges into these holes to break them up before jacking them out of the ground & sawing into blocks of fire wood.

A little anecdote to this: When we moved to Christchurch, we took 5 or 6-cord of blocks with us for firewood & stored it temporarily at Wilding Park. My father & uncle Joe Manhire who was caretaker at the park, noticed the logs & drilled holes in them, packing a small amount of gun powder in. I can recall my mother & Aunty Dulcie couldn't make out why for the next few nights Dad & Joe spent so much time out in the park. The gun powder was only a sufficient amount to cause a very minor explosion. Well they were rewarded one night, there was a loud bang! And I recall Dad & Joe coming inside grinning from ear to ear. No more logs dissapeared after that! How do you know ? Leave a memory.