Be Our Guest entry: Letter, Cyril Smith
Maker
Smith, Cyril Harry
Production date
Nov 2005
Object detail
Brief Description
Letter to the Be Our Guest competition from Cyril Smith about his memories of the 1931 Hawke's Bay earthquake.
Cyril Smith was almost twenty, and working as an apprentice mechanic at the Hawke's Bay Farmers garage in Hastings at the time of the earthquake. He thought it was an ordinary quake, until it started to move up and down rather than side to side as they normally did. He couldn't get out of the garage, so got down on his hands and knees until it stopped. Cyril went home to see if his parents were alright, and then went back to central Hastings to see what he could do. He helped to dig out bodies from the Grand Hotel.
He writes that he will never forget seeing the Roach's building just after it had crashed to the ground like a pack of cards, and hearing the screams of the women trapped inside. His family slept under a tree outside. He says that when one of the aftershocks occurred, the fires started in Hastings. At the garage where they worked, the staff spent the next few days working on emergency vehicles. The Hawke's Bay Farmers Building was not damaged as it was on a floating foundation. Cyril writes that it was a horrifying experience that he will never forget and confesses that 75 years later he is still wary of earthquakes.
Cyril Smith was almost twenty, and working as an apprentice mechanic at the Hawke's Bay Farmers garage in Hastings at the time of the earthquake. He thought it was an ordinary quake, until it started to move up and down rather than side to side as they normally did. He couldn't get out of the garage, so got down on his hands and knees until it stopped. Cyril went home to see if his parents were alright, and then went back to central Hastings to see what he could do. He helped to dig out bodies from the Grand Hotel.
He writes that he will never forget seeing the Roach's building just after it had crashed to the ground like a pack of cards, and hearing the screams of the women trapped inside. His family slept under a tree outside. He says that when one of the aftershocks occurred, the fires started in Hastings. At the garage where they worked, the staff spent the next few days working on emergency vehicles. The Hawke's Bay Farmers Building was not damaged as it was on a floating foundation. Cyril writes that it was a horrifying experience that he will never forget and confesses that 75 years later he is still wary of earthquakes.
Maker
Production date
Nov 2005
Production place
Production period
Production technique
Media/Materials description
Handwritten in black ink on lined paper.
Media/Materials
Measurements
In the Be Our Guest Folder No 2.: Height x Width: 298 x 210mm
Classification terms
Subject person
Subject period
Subject date
03 Feb 1931
Credit line
gifted by Mr Cyril H Smith
Other number(s)
m2006/27/107, 35145
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