Christchurch family’s farm legacy draws to a close

It is the end of an era for the Shields family, who have lived on a Christchurch tomato farm for more than 100 years.

Ted Shields, 90, and his wife Dawn, 87, are selling their property in Heathcote Valley, leaving behind the rural lifestyle for a retirement village.

Ted said the decision to leave the place he has called home for most of his life was very difficult.

With Dawn a few years younger, he did not want to leave her with the task of maintaining the property after he is gone.

“I’m very much attached to this property, but in the interest of what’s going to happen over the next few years, we thought we should move on,” he said.

Ted’s father, Cecil ‘Cis’ Shields bought the 6-acre (2.4ha) block of land in 1922, after serving as a machine gunner in Egypt during World War 1.

The property initially comprised of 500 fruit trees and 24,000 outdoor tomato plants.

Following World War 2, an influx of residents into the Heathcote Valley drove the demand for fresh produce. The work involved intense manual labour – and even then, the success of a crop often relied on luck with the climate.

The property has been subdivided over the years, with Ted now owning a 0.8ha block.

Ted grew up on the farm with his father, his mother Thelma and sister Brenda.

He recalled roaming the hills, shooting rabbits and building huts as a kid.

Back then, Port Hills Rd seldom had any traffic, so he and his friends from Heathcote Valley School would attach sails to their carts built from wooden apple cases and pram wheels and ride them down the road.

The sound of silence filled the valley, interrupted only by the St Mark’s Church bells in Opawa on Sundays and chains rattling as the horses further up the valley turned to plough in the opposite direction.

Ted has spent all of his life on the farm, apart from two years boarding at Waitaki Boys’ High School, and another two living just around the corner.

He recalled receiving 127 strokes at Waitaki Boys’ for “typical schoolboy stuff”.

He remembered the number because the schoolboys used to carve a small v-shaped notch in their leather belt for every stroke they received.

“I held the record for many years,” he said.

After leaving school, Ted worked at home before doing a carpentry apprenticeship.

At 21, he started his own company, building residential properties in Christchurch and North Canterbury.

He and Dawn got married when he was 24 and built a house on Port Hills Rd.

They lived there for two years before moving back onto the family farm, building a house of their own on the property – and have not left it since.

Ted went into semi-retirement at 60 and grew tomatoes commercially, until the fruit started being imported from Australia.

“This valley was full of tomato plants and orchards, but when they started bringing them in from Aussie, it killed the whole valley,” he said.

The property is no longer farmed commercially.

The family legacy living on through Ted and Dawn’s children was not something that was ever considered, with all three moving away from Christchurch.

“This is the way life goes, your kids take a different career and that’s it,” Ted said.

He is going to miss the day-to-day maintenance of the property and is unsure as to how he will fill the time.

“We’ll find something,” he said.

The property is going on the market on Tuesday and has a rateable value of $1.45 million.