We all like a good beer, especially on a hot summer's day. But have you ever heard the story about how beer - or rather too much of it - led to a New Zealand Prime Minister?
The election of 1893 was hotly contested and in particular in the Waimata electorate, where Richard Monk won.
But there were swiftly allegations of bribery. In particular that one polling place - Tuapaki - was offering beers to voters and the allegations said the beer was in return for votes and that at one hotel - the Falls Hotel in Henderson - people were shouted beers and told to vote by Ernest, the son of Richard Monk.
It led to an inquiry in the Supreme Court in which one witness said there was ‘oceans’ of beer.
A lot of the talk was about who had done what, were the votes actually bought if the beer could be considered refreshments?
There were similar allegations about money being offered although it was unclear whether that was for the beer or for the votes.
It caused quite the fuss. Even if it could be considered innocent it looked bad and newspapers of the day covered the inquiry in great detail.
In the end the election result was overturned and a by-election ordered.
William Ferguson Massey had lost the election in Franklin in the same election. But he was asked to stand again for the byelection.
He stood and won - and the man who would be one of our greatest prime minister entered Parliament.
Massey had been born in Ireland on March 26, 1856 to John and his wife Mary Anne.
His family came to New Zealand in 1863 although Massey stayed behind to finish schooling and came out in 1870.
The family were farmers and Massey worked on farms before leasing his own 100 acre property.
He married the daughter of a neighbouring farmer, Christina Allen Paul in 1882.
His original wooden farm house burnt down and he bought another home in what would become Massey Road in Mangere.
In his first term in Parliament Massey was in opposition to the Liberal government of the day but he was a conscientious worker.
In 1909 he announced the creation of the Reform Party which in 1911 won more seats than the Liberal Party but did not hold outright power. The Liberals held power for a year until they lost a vote of confidence.
Massey was sworn in as Prime Minister in 1912 and guided New Zealand through the war years, only retiring in 1924 when cancer forced him to give up some of his duties.
He died in 1925 and was buried on 14 May at Point Halswell at the entrance to Wellington Harbour.
Massey University was named for him.
Picture by Engin Akyurt.​

Does the phrase Dum-de-doo mean anything to you?
It was once so well known that 162,000 of us were fans. But now the ‘person’ whose catchphrase it was is vanishing..
Cookie Bear was so familiar to us as the mascot for Griffins Biscuit and whose face and polka dot bow tie was on all the Griffins biscuits.
But he has been around for longer than we think.
In the 1930s, Cadbury took over Hudsons - a chocolate and biscuit company here in New Zealand - inheriting the well known biscuit brand that had already been around a while.
In the 1970s, Don Donovan from the advertising firm Carlton-Carruthers du Chateau Ltd thought up the idea of the bear and it was all uphill from there.
Donovan himself has said he developed the idea first for television - with the first two commercials in black and white. It also included the bear’s deep voice and the dum-de-doo phrase that would go on to be his trademark.
He was loved by children and their mums and Donovan said he quickly took on a life outside of the biscuits, becoming a brand in his own right.
Donovan said the foundation for Cookie Bear’s success was through the Cookie Bear club - that 162,000 of us joined.
Children from all around New Zealand wrote letters to the bear, which went to an internal address at Cadbury who employed four women to handle them, Donovan wrote in his blog. Every child got a card on their birthday.
There were of course the uses in advertising, a children’s book written about the bear, soft toys and later a lawsuit for breach of copyright.
Of all the biscuits Cookie Bear was associated with, it was the chocolate chip cookies that he was most remembered for.
In 1989, Hudson’s was incorporated into Griffins and slowly Cookie Bear began to fade as a brand ambassador.
Now, Cookie Bear is gone (except for the pic we managed to take in a supermarket) as he is removed from branding.
Griffins announced in April that it was going to refresh its branding and packaging and that means the bear we all grew up seeing will vanish.
He will stay only on the packet for the Cookie Bear mini bear biscuit snack packs.
So goodbye Cookie Bear. Usually we finish our stories with where a person is buried but unless someone knows where the bear suit someone used to wear is, he is only now in our memories.​

We think of banks as a necessary evil and there used to be a branch on every corner. Now some towns don’t even have a bank branch.
But once banks worked hard for customers. The Bank of New Zealand has been operating since 1861, first as a private company and later owned by National Australia Bank.
It was progressive - it opened the first “Ladies” bank in Auckland on December 14, 1958 on the corner of Queen and Swanson st, catering exclusively for women. BNZ were starting to recognise women - who often had had to have their husbands permission to have a bank account - had their own needs.
The Ladies bank had soft armchairs, a fish tank and writing desks. At first competitors were rude about it, but after international publicity it was lauded.
The BNZ also opened the first bank in the Antarctic
But in 1954 BNZ opened New Zealand’s first “motor bank” - yes, a drive in bank.
On Vivian St, the bank was remodelled to allow cars to drive up to a window - armor plate glass in case of robberies - and two way speakers. A sliding drawer allowed exchanges between the teller and the customer in the car.
There were several reasons but one of the primary ones was safety.
We were a cash only society, and huge amounts of cash were being walked along streets, from shops taking in their daily take or businesses taking out their payroll.
The drive in was to help prevent the chance of someone being robbed of the money in the streets.
BNZ said customers with mobility issues would be able to bank without getting out of their cars and noted that customers were even using taxis to drive through.
It also meant you didn’t need to find a car park to go into the bank.
The idea was quickly picked up by other banks. BNZ’s Vivian st one was kept until 1987.
The Motor bank was opened by the Mayor of Wellington, Mr R. L . Macalister who said,
‘I feel that I am helping to make banking history in New Zealand’ as he cut the ribbon.
In 1966 the same bank became the first to have computers. By then the Vivian St branch had moved to a new building.
Robert McLachlan Macalister was the mayor of Wellington from 1950-1956. He had come to Wellington to study law before enlisting in the military for World War I.
He and two others founded the law firm Mazengarb, Hay and Macalister, one of the largest law firms in Wellington.
He was considered a persuasive and dynamic councillor and mayor. Later he received a knighthood and Macalister Park in Wellington is named after him.
He died at his Wadestown home on May 23, 1967 and is buried at Karori Cemetery.​

Smuggling has been an issue in New Zealand several times. Mostly it’s things like gold, money or alcohol.
But in January, 1942, Wellington had several cases of monkey smuggling.
The monkeys, long tailed torque macaques - were brought in by sailors who took them into town inside their shirts, then proceeded to sell them for £1 each in pubs around town.
What is not known is how many there were.
At the time, while they were not illegal, there were quite a number of rules about having exotic animals as pets and they were expected to be legally imported.
The macaques were native to Sri Lanka and were apparently bought there and taken on to a ship that ended up in Wellington.
A man in Oriental Bay bought two and a Khandallah man bought another.
But there were others and some escaped.
It caused a fuss because several of the monkeys were spotted around Wellington. Two were seen in Boswell Tce and Austin St.
Another was seen with a man near Parliament on a string.
One family in Wellington were just sitting down to breakfast when a monkey strolled in through their door and helped itself to some food, much to the surprise of the family.
This led to panicked calls to the Wellington Zoo as it was thought that the group of monkeys had managed to escape.
The police got involved and there was a hunt across Wellington to find the furry escapers.
At the time the curator for the zoo was Charles Jack Cutler who thought the whole thing was funny.
He confirmed that none of the monkeys at the zoo had escaped and said that “Personally, I think that anyone who can put up with a pet monkey in the house for more than a week deserves to be allowed to keep it.”
It also prompted an investigation by Internal Affairs as a person who wanted a monkey needed to obtain a permit.
A warrant from the Minister of Internal Affairs personally must also be produced and the purchaser has to sign an agreement that the monkey will be kept in a case with a concrete floor and iron bars sufficiently small to prevent them or any of its progeny, however small, from escaping.
Unfortunately the stories die away before there was any resolution and we have no idea what happened to the monkeys or if they were ever all caught or confiscated.
Cutler, who was also the keeper for the elephant Nellikutha until her death, had been born in 1905 and spent many years at the zoo, at one point even living there.
He died on January 13, 1967, and was cremated at Karori Cemetery.
Photo by Carl Wong.​

It was freezing cold before the Taranaki Nurses Alpine Tramping club even began their climb of Mt Taranaki. But then it was mid winter - July 1953.
While not exactly inexperienced, a winter climb is not something for the faint of heart.
There were 31 in the group, 18 nurses, nine members of the Taranaki Alpine Club and four visitors and they had planned a day trip, up and back.
With them was Keith Russell, the club's most experienced guide.
They set off from Tahurangi Hut late, it was 11.30am before the climb started. There was snow down to 660m.
Russell had organised the group in six rope parties. Everyone was well dressed for the cold.
The ascent went well, with the inexperienced learning how to use the rope and how to stop themselves sliding.
At the top it was even colder. But it was late and the group opted to skip lunch and begin down.
As they began, the wind picked up.
Down at the hut, those waiting were worried, it was later than they liked Three club members decided to go up to meet them.
They found the parts of the group cold, hungry, fatigued, their hands so frozen they were barely able to hold the ropes.
One of the groups on one rope got into trouble, falling and one of the club members tried to stop it, getting in the way deliberately to try and stop the slide.
On and on they fell until a club member managed to use an ice axe to stop them, only metres from a steep bluff.
By now it was dark. As another group tried to descend further, one of the women fell. One by one, those on her rope, and Russell went over the 30ft bluff.
One of the other guides got to the hut and the call went out for help.
By the time help arrived, two had died and five were seriously injured.
The rest of the climb group made it to the hut but needed to be treated for exhaustion, exposure and frostbite.
It took hours to get the survivors down and one of the injured who had been recovered, died during the wait.
In the dark and now snowing, people were slowly taken to safety.
Those who died were Keith Russell, Andrew Lornie, Ruth Caldwell, Janet Cameron, Julie Casells and Ellen McBeth, who had broken her leg and survived the trip down the mountain but died the next day in hospital.
It’s recorded as New Zealand’s deadliest alpine disaster.
Ellen McBeth is buried in Te Henui Cemetery.
Photo by Sulthan Auliya.​

Across the horrors of No Man’s Land at the Somme a Kiwi lay in wait. He had a gun at the ready and was known as a crack shot.
A glimpse of a head and Dick Travis shot, taking out another enemy soldier.
Dickson Cornelius Savage was born on April 6, 1884, to James Savage and Frances Theresa O’Keefe in Opotiki. After a few years of schooling he left to become a shepherd, drover and farmhand excelling in horse breaking.
But an argument with his father saw him leave and head to Gisborne. He moved again to Southland after he was believed to have got a girl in trouble where he took the name Richard Charles Travis.
He worked there for a while then enlisted in the 7th (Southland) squadron of the Otago Mounted Rifles Regiment in Invercargill.
He sailed in December 1914 and landed in Egypt and immediately snuck off to Gallipoli. He was returned and given 14 days detention. It would set a theme. He was a rule breaker, but always for a good cause.
Dick did take part in the final weeks of the Gallipoli campaign and was particularly noted for scouting.
An injury to a knee led him to transfer and he went to France in March 1916.
He hated sitting and waiting so alone and at night, he would undertake scouting trips into no man’s land, mapping out the area. Senior officers quickly saw how valuable his information was.
A few months later he got a special mention for a daylight search for wounded New Zealand raiders and the recovery of equipment.
Travis displayed 'conspicuous gallantry' on 15 September 1916, eliminating several German snipers during the Somme offensive, for which he was awarded the Distinguished Conduct Medal.
He made sergeant and was given command of the battalion's new sniper and observation section.
'Travis's Gang' became proficient in scouting enemy defences and capturing enemy troops for interrogation. He was casual about rank and dress regulations but meticulous about careful planning, as well as daring and resourcefulness of his anti-sniper work and lone patrols.
Travis was awarded the Belgian Croix de guerre on 15 February 1918, and the Military Medal in May 1918.
On 24 July 1918, in broad daylight Travis destroyed an impassable wire block in front of the enemy lines prior to the attack. He then captured two enemy machine-guns, shooting down 11 Germans. He was killed by shellfire the following day, and was buried at Couin in France on 26 July.
The entire New Zealand Division mourned his loss. For his 'most conspicuous bravery and devotion to duty' on 24 July, Travis was posthumously awarded the Victoria Cross.
Lest We Forget​

Charles Gifford could rightfully be called the New Zealand moon man.
It was his theory that craters on the moon were caused by impacts of meteors that proved to be the correct one.
Before that, it was believed the craters were caused by volcanic activity.
Gifford was born aboard the ship Zealandia of the Cape of Good Hope on April 18, 1861 to Sarah and Algernon while on their way to New Zealand.
They were headed to Waitaki parish where Algernon was to be the clergyman.
They settled in Ōamaru where Charles (whose first name is actually Algernon but called Charles) attended the grammar school.
Still in his teens, he was sent to England for more education, and obtained a degree in mathematics.
After coming back to New Zealand he got teaching posts. He was influenced by professor of chemistry and physics at Canterbury College Alexander Bickerton who had an idea of an impact theory. He published a number of papers about the idea.
In 1895 Charles was head of the science department at Wellington College where he was hugely popular.
In 1901 he married Susie Jones in Ōamaru and they had three children.
He was enthusiastic about astronomy and was responsible for establishing the college’s observatory.
He began writing articles for The Evening Post then reprinted them in a booklet called In Starry Skies. He lectured publicly and halls where he talked were often crowded.
He owned his own telescope set up in a small observatory on his property at Silverstream, near Wellington.
In 1924 and 1930 he published two hallmark papers in the New Zealand Journal of Science and Technology demonstrating mathematically that meteoric impacts were responsible for the formation of lunar craters.
Gifford also took a keen interest in gardening, field geology and contemporary economics.
He was also a respected explorer and one of the early photographers of much of the back country within New Zealand's South Island. In 1939, Mount Gifford in the South Island was named in his honour.
He died at his home in Silverstream on February 27, 1948. The funds from a society he had started was gifted to the Carter Observatory and used to purchase telescopes for schools.
The Gifford Fund of the Royal Astronomical Society of New Zealand funds lectures by astronomers around the country.
He was cremated at Karori Cemetery.
Photograph by NASA.​

Frances Alda’s flamboyant life was the only thing that was bigger than the voice that made her one of the greatest opera singers of the twentieth century.
A lyric soprano, she was called one of the greatest voices of the century.
She sang with the biggest names to take to a stage and truly embodied the word diva.
But she did not start there. She was born Fanny Jane Davis in 1879 in Christchurch to David and Leonore.
Leonore herself was from a musical family and wanted to continue her singing career, divorcing David the year after Alda’s birth. She took her and her younger brother to San Francisco and remarried but died of peritonitis in 1884 and the two children went to Leonore’s parents in Melbourne.
Young Fanny Jane began her singing career in Melbourne in light operas and pantomime but with few opportunities she moved to Europe and changed her name to Frances Jeanne.
There she learned her trade before debuting as Manon in Massenet’s “Manon” at the Paris Opera-Comique in 1904. In 1906 she stood in at Covent Garden for the other great Australasian soprano of the day, Nellie Melba.
She caught the eye of conductor Arturo Toscanini and Giulo Gatti-Casazza who she would later marry.
When they took over the New York Metropolitan Opera, Frances went with them.
The relationship was turbulent but Frances did well in New York although the pair separated in 1928.
She also recorded prolifically, both opera and more popular ballads and early on saw the possibility of using radio to bring opera music to large audiences.
Frances was a proud and patriotic Kiwi and during a tour home in 1927 she heard traditional Māori music and went on to record several songs.
Even though Australia tried to claim her, she wasn’t having any of it, giving interviews where she said she hated it, while New Zealand had many virtues.
Larger than life, she had flaming red hair and a temper to match along with being skilled as her own manager and was considered a shrewd businesswoman used to dealing with unscrupulous concert promoters.
Frances retired in 1928 but continued to do recordings and some vaudeville performances and adored travelling. She married Ray Vir Den in 1941.
Frances Alda died in Venice on holiday in 1952 at the age of 83 and is buried in All Saints Cemetery in New York.​

Robert Dickie’s obsession was with stamps, but not in the collecting way.
He was, in fact, sick of tearing up large sheets of stamps for sale when he worked at the Post Office.
There had to be a better way, and by that he meant by machine.
But it wasn’t until he saw his first moving picture that an idea came to him and he began working on it.
What he was essentially thinking about was a vending machine for stamps.
Robert James Dickie was born in London on December 30, 1876 and when he was 12 his whole family came out to New Zealand for a new life.
Not long after he joined the Chief Post Office on Customs St in Wellington to work - something that would be part of him his whole life.
It was the policy of the Post Office that all staff learned all the rolls and it was while he was at the front desk that he got bored with tearing up sheets of stamps.
He sought out a mate to help him draft the idea which they then took to an engineer. Together they built the first machine and got a patent for it, essentially becoming the first to patent for a vending machine.
The machine was greeted with quite a bit of publicity. But it did not solve the problem of stamps being in large sheets - Dickie lobbied the government to print them in a single roll but was refused so he bought the sheets, cut them up and created a spool machine for them to run through.
In 1905, the machine was ready and Dickie presented it to the Post Office who liked it well enough but were not fond of the idea that the machine would sit outside with money in it at all hours.
Dickie was crestfallen, but worked to solve the problem by buying the stamps all in one go so that the Post Office was not assuming any financial risk.
At some point, some unknown Wellingtonian became the first person in the world to buy a stamp from a vending machine.
In 1906, Dickie began marketing the machine to the world and went into a business partnership, coming up with marketing ideas, like setting one up in the House of Commons in Britain to help get approval.
The machine won the gold medal, grand prize and overall diploma at the 1909 Alaska-Yukon-Pacific Exposition in Seattle and it went on to be used all over the world.
By the time he retired the machines were in use around New Zealand.
Dickie died on August 25, 1958 aged 81 and is buried in Purewa Cemetery.
Photo from the Auckland Sun.​

Hester Maclean did not start out to be a nurse. It wasn’t until her father fell ill and needed to be nursed that she was inspired to study nursing.
Now she is a winner of the Florence Nightingale Medal and is sometimes thought of as the mother of military nursing.
She was born in Sofala in New South Wales, Australia on February 25, 1859, to Harold and Emily Maclean and enjoyed a privileged upbringing and education. Her mother died in 1860 and she was raised by her step mother Agnes Campbell.
But when her father became ill in 1889 she saw the nurse who helped him and resolved to seek nursing as a career.
She began nursing training at Sydney's Royal Prince Alfred Hospital in 1890, qualifying in August 1893 before going into private nursing. After that she worked at a number of hospitals gaining a midwifery certificate and working at an asylum.
Maclean applied for and got the post of assistant inspector of hospitals in New Zealand and held that position from November 1906 until her retirement in 1923. She was also designated director of the division of nursing in the new Department of Health in 1920.
Considered a formidable woman, she was responsible for nursing and midwifery education and registration as well as assistant inspector of mental hospitals. She also believed in hard work which could be uncomfortable as members of a profession that gave service to mankind,
Not all her ideas were progressive, she did not believe in the eight hour day, saying nurses needed to adjust their days to the needs of the patient.
She oversaw the development of Plunket, tuberculosis, school and backblocks district nursing, independent midwifery, the Māori health nursing service and nursing training for Māori women.
In 1908 she began to publish a nursing journal called Kai Tiaki (guardian) and continued it the rest of her life.
Maclean was appointed matron in chief of a proposed military nursing reserve in 1911 and fought for the right of nurses to serve overseas.
The New Zealand Army Nursing Service was established in 1915 and Maclean selected and equipped all army nurses during the war, making a point of seeing them off and greeting them on return. In April 1915 she escorted the first 50 nurses to Egypt herself, dealing with hospital placements, accommodation problems and disagreeable doctors and military personnel who refused to recognise nurses' officer status, a problem never fully resolved.
She wanted to stay but was needed back in New Zealand, in part due to shortages in nursing staff, made worse by the influenza epidemic in 1918 and 1919. Her work was recognised in the awards of the Royal Red Cross (first class) in 1917 and the Florence Nightingale Medal in 1920.
She retired in 1923 and she continued to live in Wellington and wrote her autobiography, Nursing in New Zealand.
She died in Wellington on September 2, 1932, having never married and received a full military funeral before being buried in Karori Cemetery.​