​James Cox would likely not be remembered for anything.
He wasn’t famous and lived a normal - if impoverished - life for his time.
Except for one thing. He kept a diary.
He recorded his life in early New Zealand in great detail, at a time when those living at the bottom of society usually did not.
The surviving portions - about 8000 pages and 800,000 words - covering from about 1888 to early 1925 - are at the Alexander Turnbull Library in Wellington.
James was born October 11, 1846, at Snodshill in Chisledon, Wiltshire, England to prosperous farmers William Cox and Fanny Jefferies.
His childhood ended suddenly in 1863 with the death of his father.
Then 17, he ran away from home with a cousin, Richard Jefferies (later a well known naturalist and writer), and they planned to walk to Moscow, but returned home after making it to France and not being able to speak the language.
James was a clerical assistant at the Great Western Railway Company and never married.
Then at the age of 34 he abruptly emigrated to New Zealand, landing in Christchurch in 1880 and lived there until 1888.
After a long period of unemployment he moved to the North Island and ended up in Foxton.
He landed a job fibre washing at a flaxmill which meant standing in cold water for hours on end, but, as happened to many, ended up with respiratory problems and prone to infections.
The mill closed and he spent his money on a last six-month holiday before taking a job at a new mill, but after an acute infection became vagrant.
He wandered for many years, begging for food and picking up small jobs.
He worked a job with an agriculture contractor few years but became unemployed again when the business collapsed.
Living mostly in Carterton he was too proud to ask for charity and did not apply for a pension.
In 1918 he had surgery for cancer and went to Carter Home, a charitable institution for elderly indigent men.
No matter where he was, he wrote his diary, often in pencil since he had no pen or ink, and often on strips of paper.
Now he is remembered by his diary - and a ghostly Twitter account titled James Cox’s dairy.
He died on July 19, 1925 and is buried in a pauper’s grave in Greytown Cemetery. His headstone was installed by Wairarapa historian Adele Pentony-Graham in 2013.
For a man of many words, his headstone only had three words along with his dates. James Cox. Itinerant.

As you zip along State Highway Two past the Petone Railway Station you might catch a glimpse out of the corner of your eye of a big cross.
It’s the memorial to those buried nearby.
Korokoro Cemetery was established in 1854 with land donated to the Roman Catholic Church by Te Atiawa chief Hōniana Te Puni-kōkopu.
It closed just over 100 years later in 1957 when the land was taken for roading and the widening of State Highway Two. Rows of graves and headstones were removed and the remains reinterred.
An Act of Parliament was required to authorise laying a drain through the cemetery, the removal and reinterment of certain human remains, the removal of headstones, monuments and grave surrounds, the levelling and planting of the grounds and the erection of a common monument.
While about 44 bodies were reinterred, the rest, on the hillside, remain to this day, although they are covered by scrub and hard to see even up close.
Instead, the cross visible from the road was put up and names added to it, although some names have been lost and not recorded.
The land is still under the care of the Catholic Church along with the Petone hapu of Te Atiawa deciding on joint guardianship or kaitiakitanga of the cemetery.
Some of the names on the cross are of families known in Wellington and the Hutt; Neazor, Villars, Wrigley, Cudby, Bolton and many, many more who helped settle the Hutt.
George Cudby was the son of John Cudby, who arrived in New Zealand in 1843. The family ran a carting and coaching business from Petone. Both were at the opening of the first railway line.
William Neazor came from Limerick in Ireland, did some gold mining on the West Coast but settled in the Hutt Valley and ran a boarding house that was gutted by fire in 1908. He was also a juror on an infamous murder trial of Andrew Somerville for killing Arthur Herbert.
Alongside the towering cross is a much smaller memorial for three men killed in the first World War, military driver Athelstan Edmund Bunny who died of illness on the Western Front, James Casserly who died some years after returning from the war and Joseph Connor (William Neazor’s nephew) who died from his wounds after being discharged.
Do you know of one of these ‘hidden’ cemeteries?

One of New Zealand’s last swagmen was known to all as Russian Jack - but his real name might be a mystery.
His actual name was often said to be Barrett Cruman - but it has never been known if it was really his name or it was taken because he spent time as a crewman on a ship.
Born in Latvia in a small village called Alexandria on March 26, 1878, he only did a few years of education before working in scrub-camps then joined the merchant marine, working as a seaman.
He arrived in New Zealand in 1912 on the British steamer Star of Canada, but off the coast of Gisborne the ship was wrecked and he was swept ashore.
He worked on coastal ships for a while but then took to the land working as a scrub cutter and a farm hand.
Then one day he took to the road.
For the next 53 years Russian Jack wandered around the North Island.
He was best known in the Manawatu and Wairarapa. He just avoided being in Hawke’s Bay during the 1931 earthquake.
He called himself Russian Jack - or Ivan in his native tongue.
In Masterton the statue of him by artist Kenneth Kendall shows a shorter man with a deeply tanned face, a drooping moustache, most often wearing a wide brimmed felt hat and a walking stick.
He smoked a pipe that he usually put out by jamming a cork in the bowl.
Russian Jack carried several large sugar bags and a cut-down kerosene-tin billy, along with tins of dripping which he rubbed on his chest and neck to protect against ailments.
He had a number of rough bivouacs around the North Island that he kept ready for his next visit.
He wore newspapers layered in between his fraying clothes and a pair of boots he fixed over and over again.
He was remembered as a man of honour, being good natured and courteous.
It was only in the mid-1960’s he gave up the life. In his 80’s he was deaf, having trouble walking with one foot becoming deformed.
He was admitted to hospital with frostbitten feet in 1965 and spent the next three years in Greytown Hospital, dying on September 19, 1968, aged 90.
It was a life he had chosen, one that made him happy and in his words, "Man oh man I vos FREE! Free to have a beer, have a smoke, – happy what you can call all the time, you know. They was free days."
Russian Jack was buried in the Greytown Cemetery, given a funeral from the proceeds of a pension he never collected in life.

​Shot in the back.
On February 26, 1904, tree felling contractor Leonard Reeves Collinson did what he had done hundreds of times before. He sat down in a bush clearing to smoke his pipe.
Only this time he did not get up. Instead, his body was found, shot from behind from a distance of about 12 metres. The bullet had destroyed Collinson’s heart and exited out of his chest. His box of matches and unsmoked pipe were lying nearby.
Collinson was not born into the life of being a bushman. In fact, his parents appeared to have had much greater plans for him. Collinson was born in Islington, London in 1863, to John and Julia Collinson. As a teenager, Leonard was given the job of working as an assistant to his father who was receiving officer for the Great Northern Railway. It appears he was intended to follow in his father’s footsteps and take over the well-paying position in due course. However, in 1884, at the aged of 21, Collinson got himself into trouble with the law after he fraudulently obtained two bales of silk and a quantity of tea from the Midlands Railway Company. He pleaded guilty and was sentenced to six months in Wandsworth prison. According to newspaper reports, the theft had caused his wealthy family some grief and embarrassment and he was banished to New Zealand, leaving his younger brother Ernest to become their father’s successor. Far from the gentlemanly life his parents had planned for him, by 1890 Collinson was working as a labourer on remote Te Awaiti Station on the coast near Tora in the Wairarapa. Away from the crowded London streets, however, it appeared that he had left his troubles behind him – until he met James Ellis (aka John McKenzie).
Ellis was born in Wellington in 1861 and, like Collinson, at the age of 21 also found himself in trouble with the law, but on a much more serious and shocking charge. In 1882, under the name of James William Ellis, he was convicted of the rape of an 11-year-old girl in north Greytown and sentenced to 12 years in prison and 60 lashes. The sentencing judge described the rape as “one of the most brutal outrages” he had ever seen in his career . Ellis was released in 1891.
A year before the murder Collinson had hired Ellis as a contractor. Ellis was then calling himself John McKenzie. A few months later, when the new employee was accused of poaching stags, Collinson sacked him.
Ellis became an immediate suspect in Collinson’s killing. He had threated to do for Collinson after his sacking and had also been spotted around the bush camp in which Collinson and his crew of men were working at the time of the murder. Collinson and the other men had suspected that McKenzie was actually the brutal rapist Ellis, especially as he never shown his back to them lest they see the scars of the 60 lashes.
Police were called in from around the country to hunt for Ellis and a 100 pound reward was offered for information leading to his capture. Ellis had striking features, being described as 5ft, 3-and-a-half inches tall with sandy reddish hair, grey eyes, long thin pointed nose, small mouth, sandy moustache and slightly bow-legged, however, he managed to elude capture.
Numerous sightings of Ellis were reported, and several look-a-likes arrested, including one in Sydney, Australia, who remained in custody until a police officer, who knew Ellis, could sail from New Zealand to confirm the man’s identity.
Finally, nine months after the murder, on December 10, 1904, Ellis was captured in Kereru near the Ruahine Ranges in Hawkes Bay. Police found him asleep in a hut in which he had been hiding out (the hut, which was built in 1884, still exists and is now known as Ellis Hut, a tramping hut in the Gwavas Forest near Takapau). When arrested, Ellis had a .303 repeating rifle and a six-chambered revolver, both fully loaded.
After a trial lasting five days Ellis was, on February 11, 1905, found guilty of Collinson’s murder. The jury recommended mercy. Justice Denniston imposed the death sentence and 10 days later Cabinet Minsters considered the jury’s recommendation but decided to allow the sentence to stand. Ellis was hanged at 8am on a grey and gloomy 28 February 1905 at Wellington by executioner Tom Long (whose story we brought you earlier). Asked if he had anything to say before he died Ellis replied, “Nothing at all. Only that I am innocent. That is all I have to say”. Ellis is buried at Karori Cemetery. Collinson is buried in Martinborough Cemetery. His headstone reads: “In loving memory of Leonard Reeve Collinson who died at Colds Creek, Te Awaite 26 February 1904. (Erected by his friends)”.

By Deb Morris
​Tomorrow, on Anzac Day, all over New Zealand people will be remembering those who fought for them in wars.
Most of them weren’t celebrated as war heroes. They were men and women who became our everyday heroes by doing their best against an evil threatening the Western world. Bruce Fowke was one.
Bruce was born January 19, 1915 in Dannevirke, the son of Herbert Fowke and Margaret Fowke, called Marwa, (nee Batten). His parents later moved to Pahiatua. His mother is in Dannevirke Cemetery and his father in Ashburton.
Of the records available, Bruce had two siblings - a sister called Ngaire who died young in 1919 and Bettie Russell (nee Fowke).
He enlisted in the NZ Army giving the address as Sedcole St, Pahiatua. He was listed as a painter.
He had married, and his wife Cicely May Helen Fowke (nee King) - known as Helen - later listed an address in Willow Park Road in Hastings.
Bruce joined the infantry of 22 Battalion of the Second New Zealand Expeditionary Force, in 1941.
He died on December 15, 1944, aged 29, in battle as a sergeant.
In December that year he and the others were arrayed on the banks of the river Lamone. At the top of a rise in sight of the men was the Casa Elta - a pocket fortress with much of the area held by the Germans.
In the book 22 Battalion by Jim Henderson, he said the advance of Casa Elta was costly. All the leaders of 15 platoon were killed or wounded, and Bruce - then a Sergeant - took control. HIs nickname in the platoon was Doc.
But as they advanced he, and the platoon’s other sergeant, fell in a minefield.
The leaderless platoon went on to the right of Casa Elta, captured two defended positions and eight prisoners, severed telephone wires, which isolated Casa Elta, and later joined the last assault on the house.
Bruce is also mentioned in the book "Cowshed to Dog Collar (in conjunction with Rona Adshead) by Keith Elliott VC ,
"And what of "Doc" Fowke who refused to turn aside from his helpless best friend and did what he could for his mates until he was the only one left alive in that trench? No greater love hath a man than this …”
Bruce was buried - and later exhumed - to be reburied in the Forli Cemetery in Italy.
He exists now on 22 Battalion’s roll of honour, on the Pahiatua war memorial also on Palmerston North’s.
He was also my grandmother’s beloved cousin. His mother Margaret was sister to Myrtle Irene Batten - later Drinkwater, my grandmother’s mother.
Rest in Peace Bruce, like all the other everyday heroes, we remember you.

A short break from our regular stories for me to say Congratulations!
I got to watch my best friend and business partner Fran Tyler graduate with her doctorate in philosophy yesterday.
It’s sort of my fault. I recommended her for the job at Massey University teaching many years ago and all these years later this is the result. (She definitely thinks it's my fault!)
Since then we have gone through all the usual stuff, job changes, family losses, weddings and trips along with writing for an academic textbook and cooking - mostly dumplings - together.
And then last year COVID and the idea to start the business that is now Genealogy Investigations.
Most nights we have a (telephone) drink together, moan about our days, talk about triumphs and question our own sanity.
We have put families in touch with each other, traced out family histories, worked out who adopted parents are, found beneficiaries of wills and had fun hunting down the stories we tell here.
A big part of that is Fran’s determination and research skills gained the hard way, through working as a journalist, doing her own family tree and now her doctorate.
So, to Dr Fran Tyler - a huge congratulations. No matter how many times you doubted or told me you didn’t want to do this anymore, I always knew you would get there.
You can read more about Fran's research here: 
www.massey.ac.nz/massey/about-massey/news/article.cfm?mnarticle_uuid=9429104F-FB71-41CF-BD06-3F5B1A2E4262

John William Brady’s death was accidental and, as it turns out, amazing that it happened at all.
On April 25, 1939, Brady was driving two of his work colleagues home in a three seater car on the main highway on the Wellington side of the Paekakariki hill. At 9.45pm he suddenly slumped over the wheel. The car ended up against a bank.
His two mates, a Mr Davies and Mr Ryan from Lower Hutt, thought he had a fainting fit, but it turned out he had been shot in the back of the head. Both of the passengers received minor injuries.
Police suspected foul play.
The same evening, four young men were travelling in a lorry returning to Wellington. The men had been out shooting rabbits and on the way home one of the men, Robert Alexander Martin, aged 20, picked up a gun intending to put it in its case.
He did not remember pulling the trigger but the gun went off, ejecting the empty shell to the floor of the lorry.
In an extraordinary coincidence, that shot killed Brady.
Martin had thought he had fired all the ammunition during the rabbit hunt. It was also very dark that night and he never saw Brady’s car. 
Two days after hearing about the accidental death, two of the men, including Martin, came forward to police and went to the place where they thought the shot was fired.
A police arms advisor, Gregory Gerard Kelly, advised the inquest into Brady's death that the pull on the trigger was too light. When questioned about the shooting, Martin denied firing at the tail lights of the car to give someone a scare.
The coroner, Mr Gilbertson, returned a verdict of death by accident.
Brady was 26, a labourer employed by the then Hutt Country Council. He is buried in Masterton’s cemetery in Archer Street.