A visit to the Tawhiti Museum (NiggleOggle)

Courtesy of NZ Today Magazine

The World of Niggle Oggle

By Richard Proctor

Once upon a time, on a farm in Taranaki, dwelt a small boy known as Niggle Oggle to his friends. Niggle Oggle lived on a dairy farm, a world of cows and boxthorn hedges. As an eight year old, Niggle Oggle’s fertile mind was inseminated by a copy of Kenneth Graham’s “Wind In The Willows”, given to him by an itinerant herd tester. And that was that ... for the time being. Niggle Oggle grew up, as you do and reverted to the name on his birth certificate. Nigel Ogle went to college, as you do, became a teacher (an art teacher even), as you do, had a gutsful and gave it up, as you do, and there the pattern broke down.

Nigel and wife Teresa had acquired a disused dairy factory at Tawhiti just outside Hawera, the one he’d gone to with his father to deliver milk, and made the manager’s house habitable. He did some pottery, which seems to have been compulsory in those days, and set about recreating the Worlds of Niggle Oggle; the one he lived in and the one that lived in him.

Consequently, when you arrive at Tawhiti Museum and head for the cafe, for it is a fair old hike from civilisation, the first thing you see is Mr Badger reading a book by the fireside. At that point you enter the Worlds of Niggle Oggle. Around the wall are windows filled with highly detailed dioramas of scenes from “Wind In The Willows”, and up on a shelf with other memorabilia stands that original copy gifted by that Pommie herd tester many years before. At this point the words “how did he do that?” enter the mind and stay firmly fixed for the duration. How shall I put it? Think Weta Workshops — in miniature.

Incidentally, the B&E pie is truly delicious, even if Nigel hasn’t been able to intimidate Mrs Badger into putting some peas in it.

Having refuelled the system, and had a gossip with Nigel, poked my nose into the world of Ratty and Badger and Mr Toad, we headed for the museum proper, though on balance “proper” might not be the proper word ... if you get my drift.

I never realised quite how awful Te Papa is until I went to Tawhiti. Te Papa, with its brutal architecture-by-committee glowers at you as you enter. In contrast Tawhiti quietly takes your elbow and guides you into the world of a pre-teen in 1950s Taranaki. The museum enfolds you like a granny’s hug.

I read somewhere that the difference between an artist and a craftsman is that a craftsman knows before he starts what he is going to end up with. Whatever, Nigel Ogle is one crafty artisan. I’ve seen dioramas before. They’re standard fare for museums but these are different. For a start they are of a very high quality. The figures look alive and, in one notable case of the lady slumped on the seat, comatose. The eye of Niggle Oggle is everywhere.

One of the more inexplicable plants the English settler brought here, along with gorse, broom and other weeds was boxthorn, which took root particularly in Taranaki where it was used as hedging. If you are not familiar with boxthorn let’s just say it should be banned under the Geneva Convention. It is covered with vicious spikes as long as your thumb and is death to bike tyres. Having planted the stuff the farmers had to keep it under control and devised equally vicious tractor mounted saw blades fixed to booms similar to a front-end loader. OSH would have a fit.
So in one of the displays you see a farmer on one of these ‘Made in Mordor” contraptions as his mate indicates where to aim it. Up beside the farmer on the tractor is Niggle Oggle, Mum’s colander on his head as a makeshift helmet with an alarming spike of boxthorn lodged in one of the holes.

This child’s eye view is typical of many of the displays. In former times children knew what their parents did for a living because in mostly they watched and participated.

Unlike most museum dioramas the models have animated poses, with the adult features being cast from friends, relatives, local people and anyone incautious enough to ask how it’s done. The child models are sculpted from photos as children find the process uncomfortable.
You feel for the guy in his workshop just looking at his Harley Davidson with his chin in his hands. Somehow you feel his next action might involve a shotgun. You smile at the wee boy re-fueling his toy tractor while dad watches.

{3r}The museum is unashamedly parochial; life in Taranaki being the focus. The various displays depict a variety of life situations of the time laced with visual jokes, domestic disasters and surprises. I shan’t tell what the surprises are because then they wouldn’t be a surprise. Suffice to say one indignant woman patron buttonholed Nigel demanding some emergency laundry services! Nigel was sufficiently placatory but I’m sure Niggle was giggling. And keep an eye out for the boy with the huge grin. Nigel Ogle is a terrible man!
The Machinery Hall houses as good a collection of tractors and wheeled devices as I have seen in one place, while ‘out back’ is a bush railway where you can travel through native bush and past period rail buildings ‘staffed’ by more of Nigel’s creations.

The display in tribute to Chew Chong, one of the early Chinese immigrants to whom New Zealand owes so much and acknowledges not enough, is fascinating. Our dairy industry is so ‘Kiwi’ yet owes so much this one highly industrious ‘Celestial’.

And then there is the pottery producing some beautiful ware, partly from local clay, partly from Nelson clay. Does the man ever sleep?
But then there is the area where Nigel has really upped the ante, where the demeanor is somewhat more serious; a long incredibly detailed diorama depicting a Maori migration down the cost of Taranaki. The models are of varying sizes, taller in front, smaller in the middle, smaller again at the rear to create what Nigel calls a “forced perspective” The detail is stunning, each little palm frond cast in a silicone mould. Each little musket depicted to the last detail

The migration depicted had widespread ramifications for much of Aotearoa, not all of it pleasant as downstream effects were the depredation of much of the South Island by Te Rauparaha, and the invasion of the Chathams with the consequent decimation and enslavement of the Moriori.
There is also a life-size display of a group of Maori. The woman in the display is wearing a magnificent rain cape best described as a sort of flexible flax thatch construction. The workmanship is magnificent representing many hours of skilful industry. A Maori lady turned up one day and presented it to Nigel — koha for his depicting the history of her people. Nigel hears many expressions of delight but this granting of mana to his work is one that he holds particularly dear.

I was lucky enough to be shown the “engine room” where I saw a model I particularly liked, not yet on display. The Prussian, Gustavus von Tempsky was a noted adventurer in the colonial land wars who was active in the Taranaki area. While not a particularly liked man he was respected for his fighting ability. von Tempsky was not a man who sat back and slaughtered from a distance. He trained his men in the use of a Bowie type knife which was held in the left hand to deadly effect. I don’t know if his fighting was ‘personal’ but it was certainly ‘up close’. Also respected and not particularly appreciated was his bulldog which was reputed to be able to smell Maori in the bush much like the sniffer dogs of today detect fruit etc for customs at airports.

There is only one confirmed depiction of that dog, in a painting by von Tempsky himself, who was also a talented artist. As it happened Nigel was given a valuable limited edition copy of reproductions of von Tempsky’s paintings, one of which featured the dog. So there in the new display piece is the legendary “von Tempsky’s dog”.

Tawhiti is truly a wonderland. There is a particularly bitter-sweet experience when you see your childhood in a museum and so it was for me. Given the climate change/peak oil writing on the wall I wondered if it was not only a window into the past but also a window into the future. Plan to go to Tawhiti. It is not an attraction. It’s a destination. Don’t plan to stop for an hour or two on the way to New Plymouth, it’s a whole day experience. Seriously.

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