The Midget Driver; his Sister and her Son; the Motor Bike Racer; his Daughter the Painter; and the Poet.

Suzanne Goldberg

In the time just prior to the recent passing of my much loved uncle David Hardy, he raised a question of me relating to a well known New Zealand artist Suzanne Goldberg. This was a name not known to me except for the familiar surname Goldberg. I did some research at the time David raised the question but did not find out anything that really solved the matter of the connection with the Hardy family. I did find that she was a very highly regarded artist.

What I did know at the time was that my grandfather Merv Hardy had a lifelong best mate called Charlie Goldberg. This seemed to be a likely connection with Suzanne Goldberg.

In the past few weeks I have been reading my way through a number of folders containing David's family history notes. During this process the name Suzanne Goldberg appeared in one of David's many handwritten notes. He had written a short paragraph about her. This was sitting in a folder alongside a copy of the NZ Herald Death Notice for Suzanne Goldberg dated February 7, 2000. It seemed to me that David was prompting me again to find out more.

This blog sets out what I then discovered after a few days of digging through our family history files, exploring google and Ancestry and making contact with an important link in the story.

What came together connects my grandfather Merv Hardy ("the Midget Driver"), his sister Hilda and her son Roy, Merv's best mate Charlie Goldberg ("the Motor Bike Racer"), Suzanne Goldberg ('the Painter") and David Stillaman ("the Poet").

Merv Hardy's Yard

Merv was known as Hillman Hardy as for many years his car wrecking and spare parts business in St Judes St Avondale was where anyone who owned a Hillman went for their spare parts. It seemed like all the Hillman cars that were no longer road worthy found their way to Merv.

Among the family history files for Merv was a copy of a poem about Merv's yard:

The handwritten note at the bottom says "Compliments Chas Goldberg 1980". I had previously taken this to mean the poem was written by Charlie. The date of 1980 has the significance of showing that in 1980 Charlie was still in touch with his mate Merv who he had known since the early days of motor racing in the 1930s.

Looking more closely at the bottom of the copy of the poem I could see the name DAVID and very faintly the letters ST. The rest very obscured. Was it MAN at the end? Something to do with Hillman?

Then I turned it over. On the reverse in David Hardy's distinctive handwriting in block capitals written in pencil are the words;

POET/AUTHOR

DAVID STILLAMAN?

Next step was to google this name. Yes there is a poet in Auckland of this name. Wow. Here he is on Facebook. I sent him a message. Yes he remembers the poem and remembers Merv very well. He owned a Hillman and bought numerous parts for it from Merv. The poem appeared in a collection of poems by a number of Titirangi based poets. David sent me a copy of the cover. He still has the book. He remembers showing Merv the poem. David said that as Merv read the poem he quietly said yes to himself and smiled. David described Merv as a very kind and helpful man who he really enjoyed visiting when he needed something for his Hillman.

Merv's sister Hilda

At first glance this seems like an odd connection to this story. How could Hilda connect with Suzanne Goldberg? I thought I had seen something somewhere amongst the family tree information. The obvious place to start was with a close family connection of Merv. Thanks to the great detail contained in the Hardy family history notes compiled by Dulcie McClure I soon found the name Suzanne Goldberg connected to Merv's sister Hilda Hardy who had married Roy Smith. They had a son Roy Morell Smith. He had married a Suzanne Goldberg. There is no other information about Roy Smith and Suzanne Goldberg in the family history notes. Was this the same Suzanne Goldberg who was a well known artist? Was she related to Charlie? Did Roy and Suzanne meet through Charlie and Merv?

Charlie Goldberg- the Motor Bike Racer

I do not know for certain how Charlie and Merv first met. It is quite likely it was at a race meeting at Muriwai Beach or at one of the tracks where both bikes and cars were racing. They were both very involved at Western Springs and the other various speedway tracks. Charlie summed up his bike racing career in the NZ Herald article of Jan 3 1979 which is shown below.

Charlie and Merv were both running similar businesses supplying spare engine parts. Merv specialised in cars and Charlie in bikes. They possibly referred people to one another when customers were searching for parts.

Charlie competed in each of the NZTT races that were held annually on Waiheke Island from 1931 through to 1936. During this time he was running his motor cycle business located at Vincent St in Auckland.

In 1936 he won the Waiheke TT and set a new track record. As a result of this win Charlie went to the Isle of Man TT in late 1936. He was very successful in placing 15th in the Junior TT and 6th in the Senior TT. He was the first of the non-works bikes and was riding his junior class bike against the larger senior TT machines.

The article bellow is an extract from the 15 January 1937 edition of NZ Motor Cycle and Cycle. This magazine is also the source of other images in this blog relating to Charlie, including the above advertisement for Goldberg Motors .

Sadly Charlie's motor cycling career came to an abrupt end in 1937. The article below describes the horrific crash that apparently arose from hitting a stray sheep. He did not race again after this crash.

Charlie continued in his motor cycle business through the 1930s and 1940s.

At some stage his business location moved to 19 Wakefield St.

In my various google searches for information on Charlie I came across a gazette record of C. Goldberg and Millicent Goldberg forming a new company in 1945.

The new company had the same Wakefield St address as Charlie's motor cycle business. Its speciality in air compressors may have been a move that made sense to Charlie as compressor engines are usually similar to motor cycle engines.

The Painter Suzanne Goldberg

The discovery of the name of Charlie's wife Millicent was the key to confirming the link between Charlie Goldberg and Suzanne Goldberg. The article below is what I found when doing a search that included Millicent's name.

Here is the full article;

Below is Suzanne Goldberg's death notice published in the New Zealand Herald February 7 2000. There is no mention of her husband Roy Smith or her family. The second notice contains an interesting poem. It reads as follows:

         "Lest you be a dead mans slave lay a branch across the grave, nor allow your term of grief to pass the fall of its last leaf."

A google search tells me this poem was written by New Zealand poet R.A.K. Mason. It is called Ad Dorotheum and was addressed to his wife on her death.

A search on Ancestry resulted in finding a family history record for Charles (Charley) Goldberg. He was born in Auckland on 11 July 1909. His father was Samuel Goldberg. He was born in Russia in 1874. He found his way to Australia in 1904 and then to England in 1908 where he married Leah Barlin on 22 July 1908. He and Leah subsequently came to New Zealand. Samuel's occupation is shown as a "dealer".

Charlie married Ivy Millicent Rose in 1935. They had two children, namely Charles "Goldie" Goldberg in 1936 and Suzanne in 1940.

For most of their married lives Charlie and Millicent lived at 134 Paratai Drive. In 1981 they moved to Tarawera Tce, St Heliers which is where Charlie died 8 July 1982. Millicent died at Upland Rd, Remuera in 1987.

Merv was buried on Waiheke Island when he died in 1986. He lived his last years on the island. I am sure it was a place he enjoyed for many reasons including the connection with his mate Charlie. The historic TT races on Waiheke are still remembered. I recently purchased the T Shirt shown below at a shop on Waiheke- because of my recollection of Charlie's involvement in these races. I have been wearing it while writing much of this blog.

Another treasure from amongst David Hardy's family history folders is this painting of Merv's St Judes St yard showing the little sports car and trailer he had placed on the roof. It was painted by Merv's friend Len Monk in 1968. A close look reveals that a side profile of Merv's head has been taken from a photo and used for the passenger in the seat of the car. There was not a model of a passenger in the real car!

A note written by David Hardy about this painting says that Len Monk was an artist and exhibited his drawings and portraits at various shows.

Here is a photograph of the actual car on Merv's wrecking yard roof.