On Friday evenings, from the end of 1939 and throughout 1940, a radio series was broadcast on Wellington's public radio station 2ZB. It dramatised re-enactments of significant events in the first 100 years of New Zealand's post-colonial history.
The first segment of the following episode enacts a scene where a local is having a conversation with Henry Burling, about the road over the Remutaka Range.
Source: Ngā Taonga Sound & Vision; Reference: 182602
The series was called, 'Our First Hundred Years', and this is episode 41. It was produced for New Zealand's Centenary celebrations, and a part of it's purpose was to reinforce patriotism during wartime.
In 1959, former Member of Parliament Frank Fisher was recorded talking about meeting Henry Burling in about 1910.
A story that Henry told on multiple occasions, and that has been retold countless times by his descendants, relates to a flax kete he was given by the Ngāti Toa chief Te Rangihaeata, and a chance encounter with some unfriendly Maori.
Cartoonist Ross Gore produced a series of cartoons for local newspapers under the heading 'It happened in New Zealand', describing various events in New Zealand history. The following comic strip was published in the Dominion Post newspaper in November 1966.
