Back to some more memories

Ha'pennies

It is after school, and for some reason I am walking home alone along Owairaka Avenue footpath on the left of the road.  I am alone, but usually I come with other children from our street. It is a sunny afternoon and I am looking at the footpath in front of me. Suddenly I notice a coin on the path.  I pick it up: it is a ha’penny. I turn back to the little shop next to the school gate where, after some thought, I buy a little paper bag with four blackballs from one of the shopkeeper’s big jars of lollies.

www

 

Next to the alcove in our kitchen is the stove, electric, with big black elements on top.  Dad is teaching me to make the porridge: 2.5 spoons of rolled oats, 1.5 of Vimax, and half a spoon of wholemeal, with a pinch of salt. We add water, I have forgotten how much, and turn the element up to full until the porridge boils, stirring all the time to stop it sticking to the bottom of the pot and burning. Then we turn the element down to low and if the plops of the porridge look dry we add a little water. When the porridge is in our bowls we sprinkle brown sugar on it and pour milk around the edge so it is cool enough to eat.

 

www

 

It is late afternoon and I am standing in the bath in the bathroom with the door shut. I am restless and anxious. I am in the bathroom because I have been naughty and when Daddy gets home from work he is going to give me the strap.

 

www

 

 

School holidays, and we are on the train heading north from Auckland. This morning we caught the Whangarei Express at Mt Eden Station. I can still see the narrow north-bound platform with the huge noisy steam engine pulling in.  Several hours later we look out on bright green grass covering hillsides dotted with black trunks of great trees where the bush has been burnt.

 

At Waiotira Junction we change to a mixed train with one carriage heading along the Dargaville line towards Donnelly’s Crossing. But we get off at Pukehuia by the big iron bridge over the Nothern Wairoa River, where our cousin rows us across the river to their farm, and we meet Uncle Fred with his wooden leg, and Auntie Katy and their three sons, Terence, Laurence and Brian.

 

A day or so later I am on the rocking sledge with several cans full of cream as we travel behind the horse to the farm gate along a rough track. When the time comes to go home, the sledge takes us to Kirikopuni Station, where the line goes round a loop, and I see the mixed train steam past the station to go around the loop and come back so we can climb aboard for the trip back to Waiotira, the express and Auckland.

 

www

 

 

Another memorable journey is the coach trip from Taneatua, the Bay of Plenty railhead, to Matawai, in the hills above Gisborne, where we are going to spend a week at another farm. More relatives, this time of my dead grandmother.  The bus trip is hot, dusty and very windy.  Both Olwyn and I are carsick, as the vehicle grinds up the twisty road.  Again the musty smell of upholstery is my most vivid memory.