Auckland Grammar: Second Year continued

During 1947, my interest in the school library developed to the stage where I became a library assistant.

Under the guidance of senior librarians from sixth and seventh forms, we issued and shelved books, repaired damaged ones, and generally kept the library functioning and tidy. We were each responsible for a couple of lunchtimes and morning breaks each week.

Library staff, 1948

Towards the end of the year, we were asked to choose our subjects for the next year. The first thing I discovered was that Option 1 was between Maths, Latin and Geography. I wanted to study all three subjects, but there was nowhere else in the system that any of them appeared.

The basic idea was that you chose Science, so your subjects were English, Maths, and sciences, or you chose Languages, which meant English, Latin, French, History and Electricity and magnetism.

My parents agreed that it would be best if I could include both Maths and Latin at the very least, and my father went to consult the Headmaster about it, but there was no shifting the system.

So the languages stream was chosen, and a crucial direction was set for the rest of my life. I did pick up some basic maths in statistics and navigation during my studies in Education and the Air Force later on, but they, and my lifelong interest in maps and the weather, were peripheral.

Also late in the year, my father managed to buy a new car; Ford had put out its new model, the Prefect, a 10 horse power (1000 cc) simple fourseater family car, easily mass-produced and very popular. He applied for the petrol ration and was granted far more than he expected to get, so decided to drive to the city each day and take me with him.

This was a good opportunity for me to learn to drive, and so each morning I was soon driving a new car through the chaotic rush hour traffic up the Great South Road from Hunters Corner to Newmarket. It was very good training, and I was able to pass the driving test a couple of days after my fifteenth birthday. But that was twelve months later, in November 1948.