Grange Road, Mt Eden

During 1950, my last year at school, we shifted to Grange Road, Mt Eden. The reason for this was that my Grandmother, Julia, was bedridden and needing full-time care. Auntie Dot needed help, so my parents had to be nearer to Bellevue Road. The Grange Road house was just a mile away so easy travelling distance. My parents would sleep over to look after Granny several nights a week, as I was old enough to keep an eye on my wayward sister and brother!

 

The year before, when Granny was not so ill, I had stayed overnight with her and Auntie Dot on Monday nights. While Auntie went to her Bible Class, Granny and I would sit by the fire and chat or listen to the radio. Our favourite programme was Gracie Fields. I got to know some of her music-hall songs by heart (eg "Out in the cold, cold snow", or "Turn Herbert's face to the wall, Mother"). We would talk about Granny's childhood in Kettering, and her youth in Auckland after the family emigrated in 1884.

 

The Grange Road house was a two-storeyed thirties house, with a tile roof, three toilets, a small section, but within biking distance of school and eventually of University, close to shops, and so very handy for a teenage family, to say nothing of parents who wanted to work or shop in town. It had a large basement which was valuable for storage, gardening, and eventually for me to set up a small office for some of my volunteer responsibilities.

 

While the rest of the family slept upstairs, I had the downstairs bedroom, which became more convenient when I needed to be able to come home later in the evening on occasions! There was another downstairs room which we used as a study, and it had a small conservatory in front of it, a closed-in verandah in fact, which was very cosy on wet winter days for doing assignments or swatting for exams.

 

This meant that instead of travelling by train or car for up to 40 minutes to school each day, I could bike in about ten at the most. I had by this stage a modern bike, lighter in weight than my first one, and equipped with state-of-the-art Sturmey-Archer three-speed gears, to enable me to cope with the steep road up and over the western spur of Mt Eden between Mt Eden Road and Mountain Road. Most times I still had to walk, especially coming home over the steeper climb on the northern side.