Extra-curricular

Although I was never up to playing cricket or rugby, I used to listen regularly and carefully to the radio commentaries on major rugby matches and test cricket. In the fourth form I went with friends each Saturday to watch games played by the First Fifteen, usually at Alexandra Park. 

My father had been a radio and photography enthusiast in his youth, and he built me a crystal set, which I used to listen to in the evenings.  You could get about four local radio stations after a fashion. This was about the time I was studying Electricity and Magnetism for School Certificate, and learning about the workings of valves and capacitors and condensers. 

Also on the radio I would listen with my Dad to his favourite BBC programmes: first “ITMA”, with Tommy Handley, and then in the late forties, “Much Binding in the Marsh” with Richard Murdoch. I can still remember walking home from the train from school, and picking up our copy of the Listener from the newsagent in Papatoetoe, and reading the preview of this programme some months before it arrived on our radio in New Zealand. 

Later still we listened to “Take it from here”, with Dick Bentley, and still later I remember the Goons, who were the most popular of all the BBC comedies, with Peter Sellars and Harry Seccombe. Driving together to town in the car in the mornings gave us plenty of time to relive the previous night’s episode, and to discuss the radio news together. I missed this when we moved to Mt Eden and we each went our own way to work. 

However, one morning a month in my first University year I worked for my father writing up his ledger accounts at his office in Queen Street. It was here I got to know Gordon Jones, who at that stage was working as his law clerk, and later became a valued colleague in India. 

During my University years my father subscribed to TIME magazine and we would have regular post-mortems after reading each copy, which we both read from cover to cover. We were interested in the news and the commentaries of course, but also in the writing style, which in those days was well-known as novel, concise and powerful.  

I continued to learn the piano while at secondary school, advancing to Grade 8 in the Roytal Schools exams. During my university years I widened my interest in music. I started pipe organ lessons with Bill Edgar, who was the organist at St Barnabas’ Church in Mt Eden Road. I practised regularly there and at the Presbyterian Church in Union Street in the City, later demolished to make way for motorways. 

I also tried my hand at the double bass but gave up after a few lessons; some things are just too cumbersome to be worth the effort! I joined the University Music Club in my second year, and took part in a concert singing the Mass in B Minor. This was fun, enlarged my musical knowledge, and introduced me to the excitement of making music with a large group of people. 

Of course during those years I became interested in a few girls. Specifically about five or six, all for very short periods. I can’t now remember much about most of them, a couple of names, a face or two, and one or two dates or other incidents. Most memorable was one lady who I escorted to her tram stop after lectures about three times. On the third occasion she had been shopping and asked me what I thought of her new jumper. Foolishly I told the truth. I never met her again after lectures; she just disappeared. Moral of the story, if a girl asks “What do you think of my new (article of clothing)?” the rule is: lie, lie, lie! 

None of them, whether in Auckland, Australia or Dunedin, seemed to me to have the energy and vitality and drive of a young lady who was part of our church youth group, and with whom I became very friendly later on: Audrey. 

During University years I joined the Baptist Harrier Club, and used to run round the block early each morning to get fit, but I never succeeded in winning any races. Similarly a local tennis club associated with the Baptist Churches in Mt Eden met at the Training College courts.  I played regularly, especially after Audrey came on the scene, but never made much progress up the ladder there either. However both these activities provided plenty of social contact, and lots of friends.