Sketching week 12

More portraits and more scenes from life, and from photos.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

This is from a photo taken at Cinque Terre in Italy: the church at Vernazza.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

A magazine photo was the basis for this one.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

A NZ Listener photo gave me the model for this.

 

This week we held the first meeting of our Sketching Group of U3A. We meet again Monday week, 7 April, for a session in the old cemetery just around the corner. Watch this space!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Family History 1.102

THE HOUSES

Noel in 1965

 

Noel Gaze had an ambition when young to be an architect.  Even in the forties he was still toying with idea of designing his own home. In the fifties he did so, with the holiday home at Murray’s Bay. 

He had a developed sense of the time in which he lived and the place where he spent his days. So it seems appropriate to set the scene by introducing the houses he spent time in.

 

75 Bellevue Road, Mt Eden

 

This late nineteenth century villa, built in 1894 soon after Fred and Julia were married, was Noel’s home for the early part of his life.  The original building was renovated extensively in the thirties by builder Alf Pearce, who was married to a cousin of Noel’s. 

Bellevue Road is one of the main connecting streets between Mt Eden Road and Dominion Road.  It leaves Mt Eden Road high on the slope of the “mountain” at St Barnabas’ Church and drops nearby the Mt Eden School to a flat area, ending in what was in earlier days a large depression which had been a rubbish tip and later (and still) a small park area on Dominion Road, midway between the traffic lights at View Road and those at Valley Road. 

Bellevue Road was close to the tram service along Dominion Road.  But Fred and Julia, accompanied by Doris, used to walk to and from their shop in Karangahape Road everyday except Sunday, down in the morning, back for dinner, down after dinner and back for tea. And on Sundays they did the same trip twice to Church at the Tabernacle, just around the corner from the shop. Each way this trip is at least 3 km.

75 Bellevue Road around 2000

This house had the return verandah, the coloured glass windows and doors, the ornate suffits of the original design.  It had Edwardian heavy wooden Venetian blinds, ornate Chinese pattern wallpapers, and a dark, ornately wooden vestibule halfway down the hall. In the late thirties the bedrooms still had china washbasins, washstands, with china jugs, soap dishes and chamber-pots. 

At that time Fred still cleaned the knives every Saturday morning with an abrasive cleaner.  Stainless steel was too modern.  The one concession to modernity was the building of a concrete-block garage in the northern corner of the section to house the car.  The garage was opened with due ceremony (cutting a ribbon by driving the car out) not long before the second war broke out.

More on Mt Roskill

Outings

One of the first problems I encountered at Mt Roskill was a ban the Board had imposed on groups leaving the school grounds during class time. I suppose they had a good reason, but I couldn't see one. When I had been a pupil at Auckland Grammar we had regularly been on outings to see films, hear music, watch sports, and so on.

So before I even knew we had such a rule I had taken a class to see a film one morning at the nearest theatre in Dominion Road: Fahrenheit 451.

I eventually worked out a way around the problem. A couple of daytime outings to events put on specially for schools to attend convinced me that was hard work anyway. But if I organised a group to attend an event in the evening (say, a play at Mercury Theatre) the students all dressed up in their best clothes and were on their best behaviour because they were amongst a large crowd of adults and wanted to appear equal to that company.

Drama

With the example of Frank Gee at Rangitoto College behind me I made plans to stage a performance of "Arsenic and old lace" at Mt Roskill.

It went off reasonably well, although I remember it as fairly poorly attended by the local public of the school.

My experience with school drama up to this stage convinced me that when producing amateur drama it is desirable to have understudies for all main parts in the play or musical. This I proceeded to do later. We would plan a series of performances over a week, with two casts alternating. Those who played the principal parts at one performance would still be part of the chorus for the next, and so on.
If anyone got sick, they could swap with their understudy. It worked well.

So well, in fact, that I transferred the idea to voluntary organisations I worked with later: I  would try to ensure that each position on a committee had a deputy or assistant. I didn't always succeed, but I think the principle is important where volunteer work is concerned. It certainly saved problems.

Teachers Association.

While at Mt Roskill I was elected to the position of chair of the PPTA branch. In that capacity I got involved with a personal case which required negotiation with the authorities. Later it might well have been handled by an Ethics Committee, but in those days the provision for such bodies was in the future.

It involved a trainee teacher who had been allocated to work for a term at the school to complete her training by the Training College. The Training College reckoned she had not fulfilled their requirements to pass the course. She disputed this.

Now the complicating factor to PPTA members who supported her was that she was doing this work unpaid. In those days trainee teachers were paid.

So we took the issue up with the College, where I had contacts through the English Association, and got negotiations started and reached a compromise.  I don't remember the details, but know in the end everyone was satisfied with the outcome.

My Taranaki Anniversary Day 8.1

 

Fort Niger continued

Fort Niger and several of the other forts to the south of the city were on the spurs that are level with the next step in the coastal strip. So they provided and excellent vantage point to watch for movement in the surrounding countryside, as you can see from this shot from the top of Fort Niger.

 

 

 

On the signboard at Fort Niger is a panoramic photo of this part of New Plymouth around 1900 from the PukeAriki collection. It shows this neighbourhood just after this house was built.

 

 

This part is the view towards the west. Lemon Street runs left to right behind the two houses: the right-hand house is probably ours.

 

 

The house in the bottom right-hand corner of this photo is still standing, very recognisable, nearly opposite us.

 

It is possible to make out the railway line on the other side of Leach Street (next street above Lemon Street), which was removed in 1907.

 

 

 

The paddock on the right, on the other side of Leach Street, was until recently the carpark for a Countdown supermarket.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 





Family History 2.01

Bello of Carcassonne

Carcassonne

 

Bello was Count of Carcassonne from 790 to 810, appointed by the Holy Roman Emperor, Charlemagne. He established a hereditary dynasty: whereas previously the Emperors had appointed whoever they wished, from Bello on they appointed his family heirs.

 

The County of Carcassonne was part of the Visigothic Kingdom which stretched along the Mediterranean coast from around Marseilles to south of Barcelona.

 

As we shall see later, Bello's descendants eventually became rulers of Barcelona. But for centuries the family maintained its interest in this whole region of South-west France and North-eastern Spain, straddling the Pyrenees mountains.

 

As the photo shows us, the medieval fortress of Carcassonne is still one of the features of the city, and a great tourist attraction. And it is the centre of the Rugby-playing regions of France!

 

 

 

 

 

The Visigoths were a tribe of people from what is now Roumania, who invaded the southern parts of Western Europe at the end of the Roman Empire and took over from the Romans as they withdrew their forces from the region described above. 

 

The entrance to Carcassonne medieval city

 

Family History 1.101

FATHERS

 

Your generation was the first to audit

The value of the shift from there to here;

Checking back you found the sky had changed

The Milky Way fades as you go north,

The constellations no longer gleam.

You saw under the grey the barren hills

And judged the old people made no mistake

To swap the northern for the southern sky.

 

“They change their sky and not their soul

“Who fly across the sea”, the poet said;

But souls are plastic, edges rub off,

And context encourages a search for comfort.

Yet I hear your whisper: change is not enough!

That new beginning eluded your efforts.

 

What you did naturally our

Management consultants now call

Continuous Quality Improvement;

You saw the need for something more,

Not the spark of a religious conversion only

But the slow burn of a revolution

To a new society as the earth turned

Under their keels as they sailed south.

29/08/02

Family History 1.100

NSG: A Memoir

In 2002, at the century of my father's birth, I wrote a memoir about him, which was published in the family in both hard copy and CD formats.

 

It follows naturally after the life of Fred, recounted briefly in the last posting in this series. 

 

In the next few weeks I will serialise it here under numbers from 1.100 on.

 

Please do not expect a sequential account of his life all at once! And remember it is my idiosyncratic impressions.

 

Pleasant blogging!

 

(NB We will intersperse the Bigelow Family Story with the NSG Memoir one)

 

First Management Job

Mt Roskill Grammar School 

This was a different kettle of fish from Rangitoto.  That had been in a rapidly gentrifying area of the North Shore; it was a few years after the opening of the Bridge. 

Mt Roskill, where I started as HOD English after the May holidays in 1968, was in what was rapidly becoming an inner suburb, and had at that time a sizeable minority of Maori and Pacific students. Upper streams were largely Pakeha, slower streams had many more brown faces. The upper stream children had typically Pakeha middle class ideas; the lower stream pupils had stories of police harassment relayed from their older brothers and sisters from the streets of the city. 

I had become convinced from my years at Rangitoto that student co-operation, especially in the upper forms, was enhanced by giving them more choice. So we developed a programme in the sixth form that gave the students more choice. 

They had six periods of English each week. We allocated two periods to language: writing, comprehension and so on. Students spent these two periods each week with their homeroom English teacher. But for the other four, which were devoted to literature, they could choose their teacher. There were six teachers, and each half-term they each offered a study of one novel, poet or play. The students chose by writing their names on the appropriate list on the main noticeboard the week before. Once the system became established there was a rush to get on to the most popular lists, which were limited to 25 students. 

We encouraged the pupils to shop around, but once they had found a teacher they could work with to stick with that one. Using this system we found discipline problems were almost non-existent. Pupils knew they could change teachers at the end of the topic; both teachers and pupils found the system was beneficial. 

 

Auckland English Association

While at Mt Roskill I became involved with the English Association, which brought together secondary and tertiary teachers, journalists, writers, booksellers, and people interested in language and literature. We had monthly meetings with speakers; I remember Pat Booth (photo at left)of Arthur Allan Thomas case fame, and John A Lee (photo right). The committee instituted discussions aimed at revising the secondary schools English syllabus. We also encouraged the study of contemporary literature; Roger McGough instead of (or as well as) Browning or Cowper. 

One event to move this idea forward was a gathering of students to read contemporary poetry; we printed and distributed handbills in school playgrounds at lunchtime, which didn’t please some Principals. 

For two years I was the president of the English Association.

 

School Certificate 

Around the same time I became a member of the marking panel for School Certificate.  This was invaluable; I became familiar with the details of the marking schemes. After a few years’ practice of both setting and marking fifth form exams, I could have my class papers marked in about five hours on the evening of the exam, ready to notify the students the next morning. I believed very strongly in the importance of immediate feedback; delaying results any longer than absolutely necessary is of little value to students. 

In pursuit of more choice for students I began a move to offer fourth form pupils a choice of teacher for their fifth form year. Late in the fourth form year I visited all the English classes and told them I would be allocating pupils to fifth form teachers soon, and that if they had any teacher they specially liked, they could give me a slip of paper with the teacher’s name on and I would do my best (no promises) to allocate them to that teacher’s English class. Similarly, a slip of paper giving me the two names of pupil and teacher who they would rather avoid, would enable me to try to keep the two apart! 

Of course this was done after prior consultation with the teachers. Each year I did this, I received about five or six requests, mostly positive ones, and I had no difficulty matching the requested teachers up with their admirers. Of course the teachers were also given the same option. I never had to intervene in problems between teachers and their students in fifth form classes!

My Taranaki Anniversary Day 8

Wartime

The dig at Oropuriri, Bell Block before the motorway was built

across the site

The period between around 1845 and 1860 is a bit of a blank in my feeling about the province. In the last few years a major archaeological dig went on at Bell Block, with a raft of new discoveries about this period, but no detailed reports have been published about it, so we are still a bit in the dark.

 

I visited the site as the dig was finishing and the archaeologist showed me around. It was fascinating, and I hope the details will appear before too long.

However, with the commencement of hostilities in March 1860, a lot of records exist, and so there is much more information.

At this stage many women and children were sent to Nelson, or other places of safety for the duration of the fighting. Extra defences were built around the city, and these are still traceable in some places.

Tightly around the centre, what is now the centre of the CBD, was a trench defence, with gates to let people in and out.

From the signboard on Fort Niger

Further out was a series of forts with 24-hour sentries to observe comings and goings from further afield.

These were on higher ground, and several have been lost to more recent development, but the sites of two of them are still accessible. The most central is on the top of Marsland Hill, where the hill was flattened and barracks erected to house the troops. You can still climb the hill, behind the cathedral, and see memorials to the soldiers who died in the fighting.

Nearer here is Fort Niger, at the eastern end of Pendarves Street, which was also flattened and occupied by a garrison, this time from a naval vessel, HMS Niger, anchored off the coast. At the Battle of Waireka the marines and sailors from Niger under Captain Cracroft came to the support of the local militia and were credited with saving the day. So the name of the fort was retained after the need for it had passed. It is now a reserve, with a signboard (see left photo) telling the stories and displaying the pictures of the history. As it is almost directly behind our house, we climb up there quite often on our walks.

Family History 2.0

Bigelow Family History

Having set out the Gaze Family History so far, we now come to my mother's family, the Bigelows.

The early part of the family story contains a certain amount of unsubstantiated material. The key point in this tale is the life of King Edward I of England.

Before his time we could have traced a variety of family lines from the royal histories of Europe. But we have chosen to collect information about just two: Edward's mother, and Edward's father.

Someone has reckoned that there are around 17,000,000 people in the world descended from King Richard III, whose body was recently rediscovered in Leicester. So no doubt the number of families connected to Edward I is even greater, because he lived even earlier. You have only to work out how many ancestors you could have had in the year 1000 to see why this is likely to be true.

 

Over the net few weeks I will explore this history, sometimes, the period before Edward, and sometimes the period after him, especially the story of the ancestors who sailed from England to the new colony of Massachussetts around 1640.

Fortunately there is a lot of material on the internet about this period, collected by the enthusiastic Bigelow researchers in North America. We are fortunate to be able to piggyback on their work!

 

The posts that deal with the period before 1630 will be numbered 2.01 to 2.99, and those after 1630 will carry numbers above 2.100

Edward I on his throne

Family History 1.9

Again, the Youngest Son

Charles was the youngest son of his family, as his father, John, had been.

Again, our history follows the youngest son, because in the next generation we follow Fred, born in Whangarei in 1867.

Being the baby of the family, Fred was largely brought up by his older sisters. The story is told that a couple of them were looking after him on the front steps of the house, right by the footpath, when a Maori passer-by snatched the baby and ran off up the road. The girls went screaming in to their mother, and when Alice came to the door, the Maori was standing grinning at her holding out the baby. He had been teasing the little girls. Everyone was thankful it was nothing worse, and settled down again, but it clearly made an impression on the children.

Fred went to Ponsonby School, and then in 1883 to Auckland Grammar School.

 

After two years at the secondary school, he left to work as office boy for the Herald. He ended up working for John Court Ltd as a department manager until 1910.

 

That year he left to start his own business.  He built a building on the left of Karangahape Road, the first after the Hebrew cemetery on the corner of Symonds Street. He established a wool business there, with machines and staff to make knitted garments, underwear, jerseys, swimsuits, and so on. He used to advertise himself as "the first live man in Karangahape Road". Julia, who was the same age, used to work with him, as did Doris when she was old enough.

 

They used to walk from their home in Bellevue Road Mt Eden, then home for dinner, back again for the afternoon and then home for tea after work. On Sundays they walked the same route to the Tabernacle for Church, Sunday School, and evening service.

 

Fred (about 70) and me

Fred was Secretary of the Church, and Superintendent of the Sunday School for many years. He took a great interest in the affairs of the church, and was one of the movers in setting up the Baptist Theological College. In 1931 he was elected president of the Baptist Union.

 

He was also a conscientious citizen, voting in all the elections.  in those days he had property in three local authority areas: the shop in town, home in Mt Eden, and the bach in Milford. On local election day he and Julia had votes in those three areas, which included separate votes in each area for Hospital Board, Harbour Board, Transport Board, and Electric Power Board.

 

In 1927, when he turned 60, he sold his business and retired to devote himself to voluntary work in the church and for the family.

 

He lived until 1948, but his last years were much less happy, because his beloved church was split by a division between the pastor, Dr A Hodge, and some of the members. Fred stood with the members who were expelled from the church, saying he believed they were all good Christians and good people, and walked out in disgust.  He never went back to any church again, and was buried from his home, rather than have a church funeral.

 

I remember him as a kind gentle man, with a wonderful sense of humour and a ready line of conversation and fun. He was good company for a boy growing up during the war and spending holidays together!

(This is Post No 200)

Christianity and Life

In 1965 when Audrey and I returned from India, our break with the mission and with the Baptist Church was the culmination of growing unease with the task we were being asked to do. 

Certainly there was a sense of aimlessness in the background: the school was operating well with an Indian Principal and I was therefore superfluous. In spite of efforts to find a way to continue working in the educational world in Tripura, no openings appeared. 

And our marriage had been through some rough passages, which added to the unsettlement. 

But central to my disillusionment with the mission work and the church were two areas of practical and theological concern.

 

 

First I was unhappy with the pressure to carry on evangelism among the school children. In effect we were expected to try to influence the non-Christian children towards Christianity in spite of their parents’ wishes. I was increasingly feeling that such an aim was unethical. 

I had no problem with the general welfare work of Christians or other foreigners in Inida: economic development, education, health programmes and so on were a greatv way of helping less fortunate people. But the linking of that with evangelism was a problem. Conversions to Christianity were very suspect in my mind, because of the great wealth and prestige of Europeans in India in general, and our missionaries in particular. Compared with the simplicity of life-style of, for instance, the American Peace Corps workers, we were affluent in the extreme. And there seemed no way of turning off the stream of money coming from New Zealand, which I suspected was to some extent a way of salving New Zealand consciences. 

Many of the Hindus I knew were better people than many of my Christian colleagues, or my friends in New Zealand, or than me. So how could I conscientiously point to Christianity as a better way of life? 

Much of what I had grown up thinking of as part of Christian life turned out to be merely culturally different and not necessarily better.

 

Secondly my theological ideas, under the influence of the Indian experience and Indian philosophies, and, again, after much discussion with my friend Brian Smith, underwent change. 

Central to this was a feeling that our conservative evangelical version of Christianity put too much emphasis on individual salvation, when in India for instance, decisions were made by the village or by the extended family. Individualism was and still is a Western way of living; communal living was, and is, and Asian (and Polynesian) way. 

One of the most vivid experiences of my time in India was attendance at a Hindu festival which included animal sacrifice. While the bagpipes played, drums rolled, and bombs went off, animals were sacrificed at a ceremony at the Assam Rifles camp when a Hindu festival was being celebrated and several from the mission were invited. (They would have celebrated Christmas or Easter just as enthusiastically, or the Eid festival)

 

They started the proceedings with small animals like ducks and chickens, and moved on to kids and goats, and eventually to a half-grown buffalo calf. Each time the animal was tied to the base of the altar, and a big Gurkha with a kukri (curved knife), bigger each time, cut off the head at one blow. Each time the music and the explosions got louder, and the cheers of the crowd.  It was a physically exciting spectacle. 

This, along with visits to sacrificial temples, with their drains to lead away the river of blood, gave me an insight into what “sacrifice” really meant. And I came to be repelled by the whole idea, as most educated orthodox Hindus are, and by the idea that Christianity taught, that the death of Jesus on the first Good Friday was a similar sacrifice for the sins of the world. 

Even more, since 1965, as I have thought about all this I have rejected entirely this crude legalistic and violently bloodthirsty myth as having any relevance for life in the modern world.

Family History 1.8

Auckland at last

 

Once landed in Auckland, Charles and Alice lost no time looking for work. They managed to get a contract from the army at Otahuhu Camp to supply haversacks for the troops.

The week they landed was the first week of hostilities in Taranaki. The government had been building up the numbers of troops in New Zeraland by bringing several shiploads from Australia and India over the previous few years.

The family, including young Charles, worked day and night to produce the haversacks when they were needed.

Soon they moved to Otahuhu and Charles established a workshop and home for them on the corner where the Otahuhu Methodist Church now stands.

Over the war years he had made a good living and built up a reputation and some assets, but the war ended completely by 1867, and he was down to his last reserves of money. A few years before he had been well enough off to contribute his share to the fund to build the Otahuhu Town Hall.

So he moved the family to Whangarei to follow the gum and kauri trades, hoping to cash in on the opportunities they offered.

During the time in Otahuhu, three more children were born to the family, starting with Elizabeth Olive (Lizzie). In Whangarei the last child, Frederick William, was born. And they met the Simpson family, whose daughter Alison was to become young Charles's wife a few years later.

The Franklin Road house has recently been largely altered, but it was

a typical four-room cottage.

The shift to Whangarei, however, was not a success, so towards the end of the year they all trooped south again, this time to Auckland, where a boom was starting on the back of the discovery of gold in Thames.

Charles got a job managing an importing firm, which he maintained until his retirement. They built a house in Franklin Road, Freeman's Bay, and joined the activities of the Wellesley Street Baptist Church. This church had been started in 1855, and in 1885 morphed into the Baptist Tabernacle, when the new building, still standing and still used, was built at the top of Queen Street.

 

The house in Franklin Road was the third house built in the street and in the area. Beyond Ponsonby Road was a farm, where the older children used to walk every morning to get the family's milk. When I was young the house was still owned by the family, and occupied by the two surviving unmarried daughters, Millie (born in London), and Lizzie (born in Otahuhu).

This 1941 Christmas family group with Olwyn and me in front showing off our presents, and Stuart at six weeks in Mary's arms: Back: William Bigelow, Fred Gaze, Alice Grover (nee Gaze), Noel Gaze; Front: Mary Gaze, Julia Gaze, Lizzie Gaze, Millie Gaze. Alice was Charles Albert's daughter (young Charles in the diary); William was Mary's father.

My Taranaki Anniversary Day 7

By the end of January 1843, three couples had arrived in New Plymouth who became ancestors of Margaret, and so also of Matthew, Julia, Carys, Spencer and Sophie.

 

A recent sketch of the Barriball precinct in the old cemetery, New Plymouth.

The sandstone gravestone left of centre is that of Henry and Mary, bottom left is Samuel and his son Archie, who was killed in the very last days of World War I; bottom right is another family member. This was a corner of the Methodist section; the cemetery in those days was divided according to your Church.

Henry (33) and Mary (30)  Barriball arrived on the Timandra on 23 February 1842. In those days there was no port, and everyone had to be rowed ashore, often for several kilometres, and carried ashore through the surf, along with all their luggage. Early settlers were very unhappy about this and criticised Carrington for not planning New Plymouth at Waitara, where the river provided shelter for landing. Carrington spent much of the rest of his life planning and lobbying for a harbour at Moturoa, where it now is.



Timandra

 

On 7th November 1841 another family, the Foremans, landed from the Oriental. Among them was the daughter, Harriet, who became Margaret's great-great-grandmother. Harriet had an affair with one of the surveyors, Harcourt Aubrey, when she was sixteen, and had a son to him, who was brought up by her parents as their own. Then she married William Old, who was Margaret's great-great-grandfather.

 

The Olds arrived on the Essex on 20 January 1843.

 

Harriet's mother, Mary, had died a few years before they came here, and her father had married a widow, Susannah Sole, who had six sons, so 12 children accompanied the parents to New Plymouth.

 

Both Foremans and Soles have numerous descendants in Taranaki now.

 

Harcourt Aubrey later married a Maori woman of the Tamati family. Lisa Tamati, the long-distance runner, and Howie, formerly a Rugby League player and coach, and now running Sport Taranaki, are from that family.

Anearly new school 2

The third interesting feature of my time at Rangitoto was spending the second year as Careers Adviser for the boys. I made sure I interviewed all the boys in the three final years to make sure they were thinking about their futures; sixths and sevenths individually and fifths in groups.

 

During this time we lived in a series of places on the North Shore.

 

For a few months at the end of 1965, while Audrey was recuperating from her hepatitis episode, we lived in a little cottage, not much more than a bach, right next to the shopping centre in Mairangi Bay.  This was in the general locality we had got to know in 1963, was handy to shops and bus stop, and to the beach, and just over the hill from Murrays Bay School, where Judy was enrolled.

 

We all enjoyed seeing and getting to know the film of "The Sound of Music".

 

By early 1966, we had found a house, just up the road in Matipo Road, which my father helped us to arrange the purchase of. This was our first purchase of property. A walk to the shops was not far, and the beach as well, but the great thing was that when Mairangi Bay School was opened the next year, it was only a few steps away from our house, and both Judy and Terry attended it from than on. I was also a member of the new school committee.

 

When I finally got a job in a school on the other side of the harbour, I bought a scooter like the one we had in Agartala, and commuted across the bridge each day.

 

We enjoyed living in the East Coast Bays area, and Rangitoto College was a great school to teach it.

 

Things seemed to be going well.

 

Politics

 

One of my colleagues on the staff at Rangitoto College was Frank Gee, who was an active member of the local Labour Party. He invited me to join and help with him in working for the re-election in 1966 of Norman King, the local (Birkenhead) MP and Minister of Social Welfare.

 

This was not a difficult task as Norman had a majority of 10,000, which was a whopping total in those days. When you look at the East Coast Bays area today you find it hard to imagine!

I was keen to work in several areas of political action. Generally I wanted to support the left wing point of view: that the world was moving towards a socialist future, which would bring about more equality, a lessening of poverty, and a better society. 

And secondly I wanted to work against war in all forms and especially against the Vietnam War. So I joined the Christian Pacifist Society and agreed to represent the CPS on the Council on Vietnam. 

The Vietnam Council met monthly.  It was made up of various left-wing groups, including unions and political parties like the Communists and the Socialists, and student organisations opposed to the war. The Chair was Len Reid, the Secretary was John Colquhoun, and prominent among the members were Bill Anderson (Drivers’ Union) and Tim Shadbolt. Around 1968, when the movement was at its most active, I was the Vice-Chairman. 

The two activities of the Council which I remember most vividly were a march and rally in Queen Street and Myers Park, at which I spoke on the Third Way (Buddhist monk Thic Nath Hahn’s proposal), and a rally in St Matthew’s Church, where Pete Seagar snag and Hone Tuwhare read his poems.  I was the MC for the church rally, and had to meet and brief Seager, and provide transport for Hone Tuwhare from his home to the church and back. 

Soon after these events, President Johnson announced he was not going to stand for re-election, which took the heat out of the battle, and the Auckland Council faded away gradually.

 

Sketching week 11

This week I've been reading Mason Hayek's  Seeing and Drawing. I have also bought some cheap

acrylic paints and started to try them. So here is the first effort, with 6b pencil, watercolour, and acrylic and a little felt pen. It's of a very old house in our vicinity of the city in a special historic precinct called the Hen and Chickens.

This is a patch of countryside from a photo taken near Les Baux in Provence, where bauxite ore was first identified. It is certainly unusual terrain but I don't think my sketch is good enough to capture what it is really like.

Next week we start a sketching group of U3A members. Should be fun, watch this space!