1970-1971

Belmont Terrace

For these two years, Judy and I shared a flat in Belmont Terrace, Milford, which runs downhill from Forrest Hill Road just past Westlake Boys High School on the opposite side of the street.

I continued to travel to Mt Roskill each day for work, while Judy finished her primary school at Takapuna, and then in 1971 started at the brand new Takapuna Normal intermediate School in Tarahoto Road.

 

On Saturdays in the winters I would pick up Terry and take both Judy and Terry to their sports: Judy was playing basketball (netball) at the courts at Northcote Road, while Terry played soccer at various grounds on the Shore. Reg Butcher, Audrey's father, was a soccer fan and supported Terry as well, from their flat next to the Takapuna Primary School. The captain of the team at that time was Chris Dixon, who later sailed to victory in international yacht races.

 

One of my extra activities over those years was marking School Certificate. This experience, though boring at times, was valuable in showing me how the standards for the exam were obtained, and enabled me to streamline my marking skills for school exams, both setting and marking, both at Mt Roskill and especially later at Bay of Islands.

 

Over these years I was running to catch up with my reading of more recent English novels, because of the years in India when I had been more interested in reading Indian writers like Rabindranath Tagore and Radhakrishnan. So I read the Alexandria Quartet by Laurence Durrell, several of Maurice Shadbolt's books, Errol Brathwaite's Wars trilogy, and most important of all, Patrick White's Riders in the Chariot. And each week I read the BBC Listener.

 

I also found a friend in a colleague, Glynis Sweeney. We made a couple for outings, like Mercury Theatre productions, and were interested in similar things, like films and books and education. Glynis was the first person I told when Margaret agreed to marry me in 1977.

 

1970 seemed to me to mark a watershed in the world's progress. It eventually came to mark the end of the period of the Sixties, which had started with the Beatles and Elvis Presley, and specifically for me with the Suez Crisis in 1956, and now finished in 1970 with the release of the film of Easy Rider, which seemed to symbolise a drop from the high points of the real sixties ideals. I still believe the Sixties were the most interesting and exciting period in my lifetime.

 

Towards the end of 1971 I was getting stressed with all the work and other activities I was involved in, had a bout of high blood-pressure and welcomed with open arms the possibility of a job at Bay of Islands College for 1972.

 

So over the Christmas holidays I found a flat in Kawakawa and headed north for a new adventure.

 

At the beginning of the school holidays I took the children on the train to Wellington and back for a couple of days' break, and travelling with them became a great source of enjoyment over the subsequent years.