Memories on Paper

Old documents

A few posts ago I showed a photo of the Chevrolet my grandfather bought in 1939.

A year or so later he wrote a letter to me, which you can read here. He was 73 at the time and I was approaching 7.








A dozen years later I was called up for Compulsory Military Training. This was at the time of the Korean War and it was the popular system in all developed countries to require a period of military service.

I opted for the Air Force and was accepted as a trainee pilot.

Before we had barely completed our initial training (at Taieri Airport, with instructors on leave from their normal jobs as agricultural topdressing pilots), the Tiger Moth planes were scrapped, and we were discharged, being just as obsolete as the planes!

Here are my discharge papers.

When I worked in India I didn't need to fly, but I did need to drive, and here is my Driver's License.

The mission owned at various times a Dodge station wagon and a Landrover. The four-wheel drive capability was very necessary, as the roads in those days were very primitive, although the Indian Government built kilometres of good roads very quickly.

In about 1960 I walked for a day and a half from the end of the road to attend a district conference in one area; five years later we were able to travel the whole way by the Landrover.

Newspaper Appearances

In the Press

Several times over the years press reporters have shown an interest in my activities, and here are four examples:

In 1953 I attended a conference of Baptist young people at Mooloolabah on the Sunshine Coast, Queensland, and was met in Brisbane by a reporter from the Courier-Mail.

Much later, around 1979, I was interviewed by a Taranaki reporter on my experience of India, particularly of the State of Tripura, where I lived for around seven years.

From 1995 to 2000 I was a member of the Taranaki Regional Ethics Committee, which advised on all health research in Taranaki which involved human subjects. Here is one reporter's account of an interview I gave the local paper.

And a year or two later I took up playing the clarinet and joined a community concert band of adult learners. Here is what the same paper made of their research about our music!

Schooldays

School photos are a record of one's growth, and of one's progress through the education system.

Here is a selection of mine:

This is my last photo from Owairaka School. This was at the worst phase of World War II; class sizes were large as you can see here. You will find me fourth from the left in the front row.

Later in 1942 we shifted to Papatoetoe. Here is my photo from 1945 taken as the war was finishing:




























Again I'm in the front row, in front of my best friend, Ian Bond, who is immediately right of the name-board.

The next year I started secondary school at Auckland Grammar (second from right in second row from front).

Early in my career at Grammar I joined the staff of the library. Above is the team from 1949. My favourite teacher, Owen Lewis, is on the left. Next to him is my closest school friend that year, John Imperatrice. I'm on the right of the front row.

Last comes the shot of my final year, 1950. Form Teacher was "Teddy" Driver.  You'll find me third from the right in the second row from the back. If you know Colin Maiden, you'll find him in the back row. And Ritchie Poole is here, along with members of the Paykel, Airey, Rae and Barfoot families. And Jim Feist, who was my closest friend in this class.

Back to the sketching

This week

Well, fortnight or so!

No, I haven't been entirely neglecting sketching.

At Puke Ariki museum I found this strongly-lit carved panel on the front of the wharenui:

It was a good exercise in capturing light and shade with pencil only.

Nearby a display about Mt Taranaki, on this occasion with lots of schoolchildren milling about. Not one of my better efforts - I think the kids may have distracted me:

Here are two from the front window of our new house, the first looking across the cul-de-sac to a couple of neighbours' houses:

And here is the front fence between our lawn and the street:

The guy who helps us with the garden has now removed all the surplus vegetation, but this reminds us of what a mess was here when we first arrived!

From the Fifties

But....

before that, this classic of me with my father in 1934:

In teenage days we used to attend Bible Class Camps every Easter, and up till 1953 boys went to one camp and girls to another. Here is the Epsom Baptist group at the 1953 camp. We had a ringin that year, Paul Cooke, on the right in the back row. He came from the Valley Road Bible Class on his own, and because we were the nearest geographically, he joined with us.

I am third from left, behind my father, who was one of the leaders that year.

In 1954 it was decided to try a combined Easter Camp, and I volunteered to be the secretary of the committee.

In the event 450 of us crammed into the Eastern Beach camp for the Easter weekend, and the whole exercise was a roaring success.

Needless to say no-one has suggested going back to he old segregated days!

Here I am sporting a moustache, my first attempt at facial hair! A few days later a group of students waylaid me and shaved off half of the moustache. What made the crime even more heinous is that they were theological students.

However, in 1953 I represented the Baptist youth groups of New Zealand at a conference at Mooloolabah on the Sunshine Coast in Queensland.

That part of the world consisted mainly of wild, deserted beaches; it was long before the Sunshine Coast became a tourist Mecca.

While in Brisbane I visited one of the wild life parks and had a close encounter with a snake.

At the end of 1957, after our wedding in September, Audrey and \I left by sea for India and the remote city of Agartala.

Here we are arriving at the mission station on the outskirts of the city. It is winter, the dry season, so everything looks bare.

During 1958 I attended Church conferences in one or two outlying village areas. Here is one such gathering of leaders, with the "sahib" standing out like a sore thumb! The Raj was still very much part of the psychology of ordinary folk only ten years after independence.

Our holiday in 1960 was a trip to Kashmir, where we spent three weeks camping in Pahalgam, in the Himalayan foothills within walking distance of the snowline, half a day's bus trip from the capital, Srinagar. Judy was six months old. Here I am packing up on the last morning before we set out back through Delhi, where the temperature was 112 Fahrenheit.

We spent 1963 back in New Zealand, doing publicity for the mission and some more study. We lived much of the time in my parents' bach at Murray's Bay. We did have one break with friends who were teachers in Raurimu, near National Park, and here are Judy and Terry (left and front) and our friends' two kids exploring the snow slopes.

The children enjoyed Murray's Bay and here is Terry at the clothesline in our back yard.

Old Photos Batch 2

The War Years

I can date this next couple of shots pretty accurately. Somewhere about the middle of 1939, before the shooting started in Europe, Fred bought a new Chevrolet. He took Olwyn and me for a drive one afternoon.

The car cost 365 pounds. On Christmas Eve, much to Fred's disgust, it was requisitioned by the Army for use in the war, in return for a compensation of 350 pounds. The price was also much to Fred's disgust!

The same afternoon we posed for a shot in one of the parks>

All the photos were taken by Auntie Dot (Doris Kathleen), then 42, who also did all the driving, but rarely appears in any of the photos.

With no car (they didn't manage to buy another for several years) we had to be content with walks, like this one up the mountain (either Mt Eden or Mt Albert).

Stuart was born in 1941, and in 1942, when he was six months old, we shifted to a house in Papatoetoe. This photo of the five of us what shot in the grounds.

Our ages are 10, 7 and under 2 (approximately). Noel was 40 and Mary 37.

We still spent most holidays at Milford. Petrol rationing meant that our Austin 7 could travel around 30 miles each month. However about that time we did go for one long holiday: to Ashburton (by train and ferry) to visit the Bird family, who were eagerly awaiting Barbara's arrival.

Here are Olwyn and Stuart on the beach at Milford.

But the photo of Stuart as a little fellow that I remember best is this one. At that stage of our lives we slept in the same room and I used to lull him to sleep by telling him stories. This shot is in the grounds of the Papatoetoe house.

This last shot is taken on Christmas Day 1946, I think. Our ages are 13, 10 and 5. Stuart had been at school a few weeks, and I had spent my first year at AGS. This shot was taken in front of our grandparents' house; you can see the bay window with the window seat overlooking the park where we spent many hours reading the plentiful supply of National Geographic magazines when we visited them.

Stage Productions

My work as a dramatic producer

Part of my job as English teacher at Rangitoto College in the sixties was to assist my departmental boss, Frank Gee, with the school productions.

The first year he produced "Arsenic and Old Lace" and I understudied him. The next year Frank was more adventurous: he obtained several radio plays from Radio NZ that had never been produced on stage, and we chose three one acters to form the production. He produced the first and third, I ran the second. That was great fun.

At Mt Roskill Grammar I repeated "Arsenic and Old Lace". It is a very tightly written play. Thinking it might run too long, I tried to cut out a section or two, but found it was quite impossible to alter without affecting the thread of the plot.

When I arrived at Bay of Islands College, I found they had already settled on the Mikado as their production for the year. Here is the newspaper coverage from the Northern Advocate:

The staff were very supportive, much more so than in my previous schools.  The science teacher produced fantastic lighting effects and wonderful explosions for Katisha's arrival. About 25 of the teachers helped in one way or another.

Each year after that we produced a musical of some sort.

But 1975 was special, we had an extra production, a very important one. Late in 1974 the Minister of Education asked my Principal if the school could perform a re=-enactment of the signing of the Treaty at the Waitangi Day ceremonies at Waitangi the next February.

So I was asked to produce such a performance. Together with the Maori teacher and a copy of Colenso's account of the day's proceedings in 1840, I wrote and produced a 20-minute version.

Below is the text of the performance, which took place on the Treaty House lawn following speeches by Kirk and Muldoon. The Navy officers had had a mock-tent erected with signal flags, had taught the students how to salute with swords, and had lent their captain's three-cornered hats and uniforms, and their ceremonial swprds to us for the boy playing Hobson to use.

Old Photos batch 1

Up to School

These photos are from an old album compiled by my mother. The first few pages record snaps from my first five years, roughly until the day in September 1938 when I started school. This was at Owairaka School, which was new and wanting to grow, so we were allowed to start school at the beginning of the term of our fifth birthday.

Here I am learning to walk down the steps at my grandparents' bach at Milford on our way to play on the beach. It is summer, so I must have been about 12 months old.

Here I am riding my favourite toy.. I'm not much older than in the previous photo.

Olwyn was born when I was two and a half, and I must have been three to be able to ride such a massive trike!

A more formal occasion

I loved nothing better than playing in the sand on Milford Beach:

Here we are with our Gaze grandparents, Fred and Julia. From Olly's age I cannot have beenmore than three.

Dressed in my Sunday best.

Ready to leave for school that first day. Olly and I are on the front steps of our Ruarangi Road home.

Here is that bike again, this time on the footpath outside our house. By this stage it was two or three years old and I rode it everywhere until the day the main pipe broke at the neck and I came crashing to the ground. 

Another shot with our grandparents, outside the basement of their Mt Eden house.

Here is Olwyn with our first dog, Joe. Joe was a retired sheepdog from our great-uncle's farm at Takanini. Our family looked after him until he died.  He looked after us in return, accompanying me to my music lessons about a kilometre from home, waiting the 30 minutes of the lesson, and then seeing me home again. That was a year or two later when I was seven.

Finally a slightly earlier photo of our family on a holiday outing.