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.