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.