Our part of town

Several people gave me sketching materials for Christmas, so I've been indulging my hobby this week.

This is the view just past the Boys High School in Coronation Avenue. The house on the left is on the corner of Wakefield Street (yes, named after Edward Gibbon). Then comes BK's Motel, run by two of our friends, Ross and Sheryl Domney, with their three flags flying at the gate.

I spent yesterday afternoon turning it into a watercolour version:

There are some interesting older houses, and some newer ones, around the corner in Rogan Street, where they have a view of the mountain across the racecourse to the south, and the sea beyond the CBD to the north.

Here are the first few:

The house on the right is seen from the other side in this next view:

Sketching in Christmas Week

A photo was posted recently on Facebook of Mt Taranaki by moonlight. Here is my version of the photo, using white gel pen, white pencil and silver pencil on black paper.

Today we decorated my mobility scooter for Christmas; here is a photo to show you what it looks like, with granddaughter Carys trying it out:.

Although I am walking as much as possible along the street and back, I need to ride the scooter to reach some slightly more distant sites for sketching.

One is the Polytech just around the corner:

And in the other direction the corner of Tokomaru and Turi Streets.

And here is Margie's 2016 version of our Christmas tree:

The Bell Tolls

It was a handbell, just like the ones the schools used to use to ring lunchtime or at the end of the schoolday. This one was smaller, lighter, but just as well made and rang with a good tone.

It sat on my windowsill by my big armchair, where I was recovering from surgery on the third floor of the new hospital building. I could see a view of Mt Taranaki from the chair, but I couldn't reach the electric bell, so the nurses had found the handbell somewhere and brought it instead. I had insisted I wanted to see the view, rather than be closer to the bell button.

On the bell itself was a label which read: Property of TDHB Ward 4. The handle was well worn. I soon recognised it as one that had stood on the desk of the Charge Nurse of the old Ward 4 (Orthopaedic) in the eighties, when Patricia Woods was in charge. If my memory is correct it had been donated by a grateful patient.

So I told the nurses all this, and they looked at me slightly bemused; "why would a ward need a ward bell?"

My mind wandered back to those days. In 1988 the then Minister of Health, Helen Clark, had asked everyone to think about replacing Hospital Boards and some Health Department services by what were to be called "Area Health Boards". The aim was to make the health service more aware of preventive and community measures, rather than focussing solely on hospitals.

So the Hospital Boards set up Community Advisory Committees to consider the possible future shape of the new structures. I was asked, as a community worker at Social Welfare, to be a member of the Taranaki Hospital Board's committee, along with about 20 others, including several members of the Hospital Board, one of whom was Patricia Woods.

The committee was chaired by Dan Holmes, the THB chair, and advised by the Board's three top staff members, John Eady, Peter Matthews and Janice Wenn. Other community members included Simon Shera from Hawera. We duly thought about the questions the ministry had set us. A year or so later the Area Health Boards were set up.

A week after I left my picture window and the old handbell behind, the penny dropped. Every ward on those days needed a bell to ring the end of visiting time. Visiting was from 2 to 4 in the afternoon, say, and at 4 pm one of the nurses would ring the handbell to tell the visitors politely it was time to say Good bye.

No wonder the handle looked worn; it had been used every day for years.