85. Vignettes of Family Life in New Zealand: (5) Christmas/New Year 1977/78

 

ACTION LEARNING SYSTEMS

                                                                                         P.O. Box 37-362, Parnell, Auckland 1

                                                            
1a Huia Rd., Papatoetoe. 6th November 1977
    Dear Mum and Dad,
    We are just beginning to surface again after a very hectic month. My seminar went off very well on Monday and Tuesday of this week, the first venture of 'Action Learning Systems' of which I am sole proprietor and Mary is agent. So that's why you have all the business notepaper since I thought you might like to see what it was like. Also enclosed is the brochure for the seminar. We are going to repeat it in February and have already been approached to run it next year sometime in Christchurch in the South Island. Since I have never yet been to the South Island that might be a good opportunity to do so.
    Also last Monday the Hair Design Studio opened in Otahuhu so there was lots of last minute rushing around to get everything ready. The Mayoress of Otahuhu cut the ribbon and we all had some champagne the previous Friday evening to celebrate its completion. As you can see from the photographs it's a very bright and cheerful place. You've no idea what a dirty hovel it was three months ago. We stripped all the old wallpaper and muck out and redecorated and refitted the whole place from nothing. Mary's father and a number of friends helped but the layout and colour scheme were all in Mary's head, all based on the sunflower wallpaper that we found in a local shop about six months ago - before we had any idea what we might do with it. The salon is  run by a manager and two apprentices but Mary goes there each day for a visit to help them get established and works in the salon on the late night, Thursday. Otahuhu is about two miles from here so it is quite convenient. So now we both have little businesses established we can relax a bit. My university term has ended and I am busy marking examination papers which should be finished in the next ten days or so. Then I have three weeks to work on the book on NZ Industrial Relations* before Mary and I go for a week's holiday to Tutukaka in Northland, a week's complete rest by the sea. Mary's term finishes at the end of November and then she is doing four days work for South Pacific Television in Auckland helping them with hairdressing styles and cuts for various of their productions. She has a medical check up on December 9th and we go away immediately after that - as you can see from the photograph she is looking pretty good.



   This week is the anniversary of our trip to Sydney so we have been remembering that with a great deal of pleasure and thinking what an action-packed good and bad year it has been for us both. On Friday evening Mary's (Personnel Management 1974-75) class had a reunion dinner at a French restaurant in Auckland (Caballe) so we shared our anniversary with all of them which was a lot of fun. Most of them knew that Mary had been ill so they were delighted to see her looking so well. One of the class had lost his wife of cancer two years ago so he had a good idea what we had come through together. We also learned this week, something we had suspected at the time, and that was that in March the doctor told Mary's sister and brother-in-law that it was unlikely that Mary would recover from the cancer - so that just shows what love and prayers and a strong will to live can do, doesn't it?
    57, Sunnybrae Road is now definitely sold. We have also signed an agreement to buy the property at Rothesay Bay and Pat and the children were supposed to move in there last weekend. Unfortunately the weather has been so bad that the builder still doesn't have the place finished so they have moved into the house of some friends who are away until November 11th. Although Rothesay Bay is further from here than Sunnybrae Road it is a delightful spot and it is in the catchment area for Rangitoto College which I think is the best secondary school on the North Shore. It is more expensive than I think is absolutely necessary but the alternative was that Pat would stay at Sunnybrae Road with all its mortgage commitments. This new place will be mortgage free; all the proceeds of sale of Sunnybrae Road go into it and it is owned 50:50 by Pat and I until she remarries or Lewis gets to the age of 18 when it will be resold and I will get my share out. From my point of view the fact that it is new and near to the beach makes it a fairly secure investment and of course from the children's point of view that [the beach] will be a big attraction for a few years. Also Stuart wants to join Air Scouts now that he has finished with cubs and the nearest Air Scouts to Takapuna was in Browns Bay, just a mile north of Rothesay Bay. And the Real Estate Agent who sold us the Sandown Road house is a Scout commissioner and can help get Stuart into the Air Scouts! To start with therefore it will be a lot of travelling to and fro to see the children at weekends. Longer-term Mary and I may move closer to Auckland city centre eventually and then perhaps we will have enough room to have the children stay some weekends. At present John** and Lynette are still living at 1a Huia Rd and so there is no space for visitors to sleep other than in the sitting-room. We had the children over yesterday and in the evening Pat took them to a fireworks display in Takapuna.
    That's all for now.
    Love to you both,
    John and Mary

*John Deeks, James Farmer, Herbert Roth and Graham Scott, Industrial Relations in New Zealand, Wellington, Methuen Publications (N.Z.) Ltd, 1978.
**Mary's son John and his girlfriend, later wife, Lynette.

Tutukaka, 13th December 1977
    Dear Mum and Dad,
    Wish you were here! We finally got away for a week to Tutukaka and the best-earnt holiday we have both ever had. I only wish you could see the view from our motel room. As you can see from the enclosed brochure the Pacific Rendezvous is right on the cliff top and the X marks the unit we are in. From one window we can look right down Tutkaka harbour and from the other right across to the Poor Knights Islands - they are called that I think because they look like knights that have been knocked down and are lying flat on their backs, a bit like those old medieval tombs. We can walk down a path through the bush to the beach or scramble down the hillside to the rocks and fish - yesterday we caught three rock cod and had them for supper. But most of the time so far we have done mostly nothing and enjoyed every minute of it. A marvellous spot for relaxing as you can imagine. I have just finished a film in the camera so should have some photos to send you after Christmas. Thankyou for the ones of Elizabeth and yourselves, and your long letter of November 30th. We did receive the Jubilee editions of the Illustrated London News and enjoyed them very much.
    Mary got a good report from the Doctor last week. The only thing he was worried about was her weight! since she has put on another 1/2 stone in the last six months and doesn't need it. The trouble is the sea air and all the exercise here makes you very hungry. She has had to take various pills since the cancer treatment and I expect they mess up the hormone balance. We were glad to hear that Dad's ear was so much better too.
    Pat and the children are now settled at Rothesay Bay... We gave Lewis a fishing rod for his birthday and they have been trying that out on the Rothesay Bay beach but without much success so far I gather.
   The Christmas presents for the children and us have arrived safely. I have rather lost track of the posting dates for Christmas mail to the U.K. so hope this arrives on time, especially since I will post it in Tutukaka and have no idea how reliable the post is here. Considering this is summer and it is such a beautiful place it is remarkable how few people are around but then schools do not finish until the end of this week and then everyone will be busy with their Christmas shopping, including us when we get back. Mary is working in the salon next week as it is a very busy week and she will also work during January so this is our last chance to get a break together without the children for a bit. This afternoon we are taking a picnic lunch to the beach so I will try and post this letter on the way.

1a Huia Road, January 4th 1978
    Dear Mum and Dad,
    Many thanks for the lovely Worcestershire porcelain dish you sent us for Christmas. It is a real beauty. We also have some egg coddlers and a Maxine so have quite a collection building up. Thank you too for the books you sent the children. They have enjoyed reading them.
    We had a very pleasant Christmas. I collected the children on Christmas morning from Rothesay Bay and we had all the traditional Christmas lunch fare of turkey and plum pudding with them here at Huia Road. We gave Stuart a new camera - his old one was broken and it seems they are cheaper to replace than to repair! Sacha had a box of paints and Lewis a kite. We then had the children with us right through to New Year. On Boxing Day we took them to a bar-b-q and they all had a pony ride and on the next day we all went to the beach with Mary's sister Anita and her husband. After that we spent most of the time playing softball and tennis at the local park, going to the swimming pool at Papatoetoe and flying Lewis' kite. On the Friday we took them all out to dinner in Auckland and then to see the film 'Star Wars' which is all the rage here at the moment amongst the children - real old-fashioned fantasy and adventure stuff which they loved. On New Year's Eve Pat collected Stuart and Lewis and has taken them off camping with a friend, Mike, and his boy Andy who is about Lewis' age. The weather has been good this week so I expect they are having a good time. They were planning to go to Taupo and then to Napier. Sacha stayed with us over the New Year and then on Monday I took her over to Henderson, on the west side of Auckland to the Dude Ranch where she is spending this week with nine other girls riding and learning to look after horses. She's horse crazy at present so by the end of the week she will either be a total addict or never want to see another horse in her life - I think an addict is more likely. I shall pick her up on Saturday and she will stay with us until the boys come back from their camping trip. They were very excited about that so I hope they have had a lot of fun since there are plenty of beautiful places to go camping here when they are older.
    Mary and I had a very restful week at Tutukaka. I am sending you by sea a New Zealand Annual and one of the first pictures in it is of Tutukaka Harbour. I have marked the motel unit we stayed in with a X so you can see what a fantastic spot it was. We were very reluctant to come home as you can imagine. Also enclosed with this letter are some of the photographs taken when we were at Red Beach with the children in August. And a photo of Mary and I when we went down to Taupo recently to say goodbye to some friends who were supposed to be going off to England for a couple of years. Unfortunately since we went down Barry has had a boating accident and has had to have his left thumb amputated so their departure has been delayed. Talking about boating we went on a fishing trip to the Poor Knights Islands from Tutukaka. Mary caught some lovely fish and I was sea-sick all day!
    We were very pleased to hear that your ear check-up had such positive results Dad and hope the legitis is not making it too difficult for you to get around.
    Happy New Year and lots of love from us both, John and Mary.



Whale Bay, my favourite New Zealand beach, visited from Tutukaka with Mary. 

5th February 1978
    Dear Mum and Dad,
    Many thanks for your letters, both the one you wrote just before Christmas and the latest with the Christmas photos of yourselves, Ruth and Robert and Stuart and Jutka*. You all look very well - hope you are surviving the cold and snow storms we have been reading about and seeing on the TV news. Stuart took some photos of our Christmas so I hope we will get those developed soon and send you some copies. Stuart is taller than Pat now and filling out too. Lewis is still all energy and has an incredibly dark suntan. They are back at school now - Stuart and Sacha at Murray's Bay Intermediate and Lewis at Browns Bay primary. They all seem to have settled in very quickly and are very happy. They have had a marvellous holiday since it has been very hot and they have been at the beach most days swimming g and canoeing. I have been over on the odd days and gone swimming too which has been very relaxing. This weekend I picked them up after work on Friday and they spent the night here. On Saturday we got up at 6.30 and went off to the local flea-market to sell off a lot of old junk  we had cleared out of the garage together with some old clothes belonging to friends of ours who are leaving to go to England. Stuart in particular loved haggling with people, mostly Maoris and Pacific Islanders (Tongans, Samoans, Cook Islanders etc) over prices. We have been having a big clear up since we have decided to sell 1a Huia Rd. It is just too small and when the children come they all sleep in the living-room which is quite fun when it is summer but pretty hopeless when it is wet and we can't go out. At the moment we are negotiating to buy a beautiful piece of land about 4 miles from here. It is two acres and half of it is native bush, very peaceful with lots of birds and a view over the whole of South Auckland. We won't know for another month whether or not we will be able to borrow enough money to buy it but we have really fallen in love with it and have been drawing all sorts of house plans to build on it. We would have to sell Huia Rd before we could afford to build and that could take a year or more because the NZ economy is down in the dumps and no one has the money for house buying at the moment. So all our future plans at present hinge round our 'Sugar Mountain' project. If the deal does go through we will take some pictures of the section to let you see how lovely it is. Incidentally the 'flowers' Mary had in the photograph were common or garden BROOM! plucked from the countryside hedgerow.
    Sorry to hear about the new hernia and hope it is not too painful for you getting around, Dad. Lots of love from us both, John and Mary.
[*My younger sister and her son and my brother Stuart and his wife.]

84. Seasons Greetings: the Birth of Love.

  Carol Singers, Kilburn Park, Christmas 1954

        There's no trace now of St John the Evangelist Kilburn, not even a google image
        No youth club for ping pong and petting games in the dingy crypt
        No corner pub with a Sallies' band and kids loitering at the bar door
        Just a new housing development and spruced up tube station.

        The obliteration of place doesn't erase memories of it
        And one in particular shines through the cold night of a 1950s winter
        Where, in the murky streetlight of a December night,
        Coddled in woolly hats, scarves, gloves, heavy overcoats,
        Our choir of carol singers,
        Stamping our feet between the songs to warm our toes,
        Brings the Christmas message to diffident onlookers.

        Within that choir you and I
        In the innocence of our scarcely teenage years
        Our ice breaths mingling in the still air
        Contrive to share a songbook in the candlelight
        And, as our heads draw close to read the words we know by heart,
        Strands of golden hair caress my face.
        I see your shy gentle smile and breathe you in
        To jump-start my heart with the first stirrings of love.

_________________________________________________________

MERRY CHRISTMAS AND A HAPPY NEW YEAR TO YOU ALL

Christmas Quilt - Lois Macaskill, Orewa

 

 

83. The Archaeology of a Box: (5) NZ Values Party Manifesto for 1975 General Election.

 

 

Next, prompted by my last blog, I dig out from among a pile of papers in the box, the 1975 election manifesto of the Values Party. 'Certainly no other party' in the election, wrote the New Zealand Herald in its editorial of October 16th 1975, was 'likely to produce a manifesto as seductively presented as the glossy, liberally illustrated 90-page offering from Values.'

 

According to Wikipedia, the New Zealand Values Party is 'considered the world's first national-level environmentalist party', a forerunner of the Green parties. It contested five elections - 1972, 1975, 1978, 1981 and 1984. It's best result was in 1975 when it won over five per cent of the vote, which, if MMP had been in place then, would have given it a significant presence in Parliament. Many Values Party members, including Jeanette Fitzsimons and Rod Donald, later became active in New Zealand's Green Party, founded in May 1990.

 

The main frameworks of the Party's policies are set out in the first few pages of the manifesto under three main headings - Survival, Justice and Community. These are reproduced below (copy sourced from globalgreens.org.) Each is explored in more detail in the remainder of the document.    

  

Survival
The Stable-State Society

Infinite growth is impossible. Resources are limited and most of them are not renewable. The development of synthetic substitutes creates problems as well as solving them, and reflects the growth mentality that must be altered if mankind is to survive. Population growth, economic growth and use of resources must be restricted if society is to meet the needs of man. Now is the time to do it, and New Zealand can lead the world in developing a new society, the new set of attitudes necessary to form worthwhile satisfying communities.

Population

There is a maximum number of people which the earth can sustain at reasonable standards of living. Already a large proportion of the world's population is underfed, poorly clothed, and unable to reach its full mental, physical and social potential. The effectiveness of each and every individual, his happiness, and his ability to contribute to society will reduce as population numbers increase. Limiting population growth will enable present resources to be shared equitably around the world - without greatly reducing our present standard of living. Population growth must be reduced if "space-ship earth" is to continue voyaging through space. Education in family planning, contraception and human relationships is needed to achieves this.

A New Economic Recipe

The economic machine is geared to meeting material needs yet it has failed to provide them for many people around the world, and for some in New Zealand. This same machine is also beginning to seriously threaten our natural environment. It is possible to develop an economic system based on co-operation, sharing and conservation, a system which meets our material needs and at the same time promotes the satisfaction of non-material needs such as friendship, play, self-expression, a sense of individual identity, social approval, self esteem, and peace of mind. Values' economic policies are aimed at producing a stable-state economy. Growth must be curbed, and existing wealth redistributed.

Primary Production

A flourishing and vital rural community is essential to New Zealand's future. Our most important economic assets are land, climate and accumulated farming skills. Measures which promote effective. efficient and rational use of land are needed to enable agriculture to cater for the needs of New Zealand, and to help it meet its commitments to the rest of the world. Farm incomes must be guaranteed. Forestry must be encouraged - but not to the extent of destroying an important natural resource, native timber. Fishing has so far been greatly neglected by the government, and deserves further encouragement.

Industrial Relations

Employees are too often not involved in decisions which affect their lives. This is a primary cause of industrial unrest, and workers must be given the right to be involved in management and control of industry. Restructuring of many industrial processes is necessary if people are to achieve job satisfaction. Unions have an important role to play in this area. Retraining schemes, the introduction of job-sharing and more flexible working hours will also greatly reduce industrial strife.

Consumerism

There are pressures on people to keep producing and consuming more. Much advertising creates artificial wants and promotes dissatisfaction - even though New Zealand is a relatively affluent society and the material needs of most people are met. Once basic material requirements have been provided, human needs are distorted by continued emphasis on material consumption. If society were operating sensibly, the more goods we obtained, the fewer we would need. Advertising should be regarded as an information process, rather than a persuasion process. Packaging of goods should be kept to a minimum. Firms should be given incentives to make longer-lived products. Consumer education is needed, and smaller, more personalised shopping centres should be encouraged.

Technology and the Future

Technology can do much to lighten the burden of work many people carry. It can make life easier and more comfortable, and give people more time to pursue leisure. But often, technology has made work meaningless, has replaced the tasks from which people derive satisfaction. Technology, instead of making human hands and brains redundant, should help them become more productive. The ethical, cultural and environmental implications of technological development should be assessed - and technology should be rejected where it does nothing to promote human involvement and awareness.

Environment

There is nothing wrong with man altering his environment. But it must be done carefully, so the alterations do not cause the breakdown of the natural systems on which every living thing depends. Limits to population growth and the development of a stable-state economy are essential if pollution is to be prevented. Products must be recycled as much as possible. The urban environment must be kept on a human scale, because one of the prime causes of social problems is the alienation of people in the places where most of us live - the cities and towns.

Energy

The demand for energy is increasing at an alarming rate. New Zealand is being forced to develop more and more expensive methods of producing electricity, and is misusing its primary energy sources. The development of nuclear power is unacceptable to the Values Party, and there is a limit to hydro-electric and other electric generation potential. Energy consumption must therefore be stabilised. Transport is one of the heaviest users of fuels, and so the economic use of public transport systems must be encouraged.

Justice

Rich World, Poor World

The gap between rich and poor countries is widening, and will never close if the present system of international trade and economic organisation is allowed to continue. The internal policies of our government are based on eliminating poverty and inequality - surely our external policies should have the same set of values? A just world order and a stable world economy is essential if starving millions are to be fed, homeless people housed, and illiterates educated to reach their full potential. Three main kinds of assistance are needed for the underprivileged areas: relief aid, development projects, and help with political, economic and social change. Multinational corporations have too much control in too many foreign countries - including New Zealand.

International Relations

There is a great need for mankind to be united - to become one species on planet earth, rather than a multitude of fragmented and bickering "nations". The United Nations has a major role to play in any attempt to break down international differences. Just as it is essential for New Zealand to develop a stable society, a just, environmentally-sound world order must be developed if mankind is to survive. Control and use of the sea and the sea-bed is one area in which international co-operation could be readily achieved. The Antarctic is another. New Zealand must be independent and non-aligned if it is to give a lead in the new attitude to international relations.

Individual Freedom

Individual freedom must be allowed unless it is clearly outweighed by the interests of the community as a whole. In the matter of abortion, people must have freedom to plan their own families. The Values Party supports free and readily available contraception and sterilisation, as well as freedom of individual conscience. Censorship inhibits the development of responsible adult citizenship, although some censorship may be necessary in the interests of children. There is a need for extensive safeguards to ensure the confidentiality of data collected-on the affairs of individuals. The State should have no role in regulating sexual practices between consenting adults in private. Present drug laws are inconsistent and often make the problem worse - but the Values Party does not advocate the use of drugs in any form. Greater controls are needed on the use of firearms.

Status of Women

New Zealand practises a form of sexual apartheid. Children are taught concepts of masculinity and femininity which encourage boys to be adventurous, curious and rough, girls to be decorative, helpful and clean. There is no reason why both males and females should not share these qualities. Equality for women should not simply enable women to share a man's world on male terms. The status of the traditional female values which stress co-operation, nurturing, healing, cherishing and peace, should be raised, these are the values which are needed if everyone is to survive. Men and women should share work and home environments - there is no reason why both can't be breadwinners, and it is generally desirable for both to spend time bringing up children.

Race Relations

The task ahead is not to assimilate the Maori but to help him foster his racial and cultural identity. There is much in Maori society, particularly the traditional attitudes to land - which could contribute to a stronger, healthier total society - if the pakeha could accept it. The Values Party would encourage the development of urban marae, train police recruits and employers in race relations, and support unions which promote courses for immigrant Polynesian workers.

Crime and Punishment

Prisons isolate inmates from the community, and deprive them not only of freedom but also of their self-respect and humanity. This makes it difficult for released prisoners to readjust to society and increases, rather than decreases, the possibility that they will offend again. If a law-breaker must be imprisoned, the only punishment inflicted by society should be the deprivation of freedom, for this is the most valued of human rights. Emphasis should be placed on rehabilitation and on training offenders to live within the accepted norms of society. Alternatives should be found to prisons, and prisons themselves made as congenial and normal as possible, to reduce unrest and aid rehabilitation. The community should be encouraged to interact with prisons and other penal institutions.

Community

Community, Family, Children

Communities have become too big and families have become too small Because of the sprawling nature of cities and towns, and because of increased family and individual mobility, the formation of small areas with a community of interest is now rare. New Zealand badly needs a set of clearly defined national goals with which the whole community can identify. Government should be decentralised, and people given as much say as possible in running their own affairs - in determining the type of community in which they live. Extended families - of grandparents, parents, children, and perhaps friends and other relatives - should be encouraged. So should other forms of communal living. Children should be under the influence of more than one adult, and child-care centres should be more than mindless baby-minders.

Education

The education system can be used to maintain the present system or to help develop an alternative. At the moment, our education system is not equipping young people with the skills they need to cope with life in a changing world. There is little point in simply updating the system so it caters better for a society that is fundamentally competitive and materialistic. Education should be geared to the development of a just, co-operative, community-based society. A major effort is needed to tackle many of the problems of modern education - there is a need for improved adult education, for greater retraining, and to improve facilities for minority groups. The decision-making process of education must be reformed, to allow for greater power at community and regional levels. There should be greater diversity of educational styles, to allow for individual preferences and differences.

Health

Everyone has a right to health care, when and where it is needed. Need should be the only criterion for receiving care. The health service should be decentralised, so that communities can decide for themselves the type of service they want. But because resources are finite there is a limit to the amount of money that can be spent, so services must be spread as equitably as possible. Prevention is better than cure, and the development of a stable society would do much to prevent many of today's diseases - the diseases of stress and affluence.

Welfare

An objective of all Values' policies is to create a society that has no need for social welfare as it is traditionally understood. A guaranteed minimum income would replace most benefits and superannuation schemes. The caring, cohesive community established once growth rates had been stabilised, would cater for most people's needs. There will nevertheless be a continuing need for the traditional forms of welfare', and "common situation" groups such as Alcoholics Anonymous should be encouraged.

Housing

Shelter is a basic need of mankind. People have a right to warm, dry, comfortable accommodation, at a reasonable price. Yet after many years of effort by successive governments many people live in poor quality housing at too high a price. It is very difficult to buy a house. Part of the problem is that speculators are taking advantage of people's need for housing. Part of it is that some dwellings are under-used. Building cannot keep pace with population growth. There should be tighter controls on speculation. More houses should be built, and money and other assistance made more readily available. Variety in housing, and alternatives in living styles, should be encouraged.

Local Government

Local bodies should be more concerned than they are with the wider needs of the community. Too often, important decisions affecting a local area are left to a distant bureaucracy. Decisions on matters such as housing, health, welfare and education should ail be decentralised. At the same time. there is a need for a reorganisation of local government - regional, district and community councils should be developed. Rates should be abolished in favour of a local income tax.

Government Reform

Only a strong sense of community can counter the massness and alienation of modern western society. More power, more responsibility, and more autonomy must go to regional levels of government. Greater openness is needed in central government, and the public must be more involved in its processes. The present "confrontation" debating system should be reformed, and MPs given greater assistance in their work.

 

 

82. Vignettes of Family Life in New Zealand: (4) Christmas/New Year 1975/76

Sailing on Lake Pupuke

Sunnybrae Road, 2nd November 1975
    Dear Mum and Dad,
    Thank you for your letter with all the news of Elizabeth's departure for Nigeria - it was good to hear she had enjoyed her leave so much and was in such good form.
    Our principle news for this last month has been Sacha's breaking of her right arm. She did it a couple of weeks ago one morning at playtime when she fell awkwardly from a rope she was trying to walk across in the school playground - she only fell a couple of feet but it was enough to break the bone in the forearm. Fortunately both Pat and I were at home that morning so we took her to the casualty department at the North Shore Hospital which is less than a mile from here. Sacha was very good and so were the hospital staff; she had to have the bone re-set under a local anaesthetic and then plastered. The anaesthetic made her see double for a time and very chirpy and not know quite where she was - first she wanted to stay at the hospital and then she wanted to go back to school straightaway to tell them all she had broken her arm. We had her home again from the hospital by lunchtime so had spent about three hours there which was not too bad. The North Shore casualty department is only open in the mornings and at other times you have to go to the central Auckland hospital about 7 miles away where you can apparently wait anything up to 8 or 9 hours to get a bone set.
    At first Sacha was very proud of her broken arm and her plaster and the envy of all her friends, then for a couple of days she got irritated by it, and since then you would think she had nothing wrong as she plays all her usual games and can still write with her right hand. Strangely enough within the week Hayden Oswin who is Sacha's age and lives in the house at the bottom of our garden also broke his arm falling from the garden seesaw and so he is in plaster too. It is very funny to see the two of them together - they spend a lot of time playing knucklebones which seems to be the latest craze. Sacha should be getting her plaster off within the next ten days or so.
    Otherwise we are all well and Lewis has his usual ration of cuts and bruises from zooming around as batman with his friend Mark Petersen, who lives at the top of our drive, as the boy Robin. Examinations are underway at the University so I have some papers to mark and only two weeks more of classes for this year. Pat has not had much relief teaching to do so far this term but starting on November 10th she has a solid block of four weeks at Glenfield College as relief for one of the teachers who is standing as Labour candidate for East Coast Bays in the general election that is coming up on November 29th. I am hoping to spend as much time at home as possible during that period both to do some work of my own and to be around when the children come out of school at 3pm. Pat usually gets home about 3.45. She is busy at the moment preparing material on China and India - the school have provided her with kitsets for teaching that include tapes, slides and books.
    Election campaigns here are relatively short but the next three weeks are going to be full of party politicals on the telly etc. At the moment the opinion polls are suggesting that the National Party and Mr Muldoon are likely to win which will be a big turnaround given the large majority that the Labour Party won in 1972. The party with the most interesting policies is the Values Party* but they will probably get less than 5% of the vote. Both Pat and I are eligible to vote this time.
    Lots of love to you both and all the 'visitors'. Pat, John and family.

15th December 1975
    Dear Mum and Dad,
    Thank you for your various letters and cards received over the last couple of weeks including your Christmas letter. We are in the middle of a spell of lovely sunny weather and it is difficult to think of Christmas coming up or to raise the energy to go shopping in Auckland where it us usually five degrees hotter than here on the North Shore. Pat has just finished a full month of teaching at Glenfield Collage - she was standing in for one of the teachers who was Labour Party candidate for the local East Coast Bays electorate - he lost which was not surprising given the very large swing against the government. Prices have been rising very rapidly here in the last 18 months and most people's incomes have not kept pace. Although the government had managed to keep unemployment down to remarkably low levels by world standards (less than 1/2 of one per cent of the labour force) they lost out to a general feeling that the economy was not being well managed and inflation was too high, though nothing like it has been in Britain from what we hear. Pat and I both voted for one of the minor parties, called the Values Party, which has an interesting set of policies aimed at curbing unnecessary economic growth, stabilising population, using the country's natural resources more carefully, conserving the environment, rejecting the development of nuclear power stations (there are none in NZ at present) and giving greater aid to the third world nations. Much of their thinking is along the lines of John Taylor's 'Enough is Enough' which you sent me earlier this year and the Club of Rome's 'Limits to Growth'. They attracted 5% of the total vote which was not bad for a party that is only 3 years old but was not as good as they had hoped. Anyway now we have a National Party government with a large majority headed by Mr. Muldoon who is a very acerbic controversial figure popularly known as "Piggy". Now that the Australians have also thrown out their Labour Party government very decisively the political spectrum of this part of the world looks very different.
    The gifts you sent by air have arrived as have the postal orders for the children - they did so on a day when both Pat and I were at work and the children picked up the post on their way home from school, so they duly opened their presents! and were delighted by them. We have sent you a subscription for the National Geographic for next year and hope you are not already receiving it. We too have been somewhat tardy in sorting out presents this year but hopefully we can bring some things with us when we come on leave. There have been a lot of changes in the permissible stop-over arrangements due to new regulations the government and Air New Zealand introduced recently so we may not spend any time in the U.S.A. or Canada as we had hoped. Also our fares have gone up 50% in the last two years and are about to go up again shortly so that will affect us too. Anyway we should arrive in late May or early June but have nothing definitely fixed as yet. The children's main concern seems to be that they should get to Disneyland either on the way over or the way back! We are more concerned that they should not be too disrupted since they are very settled here with their school and their local friends. Last weekend we all went to Albany to visit some friends who breed and train ponies so they all had a ride, bareback, and are looking forward to going again in the school holidays.
    Hope you have a lovely Christmas with Stuart and Jutka*. Our thoughts will be with you all.
    Love from Pat, John, Stuart, Sacha and Lewis.
[*My younger brother and his wife.]

5th January 1976
    Dear Mum and Dad,
    A Happy New Year to you both. From what we see on our TV screens it hasn't started too well what with the devastating gales. Hope you have not had any trouble with falling chimneys, or garden sheds blowing away.
    We had a quiet Christmas here with just an English couple with their baby - one year old on Christmas Day - visiting us in the afternoon. The weather over the Christmas period was fairly wet but improved after New Year and we have been out and about to various activities with the children, to a film 'The Return of the Pink Panther' and to the theatre to see the Basil Brush Show. We also went out in an old launch called Molly that we have a 1/4 share in - the first time we have been out in it and quite an adventure it was, the main problem being transferring from launch to dinghy to get ashore on Motutapu Island - Dad fell in much to everyone's amusement! I rounded the day off when we got back by being stung by a bee. On the Saturday we all went to Pukekohe, about 35 miles south of here, to watch the NZ Grand Prix motor racing which was good fun and fortunately not too hot. Other trips have been to the beach. We are also able to use the school swimming pool just over the road so that is very convenient. Lewis had some flippers, a snorkel and a mask for Christmas so we all get a lot of fun out of using those. One of my presents was a barbecue so we are going to try it out this evening with some sausages.
    New Zealand is shut at this time of year - virtually everything grinds to a halt in the three weeks after Christmas as people take their holidays. I have been trying to do a bit of work in the mornings and then taking the afternoons off - but the weather is sometimes a bit too tempting and we go to the beach instead - my nose is already peeling for the third time this summer in spite of hats and suncreams. The garden is looking good - bougainvilleas, hydrangeas and a jacaranda in flower and the fruit is coming on; we have had some of our own strawberries + the figs, apples and grapes should be better this year, also a few plums. Pat has been looking after a vegetable patch so we have grown all our own potatoes + caulis + radishes + cabbages; tomatoes should be ready soon + also some corn on the cob. I planted some kumaras (sweet potatoes Maori style, look a bit like yams) but I don't know exactly when they will be ready, also a rock melon and some Chinese gooseberries so am keeping my fingers crossed for them. Some of the trees we planted a couple of years ago are already over 12' high so we get some shade and more privacy than before. We have also built a new tree hut over the Christmas period so it is pleasant enough just to stay home and potter around. Love from us all, Pat, John and the children.

[*See blog 83 for more on the Values Party.]

81. The Archaeology of a Box: (4) Old 45 rpm Pop Songs

Previous blogs in this series are: 71: Introduction; 73: Children's Drawings, Paintings and Cards; 74: Self-Portrait; and 77: My Grandparents' Victorian Greeting Cards (all November 2013).

Next from the box is a cluster of twenty seven 45 rpm pop songs from the 1960s and 1970s. I guess mementoes like these date one in numerous ways, particularly in terms of musical tastes and the technologies for playing one's choices of personal music.

When I was young and visiting friends I liked to nose into the books on their bookshelves and the records in their record collections. Nowadays, with so much stored on computers, mobile phones, iPads, ebook readers and other electronic devices, much that was previously visible is hidden away.

I was given my first record player by my big sister on my twenty first birthday in 1961 and in the following years collected a small number of EPs (extended play discs mostly of 45rpm) and a large number of LPs (long play at 33-and-a-third rpm*). EPs were single tracks (one on each side) and only lasted a few minutes. They were the currency of juke boxes in pubs and coffee bars, radio and television shows (like the UK Top of the Pops) and parties, whereas LPs, mine at least, were primarily for more serious listening. I have culled many of my LPs over the years but still have a very heavy boxful hidden away in a cupboard; among them a Beatles' White Album - there's currently one selling on Trade Me for $62, which, given fifty years of inflation, is probably about a tenth of the price I paid for it originally.
[*Realising my grandchildren have probably never heard of such things, I thought I should briefly explain what EPs and LPs were.]

When I look through this little collection of EPs I'm not sure why I bothered to keep them at all, carting them around from place to place. Nina Simone's Fine and Mellow (1959) - a 1957 Billie Holiday song - and Ain't Got No - I Got Life (1968) from the musical Hair would still rank among my favourites. Some others have survived well over the years and I think may still be widely known - Peter, Paul and Mary's 1963 recording of Bob Dylan's Blowing in the Wind, Procul Harem's A Whiter Shade of Pale (1967) and Julie Covington's Don't Cry for Me Argentina (1976) from the musical Evita. I went to performances of both Hair and Evita in London so those bring back good memories and to Western Springs when Chicago sang If You Leave Me Now (1976), a special favourite at that time. So perhaps I'll keep the memories of those alive by downloading them onto my iPad.

For each of the songs I can remember snatches of lyric and melody, but then Ketty Lester's 1962 hit Love Letters gives me a big surprise. I find myself with the whole song in my head and write down the lyric as I recall it (with Sharon as my witness):
   
    Love letters
    Straight from the heart
    Keep us so near
    While apart
    I'm not alone in the night
    When I can have all the love
    You write
    I memorize every line
    And I kiss the name that
    You sign
    And darling then
    I read again
    Right from the start
    Love letters
    Straight from your heart

Then I check on Wikipedia and find one small error: it should be 'your heart' not 'the heart' in line two.

I have no idea why that particular song has survived so vividly in the windmill of my mind. I wasn't even dating in 1962 let alone writing love letters but there it is clear as a bell over fifty years later. I listen to it again on YouTube and see that Elvis released a (to my mind inferior) version in 1971; I don't know if I was ever aware of that before or had simply forgotten it. That's memory for you.

80. Vignettes of Family Life in New Zealand: (3) Summer 1986/87

Pakatoa Island in the Hauraki Gulf

[Previous blogs in this series: 72. Summer 1973/74; 78. Summer 1979/80 (includes Mount Erebus disaster). Both November 1973]

112 Point View Drive, R.D.1, Papatoetoe, 12th December 1986
    Dear Mum and Dad,
    You probably thought we had fallen through a hole at the bottom of the world but not so. It has been a hectic few weeks since we have now moved back to Point View Drive - the street has been renumbered so that 42 is now 112. After the tenants left early in November Linda and I went over to clean the place up (it was filthy) ready to sell. I put ads in all the papers and just before they came out Linda decided the place looked so good perhaps she could, notwithstanding all the ghosts of Mary, live there after all. In fact she decided she would like to especially if we could spend a bit of money on it. So everything went into reverse and we told enquirers that it was no longer on the market.
   ...two weekends ago we moved, with Lewis' help... We can't get the cars in the garage for all the junk but are actually living there. Linda is still working at 3M in Milford which is a journey of about 35 minutes and on Weds, Thurs, and Fridays collects and drops off Kate and Harriet at Milford School. They love the idea of living in Point View Drive and are busy trying to think up a new name for it to replace Sugar Mountain. Naturally I am pleased to be back there since it is a lovely spot. The major snag at the moment is that my stupid tenants had the phone disconnected when they left and they have to recable the street before we can get a new line which won't be until next February at the earliest which is maddening.
    What we plan to do when we have some money... is to add on a couple of extra bedrooms underneath for Kate and Harriet. It is only two bedrooms at present so it is a bit cramped as you can imagine in spite of the size of the living areas. We also want to redecorate some of the present house, especiaslly the master bedroom so are busy looking at wallpapers/carpets etc. And if there is any money left over we will do some landscaping.
    We are both exhausted but should get a break now with Christmas coming up. Love to all for Christmas.
John and Linda xxx

9th January 1987
... We had Kate and Harriet from Boxing Day until January 7th so they are with their father at present. It seems very quiet without them. It was John's turn to have them for Christmas Day so Linda and Lewis and I had Christmas dinner with Linda's folk in Birkenhead - her Mum, Dad, sister, nephew and an aunt. They have got a rabbit for the girls and are bringing it over this Sunday. Stuart went camping over Christmas with some friends from work... Lewis stayed for a few days with us but then went back to Rothesay Bay so that he could get to his work. Not having a telephone makes it difficult to keep in touch but I shall be back at work on Monday 12th and will catch up with them both then.
    On Boxing Day we collected Kate and Harriet and then on the 30th went to Pakatoa for five days returning last Sunday. Perfect weather all the time, sunny and hot and very relaxing so we went swimming and played games and generally had a nice time. We feel we have now exhausted what Pakatoa has to offer so next year will try something different. I have been home all this week and have started to tackle some of the jobs that need doing outside in the 'garden' - very overgrown but it will gradually come back to its normal wilderness look with the help of some judicious moving of the goats... when autumn comes and it is a bit cooler I will do some more planting out of trees and shrubs and try and tidy up the driveway which is a mess.
    We are making some changes on the job front too. Linda is going to go to Law School starting in February... She already has the qualifications for the Law Intermediate so will need to do three years for an LLB Honours and then one year of articles to be fully qualified for the bar examinations.
    I have resigned as Head of the Department of Management Studies so will now carry on as a normal academic at Associate Professor level as before. This will allow me I hope to get on with some written work for publication and free me of a lot of tedious administrative chores. The job was not very stimulating and at the end of the year we got into a lot of politicking about the appointment of a new Dean for the Faculty. The whole process and the outcome disgusted me so much that I resigned and I'm glad I have.
    Sacha sounds very chirpy in her letters and I gather she is having a good time and surviving the cold of winter OK.
    We thought you might like the enclosed photos of Kate and Harriet to add to your growing collection of different 'bits' of the family.

22nd March 1987
    The earthquakes in the Bay of Plenty did not affect us here, not even the slightest tremor. There has been a lot of damage but fortunately no one killed or even badly injured. Things are getting back to normal there now.
    Lewis is here this weekend, busy with his homework and Linda is preparing cases for her Law classes... Kate and Harriet are playing with Richard from next door - he is seven and Amber must be eleven now. Last weekend was the community tennis day which was very pleasant... We went out to Hunua to see John and Lynette* and the twins a few weeks ago; they have a nice big new house but not furnished yet. We called in to see Anita and Neil** but Anita wasn't home but she is fine and only on six monthly checks now with the Dr.
    Love to you both from all of us here, John and Linda xxx

[* Mary's son John and his wife Lynette; ** Mary's sister Anita and her husband Neil.]
__________________________________________________________________________________



Harriet and Kate at their new bedroom windows

 

79. Blog Viewers in Sixty Countries.

Today I found a viewer of my blog in Macau making sixty countries in which I have an audience record. (There may be others that I have so far missed). For the full list of countries and a revised list of the top twenty blogs to date see the updated version of blog 62. Ten Thousand Page Views and Jack Blandiver is Still Kicking His Heels (5th August 2013).

78. Vignettes of Family Life in New Zealand; (2) Summer 1979/80 (includes Mt Erebus disaster)

"Sugar Mountain"

22nd October 1979

42 Point View Drive, Papatoetoe R.D.1

    Dear Mum and Dad,

    Many thanks for your letter of October 7th. We are now beginning to get organised at Sugar Mountain and feel more relaxed after all the hassles of building and moving. We had a house warming party this last weekend - a sort of open day for anyone who wanted to pop in - and so the home has now been properly christened. It certainly has a lovely feel to it and everyone was very impressed. Brian, our architect friend who designed it, was very happy that all our choices of wallpapers and carpets etc complemented his ideas and really enjoyed hearing all the nice things said about the house... We still have to finish wallpapering the hall, the bedrooms and a toilet, and to get some doors for the garage and there are lots of little bits and pieces needing doing (plus all the garden) but summer is now nearly here and we can take our time and enjoy the place too. The children have stayed during the last two weekends and helped with various jobs. They think it is a very 'flash' house - it couldn't be a greater contrast with the flat in Otahuhu, so much space and air. This morning we had our first 'tragedy' of country life when during breakfast two birds flew smack into one of our windows and killed themselves, one with a broken neck and one with a broken back. They were NZ birds rather like yellowhammers but I don't know their proper name. We will have to hang some silver paper from the eaves - there is so much glass it must look like fresh air right through our lounge.

    Our academic year has almost finished here and final exams are in full swing. What with the house finished and the freezing works study completed it's good to have time to spend doing the things that have been put off for too long. I expect to spend much of the summer trying to get in control of the outside of the house. We are going to get a goat to help keep the grass down since the slope is too steep for mowing and that will mean building a goat house from all the bits and pieces of timber that the builders have left behind - the rest of it will eventually burn in our pot belly stove or on the open fireplace. The nights are still quite cold and with almost no curtains yet to help insulate the house we have had the fires going quite often. There's certainly something special about sitting by a log fire and looking out over the lights of Auckland city below us. Mary's sister, Anita, gave us some binoculars as a present so we can now sit up on the hill and watch what is going on over half of South Auckland - reminds me of your mother Henderson at Greenbank peering out from behind the net curtains at all the comings and goings. Only we have baby lambs (black and white) in the field next door and bobby calves down the hill instead of the trams going up and down and 'Mrs --- off to do the messages.'

    Lots of love to you both,

    John and Mary

1st December 1979

    Dear Mum and Dad,

    Thank you for your letter of November 20th and also an earlier one which crossed with my last. As you can imagine there is a collective horror throughout New Zealand at the DC10 crash in the Antarctic earlier this week. This is a small country and virtually everyone you meet knows someone who was on the trip, especially around Auckland where most of the passengers came from. A couple we knew who lived at Waiwera, where the hot pools are, were killed as were a number of Air New Zealand staff who were involved recently in the charity fund-raising effort to send a planeload of handicapped children to Disneyland (for their Year of the Child effort) - Mary did the hairdos for a gala day they ran at Ellerslie during the winter. The wife of an ex-chancellor of Auckland University was also killed. This was the 14th jaunt to the Antarctic that Air New Zealand had run in the last 2 or 3 years; know one knows yet what caused the crash but it seems likely it was a misjudgement on the part of the aircrew. There must be great pressure on a tourist flight like this to get a bit lower and a bit nearer than is really safe so that everyone can get their photographs and their money's worth. People from previous flights recount tales of flying up glaciers with mountains on both sides, down around the 1500' height when they are not supposed to be below 6000'. Anyway it is all very sad and I expect you have read about it in your newspapers.

    The University term has now ended and all the examinations are marked so I am able to spend quite a bit of time now at Sugar Mountain. We have almost completed all the wallpapering now with just the upstairs toilet and the insides of a number of cupboards to do. We have also got some curtains up and finished off plastering and painting the open fireplace in the living room. The garage now has some doors although there is so much junk in it that there is no room for the car. I have cleared a bit of ground to start a vegetable patch and put in some tomato plants, some sweet peas and some rhubarb. We also have some rock melon seeds sprouting up and they will soon be ready to transplant. It's all very experimental at present to see what will survive without too much attention - there are opossums in the bush who like to come up for a feed at night - some boys from along the road are hoping to catch them with some box traps which they have put in the bush.
    This afternoon we went next door to a neighbour's place to watch their sheep being sheared. We haven't got a goat yet, just plenty of long grass...
    Summer is here now and we are beginning to get suntanned, lovely warm days and long still evenings. With Christmas coming up there is quite a bit of social activity going on. Next Saturday we are going on a trip to the vineyards in West Auckland organised by a German hair products company. Last Friday we had the fifteen Maori pre-apprentice hairdressers from the Tech here for their end of year lunch. They loved the place and sang us songs they had got together as part of their cultural group activities during the year. There is a lot of unemployment here at present particularly among school-leavers so it is good to know that most of them have got jobs. We have two Maori girl apprentices in the salon at Otahuhu from last year's course. Mostly they are country girls who are selected by the Maori Affairs Department to come to Auckland for pre-apprentice training. The Department runs a hostel for them in Remuera.
    I hope this arrives in time to wish you all the best for Christmas. We will have the children here for Christmas lunch and then take them back to Rothesay Bay for their tea. We will be thinking of you then, with love from us both, John and Mary.

6th January 1980
    We had the three children here for Christmas Eve and Christmas Day until teatime. They got a big surprise, and so did we, when there was a knock on the door at 7am on Christmas morning and a very jolly Father Christmas was there going Ho Ho Ho. We thought at first it was a neighbourhood tradition but it turned out to be a distant relative of Mary's doing the rounds of all the family. Sacha stayed with us for a spell both before and after Christmas while Stuart was away staying with some friends at Snells Beach north of Auckland. The boys like to spend their time with their friends at Rothesay Bay fishing and swimming. Sacha on the other hand likes to go to the salon and get her hair done by the girls there - she is much more 'sociable' than Stuart and Lewis who would rather be out playing than sitting around talking or listening to adults. They have all had a good year at school and Sacha and Stuart go on to secondary school, Rangitoto College, this year.
    Mary has been busy in the salon up until this weekend and I have managed to do quite a bit in the garden including some of the rotten jobs like digging a drain behind our water tanks and then filling it all in with scoria. We have had a very wet week since Christmas and that has been good for our water supply and also for our newly established vege garden. At the moment we have tomatoes, sweet corn, rock melons, rhubarb, some herbs and a lemon balm shrub growing. The lemon balm was given to us by a friend and it seems you can make tea from its leaves, although we haven't tried that yet. The flax and the red hot pokers are flowering (as are the hydrangeas) and the tuis come 2 or 3 times a day to suck the nectar. We have neighbours away at present so I am also feeding their chooks and cats each day. One of the chooks is broody and sitting on a peacock's egg so I hope it doesn't hatch before they get back as I wouldn't know what to do with a baby peacock. It's all very different from Otahuhu. Lots of love to you both, John and Mary xxxx

17th February 1980
    Dear Mum and Dad,
    First of all many thanks for the tape - it was great to hear your voices as well as all the news of your Christmas activities. Mary thought that you, mother, sounded very Scottish and that Dad sounded like Derek Nimmo! We will get a tape together in due course to return to you but, as you said, it does take a bit of time and so far we don't seem to have recorded very much. We were going to record the summer noises but the crickets and cicadas make such a racket that they come up quite deafening on the tape. I expect it was similar in Nigeria in the summer - you don't realise how much noise there is until you stop and listen.
    Summer holidays are all over now and the children are back at school and Mary and I are back at work. Stuart and Sacha are settling in OK at Rangitoto College and Lewis is in his last year at Browns Bay Primary. Both Stuart and Lewis spent quite a chunk of the holiday away with friends. Sacha stayed with us for a bit interspersed with trips to Long Bay when the weather was fine. Most of my spare time has been spent working around the house on different bits of the garden. All the work we did two years ago clearing gorse and scrub was a complete waste of time since we didn't plant anything over the areas we cleared so now the gorse and scrub is twice the height! So the latest strategy is to clear a little bit then plant it out before going on to the next piece. So far I have put some bark garden around the water tanks and some retaining logs on the slopes below the house.
    Our other main concern at the moment is Mary's mother who has deteriorated very rapidly, both mentally and physically, since Christmas. We had her here to stay for about a week but she wouldn't settle; her memory has just about gone and she thought we were a rest home! Mary's Dad finds her increasingly difficult to manage and, although she has had all the home services - district nurse and housekeeper - it looks as though she may have to have constant care so Mary is looking to see what is available. I remember all your patience with Granny Deeks - it's a difficult period and hard to know what is best.
    Lots of love to you both,
    John and Mary.

  

77. The Archaeology of a Box: (3) My Grandparents' Victorian Greeting Cards

Archaeologists expect to uncover layers of history as they excavate, dating artefacts as they go. On some sites, however, there is conflict over which history is to take priority. At the Palace of Knossos in Crete, for example, the bulk of the ruins on display are of the Minoan period but the sites there also include Roman, Greek and Mycenaean remains. Minoan Knossos was largely destroyed by natural disaster around 1700 BCE, then rebuilt by the Minoans only to be destroyed by a Mycenaean invasion around 1500 BCE. When the Mycenaeans left it became a Greek city subsequently occupied by the Romans until around 400 CE.

My box of treasures was originally constructed largely on the same natural principle of earlier artifacts and mementoes being at the bottom and more recent ones added layer by layer on top. Since that time, however, it has been packed and repacked so often that things are all over the place chronologically. So now it is as though some archaeologist dug down at Knossos to the Minoan level pulling out pieces of Greek, Roman and Mycenaean history and culture along the way and then jumbled them all up and packed them back into the ground to leave others to puzzle as to what came when from where.

For next from my box is a box within the box - a thin flat box falling apart at the edges. In this box are more greeting cards, these dating from the late nineteenth century. Only one has a date on it - 1898.

 

 

These are cards exchanged by my grandfather and grandmother on my mother's side, keepsakes from their courtship and marriage, and passed on to me by my mother. A few are reproduced above.

My mother’s family were from Edinburgh. Her mother Kate, my Grannie Henderson, had eight children only three of whom lived, my Aunt Lena (b.1906), my Uncle Peter (b.1907) and my mother Catherine (always known as Cathy; b.1910).

 

Before her marriage my Grannie Henderson (nee Thomson) had been in service as a table maid. My grandfather, Peter Henderson, owned two family grocery shops in Edinburgh but he died in 1944 so I scarcely knew him.

76. Gestures from the Heart: A Poem*

there are times
soul-bleeding times
for simple healing
gestures from the heart

the innocence of a child
the smile of a loved one
unexpected gifts of friendship

Sophie's Fan
shyly given to the Honourable Mr John

a home-made Valentine's card
"Just so you know you're appreciated in this life"

a piece of pumice from Lake Taupo's shore
"When Taupo and Tauhara are no more then let my love die"

two rocks











one, wrapped in tissue,

a piece of rose quartz
sprinkled with gold and silver stars
a keepsake for the years
and a message inscribed:
Rose Quartz
gentle and soothing
good for fears
aches and pains
and healing broken hearts
(Failing that, it is a pretty slab of rock to stick on your desk)

the other









New Zealand Alpine schist
brought from the Mackinnon Pass
a track beyond my capability
reminder of what might have been
in old friendships rekindled








Lake Taupo pumice beach with Mount Tauhara in the background



Near the top of the Mackinnon Pass on the Milford Track, Fiordland, New Zealand

_____________________________________________________________________________________________________

*This and two other recent poems have been added to blog 53. Adrift on Poetry (24 September 2012). Other poems are in The Joys and Tears of Love and Passion, blogs 22, 40 and 51 (1st February, 15th March and 3th June 2012 respectively) and blog 54. Dr. Gachet's Blue Eyes (5th November 2012).

75. Brother and Sister, Worlds Apart: (1) Dead Ducklings, War Canoes, Steel Works and a Leper Settlement

 

Auckland University from Princes Street Gardens

In September 1972 I moved with my young family from London to take up a position at Auckland University in New Zealand where I was employed until my retirement thirty years later. At that time my older sister Elizabeth was in Nigeria where she spent most of her working life with the Church Missionary Society. Both of us wrote regular letters home to my parents in Malvern Link, Worcestershire.

As I indicated in an earlier blog (30. "Love, Death and Letters from My Mother's Hut"), my mother kept our letters. Two siblings could hardly make more diverse career choices and these letters provide, to my mind, an interesting contrast between a thoroughly secular and a thoroughly religious life. So Elizabeth and I have agreed to try and paste together a blog giving some indication of the different things we were writing home about at specific times. I am sure we will find some strange juxtapositions.

We both recognise that we self-censored our letters home as we hid some of the real emotional dramas in our lives. In this 'presentation of selves for parental eyes' we sought both to maintain some of our personal privacy and to protect our parents from too much concern over matters outside their control.

This blog is experimental to see what a mix of extracts from our letters reads like before proceeding with more. We have chosen letters that refer to September and October 1972.The protocol that we have followed in editing these letters is to set mine out in the present typeface (Times) and Elizabeth's letters in Courier. Where we have felt compelled to add a present glossary on the events reported, or some reflection on the memories that they trigger, we have done so by shifting to italics.

Elizabeth wrote home more frequently than I, usually every Sunday, so we will start with excerpts from her letter of September 10th 1972. This was her first term at the Vining Centre in Akure.

E: These letters give an idea of what life in Vining College was like in the time of Cornelius Olowomeye who was the Principal then. There is not much about any teaching but rather taking people to the hospital. That seemed to be my most important role - I was in charge of the College Dispensary which met each morning after chapel (Morning Prayer) which began at 7 am.


September 10th '72

Dear Ma and Daddy,

My ducklings have hatched  at last, but I am not sure if I couldn't have done something to help more of them to have hatched out. There were 12 eggs and 6 of them hatched. One of those died. But it seemed to me that there were babies inside the other eggs but the mother didn't continue sitting on them after the first lot had hatched. Now I have 5 small ducklings to keep an eye on. They never taught us at Foxbury (CMS Training Centre) how to look
after ducks!...

This compound is really like a farmyard. I keep having to go outside to shout at the goats or sheep who will come and eat up all my bushes. Then yesterday I saw that a pair of pigs that often come visiting from the town have had piglets and there are 7 little ones! Just now there are some chickens scratching around under the trees. I haven’t yet done anything much about my garden. I have started a few pots on the veranda and I think I shall concentrate on them. There is a lot of Pride of Barbados all around the house. I think that when Ethel has gone I shall have some of them dug out, because there is not much room for anything else.
With much love,
Elzabeth.

October 1st
We have started the new term this weekend – so all the students are back (or sick and therefore late!) We just have one new woman so far, although we were expecting 3. We nearly didn’t start at all because there was no money. All the Diocese have failed to pay us their grants – but we have managed to loan from Akure District Church Council, enough to buy our food supplies. The Government ought to be paying the cocoa farmers soon and then money will start to circulate again.

Sad news about my ducklings - ALL have died!! Like 10 little nigger boys - 2 drowned, one disappeared in the bush, others I think got pneumonia. So I must start again.


J:

Deepacre Motel, Takapuna, 1st October 1972

Dear Mum and Dad,

Well here we all are in Auckland. The flights went off smoothly and on schedule. The TWA jumbo from Heathrow was half empty so we had plenty of space. It’s an incredible plane with lounges and film shows and the children thoroughly enjoyed it, even though the journey to Los Angeles was eleven hours. We saw quite a lot from the plane – Iceland, icebergs on the sea, the edge of the Arctic, the Canadian Rockies and then the hills and coastline around L.A. It seemed extraordinary to be in the Arctic Circle on a direct journey to New Zealand!

We arrived in Los Angeles at 4pm (their time) and left again in the dark at 9pm. The stop gave us a chance to have a wash and for the children to run around. We then boarded the Air New Zealand DC8 for Auckland. The children were very tired by this time and the plane was full and cramped so we all slept fitfully. After five hours we arrived in Honolulu at midnight Hawaiian time, and stopped for an hour and had a walk. It was stifling hot – it’s on the Tropic of Cancer – with great tall palm trees and ornamental fishponds around the airport.

The last leg of the journey was a further eight hours leaving Honolulu at around 1am and arriving in Auckland at 7.40am NZ time – all very confusing. We were met at the airport by Peter Tillott (my boss) and his two children and taken to their home for breakfast. It was a beautiful sunny morning and the first sight we had of New Zealand as the plane flew in over the islands and beaches around Auckland and over the top of Rangitoto, the volcanic island in the gulf of Hauraki near Auckland, was the most impressive sight we saw on the whole journey.

We reached our motel about 11am but our room wasn’t ready so we went for a walk on Takapuna beach. The children kept going remarkably well considering how little sleep they had – Stuart only about four hours since Tuesday night in England. About 5pm we all went to bed and slept for thirteen hours or so. We have all adjusted to the time change but Pat and I still feel we are on an aeroplane! Since we arrived we have been taking it easy, exploring some of the beaches and generally getting our bearings.

I am sorry it was such a rush at Heathrow but we were very glad to have you all there even for so short a time.

Love from us all, Pat, John, Stuart, Sacha and Lewis.

I have always been the kind of traveller who likes to know in advance the topography of anywhere I am going so had studied maps of Auckland in some detail. As our flight  approached I recognised the layout of the city but the early morning sunlight throwing light and shadow over the islands of the gulf, and the sparkle of the calm sea below, made my introduction to New Zealand a magically exciting one. One that in retrospect I rate triple A+. [A+ for anticipation; A+ for the actual experience; A+ for the pleasure of recall ages later.] With travel, as with romance, work, dining out and many other things, you can have three bites of the cherry. But as you age triple A+ experiences, like triple A+ banks these days, are harder to find, so I keep a good store of them in my long term memory bank.

4^th October

We are still in our motel but will be moving shortly to a house we have rented for the next few months. Our address will be 168B Seaview Road, Milford, Auckland. We started looking for somewhere on Tuesday and were fortunate to find the one we did. There are plenty of properties available for buying but few for renting.

The house is at the top of a hill overlooking the beach and sea at Milford and is about seven miles from the city centre on what is called “The North Shore”. The beach is about five minutes walk downhill (over a rickety bridge, subsequently demolished) and about ten minutes coming up! As soon as we found the house we went to the local school – Campbells Bay Primary – to see the Headmaster. Stuart and Sacha started yesterday and are settling in.

Shortly after we had agreed to rent the house in Seaview Road an ex-LSE staff member who is now at Auckland University phoned to ask how we were getting on. He and his wife are New Zealanders but they have worked abroad for the last ten years and came back here last January. It transpired that their house was in the same area as Seaview Road and that their two children, a boy aged 6 and a girl aged 5, went to Campbell's Bay School! So yesterday when we picked our two up at  the school we went back to their house and the children all got introduced. Schools here start at 8.45am and the five year olds finish at 2.30pm, the rest at 3.00pm. This means there is a lot of time after school for going to the beach or playing and the older children all seem to play tennis after school. It’s hardly rained since we came and has been pleasantly warm, but we are assured it’s not always so dry.

I have been in to the university on and off but will really start on Monday next when the children will be at school and we shall be settled in the rented house.


E:
October 8th
It was good to get your letter earlier in the week telling of John and Pat's departure to N.Z. It seems that our family get-togethers are often at Heathrow airport! I am sorry that I wasn't there to complete the gathering.

We have started the new term. I was exhausted by Friday! The teaching timetable is not very heavy - although since all the lessons are 'new' there is a good deal of preparation. But things like 'needlework' take up a bit of time, because the women are both helpless and also demanding attention. The first week is the worst - getting them all started on new things - deciding what they want to make and getting them cut out. I gave 5 of them 5 yards of material to cut into 5 pieces to make tablecloths with. It was like a market in minutes. The last piece was only 35" long and no-one would take it!!!
 

...Then one small girl cut her head open on a stone - not a big cut - but a lot of blood and a hysterical mother. Last night one baby woudn't sleep but cried ... so I was woken at 3.15am to diagnose ... probably worms or eaten too much. I gave 1/4 Aspirin in water and the baby slept off!! But I can't say that I did - at least not properly.

October 15th.

Most of the women seem to be pregnant this term - or to have children under a year. We are hoping to have a session on Family Planning this term - but it is a bit late as far as most of them are concerned.

 

J:

Milford, 18^th October

Thank you both for your letters with all the news of your busy Harvest Festival. We still aren’t used to the idea that it’s spring here and that in two months the children will break up for the summer holiday. Teaching has already finished at the University and the students are now busily engaged with exams. I am fairly well settled in to my job now and am gradually getting round meeting people in the University and in the business community in Auckland. I am the first person appointed at the University to a post in Business Studies so most people are rather intrigued as to what I am going to do. At the same time it means that there is plenty of opportunity for new ideas. In due course the University is setting up a Department of Business Studies but so far has not been able to fill the vacant Chair.

We are slowly beginning to sort out the various areas where we might like to live permanently and to drive around to look at some of the houses available. The main thing is to be reasonably near to the primary school and, if possible, to a beach and yet not too far from the University. Most people here think that 1/2 an hour’s commuting is a long way! It’s a nice change from driving an hour each way to High Wycombe and back. Where we are now takes about 20 minutes from door to door.

The first week we were here the weather was marvellous but last week was very wet and when it rains it rains. So on Saturday we took the children to a museum in Auckland that had a lot of Maori and Polynesian articles in it. These included a Maori war canoe 82 feet long, many Maori woodcarvings and replicas of the traditional buildings in their villages, as well as actual fishing boats of different kinds from all over the South Pacific – Melanesia, the New Hebrides, Rarotonga, the Sandwich Islands and places I had never heard of before. There were also headdresses and cloaks worn by chiefs on special occasions (like war!) including some made of birds’ feathers.

We’ve hardly been out of Auckland so far although last week I went to the NZ Steel Co about 30 miles south of Auckland – right out in the country – and saw steel being poured – very spectacular, like a firework display.

E:
October 22nd

One student delivered a baby boy this week - on Thursday. It was unexpected as far as I was concerned because I hadn't realised that that student was due so soon. And neither she nor her husband had prepared a thing for the new baby!! So suddenly we had to go shopping. They hadn't even got S.T.'s, olive oil, nappies or a razor blade - as required by the hospital. Part of the trouble was that they had no money to buy them - but partly I felt it was just thoughtlessness for they have 2 other children and they had left all the old nappies and baby clothes at home.
 

I had a letter from John. They seem to be settling in very quickly. I should think that New Zealand is a nice place.

What a pity that May Panter didn't enjoy the guitar music. I doubt if she would approve of our lyrics with drumming and dancing and even clapping that go with it in our Chapel! In fact I can think of quite a lot of things she wouldn't approve of in this place! Babies puddles in the classroom... even on the table..!! How you get over the importance of basic cleanliness to Yoruba women I don't know.

October 29th.

I discovered that the one week old baby was very jaundiced and had a large 'haematoma' on the head - so we took it to the hospital for a check-up. They saw a doctor who precribed phenobarb and an injection of paraldyhyde. Mrs Treadgold and I went into town and looked round part of the Oba's palace and she bought some writing paper etc. She is a very 'lively' person - and very nice indeed - but much nicer when she relaxes and doesn't talk too loudly.

We went to Idaure in the afternoon on Sat and visited the Vicar there and his wife. Then we came back for the evening service and I was called out to take the same baby again to the hospital. It was admitted. Then we went on to Ann's for supper.

After the morning communion service the father came to say that the baby had died in the night. I don't really know what was the matter unless it was chronically anaemic, or had some infection. Very sad. The parents were very controlled, but weeping. The students made a box and they buried the baby in St. David's churchyard.

We went to the Leper Settlement this morning and greeted the folk there. Mrs T. had never seen anything like our Leper Settlement - and it is pretty ghastly. One poor man is very sick there - with tetanus I think .... but they won't admit a leper into the hospital and it seems they don't get any medicine except for their leprosy pills. I fear he will die soon - but I will go and tell them in the Health Office in the morning tomorrow.

... This evening we had a session of plays in the hall in honour of our guest. It was great fun and went off very happily with men dressed as women in the men's play and vice versa in the women's play. All a great laugh.

Lots of love,

Elizabeth.