View THE BROOKLYN BOOK in columns v2 flipbook.
The View from the Top above the streets of Brooklyn and one boys’ wanderings through those streets (No drugs, and not as much sex and rock and roll as would have been liked!) Graeme (Gus) Cowan
2 INTRODUCTION WHY ON EARTH AM I WRITING THIS? My inspiration to document these memories has come from a Rongotai College and Midland St Pats cricketing mate, Laurie Steel. Laurie has recently written a couple of publications - one covering his adolescent years and the other about the streets of Wellington’s eastern suburbs and their history. Having read both of these publications, I thought to myself, if Laurie can, why can’t I do something similar, but approaching it slightly differently? What if I write a book that identifies Brooklyn streets and a bit of their history, and merging my wanderings around those streets during the time that I was growing up, including my time at Rongotai College a little bit later? So what you’re about to read is a bit of a geographical meander through the streets of Brooklyn interspersed with some history, with a (mis)adventure story thrown in - I’d like to say thriller, but it definitely isn’t! Thanks for the inspiration Laurie. So now I want to dedicate these memories to the one person who knows more about me than anyone else in the world - my beautiful wife and life partner Sarah. But does she know everything about my growing up days before we met? Does she need to? While I’m pretty confident that the answers to these two questions are either possibly and / or maybe not, neither the questions nor answers don’t actually matter, there’s nothing hidden from Sarah so I’m really happy for her to read and laugh or shake her head in astonishment or disbelief about any of my growing up exploits that I haven’t already told her about. So hopefully there’s no major surprises for my best pal, but you never know! I thoroughly and absolutely enjoyed my childhood days spent around the precincts of Brooklyn, and equally so during my teenage years over in the eastern suburbs when I was attending Rongotai College for 7 plus years, or as I will refer to it on a regular basis, the Coutts Street Academy. It’s therefore a pleasure to share these memories, even if anybody else’s pre-reading interest factor may be hovering around zero. When I look back at those Brooklyn and Rongotai days a couple or three decades later (yeah, probably more), I wonder whether in the future someone with a bizarre or misguided inclination might go looking for some history or background about me or my family. I know I’ve hunted information on my grandparents with minimal success, but Mrs Google and her friends make it a lot simpler today and should continue to do so. So I’ve decided that I’ll make it even easier for interested parties - maybe even my kids, to read about my growing up days by documenting most of my early background (definitely excluding a couple of tales), and if someone really wants to track me on the internet (or whatever replaces it), hopefully they won’t find some different and incriminating background about me and what I may have got up to in my time on this planet. Nothing to hide of course, so why would you look? Yes, hunting around trying to get information relating to my grandparents, my grandfather Charlie in particular has proved to be a rather challenging exercise. This has become a driving factor for me as I write my memories in the hope that a couple of lovely grandchildren (Macklyn and Marlow) won’t have a similar difficulty if they ever choose to find out more about us. It’s far too early for either of them to know anything about my early days in Brooklyn, and even if they do, then it’s likely to be only bits and pieces that have dribbled out over time, and probably unintentionally. Therefore this publication gives me a brilliant and unexpected one-off opportunity to give them some future permanent knowledge about their grandfather and other relatives, the adventures (definitely not all of them) that I got up to in my adolescent days and the mates that I shared some of these adventures with, plus the memorable times that I had during secondary school days. And just maybe, you never know, one or both of them might see of bit of me in their DNA - I can only hope! My way of making it easier for them is to write this book about my life growing up, while Sarah is putting together a couple of rather stunning photo books. Hopefully all of these stories, plus those that we’re still producing will help Macklyn and Marlow in any future research that they may feel inclined to do about us. So after the introductory ramble, here’s my story! ENJOY!
3 BROOKLYN - the suburb of my youth. Situated about 2 kilometres away from Wellington city and perched at the top of a hill accessed via the appropriately named Brooklyn Road on the northern side, and via Ohiro Road, from both the north and south ends as this road literally runs right through the suburb from the edge of the city down to the southern coast. You could also get to Brooklyn from a neighbouring suburb - Berhampore, going first up Britomart Street and into Farnham Street, turning right at the top into The Ridgeway which then becomes Mills Road then Washington Avenue, and eventually turning left into Cleveland Street, the main shopping centre. But first a bit of history. Wikipedia tells us that: European settlement began in the area during the 1840s. In January 1842 the ship London commanded by Captain Attwood set sail for its second voyage to Wellington from Gravesend in Kent. It carried 700 tons of cargo, 137 adults and 39 children. On 1 May 1842 the ship arrived in Wellington, with John and Louisa Fitchett and their children amongst the passengers. The young colony established a district of Ohiro in the early 1840s from the land surrounding Port Nicholson (officially renamed Wellington Harbour in 1980). The New Zealand Company map (above) shows Wellington divided into sections in 1842. The shaded sections 11, 12 and 13 became the modern Brooklyn. Settlers could access the new district only via the steep Ohiro Road from present-day Aro Street. The land became subdivided into many blocks. In 1852 John Fitchett purchased a number of these blocks and established a dairy farm called Ohiro Farm, known also as Fitchett's Farm. A township named Fitchett Town formed in the 1860s; it gained its new name "Brooklyn" in 1888 when the then land-owners, Ashton B. Fitchett (son of John Fitchett d.1875) and R.B. Todman, offered the main subdivision for sale. The offer included 208 lots of Fitchett's Farm next to Brooklyn. In 1899, after the sale, a further subdivision took place, and the main roads of Mitchell and Todman Streets took form. These were then intersected with Reuben, Bruce, Laura and Charlotte Avenues, Tanera Crescent, Apuka Street and Sugar Loaf Road (the site of the War Memorial). In 1902 Brooklyn was extended further up the Brooklyn Hills when Ashton B. Fitchett sold additional lots of land. Both Karepa and Apuka Streets were extended onto this newly available land. A new tramway route opened in 1906. Unlike the existing route to Brooklyn via Aro Street and Ohiro Road which had excessively steep gradients, the new route was cut through the town belt by Central Park. This route later became today's Brooklyn Road. The tramway closed in 1957, and the City - Brooklyn route is now served by numbers 7 and 8 buses. The number 7 (City - Brooklyn - Kingston) route was electrified as part of the Wellington City trolley bus service which then was terminated in 2017. Brooklyn takes its name from the borough in New York City, which in turn recalls the Dutch city Breukelen. When a syndicate led by J.F.E. Wright (a Wellington Provincial Councillor between 1861 and 1863, and then for Karori and Mākara between 1873 and 1876) subdivided Brooklyn, a number of its streets being named after former Presidents of the United States. WHERE TO BEGIN THE best place to start this story is at Sugarloaf Road as this is where I lived all of my childhood life, it’s from where I took rather tentative steps to primary school followed by secondary school, then a bit more confidently to my first full-time job at the Wellington Harbour Board. It’s where I formed my first friendships, where body parts were bloodied or scraped for the first time, where I owned my first bike, where I taught myself to bowl fast, and where I first became aware of external distractions such as girls. It’s where I lived until I was married - for the first time, and where I returned to reside on two future occasions, both times before two future marriages! In short, it was a very fine period of my life, but I probably didn’t fully appreciate that at the time. But before I get underway it’s appropriate to tell you about my family, particularly my immediate family who lived at 28 Sugarloaf Road as I grew up. Fairly obviously there was my dad and mum, Don and Ethel - full names Clarence Donald (always known as Don), and Ethel Emily May. For the first
4 17 or 18 years of my life, one or both of my grandparents (on mum’s side) lived with us - the house was originally theirs, with mum and dad moving in somewhere in the late 1940’s, just before I was born. Incidentally, I was born on 5 August 1949 at the Salvation Army’s Bethany Maternity Hospital at 18 Kensington Street, just off Abel Smith Street which itself is only a few hundred metres from the bottom of Brooklyn Road. My brother Neville was also born there as well. Given that this was the first momentous occurrence of my life, it seems appropriate to include a photo of the Bethany Maternity Hospital, the doors of which closed in 1984 and the building demolished in 1985 to make way for the extension of Victoria Street South to Webb Street. Whilst the Morris Minor looks like a family car we owned, probably in the ‘60’s, I don’t think that’s mum in the front! Back to my grandparents. Grandpa’s name was Ernest Charles Turner (always known as Charlie), and Grandma was Emma Ada Turner (nee Short) - always known as Ada. Also living with us was their son and mum’s brother Eric Charles Turner, and more about him shortly. Charlie died on 3 June 1966, and Ada in September 1968. In September 2014 when back in Wellington I found their sadly neglected family burial plot at the Karori Cemetery - photo on top right, next column. For the record, the family burial plot (247 O, PUBLIC2, Record Number 60889) was purchased by my great grandmother, Margaret Short on 5 April 1916, and appears to contain the remains of my great grandparents Henry (22/10/18) and Margaret Short (19/5/30), and my grandparents Charlie (8/6/66) and Ada Turner (5/9/68) and my uncle Eric (24/8/61). Slightly concerning, the cremated remains are recorded to be at a depth of one foot - the depth of soil in the photo has sunk to about that level! Then there was my brother Neville who is 8 years older than I am. As our house had 4 bedrooms Neville and I didn’t need to share - mum and dad in one, my grandparents and Eric in another (now that was definitely crowded), and us boys having our own rooms. My space initially wasn’t that great, I was in a small back bedroom - although Neville disagrees, he reckons he was in the back bedroom. No arguments from me either way, particularly when I looked across the road and saw my mate James Snowball and his brother Max sharing a room that was certainly no bigger than mine, and with bunk beds. And Neville certainly wouldn’t have minded not sharing with a younger brother with a reasonable age gap between us. The next sequence of photos shows what our family looked like back in the 1960’s or thereabouts:
5 Grandparents Ada and Charlie (previous page) with yours truly there as well - in the lounge at Sugarloaf Road; mum and dad (above) - probably taken while they were holidaying in Norfolk Island; and Neville and I above as well. The only photo that’s been found of mum’s brother Eric is top right, where he’s sitting with his grandmother, my great grandmother, Margaret Short - probably taken around 1916- 17. In those days Eric was considered to be a mongoloid child, but in reality, he suffered from Downs Syndrome, and very seriously so. I can’t recall him walking or being up and about, he was always seated in the lounge in front of the fire with a blanket over his lower half, often pinching people if they got too close! His speech was seriously impeded, he communicated by grunting. I certainly remember him calling Neville something that sounded like “Double”. Neville reckons he called me “Baa”! Eric’s condition finally got the point where he couldn’t be looked after any longer at home, and he was admitted into Porirua Hospital (known in those days as a mental hospital), and I have a vivid (but not that pleasant) memory of visiting him there with mum and dad. Eric passed away in 1961 at the age of 47. A bit more about my grandfather, mostly because he was not only a fascinating character, but also my favourite grandparent, and because I suspect I’m quite like him in a lot of ways. As best as can be determined, he came out from England some time in 1901 and married my grandmother, Ada on 3 April 1907. Charlie served in the first world war as a sapper in the NZ Engineers, was wounded at Galipoli (we were always told that he still had shrapnel in his body, but that may or may not be true). Just before Christmas in 1916 while in France, he was charged with drunkenness and sentenced to FP No. 1 - which stands for Field Punishment Number One, a rather nasty penalty that was generally inflicted on conscientious objectors. He endured FP No. 1 for 14 days. There’s an excellent New Zealand movie entitled Field Punishment No. 1, have a look.
6 Charlie was finally discharged from the Army on 18 December 1917, with his war records noting that he was discharged “being no longer physically fit for war service on account of wounds received in action”. On his return to New Zealand, there was an event that caused him to be banished from the family home, and resulted in him spending many, many years in isolation around Wellington’s southern coast. I recall him often coming up from his bach on weekends, armed with freshly caught fish and a half-crown each for Neville and me. He’d then return to the coast in the afternoon. The event that caused him to be banished is the subject of another book I’m writing, and likely to be entitled The Redemption of Charlie”. Now there’s an interesting side story about Charlie, and whether he may (or may not) have been related to William Richard Morris, who became Lord Nuffield, the founder of Morris Motors Limited. This is a bit of a grey area, but according to dad, Charlie was adamant that this relationship did exist and if so, was probably based on the following: • William Morris was born in 1877 in Hallow, Worcestershire. His parents were Fred and Emily (nee Pether) Morris. • Charlie’s father (Charles) had married Emily Morris, and Charlie was born in 1880 in Broughton - now there are plenty of villages named Broughton in England, but 2 are in Worcestershire i.e. Broughton Hackett (14 km’s from Hallow), and Drakes Broughton (16 km’s from Hallow). • Now if Emily Morris (Charlie’s mum) was the sister of Fred Morris - and this is unsubstantiated, then William Morris and Charlie would have been first cousins. I’m not sure that the above can ever be proven, but there could well be some substance to Charlie’s claim that he was related to Lord Nuffield. So what about my grandparents on dad’s side? Well, I don’t recall a lot about them, probably not surprisingly because my grandmother (May Matilda) had died in 1936, and my grandfather Robert lived in Langholm Beach in Auckland, and I reckon I had only met him on two or three occasions. Robert died at home in 1961, and was actually discovered by two of my Palmerston North cousins, John and David on one of their family trips to Auckland, apparently he looked like he had just fallen asleep in his chair. Probably not a bad way to go.. There are not many photos of either of my paternal grandparents, the two that I have found follow. Dad had eight brothers and sisters (Cecil, Claude, June, Reg, Gordon, Dulcie, Maisie and Ted), and for many years we thought there was another brother, Keith, until we found out that he wasn’t actually our uncle Keith, he was our cousin Keith. Just a family skeleton that rattled around for a while! The following photo was taken after Claude’s funeral in 1967 (he was killed in a motor accident) and from left are dad, Maisie, June, Reg, Gordon, Dulcie, Ted and Cecil.
7 One of the challenges in writing these memoires of Brooklyn and its streets is how to present it in some sort of logical order than readers can follow, and also recognising that some streets will have many memories for me, and others not so many, if any at all. So after much debate with myself - which I won, I reckon that I’ll split my meanderings into 7 main sections that I hope readers can follow. i. We’ll start with Sugarloaf Road and then head to Mitchell Street, Karepa Street, Apuka Street, and down Helen Street to where it meets with Tanera Crescent. The memories are many!!! ii. We’ll then go to the bottom of Brooklyn Road and work our way back up to the junction of Ohiro Road. iii. Our 3rd exploration starts from Aro Street at the city end of Ohiro Road and heads south, dissecting Brooklyn’s main shopping area, staying on Ohiro Road (but exploring side roads) until we arrive at the Southern Landfill. iv. We’ll then return to Washington Avenue and head to Mornington. We’ll explore Washington Avenue, all streets that lead off it, and any buildings / structures of note on the way - until we reach the Ridgeway. v. Back to McKinley Crescent, checking out streets that lead off it, and buildings / structures of note on the way - again until we reach the Ridgeway. vi. Two roads have got us to The Ridgeway, so we’ll wander down there before heading to Vogeltown, a suburb that’s synonymous with Brooklyn and Mornington. vii. And my story wouldn’t be complete without remembering my days at Rongotai College, so the last part of this book will recall my days at the Coutts Street Academy - as Rongotai College is often referred to by old boys of that establishment. SUGARLOAF ROAD - and many memories Sugarloaf Road is a narrow, dog-legged, dead-end road that is accessed from Helen Street, and leads directly to the Sugarloaf, a bush-clad, conical shaped mound (yes, it looks like a sugarloaf) that has a series of paths that take you up to the Brooklyn War Memorial. Definitely not the highest point in Brooklyn, but one that affords excellent views over the harbour, past Mount Victoria and around towards the harbour entrance. There’s great views of planes landing and taking off from Wellington airport at the northern end. The Fitchett family are attributed with the naming of the Sugarloaf, which is the obvious origin of this street’s name. For us kids, this was a brilliant playground and known to all of us as “the monument”. Early 1900’s and Helen Street is the wide road on the right of the photo, with Sugarloaf Road veering to the left at the top. Mum and dad’s place is highlighted by the circle (top left), although at the time of the photo it would have been my grandparent’s home. The footpath running the length of the photo in the foreground is where crowds gathered over several nights during March 1963 when a property opposite was mysteriously bombarded by coins, rocks, and small stones. More of that under Ohiro Road.
8 A not so commonly known fact about Sugarloaf Road: There are at last 3 alternative routes to exiting Sugarloaf Road other than via Helen Street, the obvious one being the paths up to the Sugarloaf and on to Mitchell Street. The 2nd is from the many, many steps that lead up to Number 16 (where Graham Diment lived), and once at the top of the steps there is another pathway going alongside private residences that also leads to Mitchell Street. The 3rd and most interesting is a track immediately adjacent to the last house in the street, just underneath the Sugarloaf. Last time I used this accessway it was totally overgrown, but it was still possible to carefully clamber down the track and come out halfway along Charlotte Avenue. Shortly there’s a memory of using this track when heading home late at night / early morning! The memories. Oh, there are so many and it will be a few pages before I start travelling around the other streets of Brooklyn. You can be sure that there will be a host of other memories associated with quite a few other streets, but times spent in and around Sugarloaf Road provide the source of most of my recollections, which are not presented in any sort of logical or chronological order, they are simply as I recall them. I’ll start with the friends, and my main mate was James Snowball who lived directly across the street. James and I had a “call sign” when we wanted to attract each other’s attention, it was meant to sound like the US Cavalry’s bugle charge! We were about the same age, while his older brother Max tended to hang out with Graham Diment, who lived at Number 16, up those many steps that I mentioned earlier. Then there was Michael Derridge who lived 2 doors up from us at Number 32 and for a while there was Murray Jones who lived at Number 30. It got a bit more interesting when the Hamilton’s moved into Number 30, they had a daughter called Gail who was around our age, but while we looked lustily at her, she wasn’t the slightest bit interested in us. Looking back, it is a bit surprising that our “gang” only consisted of half a dozen of us at most, but there just weren’t any other families in the street with kids of our age. James and I spent most of our play time together, and it’s fair to say that we got into a reasonable amount of mischief. Standing at the top of dad’s garden and throwing darts at the cats across the road probably wasn’t our finest hour, but then nor was the two of us heading up to the monument with Michael Derridge, tying him up to a tree and leaving him there as we headed back to our respective homes for dinner. We certainly got into a bit of strife over that one. I well remember our late-night escapades when James would sneak out his front door (his parents slept down the other end of their house), head to our place and tap quietly on my bedroom window, I’d then clamber out (equally quietly) and we’d go for a wander around the darkened streets. This happened on quite a few occasions until one night I went to open my window and go back inside but…the window had been put back on the catch! I had no choice but to ring the front doorbell and face my father’s wrath, with mum glaring severely at me in the background, all 5” 2” of her! Thinking about going back home late and clambering through my window, during my late teens there’d be a number of teenage parties at another mate’s place, Alan Hart who lived down in Ohiro Road. Alan became a highly respected Freemason, but back in those days there was nothing particularly secretive about the parties at his place, except from his mum and dad! Alan’s parents used to head away in the holidays and Alan was left to look after the house! It was a regular occurrence for these parties to finish after midnight, and the most direct route back home required me to walk along Ohiro Road, into Helen Street and then into Sugarloaf Road. Now my mum didn’t sleep that well, and probably even more so when I was out late, so she used to sit at the bay window in the lounge from where she could see anyone coming up Sugarloaf Road which was well lit. Knowing this, I wouldn’t walk up our street, instead I wandered back into Brooklyn, up Todman Street, into Charlotte Avenue and up the track underneath the Sugarloaf that I mentioned earlier. This meant that I came in behind our house and unseen by mum, and it was generally no difficulty to open my bedroom window and heave myself inside, and straight into bed - with mum still staring down Sugarloaf Road and wondering what I was up to. Ah, the things you do. James was also my cricket playing mate, and our main “pitch” (we had 3 of them in the street) was the roadway opposite 3 garages under number 20 Sugarloaf Road,( with the “stumps” superimposed on the next photo for the purpose of this epistle) being the concrete pillar between two of the garages as shown in the next photo. The footpath was the run-up, and probably where my propensity for an angular run-up was developed. The only danger was
9 The Google map below shows Sugarloaf Road with a couple of our cricket “pitches” being highlighted by the arrows. As mentioned, our favourite “pitch” was down at the garages as the road was wider and I could get a longer run-up by using the footpath. The 2nd “pitch” further up the street was ok, but generally used when the garages were inconveniently open. There was a 3rd “pitch” even further up the street and around the corner. And of course in those days, unwanted obstructions such as cars simply weren’t there, they didn’t get in our way and the “pitches” were ours! Mum and dad’s place is highlighted by the circle, and you can see dad’s huge garden area at the back of the house. My mate James’ place is at the extreme bottom right. We enjoyed many games of street cricket, occasionally, but not often joined by Max or Graham. Bowling was certainly my strong suit, but batting was ok as well, probably because cricket wasn’t James’ preferred sport. It wasn’t until a few years later, probably around the 4th form at Rongotai College, that I realised I was a pretty good quick bowler and started playing college cricket, making my way into the 1st XI as an opening bowler for my last couple of years at college (my opening bowler partner was Grant Nisbett, the very well- known television rugby commentator of over 300 All Black test matches) - we knocked over the top order of most teams that we faced. The 1968 1st XI was to be described in the college’s 75th anniversary publication RONGOTAI ‘Sound of the Sea’ as the best 1st XI cricket team the college had produced, and we were unbeaten that year. But if James wasn’t available I discovered a way to play cricket literally on my own - using the backyard that led to the back door of our house, an area of maybe 15 or so metres long and 2-3 metres wide. Fortunately dad had built huge concrete retaining walls at one end and at the back of the house, and by holding a bat in my right hand, throwing a tennis ball at the far wall with my left hand then immediately grabbing the bat in both hands, I was able to practice cricketing strokes to my heart’s content as the ball flew back off the wall. I soon developed this into a “test match” - when throwing the ball against the wall I could be an Indian spinner e.g. Prasanna or Bedi, or an English quickie such as Truman or Statham, and when batting I was generally one of my New Zealand heroes of the time, mostly John Reid or Bert Sutcliffe. Talk about schizophrenia! I could hit sixes and fours, even ones and twos, but I could also catch myself out if I misjudged a stroke back at the wall. Hitting over the wall into the neighbours property was automatically out. Our rubbish tin was the stumps. Great fun!
10 The previous photo is my backyard cricket pitch at Sugarloaf Road, with two of my Palmerston North cousins, John and David. David’s hanging onto my mattress-shredding, live chicken-capturing terrier, Tassie who would probably have preferred to be terrorising the neighbourhood. This game kept me occupied for hours, and all I needed was a ready supply of tennis balls as there was a plate glass window in that exact area. The inevitable happened, I got bored with the tennis ball and decided that a real cricket ball was required. Now I didn’t break the plate glass, but dad certainly noticed the rather long crack that had suddenly appeared and it didn’t require too much thought about the cause! Back to a tennis ball fairly quickly. A bit about the neighbours. Our immediate neighbours at number 26 were Mr and Mrs Cassell, a retired couple living on their own. Their house was behind mum and dad’s and accessed by a reasonably steep path. From our lounge we would see them going up and down, and they would always wave at us. Mr Cassell was a smallish, dapper guy, while Mrs Cassell, whilst fully mobile was unfortunately a deaf mute, and therefore difficult to communicate easily with. No real problems though, but stuck in my memory forever will be one Saturday morning when there was a thunderous knocking on the front door. There’s Mrs Cassell in a seriously agitated state, arms waving all over the place, and trying to communicate with us but incomprehensively so. Eventually we figured out that she wanted us to come with her so off we traipsed up her path until the cause of her anguish was fully revealed - Mr Cassell had placed a mattress on their front lawn to dry out, but unfortunately this had proved to be an irresistible target for our fox terrier, Tassie who had totally shredded the mattress, and was proudly standing in the middle of her destruction with the lawn resembling a snowfield in the middle of winter. It was a major clean-up job, and the sad consequence of it all was dad building a kennel at the top of our garden with a wire rope stretching the length of the garden and to which Tassie’s lead was attached when we weren’t with her. One more story about Tassie comes to mind. Neighbours on the other side of the road just up from the Snowball’s used to run chickens. Now we were totally unaware of this until one morning Tassie turns up at our back door with a chicken in her mouth. Yes, she’d visited the neighbours and scored probably what she perceived to be breakfast, she was a fox terrier after all. Mum and dad paid for the chicken, but this was probably another reason why Tassie ended up attached to the wire rope at the top of the garden, sadly it was the only way that she could be contained. Back to the Cassell’s property which was an odd shape, being very narrow heading up to the house, but from there it ran the width of our property, and extended a reasonable way back. The back section was pretty overgrown - the Cassell’s definitely weren’t gardeners, and situated in the middle of this jungle was a concrete bomb shelter, a relic from 2nd World War days. I would often sneak up Cassell’s path, check that they weren’t around, then make my way through the undergrowth to the bomb shelter, where many imaginings of repelling hordes of Nazi invaders took place. Actually there was a second bomb shelter, the second one being much more obvious and located in the back yard of the Derridge’s property at number 32. For a few years, the Stewart’s lived next door to the Cassell’s at number 24, and they had 3 boys who, being younger that the rest of us weren’t really included in our adventures / misadventures. I have one really bad memory of the oldest Stewart boy (I think his name was Robert) and it goes like this. For some reason which eludes me now, James and I had convinced the lad to stand behind a lamppost about 30 metres away, while the two of us threw stones at the lamppost. Now I was pretty good at this and although not intentional the inevitable happened - he stuck his head out from behind the lamppost just as I let fly and a stone caught him just on his right eyebrow. We were so lucky, an inch below and his eye would probably have been history. A lot of blood, so my handkerchief, probably ironed by mum, was applied to try to stop the bleeding. James quickly headed off home - couldn’t blame him, and I was left to walk Robert, who was not particularly happy, home. From memory I got him to his front gate, then scarpered. I remember hiding the bloodied handkerchief under the house hoping it wouldn’t be found. Not surprisingly there was a knock on the door later that evening, with Mr Stewart demanding to know what had happened. This of course was after they had returned from the hospital and the requisite stitching of Robert’s eyebrow. Not surprisingly this did not end well for me, with dad bringing out the dreaded hairbrush. The hairbrush. You have to realise that these were the days when corporal punishment - the
11 or caned, but I used to hate the hairbrush. Fortunately dad didn’t bring it out very often, but he gave me a belting to remember with it after the truth of the Robert Stewart incident was revealed. Did I stop throwing stones, no, but I became considerably more selective in my targets after that. The Stewarts weren’t there for very long and when they moved out I remember how we looked forward to welcoming new neighbours. Eventually there was an ominous growling noise in the street and we looked out our bay window in time to see a couple of leather-clad bikies walking up the path into number 24. This was a major cause of concern for my parents - bikies, this sort of unwelcomed intrusion into their neighbourhood had never happened before. Our new bikie neighbours were Norm and Christine (their surname eludes me) and while first impressions for mum and dad were not encouraging, Norm and Christine turned out to be the “neighbours from heaven” - they were absolutely amazing. After moving out of Sugarloaf Road they maintained contact with mum and dad, then with dad after mum died. Sadly Norm passed away around 2005, and I remember taking dad to his funeral in Johnsonville. Over the road of course were the Snowballs, and being very friendly with James, I spent a lot of time over there with Mr and Mrs Snowball being very welcoming. I remember that their house seemed very small - it was actually a semi- detached house which probably added to this perception. Once in their front door, James and Max’s bedroom was immediately off to the left, and to the right was a rather compact kitchen through which you had to make your way to the bathroom. Their lounge was an elongated and narrow room which continued on from the front door, and the main bedroom was off to the left at the far end of the lounge. An outdoor washhouse in a small front yard completed their home. But if you wandered down the steps to the left of the house, there was a door that led into an intriguing basement area. A fully equipped workshop was down there and it actually ran the full width of the entire property, underneath both the Snowball’s side and the neighbours. One workbench is etched in my mind even today - it was several metres long with an enormous circular saw embedded in the middle. Huge slabs of timber could easily have been processed on this workbench. And their property didn’t end there, with a bush area continuing on for about another 50 or so metres. This was totally unutilised land, and I have wondered what my dad could have made of it given his propensity for working and maintaining a very productive vegetable garden, definitely his pride and joy. One of my earliest memories from Sugarloaf Road is mum playing the piano. She was very, very good, and it was a regular occurrence to hear mum skilfully pounding out a tune on the piano that was situated in our lounge. It wasn’t unusual for the church people to come around and for mum to head to the piano as part of entertaining the visitors. Not only was mum an accomplished piano player, she was also the organist down at the Baptist Church, a role she shared with one of the family friends, Mary McCallum. Couldn’t find an earlier photo of mum at the piano, with the following photo taken in 2001, and mum would have been 91 at that time. Still rocking out a tune! So it wasn’t surprising that firstly Neville, then I was enrolled for piano lessons. I remember having two teachers - the first was Miss Oswin whose piano studio was in Talavera Crescent, just underneath the Cable Car, I seem to recall going there on quite a few occasions, but not really developing any skills. For some reason mum decided to transfer my lessons to Mrs Morganti who lived a lot closer to us, over towards the top of Todman Street. I didn’t last very long with Mrs Morganti, probably compounded by the time that I was meant to go for a lesson, got to the bottom of her path, thought “no”, and headed instead to Reuben Avenue and up to my Auntie Eileen’s place with her black and white TV. Mum, who was in hospital at the time (and I was actually staying at Auntie Eileen’s for a few days) wasn’t at all impressed when she finally found out, and my piano lessons became a thing of the past. Of course the end of my piano days may have been influenced by one other event, had mum found out but I don’t know whether she ever did. It was a Sunday evening, mum and dad had gone to church, but I wasn’t on my own as my grandparents were living with us at the time. I decided that I would go into the lounge and tick off a bit of piano practice. About 5 minutes into my rather unmelodious practicing, the lounge door was flung open, in storms my grandfather and
12 yells at me “shut that bloody noise up”! I think I had inherited dad’s total lack of musical abilities, which would have been definitely apparent to anyone unlucky enough to hear me brutalising the ivories, similar to what my grandfather endured. I don’t think he told mum. So now that mum had finally realised that I was totally devoid of any piano playing talent, she turned her attention to finding an alternative means of culturally improving me - and in her determination she found elocution lessons and enrolled me at the Hugh Janson Elocution Studio! So at the beginning of 1960 I was now required to head down to the 1st floor of a dingy old building in Lambton Quay where I would have one- on-one sessions with Hugh Janson himself. I learnt all about diction, articulation, pronunciation, and enunciation, and most importantly how to correctly deliver all of these in the best possible poncy voice - or so it seemed to me at the time. But I must have done ok because in July 1960 I was entered in the Trinity College of Music, London local examinations in spoken English, and passed Grade 1 - First Steps with Honours. I stayed with elocution lessons until the end of 1963 by which time I had satisfied the examiners up to Grade 5 as can be seen below. Yes, I still have all my certificates! And elocution training provided one of those “what were you doing when that happened?” moments. It was on 22 November 1963 and I was in a building on The Terrace for elocution certificate presentations when the news came through that President Kennedy had been assassinated in Dallas, Texas. I guess everyone’s had a few of these moments, and I’ve had my share. The breaking of this major news item was probably the first time that I became truly aware of how such an international event could have an impact world-wide - sure, I was aware of the Vietnam War and other international conflicts / events occurring at that time, but Kennedy’s assassination gave me a new awareness that had not previously registered with me. If you looked down Sugarloaf Road from our lounge window, you couldn’t help but see Halliwell’s 4 Square store across the other side of Helen Street. I remember sitting at that window one day and doing a pencil drawing of Halliwell’s store, the drawing wasn’t too bad at all, and I wish I could produce it as part of this story but unfortunately it’s long disappeared. Growing up in the 1950’s- 60’s meant that corner stores were not uncommon, and I also remember that a greengrocer’s van used to drive up Sugarloaf Road in those days, selling fresh produce that wasn’t sold at places like Halliwell’s. No supermarkets, remember. Anyway, back to Halliwell’s and several memories that still lurk around. The first one actually relates to the Hodson’s who lived at the bottom of Sugarloaf Road, just opposite Halliwell’s. Ken and Norma Hodson lived there (more about Ken later), and it was Ken who, on a few Saturday mornings during summer months would drive me over to Evans Bay in Kilbirnie for swimming lessons. I’m not sure why, probably because dad worked on Saturdays. Anyway, we’d practice swimming strokes lying prone on a sloping grass bank before being herded across the road and into the very cold sea - yes it was summer and yes, it was always bloody cold! I learnt to swim though. As a youngster growing up in Sugarloaf Road and given my Baptist upbringing it’s fair to say that I’d been well versed, but not necessarily successfully, in the merits of abstaining from various temptations, but one temptation that I could never resist (and that’s still the case today) is the very simple treat of ….ice cream! On more than one occasion I would wander down to Halliwell’s store with the sole intention of purchasing a rectangular block of ice cream, generally Neapolitan flavoured, and then scoff the lot in one sitting. Piggish? Probably. Enjoyable? Definitely! My other regular trip down to Halliwell’s was for my grandfather, and to buy him a packet of cigarettes - by that stage he wasn’t that steady on his legs, but there was no way he was going without his regular packet of fags. His favoured brand was Capstan Plain, unfiltered, and from memory they came in a packet of 10. Grandpa always gave me a couple of bob when I went to get his cigarettes for him, and whilst that cash was initially splurged on a block of ice
13 cream, there was a brief period when I was buying two packets of smokes - one for him and one for me. No questions asked by shop owners in those days. Actually the second packet was shared with Michael Derridge, and we would head into his basement, light up, cough, choke, spit out tobacco shreds and pretend we were enjoying ourselves. The Derridge’s basement provided the ideal hiding spot for our ciggies, but I reckon we only had to hide a couple of packets before mutually agreeing that it was a pretty disgusting habit and not for us. Speaking of hiding things, my grandfather Charlie had a friend, Con O’Regan who used to visit, often with a bottle of gin or similar hidden in his coat. Mum was never fooled and as soon as Con left mum would head into granddad’s room, remove said bottle and hide it away. Years later, I found a couple of opened bottles on the top shelf of mum and dad’s wardrobe where they had been hidden for many years. A quick sniff was enough to ensure their destruction. Derridge’s basement holds one other memory for me, and a bit of a painful one. Their basement was quite large and used mostly for storage, but with plenty of room to muck around in. Checking the area out one day, we came across a dart board and a selection of darts. So we set everything up, and started to learn how to throw darts, this being a new activity for both Michael and me. We certainly didn’t think about any safety issues, and Michael decided that he would throw the darts back to me for my turn. The inevitable happened, and suddenly I’m looking at a dart that had skewered the nail of my middle finger of my left hand. With a bit of anguished yelling, I pulled the dart out, and while it was extremely painful, strangely there wasn’t very much blood. The nail did eventually blacken and fall off, and still today I still have a seam mark that starts at the quick and runs the length of the nail. Among the many memorable highlights of growing up in Brooklyn were the regular Saturday trips to Athletic Park to watch local club rugby and representative provincial matches. Normally there were two games with a curtain raiser starting around 1.15pm and the main game kicking off at 3.00pm. Dad had season tickets in the main stand, so with mum coming along as well, the four of us would head up to the park and cheer for our favourite teams. My two favourite club teams were Athletic, closely followed by University. In those days, Petone was definitely the arch enemy and nemesis of other teams, they won many championships and generally got the better of everyone else. My first recollection of an All Blacks game goes back to 15 August 1959 when the All Blacks beat the touring Lions by 11-8, in the days when you queued up overnight outside Athletic Park to get tickets. I can’t actually remember whether we did queue overnight or not, but our seats were really good, situated almost at the goal line at the southern end of the main stand (many years later to be known as “Bernie’s Corner” - Bernie Fraser, one of my all-time favourite All Blacks) where we had a great view of Ralph Caulton, a winger from the Poneke club in Wellington, scoring two tries right in front of us, and on his international debut. Don Clarke, the legendary All Black fullback, scored the winning try (below) with one minute left on the clock. A wonderful day out and a great experience being in a crowd of that size - there were 53,000 crammed into Athletic Park, many of them on the famous Western Bank. Mum certainly got a bit annoyed at our endless replaying of the match, particularly over the dinner table that night. I well remember another All Black game at Athletic Park, the 1961 encounter against the touring French team, which incidentally took place on my birthday. It was an absolutely foul day, a screaming Wellington southerly blasted its way through the park, and the recently completed Millard Stand had only the bravest (or most stupid) souls perched on its upper level. The All Blacks won 5-3, primarily because of an incredible conversion kicked by Don Clarke, he actually booted the ball parallel to the 25-yard line, and the wind did the rest! A couple of other games at Athletic Park that I’ll
14 never forget were Wellington beating the 1965 Springboks (23-6), and the 1966 Lions (20-6). Great Wellington teams and wonderful memories! Wish I’d hung onto the programmes. In June 1964 the world turned upside down in Wellington - John, Paul, George and Ringo - the Beatles arrived in town for a couple of concerts at the Wellington Town Hall. Now at that time Neville was working for the Wellington City Council, and was their Booking Clerk. This meant from time to time he scored tickets to various events, and yes, a couple of tickets to one of the Beatles concerts fell in his lap. Great news, he was working as an usher at the concert, so the tickets ended up with me. One problem - my “date” ended up being my mum and while that was a bit different, off we went to a concert that I’ll never forget. The photo that follows is me with a mop top and in my best Beatles clobber, and probably on my way to the concert! These weren’t the only tickets that came my way via Neville. I can recall seeing Acker Bilk, Kenny Ball and his Jazzmen, and a few wrestling shows at the Wellington Town Hall. I definitely remember a couple of elderly ladies sitting ringside at the wrestling, both of them armed with hat pins which they aggressively poked at the wrestlers whenever they could. Back to the Beatles. So enamoured was I with these guys - after all, I had been to their Wellington concert, that by the late 1960’s I had just about every album that they produced. Damn it, I have to confess that sometime in the early 1970’s I sold them all for $1 each and to a guy called John Lowes, a New Zealand softball representative with whom I was friendly with at the time. Not one of my best decisions, I would love to be able to pull out any one of these classic albums now and listen to them on the record player, scratches and all. With a drivers licence achieved in 1967, it wasn’t too long before I was looking around for my first car. I finally settled on a 1953 Ford Prefect (black, and similar to the one below), and for which I paid just over $300. So I must have bought it sometime after July 1967 as that’s when decimal currency came into effect. It was a bit of a monster - top heavy when cornering, and heavy on the gas, I always seemed to be running out of petrol but that may have been because finances (or lack of) meant it was never really filled up! Mum and dad wouldn’t let me drive it to college, they probably thought I’d get up to even more mischief! I sold it a couple of years later to an Indian family in Berhampore for about $80, but it was a fun couple of years, and I well remember a couple of “interesting” features. The floor shift gear stick (3 forward, 1 reverse) was diabolical to operate, particularly when coupled with the requirement to double-de-clutch - a common requirement in those days which required two gear changes, once into neutral and then into the target gear. A bit of a challenge to learn, but pretty soon became an automatic process. Then there was the “trafficator” - which was a bit like a semaphore signal which, when operated, protruded from the door pillar and indicated the intended direction when turning left or right. And another night with my then girlfriend, Christine when we drove over to Wainuiomata to visit her brother John and his wife Evelyn. The poor old prefect struggled on the way up the Wainui Hill - the radiator boiling over as it was prone to do, but even worse was to occur on the way back. Heading down the Wainui Hill I suddenly realised that the brakes had failed! Fortunately we were close to the bottom and slowing the car with much double-de-clutching through the 3 gears I managed to get us safely down to the flat. Panic’s over, and now feeling pretty
15 relaxed, we drove along the Petone foreshore and turned towards Wellington only to see flashing lights about 100 metres ahead, an accident, and police cars seemingly all over the place. The frantic double-de-clutching and associated gear thrashings only marginally worked, and we weaved past the police cars to finally come to a stop a couple of hundred metres further on. Initially the constabulary were pretty grumpy with my driving but finally accepted my explanations and let us continue on, even knowing we had no brakes! Recalling my Ford Prefect brings me to family holidays that we used to go on, particularly because most of those holidays meant travelling in dad’s Ford Prefect, affectionally named Pheebie. Many’s the time that we drove up to Palmerston North and stayed with Uncle Claude, Auntie Renee, Janet, Richard, John and David at their Albert Street home. The memories from these holidays include their large back section and glasshouse, where, after Claude’s death, dozens of empty alcohol bottles were discovered that he had buried or hidden under hedges. I also remember an old aga stove in the kitchen that literally heated the entire house. To digress slightly, there was one occasion when the Palmerston North relations came and stayed with us, with dad and Uncle Claude heading off on the Saturday afternoon to watch a game of rugby at Athletic Park. But apparently Claude gave dad an excuse that he needed to be somewhere else and disappeared. “Somewhere else” turned out to be a pub in Newtown. He arrived back at our place well after the game had finished, and just before they were due to drive back to Palmerston North. My cousins tell me that they got halfway up Ngauranga Gorge before Claude pulled over to the side of the road, stating that “he needed to check a tyre” - what he really needed to do was take a leak, the beer was working well. Auntie Renee wasn’t fooled, she moved into the driver’s seat and took off, leaving Claude not quite with his pants down, but close. She didn’t stop, driving back to Palmerston with Claude left to find his own way home. Pheebie also took us to Auckland on a couple of occasions when we stayed with Auntie June and Uncle Dave at Taha Road in Te Atatu. They had a great party house, adults downstairs in a 4-car garage and the cousins upstairs. During one of these trips my cousin Barbara gave me a driving lesson which didn’t go down well with mum and dad - I was about 11 at the time! The other memory from that trip was Barbara slipping the word to me that Uncle Keith was actually Cousin Keith! On one other trip to Auckland we picked up my cousin John from Palmerston North and took him with us. Apparently we argued all the way! There was another holiday to Auckland, but this time we travelled by the overnight train, enjoying a sleeper compartment which was fractionally crowded - mum, dad, Neville and me. One odd memory from that trip was having to queue up to get pillows from a guy in a small hut in the middle of platform 9. On another holiday Pheebie was again our transport, this time to Rotorua, and somewhere between Taupo and Rotorua Pheebie decided she’d had enough after literally boiling her little radiator dry. All dad’s efforts to get her going again were to no avail, so mum and I accepted the kind offer of a ride from a passing vehicle and were chauffeured on to Rotorua. Dad arrived many hours later. Fortunately mum and dad had friends in Rotorua, Gordon and Bernice Hamilton with Gordon owning a motor repair garage. Problem eventually solved, and Pheebie was soon back on the road better than ever. Gordon and Bernice had two sons, who according to mum and dad had been named after Neville and me. A second holiday to Rotorua saw us staying with other friends, Huia and Pat Tapsell. It was on this trip that dad taught me to ride a push bike on a quiet back road. I can still vividly remember wobbling down the road and realising that dad had stopped holding on to the bike, me looking backwards to check, and immediately falling off! Then there was a strange holiday when we went to Paekakariki and stayed in a caravan. Strange because even now I can’t imagine mum agreeing to a holiday in a caravan, but we certainly did, even if it turned out to be our only caravanning holiday. Memories of Sugarloaf Road wouldn’t be complete without remembering some great times in the vicinity of the Brooklyn War Memorial, not surprisingly we simply called it the Sugarloaf, and it was our playground as we were growing up. But first some background about the War Memorial. The Brooklyn War Memorial was built on top of Sugarloaf Hill in 1923 to remember the men who fought in World War 1. The Memorial lists 48 names of local soldiers who died in World War 1 and the nearly 300 who served in the Expeditionary
16 Forces. All of then lived in the Brooklyn area. The Memorial is 30 feet high including at the top an 8-foot-high white marble figure holding a hat representing a New Zealand soldier looking back across Gallipoli. The names are inscribed on granite on all four sides of the base. For a better view of Wellington, James and I often climbed up to the first level - just above the inscribed names. Apparently there was some argument about where the Memorial would be built. Many people wanted it to be in Central Park, others wanted it to be in Washington Avenue, with some of those people sending letters to the Council saying how much they didn’t want the Memorial to be on Sugarloaf Hill. My grandfather is one of the 300 or so survivors of WW1 whose name is inscribed on the Brooklyn War Memorial, and I often checked his name out during our times up at the Sugarloaf. Grandpa’s war medals from left to right: 1914- 15 Star, British War Medal and Victory Medal. It’s a good time to remember a couple of the games that we used to play up the Sugarloaf, the first being a game that honed our stone throwing skills. There was an unsealed path, generally not used by the general public that you could take up to the War Memorial at the top of the Sugarloaf, and from a wooden bench just below the Memorial you got a really good view of this path and anyone coming up it. It was really difficult not to be seen unless you crawled on your hands and knees for most of the way, using the banks as protection. So, one of us would head to the bench armed with a pile of rocks, while the other one, two or three of us would begin our climb from way down below where the path started. The object was to get to the War Memorial (which was behind whoever was on the bench), while the guy on the bench hurled rocks whenever someone was spotted - which was often their head whenever they stuck it up to have a look. If the guy on the bench ran out of rocks, he automatically lost and was sent down to become one of the hunted. Often one of us would get trapped with nowhere to go to avoid a hail of rocks, that almost always resulted in an immediate surrender. There was really only one way to get in behind the thrower, and that was to pick your moment and literally scramble away from the path towards a major bush area that provided almost total camouflage all the way up to the top. Only problem with this tactic was that it was well-known to the thrower, and full exposure to a barrage of rocks for about 30 metres. Mind you, the other one or two “hunted” could then take their chances and advance up the path with less chance of coming under fire. Again hindsight is wonderful, and it really is an absolute miracle that one of more of us wasn’t seriously maimed or injured, but heck, we certainly enjoyed ourselves. The second game we invented was around the steps of the War Memorial. One of us (Max, Graham, James, Michael or me) would become the “chaser” who would head to the city side of the memorial. Out of the” chaser’s” sight on the other side of the memorial the others of us would each stand on one of the steps, hoping that the “chaser” didn’t come racing around on the step that we were standing on. If he did, we had to run like f%&k and get back to our starting point without being caught (tagged). If we didn’t and the “chaser” tagged us, then it was our turn to be the “chaser”. This was totally fun and I’d like to say that it seriously enhanced our running and balancing skills, but again with the marvellous benefit of
17 hindsight, how the hell we didn’t sustain major falls and broken bones during this helter-skelter chasing game remains to this day well beyond my comprehension. Every Guy Fawkes night all of us would head up to the lower slopes of the Sugarloaf and settle down just by a clump of 3 or 4 pine trees - pretty close to the spot where the “hunted” started from in our rock throwing game described above. Dad would take control of the fireworks that he or mum had purchased, and proceed to set them off, sparklers first, double happies second, and skyrockets last - maybe others in the mix as well. The skyrockets were interesting, a glass coca cola bottle (or similar soft drink bottle) was used, and dad would choose the angle and direction that the rockets were fired into. Now the Sugarloaf was a fully bushed area, and how we never set fire to one or more parts of it will remain a mystery, and I don’t ever remember any of us being particularly concerned about the possibility, it was just what we used to do. So it’s almost time to leave Sugarloaf Road and head towards our next area for exploration - up to Mitchell Street, then into Karepa Street, down Apuka Street to Helen Street, and then turning left into Tanera Crescent and on to Bruce Avenue. But before we do, there’s one more memory from Sugarloaf Road, and it relates to the last house in the street (number 38), particularly walking past it on the main path up through the Sugarloaf. When you got to this house you literally had to hold your nose because of the almighty stench that you couldn’t help but inhale. The people that lived in this house were the Matias family, and they were the first people I ever knew who were into home brewing. I reckon that home brewing has come a long way since the 1960’s as the stench coming out of their property in those days was seriously akin to food poisoning-induced vomiting simultaneously affecting multiple people! And as a small-world reminder, when I started work at the Wellington Harbour Board in May 1968, one of the people I was introduced to was Dumitru Matias, a senior engineer and a direct relation of the family residing at number 38, Sugarloaf Road. Even more interestingly, a few years later his son John Matias joined the Harbour Board and he was also based in the same building as I was. No, I never mentioned their relatives’ home brew! Leaving the Sugarloaf we come out onto MITCHELL STREET which was named after Henry Mitchell, a neighbour of the Fitchetts and who had emigrated from England in 1841. With his 3 brothers, Henry bought land in Pollhill Gully, where they logged timber. As they cleared the land of wood they started to raise sheep. In the 1870’s Henry Mitchell, now in his 40’s, started to build houses on his land for unskilled workers, mainly watersiders and casual labourers. He did the same on his land at the corner of Aro and Epuni Streets. The area was then renamed Mitchelltown (now officially known as Aro Valley) after the work of Henry Mitchell. An early photo of Holloway Road in Mitchelltown The names “Polhill Gully” and “Mitchelltown” are not that familiar to Wellingtonians these days. However, over a century ago, they referred to the location of what became one of Wellington’s largest rugby clubs in the decade before World War One. On 1 March 1907, “at a largely attended meeting, held in the Mitchelltown Schoolroom ... it was decided to form a football club.” 20 days later, the Polhill Gully Football Club (colloquially known as “the Polhills”), was formally affiliated to the Wellington Rugby Union. Henry Mitchell, as a strong supporter of the community bearing his name, who was also reported as showing “empathy with many organisations in the city”, became Patron of the new Club. In 1910 the club went into recess, never to re-emerge. On Mitchell Street we can turn left or right. Our route will take us left and heading towards Karepa Street, but before we head off in that direction we’ll have a quick wander down the other way i.e. heading north towards Apuka Street. There’s actually not many interesting memories, except that a few of mum and dad’s friends lived along here. On the right-hand side of the street there were the Dustin’s, a little bit further along was Mrs Stewart ( I never knew whether or not there was a Mr Stewart), and almost at the end were the Dowlings, who had a son Trevor, a little bit younger than me. On the other side of the road and up a narrow winding path lived the Ferguson’s, an elderly couple who were members of the Baptist Church and I remember going to their house on several occasions with mum and dad and playing an excellent board game called “Contraband”. I’ve hunted for it a few times without success.
18 As the Ferguson’s also had a large amount of lawn area that bordered their winding path, my first ever paid job turned out to be mowing their lawns on Saturday mornings before cricket for my college team - with an old push mower and up and down a reasonable slope. Suffice to say, this job didn’t last very long! So back to where we’ve come out of the Sugarloaf, and this time we turn left. In about 100 metres Mitchell Street veers uphill and to the right, and while there were some family friends living there (the Kerr’s), there’s really only one memory of this area that stands out for me. Almost at the end of Mitchell Street, James Snowball and I developed a major fascination with the property pictured below. They can’t be seen in the photo, but back in those days the land in front of the house was terraced with hundreds of old tyres. Now we had never seen anything like this before, and we firmly believed that they must have been stolen, and that we were the discoverers of a major crime. We had no idea what to do about it (which was probably just as well), and eventually our fascination died a natural death as other adventures took over. What we didn’t know at the time was that this house would become one of Brooklyn’s best-known (and possibly notorious) properties, principally because of its owners, the very well-known William Sutch and his wife, Shirley Smith, a Wellington lawyer. Googling “New Zealand History”, we’re told that: On a rainy night, Security Intelligence Service (SIS) agents gatecrashed a meeting between William Sutch and Dimitri Razgovorov in Aro St, Wellington. The SIS believed that Sutch, a prominent economist and former senior public servant, was passing information to Razgovorov, a Soviet diplomat. The pair had been under surveillance since April, after the SIS chanced upon what they interpreted as a secret meeting between them. Taken into police custody that night, Sutch initially denied knowing Razgovorov but later admitted he had met the Russian socially. He was charged with espionage under the Official Secrets Act. The trial began on 17 February 1975 and lasted five days. The Crown’s case focused on the meetings between Razgovorov and Sutch, and the latter’s initial denial that he knew the former. The defence argued he had denied meeting with Razgovorov because he was embarrassed and confused, not because he had anything to hide. After seven hours’ deliberation, the jury returned a verdict of not guilty. The case had taken a toll on Sutch’s health, and he died in hospital on 28 September 1975. What Mrs Google doesn’t tell us is that the secret meeting between Sutch and Razgovorov (the night that Sutch was taken into custody) took place in considerably less than salubrious public toilets at the top of Aro Street, just before Holloway Road - but where else would a couple of international espionage agents meet? Of course James and I had no idea about all of this as we imagined all sorts of crimes involving stolen tyres, after all, our wanderings up Mitchell Street were several years before the controversy around William Sutch and the espionage claims that surrounded him. One other interesting fact is that the Sutch / Smith residence is listed as a Todman Street address, even though the property is fully visible from Mitchell Street (and not at all from Todman Street), but probably the primary access was via Todman Street. Almost at the end of Mitchell Street and a couple of houses along from the Sutch residence lived the Webbs, with a couple of sons, Doug and Graeme. Both of these guys were older than me, probably nearer Neville’s age, and I came across them during my school holiday cricket games for the Brooklyn Club. Doug was a medium pacer, and he provided me with my first real bit of cricket coaching - in those days I used to bowl “around the wicket” in an attempt to avoid hitting the stumps with my bowling arm. No-one had told me any different until one afternoon at Kilbirnie Park, towards the end of the days’ play, and finally thrown the ball for a bowl, Doug strolled over to me and said: “you should be bowling over the wicket”. I took him at his word, and in my first over I had taken two wickets. Probably not surprisingly, “over the wicket” was the way to go from that moment on!
19 AUTHOR’S PREROGATIVE. And now I can’t resist adding in a street located in an area of Brooklyn and its surrounds that I had no intention of including i.e. the Brooklyn West extension. The particular street is Hoover Street, and it definitely wasn’t there when I was strutting my stuff around Brooklyn, but I feel a definite association with it as a consequence of an excellent road trip that Sarah and I made in 2014, and it’s at least consistent with the naming origins of a number of other Brooklyn streets. HOOVER STREET. Is located along the Mitchell Street extension, and is named after Herbert Hoover, the 31st president of the United States, who served from 1929 to 1933. Hoover Street appeared as part of a residential development when Fitchett’s Farm was sub- divided. Mr Hoover spent some time in the late 1890’s, early 1900’s in Western Australia working as a mining inspector, and it was during this time that Hoover House (below) was designed and built by Herbert Hoover in Gwalia, W.A., long before he came President of the USA. It remains the only President’s house outside of the United States. Herbert Hoover had planned it for himself and his future wife Lou Henry with whom he had an “understanding” while he was there. He celebrated his 24th birthday while saying in the partially completed house, and actually departed Gwalia before the house was finished. In 2014 during our first road trip around Western Australia, Sarah and I spent 3 nights at Hoover House at Gwalia, sleeping in the “Hoover Room” (next photo) - almost certainly the only time that we will sleep in an American President’s bedroom. KAREPA STREET. Meets Mitchell Street at the southern end, and winds its way for a couple of kilometres until it meets Apuka Street to the north. There is a reasonable amount of evidence to suggest that Karepa Street was named in honour of an elderly Maori gentleman who lived on a ridge known as Karepa’s Ridge. There is little accurate information about the identity of Karepa, however he may have been a son of the Ngati Koata chief Te Whetu and his wife Aniwaniwa. Karepa lived at Rangitoto Island (D'Urville) as a boy with his family, and it is known that he lived in Wellington where his work included rowing in the pilot boat. He took up active service in Major Browns' Regiment during the "Land Wars" where he attained the rank of colour sergeant. Karepa was awarded the Queens Medal for his service. The naming of Karepa Street occurred after Ashton Buddle Fitchett sold 37 lots of his land in 1902, and there is evidence that Karepa was alive at that time. This at least fits with the description of an “elderly Maori gentleman”, and so for the purposes of these memoires, there is an unsubstantiated assumption that Karepa Street was named after Karepa Te Whetu. There used to be (probably still is) a very elegant, white- washed farmhouse on the left-hand side of the start of Karepa Street. I suspect it was located within the perimeter of Fitchett’s Farm property, and in those days it was a house totally surrounded by paddocks. Sometime in May or June 1968 after I had started work at the Wellington Harbour
20 Board, I met a guy called Ken McLennan who lived at this property in Karepa Street, he was probably a 2nd generation resident. Ken was a rather interesting dude - I was never sure what his actual job was but he always seemed to be servicing the ancient gestetner copying machine, and he always turned up in our office at morning and afternoon tea, and was a walking encyclopaedia of bawdy jokes of which he had no hesitation in sharing! Ken retired immediately when he turned age 65, but sadly died within a week of retirement. The general area of Fitchett’s Farm was a popular destination for our Sugarloaf Road gang as just before the start of Ashton Fitchett Drive (which actually didn’t exist in those days), there was a very large clump of bamboo, and from which you could make excellent sets of bows and arrows. So we would head up to Karepa Street, jump the farm fence and help ourselves to bundles of bamboo that we would craft into rather effective bows, and sharpen the arrow tips with pocketknives. We fired these arrows all over the Sugarloaf, and how we didn’t cause major damage to each other is yet another mystery. I do recall one instance when with serious intent I fired several arrows at my brother - he was 8 or so years older than the rest of us, so was probably being too annoying as only older brothers can be! ASHTON FITCHETT DRIVE. Is about halfway along Karepa Street, heads off to the left and was named after Ashton Buddle Fitchett (born 1844, the son of John and Louisa Fitchett who had arrived from England on 1 May 1842. In 1852, John bought blocks in Ohiro and established a 100- acre dairy farm called Ohiro Farm, known also as Fitchett's Farm. In 1875 and following John’s death, Ashton took over the farm. At that time Fitchett’s Farm owned 90 cows, which were in milk all year. To help with the daily processing of 140 gallons of milk, Ashton became the first person in New Zealand to import, from Denmark, a mechanical milk separator that was capable of churning out 40 gallons of milk an hour, separating the cream or butter from the milk. It was driven by a 4-horsepower steam engine. In 1888, Ashton teamed up with R B Todman and subdivided much of the area, including turning the family farm into 208 lots for sale. He bought out Todman's interest, and in 1902 sold another 37 lots. Upon creating the western Brooklyn township, Ashton named some of the streets after his family (Bruce Avenue, Laura Avenue, and Helen Street) an employee (Rueben Avenue) and residents of the area (Apuka Street, Karepa Street, and Tanera Crescent). Ashton died on 12 October 1931 and was cremated at the Karori Cemetery. The following photo - circa 1894 captures Ashton and his family. Just about opposite Ashton Fitchett Drive is a pathway that crosses over to Mitchell Street, and was a great shortcut for us when we were heading to Fitchett’s Farm to score more weaponry i.e. the bundles of bamboo that I mentioned before. Many years later I recall using this path to my advantage during a running challenge that came out of nowhere at an Ories rugby party at a team members’ house somewhere along the Mitchell Street extension. The challenge was to find the best runner in our team, and the course saw us heading down the Mitchell Street extension, into Karepa Street, down Apuka Street, turning right into Mitchell Street and back to the party venue. I was the only one who knew about the shortcut to Mitchell Street, so I lagged behind the other guys until they had passed the shortcut. Out of sight of everyone else I shot along the path which saved about 3 or 4 minutes, and was back at the party venue well before everyone else. Congratulations were received (modestly of course) and no questions were asked as it was pretty late at night and very poor street lighting, and none of the other guys were actually aware that I hadn’t led all the way. Local knowledge is a wonderful thing! And a few metres down from the pathway leading to Mitchell Street is a string of narrow garages (below) - they always reminded me of the boatsheds at the Clyde Quay Boat Harbour. There are no houses directly behind these garages, and they’re probably still used by residents on the
21 left-hand side of the road (heading downhill). These houses are well below the road, and given that Karepa Street is a bit narrow and winding, and not that well-lit, it would be a brave person who would park their vehicles at street-side overnight. Continuing down Karepa Street and on the right-hand side lived a guy called Brian Christie. Brian was a bachelor, but was often seen in the company of a married lady, who lived over the other side of Brooklyn. I’m pretty sure that her husband was not a well man, he certainly existed but I never recall seeing him out and about. A situation that probably worked quite well for Brian and his lady friend! They did get married after the husband died. For many years Brian was the manager at a shop called the Lamphouse in Manners Street in the city. Because mum and dad knew Brian quite well, I ended up with a school holiday job at the Lamphouse where I remember buying my first LP - Rubber Soul by the Beatles. Working at the Lamphouse on Friday nights had the added benefit of catching the No. 7 bus to Brooklyn at the same time as several young ladies who had holiday jobs at Woolworths in Willis Street. A great opportunity to get to know a couple of them quite well with attempts at developing romantic attachments, not always successfully. At the corner where Karepa Street meets Apuka Street lived a mate of mine from Brooklyn School, Wayne Taylor. Wayne would head off to Rongotai College at the same time that I did, but before then we were both involved with the Baptist harriers, running around the streets of Wellington and the Hutt Valley on Saturday afternoons, generally starting out from various Baptist churches. I remember that Wayne and I used to head down to Tanera Park where we would practice racing starts, sprinting back and forward over 100 yards, as well as running laps of the park. Not sure that it did me any good, but Wayne certainly benefitted as in 1963 he was selected in the Rongotai College cross country team. Speaking of the Baptist harriers, the following photo shows a group of them out on a Saturday run, and almost certainly leaving from the Brooklyn Baptist hall as that’s the corner of Ohiro Road and Cleveland Street in the background. No, I’m not in the photo, but Neville is (circled). APUKA STREET commences almost at the southern end of Karepa Street and heads down to Helen Street. Karepa Street actually continues north past the start of Apuka Street for several hundred metres, at the end of which is a path which leads down to Mortimer Crescent, not a path that I used with any regularity. Apuka Street was named after a Maori gentleman who lived on Fitchett’s Farm and who was frequently employed by John Fitchett. There’s minimal information about Apuka, but he may have been Pamali Apuka who died in February 1867 and is recorded as being buried at the Bolton Street Cemetery. No other information has been discovered, so we’ll assume that Apuka Street commemorates Pamali Apuka. Apuka Street in the 1930’s, with the photo taken from the top of Helen Street where it meets Sugarloaf Road About halfway down Apuka Street you can turn right into Mitchell Street which continues along to where it meets the top of Todman Street before veering off to the right and heading up towards Karepa Street. I got to know this loop quite well, possibly when I was in the Baptist harriers, or possibly because of cross country running at college, as it became my early evening training run - up the Sugarloaf, left
22 along Mitchell Street, into Karepa Street, down Apuka Street, right into Mitchell Street, and repeat the course. The best I ever achieved was 6 times around this circuit, but I do confess that I only managed this once, all other occasions were twice around the circuit at most! Almost opposite the entrance into Mitchell Street off Apuka Street was a two-storey house where a couple of ladies from the Baptist Church lived - Mrs Young, and Mrs Coad. They were two of several single ladies (probably 8 or 9) that were regular visitors to our home. I often wondered whether they were war widows from the second world war, but my brother reckons that they weren’t. Nice ladies, and they could always be relied on for a donation when I went door knocking for funds to assist the local Boys Brigade. The previous photo of Apuka Street shows a pathway leading around to the right which is still there today. A shortcut to the properties on that side of the road, one of which was Raewyn White’s house where as teenagers we enjoyed a few weekend parties. Raewyn’s parents let us have the run of the top floor (which had great views over Wellington city), and never bothered us as we grooved to the music of the day (Beatles, Kinks, Troggs, Stones, Honeycombs, Small Faces to name but a few), enjoyed an occasional beer or two, and even developed the occasional boyfriend / girlfriend relationship, which generally lasted not very long at all. Raewyn’s mum, who we actually didn’t see a great deal of, was a good sportsperson having been selected in the New Zealand women’s hockey team back in 1948. HELEN STREET. Was definitely named after a direct relation of Ashton B. Fitchett, but there is a bit of uncertainty as to whether Helen was Ashton’s eldest daughter, or one of his two spouses, both being named Helen. The popular view is that it was named after his daughter. Either way, Helen Street has a direct connection to one of the earliest and more notable families to settle in the Brooklyn area. What we also know is that in the early 1900’s the Fitchett family’s homestead was at the corner of Helen Street (heading up the hill) and Tanera Crescent (leading off to the right), and captured in the photo below. Just on the right leading into Tanera Crescent you’ll notice what seems to be a rough track cut out of the bank. Over the years this track was developed into an asphalted pathway that still leads down to Ohiro Road. One memory of heading up this path features a bit later when I reminisce about Ohiro Road. I got to know Helen Street really well, probably not surprising as to get anywhere from Sugarloaf Road I had to walk up and down Helen Street i.e. going to Brooklyn School, and then to Rongotai College and later on the Wellington Harbour Board, and not to mention those parties at Alan Hart’s place. Sometimes (read ‘often’) coming home from Rongotai College I got a bit lazy and caught the Brooklyn West bus which in those days drove up Helen Street, into Apuka Street, then along Karepa Street, down Mitchell Street, and I would jump off where Mitchell Street meets Todman Street and wander back home down the Sugarloaf. Helen Street is reasonably steep, as well as being one of the widest streets in Brooklyn. I well remember getting my first bike as a Christmas present, it was a bit of a beast with only 3 gears, and whist it was an exciting ride down Helen Street, into Tanera Crescent and along to the end of Bruce Avenue, the return trip was an effort, particularly the Helen Street climb. It didn’t take me long to realise that the easiest way was to pedal diagonally and upwards across the width of Helen Street, then diagonally and upwards the other way, whilst hoping that a car wouldn’t suddenly appear from either direction. Actually this wasn’t too much of a concern, there weren’t that many cars around in those days and if they did appear there was plenty of time to avoid them. TANERA CRESCENT. Was apparently named after a Maori called Tanera who lived in this area, and was employed by John Fitchett after his arrival from England in 1842. There appears to be no recorded information about Tanera - whether male or female, where from, or where resided. Tanera Crescent has two levels which are joined by a set of steps. The upper level, where we are currently wandering, actually starts where Ohiro Road levels out after meeting Brooklyn Road and requires a sharp u-turn at that point, but residential homes start from where Tanera Crescent meets Helen Street. The lower level also runs off Ohiro Road, but further north towards the city. Just before the point where Tanera Crescent curves around to the right, lived the Hansen’s. Our Sugarloaf “gang” was sometimes joined by Brent Hansen who was friendly with Michael Derridge. Brent had a sister called Jane who was definitely a bit of a “looker”. No, not my imagination, as
23 shortly after winning Miss New Zealand, Jane entered, and was crowned Miss International 1971. Jane was the first, and up to now the only Miss New Zealand to win the Miss International crown. She was among the 50 contestants who competed in the pageant when it was held in Long Beach, California. The really nice thing about Jane was that she was unaffected by the fame and stayed exactly the same as she had always been during her growing up days in Brooklyn. Jane was friendly with Gail Hamilton who lived next door to us in Sugarloaf Road, so she was a regular (and welcome) visitor to our territory. Next door to the Hanson’s and where Tanera Crescent veers to the right lived Stan and Rita Kemp, friends of my parents. I don’t know either the basis of this friendship or why I would have been sent round there - maybe it was early days for me at Brooklyn School and mum was working. I recall one afternoon when I was around there and Rita decided that it would be a good idea for me to search her lawn for four-leaf clovers. I can now say with certainty that a hunt for four-leaf clovers only leads to abject disappointment, and I retain a misguided belief to this day that they simply do not exist! A couple of doors down from the Kemp’s lived the Snowden’s. Apparently the Snowden’s were related to us, but neither Neville or I are aware of how (via mum’s side or dad’s), so we’ll accept that the Cowan’s and the Snowden’s are distantly related. Maybe one of us (probably not me) will do an ancestry search to solve this minor mystery. Directly across the road from the Kemp’s lived the Heberley’s. Mrs Heberley was a teacher at Brooklyn School and Neville remembers her reasonably well - I don’t, but I think that Neville was good friends with her son, Rex. One one final thought about the upper level of Tanera Crescent. Mum and dad used to live at 29 Tanera Crescent in the late 1940’s, and Neville remembers living there as well. I hadn’t burst on the scene by then so nothing to add from me except to acknowledge that my family lived there for a while before moving into Sugarloaf Road. BRUCE AVENUE. Named after Ashleigh “Bruce” Fitchett (in the photo below), a son of Ashton Buddle Fitchett. Bruce's mother, Laura Sophia died when he was 15 months old and he was brought up by housekeepers and his half- sister Louisa. He served his apprenticeship as a mechanical engineer at Cables Foundry in Kaiwharawhara, and later started his own business in Wellington. He was part of the Wellington Infantry serving in France and was wounded in the second battle of the Somme in 1918. He was concussed during a charge when a German bullet penetrated the front of his helmet and was deflected by his chin strap, travelled around the side of his head and out the back of his helmet. His comrades, seeing a hole in the back of his helmet, concluded that he was dead, and went on. He later recovered consciousness and re-joined his unit to be greeted as a ghost. He was also wounded at the back of his left knee by an explosive bullet and during his convalesce in England he met his wife. In 1941, he re-joined the NZ Army to assist in training driver mechanics, working as an instructor until 1947 and rising to the rank of captain. He died in 1963 of heart disease. Now there’s a couple of memories coming out of Bruce Avenue. The first relates to a party at the home of one of the
24 young ladies from St Mary’s College, about 100 metres along Bruce Avenue on the right-hand side - Margaret was one of several daughters there, and she had definitely captured the attention of another one of my mate’s. So it was one evening that I was persuaded to join him and we headed down to Bruce Avenue for a bit of a party. I recall it well because it was this night that for the very first time I finally tasted a beer - yes, that inebriating, devil-worshiping, hell and damnation substance that every Baptist Minister (not to mention mum and dad) had consistently and incessantly warned the Brooklyn congregation about - and that didn’t include the evils about stacking empties on the back lawn of the church! More about that when we wander along Ohiro Road. I have to say that a Waikato 4X tasted bloody good to me at the time - I’m not so sure that I would enjoy one of those today, the quality of beers has definitely moved on since the late ‘60’s! Heading further along Bruce Avenue another 100 or so metres, on the other side of the road and up a rather steep pathway lived the Heslops. They were a Baptist family and I guess that’s how we knew them. From memory the parents (Roy, and I can’t remember his wife’s name), had been missionary’s overseas (India, I think) before returning to Wellington. They had a couple of daughters and a son, James who ended up in the Brooklyn Boy’s Brigade about the same time as I was, and was one of the members of a not- very-illustrious band that we formed in the hope of becoming New Zealand’s answer to the Beatles! More about this when we reach Ohiro Road. So I’ve come to the end of memories from Sugarloaf Road and other streets in the immediate vicinity. Now it’s time to head to one of the main entrances into Brooklyn, the aptly named Brooklyn Road. BROOKLYN ROAD - FROM THE CITY With a name that’s pretty self-explanatory, BROOKLYN ROAD heads right (pictured below) at the southern end of Willis Street, winding its way uphill for a kilometre or so until it meets Ohiro Road. The road heading to the left is Nairn Street - more about Nairn Street shortly. Two prominent features to be found on Brooklyn Road are (i) Central Park, and (ii) the Renouf Tennis Centre, named after Sir Frank Renouf, a Wellington businessman and stockbroker. The tennis centre was previously known, probably not surprisingly, as the Central Park Tennis Courts. Central Park (named after the area of the same name in New York) separates Brooklyn from the city. Established in 1913 on Town Belt land, the park features a set of wrought-iron gates at its main entrance, donated in 1920 by the then Mayor, John Pearce Luke who, apparently, turned the first sod of Central Park’s development on 27 October 1913. During World War II, American forces established a military camp in Central Park between 1942 and 1944. By July 1943 the camp could accommodate 540 personnel. The US Marines requested an expansion of the camp, but the improving military situation in Europe stopped any expansion. Central Park provides an easy walk from either Brooklyn or the central city, and has a great mix of formal gardens, grassed areas, natural woodland and bush. It also includes a children’s playground. There are several entrances into the park, the main entrance off Brooklyn Road, a couple off Ohiro Road and another one further up Brooklyn Road, almost opposite Washington Avenue. With irregular public transport in the 1960’s (particularly in the weekends) I often had to wander (actually race) down the top pathway from Ohiro Road into the city to catch buses to the various sporting grounds that I needed to be at, and later on when in full-time paid employment at the Wellington Harbour Board, my early morning walks to Queens Wharf, and often walking home again. The next photo, circa 1910 shows a tram heading up Brooklyn Road and getting close to the juncture with Ohiro Road. The undeveloped grassed, woodland area to the left is where Central Park is today.
25 The speck about 100 or so metres behind the tram is a pedestrian and he/she is almost at the point where a path would eventually be created down through Central Park. Also undeveloped at that time was Washington Avenue, which would in time be cut through the hill, and almost directly to the right of where the pedestrian is walking. In the 1960’s one of the sporting highlights that I remember relates to the Harlem Globetrotters who came to Wellington on at least two occasions. Now in those days, Wellington wasn’t overly endowed with decent sporting venues, so the Harlem Globetrotter games took place at the Central Park tennis courts, which, for the Globetrotter games were converted into a basketball court. Well, mum and dad couldn’t afford the highly-sought-after tickets to these events, and Neville hadn’t yet got his job as a Booking Clerk, so there was only one other thing to do - join the many, many other Wellingtonians, probably mostly from Brooklyn and its surrounds, and wander down through Central Park until we reached the slope that overlooked the Central Park tennis courts, now an international basketball court, and a totally uninterrupted view. Free viewing albeit a wee distance away, grassy slopes to stand or sit on, no background lighting to worry us, and hey, there was the Harlem Globetrotters literally strutting their magic in from of us. A couple of totally unforgettable experiences. Apart from the Harlem Globetrotter games, I don’t have too many other memories of the tennis courts and their surrounds, except that in front of the tennis courts, and very visible as you headed up Brooklyn Road was the Central Park Cabaret. The Central Park Cabaret had been around for years, and I did go there for a couple of functions. While I can’t remember the first occasion, the second was for a Wellington Harbour Board long service dinner. No photos of the exterior of this building, but I reckon I’ve located one of my brother, Neville (sitting) enjoying the venue with some mates. The hat, perched just like a Boys Brigade hat, gives it all away. Actually it might not be Neville - he reckons it’s not, but hell, it certainly looks like him at first glance! Whatever, the photo was definitely taken at the Central Park Cabaret. But before moving further up Brooklyn Road, I should recall an area on the left-hand side and just before the Central Park Cabaret and the Renouf Tennis Centre, a reasonably large and undeveloped area and likely to remain so. Now my wanderings in Brooklyn never took me there, but dad certainly did as part of his firewood collecting days. I haven’t mentioned it yet, but as an ex-Wellington Council employee dad obtained permission to cut dead and fallen trees in various Council Reserves. The area adjacent to Brooklyn Road was one of those areas, and dad happily replenished his firewood supplies (mostly gum trees from what he told me, a timber that provides excellent heat) from down there. Later on I was to spend a lot of time firewood gathering with dad, but more about that shortly when we get to Connaught Terrace. NAIRN STREET. Starts at the bottom of Brooklyn Road, rises steeply before eventually meeting Brooklyn Road again almost directly opposite the Renouf Tennis Centre. Nairn Street is an old New Zealand Company street, dating from 1840, and takes its name from Sir Alexander Nairne (1785-1866) (with an 'e') * one of the Company's earliest directors. Alexander was born in the coastal fishing village of Pittenweem on the north-east coast of the Firth of Forth. He joined the Royal Navy when he was just 16. Shortly after, in 1801, his ship was involved in action at the Battle of Copenhagen. 25 of his shipmates were injured and 6 were
26 killed, including one of his close friends. Disillusioned with the navy after this traumatic experience, he resigned. In 1803, he obtained a position as midshipman in the East India Company’s maritime service. He rose through the officer ranks and was eventually appointed commander of the “General Kyd”, a ship named after one of his uncles. By 1833, Alexander had established a family home in Camberwell, London and having amassed a considerable fortune, he took up a number of directorships, including the New Zealand Company, set up to encourage settlement in New Zealand. * Hopefully you’ll notice the asterisk above, and it’s signalling that when we finally get to The Ridgeway (in Mornington) there’s another story about a missing ‘e’. The preceding photo is at the top of Nairn Street where it starts to level out before curving to the right and re-joining Brooklyn Road. The steep part of Nairn Street was a favourite venue for learner drivers to be taught the art of reverse parking on a hill. Dad certainly took me here for a couple of lessons, and I am a bit chastened to admit that my first effort resulted in a ding with a lamppost, and a dent in the left rear mudguard of dad’s Morris Minor, similar to the one on the left of the photo. He took it well, and gave me a couple more chances to get it right. There’s a path at the top of Nairn Street that leads to a sports ground, not surprisingly known as Nairn Street Park, which can also be accessed from Bidwell Street. It was mostly used as a football field, although the Athletic Rugby Club used it as a training field when they were based in Bell Road. The only time that I remember going to this park was one Friday evening when I was in the Boys Brigade and we headed down there for a cricketing hit around. The guy taking us was Jimmy Ell, my mate Jason’s dad and at the time I had no knowledge that Jimmy Ell had been a really good cricketer in his own right, playing first class cricket for Wellington and a record holder in Wellington senior cricket for runs scored in a single innings. More about the Ell family when we explore Bretby Crescent. Also at the top of Nairn Street there’s a couple of small dead- end streets, the first being FITCHETT AVENUE, named after the Fitchett family who were early Brooklyn residents and owners of Fitchett’s Farm as mentioned earlier. The second street is STAUNTON AVENUE, named by a resident chess player after a famous English chess champion of the mid-nineteenth century, Howard Staunton (April 1810 - 22 June 1874). Staunton is generally regarded as the world's strongest player from 1843 to 1851, largely as a result of his 1843 victory over Pierre Charles Fournier de Saint- Amant. He promoted a chess set of clearly distinguishable pieces of standardised shape - the Staunton pattern promulgated by Nathaniel Cooke remains the style required for competitions. BIDWELL STREET, (wrongly spelt for Bidwill) commemorates Charles Robert Bidwill (1820-1884) who came first to Australia in 1841 to join his elder brother and later in 1843 sailed for New Zealand in the schooner "Posthumous," bringing with him some 1,600 sheep, as well as cattle and brood mares. He was the first to take sheep into the Wairarapa, and later became one of the leading runholders of the Dominion. His elder brother, John Carne Bidwill, visited New Zealand in 1839 and 1840 and in 1841 published "Rambles in New Zealand." In 1851 Charles married Catherine Orbell with whom he had 9 children (3 sons and 6 daughters). Bidwell Street was, and still is effectively a short cut from Brooklyn to Newtown, and apart from walking and / or driving up and down Bidwell Street, there are no major memories that have jumped to mind. Bidwell Street is the last road leading off Brooklyn Road before we get to Washington Avenue, but we’re not going to go up there at the moment, we’ll continue past until we reach the point where Brooklyn Road meets Ohiro Road, with Ohiro Road being our next area for exploration and reminiscence, wandering of occasionally off to explore side roads such as Bretby Crescent, Todman Street, Rueben Avenue etc.
27 OHIRO ROAD - FROM ARO STREET OHIRO ROAD starts at Aro St and heads south for 3.3 kilometres before ending in Happy Valley. It crosses Brooklyn Road and then passes Cleveland Street to the left, Brooklyn’s main shopping area. While Fitchett’s farm was also known as Ohiro Farm, the road’s name may also have its origins to one of the principal signatories (Ohiro) to the Te Aro Pa Agreement, according to the New Zealand Gazette of 29 August 1840. The photo below (circa 1913) looks north towards Cleveland Street and the shopping centre. Probably not surprisingly as it’s one of the main roads leading to and through Brooklyn, I’ve got many, many memories from time spent in and around Ohiro Road and these memories will be interspersed with some history as it is a bit of a controversial road with a reasonably turbulent past. I’ll start the journey along Ohiro Road at the northern end i.e. where it begins at Aro Street. One story that I didn’t know about until researching Ohiro Road is that in 1933, George Edward James, a 57-year-old train driver, was convicted of murdering his partner at their home at 27 Ohiro Rd, which is not far up from Aro Street. Her 4-year-old son had been found the same day floating in the harbour. James was sentenced to death and was hung less than a month later. Definitely part of Ohiro Road’s turbulent past! Many years later when I was growing up in Brooklyn with limited transport services, I often walked into Wellington via Brooklyn Road, or through Central Park, or occasionally down Ohiro Road. Dad warned me to avoid an “alkies” house near the bottom of Ohiro Road, which turned out to be the same No. 27 as mentioned above, and I have to say that it had become a rather shambolic property - overgrown “garden”, broken gate, letterbox on at least a 45o angle, front door always open with a dark and uninviting passageway visible from the street, and for an impressionable young Brooklyn lad who had been warned by his dad, it reeked of meths - or so I thought! I always hurried past. About 500 metres (maybe a bit more) up Ohiro Road on the left-hand side was the old Central Park caretaker’s house where there is still a path that leads down into the park itself. This is one of two paths from which you can access the park from Ohiro Road, and both are very pleasant downhill strolls through the bush. The bench in the photo to the left is on the site of the caretaker’s house, and was donated by the family of Alex (Sandy) Kettles who was caretaker from 1945 to 1959. Wandering further up Ohiro Road we soon come to a roadway on the right-hand side that is now blocked off. Back in the 1960’s this road led to the Central Park Hospital as it was known then. Central Park Hospital (below) was originally called the Benevolent Home and was established in 1892 on a combination of freehold (1 acre) and leasehold (a 4 ½ acre plot formerly part of the Town Belt under the control of the City Council). On 11 March 1898 a neighbouring section was purchased, and the site further extended in 1903 by which time it had become known as the Ohiro Home. In 1904 the central main part of the hospital opened and in the late 1930s its name was changed to the Central Park Hospital and it came under the jurisdiction of the Wellington Hospital Board with ownership of the land also transferring to the board. The hospital closed in 1975 and was demolished in 1977. My memories of Central Park Hospital are limited to concerts for the residents (many of whom were WW1 veterans) that Mum used to take part in. Both Neville and I would go down there with her, I can’t remember Dad coming down but he probably did, just not as a concert performer. Neville also has a recollection of a lady called Eva who was a resident of the Hospital and who used to come up to our place for
28 Sunday dinners, Neville recalls her as being a deaf mute. The name Eva rings a bell but I have no recollection of her at our place. I did come across a memory of Central Park Hospital posted on Facebook by Kathleen Barcham - the Barcham family lived further up Ohiro Road and more on them shortly. Kathleen’s post is below - probably not nice but I can definitely imagine it happening! TANERA CRESCENT. You’ll recall that we had a look at the upper level of Tanera Crescent while we were wandering around the Sugarloaf and other streets in that vicinity. This time we’re coming into Tanera Crescent from Ohiro Road, and the first area of interest is Tanera Park, which is accessed from a side road heading to the right, going past the Brooklyn Bowling Club and then down to the park itself. It’s not a notable sporting park, but formed part of my younger days as I used to head down there with Wayne Taylor for athletics training, and later on when I played a few holiday games for the Brooklyn Cricket Club. My dad used to be a volunteer greenkeeper for the bowling club, and I have to confess that greenkeeping genes definitely passed me by! Tanera Park had a reasonably sized carpark that was unlit at night, so a useful venue if you needed to park up occasionally with a young lady! Moving on again, and nothing else jumps out as we approach Laura Avenue. There’s a set of steps (next photo) at the point where Tanera Crescent joins Laura Avenue, these steps literally take you up to Tanera Crescent’s top level from where you can head directly back to Ohiro Road, or into Helen Street if you turn right. Hang on, one more recollection. My very first girlfriend, Laurel Abraham lived exactly opposite the steps in the photo, and I must have been at least 7 years old when I walked nearly home with her (once) from Brooklyn School, then confessed to mum that I was in lust - well, not exactly in those words. I remember that Laurel was at least 6 inches taller than me, definitely the tallest girl in the class, but didn’t seem to be a problem as I looked adoringly up at her during that walk back from school! After reliving that lusty moment we head into LAURA AVENUE which was named after Laura Sophie Walters, born on Jersey, the daughter of John Walters (Sergeant-major GG company) and Sophia Walters (nee Levesque). Laura Walters travelled to New Zealand from Middlesex, London aged 15 with her mother Sophia and siblings, Emma, Frederick and Ellen on the `Duke of Edinburgh', arriving on 28 December 1873 in Wellington. She later married Ashton Buddle Fitchett (1844-1931) in 1882 in Wellington, and they had three children (Edward Ashton Fitchett; Florence Buddle Marriot, and Ashleigh Bruce Fitchett). Laura died at 56 Tanera Cres, Brooklyn on 12 November 1889, and was buried in the family plot at Bolton Street Cemetery, Wellington. I had a couple of friends from Brooklyn School who lived in in Laura Avenue, Jeremy Lawton and Bruce McKinney. There’s another memory about the McKinney family when we get the Vogue picture theatre. MORTIMER TERRACE is an extension of Laura Avenue, leading back down into Aro Street, and for these memoires provides an appropriate point to turn around and return to Ohiro Road and continue on our way towards Brooklyn itself. No solid information has been discovered that confirms the naming of Mortimer Terrace, but as there's a Mortimer Terrace in Camden, inner London, it's possible an early landowner was referencing their home in London. In the following photo Ohiro Road is in the foreground and about to meet the junction with Brooklyn Road, and somewhere around the middle of the photo on the left lived the Barcham’s, Mr and Mrs plus four daughters, one of whom, Mary was in my class at Brooklyn School. The Barcham’s would later move to McKinley Crescent. A sad story - in 1972 Mary, a nightclub entertainer, was bludgeoned to death by David Tamahere who was subsequently convicted of manslaughter. Tamahere would be later charged with and convicted of the 1989 murders of 2 Swedish backpackers, Heidi Paakkonen and Urban Hoglin.
29 An interesting recollection: the photo above brings back memories of the many times that I walked up the path at the bottom left to the semi-detached house indicated with the arrow, it’s where my first wife, Christine lived. A fairly short- lived marriage (June 1971 to somewhere around September 1973), both of us were far too young and there was always the warning from Dad “not to marry a Greek”. Never accuse my father of being racist! Christine’s dad was called Jack and he worked in the Wellington railyards. Her mother was Maria, a rather large woman who always dressed in black, wore a scarf and could speak very little English. Nice people who lived a very simple and happy life together, but weirdly my major recollection of my times visiting their home was the outside dunny! Oh yes, and the never-ending supply of Ouzo, bloody disgusting and put me off aniseed for life. And now I think about it, they didn’t live in the downstairs part of the house at all, everything took place upstairs. Mind you, the outside loo meant that a reasonably steep climb was required if you were downstairs, and at night it would have been pitch-black - probably the reason for living upstairs. Christine had three sisters (Androlia, Dacia, and Helen) and a brother called John with whom I played rugby with at Oriental- Rongotai for several years. I caught up with John in Nelson around 2006, and it was great to meet him again. Continuing our journey up Ohiro Road we go past the junction with Brooklyn Road, passing another entrance into Central Park on the left, while on the right is a pathway that winds up to the base of Helen Street. This was a regular route for me in the early 70’s and I recall one night, probably heading home from Christine’s place, when halfway up the path I spotted a female body lying just underneath the fence. Absolutely uncertain as to what to do, I approached this person and immediately recognised her as one of the Barcham sisters, not Mary. I called her name a few times and finally she stumbled to her feet, vomited, looked at me out of one eye, said something like “I’m f#%*ing ok” and proceeded to stagger off down the path back towards home. A few days later I saw her again so she clearly got home all right, but I have wondered over the years whether I should have done more to help her. I guess I’ll never know. The “Brooklyn Dodger”. One of my more fascinating memories from Ohiro Road is being part of the crowd that for several days in March 1963 gathered on the footpath literally just underneath my mate, Alan Hart’s place to watch the Ohiro Lodge guest house on the other side of the road being bombarded by stones, rocks, and coins - which seemed to be coming from an unknown location behind us. Whoever was responsible for the excitement earned the nickname of the “Brooklyn Dodger”. There’s an article by Raymond Bayless - from Experiences of a Psychical Researcher, that well describes the events that took place over several evenings. A curious bombardment of a guest home in Brooklyn, Wellington continued for several nights and consisted of pennies and small stones. The bombardment began at about 9:30pm, March 24, 1963, and continued for 7½ hours. The owners and 15 lodgers were disturbed by the strange missiles, and 12 policemen in addition to more than 20 civilians searched the area. In spite of their efforts, 12 windows were smashed, one policeman was struck on the arm by a stone, and a boarder was hit on the knee. The second night the occupants of the lodge were again disturbed by flying stones which began at 7:30pm and continued until after 1:00am. 9 policemen and aiding civilians searched the area again in an attempt to apprehend the unseen attacker, but none could be found. In the Evening Post, (26 March) the possibility of a poltergeist was mentioned. The Dominion, (27 March) stated that on the third night nearly 200 people watched the Ohiro Lodge being bombarded again, and this time 7 policemen investigated the disturbance. The attack began about 6:30pm and increased in intensity until about 9:00 p.m., when the missile barrage decreased. During this attack, radar equipment and a police dog, used the previous night were not employed. Inspector McCallum, in charge of the investigation, said night that he was “confident there was no supernatural reason for the attacks as had been suggested by certain members of the public." He also remarked that "he was quite sure the objects were being fired from a catapult somewhere on the hill overlooking the guest house." An exotic touch was given by the owner of the Lodge, Mr Beatty when he mentioned that some believed that the rock and penny throwing was caused by the partial cutting down of some trees in front of the house, with the consequent angering of an evil spirit. In one newspaper clipping, Mr
30 Beatty mentioned that an elderly Maori woman and a youth had called at the lodge and explained that they came to exorcize the evil spirit who was throwing the stones and coins. She gave same explanation as had another Samoan who had called earlier, and upon being invited into the house performed an elaborate exorcism rite throughout the building. She also suggested that the trees be cut completely down to the ground. According to this newspaper article, Mr. Beatty stated, "I believe to the extent that I am now going to start putting the glass back into the broken windows." Ohiro Lodge in 1963 with pohutaka trees that had been felled. The owners of Ohiro Lodge, Mr and Mrs Beatty looking through one of the smashed windows. The Dominion newspaper had a field day with the “Brooklyn Dodger” and the various theories that were being bandied about.
31 BRETBY CRESCENT. Just past the Ohiro Road guesthouse is Bretby Crescent, a short, dog-legged cul-de-sac. This crescent recognises Brooklyn’s Fitchett family who were descended from William Fitchett (b. 1730) of Bretby, one of the most southerly villages in Derbyshire, England. Bretby is believed to be the site of a major battle between the Danes and the Kingdom of Mercia in 880. The Parish population in 2011 was 893. It was first mentioned in Domesday as an agricultural settlement around a green, and this remains the core of the village but there is a secondary settlement called Stanhope Bretby, for a long time the site of Bretby Colliery, with mining being a feature of life for about 100 years. I wandered up Bretby Crescent on many occasions because my very first friend from Brooklyn School days, Jason Ell lived in the last house. I could actually see Jason’s house when I was standing on the front lawn in Sugarloaf Road. I reckon our friendship started because our parents knew each other, and as a consequence Jason and I spent a lot of time together. As well we both joined the Boys Brigade - literally over the road at the Baptist Church, and we headed off together in 1961 to start in the intermediate department of Rongotai College. Jason’s dad, Jimmy Ell was a very good cricketer and represented Wellington on a number of occasions. In one senior club match at the Basin Reserve in 1945, Jimmy plundered 291 runs in three and a quarter hours, setting a new individual record in Wellington cricket. Jason’s mum, Hilda played test cricket for New Zealand, so Jason, who was a highly talented sportsman, came from excellent sporting stock. I also recall that the Ell’s bred dachshund dogs, and our first dog, Kim came from their place. There’s a bit of a sad tale to this, as on one Saturday morning I went to help Neville lay a course for the Baptist harriers, and took Kim with me. We got down to Adelaide Road, just up from the Basin Reserve when a motor bike came up the road and Kim decided to chase it. The inevitable happened, Kim was hit, and died as he lay in the middle of Adelaide Road. We took him home, and dad wrapped him in a towel and buried him in the top garden alongside the path that led up to the Hamilton’s at number 30. The first of several dogs and cats that were buried along that stretch of fence line. As part of our friendship, Jason and I often headed down to Queens Wharf to go fishing, in those days access to the wharves was quite free and easy, and many people lined the wharves with hand-held lines chasing the schools of kawhai that were very common around the harbour. Jason was much better at fishing than I was, and he often took home several good-sized kawhai. I caught a couple of decent ones, but fishing was a little bit like reports on my piano lessons - tried hard, but lacking talent! Little did I know then that in a few years’ time I would be sitting at a desk looking out at the exact spot on Queens Wharf where we fished, having started work in May 1968 as a Junior Clerk for the Wellington Harbour Board. We also headed down to the Thorndon baths on regular occasions, and swam, jumped, dived and belly-flopped for hours on end. Thorndon baths weren’t heated, but as heated pools weren’t exactly the norm in those days, the cold never worried us. Again, Jason was a better swimmer than me, but our times down there weren’t competitive, all we were interested in was having a good time. Jason and I also played cricket together during school holidays for the Brooklyn Cricket Club. This would have been around the mid-60’s and I’d started playing cricket at college, but Jason hadn’t. Somehow both of us got roped in to play for Brooklyn who were in the 4th Grade playing 40-over matches. I took a swag of wickets for them, and Jason, being a naturally talented all-round sportsman, scored runs effortlessly. I remember one game at Tanera Park where Jason terrorised the lawn bowlers at the club immediately above the cricket ground with the towering sixes that he was hitting onto their greens. I lost touch with Jason after he left Rongotai College a year or so before I did, met up with him once more, then sadly attended his funeral in January 1999. A mate gone far, far too early. There was one other way of getting to Jason’s place and that was via a grass pathway from Ohiro Road that led to a set of steps than came out just about at the end of Bretby Crescent.. Immediately adjacent to where this pathway started on Ohiro Road was a small dairy that was literally at the bus stop at the
32 point where Ohiro Road flattened out. My main memories of this dairy revolved around picking up the Sports Post on a Saturday evening. The Sports Post came out at 6.30pm every Saturday, and contained all sports results from around the country. It was compulsory reading, so much so that if you went to a picture theatre on a Saturday night, you could guarantee that during the interval all males would be reading the latest edition. Shortly after getting my driver’s licence (on 6 January 1967), dad handed me the keys to his car (a Morris Minor 1000) and said: “go and get the Sports Post”. I didn’t need any further encouragement, so very carefully drove down Sugarloaf Road, turned right into Helen Street, right again into Tanera Crescent, crossed Ohiro Road and pulled up at the dairy. Sports Post purchased, but instead of heading straight back home, it was too good an opportunity for a longer (and my first solo) drive and so I headed around the Brooklyn shopping centre, up to Washington Avenue, then down to Brooklyn Road, then back home. About 10 minutes added onto a very short drive, and an easy excuse that the Sports Post was late arriving! A brilliant publication and a great read every Saturday night, the Sports Post ceased circulation on 5 April 1975. Across Ohiro Road and almost opposite Bretby Crescent is where another of my mates, Alan Hart lived. Alan was a bit younger, but spent a lot of time together with James and me. The Hart’s place often became “party central” during school holidays as Alan’s parents regularly went away, leaving Alan in charge! On arrival, Alan’s requirement for entry was the immediate sculling of a 7oz beer - it would have been worse if he'd insisted on a pint! I remember one night on their front veranda when one of the girls (I’ll call her Jenny) had a few too many to drink and threw up rather violently. One of her friends was extremely concerned that Jenny may have also tossed up a couple of false teeth, and there’s the sight of a couple of concerned friends sifting their way through the emptied contents of Jenny’s stomach! Heading now towards Brooklyn shopping centre and about 100 metres away from Alan’s place lived a guy called Rick (extreme right of the following photo), and he was someone who we tended to avoid. A genuine “teddy boy”, he was a bit older, definitely taller, and to us he didn’t seem to be the friendliest camper in the tent. He ended up going to Wellington Tech for his secondary schooling, and hung out with a group of likely lads from Newtown, one of whom was Del Adams (on the left of the photo, more about him when I reminisce about Rongotai College days), and whose best mate was John Smith, standing next to Rick. According to a Facebook post from Rick in 2015, 3 of the guys in the photo were no longer alive, and I know that Del Adams is amongst that number. Rick’s Facebook page shows that he now enjoys a cruisy lifestyle over in the eastern states of Australia. Crossing back over Ohiro Road and we would arrive at the Brooklyn Police Station. Yes, there was a manned police station in those days and the main guy was Sergeant Jensen, affectionately known as “Clancy” - behind his back of course. There was a rumour, but I haven’t been able to substantiate it, that Sergeant Jensen was involved in, and wounded in the neck during the 1941 manhunt on the West Coast of Stan Graham, who killed 7 people (including 6 police and home guardsmen) before he was shot and killed by police. As I said, I can’t confirm that one, but I do recall a Brooklyn School visit to the police station, and that Sergeant Jensen showed us a revolver that was locked away in his office. I know that “Clancy” was highly respected in the community, and the likes of myself and my mates at the time knew that he wouldn’t stand for any nonsense. Continuing south along Ohiro Road and just before we get to Todman Street, we cross back over the road and find the Brooklyn Baptist Church (below). Mum and dad were staunch members for many, many years, always attending morning and evening services each and every Sunday. So staunch were they that I’ve got a recollection that Dad used to work every Saturday just so that
33 he could have Sundays off. Neville reckons that this isn’t quite right, but it’s how I remember it. Needless to say, my early days saw me dragged along with them, including attendance at Sunday School, then Bible Class until my early teens, about when I decided that such religious notions were not for me. The Baptists ceased their services there in 2002 after 119 years, the premises now used by the Wellington Korean Church. I still have many memories of activities at and around the Baptist Church, which by the way was the first church established in Brooklyn (in 1886), with some of these memories being well-worth recording as follows. • I’ve already mentioned rebelling, at a reasonably early age, against the religious upbringing that mum and dad were imposing on me, particularly the requirement to attend church services as a matter of course, and to believe in something for which I could find no logical explanation. Looking back, I think that mum and dad somehow accepted this, as I don’t remember any serious or undue pressure on me to change my thinking. So the end result was that on Sunday mornings when mum, dad and Neville headed off to the Brooklyn Baptist Church for the 11.00am service, I stayed home and generally enjoyed a couple of extra hours in a warm bed. But as mentioned earlier, in January 1967 I got my driving licence, and suddenly an irresistible temptation was thrust in front of me, talk about Adam and Eve (see, I do remember something from my Baptist upbringing). On Sunday mornings, dad would drive mum down to the church for the 11.00am service which always went for at least an hour, and Neville would separately drive his car - a VW Beetle, down there as well. Now in those days there weren’t too many cars around, shops weren’t open on a Sunday - Brooklyn was effectively closed, and it didn’t really matter where you parked, it was really, really unlikely that if you shifted your car from that spot anyone else would park there. The other bit of information I had acquired was that Neville kept a spare set of car keys on his desk in his bedroom. So on several Sundays and a few minutes after 11.00am I would leave home, having “found” a set of VW car keys, run down and quietly enter the church to peer through the peepholes that were conveniently positioned next to both entrance doors - this allowed a view of the gathered congregation, particularly mum, dad and Neville, and having established that they were in place and most unlikely to move for the next hour or so, off I raced to the corner of Ohiro Road and Todman Street where Neville always parked his VW. Then off I went for a 30-minutes or so spin around Brooklyn, up to Mornington, down to Berhampore, along to Island Bay, up Ohiro Road and back to Brooklyn, finally parking the VW in exactly the position I found it in. I must have done this on 3 or 4 occasions, and always able to return the VW to where it was originally parked. Not quite sure what would have happened if the parking spot had been taken, but it was never a problem. I thought this bit of irresponsible behaviour would remain hidden forever, but I made one mistake - I eventually revealed all to my youngest son Elliot. A couple of years after spilling the beans to Elliot, there was a large family gathering to celebrate mum and dad’s 60th wedding anniversary. Just as we were leaving, Neville tapped me on the shoulder and said, “hope you enjoyed your Sunday rides in my VW”. A speechless moment, and then I spotted Elliot with a large smirk on his face. I had definitely been potted, an apology was given and (hopefully) accepted, and car theft has never appeared on my record for which I am eternally grateful. • Sometime in the mid-1960’s (before my rebellion against religion and the requirements to attend the Baptist Church), and probably influenced by some or all of the Beatles, Rolling Stones, Bob Dylan, Herman’s Hermits, Kinks and other bands of that era, three or four of us decided that we should form a band. What a grand idea. From memory my fellow “musicians” were Ralph Lane, Jim Heslop, and Lesley Durrant. The reality was that collectively we had (i) no musical aptitude, (ii) no instruments, (iii) no money to buy an instrument (not to mention instruments plural), (iv) nowhere to practice, and (v) not a great deal of encouragement from anyone - no-one that is, except my Auntie Eileen. What Auntie Eileen saw in us I will never know, but as well as encouragement, she made her home available to us for practice and gave us an idea for raising funds to buy instruments - she may well have also gifted a guitar that her son Bob used to play. What she couldn’t do of course was magically transplant any musical aptitude / talent into the four of us! Her idea for raising funds was brilliant - a bottle drive, specifically beer bottles of which there were plenty around and cash readily available for their return / recycling. So the four of us started trawling Brooklyn for empty beer bottles and
34 used for any other purpose. In a short space of time this lawn was literally covered with a mountain of beer bottles waiting to be cashed in. Unfortunately quite a few teetotalling members of the Baptist congregation (actually all of them except Auntie Eileen) weren’t too happy about a ton of beer bottles piled up at the back of their place of worship and in full view of the neighbours, and so us budding band members were quickly forced into arranging for the bottles to be redeemed (but not in the biblical sense). Needless to say it was the only bottle drive we managed to achieve. Surprisingly though we did raise sufficient funds to buy one drum plus a set of drumsticks. I still remember our solitary band appearance in front of a church gathering in the Baptist hall - I had the dubious honour of very badly pounding the drum, someone else was strumming a guitar, someone else was shaking a tambourine, and the unlucky fourth one of our group was singing rather appallingly. All in all our “performance” was extremely bad, probably worse than bad and our fantasies of pop star status had disappeared forever. • One of the bonuses of those early days involved with the Baptist church was the annual Baptist Bible Class Camps which mum and dad were more than happy for me to attend. If my memory is holding up ok, these camps were generally held over the Easter weekend, with the Masterton showgrounds being the usual venue, although I do recall one camp out at Riversdale in the Wairarapa. Being honest, I don’t recall much of the religious segments of these camps, but as a young teenager who was quickly becoming aware of the opposite sex, I fondly remember meeting Juanita Foreman (Upper Hutt Baptist) and Claire Groombridge (Masterton Baptist) at these camps. Thanks for the memories ladies. And there were other Baptist gatherings and events around the local Wellington area where pleasant interludes occurred with the likes of Christine Sleep and Pauline Sellens (Miramar Baptist), Anne Tyler, Prue McGregor and Sally Glading (Island Bay Baptist), Robyn Jeffries (Central Baptist), Adie Holmes (Kingston Park Baptist), and Elaine Wallace (Houghton Bay Baptist). Again, many thanks for the memories, ladies. • Every Friday night around 6pm I would find the cans of Silvo and Brasso, frantically polish a belt buckle, cap button, and various achievement badges, put on my uniform, and then march down to the Baptist Hall for an assembly of the local Boys Brigade. We were the 3rd Wellington Company, and I would meet other mates there such as Jason Ell. Looking back now, Boys Brigade does remind me of a poor man’s territorials, every Friday night we would have a lengthy drill session (quick march, slow march, left turn, right turn, about turn, halt). There was always a strong PE session (gymnastics, hoops, vaulting horse, floor exercises), first aid courses were compulsory, and if there was a special event coming up such as an Anzac Day Parade, then the hall would shudder to a cacophony of bugles and drums! But overall it was a fun time, and I certainly considered it a better option than becoming a Boy Scout. There aren’t any photos of me in a Boys Brigade uniform, but certainly one of Neville who was definitely more into it than I was. The photo shows Neville holding the rank of Sergeant (I did manage to get to be a Lance Corporal - one stripe), and wearing the many achievement badges he attained. I also believe that Neville was awarded the Queens Medal, one of the highest awards that could be achieved in the Boys Brigade. I did manage a few achievement badges myself (an image of two of them that I attained (Buglers Badge, and First Aid Badge) are shown below. The images rather than the real thing are necessary as I have to confess that in the late 1960’s I gave my one stripe and achievement badges away to one of the local Queen Margaret College girls - it was around the time of the Beatles Sergeant Pepper’s album and uniform regalia were definitely the in-thing. I guess I must have wanted to impress her, don’t think I did and unfortunately they were never returned. One other memory of being in the Boys Brigade were the annual camps that were held over in Wainuiomata. I well remember my first camp, before the end of the first day I had pleaded to use the phone in the camp kitchen to ring home and implore dad to come and pick me up and take me home. I was totally homesick and hadn’t even spent one night under canvas. Dad’s response was pretty blunt, he wasn’t coming
35 to get me and I needed to toughen up, or words to that effect. I guess I must have, I survived the week, and attended several more camps over the following years. Thinking about my phone call home, I reckon the following extract from the lyrics of the song “Hello Muddah, Hello Faddah” (the Camp Granada song) by Alan Sherman could have been written just for me: Take me home, oh muddah, faddah Take me home, I hate Granada Don't leave me out in the forest where I might get eaten by a bear. Take me home I promise I will not make noise Or mess the house with other boys. Oh please don't make me stay I've been here one whole day. For a week we lived in canvas tents as captured by the photo below (which is from Wainuiomata). If it rained, and it did, we learned very quickly not to touch the canvas because the tent would immediately leak, and continued to leak like a sieve even after the rain had stopped. Looking back, the week-long camps were a pretty good experience. The weather was generally okay, so we were outdoors a lot of the time. I enjoyed the hiking trips through the hills, constructing flying foxes across the river was always enjoyable, particularly the times spent testing our construction followed by repeated and very loud travels down the fox, and for someone keen on sport, the camp-wide softball game on the bottom field was always a bonus. So all in all pretty good memories, even taking my turn to peel a seemingly endless number of spuds for dozens of hungry teenagers. About the only disturbing memory is some older Brigade boys hunting possums that lurked around the camp kitchen at night - torches to freeze the unlucky possum in the light, hunters coming from both sides of the building, cricket stumps being the weapon of termination. Very unpleasant. So leaving my Baptist-related memories, we’ll take a detour now and head up TODMAN STREET. Todman Street was named after Robert Todman, who once owned a vast part of Brooklyn, inheriting it from his uncle, who originally bought it in London in 1840 from the New Zealand Company, but then promptly died. Todman eventually sold his land to an even more prosperous landowner and well-known Brooklyn identity, Ashton Fitchett, in 1899. After that sale a further subdivision took place, and the main roads of Mitchell and Todman Streets were formed. The photos above show the corner of Todman Street and Ohiro Road, the top photo being circa 1970’s and the bottom photo being around 2000. There’s not that much difference really in the 2nd photo, the cars are more modern, traffic lights have been installed, and the ground floor of the building converted into several iterations of restaurants. In the top photo, the ground floor was occupied by one of the three butchers shops that existed in Brooklyn when I was growing up. Because mum and dad preferred McKeown’s butchery in Cleveland Street (for their meat and repartee), I can’t recall ever going into the butchers shop in Todman Street. The pathway that can be seen at the bottom left of
36 the top picture (slightly obscured in the bottom photo) is still there today, and leads directly to Reuben Avenue where my Auntie Eileen lived for many years. On many occasions I wandered along this path. About 300 metres up Todman Street and running off to the right is CHARLOTTE AVENUE, which was named after Mrs. Charlotte de Burgh of Adelaide, sister of Robert Todman. No other information has been discovered about Charlotte de Burgh. I had a couple of friends who lived either on the corner of Todman Street and Charlotte Avenue (Kevin Robinson who was one of the guys who came to Rongotai College with me in 1961), or directly opposite Charlotte Avenue (Lesley Durrant who was at Brooklyn School with me and one of the members of that ill-fated band from Baptist Church days). No other real memories of Charlotte Avenue except for a couple of exit points that I used, the first one in the photo below. Yes, that is a track between the two houses, and I wandered up and down there on many occasions, including those late- night returns when I would sneak into my bedroom window with mum still peering down Sugarloaf Road looking for me! From Charlotte Avenue the track headed up for about 75 metres before naturally veering left. If you went to the right it was possible to go through the Parker’s property and then up into Sugarloaf Road. Continuing left up the path the Money’s property was on the right about 30 metres from the top, and finally you came out underneath the Sugarloaf and onto an unsealed track that led back to the top of Sugarloaf Road. Immediately to the left where the track came out was a house that was totally destroyed by fire in 1959. The photo below shows the house that would be burnt down - the one with the large excavation below it. I remember the fire well even though it occurred a long time ago, as James Snowball and I were playing on the Sugarloaf when we saw flames bursting out of the house immediately below us. We were smart enough to race home and let our parents know, and they, with probably a lot of other people, raised the alarm with the local Brooklyn Fire Brigade. Apparently fire fighters were hampered by the low water pressure in Sugarloaf Road, having to couple their hoses to the water mains in Ohiro Road then run the supply the length of Helen Street and up Sugarloaf Road in an attempt to save the house. And to the right of that house is the fence line that marked right-hand edge of the track up from Charlotte Avenue. The second exit point is at the end of Charlotte Avenue, which is a dead-end street. I don’t remember this being a public thoroughfare, but it was a sealed path that took you from Charlotte Avenue across to Helen Street, passing alongside the Hodson’s place, that is Ken Hodson who used to employ mum in Seymour’s stationery shop in Cleveland Street. The path meandered past the Lane’s house before reaching Helen Street. The Lane’s were pretty good friends of mum and dad, and their son was another member of that ill-fated band from Baptist Church days. There’s not much more to say about Charlotte Avenue, so we’ll head back to Todman Street and continue to climb up towards Mitchell Street. However there’s only a couple of memories, the first being a couple, Mr and Mrs Schaef, who lived further up Todman Street, attended the Baptist Church, and who jointly earned the nickname of “the walking
37 wardrobe”, based on the regally extravagant clothes that they wore at all times - to the Church, shopping around Brooklyn, and even at movies at the Vogue Theatre, more about the Vogue shortly. The second memory relates to those less than memorable piano lessons with Mrs Morganti, probably enough said! With no other memories from Todman Street, it’s back to Ohiro Road where we continue south and come to the Vogue picture theatre, as pictured below. Opened in 1939, many times on a Saturday afternoon James and I would head down to Saturday matinees at the Vogue, armed with ninepence to get in (couldn’t get in for that today), and sixpence to buy an ice-cream and maybe a bag of lollies. Movietone News, cartoons, and westerns (my first introduction to western heroes such as Hopalong Cassidy and his horse, Topper, and the Lone Ranger and his sidekick, Tonto - all in black and white) were the order of the afternoon, with preferred seating being the front row of the theatre, where the view was great but with a high risk of being bombarded by missiles (mostly lollies) thrown by the grumpy kids who had missed out on the front row seating! And of course those were the days when God Save the Queen signalled the start of the matinee session, with everyone required to stand quietly (the quiet bit didn’t happen) during the National Anthem. Sadly with the advent of television, the Vogue theatre suffered a similar fate to other picture theatres, and closed its doors on 24 June 1963. It was another 12 years before the Vogue was reinvented as the Penthouse Cinema, which continues to flourish today. The following photo of the Penthouse Cinema, when compared to the preceding photo demonstrates a building that continues to fabulously retain its original Art Deco style. Back in the 1960’s there was a popular game show called It’s in the Bag, a travelling television quiz show hosted by Selwyn Toogood. Competitors were selected from the audience and had to answer three questions before they could select a bag and bargain for its contents. Toogood's catchphrases, such as, "by hokey!" and "what'll it be customers, the money or the bag?" have become part of New Zealand’s entertainment folklore. Sometime before it closed in 1963, It’s in the Bag came to the Vogue theatre one night and mum, dad, Neville and I went down to watch Brooklyn locals being selected out of the audience and participate as contestants. I have a vivid recollection of Mr McKinney, father of Bruce, one of my Brooklyn School mates, participating as a contestant, and then being selected to compete in the final part of the show - ‘Travel Bag’ where he was asked ten apparently difficult questions. Bruce’s dad had no problem with any of the questions and easily won Travel Bag. Can’t remember what the prize was, possibly a round-the-world trip, but whatever, a great outcome for the McKinney family. Before leaving the vicinity of the Vogue theatre, there’s another structure literally across the road. In the 1960’s it was a public toilet, a gents to be specific, possibly useful for theatre patrons, but it has to be Brooklyn’s most
38 embarrassing structure - the most horribly disgusting public convenience that was ever erected in the greater Wellington area - and probably beyond. It was small, unlit, dark, dingy, dirty and evil-smelling, and well out of the way of prying eyes. If you could ever imagine a prime location for paedophile club rooms, this one in Brooklyn would have to be the frontrunner. It’s still there today, have a look at it below, fortunately now closed and graffitied, the artwork being a considerable enhancement. One would hope that it’s not a heritage listed building! Continuing down Ohiro Road we come to McKinley Crescent which we’ll bypass at the moment, returning there soon as McKinley Crescent is one of two routes to The Ridgeway, the other being Washington Avenue. RUEBEN AVENUE. Named after Reuben Short (1832-1922), who was employed by Mr John Fitchett as a bullock driver for many years. Rueben was related to us as my grandmother, Ada Turner’s maiden name was Short. Her father was James Henry Short who was Rueben’s brother, therefore Rueben was my great, great uncle. A curious discovery was that James Henry Short died in 1914 on my birthdate i.e. 5 August. The following photo, taken in 1894 at the Fitchett homestead shows Rueben Short on the extreme left of the back row. My two main memories of Rueben Avenue are that it was really steep, and that my Auntie Eileen lived right up the top. She was the first person I ever knew who had been married, then divorced - my parents never talked about this in front of us! She had a son, Bob who was nearer to Neville’s age. Auntie Eileen wasn’t really our auntie, it was one of those unofficial titles you give to someone that you are really close to, but who isn’t actually related. When I think about those days now, I’m gobsmacked that Auntie Eileen would have walked down Rueben Avenue to the nearest tram / bus stop every morning to go to work in the city, then repeated that journey in reverse at night. She didn’t drive, and probably carried groceries etc up that extraordinarily steep hill on a regular basis, and in all weathers, an enormous effort. Probably somewhere in the mid-60’s Auntie Eileen sold up and moved away from the top of Rueben Avenue down to the much more accessible McKinley Crescent, a not-too-distant walk to the Brooklyn Shops and a considerably flatter section. I reckon she totally deserved this easier living given the number of times she would have had to march up and down Rueben Avenue. Auntie Eileen was probably the first person we knew who had a black and white television set, and there were some great Friday night programmes that Auntie Eileen and I both thoroughly enjoyed. Geez, this brings back some great memories, sitting in her lounge about two feet in front of the TV screen, a selection of Whittaker’s chocolates to hand, and being totally mesmerised by what I was watching!
39 And of course there was the time that she told me about how Bob could see into the house next door from his bedroom. The Cooper’s lived in this house, and Bob had a view directly into their daughter, Katie’s bedroom, with Katie, probably about 19 or 20 at that time, never closing her curtains. You’ll understand that I needed to check out whether Auntie Eileen had this right, and I’m very pleased to confirm that she did! Not quite Dustin Hoffman in The Graduate, but a pretty memorable and puberty-enhancing sight! Another “where were you moment” and I know with certainty that I was at Auntie Eileen’s place on 2 September 1960. That was the famous day at the Rome Olympics where within one fabulous hour Peter Snell won the 800 metres final and followed by Murray Halberg taking out the 1500 metres final. The two photos above record that day for posterity. I vividly recall listening to both finals on Auntie Eileen’s transistor radio while standing on her rather steep front lawn. A great day that is well remembered by all New Zealanders, and another brilliant memory of time spent with my favourite “auntie”. TAFT STREET. Is about 200 metres south of Reuben Avenue and is named after William Howard Taft (September 15, 1857 - March 8, 1930) who was the 27th president of the United States (1909- 1913) and the 10th chief justice of the United States (1921-1930), the only person to have held both offices. Taft was elected president in 1908, the chosen successor of Theodore Roosevelt, but was defeated for re- election in 1912 by Woodrow Wilson after Roosevelt split the Republican vote by running as a third-party candidate. In 1921, President Warren G. Harding appointed Taft to be chief justice, a position he held until a month before his death. Incidentally, Taft Street was originally named Jackson Street, after yet another American President, Andrew Jackson (1767 - 1845) an American lawyer, planter, general, and statesman who served as the 7th president of the United States for two terms between 1829 and 1837. Jackson was the target, on 30 January 1835, of the first known attempt to kill a sitting president of the United States. As Jackson was leaving the Capitol building, Richard Lawrence, an unemployed house painter from England, aimed a pistol at Jackson, which misfired. Lawrence then pulled out a second pistol, which also misfired. Jackson attacked Lawrence with his cane, until others intervened to restrain and disarm Lawrence. Taft Street becomes a dead-end where it meets McKinley Crescent, but continues on as Taft Street on the other side of McKinley Crescent until it meets Washington Avenue, which is accessed via a pathway. Halfway up Taft Street, LINCOLN STREET veers off to the right and is yet another local street named after an American President, Abraham Lincoln (February 12, 1809 - April 15, 1865) who was an American lawyer and statesman and served as the 16th president of the United States from 1861 until his assassination in 1865. Lincoln led the nation through the American Civil War and succeeded in preserving the Union, abolishing slavery, bolstering the federal government, and modernizing the U.S. economy. On April 14, 1865, just days after the war's end at Appomattox, he was attending a play at Ford's Theatre in Washington, D.C., with his wife Mary when he was fatally shot by Confederate sympathiser John Wilkes Booth. Abraham Lincoln is remembered as a national hero for his wartime leadership and for his efforts to preserve the Union and abolish slavery. Lincoln is often considered to be the greatest president in American history. Memories of both Taft and Lincoln Streets are few and far between, and limited to the few occasions I ventured down to functions at the St Bernard’s church hall, probably in pursuit of one of those elusive young ladies from St Mary’s College that you’ll notice I mention a few times.
40 About 200 metres south from Taft Street we find BUTT STREET which the Wellington City Council have rated as the 12th steepest street in Wellington with a gradient of 1m every 4.65m. Butt Street commemorates a former Wellington City Postmaster, but there is not a great deal of information about this gentleman. He is possibly captured somewhere in the photo below, which records 3 generations of Postmasters at the opening in 1912 of the Wellington wireless station on Tinakori Hill. Probably because of its steepness, I didn’t wander around Butt Street on many occasions, even though it provided a shortcut up to McKinley Crescent. I do recall the Robb’s lived in Butt Street, Murray Robb being friendly with my brother, and probably a tennis acquaintance as well. Murray had a sister called Elizabeth (Libby) who was another of the Queen Margaret’s College girls from the Brooklyn area. Libby was quite tall, and I pleasantly recall one party where I scored a snog with her, much to the amusement of my mate James who reckoned I had to stand on a chair! Not true. BORLASE STREET. Named after Charles Bonython Borlase (1820-1875), an English solicitor who arrived in Wellington with his wife and three children in 1850. He was a member of the first Wellington Town Board in 1863 and a Councillor until he became Mayor of Wellington in 1874, retiring from that position in December the same year, but continuing as a Councillor until his death. Borlase became increasingly ill from February or March 1875 until his death at Wellington on 15 May 1875. Borlase Street heads up to the left off Ohiro Road, and is a steep, reasonably narrow, dead-end street. I have no memories of wandering up it, probably because of its steepness, I didn’t know anyone who lived there, and it was a reasonable distance from other streets that I frequented. On the other side of Ohiro Road is TIKETIKE WAY, which did not exist when I was wandering around Brooklyn. The Te Aka Maori Dictionary defines Tiketike as: (verb) to be high, lofty, important, enhanced. Information from the property developer for Tiketike Way states: Brooklyn Tiketike: A limited collection of 3 and 2-bedroom homes, nestled into the hillside, positioned to maximise both light and superb valley views, whilst still ensuring convenience and private living. I guess that was their interpretation of the meaning of Tiketike. Continuing south on Ohiro Road we come to STOCK STREET which, without other definitive information is likely to have been named after the Reverend Arthur Henry Stock (1823- 1901), who arrived in New Zealand in 1854 with the Church Missionary Society on board the 'Hamilla Mitchell'. He had charge of the Maori school at Otaki, and then spent 9 months in Wanganui before becoming vicar of St Peters Anglican Church, Wellington in 1856. He became archdeacon in 1872. Mrs Google tells us that there are available records of photographs he took of Wellington from the vicinity of The Terrace. Reverend Stock died at his residence in Sussex Square, Wellington and is yet another early Wellington resident buried in the Bolton Street Cemetery. The photo below is circa 1880 and shows a rather stern-looking Reverend Stock with 4 members of the Wellington Naval Artillery Volunteers. Stock Street, which runs off to the left from Ohiro Road, about 500 metres south of Borlase Street, then leads into a dead- end street, LIVINGSTONE STREET that I never knew existed. As Stock had missionary connections, was this street named after the famous missionary, David Livingstone? Without any other information, probably. It’s certainly not a new street but I never wandered around it during my early Brooklyn days. Stock and Livingstone Streets don’t bring back any memories for me, so it’s back to Ohiro Road to continue south.
41 It was around this part of Ohiro Road where the local Member of Parliament, Gerald O’Brien lived. Well-known locally, he represented the Island Bay electorate from November 1969 to November 1978. His career hit a speed bump when in 1976 he was charged over an incident in Christchurch, where he allegedly asked two boys back to his motel room for a drink. The charges were thrown out, and O'Brien maintained that it was nothing but an attempt by political enemies to "get rid of me". He also stated that he got more sympathy from members of the National Party than from his own party. He was subsequently deselected by Labour for the Island Bay electorate. Apparently Gerald encouraged my brother Neville to become a Justice of the Peace, which he did achieve. Almost opposite Gerald O’Brien’s residence was a spot where James and I used to go eeling. The stream that ran down towards the coast was reasonably deep at this point and we had spotted some decent-sized eels. So armed with home-made traps and an assortment of food scraps, we’d head down there, set the traps, wander back home and return the next day to do whatever you did to trapped eels. We never discovered what you did because unfortunately we never managed to catch even a single one! LANDFILL ROAD is further down Ohiro Road on the right-hand side and its name is pretty self-explanatory - it leads to the Southern Landfill. It wasn’t there when I was growing up, but it does mark the spot where, during training runs from Sugarloaf Road, I would turn around and head back home again. This was an alternative training route, my other one I mentioned earlier as being around Mitchell, Karepa and Apuka Streets. Landfill Road also provides a convenient boundary for these memories, my Brooklyn experiences didn’t really go beyond Landfill Road, so it’s now time to head back to Washington Avenue and explore the first of two routes that eventually takes us to The Ridgeway, the other being McKinley Crescent. WASHINGTON AVENUE TO THE RIDGEWAY WASHINGTON AVENUE. Climbs up off Brooklyn Road, and continues south for nearly two kilometres until becoming Mills Road at the juncture with Connaught Terrace. Washington Avenue is named after George Washington (1732-1799) an American military officer, statesman, and Founding Father who served as the first president of the United States from 1789 to 1797. Washington has been memorialized by monuments, a federal holiday, various media depictions, geographical locations, including the national capital, the State of Washington, stamps, and currency. Many scholars and ordinary Americans alike rank him among the greatest U.S. presidents. HEATON TERRACE. Starting our journey up Washington Avenue from the Brooklyn Road end, the first road we come to on the left is Heaton Terrace, with a block of flats being the predominant structure. Heaton Terrace was named after John Henry Heaton, for many years a member of the Harbour Board. He arrived in New Zealand in 1856 on the steamer "Lord Ashley," and after engaging for some years as a purser, established himself in Wellington as a customs, shipping and forwarding agent. Three times Mr Heaton was elected Mayor of Melrose, a borough incorporated in 1888 and comprising a very large area, practically all the environs of the city. Mr. Heaton was also a director of the Wellington Woollen Mills and a member of the Wellington Harbour Board. The only other information located about him is an article published on 5 January 1892 by the Poverty Bay Herald headed “Political Struggle in Wellington”, and tells us: The final outcomes of these “political struggles” are unknown, but we can be fairly confident that the Wellington Harbour Board would have been looking for a new member! I don’t have too many memories of Heaton Terrace other than eventually it led to Bidwell Street via Bell Road. The block of flats that I referred to earlier can be seen from Washington Avenue and I do recall that for a while, one of my mates dated a lady who lived in one of those flats. She was a few years older than my unidentifed buddy who was probably about 18 or 19 at the time, but he always maintained that he looked much older than he was, and I guess he was enjoying a life experience that maybe others of us were envious of. BELL ROAD. Heaton Terrace is relatively short, and within 200-300 metres it becomes Bell Road, named after Sir
42 Francis Henry Dillon Bell (1851-1936), a three-times Mayor of Wellington who also became the first New Zealand-born Prime Minister for a short period of time (16 days) following the death of William Massey on 10 May 1925. Bell was described as the outstanding lawyer in New Zealand history, and was at various times president of the Wellington Rugby Football Union and the Wellington Racing Club, and was president of the Wellington Cricket Association from 1893 to 1936. He was a Freemason for over 60 years, and grand master in 1894 and 1895. He was knighted on 3 June 1915. Halfway down Bell Road is a footpath which meanders over to Dorking Road. Continuing down Bell Road you come out at Bidwell Street where if you turn left, Brooklyn Road is approximately 100 metres away. Turning right takes you down to Wallace Street in Newtown. Apart from one Sunday night (after the 7.00pm Baptist Church service) when I parked down there with one of the girls from the Church, there’s no exciting memories from Bell Road, but I sometimes walked up it to get home to Brooklyn from cricket practice at the Basin Reserve, and the Wellington Polytechnic, more about that in a couple of paragraphs. One of Wellington’s better known rugby clubs, Athletic had their clubrooms located in Bell Road, but were to become sadly disused for many years after Athletic merged with the Onslow and Karori clubs in 1983 to become the Western Suburbs Rugby Club. The last time I saw the old Athletic clubrooms it was in a very serious state of disrepair, and I’m pretty confident that it’s since been demolished. Athletic was a great club in during the 1960’s, with All Blacks such as Nevin McEwan, Terry McCashin, Terry Heeps, Owen Stephens and Russell Watt (my favourite All Black growing up and pictured left - a goal- kicking winger who scored 27 tries in 45 games for the All Blacks), playing for them, along with a number of Wellington representative players featuring in their ranks and also being boyhood heroes. Many years later, a fellow Rongotai College old boy and cricketing mate of mine at Midland St Pats, Brian Cederwall played for Athletic. Brian played over 100 games for Wellington, and was an All Black trialist, and in my opinion he should have been an All Black fullback considering the quality of some of the others selected ahead of him. Brian also represented Wellington at cricket in over 50 matches. I mentioned Wellington Polytechnic - yes, I did study there after work in 1969 chasing a Chartered Institute of Secretaries qualification. From memory it was a couple of nights each week over a 6-month period , and I actually managed to pass a couple of subjects, English, and General Principles of Law - the evidence below is irrefutable! This is probably an appropriate time to confess that in my 2nd polytech year (1970) I regularly bunked off classes (the two subjects were Economics and Bookkeeping and I definitely didn’t enjoy them), preferring instead to head to the Princess Movie Theatre in Manners Street (below). The Princess Theatre - it was definitely a bit of a dive! Hopefully that wasn’t me out the front.
43 I’d stay at the Princess Theatre until somewhere around 7.00pm (about the time that my polytech class would be finishing), then happily head home to Sugarloaf Road where Mum would have dinner waiting for me - totally oblivious to me bunking off polytech. Not surprisingly, I didn’t bother sitting any exams that year, preferring to tell mum and dad that sadly, I hadn’t passed. Actually it was the last year of studies for me until 1987 when I finally realised that I needed to get some qualifications behind me if my port company career was going to go anywhere. Talk about an adult student! I digressed, so it’s back to Washington Avenue and continuing to head south for about 150 metres where we come to CLEVELAND STREET on the right. Cleveland Street is Brooklyn’s main shopping precinct, and as it was also the most direct way for me to get to and from Brooklyn School it holds many memories. To try and recall some of them, I’ll head down on the right-hand side of Cleveland Street from where it turns off Washington Avenue, returning on the other side of the road back to Washington Avenue. There’s a couple of streets that run off Cleveland Street (Jefferson and Harrison Streets) and we’ll explore these on the way through. The first building of interest is the old Brooklyn Post Office at 22 Cleveland Street (following photo). Built in 1914, the building was designed as a two-storey post office and postmaster’s residence. There were two entrance doors to Cleveland Street, one that led to the private boxes, the other into the public area and service counter. The ground floor working area of the post office included a mail room and a telephone exchange, and the outbuildings included a fuel room, WC and urinal for the post office, and a separate wash house, fuel room and WC for the postmaster’s residence. The first floor of the post office was built as a two-bedroom apartment. The first post-mistress was Miss E.K. Stewart. In the 1950’s / 60’s I recall the postmaster being a Mr Zillwood, and I recall that his son Peter (and possibly a daughter) were at Brooklyn School around the same time that I was. A couple of years after I started at Rongotai College, Peter started there as well but as I was a couple of years older and with an established group of friends, Peter and I saw very little of each other. The Brooklyn Post Office operated until 1989 when the New Zealand Post Office became a State-Owned Enterprise. Since then, it’s been converted into a private residence before becoming a boutique hotel, then back to a family home. The photo of the old post office building shows a street running off to the left, this is JEFFERSON STREET, and we’ll take a quick wander up there and back, there’s not that much to comment on. Jefferson Street was named after Thomas Jefferson (April 13, 1743 - July 4, 1826) an American statesman, diplomat, lawyer, architect, philosopher, and Founding Father who served as the 3rd president of the United States from 1801 to 1809. He was previously the nation's 2nd vice president under John Adams and the first US secretary of state under George Washington. The principal author of the Declaration of Independence, Jefferson was a proponent of republicanism, democracy, and individual rights, motivating American colonists to break from the Kingdom of Great Britain and form a new nation. He produced formative documents and decisions at state, national, and international levels. Over the course of his life, Jefferson owned more than 600 slaves. While some modern historians are critical of Jefferson's Yet another of Brooklyn’s streets named after an American President, Steven Grover Cleveland (born 1837), a lawyer and politician who served as the 22nd and 24th President of the USA from 1885 to 1889, and again from 1893 to 1897. He’s the only American President to serve two non-consecutive terms in office. He was also elected as mayor of Buffalo in 1881, and later governor of New York. He died in 1908. His wife Francis became first lady at the age of 21, and remains the youngest wife of a sitting president.
44 personal involvement with slavery, Jefferson is consistently ranked in the top ten presidents of American history. The most notable building in Jefferson Street (number 42) was the Salvation Army Hall, a plaque on the building telling us that the hall was erected in 1913. As quite a young boy, I remember mum taking me to services at this hall over a period of time, I never really understood why this would have been as my parents were staunch Baptists, heading down to that Church, morning and evening, every Sunday. Maybe mum felt she owed the Salvo’s something for inflicting me on the world since I had been born at their Bethany Maternity Hospital! I also seem to recall that the Salvation Army services were held on a Saturday afternoon, or they could have been on a Sunday afternoon - whatever, it was a reasonably large commitment shown by mum in particular for weekend Church attendances, and both her and dad were probably terribly disappointed that in the not-too-distance future I would show very little interest in doing the same. Further up Jefferson Street on the left-hand side lived one of my classmates at Brooklyn School, Joy Lowry. My only real memory of Joy comes from secondary school days when Joy had her face rather badly re-arranged by a hockey ball, she was the team’s goalkeeper. I do recall that she recovered well, but had quite a chunk of time away from college because of the accident. There’s not a great deal else of note until you get to the top of Jefferson Street where there’s a pathway that takes you around to a set of steps that lead down to the junction of Brooklyn Road and Ohiro Road. I often wandered this way as an alternative route back to Sugarloaf Road - this was just one of a number of alternative pathways / tracks scattered all around Brooklyn, and I reckon I used most, if not all of them. So back to Cleveland Street and on the other side of Jefferson Street we would find Millers shop, a very tiny store which if I remember correctly was a rather odd variant of a corner dairy. Len Miller and his dad (Len senior) were friends of mum and dad, and also attendees at the Baptist church. A strange memory from 1974 when I was wandering down one of the main streets in Sydney, Australia (my first overseas trip) and there’s Len Miller (junior) walking towards me. My first introduction to just how small a world we live in. About 200 metres down from Miller’s shop was the local fish and chip shop, situated just below the Brooklyn RSA. This was often our Friday night treat, always wrapped in newspaper (in early days) with plenty of salt and vinegar and probably served by the guys in the photo below. Almost at the Ohiro Road end of Cleveland Street and there’s a shop that was also a fish and chip shop for a while. In the 60’s it was a coffee bar, and for a time it became a favourite haunt of the 25 Motorcycle Club. Very cool to wander past them (trying not to look of course), and while the photo below wasn’t taken at their Brooklyn headquarters, it is the 25 Club and exactly how I remember those guys and their machines.
45 Closer to the corner of Cleveland and Ohiro, there was a long and narrow workshop where George O’Leary, another friend of my parents, had his electrical business. And right on the corner of Cleveland and Ohiro was Hodson’s Drapery where mum worked for a while. The Hodson’s lived at the bottom of Sugarloaf Road (more family friends), and I reckon that Ron considered himself to be Brooklyn’s unofficial mayor. Crossing over Cleveland Street and starting to head back to Washington Avenue, the building on that corner always seems to have housed a chemist shop. In the same building there was a small room which was the dispatch point for kids like myself who earned pocket money from paper rounds, delivering the Evening Post 6 nights a week, Monday to Saturday. So with newspapers stuffed in a canvas bag slung over my shoulder, off I would go on my round, which was along Ohiro Road, left into Helen Street, left again into Sugarloaf Road, up and along Mitchell Street, down Apuka Street, then finishing off the other side of Sugarloaf Road. Saturday mornings would see me doing the same route but this time knocking on doors and being paid for the week’s deliveries, including tips from a lot of people. I do recall one house in Mitchell Street where a tip was never forthcoming, so on random nights every couple of weeks or so, the middle page of their paper (which always contained world news) would be mysteriously missing from their delivery. Should have tipped me! There was a private residence around the middle of Cleveland Street and was where the Ching’s lived - yep, more family friends. They had a couple of sons, Michael and Raymond, with Raymond earning international acclaim for his contemporary bird and wildlife paintings. Wikipedia suggests that Raymond’s painting usually fetch six figures - not bad for a Brooklyn lad! I mentioned earlier that mum worked at Hodson’s Drapery, well further along Cleveland Street was Seymour’s stationery and bookshop, with mum working there as well, this time for Ken Hodson, the two Hodson’s being brothers. The remaining shops in Cleveland Street before we arrive at Harrison Street included a Barber’s Shop, the barber being Percy Joyce who was definitely a better alternative to enduring the bowl that dad insisted on using on the couple of occasions when he fancied himself as a home hairdresser, Wing-On’s Fruit and Vegetable Shop, McKeown’s Butchery (more on that shortly), and Max’s Foodmarket (pictured opposite). And a family called the Brown’s ran a dairy for a while, more on them when we travel down Veronica Street on our way to The Ridgeway. The shop on the corner of Cleveland and Harrison Streets (below) was a familiar landmark for me in the mid to late 50’s as I trudged my way to Brooklyn School. Once I got there it meant a right turn into Harrison Street, a walk of about 200 metres, a look left, look right, look left again (as taught by my parents) before crossing the road and entering the sloping pathway that led to the primary school that was meant to shape my future - well, maybe it did, maybe it didn’t, but all in all it wasn’t too bad a school to be at. Harrison Street wasn’t the main address for Brooklyn School, it’s official location was stated as Washington Avenue, so I’ll simply remember Harrison Street as the most direct way for HARRISON STREET. Named after William Henry Harrison (February 9, 1773 - April 4, 1841), an American military officer and politician who served as the 9th president of the United States. Harrison died just 31 days after his inauguration in 1841, and had the shortest presidency in United States history. He was also the first United States president to die in office, and a brief constitutional crisis resulted as presidential succession was not then fully defined in the United States Constitution. Harrison was the last president born as a British subject in the Thirteen Colonies and was the paternal grandfather of Benjamin Harrison, the 23rd president of the United States.
46 me to get to school, and talk more about primary school days when we explore Washington Avenue and its environs. But before heading up Harrison Street, there appears to be a door on the extreme bottom left of the photo and it’s not part of the main foodmarket building. I reckon it’s the entrance into McKeown’s Butchery, one of 3 butcher’s shops in Brooklyn when I was growing up, and definitely mum’s butchery of choice. I can clearly remember many times going into McKeown’s Butchery with mum and listening to the banter between her and Trevor McKeown, very light-hearted and funny with mum giving back as good as she got. Trevor McKeown employed another guy called Joe, and he was equally as bad as Trevor. For a couple of years, Trevor’s son Lyn was in my class at Brooklyn School, and many years later Lyn and I played rugby together for several seasons at Oriental-Rongotai. As a bit of a coincidence, mum and dad’s ashes are preserved in the Rose Garden at Karori Cemetery, and only a couple of plaques along from them is one for Trevor McKeown and his wife. I reckon the repartee between mum and Trevor will still be going backwards and forwards over someone else’s remains, and probably non- stop! So now we wander up Harrison Street, staying on the right- hand side. Not too much to get excited about until we get to just about opposite the entrance to Brooklyn School where there is a pathway dropping off to the right that eventually leads down to McKinley Crescent. In the 50’s-60’s there was a playground between Harrison Street and McKinley Crescent that we would head to after school and at other times when we might be in that area, such as going to the Brooklyn Library which at that time was just another 50 metres up Harrison Street. A great playground, but sadly it just would not survive in today’s health and safety environment. The entire playground was asphalted and totally unforgiving, and there’s no memory of any child supervision or any sort of equipment maintenance. But guess what, we had a lot of fun, enjoying a totally uninhibited playground, and we’re all still here today, mostly in one piece. Best memory was the large slide - bloody high, suspect ladder, steel slide that was as hot as hades in the summer, no such thing as safety guards/barriers/nets, and the inevitable feet-first landing at speed on the unforgiving asphalt, providing you did actually go down feet-first! All in all, fun times. A bit further up Harrison Street was the Brooklyn Scout Hall. No real memories of this building, other than my mate James Snowball was a scout. I can’t recall ever going inside the Scout Hall, perhaps us fellas from the Boys Brigade were not permitted entry! Harrison Street is actually a dead-end street which eventually ends with a sharp left turn, and where there is an entrance into a 1904-built Calvinist Presbyterian Church (below). Whilst primarily designed as a place of worship, it served a much more useful purpose as a Friday night youth club in the mid-1960’s. We would wander down the left-hand side of the building and into a ground floor room where there was a hi-fi system playing the popular music of the day (45’s and the occasional LP), soft drinks (nothing on tap), lusty looks at the girls (generally not reciprocated), but if you were really, really lucky, a snog and a fondle up in the grounds of the adjacent Brooklyn School. Then home to mum and dad by 10 o’clock! One Friday night a local Wellington band (actually they were originally from Upper Hutt), the Fourmyula played at the Presbyterian youth club. Our ground floor room was nowhere near big enough, so the Church Hall was utilised. The presence of the Fourmyula certainly attracted a larger audience than usual, with teenagers descending on Harrison Street from many parts of Wellington. The night rocked, but it turned out to be a one-off event - unfortunately. Not much else to be seen in Harrison Street and no more memories, so we’ll return to Cleveland Street, turn right and
47 head back to Washington Avenue where we’ll continue to head south. Brooklyn School is the first feature that we come to, so what better time to reflect on my primary school days. My first teacher at Brooklyn School was Miss Errington who took us in Primer One. She was a really large, formidable and scary lady, particularly to us youngsters in our very first year. I can also remember Mr Gunn (more about him shortly), and Miss Strong, including the time when our entire class headed down to a church in Willis Street to see her get married. For probably obvious reasons, the only other teacher I can remember is Mick Williment who was the Wellington rugby fullback at the time and who would later be selected for the All Blacks. Mick was also teaching at Rongotai College during my first couple of years there. All other Brooklyn School teachers are long forgotten. Interestingly my brother Neville has excellent recollections of his teachers at Brooklyn School. An embarrassing story about one of the boys in the next photo. One afternoon, and clearly not going to the toilet at lunchtime, this poor guy was badly caught out and literally fouled his pants. His tears (and the smell) gave him away, and the teacher’s remedy (his/her name eludes me) was to simply send him home in a rather sticky state. Fortunately he only lived a few hundred metres away in McKinley Crescent. The things you remember! One more memory. Around standard 3 or 4 we had a teacher called Mr Gunn whose hand used to shake uncontrollably. A few of us took great delight in deliberate misbehaviours which required the strap - those days of corporal punishment. Mr Gunn would stand on his chair, reach up to the top of his cupboard, grope around for his leather strap and proceed to belt our outstretched palm as we stood in front of the class. One major problem was his shaking hand which meant that he either missed, or successful hits that he achieved were extraordinarily innocuous. It wasn’t until a few years later that I understood that Mr Gunn suffered from Parkinson’s Disease, and our intentional misbehaviours became a rather awkward memory, certainly for me. The only class photo that I’ve got, and wow, I reckon I can recognise a few of my old classmates so here goes. In the back row my very good friend Jason Ell is 2nd from the right. Two along from Jason is David Woodbridge, then David Naulls, then Gerald Perrot. Can’t recognise anyone else in that row. In the middle row Jeremy Lawton and Lyn McKeown are 2nd and 3rd from the right respectively, Carol Young is two along from Lyn, Patricia Diamond is next to her, and Dennis Jackson is 4th from the left. Everyone else is a blur. In the front row the little guy kneeling on the right is Russell Rogers, Joy Lowry and Leonie Chin are 3rd and 4th from the right respectively, Lois Barnard is two along from Leonie and next to her is (I think) Lesley Durrant. Vivian Craig is 2nd from the left, and Mary Barcham is 5th from the left, and the blond-haired girl smack in the middle is Robyn Kerr. Everyone else in the row escapes me. More about Mary Barcham under Ohiro Road. In case you’ve missed me, yours truly is far left, back row, and it might be Warren Wrigley standing next to me.
48 In the early 1960’s Neville and I would head over to Brooklyn School’s upper quadrangle on Saturday afternoons, as we were both members of the Brooklyn Baptist Tennis Club. It was a pretty small club, but well-remembered as the scene of my first sporting success, winning, in the 1961-62 season, the club’s junior singles and doubles titles. Can’t remember who my partner was in the doubles, but believe it or not 60+ years later I still possess one of my trophies, an engraved spoon as pictured. Have no idea what happened to the second one, wish I could find it! Directly opposite Brooklyn School was (and still is) an imposing building originally built as the Freemason’s Lodge. I can only recall this building as a private residence with a couple of Brooklyn School girls, Janet and Heather Douglas living there. I think one of them married Phil Benfield, a very good cricketer for the Karori club who I played senior cricket against a few times. The dairy in the photo is long gone, and was one of two dairies very close together, the other one being 50 or so metres up the road, on the corner of Dorking Road. It’s also long gone. DORKING ROAD starts just up from the dairy next to the Freemason’s Lodge, and takes its name from Dorking, a small town in north-eastern Surrey. While the earliest settlement was probably Roman, the name Dorking, comes from the Saxon ‘Dorchingas’. By Domesday the Manor of Dorking covered the modern parishes of Dorking, Capel and the Holmwoods. The settlement became a market centre for the surrounding villages and the town’s symbol is the five- clawed Dorking fowl for which the market was famous. There are 3 minor exit points out of Dorking Road, none of which can be accessed by vehicles. The first is halfway down Dorking Road, and is a sealed pathway that leads directly across to Bell Road. The second is another sealed path that winds its way down through Prince of Wales Park and eventually brings you out by the Prince of Wales playing fields, a short walk away from the Wellington Show Buildings in Newtown. I reckon this is the route that my dad took on his very early morning 5 mile hikes to start work at the Kilbirnie Bus Depot, no car for him in those days, and well before the first tram / bus would have been operating. The 3rd exit point is yet another pathway at the end of Asquith Terrace which Dorking Road had merged into. About 200 metres down Dorking Road, Coolidge Street runs off to the right. It continues downhill and is a dead-end street. Almost at the end of Coolidge Street on the left-hand side there’s a path that leads directly to Asquith Terrace, and I used to head down that path regularly to where a very good friend and cricketing buddy, John Worley lived, probably no more than 200 metres away. Of course if you kept walking along Asquith Terrace from John’s place you came out at Dorking Road again. And if my memory is holding up ok, right at the end of Coolidge Street is another path that takes you up to Connaught Terrace. An interesting fact: Back in 1970 I purchased my first house at 33 Coolidge Street, paying the princely sum of $8,000 and COOLIDGE STREET. Another Brooklyn Street named after an American President, Calvin Coolidge who was born John Calvin Coolidge Jr. (July 4, 1872 - January 5, 1933). He was the 30th president of the United States from 1923 to 1929. Born in Vermont, Coolidge was a Republican lawyer from New England who climbed up the ladder of Massachusetts state politics, becoming the state's 48th governor. His response to the Boston Police Strike of 1919 thrust him into the national spotlight as a man of decisive action. Coolidge was elected the country's 29th vice president the next year, succeeding the presidency upon the sudden death of President Warren G. Harding in 1923. Elected in his own right in 1924, Coolidge gained a reputation as a small-government conservative distinguished by a taciturn personality and dry sense of humour, receiving the nickname "Silent Cal". Though his widespread popularity enabled him to run for a third term, he chose not to run again in 1928, remarking that ten years as president was (at the time) "longer than any other man has had it - too long!"
49 requiring 3 mortgages to finance the property. I sold in 1974, and the house (below) still looks much the same today, except for the numbers now painted on the garage. A quick google search in 2022 revealed that No. 33 (which was built in 1917) had a Capital Value of $1,180,000. Whew!!! One left-field memory from 33 Coolidge Street: For a short period of time I owned a goat called Androlia (after one of my first wife’s (Christine) sisters, and it used to be tethered and able to wander the several levels of generally un-mowed lawn between the garage and the house. The neighbours eventually complained and off it went to a farm over in Pauahatanui. And one not so memorable memory from living in Coolidge Street. Christine and I moved in immediately after getting married, but we weren’t going to be on our own for very long. A couple of months later in moved Christine’s sister, Dacia, her husband Alan, and their daughter Annaliese who was probably about 2 or 3 years old at the time. They’d sold their house in Newlands, flatted for a while, then ran out of money and had nowhere to go. They stayed for several months, and this was my first introduction to the world of drugs. Alan in particular smoked joints every night, Dacia often joined him, and on occasions so did Christine. I did not, but very stupidly (in hindsight) I allowed it to continue. However I became seriously pissed off when I found out that Alan (who worked as a window dresser at various shops in Wellington City) was cultivating a marijuana patch not that far away from us in Prince of Wales Park. Fortunately Dacia finally realised that Alan was a serial loser and she kicked him to touch, but stayed on herself for several more months. Now you would think it couldn’t get any worse, but think again. Dacia finally left (over the years I’ve often wondered what happened to Annaliese), but in her place in comes another sister, Helen. Her husband at that time was enjoying Her Majesty’s hospitality at Paremoremo Prison after being convicted of burglary charges. But he was shortly to turn up at Coolidge Street because Helen had belatedly provided him with an alibi and he was subsequently freed, and probably pardoned. I remember that this made the front page of the Evening Post, and I also remember meeting him for the first time at the Lion Tavern in Molesworth Street (closed long ago), with other patrons staring at him as that was the night he had been front page news! No compensation was sought, probably because Helen had lied (she admitted it). Worse was to follow, I came home from work one evening to be told that the police had raided my home - searching for drugs. That was the final straw, and goodbye Helen and her husband, and very close to the end of a not very successful marriage for Christine and me. After that it’s definitely time for a great memory after Christine and her seemingly never-ending stream of relatives moved on - the few months when a very good cricketing friend, Mike Berry, also known as the Tooth Fairy, moved into Coolidge Street with me. After leaving Coolidge Street, Mike and I shared flats in Karori and Kingston. Mike’s a great guy who many, many years later remains a very close friend. Very honoured to be his groomsman when he married his lovely wife, Jan in 1978. Nothing else to note in Asquith Terrace, so we’ll stroll back to the top of Dorking Road where it meets Washington Avenue, continue south and on the right-hand side we come across another one of Brooklyn’ churches, this time St Matthews Anglican Church, well it was when I was growing up. ASQUITH TERRACE. Just after the pathway leading down to Prince of Wales Park, Dorking Road veers right and becomes Asquith Terrace, a short, dead-end street. It is named after Herbert Henry Asquith, 1st Earl of Oxford and Asquith, KG, PC, KC, FRS, generally known as H. H. Asquith, a British statesman and Liberal Party politician who served as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 1908 to 1916. An odd fact: he remained the only Prime Minister between 1827 and 1979 to serve more than 8 consecutive years in a single term.
50 It’s yet another local church that has suffered from a declining congregation and was sold quite recently, with property developers apparently looking to demolish the building, even though the building was under consideration for a heritage listing - fairly modern for a heritage building I would have thought. I went there on occasions when dances were organised, but I mainly remember the church as a landmark when heading to one of my girlfriends, Claire who lived just across the road, and who was another of the St Mary’s girls that I was friendly with. Continuing to head south we arrive at CONNAUGHT TERRACE. Originally named Victoria Terrace, it runs off to the left where Washington Avenue becomes Mills Road. It owes its name to Prince Arthur, Duke of Connaught and Strathearn, the 7th child and 3rd son of Queen Victoria, and who, from 1911 to 1916, was the 10th Governor General of Canada. Connaught Terrace meanders its way downhill for several hundred metres before it becomes Moffitt Street. Halfway down Connaught Terrace on the left is the pathway that crosses over from Coolidge Street, and one of Neville’s friends, Bruce Connon lived quite close to that path. Almost opposite is a house that I visited on a couple of occasions, invited by a young lady (I think her name was Esther) who identified herself to me one evening at the bus stop at the bottom of Brooklyn Hill, told me that she had been at the Baptist Church and seen me there, and would I like to come around for coffee? Well, I couldn’t remember her, but it seemed rude to refuse so I did visit (twice) and a very pleasant coffee it was as well. Moving on. About another 300 metres down Connaught Terrace, there’s a pathway on the left that leads down through Prince of Wales Park, eventually coming out at the bottom sports field. Now I certainly wandered through Prince of Wales Park on a few occasions when growing up, but this area holds excellent memories from a few years later of the times when dad and I went wood chopping together, generally on Saturday morning. As mentioned earlier, dad had permission to cut fallen or dead trees in various council reserves around the city, and Prince of Wales Park was one of those areas. We would drive down Connaught Terrace and park as close to the entrance to the park as possible, then unload a chainsaw plus fuel and various tools and then wander through the park until we spotted a likely location. We’d cut the tree into lengths that would fit into our cars, then when finished cutting, we’d lug the cut logs up the park and into the boots of the cars. We generally sought fallen trees, but on occasions were tempted into taking down dead trees. One time we badly misjudged the way one quite large dead tree would fall, but fortunately noticed it tottering in the wrong direction while we still had time to rapidly scramble our way to safety. On one other occasion we were deep in the bush and got a bit lazy about carrying the logs uphill. One of us had the bright suggestion to roll the logs down the slope until they hit a flat area at the bottom, then drive the cars down to where they had landed. So we rolled the first log down and watched in absolute horror as it picked up speed, hit the flat area, bounced up and kept on rolling till it thumped onto Hutchinson Road, a reasonably major road. Fortunately for us, no cars happened along just at that moment, so we quickly flagged that rather bad idea and went back to heaving the logs back up the hill. One other memory is the arrival one morning of the park’s caretaker, a Mr Chester, who had heard the chainsaw and came to see who was responsible. Mr Chester was not happy that we were taking firewood, but once dad explained that he had permission - he actually carried an authorising letter from the Council, all was well, and I later found out that Mr Chester was the father-in-law at that time of my very good friend, John Worley. While these firewood hunting days with my dad took place well after my growing up days in Brooklyn, reminiscences about Connaught Terrace would not be complete without them. These were the days when I really got to know my dad, we became very, very close, and those times that we spent together in Prince of Wales Park are Brooklyn-related memories that I will always treasure. MILLS ROAD. Is a direct continuation of Washington Avenue, and heads south until it morphs into The Ridgeway and meets Mornington Road coming up from the right. Its name is taken from Mr. Edward William Mills (1829 - 1900), who married a Miss Wright, and called his home "Sayes Court," after the family seat of the Evelyns, near Dorking, England. Arriving in Wellington in 1842, he set up the Lion Foundry and E W Mills Co. Limited. He was a Director of the Wellington Tramway Company and the Patent Slip Company as well as holding insurance interests. He was also a member of the New Zealand Militia, promoted to captain in 1868. At the time of his death he was the Commodore of the Port
51 GOWRIE STREET runs steeply downhill to the right just after reaching the summit of Mills Road, meeting Harland Street at the bottom. Another street with nothing obviously available about its naming origins, so we’ll make an assumption that in a similar manner to Dorking Road, it commemorates an area from the British Isles, this time Gowrie, a region in central Scotland and one of the original provinces of the Kingdom of Alba. It covered the eastern part of what became Perthshire. It was located to the immediate east of Atholl, and originally included the area around Perth (and the ancient Scottish royal sites of Scone), though that was later detached as Perthia. Gowrie’s chief settlement is the city of Perth. Today it is most often associated with the Carse of Gowrie, the part of Gowrie south of the Sidlaw Hills running east of Perth to Dundee. HARLAND STREET. No information has been found about who or what Harland Street was named after, but it appears it was originally intended to be called McIntyre Street. It’s possible that it was meant to commemorate a shipmaster, Captain Daniel McIntyre (1827-1887) of Wellington, but there is minimal information available about Captain McIntyre or why the planned street name was changed. Interestingly Captain McIntyre’s youngest son, also Daniel, as Director of Exhibits for the 1906-1907 New Zealand International Exhibition became embroiled in controversy over financial irregularities and travelling under a false name hurriedly left the country in 1907. He was arrested in Monte Video, Uruguay later that year and returned to Christchurch, where he pleaded guilty to four charges of theft. He repaid some money, but no record of his sentence or his date of death have been found. Harland Street merges seamlessly into VERONICA STREET which in turn takes us back to Mills Road. Naming origins of Veronica Street are uncertain, but possibly linked to the findings of the botanist Thomas Kirk (1828-1898) who, sometime in the 1890’s discovered a new species of Veronica (hebe) which he named as Veronica rotundata. This new species was found close enough to Mornington i.e. Newtown Park for it to be a strong street naming possibility. The only memories I have of Veronica Street are spending time at the Brown’s house. For a time the Brown’s ran a dairy in Cleveland Street, and I got to know their son, Peter quite well. Mum was always amused at the children’s names - Peter, Pam and Pixie, she always laughingly wondered what happened when a letter arrived addressed to P. Brown. FORTUNATUS STREET. Directly opposite Veronica Street, Fortunatus Street heads downhill towards Vogeltown until it intersects with Mana Street. Its name originates from Fortunatus Evelyn Wright (1827-1912) whose brother, John Fortescue Evelyn Wright in1881 laid off a portion of his land interests which would become known as Vogeltown, named after Sir Julius Vogel, Premier of the Colony in the 1870’s. The Wright’s came from a naval family of lengthy traditions, with one ancestor being Fortunatus Wright (c.1712-1757), a British merchantman and privateer, notable for his activities in the Mediterranean Sea during the War of the Austrian Succession and the Seven Years' War. Interestingly, Fortunatus Wright was Christchurch-based and was resident there at that time of his death. The naming of Fortunatus Street after him appears to be family-oriented rather than any Wellington- based recognition. My main recollections of Fortunatus Street are based on those few occasions when I used that route to walk over to Athletic Park. I don’t recall any major events or people around there, nor any misadventures that I may have got up to. We’ll check out other Vogeltown streets shortly. INGESTRE STREET. Continuing south along Mills Road, Ingestre Street is off to the left about 200 metres before Mills Road becomes The Ridgeway. Named after Viscount Ingestre, a Conservative politician, Member of the House of Commons and a Director of the New Zealand Company in the 1840’s. Viscount Ingestre was Henry John Chetwynd-Talbot (8 November 1803 - 4 June 1868). He was designated Viscount of Ingestre from the death of his elder brother in 1826 and until 1849, when he succeeded his father as 3rd Earl Talbot. In 1860 he succeeded to the titles and estates of a distant cousin and became the 18th Earl of Shrewsbury and the 18th Earl of Waterford. He was also a British naval commander who commanded HMS Philomel at the Battle of Navarino on 20 October 1827, and was picked by Vice-Admiral Codrington to bring home the despatches announcing the victory. He was promoted to rear-admiral in 1854 and to vice-admiral and admiral in 1865. Ingestre Street is a short, dead-end street, with a path at the end that accesses Mana Street in Vogeltown. I would have walked and driven past Ingestre Street on many occasions but as I can’t remember any time when I wandered up or down it, there are no memories of note. One curious fact is
52 that Vivian Street in the central city was originally split in two, the strip between the Terrace and Cuba Street being named Ingestre Street in 1841, remaining so until 1909 when renamed as Vivian Street. Not far past Ingestre Street is where Mills Road morphs into the Ridgeway. There’s a second way of getting to the Ridgeway and that’s via the McKinley Crescent / Mornington Road route, and that’s where we’ll head to now, eventually arriving back at the Ridgeway. MCKINLEY CRESCENT TO THE RIDGEWAY Heading south from the Penthouse Cinema, the first street on the left is MCKINLEY CRESCENT, named after the 25th President of the United States, William McKinley. Born on 29 January 1843, McKinley was elected President in 1897 and served until 14 September 1901 when he died following an assassination attempt on 6 September. McKinley was hit in the stomach by two bullets, and initially seemed to have survived. However one bullet could not be found, and several days later McKinley’s condition deteriorated, gangrene was growing on the walls of his stomach and poisoning his blood stream. His attacker, Leon Czolgosz was put on trial for murder nine days after McKinley's death, found guilty, sentenced to death on September 26 and executed by electric chair on October 29, 1901. One interesting fact about McKinley Crescent that may not be commonly known - it was originally two separate streets that were eventually merged to become McKinley Crescent - both of the initial street names also remembering American Presidents. These streets were Adams Street (John Adams - below left) was the 2nd President of the United States, from 1797 until 1801, a Founding Father who helped draft the Declaration of Independence, and Hayes Street (Rutherford Hayes) being the 19th President from 1877 to 1881. It's not readily apparent where these two streets might have possibly started and ended, but a look at the following google map suggests that one of the streets may originally have been between Ohiro Road and up to the dog-leg to the right (as marked with a ) - 50 or so metres before Garfield Street, with either Hayes Street or Adams Street continuing on from just before Garfield Street to Taft Street, at which point the current McKinley Crescent becomes Mornington Road - but a bit of a guess really. On the map above and just before the , there is a dotted line which indicates a pathway. This leads up to Harrison Street, and passes through the playground that I talked about earlier. I also mentioned one of my class mates and his unfortunate incident at Brooklyn School - well, he lived just where the pathway met McKinley Crescent, so at least he didn’t have a long way to go for assistance in sorting out his rather embarrassing problem! GARFIELD STREET. As we continue along McKinley Crescent we come across two more streets named after American Presidents. The first is Garfield Street which remembers James A. Garfield who was the 20th president of the United States. He was a major general in the Union Army during the American Civil War, and fought in the battles of Middle Creek, Shiloh, and Chickamauga. Garfield was elected to Congress in 1862, then serving as President from March 4, 1881, until his death six months later, two months after he was shot in an assassination attempt. On July 2, 1881, Charles J. Guiteau, a disappointed and delusional office seeker, shot Garfield at the Baltimore and Potomac Railroad Station in Washington. The wound was not immediately fatal, but he died on September 19, 1881, from infections apparently caused by his doctors.
53 Garfield Street is a no-exit street, but at its top there was a footpath access to Washington Avenue. I don’t have any major memories of Garfield Street except the occasional wander up or down. Back across the road in McKinley Crescent, my auntie Eileen had moved down to a property there, and her neighbours were both regular attendees at the Baptist Church and therefore very friendly with my parents. The Crosby’s were on one side, and Mag Hunt on the other. Miss Hunt was one of the many single women in the Brooklyn area who knew mum and dad through church life, with most of them visiting our home quite regularly. Just before we get to the end of McKinley Crescent we come to the upper level of TAFT STREET, which, as we discovered when wandering down Ohiro Road was named after William Howard Taft who was the 27th president of the United States. No need to add anything more about Taft Street that hasn’t already been said. MORNINGTON ROAD. The suburb of Mornington is located on the southern hills behind Brooklyn. The suburb and this road (which starts at the juncture of McKinley Crescent and Taft Street) are named after the Duke of Wellington's father, the Earl of Mornington. The original Mornington is in County Meath, and was the Irish seat of the Duke's father. Wellington’s Mornington was named in 1878 from the time when J.F.E. Wright subdivided his land in the south-west of the city in partnership with Jacob Joseph, and created the suburbs of Mornington and Vogeltown. Mornington Road continues for a couple of kilometres until it meets Mills Road. From Mornington Road, we first arrive at the extension to LINCOLN STREET (another street that was explored during our trip down Ohiro Road). As I don’t have any memories of note relating to Lincoln Street as accessed from Mornington Road, we’ll continue on to Butt Street. The top end of BUTT STREET (where we wandered around earlier as we made our way down Ohiro Road) starts about 100 metres south of Lincoln Street. At the point where Butt Street meets Clarence Street, Butt Street itself curves around to the right and heads steeply downhill to where it meets Ohiro Road. CLARENCE STREET. Is a sort of link road that connects Butt Street with Mornington Road via Cheesman Street. For most of its length Clarence Street runs below Mornington Road, with a pedestrian accessway connecting the two. This is another street where there is no definitive answer as to its naming origins, about the only thing we can be sure about is that it wasn’t named after my dad - Clarence Donald Cowan! So we’ll again allow some author’s prerogative and suggest that Clarence Street may have been named after the Duke of Clarence, Prince Albert Victor (1864- 1892) who was the eldest child of the Prince and Princess of Wales (later King Edward VII and Queen Alexandra) and grandson of the reigning British monarch, Queen Victoria. From the time of his birth he was 2nd in line of succession to the British throne, but did not become king or Prince of Wales because he died before both his grandmother and his father. It has been argued that he was the serial killer known as Jack the Ripper or that he was otherwise involved in the murders, but apparently there was evidence that he was not in London at the time of the murders. There’s really only one memory from Clarence Street and maybe you’ll spot it when you’re reading about Vennell Street. VENNELL STREET. Connects Mornington Road with Mills Road, and is likely to have been named after George Henry Vennell, a merchant in Wellington city who had landed in Wellington in 1841. Married to Elizabeth Mary Vennell (nee Mills), George Vennell died at sea on 28 June 1895 (there’s a suggestion that he may have fallen over board) as recorded in the following newspaper clipping: Vennell Street has a couple of distinguishing landmarks, the first being the Vogelmorn Tennis Club, and the second being the Vogelmorn Public Hall which is directly opposite the tennis club. I never played at the tennis club, but Neville certainly did, and was a member for several seasons. I do recall going there one night for a “jokes” evening, and still remember a couple of jokes, one about a head, and the other about a “rere”. Very long-winded jokes, which I never mind repeating when I can pick my audience! Similarly I only went inside the Vogelmorn Hall (next photo) once, and that was in my early days at the Wellington Harbour Board when a work colleague, Peter Attwell got married and the wedding reception was held at the Hall. One
54 bizarre memory from that wedding, Peter’s best man didn’t turn up and there was the sight of Peter frantically trying to convince someone else to stand in, only minutes before his bride-to-be was due to arrive at the church! But my main memory of Vennell Street is walking down from the Mills Road end on quite a few occasions, primarily because I got an uninterrupted view of a double storey house across the other side of Mornington Road, and the prospect that I might get lucky. This is where the Collins family lived, and in amongst a tribe of daughters was one in particular, about my age and whom I thought was rather spunky. We used to get the same bus in the morning heading to college (she to St Mary’s and me to Rongotai), during which time I gazed longingly at her, but not daring to speak. It wasn’t until we both had Friday night jobs in the city and stood at the same bus stop in Willis Street after work waiting for the Brooklyn bus that we became friendly, but this was pretty short-lived as she left college six months before I did and made it very clear that she had no intention of going out with a schoolboy! There was actually one other reason that didn’t work in my favour - she had an older and very unfriendly brother who threatened me with a serious thumping if he ever caught me with his sister, and I reckon he meant it. So no romance eventuated, but I confess to scoring a park-up down in the unlit part of Clarence Street one night with a younger sister - fortunately the older brother didn’t find out about that one! I was to come across the older sister many years later, by then she was married to a cricketing mate of mine from Midland St Pats who enjoyed nicknames of “Bugsy” and “Argo” (his favourite expression was “ah, go get f@#%ed”). Sadly Argo died far too young, and the last time I saw my unrequited Brooklyn love was at his funeral. CHEESMAN STREET. There’s not much information about the origins of this street’s name, but it’s likely that it was named after Henry Charles Cheesman (1849 - 1895). Little is known about this gentleman and what he achieved except that he was married to Harriet who died of Typhoid fever in 1879 aged 27, and who was buried in the family plot in the Bowen Street Cemetery. Henry died in Samoa aged 46. The family plot at the Bolton Street cemetery was dismantled in the late 1960’s to make way for the Wellington Motorway. I had a couple of friends who lived in Cheesman Street, the first being Rick Bonnett who was at Rongotai College with me and with whom I played rugby for Oriental-Rongotai some years later. The second was Jill Hadley who often turned up at the various teenage parties around the Brooklyn area. Her father, Leonard was a well-respected trade unionist who would later become Sir Leonard Hadley. His background was to become of some interest to me in later life as I moved into similar territory, albeit on the employer’s side. I have often been told about industrial negotiations from the 1960’s, and very glad I wasn’t involved in the all-day and often late-night confrontations that took place in those days. The photo above is pretty illustrative of how industrial bargaining took place in the 1960’s and even later - the protagonists lined up against each other, not a smile to be seen, and glass ashtrays ready to be filled to the brim. Sir Leonard Hadley is sitting 5 down the table on the left-hand side. There’s one more memory from Cheesman Street and it relates to one of Wellington’s better-performed harriers in the late 50’s, early 60’s, a guy called Barry Everitt who competed at 3 World Cross Country Championships. Club titles were followed by provincial ones, and Barry quickly made his mark nationally. He won his first national title as a junior in 1956 and represented New Zealand at three World Cross-Country Championships, the first in 1965 at Antwerp, Belgium. My
55 brother Neville remembers Barry very well, recalling that the Baptist harriers once used Barry at a training weekend and found his input and experience to have been extremely useful. My recollection of all of this is that around the time that he was representing New Zealand, he moved into Cheesman Street and once my parents found out they were not pleased, apparently they knew the lady Barry had moved in with and found it all too scandalous for their rather well- entrenched Baptist beliefs. Even back then, their views were really hard to understand, but who really cared as long as he and his lady friend were happy. COLERIDGE STREET. Is a short dead-end street and is the last street that runs off Mornington Road before it intersects with Mills Road. Coleridge Street was named after John Newton Coleridge who was born in Devon, England in 1832. He married Ann Travers (daughter of William Travers whom Travers Street in Vogeltown is named after) in 1874 and they had one son and three daughters. In 1874 he was appointed as District Engineer for the Wellington Province. Coleridge was the surveyor who pegged out the town of Martinborough, signing a declaration of authenticity on 18 February 1882. John Coleridge died on 30 March 1887 and was buried in the Bolton Street Cemetery. The only real memory I have of Coleridge Street is that there was a path at the end which took you through to Ridgeway Park. There were a few times I used this path as a shortcut when wandering up to my mate, Terry Mumme’s place. After leaving Coleridge Street, about 300 metres away we come to where Mornington Road meets The Ridgeway. This is where we have been heading (after getting there from a starting point of Washington Avenue) , and we can now explore The Ridgeway and Wentworth Street before heading down Farnham Street and then into the streets of Vogeltown. THE RIDGEWAY. Is the continuation of Mills Road after it meets Mornington Road from the right. It’s likely that English settlers arriving in the 1840’s brought the name “Ridgeway” with them - The Ridgeway is a famous and ancient pathway in England that dates back around 5,000 years and has been described as ‘Britain’s oldest road’. It originally extended all the way from the Dorset coast to the Norfolk coast. The first feature that we come across on The Ridgeway is the primary school, which is named Ridgway School. Yes, there is definitely a missing “e” as illustrated by the images below, followed by a couple of possible reasons. It may be that the school was named after the “Martha Ridgway”, a 621-tonne sailing ship built in Liverpool as a passenger ship that arrived in Wellington in November 1840. The Martha Ridgway was later shipwrecked en route from Wellington to Bombay, at the entrance to Torres Strait near the northern tip of Queensland. Alternatively the school may have been named after members of the Ridgway family who were early settlers in Wellington (Isaac Ridgway) and the Wairarapa (James Ridgway). Both these men were local identities. Either street-naming version has merit, but neither can be substantiated. Apart from knowing a few people who attended Ridgway School (Corinne and Lesley Abbot, Paul Veysey, Rick Bonnett, Jill Hadley and Terry Mumme - more about Terry shortly, I don’t have any memories of Ridgway School. Just underneath Ridgway School is Vogelmorn Park which was predominantly used as a football field. It was also used as the practice ground for the Brooklyn Cricket Club, as at the southern end of the park and just below street level there was a single cricket practice net, which I was invited to go to for bowling practice on one occasion, around the time in school holidays when I turned out for the Brooklyn Club. The invitation came from a guy called Neil Munro, a few years older than me and friendly with my brother, probably stemming from the Baptist church and/or the Boys Brigade. Neil had found out that I played cricket, and he fancied himself as a bit of a batsman (I can’t remember whether he actually played for the Brooklyn Club or not, I suspect he didn’t). So one afternoon he picked me up on his Vespa 50 and off we chugged to Vogelmorn Park. Neil padded up and goes into the nets, and I think he was somewhat surprised to
56 see me at the end of my run-up - I used to come in off 24 paces in those days. The short version of this story is that I genuinely terrorised Neil, I was pretty quick back then plus I had a tendency during net practices to no-ball regularly meaning that instead of bowling from the regulation 22 yards, it wasn’t unusual for me to be bowling from 20 yards or less. Additionally, the Vogelmorn practice net wasn’t that well maintained, and the bounce was rather erratic. All of this before the days of batsmen wearing helmets. I thoroughly enjoyed myself, I’m not sure Neil did, and he certainly didn’t invite me back for a second session! About 300 metres past Ridgway School and just opposite the turn-off to Farnham Street lived a good friend of mine, Terry Mumme. I can’t really remember when Terry and I first met, it might have been at the Brooklyn youth club in Harrison Street, or it may have been during our time at Rongotai College together. It definitely wasn’t through primary school as Terry went to Ridgway School and I was at Brooklyn School. But it doesn’t really matter when we met, we ended up being pretty good mates. I was a year or so older than Terry, and he stayed at Ridgway School until standard 6, turning up at Rongotai College in 1964. Often on a weekend night I would walk up to Terry’s place and head out to his living area which I guess was the equivalent of a “granny flat”, very well set up and completely separated from the rest of the house. We would hang out and yarn about all of things that interested a couple of teenage boys - the local girls we fancied, rugby news and matches, and the merits of various bands (Terry was a staunch Rolling Stones fan and I preferred the Beatles) and singers (Terry favoured Bob Dylan and Donovan, and I was definitely getting into Leonard Cohen). Many debates were had and of course there was never a winner! Terry developed an interest in tramping, which probably was the catalyst for one weekend where both of us, together with a mate of Terry’s, Dennis Gore headed down to the southern coast for a fishing expedition and camped out on the shore close to Red Rocks. The fishing was ok with a couple of kawhai being caught, and our tent provided reasonably good shelter. Unfortunately Dennis got a bit spooked after nightfall and decided he wanted to go home. Seeing as it was my faithful ford prefect parked back at the quarry, I had no choice other than to walk back with him to the car, drive him home, then head back to the beach, not quite in complete darkness but reliant on a rather small torch. Terry and I enjoyed the rest of our expedition, including the unexpected additional sleeping space! Most people know that my long-standing nickname is Gus, but for some reason Terry always called me “Cus” - I’ve got no idea why! Terry was another good friend that I lost contact with, and I was to find out that his health suffered in later years, and sadly he passed away in 2020. WENTWORTH STREET. Is a short dead-end street that veers slightly to the right off The Ridgeway and is almost directly opposite Farnham Street. The street recalls William Charles Wentworth, an explorer, author, barrister, landowner and statesman who was born on Norfolk Island in 1790, his mother having been transported from England for “feloniously stealing wearing apparel”. Eventually leaving Norfolk Island with his mother, he arrived in Sydney in 1796. His adventurous spirit and his desire to discover new pastures led him in May 1813, along with William Lawson, Gregory Blaxland, 4 servants, 4 horses, and 5 dogs, to take part in the first great feat of inland exploration of Australia, a 21 day crossing of the Blue Mountains. Wentworth would become the leading Australian political figure during the first half of the 19th century, and in 1849-50 he led the movement that would result in the founding of the first full colonial university in the British empire, the University of Sydney. He died in England on 20 March 1872. Apart from knowing where Wentworth Street was, I have no other memories of the street, although possibly the guy that Terry Mumme and I went camping down the southern coast with, Dennis Gore lived somewhere in Wentworth Street. FARNHAM STREET. Turning left off The Ridgeway and heading downhill, Farnham Street, after a kilometre or so takes you down to a couple of entrances into Vogeltown which we’ll explore shortly. Farnham Street eventually
57 merges into Britomart Street, and therefore provides a direct route from Berhampore up to Mornington, and then along to Brooklyn. There’s no solid information about who or what Farnham Street has been named after (but I’m fairly certain it’s not Johnny Farnham), so with a bit of author’s prerogative, I’ll suggest that it celebrates the town of Farnham, a market town and civil parish in Surrey, England, around 58kms southwest of London. The name "Farnham" is of Saxon origin and is generally agreed to mean "meadow where ferns grow". From at least 803, the settlement was under the control of the Bishops of Winchester and Farnham Castle was built as a residence for Bishop Henry de Blois in 1138. Henry VIII is thought to have spent part of his childhood under the care of Bishop Richard Foxe and is known to have lived at Farnham Castle when he was 16. HAVELOCK STREET. Is a no-exit street that runs off to the left about 200 metres down Farnham Street. Not many memories for me except that I visited there a few times as I used to be friendly with Paul Veysey (another Rongotai College student) who lived in Havelock Street. Paul’s father Alex was a well-known Wellington sportswriter and columnist in the 60’s and 70’s. In a similar manner to Farnham Street, nothing definitive has been discovered about who or what Havelock Street has been named after, except that it was originally named Wilton Road but later changed to avoid confusion with Wilton Road in Wadestown. However it’s a reasonable assumption that Havelock Street was chosen to commemorate Major General Sir Henry Havelock - for no other reason that Havelock in the South Island and Havelock North in the North Island were both named after him. Sir Henry was born in 1795 and was a British general who is particularly associated with India and his capture of Cawnpore during the Indian Rebellion of 1857. During the siege of Lucknow, also in 1857, Sir Henry contracted dysentery and died on 24 November 1857, a few days after the siege was lifted. He had lived long enough to receive news that he was to be created a Baronet for the first 3 battles of the campaign, but he never knew of the major- generalship which was conferred shortly afterwards. Continuing down Farnham Street and just before we head left into Vogeltown, the road that leads off to the right is PRISCILLA CRESCENT which was named after Priscilla Wilton (nee Curtis), who married Elijah Wilton on 3 July 1852 in Wellington. Elijah was a butcher with a shop in Cuba Street, and also ran sheep (probably not surprisingly for a butcher) on a property in Mornington. Priscilla and Elijah had 15 children, with Priscilla’s death recorded on 25 April 1902. She was aged 76. Priscilla Crescent heads up into Kingston and after merging into Quebec Street leads directly back to The Ridgeway. A left field memory from many years later is visiting a cricketing teammate from Midland St Pats, Paul Tindill and his wife Lorna who lived in Priscilla Crescent. Paul was the son of Eric Tindill, a double international (rugby and cricket), and who also refereed rugby internationals and umpired cricket internationals. Eric was a lovely gentleman whose company I enjoyed many times at Midland St Pats. VOGELTOWN Finally we’ve arrived at Vogeltown, a suburb that is reasonably synonymous with Brooklyn and Mornington, after all, it is very easily accessible from both those suburbs, with several interconnecting streets. My adventures / misadventures around the streets of Vogeltown are actually few and far between, I mostly wandered through Vogeltown streets simply to get to other places, such as MacAlister Park (for cricket or rugby matches) or as the most direct route to Athletic Park. So what I’ll try to do is link the dozen or so Vogeltown Streets in some sort of logical sequence, and in a couple of instances, how they lead back to Brooklyn. Should there be a story associated with any Vogeltown streets, they will be documented - but don’t hold your breath, there’s not likely to be very many. Coming in from Farnham Street and almost opposite Priscilla Crescent, we head first into BALFOUR STREET. Named after Arthur James Balfour, 1st Earl of Balfour, (25 July 1848 - 19 March 1930), also known as Lord Balfour, a British Conservative statesman who served as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 1902 to 1905. As foreign secretary in the Lloyd George ministry, he issued the Balfour Declaration of 1917 on behalf of the cabinet, which supported a "home for the Jewish people" in Palestine. In July 1902, he succeeded his uncle (Lord Salisbury) as prime minister. He suffered public anger at the later stages of the Boer War (counter-insurgency warfare characterised as "methods of barbarism") and the importation of Chinese
58 labour to South Africa ("Chinese slavery"). He resigned as prime minister in December 1905 and the following month the Conservatives suffered a landslide defeat at the 1906 election, in which he lost his own seat. He soon re-entered Parliament and continued to serve as Leader of the Opposition throughout the crisis over Lloyd George's 1909 budget, the narrow loss of two further General Elections in 1910, and the passage of the Parliament Act 1911. He resigned as party leader in 1911. No memories from Balfour Street which winds around for a kilometre or so until it becomes MCCOLL STREET which keeps alive the memory of Captain Alexander Bastin McColl who was killed on 2 July 1916, shortly after carrying out a successful raid against the enemy during the trench warfare that went on prior to the Somme attack. He had returned to the trenches in safety at the conclusion of the raid but with unselfish courage went back to help the stretcher bearers in No Man's Land. Colonel Weston, who gives details of McColl's end in his book, "Three Years with the New Zealanders," concludes with words that will be endorsed by all who knew him - "Any of us that knew McColl will carry to the end the memory of a very gallant gentleman." At the end of McColl Street (from which there aren’t any memories) we have 3 choices: Straight ahead, left or right. We’ll turn left to start with and head into KRULL STREET Named after Frederick Krull (1837-1914) who arrived in New Zealand in January 1859 on board the Swedish ship `Equator'. He established himself as a well-known merchant in Wellington, and was a member of the City Council (1871-74) and Harbour Board. In 1886 he moved with his family to Wanganui where he spent the remainder of his life. Krull was notable as the first German Consul in New Zealand. Krull Street climbs towards Mana Street, with a couple of side roads going off to the left and right. We’ll come back to both of these after following Krull Street up to Mana Street then into Fortunatus Street which leads into Mills Road. MANA STREET. Is at the top of Krull Street and heads left and right, both directions ending in a dead-end. About 100 metres after right-turning at the top of Krull Street, an extremely acute right turn takes you into Fortunatus Street and from there into Mills Road, then a choice of left to The Ridgeway, right to Brooklyn. Mana Street was originally to be named George Crawford Street after an independent merchant in Wellington, who served on the Wellington Provincial Council, was President of the Caledonian Society, a Justice of the Peace, and a Trustee of the Basin Reserve. Other than being noted as a Maori place name, the reason for changing the name to Mana Street is unknown. Back to the side roads off Krull Street. The first is HOGGARD STREET, a dead-end street that veers off to the left. It recognises the contribution of John Farr Hoggard (1815-1871) to city culture and development that harks back to very early days. As early as 1844 he reached Wellington from Auckland under appointment, nominally as a collector of customs, but virtually, and unofficially as postmaster. In 1853 he finally received the official appointment of postmaster and held this position until his death. The second side road is WHAUI STREET. Originally to be named Buckley Street, possibly after Patrick Alphonsus Buckley, a prominent member of the legal profession in Wellington. The reason for the name change of Buckley Street in Vogeltown would have been because Buckley Road in Island Bay was named after him. There is nothing definitive as to why Whaui relaced Buckley as this street’s name, so taking the English translation of the Maori word “Whaui” and substituting it, we would have Important Street. And Whaui Street does have some importance to the area i.e. by connecting with Pearce Street and providing a direct route from Connaught Terrace to Mills Road via Krull Street, Mana Street and Fortunatus Street, rather than the more circuitous route to Mills Road via Moffitt Street, McColl Street, Krull Street , Mana Street and Fortunatus Street. Possibly this is drawing a long bow, but in the absence of any other naming source, we’ll settle for the importance of Whaui Street. PEARCE STREET. As suggested above, Pearce Street merges into Whaui Street effectively providing residents with a rather useful shortcut between Connaught Terrace and Mills Road. Named after Edward Pearce (22 February 1833 - 13 October 1922), a leading merchant who based himself in Wellington, New Zealand from 1861 to 1899. He was licensed as a customs agent in January 1863. In 1866 he formed a group of businessmen to set up a gas company in Wellington. Also in Wellington he formed one of the port's principal shipping agencies and in addition conducted a large import and export
59 trade. In his military life Lieutenant-Colonel Pearce commanded the New Zealand Regiment of Artillery which had twelve batteries throughout the country. In politics he was a member of the Provincial Executive during Dr Featherston's administration. He stood unsuccessfully in the 1865 by- election for Wairarapa, then represented the City of Wellington electorate from 1871 to 1877, when he resigned. He was the Government appointed member of the Wellington Harbour Board for 16 years from its first constitution and was appointed chairman for 5 years. At the point where Connaught Terrace meets Pearce Street, but continuing straight ahead and downhill instead of turning left or right, we’ve come to MOFFITT STREET which commemorates Dr. Charles Henry Moffitt who was born in Northumberland, England on 15 December 1807. He married Harriet Lindsay on 11 February 1834 in Durham, England, and later immigrated to New Zealand. What happened to Harriet is unknown, and on 29 June 1858 Charles married Louisa Felica Liardet who herself had been widowed in 1853. Living in both Wellington and the Wairarapa, they had one son, John (whose 2nd name was Lindsay - as in Moffitt’s first wife’s maiden name. Charles Moffitt died on 1 October 1865 at his home in Willis Street, Wellington with the cause of death recorded as epilepsy. At the bottom of Moffitt Street we can turn right into Krull Street, but we’ve already been there. So we turn left instead and find ourselves in SHORT STREET. There’s a bit of confusion around the naming of Short Street. One version is that it’s named after one of Wellington’s auctioneers, a Mr Short whose business premises stood on the site of the (now long-gone) Tudor Picture Theatre in Willis Street. His favourite form of advertising was to placard all available spots with the notice "Send it to Shorts!" which became a well- known city gag. On the other hand, I was brought up in the belief that it was named after one of the Short’s from Brooklyn, possibly James Henry Short who was my great grandfather. Without any other definitive information, I prefer my family’s version! But there’s one other possibility - Short Street is exactly that, a very short street. Perhaps it was named purely on its length - or lack of! The shop in the following photo was the local Vogeltown dairy on Short Street, and very well-remembered as I grew up. Liardet Street leads off Short Street, and we’ll come back to Liardet Street as our final exit out of Vogeltown. Short Street leads into DRANSFIELD STREET. Named after Joseph Dransfield who was born in Huddersfield, Yorkshire. He migrated to Australia in 1852 on the Falcon before coming to Wellington in 1857. Married with several sons and daughters, Dransfield became mayor in 1870 after Wellington was declared a city. He was mayor again in 1878 but resigned on 9 May 1879. He had previously been chairman of the town board from 1865 to 1870, and represented Wellington City in the Wellington Provincial Council from 1863 to 1867. Dransfield died at Wellington on 21 September 1906. A dead-end street that runs off to the right of Dransfield Street is FINNIMORE TERRACE, named after Major William Finnimore (b. 1838), a former resident of Vogeltown, who for a time was a city auctioneer in the 1870’s. A Lieutenant in the Wanganui Militia in 1864, Major Finnimore raised a volunteer calvary corps in Wanganui in 1868 to fight against the Hauhau at Manutahi and Taumahaa. Later he was the target of a “dastardly” attack by a member of the press, the article in question appearing in the Wellington “Advertiser” on 29 June 1870. No further details have been discovered. In April 1871 Major Finnimore, by then living in Wellington sought the position of Superintendency of the Wellington Province, but was unsuccessful. A newspaper report on the election at the time described Major Finnimore as “trying to obtain the support of the Reform League, but was unsuccessful, that body being too wise to commit itself to the cause of a wild, headstrong, inexperienced, talkative youth”. Possibly explains why he ended up as an auctioneer! He
60 married Anne (Annie) Davidson at St Peter’s Church 1n 1862, they divorced in 1892. Now we head back to LIARDET STREET, which will take us back to Farnham Street. Captain Francis Liardet was a distinguished fighting officer who entered the Royal Navy aged 12 in 1809, made Commander in 1838 and Post Rank in 1840. He was the NZ Land Company agent in New Plymouth, coming out in 1841 on the Whitby (a survey ship) where he landed at Wellington, before heading on to New Pymouth on the Regina. He was only here for 2 months before a serious injury saw him return to the UK. He met his future wife, the widow Mrs Caroline Gregory (nee Filmer) on board ship. They had 2 children, Francis Fanny and Emily Liardet. He became one of the Captains of Greenwich Naval Hospital in 1856, and wrote several books on seamanship. He died aged 65. His bust stands in the Hall at Greenwich Hospital, next to that of Lord Nelson. Liardet Street eventually ends up passing the top grounds of MacAlister Park, a very familiar bit of territory for me as I not only walked across MacAlister Park on numerous occasions on my way to Athletic Park, but I also played a few rugby games for Oriental-Rongotai on the top ground, plus many, many cricket matches for Midland St Pats on the lower level, mostly remembered for the cold, stinking Wellington southerlies that swept through, particularly when my sadistic skippers decided that I needed to bowl for lengthy spells into the gale - happened on a few occasions. Halfway along Liardet Street and heading to the left is TRAVERS STREET. Named after William Thomas Locke Travers who was born near Newcastle West, County Limerick, Ireland in January 1819. His father chose to retire to France, and Travers was consequently brought up there. He was educated in Saint-Malo, a town in Brittany. In 1835, he joined the British military, and was part of the British Auxiliary Legion that fought in Spain's First Carlist War. After his military service ended, Travers became a lawyer. In 1849, he and his family moved to Nelson, New Zealand, where he continued to practice law. Later, he also lived in Christchurch and Wellington. Travers represented Wellington in parliament from 1877 to 1881, but was not elected when he stood again in 1893. In Wellington he was City Solicitor, and an advocate for the West Coast Railway in 1878. He subsequently became company solicitor to the Wellington and Manawatu Railway Company which built the line north from Wellington to the Manawatu. On April 26th, 1903, he was killed at the Hutt Railway Station by falling between the train and the platform. So I’ve come to the end of my wanderings through the streets of Brooklyn, Mornington and Vogeltown, and recalled some (definitely not all) of the adventures / misadventures that I experienced on the way. Looking back, they were really good times, but now I was required to move well away from my Brooklyn-based comfort zone and start my teenage years at a new school. THE COUTTS STREET ACADEMY February 1961, and my first 11 ½ years of growing up in Brooklyn are now behind me. I’m kitted out in my first school uniform and I’m on my way to the intermediate department of Rongotai College over in the eastern suburbs, with no idea at all of what’s in front of me. The next few pages essentially cover my teenage years at Rongotai College, definitely formative years as I look back now, and hopefully they reflect a most enjoyable and rewarding period of my early life. Wouldn’t trade those days for anything! By the way, Lumen Accipe Et Imperti - Receive the light and pass it on! The Coutts Street Academy, more commonly known as Rongotai College, is where I spent nearly 7 ½ years of my life (early 1961 to mid-May 1968), gaining a secondary education and beginning the journey of finding myself. Did I actually achieve that during these years? Possibly, maybe, but my days there didn’t do me any harm at all. I don’t really know why mum and dad sent me to Rongotai College, the obvious choice from where we lived in Brooklyn would have been Wellington College. My brother reckons that mum and dad were considering sending him to Rongotai, but for some reason decided against it - Neville ended up going to Wellington College. My theory is that mum and dad figured out that by sending me to Rongotai, they would have a couple of hours extra peace each day because of the additional travel that I would have to undertake. Can’t imagine why they would have thought that!
61 So in early 1961 I headed down to the bus stop at the top of Brooklyn Hill and met up with my mate Jason Ell. Two other guys were waiting there, Wayne Taylor and Roger Laycock, all four of us were being banished to the eastern suburbs for the start of our further education at Rongotai College (Form 1). When the bus arrived it got even better, another mate, Kevin Robinson had got on at the previous stop which made 5 terribly nervous guys from little old Brooklyn heading out on our first day to a new school. It took a couple of bus rides to get to Rongotai, firstly the No. 7 from Brooklyn into the city, then either a Number 2 (to Miramar) or a Number 3 (to Seatoun). When we were on the Number 3 bus, we were often joined by day-boys heading to Scots College, or Snots Porridge as we preferred to call it. Heaven only knows what they called us. Our final stop was across the road from Salek Street, which we walked up until we reached the corner of Coutts Street, turned left, and just past the Tuck Shop we crossed Coutts Street and headed down the college driveway. This became the pattern of travel to college for the next 7 ½ years. A strange memory from that first day - being terrorised by a number of “experienced” 2nd formers attempting to flick the buttons off our flies (no zips in those days) as we wandered up the drive. We probably reciprocated that “tradition” when we became 2nd formers in 1962. The major event during our first day at the Academy was being put into our Form classes, with me ending up in Form 1- 12 with 36 other newbies. Fortunately there were several familiar faces as Jason, Wayne and Kevin were in the same class, but Roger Laycock had been placed elsewhere. In the rather blurred photo below, I’m in the front row (6 from the right), Wayne and Jason are in the middle row (4 and 7 from the right respectively), and Kevin is in the back row (5 from the right). The guy sitting next to me (7 from the right) is Paul Evans, and he and I would become very good friends at college, and it’s a friendship that continues over 60 years later. We played 1st XI cricket and 2nd XV rugby together, and were sometimes confused as brothers, maybe because of our sporting interests and playing in the same teams, and maybe because we were both left-arm quick bowlers. We drifted apart after college as often you do, but such was our friendship that it was easily rekindled many years later, so much so that it’s definitely appropriate to include the following photo of the two of us taken over in Western Australia some 61 years after first meeting each other at the Academy.
62 So back to 1961, and about now I have to admit to an on- going reliance on the Academy’s annual magazine - Te Rama, for some of the information that follows - I’ve retained all copies of Te Rama relevant to my time at the Academy, great publications. This confession certainly reveals that while some memories of my early days at the Coutts Street Academy remain intact, others have well disappeared into the mists of time. So here we go, and a thank you to Te Rama. It was great to have several Brooklyn mates around me as we started our academic life at the Academy, but with 36 other guys, mostly strangers to each other, there was always going to be one or two of our colleagues that we didn’t get on with, or whose mere physical presence, intentional or not, seemed to make our lives more uncomfortable than was absolutely necessary. Back in 1961 and in Form 1-12, one of those guys was Del Adams (4th from the left, middle row) in the class photo above. As a 12-year-old forced to venture well out of his comfort zone (from Brooklyn School to a college in the eastern suburbs) I have to say it was a tad unnerving to find that on day one, my first class at Rongotai College included a guy who, to a skinny little Baptist fella (me) resembled a grizzly bear with a festering boil (Del Adams) and who tended to show minimal to zero interest in things scholastic - actually nor did I at the time, probably more concerned about the grizzly bear with an un-lanced boil who scared the living daylights out of me! For that skinny little Baptist fella whose life experiences at that time were limited to the local Boys Brigade, Del appeared as an enormous beast and I have to be excused for thinking that his preferred calling in life should have been as a wrestler with the primary intention of hurting people - well, I was to find out that’s exactly what his calling was. I also recall that he hung around with a guy called John Smith (sitting next me in the class photo above) and the two of them didn’t do much for my peace of mind during my first couple of years at the Academy. I don’t recall that Del or John lasted that long at the Academy, actually they were gone at the end of Form 2, maybe the end of Form 3 for John, and the title of Leonard Cohen’s immortal song “Hallelujah” probably sums up my feelings about that. It was several years later before I saw Del again and I blame my brother, Neville who as I’ve mentioned before was the bookings clerk for the Wellington City Council. Neville used to be given free tickets to events, and on this particular occasion he threw me tickets to a professional wrestling event at the Wellington Town Hall. Along I went, found my seat 2 rows from the front of the squared ring, and to my abject horror, within 20 minutes I found myself staring up at Del Adams strutting his stuff and occasionally glaring in my direction! He probably wasn’t, but geez I felt like he was! That’s the last time I saw my old classmate, Del. However I took the opportunity of Googling him and found that he achieved more than a reasonable amount of success in his preferred profession - and isn’t that what we all aspire to. His achievements include wrestling in front of 22,000 people at New York’s Madison Square Garden. Del’s greatest wrestling moment came in New York in 1978 when he beat New Yorker Johnny Rodz. A local newspaper raved at Mr Adams’ potential, adding that his appearance on the same card as then-world champion, Bob Backland, famed Italian grappler Bruno Sammartino, and Superstar Billy Graham could become a regular thing. “If Del Adams continues to improve and work his way up to the potential he has shown so far he may someday return to the garden to appear in the main event”. Well done Del. In January 2004, Del (on the right in the photo below) attended a reunion in Petone of New Zealand’s ex- professional wrestlers. He is in the company of Lloyd O’Halloran and Johnny Garcia - neither of whom to my knowledge are old boys of the Coutts Street Academy! Del passed away on 1 January 2008 in Brisbane. Back to 1961 at the Academy, and on the sporting front I have depended on Te Rama to report that in Athletics I came 3rd in the 75-yard sprint (for my age group), and that I was a member of the Junior B rugby team - no memory of either of these two achievements. So with the first year at the Academy successfully negotiated and a couple of minor sporting moments under my belt, I headed confidently into 1962, a new class and hopefully some more sporting successes. We looked like this:
63 Jason, Wayne and Kevin are still in my class, as is Paul Evans. That’s me, 4th from the left, front row. Our form master is the well-remembered “Slops” Hyslop. Personally, I got into the Second 2 rugby team, and showed some skill at tennis (about the time I was cleaning up at the Brooklyn Baptist Tennis Club), playing against Hutt Intermediate (team winning 15-3), and an away trip to Wairarapa College (team winning 17-1). No sign of any academic stuff just yet, probably not surprising. Del Adams is still there - 5 from the left, middle row - he’s only moved one spot from the 1961 photo! Mind you, I haven’t moved far either. Okay, so by the end of 1962 mum and dad haven’t removed me from the Coutts Street Academy and sent me to Wellington College, or worse, Wellington High School, so back I go for my 3rd form year. 1963, and I’m now in the Upper School, and while happy that Del Adams has moved on, personally I contributed zip on the sporting fields. No rugby, no cricket, no athletics contributions, a very slack year, particularly when I can’t even point at a class prize. A year to forget, looking forward to 1964, and with some urgency! At the very least we can look at the 1963 class photo below, with me 4th from the left, top row. There’s a big dude in the front row, 3rd from the right, Jeff Hollings, who a couple or 3 years later would be gracing the 1st XI cricket team (vice-captain) and the 1st XV rugby team (captain). Some years after leaving the Academy, Jeff played international rugby for the United States, and is almost certainly the only Rongotai College Old Boy to play international rugby against the All Blacks. Our form master was the well-renowned Mathematics teacher, Denis McHalick who clearly didn’t want to get in the class photo. He was a good teacher, quite strict, and definitely not adverse to belting the back of your hand with a wooden ruler if your work wasn’t up to scratch. How do I know - it’s called personal experience! Denis also had a Brooklyn connection as I’m pretty sure he lived in Washington Avenue. 1964 finds me in Form L4A which was actually the top 4th form class. Jason Ell and Paul Evan are still with me, and our form master was Peter Savage, who if I remember correctly was a senior winger for the Oriental Rongotai rugby team at that time. That’s me, 3rd from the right, front row. For the 2nd year running there are no highlights, no sporting teams, no class prizes, all in all another forgettable year. I do however remember joining the Academy’s chess club about this time, and chess continues to be a fascination for me, I love the strategies and the need to plan your own moves several moves in advance while simultaneously anticipating how your opponent is attempting to outmanoeuvre you. So 1965 rolls around and it’s a pretty important time as School Certificate exams would be held at the end of the year. Important because a successful outcome meant progressing into the 6th form, while failure required a dreaded repeat of the 5th form year. My five subjects were Maths, English, French, Geography, and History, being the subjects that would get me over the required threshold i.e. a minimum of 30 in each subject with the required target being 200 or more in your best 4 subjects. My form master would be Ian Young, and I remember him as an excellent English teacher, which was definitely my preferred subject. In the next photo, I’m 3rd from the right in the front row, with classmates still including Jason and Paul.
64 And I’m now playing cricket for the first time, ending up in the 3A team and winning all of our games. In one of the games I grabbed my first ever 6-wicket bag, namely 6-11. November, and School Certificate examinations take place at the College. I don’t remember much about them except for Maths, and a fundamental error of judgement that I made. All School Cert exams were 3 hours long, with a requirement that you couldn’t leave during the 1st half-hour. Well, just after the 30-minute mark in the Maths exam, I reckoned that I had answered everything that I could, and that there was no point in staying any longer - I knew that my other 4 subjects were strong enough to get me through. So up I went and handed in my paper, and headed off home. The other exams came and went, and I remember staying for the full duration for all of them. School Cert results duly came out around the middle of January 1966, and disaster had arrived in the mail. My 4 best subjects had totalled 187, and there was certainly no hope that a re-count would get me the required 13 marks. By the way, my Maths result was 20, probably not a bad outcome for 30 minutes work! And of course the phone started ringing as guys called around to see how everyone got on. For a period of time I believed that I was the only member of L5B who had failed School Cert, but I would discover that at least 4 or 5 of us would be repeating our 5th form year. Not a happy period of time, I actually asked mum and dad to let me leave school and find a job somewhere, preferably at the Lamphouse where I had a holiday job, fortunately they knew much better and told me I was returning at the start of the next term. So 1966 and the start of the dreaded repeat of the 5th form year. Both Jason and Paul had passed School Cert, so for the first time I didn’t have their company. Looking at the photo below (I’m 3rd from the left in the front row), my G5A “repeat” mates were Keir Ditchburn and Nigel Goodwin, both of them pretty good sportsmen, Keir would become a goal- kicking halfback for the 1st XV, and Nigel an opening bowler for the 1966 1st XI cricket team. There were several other good sporting colleagues who had caught up to us - Geoff Fellows (in the bow) would be a member of the 1967 coxed 4 rowing crew who won the Springbok Shield at the national rowing championships on Lake Karapiro, Alan Klahn was a well-performed cross-country runner, Rob Bryant would captain the 1st XI soccer team in 1968, and Denis Leong was a most accomplished table tennis player, winning the senior singles title at the Inter-Secondary Schools championships in 1968. So while it was great to be surrounded by so much sporting talent, it’s fair to say that the year was going to depend on how successfully I recovered from the shock of School Cert failure. And I reckon I did ok. Given my 1965 performance, nobody would be surprised that I dropped Mathematics off my list of 5 School Cert subjects, being replaced by General Science, but talk about out of the frying pan and into the fire, my half year report (below) revealed that my exam result for General Science placed me 24th out of 26 pupils. Looks like I would be reliant on English, French, Geography and History to avoid a 2nd repeat of the 5th form year. At least the half year results for those 4 subjects (below) were looking pretty good. And a bonus, I was also elected as deputy form captain.
65 And so it turned out to be. School Cert exams came and went, school holidays started, and the Christmas and New Year period were somewhat suspenseful as I waited for the mail to arrive and advise me of my fate. Mid-January 1967 and much better news, I had squeezed past the 200 threshold and was on my way into the Lower 6th form, without, I may add, the assistance of General Science, my 4 other preferred subjects had done the deed for me. No pleading with my parents this time to leave college. 1966 also provided a couple of other academic highlights. At the end of year prize giving at the Wellington Town Hall, I was presented with a G5A class prize for an excellent year’s work in English, French and Geography, the first and only time I picked up such an award. But there was more. Every year Rongotai ran an essay competition for 5th form students (yes, even those who were repeating the 5th form year for the second or more times). The winner of this essay competition would be awarded the Ralph Edwards Memorial Prize for 5th Form Literature. For clarification, Ralph Edwards was a founding teacher at the college, and his sudden death at the early age of 41 in March 1935 was a major shock to the college. So in 1966 I entered the essay competition, and to my complete amazement I was declared the winner of the competition. At the 1966 prize giving, I was formally awarded the Ralph Edwards Memorial Prize, an Oxford copy of the Complete Works of William Shakespeare. While I have to confess that the subject and content of my essay are both now a complete mystery, winning this prize and the publication that was presented to me (it still has pride of place in my bookcase) remains one of my most treasured memories from Rongotai College. Not only that, winning the Ralph Edwards Memorial Prize meant that my name is permanently preserved on an Honours Board in the halls of the college. It’s a bit hard to read in the preceding photo, but if you look closely the 1966 winner can be identified as yours truly. So a pretty good academic year following the disaster of 1965, and there were successes on the sporting fields as well. I’m back playing rugby in the 2B team but we weren’t that crash hot, playing 10 games, winning 1, losing 8, and drawing 1. Points for were 29, against 138. Ok, not so good, but the team included a couple of guys who would go on to enjoy much success post-college. The first was Brett Ambler who would become the Mayor of Kapiti, and possibly the only Rongotai College Old Boy to have a street named after him i.e. Brett Ambler Way in Paraparaumu. The second was Ian Finlayson, an exceptional high jumper who enjoyed major successes during intercollegiate McEvedy Shield competitions, and who went on to become the New Zealand high jump champion in 1971. Better news for me on the cricketing front. I started off in the 3rd XI and took a number of wickets, including one bag of 6 wickets, and two bags of 5. I must have impressed somebody, because in the 3rd term I was promoted to the 2nd XI, which was captained by my mate Paul Evans and included Jason Ell. I continued to take wickets, and even received the following special mention in Te Rama: The second grade A and B teams merged into the 3rd XI in the 3rd term and did very well while the up and coming left-arm paceman, Graeme Cowan was with them. When promoted to the 2nd XI he bagged 5-31. Mr Wilson was sorry to lose him but agreed that the move was well deserved. So 1966 ended on a pretty good note for me. But before I move on to 1967, there was one other memorable sporting achievement that the college would have taken great pride in, winning the McEvedy Shield (an annual athletics competition) for the first time.
66 The photo above shows Rongotai’s headmaster, Noel Mackay presenting the McEvedy Shield to Academy’s team captain, John Ritchie. Slightly obscured behind them is a well-respected teacher at the Academy, Jim Ting. Held at Athletic Park, the 1966 (and 44th) McEvedy Shield was competed for by Wellington’s 6 major boys’ colleges, with the result in doubt until the final event of the day, the relays. Te Rama provided the following description of the last relay, with my mate Jason earning hero status: Rongotai’s great moment came at the end of the Senior Relay when a brilliant finishing burst by Jason Ell secured the Shield for Rongotai after what had been the most keenly fought McEvedy Shield competition for many years. Much credit for the success of the 1966 athletics team went to a legendary teacher, Sid (Sandshoe) Turnbull, one of the PE staff, and more about Sid shortly. Feeling much happier than at the start of the previous year, my first real recollection from 1967 is impatiently waiting for the posting, on the ground floor noticeboard of cricket teams for the year. And there it was - my name included in the 1st XI. I was one of 3 opening bowlers named, the other two being Grant Nisbett (of future rugby commentary fame), and Chris Gaskin. Strangely my mate Paul Evans wasn’t named as an opening bowler, but he did come into the team in the 3rd term, effectively replacing Chris Gaskin. I’m sitting at the left of the front row, with the team captained by Grant Bracefield (head prefect and vice-captain of the 1st XV), with Jeff Hollings as vice-captain (captain of the 1st XV and deputy head prefect). 3 of the team (Don Fletcher, Laurie Steel and Mike Garvie) were with me in Form L61, and that class is below, with me 3rd from the left in the second row. I’m deputy form captain again as well as a Committee Member for Blue House. My hair has grown, and given Mackay’s length-of-hair rule (more about this later), probably led to his statement in my leaving testimonial that I was passively resistant to rules or conventions which I did not accept. But back to the 1st XI cricket season, which provided me with real highlights. We had a couple of away trips to Wanganui College and Wairarapa College, both games ending in draws with the first day of the Wairarapa match totally rained out. I recall being billeted in Masterton, and going to the movies with a girl that I met at the college. I still remember the movie being The Collector starring Terence Stamp and Samantha Eggar, and would you believe it, my billet’s mother actually lent me her car for the evening! We enjoyed an ok season, with our end-of-year record showing that we played 10 matches, winning 5, losing 4 and drawing 1. Te Rama reckoned that Graeme Cowan improved tremendously in the 3rd term and really hit the spot with his bowling. I guess I must have, because I was not only nominated for the Wellington Brabin Shield team, I was also selected in the Wellington Secondary School team that played against the touring Australian Secondary Schools team. I had a bit of company as I recall that Laurie Steel and Don Fletcher were also selected. Our captain was pretty well known - Jeremy Coney who went on to play 52 test matches and captain New Zealand in 15 of those. Rugby-wise, I was in the 2nd XV and playing 1st 5/8 alongside Paul Evans who was also captain. We didn’t have the most successful season as we played 15 games with 4 wins, 8 losses and 3 draws. But mid-year we travelled down to Shirley Boys High School, with some mischief from this trip probably needing to be recorded as follows:
67 7 teams travelled to Christchurch for the annual fixtures, with a squash team being involved for the first time. Flights must have been out of the question, so off we trundled to catch the over-night ferry to Christchurch. The 7 teams were: • 1st and 2nd XV rugby teams, • 1st XI soccer team, • senior A basketball, • cross country team, • 1st XI hockey team, and • a squash team. So travelling to Shirley in 1967 were approximately 80 fine sporting representatives of the Coutts Street Academy. Coaches certainly included Jack McManus, and probably the likes of Jim Ting, Ken Simpson, Sid Turnbull and others. The mischief had its origins in one of the 2nd XV rugby guys bringing a suitcase of grog, but unfortunately a bottle broke on the station platform. Jack McManus (Sports Master) spotted it and not surprisingly figured out what was in the case. He commanded that the culprit go to his cabin and not come out at all during the voyage. But out of sight and out of mind, there was more alcohol consumption, someone broke the tap or the sink, there’s water everywhere and next thing the purser and others are in the cabin. Somewhat reluctantly to admit, I do have memories of a broken tap / sink in the cabin, so it could be surmised that I was one of the guys in the cabin. Just maybe mind you, no- one else has placed me with certainty in that cabin. While I struggle to remember other details, I do recall that these events occurred on the way home. Whatever, the entire trip remains a conveniently blurred memory amongst many others of my time at the Coutts Street Academy, and even better that Mackay was blissfully unaware of it all and his array of canes remained polished and unbloodied on our return! By the way, of the 7 teams that travelled to Christchurch, only the cross-country team was successful. 1967 was again an important academic year, as University Entrance examinations would be held in November. Now there was one other way to gain University Entrance and that was by accreditation i.e. if accredited, you didn’t need to sit the exams. Definitely preferable for me considering my first attempt at School Certificate back in 1965. So it was reasonably important to select the subjects that would give you the best shot of being accredited. General Science was an easy sacrifice, I hadn’t done very well in 1966, and instead I chose Biology alongside my go-to subjects of English, French, History and Geography. With 15 students in the Biology class, a look at my results for both halves of the year didn’t bode well for accreditation - 14th equal in classwork and 15th in the exam (first half-year), and not much improvement in the second half-year, 13th in classwork and 14th in the exam. I was definitely hoping that my other 4 subjects stacked up as you needed a minimum of 4 subjects to be accredited University Entrance. As it turned out, Doc Scoones didn’t accredit me in French, but in a Ripley’s Believe it or Not moment, I was accredited in Biology as well as my other 3 subjects. How I gained Biology remains a total and absolute mystery to this day, and I can only assume that my Biology teacher, Mr Coles must have been a cricket lover and my 1st XI participation was the clinching factor. I guess I’ll never know. 1967 finished with me being one of the Assistant Editors of Te Rama, under the supervisory guidance of Mr Cecil (Charlie) Chapman. 1968 arrives, and I was determined to head back to college and enjoy a full year in the 1st XI. Academically there wasn’t a great deal to achieve (in my view), but that didn’t matter as long as I retained my spot in the 1st XI. But first there was the little matter of attending the Annual Tatum Park Leadership Camp, the primary purpose of which was the selection of prefects for the ensuing year.
68 The 1968 Tatum Park intake is captured in the previous photo, plus Mackay (front row, middle), Jack McManus (3 along from Mackay’s right), and Sid Turnbull (2 from Mackay’s left). There’s 6 of my 1st XI cricket mates (Paul Cameron, Don Fletcher, Laurie Steel, Mike Garvie, Grant Nisbett and Ian Robertson, and I’m in the back row, on the left of Pete Blades (the guy in shades). I remember that we were split into groups, and that our time at Tatum Park was reasonably competitive. I guess if it was a prefect selection exercise, then Mackay, McManus and Turnbull were looking for signs of individual leadership potential. I thought I’d done ok in this regard, but Mackay’s view that I was passively resistant to rules or conventions which I did not accept probably counted against me as I wasn’t to become a prefect once we returned to college at the start of 1968. Mackay’s final sentence in my leaving testimonial seems to bear this out. So into my last year of college and I’m finally in the upper sixth form and placed into form U6-H. Very pleased to have a couple of 1st XI teammates, Don Fletcher and Laurie Steel in the same class. “Fudd” Jessep was our form master, not quite sure how he acquired ”Fudd” as a nickname, I can only assume a physical resemblance to Elmer Fudd! That’s me, 3rd from the left, front row in the photo above, and it’s interesting to look at the photo now and realise that my good mate from The Ridgeway, Terry Mumme was in the same class, that’s him sitting next to me. I had totally forgotten this, and looking back it appears that Terry left college before the end of the year as his name doesn’t appear in the Te Rama class lists at the end of 1968. Straight into cricket and the start of a brilliant season, well, half a season for me as it was to turn out. Our two annual fixtures against Wanganui College and Wairarapa College were at home and both were won in convincing style, Wanganui beaten by 10 wickets, and Wairarapa by an innings and 33 runs. I have special memories of playing both of these games at the college, the weather for all 4 days was great and it seemed that all of the school came out at lunchtime to cheer every run scored (by us) and every ball that we bowled that either beat the bat or took a wicket. I can’t speak for the rest of the team, but that support from our school mates remains one of my best cricketing memories. The Wairarapa game was a personal highlight. Three wickets in both innings, with Te Rama specifically noting the 1st innings where Cowan and Nisbett bowled intelligently with plenty of fire each capturing three wickets. My 6-wicket haul was made up entirely of top order batsmen. We were a very good team in 1968 and ending the year unbeaten. We even knocked over the Kilbirnie Club’s senior team which at that time contained a number of current international and first-class cricketers. Good memories for me from this game, another 3 wickets while Laurie Steel took 6. Laurie was a really good off-spinner and in tandem with Don Fletcher (sometimes supported by Ian Robertson) just about always cleaned the opposition innings up - after Grant Nisbett and I had created early mayhem in the top order. A really good batting line-up as well, Don opened with Grant, followed by the likes of Grant Griffith (100 not out against the old foe, Wellington College), Paul Cameron, Laurie Steel, Mike Garvie and Peter King. New guys who came into the team in 1968 and contributed well were Murray Needham, Ian Ongley, Neil Morris (our wicketkeeper), and Brian Cederwall. It’s worth mentioning that several of the 1968 team would achieve excellent sporting successes after their college days, Brian Cederwall being an All Black trialist and playing over 100 games for the Wellington representative rugby team and over 50 matches for the Wellington representative cricket team. Paul Cameron would play international football for New Zealand, and Grant Griffith would play over 50 games for the Wellington representative rugby team. Other guys including myself had lengthy senior cricketing careers for various clubs in Wellington and beyond. The 1968 Te Rama stated that The College 1st XI for 1968 was probably the strongest the College has had. With a mixture of youth and experience, a sound and powerful team was moulded together. Eight of last year’s team returned to school and the new players showed dash on occasion. These statements were the catalyst for a wonderfully successful 50-year reunion in 2018, attended by all of the guys except for Neil Morris who had sadly passed away some years earlier. We were delighted that our coach, Sid Turnbull was also able to attend the reunion.
69 The next two photos show the 1968 team (unfortunately excluding myself as I had reluctantly departed college during the 2nd term before the team photo was taken), and the team 50 years later on the college driveway. The bearded guy wearing a jacket in the middle of the reunion photo is Grant Elliott, the ex-Black Cap cricketer who was coincidently visiting the college at the same time as us. Our coach, Sid Turnbull is immediately to Grant Elliott’s left. On Wednesday 10 April 1968 - with Noel Mackay yet to expose my cunning plan to remain at college purely for cricketing reasons, central New Zealand was hit by cyclonic weather, which is well remembered as the Wahine storm. During the morning, the Wellington to Lyttelton ferry, t.e.v. Wahine foundered on Wellington Harbour with the eventual loss of 51 lives. Passengers and crew spilled from lifeboats and life rafts were carried by strong currents to the eastern shore of Wellington Harbour south of Eastbourne. Sea conditions along that coast were severe and survivors of the sinking were swept into heavy surf and dashed on ragged rocks. Most of the loss of life that day happened on that shore. The force of weather on Wellington Harbour prevented yachts and motor launches from leaving the Clyde Quay Boat Harbour in time to rescue many people before they entered the surf zone. My own recollections of that day included the particularly foul weather as I made my way, probably foolishly as the winds were well over 100mph, from Brooklyn to the College via two bus journeys, the damage that was occurring at the College, particularly the film room which literally disintegrated (next photo), the return trip to Brooklyn, and my father’s stories of helping to clear fallen trees that had crashed onto buses in the Wilton area. A very frightening day made much worse by resulting in New Zealand’s worst maritime disaster and a terrible loss of life.
70 Following the end of the 1st term’s cricket I found myself again in the 2nd XV rugby team, this time as vice-captain. But no time for many games as just about a month after the Wahine storm out came the half-year reports and suddenly my plan to stay for the full year and enjoy being part of the 1st XI cricket team was in total disarray. While I found it really hard to accept, you may well understand from just a cursory look at the following extracts from my half-year report: No. in class Classwork Exam English 25 15= 12= French 15 15 15 Biology 19 13= 15= Geography 14 9 13= History 20 8 17 Ouch, that definitely doesn’t look too good. Even my normally well-performed English classwork has taken a serious dive. But if those results weren’t bad enough, Mackay’s summarising comments definitely sealed the deal: It is doubtful if Graeme is getting any real value for his time in the upper sixth form. Unless there is a change in his attitude and application he would be better to leave school. Probably not surprisingly mum and dad agreed with Noel’s sentiments, and sadly my time at Rongotai was all but over. All that remained was to receive a copy of my leaving testimonial, and an extract from that document (which manages to summarise 7 years, 5 months of my life on one page) is below. Maybe there’s a not-so-subtle clue at the end of it as to why I wasn’t a prefect! As I started work at the Wellington Harbour Board on Monday 20 May 1968, I reckon I’ve caught Mackay out as my leaving testimonial recorded me as leaving college on Tuesday 21 May 1968. Too late to worry about it now. But before concluding my memories from the Coutts Street Academy there was one other notable event occurring in 1968, and probably about a month after I left college. It would achieve legendary status amongst Rongotai boys who were there in 1968, and for the likes of myself who had heard about it but did not know the full story, it was always a fascinating and deeply mysterious event. It is of course “the Star Boating Club Incident” and the mass caning that followed. As part of a 55-year reunion of 1968 sporting teams, one of the main protagonists was finally persuaded to provide some previously unknown details of the that notorious “incident”, and his version follows next. “Back in 1968 it was more than just an ‘‘incident”, it was an event that led to the largest mass caning administered by the then Principal, Noel Mackay. Shirley Boys High from Christchurch were up for their biannual sports visit, one year after our own antics on the interisland ferry! At that time I was one of the prefects tasked with maintaining the tone of the school. I was also a keen rower, rowing for the College and the Star Boating Club. Setting the scene back then, Star’s boathouse was located adjacent to St John Ambulance, now St John Bar. One of my good friend’s agreed that it was our duty to provide some social entertainment for our visitors. We came up with the idea of a private function, with an entry price of 10 cents. Two or three other rowers and I agreed Star Boating Club was the ideal venue. Upstairs was a large open space; now it’s a salubrious night spot.
71 So, somehow the word was spread. BYO of course. I drove around to De Brett’s in Lambton Quay to load up with my favourite brew at the time DB (remember the pong of Red Band). Two crates of ½ G’s purchased (10 flagons) and loaded on my flatbed truck. I recall for some reason I had a younger chap with me, not sure why, name escapes me; I think he was a 5th former. Anyway, a Constable intercepts me on the way back to the truck. I bluff successfully that I am 21! He looked a young ‘un himself. The event itself is difficult to recall in detail. I recall a boat race that Rongotai won. It was all good stuff until the Police arrived. It seemed some of our guests from the South Island had gone outside and were having a jolly time throwing bottles at cars and climbing up road signs. Apparently, I was a bit grumpy with the Police who weren’t buying the “private function” argument. I recall ranting at someone, broom in hand sweeping up broken glass “the cops could get lost etc, this was a private function etc etc”. This guy gesticulated that there was someone behind me. I turned around and there were two cops smiling a bit grimly. I reverted to my normal polite self! I think they may have advised us that Major Stanley who ran St Johns Ambulance next door was not happy with us. No one died or got injured. All good fun. We’d done our bit and provided a venue for our guests and ourselves to have a good time. A week or so later Jack McManus entered our classroom seeking me out! Why me? I guess the connection with Star Boating Club. Anyway, he indicates as we march off to the boss's office that I am in trouble, and I was. I was on the mat! Major Stanley (not the Police) had dobbed us in. I decided just to be upfront with Noel when he interrogated me. Didn’t mention all the beer I’d bought of course. He wanted to know who was there, and how many? A bit hazy with these details. One of the other guys (who has a very good memory) recalled maybe 80- 90 all up. That does seem a large number but whatever it was there were lots. Noel asked how many prefects were there? A few I recalled. Other Lower and Upper 6th? A few. 5th Formers? Hmm I think there was. 4th Formers? No. An assembly was called for 5th formers and above. Noel took the stage and I have no idea what he said but he did tell those that did not attend the event should now return to class. That left a sizable number of honest students. I wish I’d done a count. The rest of us were all to return to class via Noel’s office, prefects first. So four of us were first in for caning. I have an outstanding vision of the first stroke hitting the first guy’s backside. A huge eruption of dust and debris burst out. Five strokes later it was my turn. More outstanding memories. At stroke number four my right leg began to shake sideways involuntarily and loping back down the hall returning to the prefects’ room I felt like I was floating. My bum stung but it didn’t hurt. Back to the refuge of the prefects’ room where it was all abuzz. One final memory. One of our caned brethren lifted a floorboard and retrieved a bottle of bubbly. Until then I never knew that hideaway existed. Was there an aftermath? Strange really. I can’t recall any teacher having me on about it. It must have been a heck of a discussion topic in the staff room. Noel did note on my leaving testimonial that ‘I had outgrown school’, but I don’t think he held a grudge with me about it. Some years later, in the 80’s I lived by the Teachers’ Training College and connected with some of the tutors at a social event. Somehow we got around to the ‘incident’. They knew all about it and there was consensus that Noel was out of line with the way he handled it. I feel I deserved the punishment. Jack told me that if I hadn’t been up front with Noel I may well have been suspended or worse”. So having wandered chronologically through my time at Rongotai and regaled a few stories on the way, it’s probably a good time to reflect on the Coutts Street Academy and its impact and / or influence on me as I was about to head out into the real world for the first time. My first thought is that I thoroughly enjoyed my college days, I made some very good friends, I was able to play sports that I enjoyed to a reasonably high level, and although academically there were some unexpected and unwanted bumps along the way, mostly I came out of it with a sound educational base. Rongotai was therefore pretty good for me and I look back on my 7-plus years there with a lot of pleasure and satisfaction. I am aware that some of my school mates were less than enamoured with the strict disciplinary environment that was present during the entirety of our time at Rongotai. I agree with them to the extent that some teachers, and this certainly included the headmaster, Noel Mackay, often went right to the boundary’s edge of physical punishment that was acceptable at the time, and it wasn’t unusual for that boundary to be well and truly stepped over. The best ex
72 the guys describe his experiences from that mass caning as: I still have scars where Mackay broke the skin just below my right hip. I was unpadded and very skinny back then. My father was appalled. He took photos of the damage and wanted to press charges of assault. We calmed him down after a few scotches! In that act Mackay lost the respect of the school body for the rest of his career. My brothers who were a few years behind me described him as more and more insular and erratic. The video tapes scandal was definitely no surprise. This wasn’t the only comment. One of the other victims remembered: I was about three quarters of the way through the cohort and by then Noel was in a lather of sweat and becoming very erratic with his swing. We went into his office in groups of 3 or 4 and to witness him hit our mates on their hamstrings and up their back was hard to take. I absolutely sympathise with my school mates in these two instances, there is no doubt in my mind that breaking the skin with a cane or hitting hamstrings and/or the back is way overstepping the physical punishment boundary that I mentioned before. Totally unacceptable and unwarranted. But when I look back at my time at Rongotai, the fact remains that the concept of corporal punishment was, whether we liked it or not, simply part and parcel of the educational environment in which we found ourselves, as would have been the case in most, if not all other colleges at that time. Friends from Brooklyn who went to Wellington College have told me remarkably similar tales and I still remember leather straps at Brooklyn Primary School. At Rongotai, I knew that if I transgressed the rules, and I did on two occasions that I can remember, then I could expect a physical punishment, either caning by Noel Mackay if it was serious enough (and both times they were), or by the teacher who was in charge at the time. I therefore preferred, if possible, not to transgress. PE classes were well known for an immediate belting for any infraction including minor infringements such as arriving late or dirty gear, with Sid Turnbull having a college-wide nickname of “Sandshoe Sid” - no clues as to his weapon of choice! Now I hasten to add that not all teachers resorted to physical punishment, quite a number of them much preferred to take a hands-off approach (if you get my drift) and avoid punitive issues by making our learning environment as interesting and enjoyable as possible, and at the same time treating us as young adults. Ivan Bowden, Jack Pargeter, Jim Ting, Stuart “Doc” Scoones and Ian Young are five names that jump to mind immediately, there were others. In return of course, these teachers gained not only our respect but also our non- inclination to breach behavioural rules that were in place. But back to the disciplinary environment that Rongotai operated under during the 1960’s. I have no doubt at all that Noel Mackay encouraged, actually he probably insisted, that strict discipline was imposed at all times. Mackay worked as an engineer for Rolls Royce during WW2, was strongly religious (I suspect Protestant), demanded and enforced a hierarchical and controlling regime, and in many respects, ruled by fear. I believe that some teachers applied corporal punishment as liberally as they did simply because the disciplinary setting in which they found themselves demanded, and in fact encouraged, maybe even rewarded this approach. I suspect that Mackay held a view something along the lines that “an educational institution operates most effectively in a controlled environment, and that control must be absolute”. He went a long way towards achieving that, but whether it was a successful model is highly debatable. After I left Rongotai, Mackay was to be embroiled in a videoing scandal in 1981 when it was revealed that he videotaped 25 students in a caning experiment. Mackay would claim that it was to “see why experienced teachers often missed the target and leave boys with embarrassing marks on their lower buttocks". He would also claim that by playing the videotape back in slow motion, he could follow the movement of the cane. He pointed to his experience as an aeronautics engineer and said he was well accustomed to experiments involving wind-tunnel movements and natural forces. Not surprisingly this experiment received much publicity and outrage, with some parents complaining that it was a violation of their son’s rights. Mackay offered to resign, but it was not accepted, and interestingly most students and parents supported his actions. Personally I tend to side with Mackay on this one. Given the man’s background as an aeronautics engineer coupled with his propensity for a liberal application of his willow of choice, it is not out of the question that he would look to improve techniques, particularly if concerned that other teachers were “missing the mark”, part of his desire for control. Any suggestions of some sexual motive sit uncomfortably, there was never any
73 In later years there was a reported instance of an anonymous Rongotai student from the 1960’s claiming that Mackay regularly “fondled” him during caning. This accusation went nowhere, in my opinion it was total bullshit and the anonymous guy in question probably continues to pursue his own fondling tendencies in an unabated fashion. In hindsight, I guess the biggest problem that I had with Mackay was his haircut rule, short back and sides were the order of the day, which we definitely railed against as we revelled in the 60’s revolution coming out of Britain, and in particular my favourite mop top band from Liverpool, the Beatles. I’m pretty confident that Mackay’s reference to my “passive disobedience” related directly to the length of my hair, but there’s one other fabulous story about hair length involving members of the 1st XV (as explained by Darryl Work from of the 1st XV) and it goes like this: “Noel apprehended some members of the first XV and implied they would be suspended until they returned with their hair cut above their collar as it was getting too long. As it transpired, one of these individuals was Ron Meagher whose father worked (lived) at the famed Mt Crawford prison. A plan was hatched to comply with Noel's edict and at the same time stick it right up him! The next day at college Ron and Brien McCrea led a bunch of skin heads through the front gates sporting the barber at Mt Crawford's standard entry trim. My recollection of others involved is sketchy, but names in my mind include Harley Gamble, Kevin Jenkinson, and Malcolm Bridge. Anyway, as you can imagine, Noel was not impressed to have the piss taken out of him, and so the lads were suspended for not doing as he expected, until it grew back to a respectable length. The most vivid memory I have of this was the lads all wearing black beanies at practice that night, looking suspiciously like the "droog men" from “A Clockwork Orange”, in an effort to keep their heads warm. I’m a bit vague about what transpired after this, but the point was well made, even if we were short of players for a while”. It appears that I wasn’t the only one to have an issue with the length of hair policy! So having mentioned some of the teachers at the Academy in the 1960’s, it’s appropriate to finish off memories from the Academy by remembering some of these teachers. I’ve picked out those I can find photos of. Jack McManus Sid “Sandshoe” Turnbull Bob “Slops” Hyslop Jim Ting Jack McManus and Sid Turnbull formed a highly successful PE department in the 1960’s. Jack came from a military background while Sid was an old boy of Rongotai. Jack was instrumental in the development of Leadership Camps while Sid trained the 1966 athletics team that won the McEvedy Shield for the first time. Sid was also the coach of the successful 1968 1st XI cricket team. Together they are recognised as developing what was recognised as one of the best PE departments in the country although as mentioned earlier it paid not to get offside with them. Bob Hyslop taught at Rongotai for 30 years (1949- 79), and was Head of Science from 1963 during which time he played the leading role in the development of the college’s science laboratories. Well remembered by many for his often-mimicked nasal voice, a number of his students became highly proficient during later life in various branches of science and engineering. Jim Ting was another old boy who taught mathematics, general science and chemistry, he was not only a very popular teacher but also a respected rugby coach of the 1st XV for several years. Jim went on to become deputy principal and for a short period he was acting principal until his departure in 1995.
74 Neville “Fudd” Jessep Jack Pargeter Gary Fox Cecil “Charlie” Chapman “Fudd” Jessep was my form master in my upper sixth year, actually it was half a year, and I don’t recall that much about him other than his trademark bowtie and a rather contagious smile that seemed permanently affixed - pretty neat given the disciplinary environment of the day that didn’t always encourage smiling. Jack Pargeter taught me French in 1966 (my school cert repeat year) and my results were quite impressive under his tutelage - thanks Jack. I don’t recall that Jack had a nickname, but if he did then it should have been “gentleman”. Gary Fox was my form master in my lower sixth year, and also my English teacher. An excellent teacher, he was of very slight stature, and I remember that my desk was immediately in front of his desk, and I was sitting next to Geoff Fellows, probably the largest guy at school at the time. Every time that Geoff was standing near Gary, it was a David and Goliath situation all over again, and where was the camera when you needed it?. Cecil Chapman was my favourite history teacher and he taught me in my school cert repeat year and again when I was in the lower sixth. He carried a superior air about him but this was offset by a wonderfully dry sense of humour, and he intuitively knew how to make history lessons far more interesting and discussable than what they could have been. Denis McHalick Bob Fraser Albert “Bonk” Scotney Dick Burke Denis McHalick probably couldn’t understand my inability to grasp the fundamentals of mathematics, so much so that on one occasion he used an alternative tactic to enhance my learning, a wooden ruler applied unexpectedly and rather vigorously to the back of my hand. It didn’t work as my School Cert maths result proved. Denis was generally well liked, and I remember him particularly from 1967 and 68 when he was Master-in-Charge of the 1st XI cricket team. For several years he enjoyed considerable success as the coach of the 3A rugby team, with many of the players progressing into the 1st XV. I can’t actually remember, but I guess I must have had art lessons at some point from Bob Fraser who taught at Rongotai for 34 years, retiring at the end of 1968. When recording his retirement the Te Rama of that year attributes an interesting statement to Bob i.e. the attitude to discipline and control was less rigid these days. Hmmm, I’m not sure that most boys at Rongotai under Mackay’s reign would agree with that statement. Well, who would have thought that “Bonk” Scotney had an actual first name, he was always simply “Bonk”. He was another long-serving and respected teacher (35 years) and is remembered as having a rigorous but entertaining teaching style by students in any of his English, History, Geography or Social Studies classes. Equally well- remembered for his vehicle of choice, an irridescent rust-coloured scooter! Dick Burke was the Assistant Principal during my time at the Academy, and as one of my colleagues suggested if you don’t remember Dick Burke, then you didn’t go to Rongotai. Dick seemed to be ever present, he had a reputation for seeing things as they were, and looking back now, I suspect that he was probably the glue that held the college together. He had a highly successful rugby career, representing NZ Universities, Wellington and Canterbury, and had an All Black trial in 1947. His coaching career was equally impressive, culminating in coaching the 1956 NZ University side to victory against the touring Springbok team.
75 Noel Lynch Bill “Waka” Amaru Ken Simpson Bruce Cockburn Noel Lynch was another teacher that I can’t recall being taught by, and my main recollections of him are as the coach of highly successful rowing crews in 1965, 1966 and 1967. Arguably his best achievement was coaching the coxed 4 crew that won the Springbok Shield at the national championships on Lake Karapiro in 1967. It’s interesting to note that although Noel had left Rongotai halfway through 1966, he committed to training the coxed 4 every morning at 5.30am during the month leading up to the regatta. Bill Amaru was a delightful man, and it was a real pleasure to be in his Biology class during my upper sixth “half year”, not that I did very well at all. However, Bill’s ability (all the while wearing his trademark hat) to enthrall us about a variety of subjects e.g. reproduction in the higher mammals, religion in the United States, zoology to name but a few, made his classes highly entertaining and well worth looking forward to - but not necessarily focused on the curriculum!. Ken Simpson was the Academy’s long-serving woodwork teacher and I well remember being in his class in my early years at Rongotai endeavouring, but not that successfully, to follow Ken’s instructions on measuring, cutting, drilling, gluing and screwing - these actions were intended to result in a working wooden pencil holder. They didn’t! For many years Ken was the coach of the college’s 1st XI soccer (now football) team, and the many players that he coached remember him well. Bruce Cockburn is yet another long- serving teacher, teaching at the college for 27 years, 13 of which were as Head of Science, until his retirement in 1992. He was Master-in-Charge of the Tramping Club, and was a familiar face at the athletics sports where he carried out the starter’s role over many years. Bruce is still actively involved with the college, carrying out archiving duties for the Old Boys Association. There’s two other teachers that I remember with much fondness. The first is Ivan Bowden, definitely one of life’s gentlemen and a pleasure to have been taught geograhy by him. A cricketing enthusiast, several years after leaving Rongotai I came across Noel at MacAlister Park where he was in charge of the 1st XI and they were playing us (Midland St Pats 2A). While we were batting Noel and I chatted and reminisced on the bank for a couple of hours, and it was an afternoon I will always remember spent with a teacher and a person that I rated extraordinarily highly. The 2nd teacher is Ian Young, and I reckon without his superbly calm and considered teaching style, not to mention his special understanding of the English language and its structures and nuances, there is no way that I would have (i) successfully achieved School Cert then UE accreditation, or (ii) achieved the Ralph Edwards literature prize, or (iii) written this book. Thanks Ivan, thanks Ian, I owe you both big time. So I’ve arrived at the end of my adventures (good / bad / ugly / sometimes confessed - sometimes not) in and around the streets of Brooklyn, particularly my time around the Sugarloaf and the streets close by, plus the 7 ½ years that I spent at the Coutts Street Academy in Rongotai. They were all great days, and I look back on them (glad I can actually remember most of them) with a huge amount of pleasure. During those days I had a lot of fun, made many good friends, regrettably lost touch with lots of them as we are prone to do as we get older, move away, or worse - couldn’t be bothered or found it too much of an effort to stay in touch. Actually that’s inexcusable as I am now starting to find out as I have rediscovered the real value of many of those friendships. Such friendships are gold, irreplaceable and definitely well worth nurturing. As far as this story goes, there’s a sequel that covers my working career at the Wellington Harbour Board and then the Port Company, but it’s definitely another story! If you enjoyed this one, then maybe you’ll enjoy my follow-up story which I’m likely to call You Can’t Catch Me - I Stuffed the Unions about my 35 years around the Wellington waterfront.
76 ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS Most of what you have just read (and hopefully enjoyed) has been documented from my desperate attempts to remember places, names, and events from my dim, distant past, and then determine with some semblance of truthfulness (or not) whether those recollections are real or imagined. But as is generally the case with this type of memoire, reliance totally on blurred memories of events that took place 50 plus years ago would have (at least in my opinion) made for a considerably diminished and much less interesting publication. So with apologies for what I have remembered or imagined, I would be terribly remiss if I didn’t acknowledge other sources that I have unashamedly used, and those wonderful people whose contributions have made this a much more complete, more interesting (not to mention accurate) read than that which I would have been able to produce by myself. • Wikipedia has been extraordinarily useful in providing the background to many of the people-honoured streets that have been explored, plus being the source of many of the people and places photographs that have been used. Some descriptions of buildings and events such as “The Brooklyn Dodger” would have been so much more difficult to include without access to Wikipedia. Google Maps were also accessed on a number of occasions. • A couple of publications about Old Brooklyn provided some useful clues about the origins of some street names, notably Early Brooklyn by Joy Vickers, and Early Brooklyn Revisited by Joy Vickers and Ashton J. Fitchett. Several photographs from these publications have also been used. • The Land, Property and Information Team from the Wellington City Council provided relevant background on the history of several Brooklyn Streets when I was having difficulty in finding information from other sources. • My brother Neville who, while remembering some events a bit differently to me, brilliantly filled in a number of gaps that I had sort of remembered but not necessarily accurately or in their totality. Neville also provided a couple of early family photographs that I didn’t have, and they have been included. Neville’s also writing about his early days so there’ll be an inevitable comparison of events in hopefully the not-too-distant future. • When remembering my college days, my collection of Te Rama magazines (the Rongotai College Year Books) proved to be useful sources of information and photographs, as did the college’s 75th year anniversary publication RONGOTAI: Sound of the Sea by John R. Martin. • From college days, Geoff Fellows for finally exposing the real truth about the infamous 1967 Star Boating Club incident and the subsequent mass caning at the Coutts Street Academy. Also Darryl Work for his memories of the response by members of the 1968 1st XV to one of Noel Mackay’s bizarre haircut rulings. Both good stories, and I suspect untold in so much detail until now. • Bruce Cockburn, one of my college teachers from the 60’s and now an archivist for the College provided all of my Rongotai class photos, none of which I had possessed. Didn’t these photos bring back a lot of memories for me! • My very first mate and “partner in crime” from Sugarloaf Road days, James Snowball who reminded me of our “call sign”, you remember, the one that was meant to sound like the US Cavalry’s bugle charge! Probably the most outstanding outcome of this publication is that James and I are now back in touch after many, many years. • And I couldn’t have done this without the support of my wonderful wife, Sarah who not only plied me with coffee, chocolates (sometimes), and incredible support (always) as I was bent over the computer (sometimes snoozing while I was trying to remember what happened last week), but who also cast her critical eye over the final draft, made amazing suggestions for improvement, and who fortunately (for me) didn’t liberally apply the red editing pen! April 2023