Embedded Files
Barbara Hoskins’ parents, Sybil and Sidney Anton, moved to 63 Derwent St in 1931 when she was six months old. Her sister Marian was born eighteen months later. The family was together until Barbara got married in 1952 and moved to Valley Street. Later Marian married and left home. Sid Anton died in 1970 and Sybil Anton left No. 63 in 1990. She died in 1999 in the Vincentian Home in Berhampore. Barbara Hoskins answered Southern Bays’ questions about her life in Derwent Street
63 Derwent Street, Island Bay
Tell me about your family - what were the things they did, what interested them, what were their likes and dislikes? Where were they born & brought up?
Tell me about your family - what were the things they did, what interested them, what were their likes and dislikes? Where were they born & brought up?
My Father was brought up in Brooklyn (his name is on the war memorial there) but later on he lived in Wadestown. He had worked at John Duthies, but from the 1930s to the 1960s he worked at Wellington Plumbing Supplies as a warehouseman. The short time that he was in the Army during World War greatly influenced his life and much of his leisure time was centred around the RSA in Island Bay - he was the secretary of this organisation for about 30 years. He had not had any secondary school education but had great skills at remembering and computing numbers. His neat handwriting survived in the RSA minute books. He enjoyed reading and was very interested in politics. I remember books on the book shelf relating to the social credit movement. He was interested in sport and had played rugby, soccer and cricket in his youth.
My Mother, Sybil Anton (nee Nimmo) was born in Thorndon where her Mother had lived in Hobson St. When she was 5 years old the Nimmo family moved to a house in Standen St, Karori, beside the cemetery where, at that time, there were only two houses. She walked to Karori School through the empty paddocks behind their house. She was the third daughter in a family that eventually had nine children. She got to secondary school for a brief time, hoping to become a teacher or a librarian, but her Father found her a job at the East Extension Australasia and China Telegraph Company Limited on Lambton Quay so off she went. She worked there for 10 years (1918-1928) until she married my Father when she was about 28. Once married and living in Derwent St and home all day with two children, she was in a good position to hand out the RSA vouchers to the men on relief work who would call in after they had done their work - often half a day. Mum was involved in many Island Bay organisations - she was the secretary for Plunket, a member of the League of Mothers, a staunch parishioner of St Francis de Sales Parish and a background support person for the RSA. She loved reading and in the early years, a local resident, Mr Campbell used to come around each Saturday afternoon with a suitcase heavy with books which he would put down on our doorstep and then say, ‘I thought you would enjoy this one or this one,’ whereupon Mum would take them both, return the books she had and pay him - I think it was threepence a book! Later, when my sister and I went to St Madeleine Sophie’s School (at the top of Avon St) she used to work hard for the annual fair. For many years she knitted a fancy bed jacket each year for a raffle. She was a great knitter and sewer and made all our clothes.
For entertainment Mum and Dad, and later Marian and I went to the pictures. We all read a lot and about once a month we went for Sunday visits to our grandparents - Dad’s parents in Miramar and Mum’s in Karori. Both places involved two different trams to get there.
The interviewee on the steps of number 63 Derwent Street, 1931
No car?
No car?
Mum and Dad never owned a car although Dad had driven when younger before he lost the sight in one eye. In the Thirties it seemed only rich people had cars and in the Forties when a few people had them, petrol was scarce, if obtainable at all. My husband’s father had a car at that stage and invented some kind of system that burnt coke to power the car! My Dad had driven before World War 1 and had ridden horses during the war, but he always walked, caught the tram or used the occasional taxi. Mum had never driven, but was a great walker. Most of the kids around had bikes and Marian and I had them although I don’t think we had them until we were at college. The milk was delivered in Derwent St with a horse and cart and Mr Steele cleaned the streets with a horse and cart. Grocery orders were usually delivered by a boy on a bike, but gradually the bikes were replaced by vans. I do not recall anyone in our neighbourhood having a car or a motor bike in the earlier part of the 1940s.
Tell me about your house - take us on a tour of it as you remember it as a girl.
Tell me about your house - take us on a tour of it as you remember it as a girl.
The house at 63 was one of two little farm workers’ cottages which can be seen in one of the early photos of Island Bay. They are the only two houses in that part of Derwent St with long, narrow sections and small toilet long-drop buildings at the very back of the sections.
When we lived there, the front entrance porch was made of brick with rather pretentious pillars on each side and a polished brass door step.
Barbara, Sybill and Sid Anton
The front door led into a narrow passage and off this, to the left, were a front and then a back bedroom. The front bedroom had a bay window and a fireplace. The passage opened into the main room which we always called ‘the dining room’ which was the whole width of the house and also had a fireplace, surrounded by a wooden decorative mantelpiece and a hearth of blue tiles. Diagonally opposite the door from the passage was another door leading to ‘the kitchen’ and straight opposite this, the back door. The kitchen contained a wooden dresser, a table and the gas stove.
The only form of heating in the house was the open fireplace in the dining room, but, on really cold mornings, Mum would sometimes light the oven and leave the door open to warm up the kitchen. At the end of the kitchen was a small room we called ‘the scullery’ which had a copper, two tubs, a kitchen sink and a very small bench. Above this, in the ceiling space was a large cupboard. Under this cupboard was a small area with a linen cupboard on one side and a curtained broom space on the other. Off the end was the bathroom door leading into the bathroom, which had been built as a sort of lean-to and had the best sun in the whole house!
There was a toilet with a wooden seat, a handbasin and a bath over which there was a gas caliphont. This was the only source of hot water in the house apart from water boiled in pots on the stove. Next to the toilet was newspaper cut into squares to use as toilet paper. During the war, excess NZ apples which could not be sent overseas were given out free every day to school children. Each apple was wrapped in tissue paper and if we were very lucky, we managed to get some of this lovely soft paper to put beside the toilet!
The gas stove was in the kitchen, built into a triple chimney also used for the dining room fireplace and the copper in the scullery. The walls were wooden and covered by scrim and wallpaper which had become loose and used to flap in and out when it was windy. The fireplace in the front bedroom was not used and the chimneys were damaged in the 1942 earthquake, but we were still heating the house with the fire in the dining room and boiling the copper in the scullery in the 1940s.
And how about a tour of the garden?
And how about a tour of the garden?
There was a small lawn in the front of the house and a much larger lawn (long and narrow) around the back. The lawns were edged by flower gardens and further down the section there were two vegetable gardens with a brick path down the middle. A wire washing line went from the house, right down to the back fence. My sister and I had a garden each to look after and we helped Mum with the other flower gardens, while Dad dealt with the vegie garden at the back. He wasn’t a very keen gardener, but we usually had some rhubarb and silver beet the year round and beans, tomatoes etc. in season. Dad mowed the lawns and put the lawn clippings around the rhubarb. Most of the flower plants that we grew were from someone else’s gardens - people swapped cuttings and plants and grew things from seed. There was a garden shop in Courtenay Place where seeds etc. could be purchased - I think it could have been Yates, but I’m not sure about this. In the front garden was a lasiandra tree with huge purple flowers which we liked.
Sid Anton taking a well-earned break. (L) He ‘did not really like gardening’ Barbara recalls ‘we sneaked up on him to take this picture’.
The back garden as it was in 2011®
How was the household run? Who did what jobs? Can you describe some of the way cooking and other tasks changed over the years?
How was the household run? Who did what jobs? Can you describe some of the way cooking and other tasks changed over the years?
It was a very organised household - there were routines which happened each day or each week almost without fail. Everything ran like clockwork:- Monday - washing and scrubbing; Tuesday - ironing; other days for shopping and for baking; Saturday - hair washing; Sunday - Church and midday roast dinner and Dad’s day for polishing the brass door step. Around this there was gardening, shopping (milk was delivered but we needed to pick up bread and meat each day - no fridges then!)
Did the war disrupt the routine?
Did the war disrupt the routine?
Mum was at home until about 1941 when I was 10 and I remember her deciding that she needed to go to work to support the war effort. There were many jobs available as all the men had been called up. She and her sister went to see an official who lived locally, who recruited people for the civil service and she got a job with the National Provident Fund while her sister went to Civil Aviation.
Once she went to work, the house jobs needed to be streamlined and Marian and I needed to be monitored. We had to phone her as soon as we got home from school. In the summer we were allowed to go for a swim to the beach but had to be home within the hour and phone Mum. Mum left for work at 7.20 am so we had to do the breakfast dishes, cut our lunches and make our beds before we left for school. When we got home we were supposed to peel the potatoes and clean and set the fire place before Mum got home at 5.10pm. Often we would be reading a good book, forget the time and then madly scramble to get the jobs done in the nick of time!
Once Mum was working, all the weekly chores had to be fitted into the weekend. On Saturday morning we did washing, baking and cleaning so it was all of us working hard. While the copper was still in the scullery the water and clothes boiling away created a lot of steam and when the copper lid was taken off the place steamed up as we used a large copper stick to lift the heavy sheets etc. into a tub of cold water, put them through the hand wringer to the second tub, dissolve blue from the blue bag into the first tub, wring the clothes back into the blue water and then a final wring before they were put on the line. No wonder it seemed to take all morning to do the washing! After that, the hot, soapy water from the copper was used to “do the scrubbing” which involved a scrubbing brush and sand soap - first the kitchen bench and table, the floors, the wooden toilet seat and lastly the back door steps. Then the copper had to be emptied, cleaned and the fire under it set for the next week’s washing!
Three school friends behind Barbara and Marian
There was a similar ritual for the cleaning with all the furniture moved on to the carpet square, the wooden floor around the edge polished on hands and knees, furniture put back and then the carpet sweeper used to clean the carpet.
As we got older, Marian and I were usually in a rush to get it all done so that we could get to Saturday afternoon tennis in the summer and basketball (now netball) in the winter. Sometimes on Saturday morning but more usually on Friday evening we did “the baking” which consisted of a batch of biscuits, a loaf or slice and a cake each week.
During the war years when butter and sugar were rationed we used to get extra sugar by swapping our tea coupons for sugar coupons with elderly relations in Ribble St. When we boiled up soup bones we always collected the fat which settled on the top and used this to make biscuits - we usually put cinnamon in the biscuits to disguise the fat!
Dad was also a part of all this industry! For a while he was in camp at Porirua with the National Military Reserve. I remember going to visit him and thought we were going to the ends of the earth - we got out of the train and had to walk through grass and up a hill to where all the tents were pitched. We missed him, of course, but the routine at home just carried on. I don’t think he was in camp for more than a year or so. The house was adapted a bit - we had to have black-out blinds which were made of black paper. Air Raid Wardens patrolled the street and knocked on your door and said, ‘You’ve got lights showing’ if you missed pulling blinds properly.
When Dad was at home, he was fussy about setting the fire under the copper very precisely, he always polished the brass door step on Sunday morning and on Friday night and/or Saturday he did the vegetable and fruit shopping. The grocery shopping was delivered by the grocer’s boy on a bike. My mother had a friend in Severn St and I was paid threepence a week to pick up her half loaf of bread from the dairy each day and take it to her. I walked up Ribble St and cut through a right-of-way to the Presbyterian Home grounds (later Kilmarnoch). During the war years and a bit later on, there were injured servicemen recuperating there.
Our evening meals were fairly predictable. As most families of this time did, we always had a roast at the weekend, usually Sunday midday, but sometimes Saturday night. It was either beef or mutton - chickens weren’t available then - and roast potatoes, pumpkin, parsnips and a green vegetable -perhaps cauliflower with a white sauce or Brussels sprouts. We had cold meat from the joint for the next couple of days and then minced up what remained to make rissoles or curry. Then we had chops, sausages, tripe, stew for the other nights. We always had a pudding.
Dad always washed the dishes and scrubbed the pots until they shone! When the landlord eventually agreed to build a small laundry near the house, the tubs, copper, chimneys and gas oven were removed and the scullery was turned into a kitchenette with a bigger bench, stove and cupboards.
The previous kitchen became a dining room with a dining table and also a comfortable TV room and the previous dining room became a lounge. Cooking was much easier with this new set up and things were much more easily stored with a fridge. Previously there had been a safe with wire mesh doors to let the air in which was hanging near the scullery window. Meat and milk didn’t keep very cool in the safe so there was much rejoicing over having room for a fridge!
Everybody did baking and “kept the cake tins full”. Visitors were often surprised that NZ women had reputations as great cooks but the term meant more baking (cakes, scones etc.) rather than cooking elaborate meals.
Our cooking (and baking) became much easier with a stove with a thermostat - you didn’t have to “feel the oven” to know what the temperature was! We still stuck to the traditional meat, potatoes and two veg type of meal, but they were easier to cook! As we got older we helped with preserving - fruit, beans, tomatoes and jam and jelly making.
Other household tasks changed also - we eventually got a vacuum cleaner and had wall-to-wall carpet so no more hands and knees polishing!
Did the family do things together as a family for entertainment and relaxation?
Did the family do things together as a family for entertainment and relaxation?
When we were smaller and the Depression was at its worst, our main outings were visits to grandparents or aunts and uncles and whenever it was fine we went to the beach. Mum and Dad were both keen swimmers - Mum taught me to swim in Island Bay when I was five and Dad would take us for a ride on his back when he swam. Most other families spent fine weekends and public holidays on the beach. It was quite a social place! The treat of the week was a penny ice cream from one of the Reef St or Terminus shops. Sometimes we walked a little way around the Esplanade towards Houghton Bay, where, just past the row of original fishermen’s cottages there was a house in which the front room was a tearoom. Occasionally we would go there for our ice cream while Mum and Dad had a cup of tea. On the way back we would sometimes wait as the fishermen brought in their catch in their rowing boats and would buy fresh fish for tea!
As we grew up, we would sometimes go to the movies with our parents and also to Dances in the Masonic Hall. Groups like the Plunket Society, St Francis de Sales Parish, the RSA, the Surf Club, the Tennis Club would hold a Saturday night dance in this Hall and my Dad was quite often the MC (Master of Ceremonies) at these dances so we were allowed to go. There were a few special things that we did - one I remember was going to the Centennial Exhibition in Rongotai - and later when an aunt and uncle moved to Havelock North we went there for family holidays.
Hard times?
Hard times?
I suppose there were hard times - I remember Mum saying that when the RSA had a meeting at No. 63 she didn’t always know if she would have enough tea to make the traditional cuppa. I didn’t ever feel deprived but looking back I suppose the house and the food was very basic compared with what is available today. I think children just accept things the way they are - the hard times were probably more difficult for parents. Mum sewed all our clothes and often re-made outfits that someone had given her. We lived a very ordinary life - looking back on it we were probably pretty poor, but we didn’t know that and as Mum used to say, ‘Everybody was in the same boat’ with the Depression. Before they rented the house in Island Bay, they had lived in Wadestown with Dad’s parents as his father had lost his job with the Depression.
Tell me about neighbours you remember.
Tell me about neighbours you remember.
Next door, in the house the same as ours, were Mr and Mrs Steele. He worked for the City Council and walked with a horse and cart keeping the gutters clean. She was very house proud and her Mother once told Mum that if she thought there wasn’t enough washing on the line on washing day she would wet some clean clothes and put them on the line with the others! On the other side was an elderly man named Mr Clarke who was often out mowing lawns or gardening. He always called out to us, ‘Would you like a blackball?’ Then he would open a tobacco tin in which he kept a supply of blackballs and throw one for each of us over the fence. Blackballs always remind me of the smell of cut grass!
Later on, the Brooks family lived in this house - Edith and Eric Brooks and Gwen (their sister) and her husband Bob Morton with their daughter Evelyn. We spent quite a lot of time over there - in the holidays we listened to Dr Paul and Portia Faces Life on the radio with them, played with Evelyn, took their two Pomeranian dogs for walks and even helped fold up and post the Womens’ Christian Temperance Union magazine which Miss Edith Brooks did for the Welseyan Church with the help of Salvation Army friends. Probably a bit unusual for two Catholic kids in those days!
Across the road, on the corner, were the Redicans with their three sons. Mrs Redican often came over to our place to use the phone. On one terrible Sunday she was at our house when the phone rang and someone asked to speak to her. They were phoning to tell her that her son, Tom had been drowned during a Surf carnival at Lyall Bay beach. Poor Mrs Redican fainted on our kitchen floor and while Mum looked after her she sent me to tell Mr Redican what had happened. He was sitting at the back door of the house with a cobbler’s last, putting new soles on a pair of shoes when I blurted out the news - he leapt up, swore and raced across the road to our house. Evidently Tom had come home from the carnival at midday to eat a roast dinner and had then run back to Lyall Bay where their team were due to compete. He had drawn the belt position which meant he had to swim out to the person to be rescued. He evidently choked on the food he had eaten and drowned. That was a sad time for Derwent St.
On the Western side of Derwent St at the end of Mersey St there was a right of way leading up to the hills. This was a back entrance to the Mackie family who lived at 10 Ribble St. They had two little girls and Marian and I were their Godmothers and spent a great deal of time around there helping and playing with the children. When I begged my parents to let me learn to play the piano, Mrs Mackie kindly let me practise at their place until we got our own piano. We also used this access off Derwent St to go exploring up in the hills - we quite often took our lunch with us and often went up to the ruins of the “haunted house” on the site where the Findlays eventually built their house. We believed that a German spy used to live in the haunted house and flash messages out to submarines in Cook Strait! Or so the older kids told us!
What about people, further afield in Derwent St - who stands out as in your mind?
What about people, further afield in Derwent St - who stands out as in your mind?
There were some very interesting people in Derwent St and we probably knew at least the names of most of them. Right down at the beach end was the ‘ginger nut lady’ who baked thousands and thousands of ginger nuts to send to soldiers overseas. Nearly opposite us were the Misses Anyon who were well known for their charitable works and just up the road in Ribble St was Colonel Gethin Hughes and Mrs Hughes. He was the RSA patron and she was very active in some of the Catholic charities of the day.
Right up at the top of Derwent St the Beveridges lived and the “boys” were great outdoors people. On the top corner there was a house with a shop frontage and Mr Avery was the shoe repairer there. He could not walk but spent all day sitting repairing shoes. When I was at St Madeleine Sophie’s school I used to be asked to take shoes belonging to the Sisters or the boarders at Sacred Heart (later Erskine) College to be repaired.
One thing that helped us to know the street so well - especially the Catholics in the street - was the Food for Britain money and the Home of Compassion bread money. People had promised perhaps sixpence a week and we would go one Sunday morning a month and knock on their door to collect it. The Food for Britain money started during the war and went on for a while after. I’m not sure when the Home of Compassion bread money started but it evidently originated with Mrs Gill up in Jackson St who thought it was a good way for Catholics to help the Sisters at the Home of Compassion. I don’t know if other areas did the two collections at once but I know that we did on our Derwent St patch!
Were there many other children? Tell me how you played together and what groups (adult authorised and others) were formed.
Were there many other children? Tell me how you played together and what groups (adult authorised and others) were formed.
Yes, there were quite a few children in Derwent St but we didn’t have a group that played together. It was more a matter of inviting somebody to come and play at your house or you would go to their house. My Mother would not let us play out on the street. We were allowed to go down to the beach and spent a lot of time down there - meeting friends, lying in the sand, swimming, going over to the play area, buying an ice cream. We would gather together a few friends, take our lunch and walk around to Lyall Bay or Princess Bay or Spooky Creek as we got older. In our college years we belonged to the Catholic Youth Movement and went for tramps to Red Rocks or up Mount Joseph, or over to Shepherd’s Hut. We belonged to St John’s Ambulance as cadets and had quite a lot of activity associated with this. For quite a time we met at Carruther’s Hall in Derwent St each week, passed First Aid and Home Nursing exams, got credits towards a Grand Prior badge in things like lighting a camp fire, reading, learning a foreign language etc. as well as doing “public service” by being on duty at football at Wakefield Park or basketball (now netball) at Newtown School. The most exciting thing that ever happened in Derwent St was when it flooded in the 1940s! The water came up to the second doorstep on our house and people were rowing up and down the street in canoes and our Mother wouldn’t let us go out!!
And the house is still there, much as it was?
And the house is still there, much as it was?
Yes, the little cottage is still there. It has been altered and modernised but it is still the same size. Perhaps it is coming into its own again with the ecological emphasis today on smaller dwellings!
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