Embedded Files
The writer of this memoir, in the collection of the Society, had a remarkable professional career after her childhood in Houghton Bay, outlined here by her daughter, Pat Ryan:
In May 1941 Dawn left Wellington East Girls’ College at 16. Her father was gravely ill with pneumonia and help was needed with the family finances. She was initially employed in the Pricing Office of the Health Department (then undergoing sweeping reforms under the new Labour Government). She was encouraged to study for a BSc, Maths and Chemistry, while still working.
From there she was transferred to the Physical Testing Laboratory at the DSIR (Department of Scientific and industrial Research), told she must continue with Maths, and to add Physics and Applied Maths to her studies. There was a great shortage of trained scientists and engineers at the time. The DSIR gave opportunity to those who wished to try: boys and girls alike had the same chances and salary. Dawn was awarded her BSc in 1949.
Combining marriage, 3 children, study and part time work, Dawn achieved an MSc in Physics in 1961, and then went on to complete a PhD in Geology in 1964.
Barred from teaching at the University of Canterbury because of their policy against employment of spouses, especially within the same department, Dawn worked in a number of different fields where her qualifications were valued: Christchurch Public Hospital, Lincoln College, doing Geological Research at Mt Somers for the Geology Department, and for several years at the Wool Research Organisation of NZ, until her retirement.
Pat Ryan
Our Valley was no Shangri-la. Frost was an event; sleety snow a phenomenon. But summer was fickle. Windswept from the sea, the hills offered only pockets of shelter for pampered growth. In their depths scant areas of tangled native bush were maintained by the small creek; in the more open areas warring gorse and broom often prevailed.
But we looked out over the sea to infinity from our small new house near the head of the Valley or down the steep flanks towards Houghton Bay, a mile or so away as the crow flies, but out of sight in the fold of the land. Uphill by road winding in and out of the slopes and dotted with well-spaced groups of two or three houses, it seemed much farther.
To the south, distance was our perpetual outlook: behind us too, to the north through our back fence was a vast expanse of Town Belt open to all citizens. Later, when bringing up a family in the confines of flat Christchurch suburbia, I often regretted that my own children could not enjoy the great freedom of movement which we then, had taken for granted.
The sides of the Valley, which supported a few small family farms, were ours to conquer and explore. Few so close to a city had such a varied playground. We grew up as walkers, climbers, capers in general, lucky to be able to play and laugh in a time when home life for so many was made miserable by poverty.
Each of the three new pristine houses crouching side by side on the hill had been intended for long-term occupation by its owners. Life in the years before 1929, when my parents and our new neighbours moved in, full of hope for the future, had been very difficult for both employers and workers. But now the three pairs of homemakers dreamed joyfully of cheap cheerful chintz curtains, mixed varnish of shellac and resin, meths and Condies' crystals for the bare floors, renovated old furniture, and postponed expensive thoughts until necessities were satisfied.
Paths and steps would have to be hewn from the steep hillside without buying expensive tools or materials; a shelf must be levelled above the house for a clothesline, and a small narrow steep track squeezed in to approach it from the house. There could be only happiness ahead, they thought. The coming hardships of the years of international depression which followed must have been unbelievable.
Next door lived a second cousin of my mother, Leslie Moss, and his family. They were to disappear very soon, unable to keep up the mortgage repayments. The original owners of the third house also vanished. There was no insurance available to cover inability to repay the mortgagors - in these cases the State Advances Corporation. The houses were repossessed and rented out. Everywhere the pattern was being repeated. Children during this period became very used to people 'melting away'. Many families who lost their own homes moved in with already overcrowded relatives. But children accept changes in life without much questioning. No one told us or could have told us that we were living through a time in history that would be known as 'The Great Depression'. Most of us were unaware of the continuing world-wide tussle between socialism and conservatism. Only later with hindsight would we understand the effect it had had on us.
Fortunate children, like myself, an only child at this time, were never hungry. My father remained employed but lived in fear of 'the sack' and the wrath of 'the boss'. Salaries were often cut to help employers ride out the storm. As the early thirties passed slowly by, my father's face became anxious. I knew it was something to do with 'the boss' and to me 'the boss' was second only to God. But years later the realisation came that decisions in the Depression were made by accountants, economists, boards of directors, shareholders. They had the power to scare grown men and introduce their families to poverty and hunger. Even young children soon learned the stigma and suffering of having no earner in the house.
Many of our immediate relations were unemployed for quite lengthy periods during the Depression and must have envied us our income. There was no automatic dole payment. Relief schemes were set up to employ a certain number but many had no income for long periods of time. Young and old, unskilled and professional, shared the tragedy. (For an account of these times read 'The Sugar Bag Years' by Tony Simpson. There is good reason to look back on those years now in the 1990s, as similar conditions exist). Hungry, ill-clad men walked miles each day in the hope of finding paid work to support their families.
My mother, though totally inexperienced in the domestic arts before her marriage soon learned to be a splendid organiser, cook, and maker of clothes. Like many other struggling New Zealand families, ours embraced the do-it-yourself attitude - of necessity.
After arranging finance for building a house my parents had no savings - a factor not helped by my illness with pneumonia at the age of three. Doctors' bills were always a feature among the accounts. The issues uppermost in the minds of the population were the same as they are now - housing, education, and health. The government policy towards the Depression was to reduce spending, for example, to raise the age of pupils starting school from five to six. Those needing surgery went to a private hospital if they could. The public hospitals were the last resort, cheap, ill - resourced and ill - funded.
The poor were often reminded they were poor and unworthy. They should show gratitude for pickings from the charity of the rich. As 'charity' grew, 'love' seemed to disappear. The churches promised joy in an eternal heaven, yet to come. The Salvation Army cared for the casualties along the way. On many evenings dressed in military type uniforms they and their brass bands gathered for church services on street corners. The men wore peaked caps, the ladies wore bonnets. They were good unselfish people who embraced all sinners. Many owed their lives to them. Other voluntary societies, such as lodges and friendly societies also gave great support to the poor.
The treatment for my pneumonia was given at home. I have vague memories of being 'poulticed', the only remedy available at that time. It would be at least another decade before drugs were available. A cheap poultice was made by mixing something like bread or linseed with boiling water to make a paste. Kaolin clay was used for its uniformity of mix and its heat retaining properties. The paste was spread thickly on muslin and slapped on the chest - as hot as possible. One of the family quotations, "Along came the man with the red-hot poultice, slapped it on and took notice," explains the sequence. It was not a popular experience for the patients but apparently relieved congestion and pain. Apart from this all a family could do was wait and pray for the climax to come, bringing lowered temperature, sweet sleep and recovery - or death.
Pneumonia was a killer of all ages. So was tuberculosis (also known as consumption). Diphtheria, which had killed so many children up to a few years before my birth had been conquered. Animals infected by the disease produced a defensive substance, an antitoxin. Further treatment of the toxin changed its structure to a form which could be safely injected into a human and produce its own antitoxins. Other fatal diseases such as scarlet fever, and tetanus slowly came under control. Tombstones in old cemeteries show how many children died by the age of five and how many mothers did not survive childbirth.
Whooping cough, which in 1933 attacked my six-month old sister Betty and myself, took many more years to subjugate. The six weeks in which I was isolated from friends while battling with bouts of coughing were the height of misery. One by one, the fatal diseases succumbed to science.
Years later in 1951 when our son Vaughan went down with whooping cough at six months, a new antibiotic (aureomycin) had recently become available. It was a strong yellow colour in large capsules which had to be cut open to release a small amount of powder suitable for a small baby. Gradually everything in the house was spotted yellow, but it cured him.
We were lucky to be born into an era when much progress was made against many fatal diseases. One of the greatest medical triumphs was the production in 1957 of the first safe vaccine for poliomyelitis (polio). Commonly known as infantile paralysis this was probably the most feared illness. It is an infectious viral disease affecting the central nervous system. Schools closed when it reached epidemic proportions. Sadly, some of the bacteria and viruses are now reappearing changing their structures to become more resistant.
My mother had some costly encounters with the medical fraternity, including dreaded surgery on her goitre when I was about eight. Lack of iodine in the local soils carried over into food, creating a deficiency in the body which manifested itself by swelling of the thyroid gland. It was a very common complaint, finally overcome by the mandatory addition of iodine to table salt. I remember at this time having to drink several drops of iodine in water each day presumably to correct or prevent a similar deficiency. It tasted ghastly!
On my fifth birthday, the third of November, 1929, I started school which was housed in the local hall while a State school for the Valley children was being built. A central site had been excavated below the road level to provide a large playground beside the school and another below it near the valley floor.
Once again fortune had favoured me, for it is unlikely that this school would have been financed and built in the Depression years that followed. I would then have had to join the ranks of those who spilled over the hillsides down into one of the large schools at Island Bay, Newtown or Lyall Bay. Instead, I was able to belong to a small school with about 100 pupils, a hub of our own small community, and with an excellent basic education.
Dawn Seed is on the far right, third row from the front.
There were in the beginning two rooms and two teachers, both women. The young primer teacher, Miss Henderson, was loved by all. The headmistress, Miss Jean Park, appeared very serious and a little frightening at first. She seemed very old to us - and fierce. She had a difficult job ahead of her with about three or four dozen pupils from the ages of seven to fourteen to teach - and to cope with all the administration and the poverty about her.
She was probably about forty. Her short trim figure was usually clad in a severe navy-blue suit with a white blouse, probably the standard attire for senior teachers. Her mop of dark curly hair was well trimmed but escaped sometimes. We called her Fuzziwig - behind her back.
Miss Park was absolutely honest, of necessity a firm disciplinarian who cared greatly for her school and the children entrusted to her. In those hard years it must have been difficult to instil learning, truth and cleanliness into hungry children.
It was not easy for a family to keep clean. Nor was it enjoyable to scrub the body in cold water. Most people bathed just once a week. If hot water was available it was used, first by the parents and then the children from oldest to youngest.
In most homes hot water was obtained by boiling the copper, a large copper bowl set in a massive heat-resistant pumice-concrete cylinder and heated by a firebox below. Its fundamental purpose was for boiling the weekly wash. Hot clothes were winkled out with a wooden 'copperstick'. They were fed manually through the hand-turned wringer before hanging out. It was heavy tiring work.
Non-boiling clothes were laid out on to the scrubbing board and attacked with the scrubbing brush and bar of yellow soap. We used 'Sunlight' soap from the grocer. Others made their own soap with varying results. Another substance always in the laundry was sandsoap, which was used for scrubbing wooden doorsteps, bench tops and floors. Housewives were often on their knees.
Sheets and towels were all made of plain white cotton or linen and the degree of whiteness of the washing flapping on the line was observed by all the neighbours, and with the brightness of the scrubbed doorstep, contributed to the ranking of a housewife. Sometimes the dirty water from the copper was carried inside by the bucketful for the weekly bath. We were lucky that our dining room fireplace heated a wetback and we had an ample supply of clean hot water throughout the winter.
Before Christmas the copper was vigorously cleaned out and used to boil the festive ham. My father always did this.
He also lit the copper on Saturday morning for the wash and helped carry the wet clothes up the rough track to the 'line' -a single length or several of strong wire or rope from edge to edge of the section and held up out of the way by strong wooden props. On a windy day the sheets billowed out like clippers in full sail. This was women's work but my mother was often unwell (or 'poorly' in the vernacular of our English relations) and my father stepped in to help.
The end of World War II was to marshal in the demise of the old methods of washing, easing the load and raising the status of many women. Electrically heated hot water cylinders were slowly being installed in most homes-especially in the thousands of State Houses being built post-war to combat the acute shortage of accommodation. The era of hydroelectric power generators had arrived. New Zealand had all the necessary landforms and first rate engineers and could lead the world. Electricity produced by turbines turned by water power controlled by river dams was reasonably cheap. Power driven washing machines ousted the old coppers.
In about 1947 Thomas and I bought one of the first of these washing machines. They were manufactured in New Zealand (by Fisher and Paykel) in about 1947. It shone like a star in our tiny wash-house. We had to wait for some months for the wringer to arrive from Canada. Very few homes boasted a new washing machine. We had little else of furniture.
On a shelf high above the machine we stored our bottles of maturing ginger beer. One evening there were a series of explosions. The bottles blown over the edge of the shelf hit the washing machine full of dirty clothes. It took an age to clear it up but we laughed all the time. The heavy pumice-concrete copper was, with difficulty, dismantled and heaved outside. The big old copper bowls were often cleaned and fashioned into containers. Many of these after polishing shone luxuriously on peoples' hearths.
New Zealand then had still to discover the extent of its oil deposits and natural gas which later would be piped extensively in the North Island. In the meantime, a great deal of our coal was burnt at 'the gasworks' to produce coal gas for heating and cooking. Most towns had their own plant to do this, usually situated in poorer districts. They were simple to find by homing in on the smell of sulphurous gases and other impurities. When coal is heated in the absence of air, coal gas, coal tar, coke, and a liquor containing ammonia are produced. Coke was a cheap and popular fuel in the open fireplace of many homes. A quiet burner producing much heat, it needed skill to start but lasted well with little attention.
The remoteness of Houghton Valley made shopping very arduous especially as few residents could afford cars. There was only one little store - of limited stock and uphill all the way back to our home. Most of our purchasing was from further afield where the shops were bigger, more competitive and also delivered weekly orders. The store did, however, keep a fair range of sweets, and serious decisions about choice had often to be made. A halfpenny - the lowest coin - would secure a small chocolate coated chew-bar. A Whitaker's toffee milk bar for one penny was richer fare and lasted nearly all the way home. There were three sizes of ice creams in cones – halfpenny (pronounced hape-knee), penny, and threepenny (pronounced thripence or thrup-knee) At one stage Ernest Adams - for decades ahead the well known makers of good quality standardised cakes - sold two ice creams for the price of one. Such joy it was - and excellent ice cream!
Once a week my mother would visit Hooper's stores in the suburb of Newtown, either walking swiftly downhill through the municipal golf links or catching the bus. Normally we would walk down and bus back when laden with shopping.
Newtown, which was in a sheltered basin, was one of the older suburbs and already run down but there were plenty of small shops and even a picture theatre. It was a busy place, the site of the Wellington Public Hospital, and the 'Show' buildings and the junction of trams to Newtown, Island Bay and Lyall Bay. Each year we attended the Winter Show which was the advertising venue for manufacturing. Much of the display material was imported. New Zealand was considered to be a market for British-made goods, the hardware products of the steel and pottery mills, and the flow of cotton and wool garments.
Wellington was not as rurally minded as most centres, which featured agricultural and pastoral (A&P) shows typical of farming districts like Christchurch and Hawkes Bay. The shops were mainly small and owner-operated. There were also some chain stores. Branches of Woolworths, Mackenzies, and Macduffs were located in most of the cities and larger towns and were usually found to be cheaper.
Few Maori went to Houghton Bay School. Wellington did not seem to attract them. Who can blame them? The areas in the middle and top of the North Island were so much warmer. There had been thriving Māori pas in Wellington, Kāpiti and Hutt districts, growing food for sale to the tribes and settlers and also providing transport. Many of them had been forced to move, as land was scarce as the capital city spread out.
In Newtown, as in other New Zealand suburbs, the greengrocers were mainly Indian. Some came up to the Valley in vans full of produce and waited for us to go down to shop. They carried purchases up to the house - very satisfactory.
We shopped weekly at Mr. Hooper's shops in Newtown. He and one son looked after the butchery. Another son ran the grocery next door. Old Mr. Hooper always looked rather formidable as he ruled his sons in his shops. They worked very hard for long hours but were always pleasant.
Visiting an old-fashioned grocer's shop was a relaxed affair. The grocer, complete with white apron, brought everything from the shelves, weighing up the pounds of sugar and flour and all consumables available in bulk. They were all packed, even eggs, into brown paper bags. Sheets of brown paper encased all our parcels and were collected and refolded for further use. (Before World War 2, plastics and Scotch tape were still in an experimental category). All sales staff in shops soon learned the best knots for tying string around parcels. There were a number of grades all made from natural fibres, cotton, linen, hemp, jute and flax. The qualities varied from rough twine to bobbins of smooth-surfaced firmly wound straight fibres of various diameters. All pieces of string were also kept for re-use tied in neat coils. In the pre-Scotch tape days, we used rolls of wide brown paper tapes backed with a thick gum which needed licking. It had a memorable taste! Some liquid glues of organic origin (such as byproducts of the meat works) were found in every home.
For office use there were also various pots of white paste, conical in shape and complete with brush through the stopper. In the kitchen and schools much use was made of flour pastes for school projects and many other uses for which they were not suitable. Wallpapers were not pre-glued. Each piece had to be coated with flour paste before hanging. My parents had always hung their own wallpapers. We followed their example. Sometimes the paper fought back, refused to stick and lay limply round our feet. Another end use which required a smooth paste was the production of papier mache, pasting small pieces of torn newspaper overlapping in a mould to make a very firm copy which was dried, trimmed, and decorated.
Many goods now supplied in plastic pots were packed in tins. Cocoa, baking powder, tobacco, mustard - each tin had it's own coloured patterns. They are now collectibles. Packets of biscuits were supplied to the shops snug inside large tins - about 25 cm square base and 30cm high. They had many uses round the home, second only to the kerosene tin.
One of our favorites was a tin of broken biscuits. It contained all types of biscuit from wine to chocolate, in small pieces or whole. Apart from the joy of tasting was the fun of tipping them out on the table and spending a happy evening sorting them. People were just used to waiting in shops while another customer made decisions. Life was less hurried then.
On the day after we visited the Hoopers, our order was delivered and carried up the steep section to the back door. The Hoopers became important in our lives.
They were owner-operators, I think, in the Four Square grocery scheme which must have been among the first groups to unite for the purpose of joint buying and establishing their own warehouses.
We also had a visiting Indian greengrocer. Over the years my mother became very friendly with them too, hearing of the problems of bringing out another brother or another wife. Immigration of other than ‘British’ stock or suitable Europeans was limited and controlled. Once I was to play the role of India in a pageant of the British Empire at the local hall. Pageants were the in thing and frequently praised our English masters. Our greengrocer lent us a magnificent embroidered apricot silk sari for the occasion. Its beauty must have compensated in part for the trembling of my voice as I warbled the Kashmiri love song. Singing was fun walking along roads or hills but in public was another matter.
Children were often sent on messages after school in those non-car and non telephone days. Little notes needed delivering, perhaps to the shop to get an extra pound of butter, perhaps to a neighbour to arrange a visit for afternoon tea or a joint trip to town. I, an inveterate daydreamer, would sometimes forget, and get into trouble and have to go out again.
On our way home from school most of us would pick up the family loaf from the shop. As they were not wrapped at all, and we were very hungry and it was a long walk home all uphill, 'picking' the bread was standard practice and quite a highly developed art. Childishly we thought that our mothers would never notice but sometimes the holes became pits and the loaf was quite balded of crust.
One stormy southerly day I had to go in an emergency to Newtown with a prescription to the chemist. Thunder and lightning terrified me as I trembled, wet through, by the lamp-post at the bus stop. If I sheltered down the bank unseen by the bus, it might pass me by. Gradually, standing under the pole awe overcame fear and almost a sense of enjoyment at being at one with the elements. Later I learned the hazards of standing under poles and trees but never again did I panic about a thunderstorm.
Looking from the house out over Cook Strait also introduced us to views of the 'aurora australis', the southern lights which made many patterns in varied colours lighting up the darkness far out over the sea. They were to be important to me thirty years later for technical reasons but in the thirties only the colours mattered.
It was a simple life. To own a dozen books was richness indeed, but the library in Newtown was well stocked. Most children had few toys, many of which were home made. Three-ply wood cut from metal-lined tea-chests in which bulk tea travelled the world was often used to make toys. It was a cheap source material often used for our own children in the 1950s. The house was full of the smell of paint just before Christmas. But the models lacked motor power, and wind-up clockwork ones were much more desirable.
On a smaller scale tea was packed in well-made wooden boxes with sliding lids. These had many uses in every home. Ours were labelled 'Broken Orange Pekoe' mystifying words to the young. There were of course many high quality presents for children. Hornby trains and meccano sets, tricycles and lead soldiers were the dreams of so many boys. Girls asked Father Christmas for china dolls, dolls' prams, and dolls' houses. My father made one for me, and my mother spent hours making furniture and clothes for the tiny inmates. Traditional English rocking horses were popular with the younger children but were very expensive.
As the Depression gripped the country and Government grants were severely cut, many extras for the school including books for a small library were paid from Miss Park's pocket. The choice of this woman as head teacher - usually a male appointment - at Houghton Valley School was another gift to me. In the years ahead in my adult life she became a much loved and respected friend.
One room at the school housed the primers and standard 1. The remainder assembled in Miss Park's room. Part of learning, of necessity involved groups of several classes and we were well versed in many subjects after exposure to them for five years. However, each class had its own individual attention.
Each day we would have tests in spelling and mental arithmetic and dates in history - English of course. We had a history textbook of New Zealand - Our Nation's Story - from the English point of view. Why it mattered that King Alfred burnt the cakes I shall never know. As a talking point it's a real fizzer. But I remember the date, 878. None of us will ever forget, that the great fire of London occurred in 1666, as the tops of the three sixes will always look like flames.
The subject called comprehension mystified me, as I could never comprehend what comprehend meant. Though I read avidly it was usually for the story. Being deep and meaningful was not my line. Literature was for greater minds if considered at all. Our family library of light novels filled two small shelves. As well there were "Brave New World" (Huxley) and "Tona Bungay'' (H.G. Wells). My father's beloved complete set of Dickens in blue and gold stood proudly on its own stand, in the front-room unread by all but himself.
Like all our generation we learned many poems by heart at school and could proclaim 'Say not the struggle nought availeth' with vigour. Miss Park was also fond of some of the New Zealand poets. Phrases still surface. Who did write…?
"The lovely things that I have watched unthinking, unknowing day by day
That their soft dyes could steep my soul in colour that will not pass away?"
Was it Gloria Rawlinson? Or Eileen Duggan? Or neither? [It was Dorethea McKellar, an Australian poet, this one was published in the collection The Witch-Maid and other Verses in 1914 – Ed]
We had no set periods during the day. Some might be spent entirely on history or science or even arithmetic. We could not expect to be saved from completion of any task by an hourly bell ringing and the class changing which was practised at most larger schools.
Merrily we watched the making of large quantities of oxygen or carbon dioxide and all the tests that ensued, produced detailed maps in geography, collected weeds in the school gardens and labelled them all. How Miss Park managed to provide us with such a span of learning I do not know. When later we were examined before entry into high schools our Standard 6 class ranked high in the results.
She was also a keen sports enthusiast, coaching the boys in cricket and the girls in basketball. I am told that it was she who was responsible for introducing this game for girls into the schools in Wellington for she was an innovator and fighter for her beliefs. Our basketball team, in itself a great achievement from such small numbers, finally in our last year there, won many matches with other Wellington schools.
In Standards 5 and 6 we attended classes in sewing or cooking once a week. These were held in a manual training centre between Lyall Bay and Kilbirnie near Rongatai Boys' College. It involved a walk of several kilometres for us as the few buses from the Valley went nowhere near this part of Wellington. We walked down the zig-zag and the 172 steps to Lyall Bay and then round the shoreline of the Bay before heading inland again. At the tram terminus at Lyall Bay we sometimes stopped and collected spent wax matches to use as ammunition in rubber band warfare with other schools who were attending at the same time.
In bad weather we were given a penny to ride a little way on the tram but we usually saved it to buy a newspaper poke full of hokey-pokey on the way home. Before we climbed back up the 172 steps and the zig-zag we would play in the rock pools at the end of Lyall Bay, and try to catch cockabullies.
Whale washed up at Lyall Bay, Wellington. Ref: 1/2-045851-G. Alexander Turnbull Library, This is dated late 1930s so probably the whale of which Dawn Seed writes.
Once a lone whale was driven ashore in a storm. Left stranded high on the rocks it was, for the first week, of great interest and was visited by half of Wellington but as it proved impossible to drag it off the rocks it became a great example of the process of decay and the stench thereof. Gradually, I think it was hacked to pieces by stalwart men and returned to the sea.
One summer, Lyall Bay was thick with jellyfish and Portuguese men-of-war. This invasion of Wellington's best surfing beach was a great nuisance to us and those who enjoyed the national surf trials which were often held there. Surf Clubs were well supported and a popular pastime. We children were warned of the deadly danger of touching the pretty blue clusters of tentacles and floats trailing from the blue invaders but waded and swam among the soup of other jellyfish. Again the providence which looks after children and drunks took command.
After our long journey to cooking classes it is doubtful if the mandatory ingredient supplied each week by our mothers arrived intact. Imagine the perils of a solitary egg or a little paper bag of flour. This requirement for cooking day caused problems in our homes especially as we usually forgot to inform our mothers of the required ingredient until the morning of the class and most of us lived a long way from shops. Though the success of our cooking was not remarkable most of us enjoyed mixing up the little messes, watching their brief and uncertain fate in the oven, and carrying our small share proudly home for family inspection and consumption. They eyed them suspiciously; most were worse for wear and sampling. Dubiously they often gave a 'thumbs down'.
Previously unknown 'delights' such as lemon sago could 'go to the dog, thank you', but most of the offerings were well received. In these classes I learned to make Welsh rarebit and continued to do so for years every Saturday for my father's lunch. He loved it so much. But I did very little other cooking at home until my mother went to work, when I contributed each night to the production of the evening meal.
Some of the cooking classes were taken by a lady appropriately named Miss Potts. Poor soul, she must have had stamina to cope with our invasion every week. We wore white aprons for these classes and a white cap.
Few memories remain of the sewing classes, only a vague recollection of a battle with a pair of taffeta pyjamas. Once we were asked to knit white wool singlets for the babies of needy families. Mine soon achieved the colour of an unwashed sheep. Later my mother finished it, but after my efforts even she could not tame it. She was so capable in both cooking and sewing that like most children I considered them to be 'her jobs'. Even when she was so busy going to work each day and later when I was working myself she still made all my dresses, whipping them up quickly from materials that were bargains at sales. There were few bought clothes in our house - my first shop-made dress was the one in which I was married in 1946.
My father's clothes were a financial dilemma for each day he must appear at the office in a tailored navy blue serge suit and white shirt and highly polished black shoes. As the seat of the trousers wore thin my mother stuck patches on to it with beaten egg-white.
In the beginning the shirt collars were detachable. They were washed and heavily starched at the Chinese laundry. Sometimes in the morning there would be a wild panic when he dropped his collar studs or his cuff links. All hands were roped in to find them. Gold studs were a popular birthday present. It took a long time to convince him that softer attached collars did not mark the demise of good business practice. It was for the bosses to lead the way, and release him from the fear of wrath from his superiors.
He was a conservative tied to the concept of the cityman, a middle-class unit caught up in the system. His work as chief shipping clerk included skillfully sharpening his 'copying' pencil with his penknife and writing many books of invoices, carefully moving the carbon paper to obtain enough copies.
He was often out visiting the warehouses. We were able to shop at these at wholesale rates and at Christmas they presented him with boxes of chocolates and other goodies for the family and we always had an abundance of calendars. We waited hopefully each year to see if his firm was going to give him a Christmas bonus, which they usually did.
I don't think he had salary increases often but we ate royally at Christmas for they would also give samples of the goods they imported, luxury foods from England. There were packets of dates stuffed with almonds, red sockeye salmon, pots of olives, and tinned fruits from South Africa - with gold labels.
On Budget night, his pencil poised over a clean sheet of paper he was ready to note and learn all the changes in tariffs which would commence next morning. Filling in income tax forms was also a ceremony in our family. The taxman wielded the heaviest axe, as he still does.
Gradually after the war the tailored navy serge suit gave way to - dare one say it - faintly patterned tailored suits, then horror of horrors, off the peg purchases, each change being a battle with his conscience. To the end of his days he always wore a brimmed felt hat, and he pops up in memory as a slim tallish figure bending into the wind holding his gaberdine raincoat about him with one hand and his hat on with the other. His weight and figure never changed. (I seem to have inherited his genes which prevented the accumulation of fat.) In his office clothes he never carried anything more bulky than a newspaper. Parcels and shopping were the responsibility of my mother. There was one exception. On payday there was always a bag of sweets - sometimes two - in his coat pocket.
Before 1936 most people worked on Saturday morning. Most rejoiced when legislation brought in a five day, eight hours a day system - the famous 40 hour week. We were so delighted to have all the family at home for two whole days at the weekend. It was at this time that our father helped with the heavy washing and spent time establishing a garden. This was a constant battle with the wind. He happily ranged round the Town Belt filling a small sack with manure to improve the thin layer of soil. We had a small but hardy strawberry plot for many years. That was the elegant side to his gardening. Much energy was spent in shouldering his grubber and attacking the gorse. Perhaps he had some misgivings about this heavy work for his parents and family believed he had heart problems.
He had been just 18 years old when World War I began. At the Army Recruiting Office he was turned down because he had a weak heart - after having had rheumatic fever in his youth. He told me that he had reapplied every six months with the same refusal. Working in London, surrounded by servicemen, he must have felt very unhappy at times, a young fit-looking man in a society which sent white feathers to 'cowards'. Ironically, in 1941 when he had pneumonia the doctors told him there was nothing at all wrong with his heart.
Many Saturday afternoons, after the forty hour week was introduced, dressed in his best weekend clothes, grey slacks and jacket he caught the two o'clock bus to the city and probably had a couple of beers at the pub - the Midland I think. I assume he must have had a chat there; he always came back later about four o'clock with the evening paper. This was the rhythm of his life. He never seemed to want anything different. He loved his home, his wife and children and his country - New Zealand.
Note the advertising use of the new 40 hour week! EVENING POST 6 OCTOBER 1936 ATL
My parents therefore were both good, honest people living a simple life without religious, sporting or political fervour, and without either demands or great expectation. My father regarded attendance at church as a weddings and funerals necessity. His own father was a lapsed Catholic, his mother staunch Church of England in which religion her two children were raised. His sister Jessie and her family attended the Anglican Church regularly and the children were sent to a church school. There was some attempt made at one time for me to go to the Anglican Sunday school in Newtown with my cousins but the formality and the catechism floored me. I could never get beyond the first question, "What is your name?" The answer in the book said, Reply N or M. How does this apply to me, my young mind said, who am neither N nor M? And logic would not allow me to proceed.
I returned thankfully to Sunday services in the local hall where they sang jolly hymns and informality reigned. There were variations in the services. They called those churches interdenominational. A different Church with a different minister presided each Sunday.
The times I remember best were those when the Island Bay Baptist church took over entirely bringing with it a heavy brand of Protestantism. Some hell fire and damnation still lingered. Souls were saved. A close pure social life could provide much fun within the rules. The youth from Island Bay organised social gatherings with games and puzzles. Ballroom dancing was not allowed. One always wore a hat to church. Make-up was an enticement of the devil.
How the churches have changed over the years, impotent against the flood of new ideas. Many of our generation, ear-bashed and drowned in religion, are wary of entanglement with any one of them but perhaps acknowledge that fear of God and the criticism of one's peers whipped many a wanderer along the straight and narrow path. Observation of problems and jealousy between many faiths leaves me glad to be free of them all. As was proper in a secular state school, Miss Park never mentioned religion. But she tried to teach us the virtues of honesty, truth, and self esteem as well as concern for others. I believe that she spent some time on the West Coast among a family of cousins who tramped and sailed and loved outdoor life. She must have been a breath of fresh air in educational circles in Wellington.
Though she was said to be a firm supporter of the Labour movement, politics never entered into the school day. Apparently she fought for equality of the sexes; never a word of feminist indoctrination was uttered at school. She treated us all equally as potential thinkers. Always she encouraged truth - our school motto was 'Truth Without Fear'- and the love of learning. Probably she practised 'lateral thinking' long before it became a catch phrase. She told us the Latin roots of words and aroused in me a great desire to study this language. She taught us to draw and the intricacies of perspective. She taught us to sing and dance - most of the boys seemed tone deaf and at least three-footed and hated these subjects. We rendered heartily if not tunefully the songs in The Dominion Songbook, very patriotic numbers, including Tara's Halls, the Ash Grove, and Māori songs.
Our handwork was always well organised. Mim, our grandmother probably found it difficult to praise the purple and pink twine basket which I made for her. I think it was used for mushrooming. My mother admired the little blue and gold doormats made from rug wool and canvas and used them until they wore out. In every venture Miss Park urged us to do our best. She loved poetry and was a keen patriot. Each Anzac Day was very solemnly celebrated by a service in the school grounds. Each year we learned the songs, the poems and the story of World War I.
The tragedy of Gallipoli was fresh in the minds of our parents. New Zealand casualties had been very heavy. All over New Zealand cenotaphs had been erected. Towns of all sizes gratefully displayed the names of their dead. Each year on Anzac Day the residents gathered together beneath their memorial or at their school and remembered those who had been lost to them. Few eyes were dry as the bugler played the Last Post. Miss Park was always very serious on these occasions. Some wondered if she too was remembering a special person. Although she was remarkably self-controlled she could succumb to exasperation and brief anger, but she was always fair and I believe that most of her pupils took a great respect for her with them as they left.
In standards 5 and 6 we became the seniors at the school, helping to cope with the other classes. Sometimes we took lessons with one group while she tended another. We made the burnt cocoa in the winter and her cup of afternoon tea, usually barely recognisable from hot water. On those occasions on which she had to leave the school for excursions to points unknown she would declare one of us in charge and drive away without showing the misgivings she must have felt. "Write the names of those who misbehave on the board," she would say, "and I'll deal with them when I return." We took it in turns to try to keep order. For a senior who was about half the size of most of the others in the room it was a sort of hell. The list of names on the board would grow and grow to be quickly rubbed out when she was seen coming down the path - to be greeted by a saintly hush and all heads down.
I enjoyed going to school and learning but I had no ambitions and probably never considered the future. Weekends and holidays were always welcome.
There were few cars in the Valley. Miss Park chugged up every day in her small one, a Morris I think. Legs and buses were our means of transport. And trains! Picnics in the holidays in the fringe areas of Wellington took a great deal of organisation. All the food had to be prepared and packed - we had no refrigerator in which to keep it - until after the war - and carried with togs and towels and bats and balls.
We were lucky to be near the sea and able to walk to Island Bay for a swim or sometimes for a tramp farther round to Red Rocks. The tide had to be right out for this. The sea lapped at the base of the cliffs at the Runaround. A number of people had been drowned trying to get back - it was a forbidding and overwhelming area. Tales of others who had tried to climb up and over the steep hills behind the shore and were lost as the fog rolled in made us look over our shoulders tentatively for another way out. We were told that the blood of a Maori girl who had lost her life round there had stained the rocks red
Tamahine in the patent slip, Evans Bay. New Zealand Ship and Marine Society
Few people had cars in the 1930s and during World War II petrol was strictly rationed. The import of cars, and other goods, was still regulated in the 1950s. For many years only those with overseas funds could import a new car. Second hand car prices were high and the car was out of reach to many people. But there were other ways to travel.
There were day trips to Picton on the Cook Strait ferry, the old "Tamahine" faithfully chugging along in all weathers. From our house on a stormy day we could watch it dip into the waves out of sight and reappear before taking the next plunge. It could seem a long time as we held our breaths but it always made it back.
There was also an overnight ferry to Christchurch. It was possible to sleep on the boat both down to Christchurch and up to Wellington and maximise the daylight hours to be used for social occasions or sporting events in another destination. There were also night sailings to Nelson on the "Arahura" but not every night.
Now and then we visited friends who farmed in the remoteness of the Buller region near Howard Junction. I do not recall whether we went on the ferry to Picton and then took a bus through the Tophouse region or whether we took the Nelson ferry and then went south via Richmond, Hope and Brightwater and further down past Glenhope. Their house must have been miles from the main highway up a long rough road which included many fords. Deer were plentiful in the forbidding bush-clad slopes of the valley. The lady who lived in this isolated area had come from London on the boat with Auntie Bessie. She must have wept many tears from loneliness. In the winter access could be impossible. They had three sons. It was a hard life for all - they were the only real pioneers we knew.
Occasionally we joined a train holiday excursion to Upper Hutt, on a family outing, pouring from the train into the local park. Sometimes we were able to get as far as the Akatarawa stream, a picturesque spot on the edge of the bush. Like many attractive places in New Zealand it bred very healthy sand flies and mosquitoes. The Akatarawa road still winds over towards the West Coast (Kāpiti) still narrow and surrounded by the quiet bush in places. Water still flows from the top of the Tararua and Rimutaka Mountains into the small streambeds. Not far away the traffic screams along the main highway. On the flat areas crops still flourish.
As there were no other children of my age group at the top of the Valley, life was initially rather lonely but I played many games like Ludo with my dolls and myself, and read many books. Finally I was able to adventure down the road.
Our nearest neighbours up the road must have been five small sections away on the other side of a gully full of scrub and gorse. There our nearest neighbours lived in a small house built by the owner. They were Scottish and introduced me to potato scones. They had one child, a daughter quite a few years older than I was and attending one of the other schools as the local Valley school was not available at that time. We did not meet often.
The Valley children were split into two groups - those who attended the new school and those who chose to finish their education in the more distant suburbs.
There was plenty of space outside in which to play. We made forts in the scrub, climbed trees and the high banks along the roadside. On our home-made sleds we hurtled down the dry grass slopes in the summer; in winter we dammed the little creek which ran along the valley floor, waded in potholes along the gutters to see how far we could go before the water flooded into our gumboots, or skipped from tussock to tussock in the swamp to see when we would start to sink in. Most of my white socks turned quickly grey at this game. We tested our skill throwing stones into the Valley below. In the gully we explored the remnants of bush and mānuka, swinging on the supplejacks in the quiet dark recesses.
Always the sea waited at the end of the road. Not even the most foolhardy would have considered setting a foot in Houghton Bay itself. In a southerly it is a magnificent sight with rollers pounding in. On a calm day it shimmers and caresses the shore but the steep slope down and the hiss of the undertow leave no doubt of its intentions. We would run along its debris-scattered beach, picking up the loveliest of the pāua shells brought up in the last storm and climb over the rocks at the point to a small haven, Princess Bay.
I was never a strong swimmer. My mother would have had a fit to see me at times trying to keep up with some of the others who swam right out into the middle of the Bay or to realise how we leapt from rock to rock along the wave washed line reaching for the ocean. Somehow we must have judged the tides well in our searches among the rock pools. Once I fell in but was quickly hauled out. Unfortunately I was vainly wearing the watch my parents had just given me for my birthday. It was typical of them that they were disappointed rather than cross but I felt the shame, as I knew that they could barely afford it. It was eventually quietly replaced.
Somehow the wild sea coast etches into the soul. On the occasional holiday we spent with friends in Christchurch I was overcome by its dullness and flatness, its insipid beaches, its fenced inhospitable farmland.
The journey down on the ferry was a great treat to me but my mother whose stomach was not as stable as mine suffered greatly on some of those wild southerly trips. The picture persists of frost-covered fields seen from the train in the May holidays on emerging at the Christchurch end of the rail tunnel from Lyttelton.
Our friends, Doris and Jack Peddie - who had at one time lived in Houghton Valley - had moved back to their hometown and lived in South New Brighton. There was plenty of space for the young and much joy in chasing scuttling crabs on the Estuary. Sailing paper boats in the continuous flow of clean water along the gutters from the overflow of the well-water supply was always popular. We had nothing like it at home.
During the summer holidays we often shared the rent of a beach cottage at Castlepoint on the Wairarapa coast or Raumati South on the Kāpiti coast with my father's youngest cousin Tup (Pat) Taylor, her fiance - later husband - Len Cooper and various of their relations. Tup and Len, young Auntie and Uncle to me, owned a small car, and often took us away with them. I went on one long drive north with them as Len was taking Tup up to Taranaki to visit relations. Len was driving back immediately and my constant chatter was intended to keep him awake I think.
One constant delay in local driving was the boiling of the radiator at the top of the Paekakariki hill and waiting for it to cool down before filling it at the roadside tap. This drive over the hill road provided a testing course for all the traffic north from Wellington up the west coast. Later a roadway was hewn around the coast nearer sea level next to the train line and the old hill road sank back to secondary status. It was yet another triumph for New Zealand whose engineers were world renowned for their skill.
The Coopers visited my parents often during the 1930s, bringing the latest board games with them. They were I guess, typical of the members of the growing generation who were not unemployed. Young and bright, tennis and table tennis champions of the Hutt Valley, they broadened our narrow life. Initially they battled with my parents at 500, but later they introduced us to the new game of Monopoly and finally Mah-Jong. Their wedding in 1934, when I was ten and one of their six young bridesmaids was a family highlight. (In 1984 I joined them for the celebration of their golden wedding.)
We always went out a lot in the school holidays, visiting relations - mostly my father's cousins and their young children and my great favorite, Auntie Bessie. The fathers of Bessie Moss and my mother were first cousins. My grandfather, Stanley David Moss, came to live with my parents after the War. (Thomas and I were married by then). My mother, Queenie Moss, settled in Wellington in 1923. She must have written enthusiastically to her good friend and second cousin Bessie Moss urging her to come to this land of opportunity. Bessie arrived in 1925 on the SS Remuera and subsequently saved to bring her mother, her one unmarried sister Cissie and her young brother Leslie and his wife Edith out to join her. Her memories were of often being one step ahead of the bailiffs in London.
Later in life she told me about these times but as a child I only knew that she loved me as her own. She was a direct woman, quick and alert, but no diplomat. She married in the mid-thirties after working for many years as a saleswoman, then buyer, in the glove department of Kircaldies and Staines, the shopping ground of the rich and famous citizens of Wellington. At this time hats and gloves were important items of dress for women. Many men also wore hats.
Auntie Bessie was probably in her thirties when she married. Her husband, Jock Glen, was a widower, many years her senior, one of a large family of market gardeners of Scottish descent. He had a smallholding of good land in Porutu Street, Epuni, Lower Hutt. He was a quiet gentle man, tall and strong and hard working. His life had not been without problems. His first wife had died of illness. Auntie Bessie loved Jock dearly and took her place beside him in the market garden. Sometimes she would return to shop work to help out - several times in the Hutt Self-Help grocery store.
Having married rather late in life they had no children. Market gardening was a demanding occupation, dependent on the weather and the laws of supply and demand. Nowadays I see crops being sown and harvested where no human hand touches the soil or the produce.
Sometimes I stayed overnight with them and shared the backbreaking work. Picking a kerosene tin full of peas is hard work and the admiration of a field of zinnias dims in the sun when one is picking them for market. After one of these sessions Uncle Jock gave me a half crown to spend. I bought a navy-blue velour wide-brimmed hat and a sixpenny broach to decorate it. This was my first hat apart from school hats. Similarly my school coat was my best coat. I loved visiting them. There I learned many of the pitfalls and secrets of market gardening. The rich soil in the Hutt Valley, supported many families, all individualists who tried to keep secret what they had sown for the coming season in the hopes of getting high prices for something in short supply. One year they had all chosen pumpkins and had to dig them in for the prices were not high enough to pay for transport to the markets in Wellington.
Uncle Jock would laugh at my enthusiasm for cutting his lawn with his big hand mower. We had no such splendour as a lawn on our rocky hillside. Strangely, grass cutting remained a kind of pleasure to me even in those adult days when it became a weekly waste of time and energy.
I mentioned that I had no ambition. This is apart from a burning desire for several years to join the British navy. We had a young sailorman from H.M.S Veronica visit and stay with us periodically during that time while the ship was on Pacific duties. It was certainly around New Zealand in 1933 and helped in the Napier earthquake. But I do not know when Sailor John first arrived. His step-sister had been one of Auntie Bessie's good friends in England. He would have been only in his twenties, a quiet shy young man who became my hero. Every time he came into port he brought wonderful gifts for me. He taught me to swim, organised a lavish birthday party for me, took us all round his ship, was a keen photographer and wrote us many letters. It was thanks to him that we had so many photographs. My mother had a box Brownie which produced quite good pictures with complete simplicity. Our home became very important to John for he had never experienced home life of his own. His family too was deserted while young. His sisters were split up and put into domestic service - one in Canada. The boy was placed into a Barnardo Home which steered him into the Navy as they did many of the boys without families to care for them. He shared our adoration for my young sister Betty who was born in 1933 when I was nearly nine years old. She was a premature baby, hardly expected to survive but much desired. There had been miscarriages, previously. I knew nothing of the impending event and was at a birthday party down the bottom end of the Valley. My father arrived to ask if I could stay the night. On being told in the morning that I had a baby sister, I felt very hurt to find out that the children of the house knew about it before I did. Both the new baby and my mother spent many weeks in the Karitane Hospital, fortunately only a mile or so away in Melrose on our bus route to the city. At about six months Betty contracted whooping cough, then a killer, which she fought through. I too went down with it. What an ordeal it must have been for our mother. During that time I learned the meaning of isolation.
The tenuous beginning made the new baby an extra treasure. All were affected and the family lifestyle changed. She was as blonde as I was dark and grew as a happy outward going child. I realise now that it meant that my mother could not easily share picnics and outings and many of my more interesting excursions were now made with the families of my school friends who had no smaller children.
The Brooks who lived well down the Valley and had two daughters Margaret and Lorna about my own age were especially kind and dear to me. How well I remember the smell of baking in Mrs Brook's kitchen on Saturday afternoons. It was here that I first encountered the joy of bread and butter and golden syrup. Margaret and I went through High School together and still exchange notes on our Christmas cards. She is my only non-relation contact with this early period of my life.
(Evening Post, 11 January 1941). Alexander Turnbull Library. Original caption: ‘Many children continue to visit the Zoo at Newtown, and a ride on the elephant retains its popularity’.
Most of this time I saw quite a lot of my first cousins in the Haigh family, especially Ath 'n' Nat. They lived for longish periods in either the Valley or Melrose and although they did not attend the local school we shared much time together, often visiting the Newtown Zoo. This was within walking distance and free to children. Zoos are nowadays somewhat frowned upon. One cannot doubt that there are often good reasons. But in our unsophisticated innocence we did not see the injustice.
The Newtown Zoo was a constant delight to us. We usually took a bag of old bread to spend much time feeding the birds on the small lake and knew each animal almost personally from the parrots to the elephant. We could never afford a ride on the elephant (sixpence, I believe) but we never tired of watching it being fed and bathed as its eyes twinkled so kindly at us. If we waited long enough as it was scrubbed and washed we might get a good laugh as it filled its trunk with water and hosed down an unwary bystander. During the long summer school holidays many long days were devoted to the Zoo, covering every square yard, noting every change, running and laughing in its great expanse.
Mt Albert Road, where it joins Houghton Bay Road, Wellington, being upgraded by relief workers during the Depression. Published in the Evening Post on Friday 20 May 1932 with the caption: "Another Relief Work Job - At the top of the hill on the Houghton Bay Road, where a number of men are employed in reducing the grade and otherwise making this popular drive safer for motor traffic." Alexander Turnbull Library ref 1/2-088463-G
My father's parents (Carneys) always lived with the Haigh cousins and their parents, Auntie Jessie and Uncle Joe, - usually a tight squeeze in a small house. After Natalie, (born 1928), no children were born until John Martin (27/2/32), Joan Rosalind (31/10/34) - contemporaries of Betty. Robina Lynette was born in (4/1/41)
My grandfather was not working and was considered to be a semi-invalid. He was not important to me and my only strong memories are his bright eyes and his devotion to making home brew, which lingered unpleasantly on his moustache during the dutiful kisses. I was never fond of him. But my grandmother Isabel Athlene (Jenkins), known as Mim was loved by all the children. She would round us all up and take us mushrooming over the Town Belt keeping up with us in all the steep places. Occasionally we would find a basketful but it was not good mushroom country. Sometimes we wandered with her through the pinewoods collecting cones for her fire. Sometimes we all romped over mudflats at Evans Bay (now a part of the aerodrome) digging for cockles and pipis. For her, as well as a release from the house these adventures were no doubt a source of much needed food and fuel. Certainly collecting cigarette ends with her from the gutters to reassemble for my grandfather to smoke indicated their poverty.
It was a loving, sheltered childhood. But even a child could not be unaware of the Depression as it hit a section of the community without reserves. Pictures of hungry children and despondent parents abide and it is with no joy that our generation sees the same bewilderment and helplessness growing in the 1990s. We can only hope that we never again have to open the door to a tramp trying to sell us some poorly made rubbish to enable him to feed his family and that today's children do not have to daily pass crowds of relief workers with their picks and shovels working on roadside cuttings. The despair on their faces is burned indelibly on my mind.
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