The Watt Family of Island Bay

What I am about to write would  most certainly not be considered ‘historical‘, or for that matter perhaps of any great interest to anybody. Dear friends of mine sent me a copy of the first and subsequent editions of Southern Bays and to say I have enjoyed these publications is an understatement. They are full of interest and record historical facts, but most importantly to someone like myself they have brought back the most wonderful memories.

I was born in Island Bay, in 1939. My family name was Watts and we lived at 56 Derwent Street. I was the second of four children, having an older brother and two younger ones, and my name was Patricia Watts.

Our childhood was remarkably wonderful, we had incredible neighbours and friends in the street, the Anyons, Redicans, Martins, Antons, Irvings, Skinners, later the Devoys when the Redicans left the Bay. Peg Ogden, a well-known personality and a lovely lady lived further up the street.

We made entertainment for ourselves. We roamed the hills at the back of Derwent Street, where during the winter you could rely on a good feed of mushrooms and if you ventured far enough and roamed on the property belonging to Knight’s farm you could rely on Mr Knight turning his dogs on to you, which necessitated a very fast retreat.

It was the days of biking with your friends to all sorts of places. I had a hand down of a bike from a cousin who lived in Berhampore. In fact I had many hand downs from my cousin, including  clothing. The bike was enormous and I was not very big in stature, but it made no difference. Just to have a bike in those days was really something special. We would bike to the “run around“, that is what it was called in those days, leave our bikes unattended and walk to Red Rocks with a picnic lunch. In this regard I suppose I was fortunate in having an older brother and get to know all his friends, such as John Grace, John Seamer, Don Gudsell, John Sole, all these boys came to our house in Derwent Street for great games of Monopoly. Another family living in Derwent Street were the Robins family. They were a family of six at that stage, with two Nanas living with them; their family later increased to eight children.

Our other entertainment of course was the picture theatre: The Empire. By the time I had reached college age I was lucky enough to be asked to serve in the little theatre shop, which was owned by a  lady called Dot Legge. I used to mind the shop for her sometimes after college and help serve during the interval of the movies on a Saturday afternoon; all this was done with a great feeling of self importance and the knowledge that you were the envy of all the other kids around about. 

It was the days of the horse and cart delivering your milk and many a morning waking up to find no milk left as someone would have pinched the milk tokens overnight. It was also the days of being able to play cricket in the street with very little chance of a car coming along. Our neighbours across the road, the Irving’s, had a car, one of the few in the street, it was only taken out on Sunday when they went  for a family drive. I was often invited for the Sunday drive. A real treat, Mr Irving would drive us to perhaps Paraparaumu or Paekakariki and Bev, their daughter, and I would have a climb on the rocks, an ice cream and home we would go until the next week. I loved to go to her house as a child, with a Nana in residence as well, she just seemed to be much luckier than me. She wore braces on her teeth  and glasses and I longed to possess both items.

It was the days of knowing all the shopkeepers up and down The Parade. The Dallows had the bookshop, news agency for years and I went to school with their daughters. The Tilyards had a butcher shop , the Fars had the fruit shop, but down our end of The Parade our fruit shop was owned by “Bill” and that is the only name for him that I have, but he used to keep his bananas hidden at the back of his counter and you really had to be in his good books to receive any. In the early days there was a lovely dairy alongside the fruit shop, owned by a Jewish family by the name of Aarons. A family by the name of James had the butcher shop, a father and two sons, Peter and Ron. Across the road on the corner of Mersey and The Parade the shop was a grocers and the family who owned it were named Cooke. As I write this I can picture all these people so vividly in my mind. The chemist shop owned by Mr Eason, was directly opposite the picture theatre, while on the corner was a draper’s shop. I cannot remember the name of the man that owned it, but they had their grandson living with them. His name was Stuart Munroe and was greatly admired by my friend Beverly Irving.

The first tragedy I can recall was when Tom Redican drowned at Lyall Bay. I think he was only fifteen. I can remember my mother going to the house to comfort Peggy Redican and coming back home and saying in her Irish superstitious way “that Peggy Radican had hung the new season’s calendar on her wall before the year had finished“. The second that I recall was the death of Mr Bill Martin. The Martins had a huge front lawn which Bill mowed with a hand mower and if he saw you coming along Mersey Street would stop work and wander down to the fence for a chat. Bill worked on the railways and could pick up and carry a sleeper with one hand.  Mrs Martin was a most wonderful baker. If you went to their house on a Saturday morning with perhaps a message from your mother the smell of her baking was wonderful. She made incredible scones and her sponges were to die for.

This, in part, is my early life in Island Bay. I could write in great length about many other things, not the least, my education at St Madeline Sophies. In those days the discipline was strict but, I have always thought, fair. The discipline was a great incentive to learn.

I have now lived in Australia for over twenty years and have had the opportunity to travel considerably, but there is only ever one place that at least once a year I feel I must  return to and that is Island Bay. When I return to Island Bay,  I feel safe. I feel comfortable. I feel happy. My life there was happy. I know people’s faces, even now, as they grow older. The Italians never seem to change, they are such a part of Island Bay and my life there. I had schoolmates from the Toscano, Serci, Natoli, Dellabarca, Lamarcchia, Aprea, Barnaos, Criscillo, Paino, Di Mattina, Muollo, and Basile families and you can still see a new generation of these families that made Island Bay what it is today and it’s a good feeling.