Entertainment

Both Mother and Father were fond of poetry so it was not surprising that I was taught to recite, and from the time I started school I did so at the school concerts.  We also enjoyed concerts at home, each one encouraged to contribute, and in the school holidays when Aunty Isa usually visited us, we enjoyed a singsong round the old harmonium.  We also enjoyed playing snakes and ladders and happy families, and later Biblux, which were Bible questions with the answers on little cards.  No TV in those days - but one year our parents bought us a cinematograph, which showed a film when you turned a handle.  Daddy supplied the sound effects, and lots of fun that caused!  Birthdays and engagements were always an excuse for a party when friends gathered at someone’s home and a good time was had by all. Looking back, as far as I remember it was the men who supplied the items (they all had their favourite ones and it didn’t matter that they gave the same ones each time, they were always enjoyed).  When I was older Uncle Sam often took me to Church socials where we played The Grand Old Duke of York and always finished with Auld Lang Syne.  Later still, a friend and I, with old Duke in the gig, went to the dances in Puketaha School.  We always went to the school concerts, of course, but not usually to the fancy dress ones. 

Not to be classified as entertainment, of course, Anzac Day was always an important day in Gordonton.  The day before, flowers were taken to school, and lots of lawsoniana to make the foundation for wreaths.  The older children, helped by some women of the district, made many beautiful ones.  Next day the children all marched to the cenotaph and put them in place there.  Someone spoke about the meaning of Anzac and remembering the many who had died so that we might be safe and free.  Sometimes I would accompany Uncle Sam to the service in Hamilton too.  In my last days at Gordonton we also had a flower show and Mother’s lovely magnolia in a basket assured me of a prize.  After I left, calf days became popular too.  Although I was able to go to Hamilton to secondary school, when it was Edith’s turn there was no transport available and she joined the Correspondence School and did some of her work at Gordonton and some at home.  Having passed her Matric she went on to Auckland Training College and in due course became a teacher like her Mother. 

In the meantime I had left school to help on the farm, milking when I was needed.  I was much happier, though, when I was employed full-time as I knew I was a part of the team. 

At the beginning of 1932 Kingsford Smith flew the Southern Cross from England to New Zealand.  He came to Hamilton and took people for flights, and I was one of them.  We flew at 60 mph and at height.  It cost me 10 shillings for a 10-minute flight, but it was great. 

Not long after I started school, probably in Standard 1, we were taken to a park to greet the Duke and Duchess of York (not the late Queen Mother) and another time to see the Duke and Duchess of Kent.  In 1935 I was in Hamilton when the death of King George V was announced and the air of sadness in the town was very real.  Britain’s policy of ‘The King is Dead, Long Live the King’ meant that Edward, Prince of Wales was proclaimed King.  However, at that time he had fallen in love with an American woman, Wallis Simpson.  Not only was she an American, but also she was twice divorced, and was just not going to be accepted as Queen, neither by the Government nor by the ordinary people of England, so Edward was told he would have to renounce Wallis or the throne.  He decided to abdicate and married his ladylove and they went to live in France, never to be accepted in his own country again.  So it was that his brother was crowned King and his wife Queen. 

That was in 1937 and when war was declared in 1939 their girls were quite young, but they were not sent out of London as many children were (some to remote parts of Britain, but many to the colonies).  Before the end of the war Elizabeth, our present Queen, was driving an ambulance in London.