Audrey's childhood in Kerikeri
(Chap.5)

NZ Friends School; a school assembly - 1948


JOAN HYDE'S ELDEST DAUGHTER, AUDREY, STORY OF HER CHILDHOOD IN KERIKERI
 
Chapter5 : N.Z. FRIENDS SCHOOL - WANGANUI

Chapters:
Chap. 1: Early Day's in Kerikeri    Chap. 2: Coolalie and Twins  
Chap. 3: Dad's Army    Chap. 4: Early School Days   
Chap: 6: Rivervale School and Pony Club
Chap. 7: Marist Convent   Chap. 8: Northland College
Appendix I: David on "Life in Kerikeri"
Appendix 2 - Coolalee's sale tender document
 
Index for this page:
The main building at NZ Friends School
I. Decision to send the Twins to a Quaker School

In February 1946 David and my life was to be turned upside down. Dad wanted his son to have the best education and scouted all around N.Z. to find a suitable preparatory school, because it was the 'done' thing in England, and his criteria was that the school had to take both David and I. He wanted me to go so that David wouldn't miss his twin, and I believe that was the only reason why I landed up having three hellish years at the N.Z. Friends School, although I did make some good friends while there.

Dining room, Infirmary, main block 1949

Many years later David told me he also did not enjoy being at the school and he was to stay there two years longer than I did. Mum never wanted us to be sent away from home but she had married an autocratic man so, although her legacies paid our fees, she had no say in the matter.

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II. Journeys to Wanganui.

On our first journey, to Wanganui, we stayed with some acquaintances of Mum’s on St Johns Hill, for a few days, before being taken to our new school and neither of us had any idea that Mum was going to leave us so many hundreds of miles from home. We were taken into see the headmaster, Mr Douglas, and while he was talking to us Mum slipped out and we never saw her again for another three months. We were devastated and both cried for days with a feeling of total desertion. Mum told me, years later, it was one of the worst days in her life, and she had regretted it ever since. God knows what would have happened if she had gone back to Keri Keri with the two of us!

Trainscape

On our first trip we were accompanied by Mum, because Dad chose to stay home for Julia. This was the only time we travelled with either parent because on later journeys, Mrs Latch, whose son Roger went to Friend’s with us, would meet us from the Northland train, in Auckland, and take us to her home for dinner before we had to catch the next train.

We both had large chest-like trunks with our names painted on them and all our clothes had name tags inside them. Mum had got those made in England and they were quite posh compared to some of our other class mates!

At the beginning of each term we travelled the approximately 450 miles, (750 Kilometres) by train, starting from the Otiria station at 9 a.m. and arriving in Auckland at 4 p.m. and the next train known by the name of ‘The Limited’ left at 7 p.m. and would get into the Martin Station at about 4am. We played around the station and on the overhead bridges until the next train came a couple of hours later, and then we’d board, what I considered, a very old train. Each carriage had slatted, wooden seats, and who can forget the Fordell tunnel!! We would breathe in deeply and hold our breath for as long as we could, just before the train entered the tunnel, because the smoke from the engine would pour in through the many jammed windows that wouldn’t shut no matter what one tried to do.

The train reached Wanganui at about 9a.m. and when we got off the train, the teachers would line us up, and greet us with the words, “Hand over your ration cards!” They never asked us how our trip went, or any other thing pertaining to our long 24 hour train journey. We’d then be herded onto a tram, with all our luggage, and whisked up the St John’s Hill, to the school.

Rear view of main building NZ Friends School circa 1947

David and I were the only ones to come from so far north but at Auckland there were a few more, besides Roger Latch. Peter Chamberlain and his sister, Joan, from Ponui Island, I remember, but one lad I will never forget was Guy Henderson. He boarded the train at Frankton Junction and would always carry his harmonica with him. Once the train got under way he’d start to play and entertain the whole carriage with his renditions of many cowboy songs. ‘Don’t fence me in’ was my favourite. He was very popular with both young and old and it helped to pass the time away, on those long boring train journeys.

I must mention something I will always remember about the Wanganui railway station. On the seats of the station, many elderly Maori ladies waited to greet friends and family from the train. They wore woollen blankets, as shawls, around their shoulders, and woolly scarves around their heads and smoked long thin pipes, but what fascinated me, were the beautiful scrolled mokos adorning their cheeks and chins. These ladies were fine looking ladies and always gave us lovely smiles. I wish now that I had talked to them and learned about their lives up the Wanganui River but alas I was only a kid!

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III. The School Uniform.
Paul Sullivan - NZ Friends School - circa 1947

Our uniforms were grey with red and grey stripes, on our ties and hat bands circling our felt hats. The boys wore caps striped red and grey. We girls had to wear grey woollen stockings held up by what was then known as Liberty Bodices. This was a type of thick vest with suspenders attached to the bottom of the garment. For Sunday evenings and special events, we girls wore black velvet dresses with lace collars and white socks and black shoes.

Our shoes were brown and Dad told me that my shoes were to last me a year; with the result I have had feet trouble ever since. Our shoes would get very tight, and the soles would wear out, so we would put cardboard in the bottoms of them to make them last. They leaked horribly if the ground was wet, when we stood out on the tennis courts for assembly. It was much worse in winter so it was no wonder we suffered from terrible chilblains.

In my first year at Friends I slipped over on the ice, after assembly, and was taken to the Wanganui hospital for an X-ray. I was absolutely terrified because in those days, in order to see if the lens of the X-ray machine was above the right spot, they wanted to x-ray, they used a plumb-line .This was a ‘top-like’ thing with a very pointed end hanging from a string. I was convinced they were going to drop the ‘top’ and it would go right through my wrist so screamed my head off. Eventually, when they calmed me down, they found I had a greenstick fracture in my wrist.

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IV. What I learnt and an earthquake

I can honestly say I don’t think I learnt a thing as far as academia went, in that school, but I did learn how to swim; play tennis and hockey, and was totally bored when I had to play cricket! Of all the classes, Nature Study was the only one that interested me and Mr Cooper, the English teacher, ran an ‘international club’ you could join, thus I learnt more about the world in this club than in the proper class room.

Dorothy Baker and Alan Cooper circa 1948

Mr Cooper eventually married another member of the staff, Miss Baker, whom we girls adored. She was good to us and occasionally, when we were all tucked up in bed in the dormitory, she would sing, to us, the popular song, ‘The Teddy Bears Picnic.’ Coop and Bake, as we nicknamed them, left the school and went to live in England. Those of us left behind missed them enormously. (Funnily enough that same song was to feature in my life about 50 years later but that is for another chapter).

A week into our first term we had the first earthquake many of us had experienced and it was very frightening. We were at prep and when the buildings started to shake, and the ground rumbled, we all rushed outside panic - stricken. It took a long time for the teachers to round us all up and settle us down. Mt Ruapehu had been erupting before we got to Wanganui and about this time Mt Ruapehu had a small eruption again, and although it was about 90 miles away from us, we had a very good view of the mountain from our dormitory, and sat up half the night watching it spew out the lava. It was fascinating.

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External Dormitory at the NZ Friends School
V. School Discipline.

The Friends School was a Quaker school and being pacifists they didn’t believe in punishment, but they used a form of psychology I would call it. We were all given a small note book which one had to carry around at all times. This was called a ‘Black Mark Book’ and in this, if one was caught by a teacher doing a misdemeanour, she or he, would write a note in the book about the misdeed. Three notes in a week and you were hauled up in from of the whole school at assembly, and roundly told off by Mr Douglas.

Some felt thoroughly ashamed whereas there were a couple (boys of course!) who relished in it. I was called up once for a misdemeanour and that was enough for me. I will write about this episode further on in this chapter. I kept my nose clean after that! I felt much belittled, and now think a quick tap with a strap would have been a far kinder means of punishment although many in this day and age will disagree with me.

Headmasters residence - NZ Friends School - circa 1949

Every Sunday we had to go to ‘Meeting’. This is the Quaker form of worship I could never understand. For an hour everyone becomes silent and the silence would only be interrupted by someone suddenly standing up and saying some quote or other pertaining to the bible. Out of the seventy or so pupils, I think there would have only been about 10 Quakers, and nearly the whole school was made up of boarders with about 20 day scholars.

I seldom saw David (in spite of Dad’s intentions) because the boys were kept well away from the girls and at the long refectory tables we sat at for meals, the girls were seated on one side of the dining hall and the boys the other. We would have a teacher at the end of the long tables, and all meals would be eaten in complete silence.

Cook's and Domestic Helpers Cottage -circa 1949 _ NZ Friends School

On Sundays Mrs Law, who was the cook, made delicious big buns which we gobbled up. Saturdays, we boarders did outside work that was called ‘public works’. This entailed weeding gardens etc. Mr Menzies mowed all the grounds, but we did everything else. It was also a time for darning stockings; polishing shoes etc

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Virginia Lake - 1948
VI. Virginia Lake and the School swimming pool

Sundays mornings involved ‘Meeting’ and after lunch we would go for a walk to nearby Virginia Lake, with its white swans, or to Westmere Lake with its black swans. At Westmere Lake our science teacher, Mr Monkhouse would take us for a nature study lessons and I enjoyed this. The eucalyptus trees, bordering the lake, had lots of very large Emperor moth caterpillars crawling through the leaves, and the actual moth was huge and very pretty.

NZ Friends School swimming Pool. Richard Dyson on the right

The school had its own swimming pool, and every summer we had the annual swimming sports day. One of the rituals was for the headmaster to throw the youngest boy into the pool. In our first year David was the youngest, and a couple of days before the Sports, they had a practise run. It must have been a Sunday because David was dressed in his best clothes. Mr Douglas picked David up and practised throwing him in, not meaning to let him go, but unfortunately, he let David go and David’s shoes and blazer were ruined. I saw David go in and felt very sorry for him but when Father found out he was furious, however, I think the school compensated by buying the next lot of clothing etc for David. To this day I have never understood this strange ritual.

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Library and Front Office - NZ Friends School
VII. School Holidays.

David and I were often the only ones in the school when Easter or any other public holidays came along owing to our parents not knowing any one down there, but the few remaining teachers staying in the school, treated us well, although we felt awfully lonely. Three times in three years I managed to get away, on a public holiday, with permission from my Father.

Once I stayed with a friend, Prunella Pearce, who lived at Waituna West; a small settlement between Hunterville and Fielding, and another time with sisters, Florence and Mary Metcalf. Their parents lived on a farm at Alton, near Patea north of Wanganui. One of the high lights of that particular trip was feeding hay to the cattle from a horse drawn cart.

Music rooms, dormitory, Donald Seagers residence

The third trip, away from Friend’s School, was by car up to Huntly with the parents of my school friend, Jill Bowman. Her elder brother Jim also went to the Friends. Their parents owned the Station Hotel, in Huntly, which was at right angles, across the road, from the river bridge that spanned the Waikato River. I loved hanging out the upstairs bedroom window to watch people walking below, and also, the swiftly flowing river held a fascination for me. Apart from eating in the dining room with other guests I can’t remember much else. I am sure Dad never knew that they owned a hotel, because, he would never have given permission, for a stay at a pub!

Once a year, the whole school would go for miles up the Wanganui River on a large paddle steamer. We’d arrive at a large clearing and have a picnic. Later the teachers would organise various games and running events; not that I was any good at running, but we all looked forward to this annual event.

The paddle steamers fascinated me and I loved to watch the huge paddle bring up the water and dump it back again. Some of the boats had back paddles and others side paddles. The river was still used a lot by locals in the late 40’s, and we’d pass canoes full of people going down to Wanganui to do their shopping. Not everyone had cars and the river was the ideal way to get to town.

     NZ Friends School Photograph 1948 - PDF document (126k)

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VIII. Running Away
The Travelling Suitcase

In my last year; five of us attempted to run away. We saved our ‘hard bread,’ for a few days, and at midnight crept out of the dormitory to don our clothes in the nearby cloakroom. God knows why but we were going to run away to one of the girl’s parents who lived in New Plymouth, however, we got no further because the matron, Mrs Wilson, caught us before we had a chance to escape! We were hauled up in front of the headmaster and he wrote paragraphs into our ‘black marks books’. Later we were all lined up in front of the whole school and then everyone was told of our dastardly deed!!

I wish now that we could have kept our Black mark books because in the school system I think it must have been unique, however at the end of each term we had to hand them in.

I often think it strange that our parents were never told about this escapade, by Mr Douglas, because I wouldn’t have dared tell my father, and if I had kept my book it would have been well hidden from him! I think that was the only time I had to face the school assembly and my sin was read out, to all and sundry. I do remember I didn’t feel one bit ashamed because I hated the place.

In 1948 the Polio epidemic broke out and in the middle of the second term, we were all sent home for the rest of the year. Our schooling was then done by correspondence, as it was for all children throughout N.Z. I never went back to the Friends, after the epidemic, but David went back for another two years and then went onto Mt Albert Grammar, in Auckland to finish his schooling. Julia was sent to Friends for a year in 1950, and unlike David and me, she loved it; possibly because she went at an older age, whereas, we were only eight when we first went there.

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Boats in my subconscious
IX. David, the prototype engineer.

Before finishing this I must relate one ‘episode’ that happened, in those years when we were home from the Friends School whilst on one of the school holidays.

Julia and I were happy playing with our dolls and David arrives and asks us to follow him. He took us to a row of hakea hedges that grew on the boundary of Ken and Maria’s and our place. Under the hedge was a cast iron bath and David ordered us to lift it up and carry it over to Riddell’s. Two bamboo poles forming a sling with a couple of ropes tied between them, were placed under the bath. Julia and I then lifted the bath carrying out his instructions and struggled along, for about half a mile, until we got to a swamp which had a small water hole in it. David just supervised the operation.

David had pre-prepared a bamboo raft and the bath was placed and tied to the top of it. He then produced two lengths of ropes. I was told to go to the other side of the pool with one end of the rope, and the other end was tied around the bath. He had another rope and tied that to the raft. Julia was ordered to get into the bath and I was told to pull my rope. Needless to say half way across, it sank, partly because the bamboo in the raft was very green, and to this day that dratted bath could still be there!!

Julia, luckily, didn’t drown but she was sopping wet when we got home so was told off, by Mum. David made us swear to secrecy about this episode and when Ken came to our place and told Dad his son had stolen his bath, Dad went mad and told Kenny, "how preposterous to even think that a son of mine would do that!"

He promptly ordered Kenny off the property. Julia and I kept our mouths shut because David had threatened us with all sorts of dire deeds! From that day on Dad never spoke to Kenny for the rest of his life. Kenny died about 20 years later.

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X. Toronui Bay.

Before finishing this chapter I must mention Toronui Bay which we called 'The Lagoon.' During the 40’s The Hewitt’s owned the farm at Toronui Bay, where the lagoon is situated, and we had to walk a little way through the farm to get to it but it was so beautiful to see the turquoise water inside the natural barriers of rocks that it was well worth the walk. We all enjoyed our trips to this beautiful place, but I do remember Dad unexpectedly picking me up one day, and throwing me into the water expecting me to swim like the aborigine children can when they are first thrown in, so he said! I was terrified and darn near drowned so he had to haul me out.

The Lagoon (Toronui Bay)

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