Audrey's childhood in Kerikeri
(Chap.6)

• I. Kerikeri School.
• II. Kerikeri Pony Club.
• III. Working on the Orchard & lazy David.
• IV. The dangers of riding horses.
• V. Crime Doesn't Pay

At the start of the school year in 1949, after the polio epidemic, it was decided that I was to have a year at the local school, which was up the hill past the old stone store on the way to Riverview. Some folk called it the Riverview School and some called it the Keri Keri School. It seemed to be dependant on which area of Keri you came from! Julia took my place at the N.Z. Friends School and after a year Dad decided to send her back to the Keri Keri School. For some reason or other, up to this day, Julia has always called this school ‘Be Worthy’ for that was the motto of the Keri school. (I have since learned it was Mum who called the school 'Be Worthy' originally)

She enjoyed her years there and remembers a Mrs Gilmour as one of her favourite teachers, whereas I was put into Form one and copped the head master, Mr Strumple, for my teacher. I remember him as a very stern-faced; middle aged man who dished out punishment with the strap to naughty pupils, from all the different classrooms. I cannot remember getting it myself but I did have a friend, Isobel Cook, who always seemed to be getting it. She had a trick. When she was strapped she would rub onion over her hand and it would swell up a bit, hence, she had to stay home on the sick list!

I cannot say I learnt much at this school because I was a bit of a dreamer and would often just gaze out of the window. One day ‘Strump’ as he was known, caught me beautifully. He had been rambling on about some historical facts on wars and bravery in the early days of Great Britain. I was bored silly so ignored most of what he said. Suddenly he shot a question at me out of the blue, and it was, ‘When is a man not a man.’ My prompt answer, although I didn’t have a clue what he was talking about, was ‘When he is not there!’

I was sent out of the room and had to sit outside and wait until class was finished. Later he lectured me about not paying attention in class. I was surprised when he didn’t give me the strap because I fully expected it! The right answer, I think, was when he was a coward on the battlefield. I’ve just had a thought. If that question was given to a modern day pupil I bet the answer would be transvestite or something similar! How times have changed!

Sports were a big thing in this school particularly tennis. We had a volley board in front of the school and our champion player was Lineas Johnson who would practise volleys by the hour. Hockey, Rugby and other sports were held in front of the primers classroom block, and swimming down in the river.

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My sport for that year, was riding because the Keri Keri Pony club was started at about this time. Mr Braithwaite, and his daughter Rosalind, were the instigators for the pony club and in no time it was thriving. We had meetings every second Saturday and the Braithwaite’s were very good teachers having loads of enthusiasm and patience with all of us.

One of our fellow riders was a ‘special needs’ girl called Judith Duncan who rode a horse called Roger. Roger would be the most docile animal I have ever seen and the two of them were a great team. We all enjoyed riding with Judith because she possessed such a happy nature, and although she had this disability, it never worried any of us. Roger was the ideal horse for her and I can still see Judith in the saddle with flailing arms and legs, and Roger would just keep trotting along ignoring it all! No one could get angry with Judith and many of us missed her when they moved to Auckland.

Judith’s parents David and Sally Duncan owned a farm where the industrial site is in Mill Road, and Sally’s kitchen, in the farmhouse, had a large silver painted wood stove which was always stoked up. Beside it was a boiler with a tap and this was for the teapot which was never cold. In the winter Julia, and I, loved going there and sitting beside this huge stove; drinking pots of tea while reading aloud to Judith. Aunt Sally, as we called her, was a lovely lady who fascinated me because of her large plait she wound around her head. In some ways, to me, she looked as though she should be on a farm in the Swiss Alps!

I started my pony club days with Dads old I.M.R. horse, Flo. She was a plodder but better than nothing. Later we borrowed horses from everyone. David, Julia and I, had all been taught to ride by Dad from an early age, and the pony club was for us to learn the finer points of horsemanship which Julia and I enjoyed. David did not like the Pony Club, and lost interest in horse riding, and that really disappointed Dad. The pony club had a uniform with a red pullover and tie, but because a lot of parents couldn’t afford jodhpurs, jackets, hats or boots, we wore either dungarees or slacks with lace-up shoes.

As long as we were clean and tidy and kept our horses in good nick that was all that was asked of us. Later on I was lucky because an English relative sent out a pair of jodhpurs made out of ‘Bedford cord’ which was considered very posh! Unfortunately, they were to go up in smoke a few months later because Mum put them into the oven to dry, and forgot about them; thus they were burnt beyond recognition!

Some of the pupils at the school would come to school on horse back and I remember Dad let me ride Flo a couple of times but normally I would walk down to Haste’s corner and the old school bus would pick me up.

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I can’t say that 1949 was a very happy one for me, because Dad’s attitude towards me seemed to worsen but I refuse to dwell on that. I know I did no homework because in his eyes education was not important for women, thus as soon as I got home from school, it was milking Polly while Mum milked Sally , and at weekends, I worked for hours in the orchards with Mum, instead being allotted time for homework!. I didn’t mind the work but being told that I had to do it because of the boarding school fees ‘he’ had paid for me. Now that did get up my nose, because I never asked to go to the Friends School!

David, who had many more years at boarding school, was totally exempt from any chores and would stay in his room day in and day out, during the holidays; supposedly studying or that is what Dad would tell us. Many years later David told me he never studied at all but read all the books which were on large bookshelves in his room! If I remember rightly the only job he had was the washing up, occasionally, and he had a square of lawn to mow but I never remember him working in the orchards with us. (Um, Ah - I occasionally helped in trimming the Hakea Hedges around the orchard blocks - David) However although Dad wanted him to go into the Navy, like his two brothers did, David opted for University and eventually obtained degrees in three different disciplines; so I guess those books helped.

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By the end of my year at Keri Keri I think I just learned to ride better and again learnt little at school. At the beginning of the year I had broken my arm after falling from our horse Flo I was on Flo and leaning over watching Dad stroke her nose. Suddenly Dad clicked; (the noise one makes if you want the horse to go) and she swung away sending me flying to the ground. I broke my humerus on my left arm! To this day I will never know, or really want to know why Dad did that, because we all knew Flo reacted to that clicking sound! I was soundly told off, by Dad, for not sitting on the horse properly! An incident involving another break in my right arm happened at the end of 1949.

I had a nasty fall about a mile away from home on the Riddell’s property. I was riding bareback on my horse called Jo. (I think he really belonged to Mrs Knowles) He was a lovely chestnut horse with a white mane; however he wasn’t palomino, but a purebred brumby! Jo Johnson had broken him in, and in all probability, this horse came from the wild herd out on the local Crown land. This particular day I decided to jump him over a large grassy ditch. Next thing a large pheasant suddenly flew out of the ditch; Jo reared up and I tumbled off, pummelling my right fist into the ground. When I stood up my right arm had an extra elbow. I had smashed both the radius and the ulna.

Fortunately Jo stayed with me, instead of galloping off, and quietly followed me home as I held my extra elbow. As soon as I got home I was taken to Dr Cook who lived up on the main road, and then he sent me onto the Kawa Kawa Hospital. In those days one had to stay in hospital for broken limbs. I think a broken leg was something in the region of six weeks to three months. I was given ether and they straightened and set my arm in plaster which they wrapped from to top of my shoulder to the last joint in my fingers. I stayed in hospital for about a week and then went home and was told to come back in three weeks for an x-ray.

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As I have mentioned we were not allowed to pick the fruit off the trees without Dad’s permission. A few days after coming out of hospital the plums were lovely and ripe on the victory plum tree. One morning, when Dad wasn’t around, we decided to steal some of these forbidden plums. David, and Julia, hoed in but I couldn’t pull down the branches in order to steal my quota and they wouldn’t help. I was not going to miss out so I pulled down a branch with my left hand, and then hung on to the branch with the tips of my fingers poking out of the plaster. The pain was excruciating, but I managed to stuff my mouth with plums!

I suffered with terrible pain until it was time to go back for the X-ray a few weeks later. Dr Fringley, the surgeon, was shocked when he saw the X-ray because everything had come apart and he asked me what had caused it. Of course I had no idea! Because of this, shall I say greed, I had to have the knife to open the arm up so they could tie the bones together with copper wire, I believe, and the wire came out at a later date at the Greenlane Hospital in Auckland. To this day I have a fine scar down my right arm, which will always remind me of stolen Victory plums, on a sunny day in 1949! I never told Mum the factual story, until about 50 years later, and that, at last, solved a problem she had wondered about over the years.

Dad banned me from riding for a year, but with Julia’s help, we did go riding behind his back. Although he hid the bridles and saddles from me I learned to become quite an expert bareback rider with just a rope for a bridle! I’d tie the rope around the neck, of the horse, and then make a noose around its nose. All one had to do was pull the rope to the right or left and bingo I could steer that horse anywhere!

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