Memories of Green Island 1946

I often wonder how I survived that year! My mother was not at all well, I struggled in my probationary year with a large Std 2 class, and I persisted in re-sitting a University unit failed the year before. Even at the tender age of 19, I could never understand why anything could be right just because it was the opinion of a so-called superior, be he headmaster or inspector.I am glad that this attitude still remains with me, even though it has caused me more than one argument or confrontation since. Perhaps my running with the Mornington Harriers and our winning of the Otago teams title for the first time may have just saved me from mental and physical collapse!

The headmaster at the time was the religious, upright, fearsome and authoritarian Bill Barham, whose heavy size ten tread along the school corridors was dreaded by children and staff alike. My fellow P.A. and friend Helen Logie shared my fear, though she was nursed along a little more kindly, I believe, by the Infant Mistress, the imposing and motherly Miss Monaghan. Another friend on the staff was Norman Frew, a year ahead of us, who simply hated the thought of old Bigboots bearing down upon him. From our point of view, the Head seemed to spend nearly all his time inspecting and examining us in order to reveal the shortcomings, inefficiencies and defects that he believed were all too common in the "youth of today".

I still remember many of the children in my first class, notably the Parata twins Atanui and Hurene, who were a little bit "agin’ the government". Nui, the more aggressive and confident of the two, would take on anyone or anything, including me, and would also rescue her twin sister in class by whispering the required answer just loud enough for Rene to receive. At times I was amazed that Nui had even heard the question. It was my first experience of that uncanny communication often reported among twins. Then there was Irene Graham, my first experience of a girl not easy to manage, as she seemed to foment strife among other girls by changing her "best friend" almost daily. A chip on her shoulder she certainly had, and we never really hit it off. Brian Anderson was an interesting individual who once regaled the class with a morning talk about his pet kangaroo, which I suspect was a fantasy. But he did it most convincingly. Colin McKay was one of those rewarding pupils who always seemed to want to learn and want to do well. I met him in later life, and he was still the same positive, nice guy that he was at age 8. Others included Kevin Downey (from a Welfare home I think), Brenda McGee, Lorraine Duncan, Robbie Watson, Joy Winder, Beverley Smith, Verna Geddes (a sincere and delightful country girl from a farm at the start of the Brighton Road), Tommy Mitchell (maybe a little older than the rest), Elizabeth Campbell (always keen to please, and lived almost next to the school), Gary Woodford (from a famous cycling family on the Brighton Rd), a Tippetts boy from Abbotsford, Anna Bremner (a pale and quiet child whom I met years later with her baby and pram in a Green Island shop).

We had a School Concert that year, in the old Cinema on the Fairfield road. My class did verse-speaking, which they were very good at. It involved them speaking clearly with good enunciation, as well as memorizing some pretty good poetry, both of these aims being worthy of pursuit, even today, I suggest! The ones in the front row on stage each held a large white card bearing a huge black capital letter, which they kept concealed till the conductor (me) raised his baton. Each child then made sure that the little pencilled stick man on the back of the card was not upside down, and the whole big sign went right across the stage, spelling "STD 2 VERSE SPEAKING". They were trained like a choir to watch the conductor, and to react appropriately to the various baton signs and movements, and the results were well worth listening to. Our masterpiece was an extract from "The Pied Piper" which I still know by heart. I wonder if they do!

Into the street the piper stept,
Smiling first a little smile,
As if he knew what magic slept
In his quiet pipe the while.
Then, like a musical adept,
To blow the pipe his lips he wrinkled,
And blue and green his sharp eyes twinkled,
Like a candle flame where salt is sprinkled.
And ere three notes the pipe uttered,
You heard as if an army muttered,
And the muttering grew to a grumbling,
And the grumbling grew to a mighty rumbling,
And out of the houses the rats came tumbling!
Great rats, small rats, lean rats, brawny rats,
Brown rats, black rats, grey rats, tawny rats,
Grave old plodders, gay young friskers,
Fathers, mothers, uncles, cousins,
Cocking tails and pricking whiskers,
Families by tens and dozens,
Brothers, sisters, husbands, wives,
Followed the Piper for their lives!

Perhaps the most dramatic memory from 1946, though, was the visit to New Zealand of the world’s first active service jet fighter plane the Gloster Meteor.



We all assembled in the playground as the Meteor did its things over Dunedin, and we hardly got a glimpse of it. Then some bright spark, probably Ralph Park, rang through to Taieri Aerodrome to find out whether we might get a closer look at it as it returned to base. The pilot must have been contacted, for a closer look we surely got, as the plane roared in quite low over the village, only to go into a fast vertical climb right over the school. Some of the littlies were lying on the ground by this time, and every mouth was wide open, as the Meteor did a U-turn, and a fast dive straight back toward the ground. Not only had we never seen an aircraft without propellers before, but neither had we known that a diving plane could go so fast, and level out so smoothly.
I will never forget it!