Part 2
Fun at the Pool; the way there and back again
It's the school holidays and nothing takes me back to my school days more than the hot sun and swimming pools. From when I was around eleven for a couple of years I spent many hours at the Whangarei Olympic Pool with a small group of friends. I think it must have been upgraded to Olympic size sometime just before this period or maybe during the time we swam there when they closed for winter. I remember though loving the pool, and spending hours and hours in the heat of the Northland summers swimming endless lengths, diving, jumping, playing in the water and lying round on the grass talking and dozing and just being there in the summers of 1964, 65 and 66.
It's strange but I recall the layout of the whole complex was a little unclear, in my memory the edges of the perimeter are blurred and seem to merge with whatever was on the boundary and over the other side. This may have been because the area was relatively new and was still being developed but I don't remember any construction going on.
We walked to the pool through our back garden, and a couple of neighbouring gardens to Pentland Road then down the track that lead through the trees on the side of the hill, then along the road that ran beside the Hatea River. How could we begin to understand then how powerful memories could be; walking out of the changing rooms into the dazzling flat landscape with the seating behind us and the possibilities of the day stretching in front of us as we squinted into the sun; the main pool majestic and waiting as blue as blue, and the other smaller pools lapping gently in the sun against the sides, the diving pool over the far side with the diving tower the only thing with any height in front of us. No trees or umbrellas, well not at first, and at the beginning of the summer no adults. This was not a time when parents watched their children, a sixties childhood was largely adult free. A kids world, no rules or if there were they didn't prevent us living our days completely unaware of any restrictions. Just a wonderful wide expanse of grass and white and grey concrete and the blue of the three pools, waiting for us.
During this period life at home was more peaceful for me, a brief lull in the movement and chaos that seemed to be our family life. We lived in a house I still consider special. It still features in some of my dreams in a good way and it has helped to give me a life long love of sprawling old houses, it was in Aubrey Street alongside other beautiful houses, a happy house. This is the house where I remember Mum playing the violin the best, with her hair up in a bun wearing a longish, green pencil slim skirt,and a red scarf. This memory is made more real as it's part of a photo too, there's also a photo from this house of Mum with a Siamese cat I think must have been Susu, and one of her with Gayga, Dad's mother, who lived at Whangarei Heads, who we all loved. I think Dad was busy doing deals during this period. I wish they'd worked but they didn't; I guess deals often don't work, for anyone.
So, school happened at St Joseph's Convent, where my teacher for two years, Sister Adela, seemed to me to be yet another person at a school who really didn't like me, a small and very angry little woman. God knows what she was doing being a nun and teaching young people. In my memories she was truly vindictive and uninspiring. I suppose she was just limited, not very smart or bright and unhappy with her life and she took it out on us. I have memories from this period of Sister Adela truly screaming at me telling me to stop talking and then smacking me or hitting me across my legs and on my hands with a long ruler, in front of the class. I was not alone in this, she shared her dislike around, but I did seem to get a pretty hefty dose of it. A common theme of my schooling really, talking too much and having to take the consequences, yelling teachers and increasingly not knowing what the hell was going on or what I was supposed to do.
Summer holidays were heaven. Robeta Palmer lived at the end of Pentland Road and the track down the hill to Hatea Drive was at the bottom of her garden. The walk along Hatea Drive was often slow and meandering, it wasn't a long way, there was just lots to do on the way. I remember carrying our togs and towels sometimes just wrapped in a roll but I guess we had duffle bags too. The group of us was different now, just girls I think. Eileen and Fiona Dennis, Roberta, me, and sometimes others. It was always hot, sometimes it would rain, pouring down perhaps for half an hour, as it does in Northland, and then the sun would come out again and there would be steam rising on the tarseal or if we were at the pool the rain pelting down on the water with us leaping into the water forgetting our towels which we would come back to lying sodden on the concrete tiered seating.
These memories are so fond. Fiona was a special friend for a few years. She was quiet and strong with almost white blonde thick hair. She also had beautiful skin, just writing this I've remembered this. Beauty and self image was only a small part of our common language and understanding, we were only just starting to be aware of ourselves, however I recall Fiona's lovely skin, maybe too because she had a zig zag scar on her cheek that she'd got a few years earlier falling through a plate glass window I think. I was a good swimmer, so was Eileen, better than the others and competitive about it. We all went to swimming club too for a while where we would regularly swim a mile, 32 lengths of the Pool, the early days of a habit that has stayed with me. Interesting how during this period of relative peace and calm was the beginnings of some my lifetime passions, and it was a time when I started to lay down some of the habits that have also been a theme of my life. My love of houses I think began here, noticing the beauty of Aubrey Street, this wasn't just me, I think we may all have loved this house and garden. As I'm writing this I'm aware that I also loved the houses in Victoria Street Upper Hutt and the house in Pinehaven, maybe this happened after the event though, while I remember loving Aubrey Street when we lived there. I remember Mum's pain was also mine, when Dad told us he was about to convert it into four flats and we were moving.
During the hours and hours we spent at the Pool over the summers growing up and being together my overriding memory is of the water and the sun and the heat. Running and diving in with our bodies curved in flight as we launched ourselves over the wide barrier around the pool. Climbing up to the top of the diving tower and standing for minutes on the edge looking down into the pool maybe 10 meters up trying to pluck up the courage to jump then just suddenly doing it, over and over again. Diving from the lower board too, and then learning to dive from the middle board. Swimming and swimming for hours and hours. We were often there for most of the day and we would walk home, burnt and tired and still talking. I guess we wore jandals on our feet and shorts and blouses or maybe pirate shirts which came in sometime around this period. We wouldn't have used any sun screen or even had hats. We all had gardens with citrus trees and we used to gorge ourselves on oranges and manderines. I don't ever remember anyone telling us we'd had enough.
We also used to play on our bikes, riding up Norfolk Street along with our brothers, Mike and Bob (Matthew was still too young) and David and Gavin, Roberta's brothers were much older I think, I always thought of her as an only child. Maybe she was and I've had it wrong all these years. Roberta had a record player, I remember Herman's Hermits, No Milk Today and other songs. I think this may have been a bit later though as I think she was into lipstick and magazines by then, so change was on the way.
Fun at the Pool; the way there and back again
It's the school holidays and nothing takes me back to my school days more than the hot sun and swimming pools. From when I was around eleven for a couple of years I spent many hours at the Whangarei Olympic Pool with a small group of friends. I think it must have been upgraded to Olympic size sometime just before this period or maybe during the time we swam there when they closed for winter. I remember though loving the pool, and spending hours and hours in the heat of the Northland summers swimming endless lengths, diving, jumping, playing in the water and lying round on the grass talking and dozing and just being there in the summers of 1964, 65 and 66.
It's strange but I recall the layout of the whole complex was a little unclear, in my memory the edges of the perimeter are blurred and seem to merge with whatever was on the boundary and over the other side. This may have been because the area was relatively new and was still being developed but I don't remember any construction going on.
We walked to the pool through our back garden, and a couple of neighbouring gardens to Pentland Road then down the track that lead through the trees on the side of the hill, then along the road that ran beside the Hatea River. How could we begin to understand then how powerful memories could be; walking out of the changing rooms into the dazzling flat landscape with the seating behind us and the possibilities of the day stretching in front of us as we squinted into the sun; the main pool majestic and waiting as blue as blue, and the other smaller pools lapping gently in the sun against the sides, the diving pool over the far side with the diving tower the only thing with any height in front of us. No trees or umbrellas, well not at first, and at the beginning of the summer no adults. This was not a time when parents watched their children, a sixties childhood was largely adult free. A kids world, no rules or if there were they didn't prevent us living our days completely unaware of any restrictions. Just a wonderful wide expanse of grass and white and grey concrete and the blue of the three pools, waiting for us.
During this period life at home was more peaceful for me, a brief lull in the movement and chaos that seemed to be our family life. We lived in a house I still consider special. It still features in some of my dreams in a good way and it has helped to give me a life long love of sprawling old houses, it was in Aubrey Street alongside other beautiful houses, a happy house. This is the house where I remember Mum playing the violin the best, with her hair up in a bun wearing a longish, green pencil slim skirt,and a red scarf. This memory is made more real as it's part of a photo too, there's also a photo from this house of Mum with a Siamese cat I think must have been Susu, and one of her with Gayga, Dad's mother, who lived at Whangarei Heads, who we all loved. I think Dad was busy doing deals during this period. I wish they'd worked but they didn't; I guess deals often don't work, for anyone.
So, school happened at St Joseph's Convent, where my teacher for two years, Sister Adela, seemed to me to be yet another person at a school who really didn't like me, a small and very angry little woman. God knows what she was doing being a nun and teaching young people. In my memories she was truly vindictive and uninspiring. I suppose she was just limited, not very smart or bright and unhappy with her life and she took it out on us. I have memories from this period of Sister Adela truly screaming at me telling me to stop talking and then smacking me or hitting me across my legs and on my hands with a long ruler, in front of the class. I was not alone in this, she shared her dislike around, but I did seem to get a pretty hefty dose of it. A common theme of my schooling really, talking too much and having to take the consequences, yelling teachers and increasingly not knowing what the hell was going on or what I was supposed to do.
Summer holidays were heaven. Robeta Palmer lived at the end of Pentland Road and the track down the hill to Hatea Drive was at the bottom of her garden. The walk along Hatea Drive was often slow and meandering, it wasn't a long way, there was just lots to do on the way. I remember carrying our togs and towels sometimes just wrapped in a roll but I guess we had duffle bags too. The group of us was different now, just girls I think. Eileen and Fiona Dennis, Roberta, me, and sometimes others. It was always hot, sometimes it would rain, pouring down perhaps for half an hour, as it does in Northland, and then the sun would come out again and there would be steam rising on the tarseal or if we were at the pool the rain pelting down on the water with us leaping into the water forgetting our towels which we would come back to lying sodden on the concrete tiered seating.
These memories are so fond. Fiona was a special friend for a few years. She was quiet and strong with almost white blonde thick hair. She also had beautiful skin, just writing this I've remembered this. Beauty and self image was only a small part of our common language and understanding, we were only just starting to be aware of ourselves, however I recall Fiona's lovely skin, maybe too because she had a zig zag scar on her cheek that she'd got a few years earlier falling through a plate glass window I think. I was a good swimmer, so was Eileen, better than the others and competitive about it. We all went to swimming club too for a while where we would regularly swim a mile, 32 lengths of the Pool, the early days of a habit that has stayed with me. Interesting how during this period of relative peace and calm was the beginnings of some my lifetime passions, and it was a time when I started to lay down some of the habits that have also been a theme of my life. My love of houses I think began here, noticing the beauty of Aubrey Street, this wasn't just me, I think we may all have loved this house and garden. As I'm writing this I'm aware that I also loved the houses in Victoria Street Upper Hutt and the house in Pinehaven, maybe this happened after the event though, while I remember loving Aubrey Street when we lived there. I remember Mum's pain was also mine, when Dad told us he was about to convert it into four flats and we were moving.
During the hours and hours we spent at the Pool over the summers growing up and being together my overriding memory is of the water and the sun and the heat. Running and diving in with our bodies curved in flight as we launched ourselves over the wide barrier around the pool. Climbing up to the top of the diving tower and standing for minutes on the edge looking down into the pool maybe 10 meters up trying to pluck up the courage to jump then just suddenly doing it, over and over again. Diving from the lower board too, and then learning to dive from the middle board. Swimming and swimming for hours and hours. We were often there for most of the day and we would walk home, burnt and tired and still talking. I guess we wore jandals on our feet and shorts and blouses or maybe pirate shirts which came in sometime around this period. We wouldn't have used any sun screen or even had hats. We all had gardens with citrus trees and we used to gorge ourselves on oranges and manderines. I don't ever remember anyone telling us we'd had enough.
We also used to play on our bikes, riding up Norfolk Street along with our brothers, Mike and Bob (Matthew was still too young) and David and Gavin, Roberta's brothers were much older I think, I always thought of her as an only child. Maybe she was and I've had it wrong all these years. Roberta had a record player, I remember Herman's Hermits, No Milk Today and other songs. I think this may have been a bit later though as I think she was into lipstick and magazines by then, so change was on the way.
This is fantastic. The voice in your writing comes through so strongly and it is like I am there with you. I can picture the people, the time and the world through your young eyes. I love it. Keep writing x
ReplyDeleteMe too, I'm absolutely loving reading this stuff.
ReplyDelete