Wie geht's?
As I type this, I'm listening to the three amigo's latest playlist - songs with weather features in the title.
Riders on the Storm by The Doors has just come on - one of my selections as it happens, and I'm instantly sitting in mum's mini, waiting for her outside an antiques' store in Remuera, Auckland.
I've heard the song countless times, but I'll never forget that first time in the car. Gobsmacked, is the appropriate term, as I drum my fingers on the dash (then and now).
Many, many songs do that to me - instantly take me back to a time and a place. Gypsy by Uriah Heep and Wings' Uncle Albert/ Admiral Halsey instantly transport me back to my bedroom at 18 Korma Ave.
Speaking of which - I wrote a piece about my childhood home in my Year 13 class recently. The task I set them was to use a memory of a place from their past and revisit it as they are today.
Here's my effort:
Would you rather lose all of your old memories, or never be able to make new ones?
My childhood home was in Auckland’s Royal Oak area – 18 Korma Ave. to be precise. Royal Oak is a central area of Auckland.
From the age of two in 1959 until 1973, this was my safe place. The place where my brother and I lived with our mum and dad. The place I returned to each day from Royal Oak Primary School, and Manukau Intermediate (a short walk in the opposite direction to the primary school), and Mount Albert Grammar School. Going to M.A.G.S. as an out of zone student meant I had to get a bus to Mt Albert. That’s as far as I’d had to travel from home to that point.
We moved away from Korma Ave. during my first year doing School Certificate and I kind of knew there was no going back. Our next-door neighbour was doing bizarre, vindictive things like pouring oil into our swimming pool. So my parents decided to move. They would buy a section and build a new house in Mt Roskill South, but that's a different story.
As a child, the area around Royal Oak was my whole world. I’d gone to a kindergarten in Greenwoods Corner run by Mrs. Bridges from our first house in Oak Street. We lived there while our house in Korma Ave. was being built. It was only a few streets away from Royal Oak Primary where I’d eventually go and only a short walk to the Royal Oak shops and to Korma Ave. I grew up in a tight knot of streets – I was even born nearby in Cornwall Park/ One Tree Hill. An American field hospital had been set up there during World War II and was still operating before National Women’s Hospital was opened in 1959 (my younger brother was born there). So, my mountain was quite literally Maungakiekie (the real name for One Tree Hill).
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On a trip back to Auckland a few years ago, I took Jacky on a little tour of the neighbourhood where I grew up in; where I played tennis (a short bike ride from home); where I did school patrol while at Royal Oak Primary; Seymour Park where I played football for Eden F.C. (a one minute jog from home). Finally, we turned down Korma Ave. with the Mormon Church still occupying the right-hand side of the street. I was excited to share this nostalgic trip with her – events like this are always richer when they are shared, I’ve found.
We drove down the street. There was the Brethren Church on the left-hand corner, the familiar block of flats where I used to collect money for paper deliveries (why oh why did they trust this task to small boys? No way would this happen in 2026), then…nothing. A vacant section where the solid brick and tile house stood.
A complex set of emotions overwhelmed me. For a start my brain couldn’t really decode what my eyes were telling me. The place I’d grown up in had been demolished and in its place was newly sown grass.
Flashes of memories replaced the fogginess: the willow tree; the swimming pool in the back yard; the air vent I’d called a toadstool and painted as a two year old; Christmas mornings spent waiting by the glass sliding doors to the lounge for mum and dad to wake up; my bedroom where my love of music hatched and developed; the kitchen which was my mother’s territory (all those meals, all those cakes and tins of biscuits; all those birthday parties)…
The memories overwhelmed me as I sat in the car, next to Jacky.
Then I realised - the only solace was that all those old memories were still inside me, and always would be. Plus, now, as I sped away from 18 Korma Ave., I knew I could continue to make new memories with Jacky.
Yes, I thought - I could have my cake and eat it too.
Love and peace - Wozza
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