Time flies like an arrow but fruit flies like an apple

Wie geht's?

The secondary school I attended from 1971 to 1976 - Mount Albert Grammar School (MAGS), is having its centenary celebrations this year.

I was a student during the 50th anniversary in 1972, and a staff member during the 75th anniversary in 1997 (when that photo above was taken).

Twenty years before joining the staff as Head of English and Senior Housemaster I was to be found far right on the end of row three in 7 Wareing. 

Now, in the blink of an eye, it's 2022, 46 years after I left school as a student/ 22 years after I left the staff, and the 100th has rolled around.  

Celebrations are planned for September and I'm keen to go to something to mark the occasion. Would be good to catch up with a few old boys from my time as a staffer and a student.

Love and peace - Wozza

Every picture tells a story (Rod Stewart)

For half of the seventies we lived here - 18 Korma Ave., Royal Oak, Auckland. I wasn't allowed to have a cool as chopper, but I did get this beauty for my 10th birthday in October 1967. My nerd credentials were fully intact and obvious from the bike pump, the saddle bag (groan) and  the headlamp. My token rebel move was to radically reorient the handlebars! Yes, I was ready for the seventies!

Wie geht's?

As you all know, I've been reading Ian Chapman's book that looks at (his) life in the Seventies (Glory Days - from gumboots to platforms).

His seventies in Hamilton East sounded a bit like mine: a cringe worthy time of being deeply uncool in the suburbs while listening to some of the best music ever made.

So I decided to head to the photo albums to see if I was as terminally unhip as a teenager as I remembered myself to be. 

Yikes! It was WORSE than I thought.

Those ten years, from October 1st 1970 (when I turned 13) to October 1st 1980 represented an incredibly awkward transitional time in my life: from Manukau Intermediate to Mount Albert Grammar to Auckland University. From boy to...er...older boy!

Unbelievable that just three years into the eighties I'd meet Jacky, get married and start a family!

Anyway - the pictures tell the real story, don't they!

Second from left on the bottom row. I was a young, small, baby-faced 12 year old here. Mr Lindsay - the cool guy in the tie, was the reason I decided, at age 12, to become a teacher when I grew up. A naive dream? Uh, actually, no - it wasn't.  

Geeky me in the middle with Ross (left) and his friend (right).
Nerd alert - we were on holiday in Rotorua and I was
wearing my Mt Albert Grammar jersey. Criminal.

The screen printing years may seem a move forward but the
desk and bookcase clue you in (bound copies of Nature
Heritage anyone? OMG) and must I draw your attention to
the bowl cut?

The curtains weren't far away, in the
meantime we have the side swipe.
Fashion conscious? Ha ha. Not yet.

1975 - far right front row and, unlike my hirsute
teammates, a long haired babe magnet I was not!

In the second half of the seventies, from 1976 onwards, 4 Ramelton Rd. Mt. Roskill South was our home. In the frame - my first car, an orange mini (of course it was orange - it was the seventies dude!) and Ross is in our dad's work vehicle so this must be late seventies. BTW I still have the white table and chairs, seen on the balcony, in my possession!

On holiday in Taupo with DMP. Uncool moment: I most
probably thought those clip on dark lenses over my glasses
were the height of sophistication.

MAGS badminton champ 1976. My sturdy wooden racket
was, of course, old school, unlike the trendy metal frames
the other blokes had!

1977 to 1981 found my brand of self-conscious nerd at Auckland University. I posed for this in more ways than one. The book? Tropic Of Cancer of course, but the AUT sweatshirt and the flared jeans weren't very late seventies punk or, anything really. And, note the business shirt underneath the sweatshirt. OMG Wozza - help was needed!

Ha ha - my homemade  John and Yoko
T-shirt was a start but those plaid shorts
again??? I am without speech! 

The curtain years had begun! Brand attack: non clip on dark glasses!
Adidas shoes! Puma jersey!
But I was still on family fishing holidays.

The decade ends with me pursuing a Masters'
degree and closing in on a start to my teaching
career and a move to New Plymouth at the end
of 1982 (after a year at training college)

Okay. Well, that was embarressing and fun, right? And while you'll still chortling at my fantastically unhip teenage years - why not take advantage of the lock down and hunt out your own teenage snaps.

Yeah. Boom! That wiped the grins off your faces!

Love and peace - Wozza 

I was born a ramblin' man (The Allman Brothers Band)

Rambling Man (You may say I'm a dreamer - Chapter 10 part 1)

Here's to the Purdettes

By now it should have become clear that I'm a rambling man:

Lord, I was born a ramblin' man,
Tryin' to make a livin' and doin' the best I can.
And when it's time for leavin',
I hope you'll understand,
That I was born a ramblin' man.

(The Allman Brothers Band)

Up to age 15 I 'd pretty much lived in the one house in Royal Oak. Up to leaving for my first job in New Plymouth I'd only lived in Auckland. My parents' marriage was solid for all of those years. On the surface - it's a very stable background.

But really - all of our lives are divided into chunks. I loved Royal Oak Primary, but I left for two years of Manukau Intermediate. I loved MAGS but after 6 years of that I went to Auckland University. I loved that but after 5 years went to teachers' college. And so on. I loved Macleans College but left to find adventure in Nelson. 

We managed to amass a (nearly) five year stint in Nelson. These were happy times - enjoying time at Waimea College and with our friends in Spring Grove and Jackett's Island (off Motueka).

By 1994, though, a few things conspired to make us think we needed to leave Nelson.

Along the way, we'd decided to move from Lord Auckland Road. Jacky's 'asthma' reactions were attributed to the pine pollens all around us in Wakefield. We looked at places in Brightwater, 88 Valley and Hope, but in the end Jacky found an old villa she loved and she bought it (I trusted her and went for a look after the deal was done - she was right - it was great).

Only trouble - it was in Wakefield, a few streets from where we'd been before. Ha ha...ha.

The rock steady crew in Whitby Road

The 'asthma' didn't stop at this place (on Whitby Road), in fact, it got worse. The use of quote marks on asthma is because we later found that Jacky was experiencing respiratory complaints not linked to asthma - at the time though all the GP's we saw prescribed steroids in the hope it would help.

Meanwhile, we again set about improving the house - painting the outside and fixing up the grounds. Along the way I fell off the roof and injured myself and Samantha with some dodgy scaffolding arrangement. No harm no foul. Oh and Jade got 'sumfing in her boomat!'

With Leda's awesome  birthday cake

The other mitigating factor in our decision to ramble once more was Jacky's decision to retrain as a nurse/midwife. 

After getting some tuition from a local GP and picking up senior school biology and chemistry, she was determined to get a qualification. 

She had been a stay home mum since 1984, ten years ago, and I can really understand why this was so important to her. In terms of new locations, this meant either Dunedin or Auckland.

A job came up for me at Mount Albert Grammar for 1995, leading the English department, and so, back to my old school I went.

In classic moves that have been replicated often since, I flew up to Auckland for a weekend to find us all a suitable house. Which I did. In Glenfield, on the north shore.

The kids headed off to new schools, I battled the bridge traffic each day, and Jacky took a job at a rest home while also going to UNITEC to study for her nursing degree. Phew. Life got hectic fast. Naturally, we were both exhausted. 

School House! 
(BTW - Dining room is named after Kel White)

Luckily some respite came when a job as Senior Housemaster came up at Mt Albert Grammar's boarding hostel for 100 boys, called School House. It would mean working two big jobs - Head of English and Senior Housemaster but what the heck.

Now Jacky had to commute across the bridge - she'd moved her studies to AUT on the shore, but her days were easier, even though she took a job as Matron at School House.

This all worked out well. The kids headed to new schools - Gladstone Primary and Kowhai Intermediate, and Jacky completed her Bachelor of Health Science degree. What a feat. Raising four children, working as Matron, putting up with our 24/7 hostel life, AND getting her degree. Amazing.

Of course, there were some sticky moments along the way - frustrations, tantrums, and lots of ripped up paper that is thrown around the room, is the life of any student, but she battled through and got her degree.

Now it was time to get a nursing job. But wait. After four years of being in charge of School House (and a record FIVE years at one school) I also needed some further stimulation and challenge. 

I wanted to be a Principal. But first I had to get a Deputy Principal position. That wasn't happening at MAGS, so at the end of 1999, I looked elsewhere.

Love and peace - Wozza

There's no success like failure, and failure's no success at all (Bob Dylan)

The footsteps of dawn (You may say I'm a dreamer - Chapter 3, part 5)

Okay - quick recap: 

• 1971 - Third form at Mt Albert Grammar School - relegated down a class, where I came 38th out of 38!
• 1972 - bottom of my 4th form class
• 1973 - failed School Certificate
• 1974 - second year fifth.

All the while I was telling friends,  parents of friends, my family, my teachers, everyone, that I was going to go to University, get a Masters of Arts degree and become a teacher. To their eternal credit, no one laughed, no one told me otherwise. 

Actually, maybe they did, but I never noticed!

I was focused. University. MA. Teacher. 

No longer the smallest guy on parade - third from left, third row.

Sixth form, and getting accredited for University Entrance was the focus for 1975. I guess my teachers weren't that surprised that I'd scrapped through. 

In some ways, in that I don't remember much about classroom activities, the year was a repeat of 1973. At the end, though, I was able to excel in English and get by in the other subjects and was accredited. 

Football remained one area of huge success. In my second year in the first XI we won the Auckland championship in cliffhanger fashion in the last game of the season at Takapuna Grammar. That game is tattooed into my consciousness. 

After a sliding tackle, I got the ball; I can still feel myself chipping the ball with my left foot to the far post for Peter Sarapu's goal. One nil.

A back headed equaliser - one one. 

The wind was strong as we attacked and scored - two one, the result we needed as we hung on for the famous victory!

Heroes! In the changing rooms we sang about being champions, in assembly we received our winning caps from the headmaster. Mine's tucked away with my precious stuff.
 

Next to Howard Atkinson with Warwick.
Howard's brother Geoff in back row.

In 1976 I returned for a largely lackadaisical go at University Bursary (now replaced by NCEA Level 3). Sporting wise I was captain of the first XI, won the badminton cup and was a demon fast bowler in Warwick Gibbs' cricket team.

Girls go crazy for a sharp dressed man - LOL. Far right, third row.

After a memorable interview (all the candidates had to be interviewed by the Headmaster in front of the whole staff!), I was made a prefect. My ability in English continued to improve even though I had disagreements with 'Daddy' Weir's geriatric teaching style. Although he was sympathetic to my complaint, Barry Gough couldn't help my cause much.

On the failure side of the ledger, the football team couldn't repeat 1975's success, and I failed to get any kind of bursary. 

After mum taught me to drive, I failed my first attempt at the driver's license. The oral bit did for me. On the second attempt I succeeded and drove myself to school when mum's car was available.

At school I heard the government gave teaching studentships to students to study at university in return for a bond to teach. Perfecto I thought. 

I applied, was interviewed and was unsuccessful. Oh well - I'd go to university and try again next year!

As MAGS said farewell, Senior Master Ron Hemus gave me a slip of paper headed 'Higher School Certificate'. That and my University Entrance meant that in 1977 I was heading to Auckland University.

After six years I was leaving a place which I'd come to love. My legacy at MAGS was my name on the hallowed walls of the school hall for being captain of the first XI and prefect. 

However, no matter how much I'd loved MAGS, I couldn't wait for a new start!

Love and peace - Wozza

Close to the edge, down by a river, not right away, not right away (Yes)

The footsteps of dawn (You may say I'm a dreamer - Chapter 3, part 4)

You can't always get what you want...but you might find you get what you need (Mick Jagger).

Great hairstyles of the seventies part 396 -
Wozza (top left) with the wonderfully coiffed
Greg Knowles, a.k.a. Grub, a.k.a. Gregarious
G-String (bottom right), in 1974

Clearly I needed to pause, settle my brain, grow as a person, and refocus.

So, in 1974, God sent me chicken pox, Warwick Gibbs, first XI football, Asquith Avenue, Greg Knowles, and a second year in the fifth form with Laurie Belsham. 

It became a watershed year. Without it? Who knows.

I was a failure. Nobody expected anything of me. And I wasn't alone. Looking at the 1973 and 74 Senior V photos is interesting - a few faces reoccur! Mates like Mike Budd, Vernon Kingstone, Stephen Sinclair and others kept me company.

I'm above the regal figure of Mr Herbert.

Back row - Stephen Sinclair and Peter Sarapu bookend the row
Third row - I'm next to Vernon Kingstone (4th from right)
Second row - Nicky Singh (4th from right), Greg Knowles (2nd from right)
Front row - Laurie (Lorry Driver) Belsham, Mike Budd (centre)

Yes, I was a failure, but I survived. Better than that - I came back from the brink of disaster after three solid years of failure.

Second time around I had a cruisy, much reduced programme - only having to do the three subjects I'd failed: French, maths and chemistry. Although I'd got the bare minimum in geography and English (both 50%) I didn't have to resit them. Wahoo!! 

During those classes I went to the art room: chilled out, listened to music, discussed music with friends (Beatles vs Stones was a hot topic still), screen printed T-shirts for the rowing teams and for myself. I had a ball in art class. Sheer bliss.

Asquith Avenue: We'd sold Korma Road, mainly because of a dickhead neighbour who had put oil in our swimming pool (we couldn't prove it but we knew he'd done it). We had also outgrown the place. That sounds weird because there was only the four of us. I think our parents wanted a bigger place for me and Ross, for dad's electronics, mum's floral display hobby and they wanted to get away from a really built up part of the suburbs. Korma Road was full of flats and they were looking dowdier and dowdier as time went on. 

I remember being at Brian Wood's house in Kerr Taylor Avenue (we'd bonded over music - Deep Purple In Rock to be specific that afternoon). When I phoned up mum to get me, she told me we'd bought a section in Ramelton Road, Mt Roskill South, at the end of the Dominion Road extension. Much further away from MAGS. I said, "Oh, okay".

My own children's awareness and need for information is light years beyond what mine was just then. They would have been part of the decision and interested in what was going on in terms of family decisions. I wasn't included in the decision making, ever. And I didn't mind.

I went with the flow.

While it was being built, dad rented an old house in Asquith Ave. Close to Peter Cahill's house, closer to Mike Budd's Grey Lynn place, really close to a railway crossing, really close to a dairy, and an easy walk to school. I loved it!

Before heading up to Whangarei, Mike was a constant friend during this time and a constant visitor to Asquith Avenue in his Morrie Thou. A very genuine, generous guy is Mike; I still have a copy of a Split Ends (sic) single that he scored for me while working at the Heard's sweet factory. He's a big guy and a big personality, and a talented goalkeeper. Not so hot in the outfield, though. He's too big! It was no surprise that he turned to rugby in North Auckland, playing at lock, and captaining the team. I was really proud of him.

At this temporary rental, I was given the small bedroom/porch by the back stairs and got on with it!

Cosy, warm, different, old, exciting: it was everything the new house couldn't be.

Chicken pox can be vicious if you're not a kid and I was 16 (turning 17 in October) when it hit early in 1974. I was laid up (pun intended) for weeks in that little porch area that was my bedroom. It was painful and embarrassing in extremis. I will spare you the details. 

While I read Lord of the Rings, mum nursed me through the illness. Every cloud has a silver lining. This one had quite a few. 

School work continued and I developed a new self-disciplined independent learning style in those weeks. Mr Gibbs set and marked French material for me and guided my learning. I loved the work I was doing for him and was amazed to find that it got easier to concentrate. Once I'd recuperated (pun intended - coups - work with me) I was a different person (but still in teenage boy fog).

Sports like tennis, softball, football (a.k.a. soccer in NZ), and badminton were the only things I was consistently really good at while I was growing up. Football especially.

I'd been an Auckland representative through the grades while playing for Eden. Adept with both feet, my position was at left back in the defence. Eventually, at MAGS, I made it through three years of age group teams to make the First XI team for the first time in 1974. Next year we would win the Auckland championship for what would be many years - until Kevin Fallon took over coaching the First XI in the late nineties, but we were pretty crap in 1974.

Warwick Gibbs was my French teacher again in 1974 and we bonded. He's an amazing teacher with an extraordinary gift. It must be a gift because somehow I won the Fifth form French prize that year. Many years later I framed the certificate and gave it to him - he deserved it more than I did!

W.O.H. Gibbs 

A teacher affects eternity; he can never tell where his influence stops (Henry Adams). This is the title to the most popular post on this blog. It celebrates mentors, and Warwick Gibbs takes a starring role.


He has a great knack for making lasting connections with his students. His Facebook page bares testament to his continuing popularity at MAGS and influence. He was and is an amazing person.

While he was teaching me I wrote him a note saying that I would be back to MAGS some time in the future as Head of English. He showed it to me again when I left the teaching staff at MAGS to take up a position as Deputy Principal at Cambridge High School.

Inspirational people have been around me all my life, I am truly blessed.

Two young codgers - Buster and Gregarious

And then there was Greg Knowles, a.k.a. 'Grub'. Soon to become Gregarious G-String to my Buster Bloodvessel (we made tapes which cracked us up!). 

We were in the same class in 1974 because I'd failed and he'd caught up to me. Thank goodness! I can't imagine my life without Greg in it somehow. A third amigo, Kevin Simms, would join the party when we got to varsity.

All MAGS classrooms had tandem wooden desks with a seat that flipped back and an angled surface for writing. No plastic in sight in the seventies (or nineties - they were still there when I joined the staff!). Greg sat next to me during a chemistry exam at the end of 1974. I was struggling with stuff as usual and he was doing a paper in something else. Subsequently, he told me that he had looked at my answers, aghast at my stupidity! We became close friends.

Turns out we liked the same music, and had the same warped sense of humour. We have remained friends, mates for life, and our friendship hasn't changed!

When my second set of School certificate results came out, they showed that I'd passed maths and French but failed chemistry again. Dad must have been horrified but he never let on (Greg wasn't surprised). I was just not interested in sciences/ maths/ chemistry. At all!

I had experienced the humbling three years that I needed to experience. My maturity had caught up a tiny bit and I felt I was more or less back on track to fulfill my teaching ambition into my last years at MAGS.

The sixth form would be a challenge, but what the hell. I was finally done with School C.

Love and peace - Wozza

Here I stand head in hand, turn my face to the wall (The Beatles)

The footsteps of dawn (You may say I'm a dreamer - Chapter 3, part 3)

One more year of abject failure still had to be endured before school life would start to improve. 

Look for the smallest guy in row 2 (behind Mr Herbert)

As 1973 dawned I found myself in Senior 5. I guess it was called that to make us feel like we were seniors but I was woefully naive and deep into teenage boy fog.

In retrospect, as there was 'Upper 5', 'Junior 5' and so on, there may well have been other reasons for calling it Senior 5 as it was made up of new fifth formers and some incorrigible repeaters; some real hard nuts, like Brian Wood, who gave the teachers complete crap whenever they could. A renaissance man with a poem published in 1973's The Albertian, Brian was hilarious!

Fifth form meant sitting School Certificate: the first big hurdle that had to be negotiated to get into sixth form. It was replaced by Level 1 NCEA in NZ.

Truly, I spent the year in a daze. I can remember nothing specific about the year - who my teachers were, or what I studied. Nothing. In terms of the classroom, it's like 1973 didn't exist.

Instead, I lived in another world: an alternative universe - writing to my cousin Christine who lived in the far off kingdom of England where my music and football team came from, playing football and listening to music. That's what I remember.

After Deedoo and Grandma came back from their world cruise in 197o/71, they brought me back two wonderful presents: a magazine from the Daily Mirror celebrating Arsenal's double (I instantly fell in love with Charlie George and the team), and an address in Rochdale.

When I started writing to her,  Christine Purdy, a few years older than me, became the big sister I never had. Only a few family relationships now survive: little brother Ross and Christine.

When November rolled around and the exams started I was terribly nervous and amazingly immature as a student. As per 1971 and 1972, it's not that I didn't try, it's that I didn't know shit and I was found out big time. We were living at a rental in Asquith Avenue in Mt Albert while Ramelton Road was being built. I remember throwing up at home in the garage before heading off to my maths exam. Clearly, I wasn't in the best shape for three hour exams.

To pass and move to the sixth form I needed to get four subjects over 50%. When the results came out in January, I had failed spectacularly in French, in maths, in chemistry, in geography.  

The good news was little consolation: a prize for art and a pass in English, but just barely, with 50%. Subsequently, my 48% for geography went to 50% on a recount.

Two subjects was a long way off the target. Those days, at this school, the next year meant a repeat of fifth form and another attempt at School Certificate.

Crap. My brother was catching up to me. There was no chance the boy genius wouldn't fly through School C. I was worried.

Under 16A -Look for the smallest guy in the back row - I was  really immature! In front of me - Pete Cahill, to his left Steven Sinclair, and to his right goalie extraordinaire: Mike Budd.
Championship co-winners! 

Luckily some of my friends also failed and had to repeat. Michael Budd and Pete Cahill were two. When I phoned Mike, I felt a huge sense of relief - he too had missed the magic number of marks needed. Mike, Pete and me. We had a few things in common - we were dumped back in Senior 5, and we were all footballers who'd been playing together for two or three years, and we loved the same music.

What would 1974 do to us? Would we pass and go to the sixth form? Would we fail? What would that mean?

It was a scary time, but I had no choice in the matter. I was a second year fifth!

Love and peace - Wozza

Do you remember how it was, we had the moon and tide behind us (Dragon)

The footsteps of dawn (You may say I'm a dreamer - Chapter 3, part 2)

Welcome to teenage boy fog
(1971, third form at MAGS)

Again, my first day at a new school is a vivid memory. I was physically sick that morning - terrified at what might happen; the fear of the unknown.

All the new third formers (turds) met first in the car park outside the huge school hall. Being out of zone meant that, apart from a couple of my team members from Eden Football Club (Ian Johnson and Grant King), I didn't recognise anybody that morning.

We were herded past the photos of distinguished old boys and school teams into the gigantic assembly hall. The names of old boys dating back to 1922 were all over the walls: prefects; sport's captains; academic scholars. Little did I imagine that my own name would join them in time.

Our names were read out and we walked endless imposing corridors to get to that first class.

I was placed in 3A - the top third form academic class. The school drafted boys into classes studying two language, Latin and French (the A and B stream), one language or science (the C stream), commercial (3 Com), or lowest of the low - agriculture (the 3 Ag boys were nutters!!).

This was cause for celebration in the Purdy household...until three weeks later when the school realised its mistake. There had been a mix up over names, or so I was told. It was obviously a sop to let me down easy. 

There were two Purdys and one Purdie in the year group. Denis Purdy, a cousin, was brilliant and deserved to be in 3A - he'd later go on to be dux, and Ian Purdie from Dargaville, a houseboy, and a thug who was already in 3B. Meanwhile I was struggling with the demands and lost beyond lost with the work given the geniuses in 3A.

So - I was politely advised of the situation and immediately placed in 3B, where I also came bottom of the class!!

From 3B to 4B I became an academic casualty, consistently struggling and coming bottom. My report comments indicate:

An unsatisfactory result - greater effort required. Place in class 38 out of 38.

The teachers got it slightly wrong - I WAS trying! Statistics didn't lie though - I was failing, big time.

Second row, second left behind rubberguts, in front of David Wadhams

Teenage boy mist had well and truly descended and much of the third form remains a blur. Fourth form (now called Year 10) was notable for a few things.

First up, I had to toughen up to survive in 4B's more bullying atmosphere. Don't get me wrong - I loved going to MAGS but 3rd and 4th form were tricky to negotiate. 

Although there were some really good guys in the form like Peter Yandell, Ian Johnson, Ricky Hellreigel (who died tragically of a brain tumour after surviving the Rose-Noelle capsize), Stephen Sinclair, David Freeman and David Wadhams, there were also guys like Ian Purdie, Butterworth, David Solomona and others who were not taking prisoners!

If you were sporty and quiet (like me) you skated on by most of the time. If you were slightly different (Enoch or David Freeman) you were targeted. I was friends with David who had to put up with being called 'hoe'. It wasn't a fun time.

The teaching staff were special prey for the pranksters. Our Latin teacher, the eccentric Bill 'tooth' Mitchell, put up with sheer hell.

Of our teachers Graham 'Rubberguts' Bean was having us working on the cricket pitch most periods, 'Mouse' King was caning everyone who stepped out of line (so that was someone every period really), and the pommie PE teacher was trying to interest us in gymnastics (ar...no thanks) but...hang on... two young guys were making an impression.

Barry Gough for English and WOH (Warwick) Gibbs for French saved my life! No exaggeration!

For both, it was their first year teaching, ever! I bet they cursed their luck getting 4B - it was a rough ride. Particularly for Warwick, who was soon tagged 'Penguin' for his choice of clothing (black suit, white shirt, black tie). Both came across as serious kinds of guys but they made class fun and stretched my imagination, and they could still cane with the best of them!

As my junior schooling came to an end, a different window on my future was beginning to prise itself open an inch or two at a time.

Love and peace - Wozza

Don't know much (Sam Cooke)

The footsteps of dawn (You may say I'm a dreamer - Chapter 3, part 1)

Don't know much about history
Don't know much biology
Don't know much about a science book
Don't know much about the French I took
But I do know that I love you
And I do know that if you love me too
What a wonderful, wonderful world it would be
(Sam Cooke)

The gates to Royal Oak Primary are still there.

Royal Oak Primary, Manukau Intermediate, Mount Albert Grammar School. They all tried hard with Warren Purdy.

Front row, stripped shirt, 1963.

Inextricably, the Royal Oak area of Auckland and Royal Oak Primary are intertwined with my happy childhood memories. They were safe and warm places to grow up and they never let me down. 

When I was growing up, Royal Oak was pretty much my entire self contained universe. When I visited the Penny Lane roundabout in Liverpool I understood what Paul McCartney was on about in his famous song. 

Penny Lane contains Paul's memories of the banker, the barber, the firemen and so on. I get it (Penny Lane is in my ears and in my eyes. There beneath the blue suburban skies). 

Royal Oak was my Penny Lane.

The shops at the Royal Oak roundabout included Walls and Roche (chemists), a butchers, a menswear, three stationers where I'd buy my comics, and a dairy (ice creams, lollies, cokes). I took tennis lessons at the Royal Oak grass courts and joined the Fernleigh Road tennis  club (off Pah Road). I'd return glass coke bottles to the Pah Road dairy. Close by was the cubs/scouts hall that Ross and I went to. Seymour Park was where I played football for Eden FC. Ross and I went to St John's Church for Sunday school. Our doctor and dentist (Nelson and Bridgeman) were in the area, too. 

Everything was in walking distance. When I got my bike in 1967 it was even closer!

In terms of schooling, everything was accessible from Oak Street or Korma Road: Mrs Rogers kindy; Royal Oak Primary and Manukau Intermediate.

Middle row, proudly wearing my patrol badge
(love of my young life Adrienne is middle row, second left)

After School Patrol duty, I'd walk home along Pah Road towards my happy home at 18 Korma Ave. The tins were full of good stuff. I could swim in summer or kick a football around our empty pool in winter. I could ride my bike and play games with Ross. We could go on holiday and I never wanted for anything. It was a sweet ride!

I loved primary school.

But then, after my last term in Standard Four (1968), a transition had to happen. I had to leave Royal Oak Primary and head to a new school. I had to trade in the scouts uniform and put on the intermediate one. 

Dib dib dib - me and Ross with cool uniforms, but not for long

Manukau Intermediate (now rebranded as Royal Oak Intermediate) was just down the road, in Trafalgar Street. I'd been there for choir performances (that will be a shock to my students and colleagues). At that time, I remember being slightly overwhelmed by its size.

Luckily, a lot of my friends also made the move. John Dawson and his brother walked me to school that first morning in January 1969. Interestingly, I am no longer in any kind of contact with anyone from primary or intermediate school. Funny how that happens.

I enjoyed a lot of things about Manukau, but Mrs Kay was not one of them. A chain-smoking, nicotine stained, obese woman was to be my teacher for both my form one and form two years. Yikes.

For the only time in my entire school career I felt the injustice of corporal punishment when she gave me the strap, on the hand, for talking during one of her abysmal French lessons. The shame and the injustice has stayed with me. 

It was such a shock.

One minute I'm sitting at my desk, next the two of us are called up in front of the class. I have to hold my hand out while she uses a large leather strap to whack my hand. It stings like hell and when I return to my seat I'm crying with embarrassment and pain.

It continues to sting!

On the plus side, I spent two years learning new things. Woodwork and metalwork were the only two practical subjects I ever took and I enjoyed them, even though I was an absolute clutz in them most of the time. 

Mr Lindsay with his team (I'm
second from left in the front row)

Intermediate was a valuable time in transitioning from childhood to teenager.
In 1970 I caught a glimpse of my future. An inspirational teacher took us for maths, Mr Lindsay. He was young, competent, and my soccer coach. Suddenly, these new thoughts about being a teacher seemed to make sense.

As a Manukau Intermediate pupil I was zoned for the local Onehunga High School, also within walking distance from Korma Ave. At the time though, the local word wasn't favourable about OHS.

Instead, mum and dad sought the more difficult option - to bus me over to Mount Albert Grammar, where dad had been a student. 

As I was out of zone, I had to attend an interview with the Headmaster, Maurice Hall.  It must have gone well, or else he was impressed by my stated desire to become a maths teacher, or else dad being an old boy swung the deal. 

Whatever - I was in! I was going to be a MAGS boy!

Love and peace - Wozza