Do you think you will be happy, buttering the toast of your semi-detached suburban Mr. Most (Manfred Mann)

The Royal Oak roundabout,
ten years before I arrived

Wie gehts?

A while ago, I mentioned Tracey Thorn's wonderful book about her roots in suburbia, Another Planet. Specifically I alluded to her need to get in touch with her easy childhood and testy teenage self who lived in 1970s Brookmans Park (an hour train journey north of north London).

During the book, she goes on a pilgrimage of sorts, a 'day trip into the past', back to that small suburban commuter town and finds a lot of things unchanged. Except for her self. Like all of us, that's a person from another planet.

Where would I go if I was to follow her example? Because she's right:

So many of us live in some version of suburbia, the majority of us I suspect, yet we heap scorn upon the place, and what does that do, I wonder, to our sense of self. 

As they like to say in dramatic TV programmes, 'it's complicated'.

In the UK it's easier because it's not tainted with rosier childhood/ testy teenage memories. 

My history there isn't at touching distance - it skips two generations back to my grandfather who emigrated to New Zealand from Rochdale with his brother and parents in the 1900s. My father and I were born in NZ.

In NZ though, a pilgrimage back to my suburban roots/routes would take in a very small part of Auckland where I lived from zero to mid twenties (I lasted longer in my home town than Tracey did as I didn't travel away from home for University).

Here's a list of things I'd be able to walk to if you dropped me off at the Royal Oak roundabout, Auckland:

• Seymour Park (football from age 4 onwards)
• Royal Oak Primary
• Manukau Intermediate 
• Oak Street (my first house from 0-2)
• Korma Road (our house at number 18 was demolished some time ago, I lived there from 2-15)
• One Tree Hill (where I was born and roamed as a kid and teenager)
• The Royal Oak shops (like Brookmans Park, some are still there, like Ollie's Ice Cream)
• Greenwood's Corner
• Fernleigh Avenue (tennis club)

A short bus ride in a variety of directions would mean visits to:

• Auckland University
• 4 Ramelton Road, Mt Roskill (my house from 16-25)
• Mount Albert Grammar School
• Queen Street, Onehunga
• K Rd and Queen Street, central Auckland (where Greg and I walked and visited record shops)
• Shackleton Road, Mt Eden (where Greg lived)
• Disraeli Street (where I had football practice)

The universe was very small and comforting in suburbia days. Eventually, like Tracey's version, it would also became stifling. I've explored a bit more of the world since then.

That exploration is now over, and I'm ready for a smaller part of the planet again.

Love and peace - Wozza

Great Britain - you are tremendous (Paul McCartney)

Wie geht's?

As I was sitting in the dentist waiting room yesterday, my mind wandered. In the hurry to get here after school I'd forgotten to bring a book. Doh!

So my mind wandered.

To England. Oh England.

Where oh where did my love affair start?

Before stepping into those Rochdale streets in 2003 I'd had a sense of belonging generated many many years before.

Let's go back.

When I was four, I took myself off to the football ground that was close to where we lived in Royal Oak.

So that can't be true. Mum must have taken me, right? As if a four year is going to yell out, "Okay mother and father - I'm off to play football now. See ya!"

Mum must have taken me. Probably after I'd shown an interest, because that's unusual for four year olds isn't it?

My only truly distinct memory was trying on the football boots at Seymour Park. They were far too big for my four year old feet. So I needed multi layers of socks.

I was good to go. And set for life.

Before I enter teenage boy fog, one thing leads to another and everything becomes interlaced.  

English and Scottish accents at the park. Weekly football magazines from some glamorous land called Fleet Street about teams called Wolves and The Arsenal. Swallows and Amazons. Coronation Street. The Beatles. More and more books, some set in overgrown English gardens. Roy of the Rovers. Look and Learn.

Look and learn indeed - Wozza - an Anglophile from Nu Zild.

Within these walls, I can feel you (Lene Marlin)

There are two significant birthdays to celebrate in July and they are inextricably linked; my great grandfather, William Nugent Purdy (17 July 1880), and later it is the turn of my dad, Graham Nugent Purdy (26 July 1928).

William's history is complicated. I don't know anything of his early life but he eventually married Emma in Rochdale and they had three sons (one of whom died in infancy). Out of somewhere they made a crucial decision when my grandfather was very young (8 or 9) to move to New Zealand from Rochdale in the early 1900s. Basically -the farthest point away from Rochdale. The other end of the earth. Not like moving to Scunthorpe or something.

During the long passage to NZ via Australia, or else when they reached Australia, something happened to cause him to leave Emma, my great grandmother, in Sydney and come to NZ with his two very young sons.No one knows what really happened. I've heard various stories but the bottom line is that finding out the truth is no longer a viable prospect.

WNP, GNP, Christina, WNP, Deedoo, DMP, Ross
on the steps of Reimers Ave house.

 Like his own father William was a builder/ plasterer and he eventually started a business in Auckland - Purdy and Sons Plasterers. The business ended when my grandad retired (you'll recall that his only son - my dad - became a pharmacist and only an amateur plasterer).

My memories of my great grandfather are exclusively of him in his house in Reimers Ave, Mt Eden, Auckland until his death in the mid 1960s when I was 9 and Ross was 7. I don't have any memories of him coming to our house in Royal Oak or of his meeting us anywhere. The photographs of him holding me as a baby confirm that the minimal contact was always at his house.

It was a house he shared with his son Harry (my grandad) and his daughter-in-law, Christina. I'm not sure why he allowed them to move in with him. Whatever the reason he had us as frequent visitors. Every Saturday morning, mum and dad would load us into the family sedan and we would drive the short distance from Korma Ave to Mt Eden. That's every Saturday morning until...well... just every Saturday morning. When my grandmother died we still visited the house until my grandad moved to the Masonic village. Then we visited him there until his death.
  

From second from left: GNP, Harry, WNP. Photo taken
around July 26, 1949 (dad's 21st birthday party).

  

WNP, Grandma and Harry (Deedoo)

Our visits were very stylised. Ross and I would play on the entrance way pergola trying to avoid the roses, we would collect our magazines/ comics from grandma (mine were usually football magazines that had taken an age to travel from the UK but I looked forward to them never-the-less - not sure what Ross was given). We would play underneath the house amongst all the tools or on rare occasions we would visit the outside office (that needed a key so we would attach ourselves to dad for that visit) or play in the sheds at the back entrance that held all the plasterers' stuff - long wooden planks, drums of weird liquids and such. We would play inside in the study on an old typewriter or we would sit and listen and wait. Lotta waiting went on and I can see a version of myself with his head in a book or magazine.

During none of these times did we encounter William that I can recall. He had a room at the front of the house (remember it was his house) and he must have stayed in there, or else he was out but he was pretty old by this time so I doubt that - did he even have a car? Not sure, but we didn't come across him at all and we never went into his room. Never ever. Not once.

Ross will have far more vivid memories but to me he was always a shadowy figure, just on the edge of my childhood consciousness. I certainly knew he was there but we kept out of his way (or he lept out of ours, not sure which).

Our dad we called 'dad', our grandfather we called 'Deedoo' (I can't remember why but it suited him exactly), but our great grandfather had no pet name. We obviously didn't call him William or great grandfather; so we didn't call him anything! As I say he was a shadowy presence.

So I didn't ever get close to forming a relationship with him. Looking at other photos of him it is obvious that he did get out - bowls for instance and he was by all accounts a pretty social guy (you can tell that from his photos on this post) and my dad (and mum) got on well with him so it's all a bit strange really.

So a guy I never really knew. But...I feel a real bond to him. We share the same initials, we look similar (strong Purdy genes and that old Apples thing again) and we share overlapping history.

And I love him dearly for his legacy. Symbolically I wear his gold wedding band on my right hand ring finger. I am staring at it as I type. It's plain and beautiful and comes from a solid north of England, Rochdale origin. It permanently connects me to my ancestral roots. It makes me feel that a little bit of Rochdale is with me.

That's important to me because Rochdale feels like home in ways that I can't articulate. I had a very very strong sense of belonging when I visited for the first time in 2003.

So when the 17th spins into focus next week, spare a thought for the life of my great grandfather and maybe reflect a bit on your paternal great grandparents.

Love and peace - WNP

From Rochdale to Ocho Rios, from Ocho Rios to Dorking, from Dorking it's back to Rochdale

This is a special appreciation post for Rochdale, Lancashire. I love Rochdale.

I love the drive to it from Ramsbottom/Bury (see right) - up some twisty roads and undulating country and then down, down into Rochdale and its terraced houses, neighbourhood pubs and on into the city centre. The photo below shows that descent into the outskirts.

Here are some images of the town - some sundry views, the town hall, an aerial view of the city centre with some horrible high rise apartments blocks that I don't love, and some of those terraces:






I love the personal history associated with Rochdale - it's where my grandfather (Harry Purdy) was born, where my great grandfather (William Nugent Purdy) was born, where he married his first wife (Emma) and had three children (James died in infancy, my grandfather and Edward who is Suzanne's grandfather). It's the place they left for a new life in the southern hemisphere (William married his second wife in NSW, Australia and even she was from Rochdale!).

I love the mystery of Rochdale. I have no idea why William and Emma decided to leave Rochdale and travel to the other side of the world. He left all of his family behind to do this - generations of Purdys had lived and worked in Rochdale as master plasterers/labourers:

His father - James Purdy
and his father - Joseph Purdy
and his father - Jacob Purdy - and no one knows why they left.

The picture on the right is of some Rochdale pioneers . It's an image from the Rochdale museum that has stayed with me after I saw it in 2003 and I often wonder about the people behind the image and how they figure in the branches of their own family trees. Similar photos I have of my Rochdale family look very similar in appearance.

The Rochdale football team is obviously close to my heart as well. As soon as I was old enough to learn about how Rochdale fitted into my DNA I began to follow the fortunes of Rochdale AFC. For what seems like the last 300 years the team has been at the bottom of the football league. In the old days there were four divisions. Rochdale AFC were always anchored a few places about bottom of the 4th Division. These days we have the premier league/the championship and Division 1 and Division 2. And we've been largely in the same location. Until....about two years ago when somehow we made the playoffs last year at Wembley. Inconceivable! We lost at Wembley...but then this year we finished high enough to try for the playoffs - those are the Gillingham games I mentioned a few posts ago. Sadly we didn't quite make it but there is always next season. These photos come from Spotland during the first leg. Many thanks to Christine who was there!! This is the view Christine has, from her possie in the stand, looking to her left,

and then looking up the pitch to the right.


Back to the mystery of Rochdale - this is a picture of assistant Manager Dave Flitcroft. He was brought on as substitute, and as Christine tells me "came on as sub in last match of season - no one knows why - never has before".

And finally - here is the aforementioned Christine.

Love and peace - W

Inspiration 6

In case you hadn't noticed I'm a football fan. This post was inevitable then - it is my tribute to the beautiful game. And right off the bat let me acknowledge two things - 1) that not many of you share my passion, even less are the Arsenal fans amongst you (just Keegan, Adam, Jade, Samantha and me I believe), at least one of you is a Spurs fan (well he's my dad so I have to still talk to him), Tina Ballerina is (it pains me to say it) a MUFC supporter, two of you are Liverpool fans (Tom and Lewis), and five of us are Rochdale devotees (Fran, Tom, Lewis, Christine and me). I think that's about it - if you want your affiliation listed on my blog you'll need to get in touch. The rest of you are either rugby minded (you can't escape it living in NZ) or don't care. And 2) I can't write about football like Nick Hornby (who can?). His blog is full of incredibly insightful things about football in general and Arsenal in particular and I want to be like that when I grow up.

My love affair with football began when I was four. I have no idea why. Maybe dad could fill in the details. Whatever the prompting - I stuffed a couple of pairs of socks into my boots and wandered off to Seymour Park in Royal Oak, Auckland. Eden FC was the club and I was a good player - I went through all the Auckland rep grades until it was time for Mt Albert Grammar to enjoy my cultured left and right foot. I was captain of the first eleven and played at that level for three years, ending up as a school-boy Under 19 Auckland rep. That sounds pretty impressive huh. I loved football and was a dedicated player but in truth if, by quirk of fate, I'd been playing in England I wouldn't have emerged on any scout's radar. After the University years I coached and played at New Plymouth Boys' High before going back to Eden FC where I played socially with some old friends (Grant and Graham King) for a few years. Since then it's been a steady decline as the knees took umbrage and the social football ended when I left England in 2007. I must say I really miss football injuries. That feeling late on Saturday and all day Sunday when shins or thighs or whatever ached is a delicious one.

Why Arsenal? In 1971 my grandfather (Harry Purdy) did a return to England tour with my grandmother (Christina). They stayed with relations - even met Christine and David and Irene I think - and in BnBs. One such in London was with an elderly Arsenal fan. 1970/1971 was, of course, the great Charlie George goal-against-Liverpool-lying-on-his-back-to-celebrate season. Harry brought me back oodles of football stuff but the one mystical artifact was a Daily Mail celebration magazine that contained that photo and...that was all it took. Actually that's not strictly true - the Arsenal name, the uniform, the Arsenal badge, the place - Highbury - sounded otherworldly, the pictures of George Graham and George Kennedy et al all combined to hook me and make me a gooner forever.

Why Brazil? Pretty much similar reasons really - the 1970 world cup put the seal on it. Football from another planet - Pele and his mates running rings around the world. They seemed to be, and were, so exotic. I remember watching a news report of Pele practising volleying the ball into the net. My memory is a tad shonky but I seem to recall that he never missed. The ball was being played through to him at about chest height - he'd volley it in the air while falling to the ground, get up, do it again and again. It was the most extraordinary thing! This clip is the closest I could find - the one I remember must be out there somewhere though.



Why Rochdale? I was always aware of our Rochdale roots. Harry, his brother, Eddie (Suzanne's g/dad), and father (William Nugent Purdy) emigrated to New Zealand when the two boys were young. They settled eventually in the house I knew in Mt Eden, Auckland - in Reimers Ave by Eden Park. At the front gate was a pergola type structure that had roses on it (and Ross and I when we visited). Etched into the plaster was the word 'Rochdene'. When I asked I found out the connection. Again when Harry/Christina returned from that UK tour in 1971 they brought back a name and address - Christine Purdy in Lancashire. I started writing to Christine - I think when she was still actually living in Rochdale (you can correct me Christine). And...she started writing back. The fact that Rochdale was always in the old 4th division and Arsenal always in the old 1st division helped and seemed right. I'd get my football magazines each week from grandma and follow their belated progress. NZ is always months behind the UK in things that matter - Mojo and football magazines (unless you buy the really expensive airfreighted versions) and Coronation St (we're over a year behind the UK) - so the news was always out of date but the pictures were great.

Why Zico and Paul Merson(both on the top left Inspirations column) and Denis Bergkamp? Pele was awe inspiring but I was too young in 1970 (age 12) to really appreciate his genius. Plus the TV didn't carry the games - this was still in the black and white early NZBC days of one channel that started at 5 pm and closed down in early evening. No way were they covering football from Brazil! So it wasn't until colour, two channels, more viewing time arrived and the 1982 world cup finals rolled around that I witnessed Falcao, Socrates (pictured) , Eder and Zico in action. Wow and double wow! Not just the names, not just the uniform, but the way they played with no concern for gravity, convention, respect was breathtaking. They even played New Zealand at those finals - we were in a group with Scotland and Brazil. I was living in Hastings during the winter term of '82, staying with a mad Scottish family while doing a teaching practice at Havelock North High School. It was the first world cup that I remember getting a huge amount of coverage. Paul Merson was the same kind of inspirational player to me - he'd hare off with the ball at his feet in very characteristic strides and there would usually be a flourish and total commitment to him that I loved. Thierry Henry was like that, Theo Walcott may be like that in years to come (please please please let him stay at Arsenal for a bit longer!). at the moment he's a genius in the cocoon stage.And finally Denis Bergkamp. Denis was just a joy - wouldn't it have been great to witness Cezanne and Monet doing their bit? Well Arsenal fans had Denis. Let me repeat - he was a joy!

Currently grooving to Evermore (a great song - The Light Surrounding You - is on high rotate). Okay - must dash - about 30 pages left of 'London' to read - bye fer now.

Love and peace - W