School days time warp
In the middle of June I returned to my old neck of the woods, South Kaipara Head, the rural district north-west of Auckland where I grew up. Mum had timed my visit with an errand out to my old primary school and so on Saturday afternoon we bundled Gran in the car and took off on the 15 minute drive out there.
The errand was donating a book to the school library, a book written by my aunt. Taketakerau: The Millenium Tree has been received fantastically well since being published about 18 months ago, and was a finalist in a recent childrens’ book awards held in NZ.
She has loads of creative talent and one of my cousins inherited a supercharged dose of that too. Check this out.
But I digress… once at Waioneke School, Mum and I left Gran perusing a magazine in the car and we went to meet Merril, the school librarian.
We used to file off the school bus and up that footpath
This was the whole school in 1978, photo taken just off to the side of the footpath. 5-6yo Hayley is in the middle of the back row
When I first started there were two classrooms: the Junior Room and the Senior Room. Along the way we acquired a third, which was duly called (and I’m sure you will be shocked) the Middle Room.
The old Senior Room, now the library
With Merril and book
Being here provided a great opportunity to look around the rest of school. I was last here in 2005 for the 75th jubilee. This time it was getting late in the day with light fading fast so it was a quick blat around.
The school has changed SO much since my day but a lot is still familiar.
One of the old cloak rooms where we used to hang our bags. It looked like they are used as storage these days
The old Junior Room, where I first began my school life
Today the library is in the old Senior Room. The old library is gone, and the Junior Room has several of these new fangled electric boxes called Computers. The Middle Room, like the other classrooms, is full of colour and creative stimuli and a vast contrast to how I remember it three decades (sounds better than 30 years) ago. New classrooms have sprung up to cater for the 30-odd additional pupils – the roll now hovers around 90 – and there’s even a school hall.
I remember this door ripping back one of my toenails, and I remember trying to capture boys with another friend to take them into the girls’ toilets (can’t recall if we were successful but I’m pretty sure we got into trouble)
Arty things by a courtyard where the old library once stood
The Middle Room in 1981 – photo taken in the old library
A modern ‘safe’ playground has replaced the old two-level wooden structure
The pool opened in 1972 which makes it as old as me! Gawd
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We left Waioneke. As a spur of the moment thing, a few minutes away we swung up Wilson Road where we lived when my brother and I went to high school in Helensville. Up the metal road a ways, then left into a right-of-way.
This was (maybe still is) a deer farm and a beautiful place to live.
The fences are for deer, not bionic cows
Deer shed and yards
Flashback from the mid 1980s
Past our house and onto the airstrip where we turned around in front of a guy holding a gun. (He was target shooting.) (I don’t think at us.)
Ah yes… the corner (no trees back then) where I may once have ridden round it on mum’s farm bike and crashed into my father on his farm bike
Flashback: My brother and I at the end of the right-of-way outside our old house. We would often grab one of the bikes and head across the farm or up the road
Time to end the nostalgia and get back – Dad was cooking a roast!
tall tales 