part 17

smocked dresses with as many of those stiff petticoats as possible..god they were scratchy though. And you couldnt play bullrush in 'em either.
I guess my mother triedbut thinking about it now I was a lost cause. Preferred shorts, t'shirts and barefeet in the summer and those godawful tartan trousers and gumboots in the winter.
had a uniform with the plastic brown sandals. But they had a covered foot with little slit openings down the side.. Stones were always getting down them and into the heel part of the sandal. Thought I was really cool setting off to school all totted up with me new plastics on me feet, long sleeve white blouse . tie . panama hat. my socks pulled up to my knees, and my brown schoolbag

I much prefer glass cream and milk bottles too pity they went out. Remember the school post office account called Squirrel Nutkin when I was there. Think I banked about 2/6d a week in it but I wasnt allowed to touch it except for good purchases not sweets or anything like that.Pocket money of 3d a day if I was good if not cancelled and it was written in the diary in red No PM this week!! plus I would get a smack with the back of a lightish hairbrush. Didnt do any harm at all.

never hurt me either. In fact I would say it made me appreciate my parents more. I was a very vocal girl (still am I am told) and my mouth got me into so much trouble both at school and home. If it was good enough for the teachers to smack me I guess it was just as good being my parent to give me the odd 1 or 2 whacks.. I hated detention though and remember being only about standard 4 with a new teacher and because I didnt have my swimming togs with me I was made to sit in class at lunchtime and write *I must bring my togs each day* 500 times I was crying by the time I finsihed that That was cruel I thought. I would rather have had the strap instead of writing out lines. Anyhow as I told the teacher the pool is so green my mum said I may get a disease hahaha. Didn't work, still got into trouble
detention remember being told to stand out in the middle of the quadrangle when I was talking through a music class. I didnt mind that but I was petrified the headmaster would see me and come over. I kept going over to the drinking fountain and pretending I was thirsty if I saw someone coming. Had never spoken to him nor did I ever. Actually he was the kindest possible man you could hope for but for some silly reason he scared me just the way he looked from the stage at asembley.

School rulers and blardy teachers. Had a teacher who would come up and hit your knuckles with the edge of the ruler.... never with the flat side of it... NO it was the sharp edge of it... HURT like crazy as he hit you real hard. Accused of yakking and whack...... half the time I didnt do a thing...... WHACK as he walked past. I stood up and told the pr*ck where to go..... some friggen blabbermouth went home and told their daddy who happened to know my stepdad.... who then told my mother..... got frogmarched back up to the school to the teacher to apologise. Like WTF for! I laughed and walked out again and my mother apologised for my behaviour. The pratt of a teacher never did it to me again.
I stashed away my halfpennies in our old couchI had my name and date of birth on a piece of paper in there. A few years ago in early "90's" I got a call and they asked if I still wanted them. So I still have them lol
Hated petticoats with tons of layers, felt so fluffy and poncy. shudder at the thought of wearing them. But.. do you remember the toilets with the chains ? My grandmother had one and had to climb on the toilet (cracked wooden seat) to reach it, then swing on it to get it to work. blardy thing was so tempermental. the came the handle flush, that always got stuck and toilets were always out on the porch. so cold and scary in the nite. I had a chamber under the bed and so many times wobbled off it and the pee went all over the carpet ! OMG
glaxo.....builds bonny babies bell tea coupons,i still have some.
all those lovely lovely cereal freebies cornflakes rice crispies and honey puffs and maybe shredded wheat which I like better than weetbix not sure which ones had them but I used to collect beautiful little vintage cars and other things like a tiny horse and carriage , stagecoach, paddle boat all these were then painted in the true colours they could have been but very fragile . I still have some put away in a box. There were plastic black horses and white ones and indians and cowboys that fitted into the saddle and rode them . There were lovely zoo and farm animals and again used to paint them up with special coloured plastic paint played imaginative games -circuses farms and zoos for hours just right for an only child.
Remember the old man working for the fire brigade with no breathing protection at fires & also wrapping asbestos around piping by hand... The old bugga's still alive.(Reckons you can't kill weeds)
hqad my 86yr old mum read some of these postings.She said she remembers when there was Stormonts bread place at the top of Grafton road and every lunch time the kids headed there for the cut offs from the sponges that stormonts made. They were given a bag each. mum said that used to go a long way in puddings for her fami;ly of 10
I remember getting wade whimseys in the toothpate packets!! Little pottery animals and various other figures.

Crashe that old building was definitely a children's home that later became the Catholic Convent then if I remember rightly it was bought by the Power Board for Offices. #653 I remember Miss Collins the sewing teacher. We went from St Josephs High School once a week for sewing with her. She was quite a "dumpy" lady with a broad scottish accent. Remember her telling us that things that were factory made were not worth the money and then she would relate the story of how she wanted to buy hubby shirt and saw a loose thread. She pulled it and the whole collar came off in her hand. #768 darmooz (ant read my writing)the Eldorado chocolates yummy you are so right. But I think you could only get them if you worked for a Govt Dept and they came from either Barraud and Abraham or Goldingham and Beckett. Has taken me about three hours to catch up on thread now disappearing to wtch Midsomer Murders on Prime.
remember the Bell Tea coupons and I have never drunk tea. #819 I loved those wee toys. Had forgotten all about them. Don't know what happened to all my toys from cereal packets.Might be worth a bit now, you'd think the fragile ones would anyway.
BIKING for miles... hand delivering telegrams.. real good wages working for the govt. auction rooms everywhere.
Who remembers .....travelling to the South Island on the over-night ferry, went heaps of times, always seasick !! remember going on the maori and the wahine, then all day bus or train trip to Dunedin to visit grandparents.
train in Nelson Does anyone remember riding on the train in Nelson? What was it like where did you travel to? We arrived there two years after the railway was closed down, shame!
Can't remember travelling.. through Nelson, just from lyttelton, always had breakfast there at the railway Station before getting on the train to Dunedin, took all day, stopped along the way to buy food, stopped at Oamaru can't remember where else, took ALL DAY, I remember that much.
**The Little Red School Book***remember that? All about sex and condoms.

STOCKINGS & suspender belts.. when the button broke I used a small coin to help hold them up... now we wear them to entertain the men.. roflmao
How about some jingles..... Boy Oh Boy A Lincoln Toy. I'm gonna wash you out dandruff, you've been in everyone's hair. The thicker the block the better tyhe choc.
Yep it was the "All Saints Orphanage" the big building on Pascal St in Palm North. It was recently sold off a few years ago. I was one of the many who lived in that place. My bro and I went back years later when the nuns were living there..... they were hesitant but aggreed to show us throu the place again as we had many memories of the place. Going back throu the dorms as older girls were separated from the younger girls... at the other end the younger boys were separated from older boys...... many families with young children were separated within the one big building and the family bond lost forever. many were from just a one child family left there as well. Yep they were the times back then never knowing who the hell was who.
that was the first dirty joke I learnt.. What did Mrs Lincoln say to Mr Lincoln when he pulled down his pants ? Boy oh boy a lincoln toy ! hahaha still remember it to this day.
Form I at Heaton Intermediate We went to Wellington on the Maori from Lyttelton. We all met at the Chch raliway station, caught the train over to the port and got on the ferry which took all night to get to Wellington. Once there we went to Todd Motor Factory in Lower Hutt? and saw all the Crysler Valiants being assembled then to the zoo. The tigers escaped a couple of weeks after we were there and they shot them. This was 1966.

I remember going to a shop in Christchurch...when I was primary school age, and when my mum paid for something the money was put in a metal can with a docket, put on a thing like a railway line above our heads and shot off somewhere, then returned with the change!!!!

Child of the 50's here that would be Ballantynes - all the staff wre black and you could sit at a seat at the counter and the staff bought what you wanted to you
I think the shop was called Drayton Jones or something like that. One of the cafes had one of those things as well. Do you remember when Miller's got the first moving stairs? it was really exciting to go there so we could ride up and down on them. Did you used to go up to Hay's roof?
Armstrongs, Calder Mackays, Galvins D.I.C My mother blacklisted Ballantynes after the fire of 47? We never went in there because she said they were negligent not having fire escapes.
crashe I guess you went to Central School then and onto Intermediate Normal?
God I can even remember when they hanged the last man in New Zealand(Wally Bolten),(and they reckon he was innocent in the end too)and whenever I was naughty, they would say "He,ll end up on a Rope that Boy"..hahahahaha..
Guess you proved them wrong! 850