THE GREEN HILLS OF HOME
Auckland is the skinniest part of a country
that is itself just a thin crust poking up from the giant,
wet, blue pie of the Pacific.
But when I was little there was no sense of smallness here.
There was lots going on in the 1950s. We lived at the fag-end
of Upland Road in Remuera. Literally. All the grownups smoked
then. My mum would often send me down to the Benson Road shops
to buy another pack of Stuyvesants from Mr Gallie, the tobacconist.
The Gallies were newsagents too. You pre-ordered your magazines
and they were sorted into wooden pigeon holes. Mr Gallie in
his grey cardigan, a cigarette stuck to his lip, would roll
‘em up and snap a rubber band around them for you to
carry home. I used to get a comic called School Friend but
I loved my mum’s English Woman and would slowly turn
its pages, sucking in life from outside.
Also at the shops was a dairy where once I was awed to be
served a scoop in a cone by Ray Columbus. His girlfriend’s
parents owned the place and sometimes Ray would work behind
the counter with his cheerful grin.
Mr McSweeney, the butcher, chopped meat with dull, thudding
noises on a giant slice of tree trunk, its scrubbed top scored
by countless cleaver cuts . There was sawdust on the floor.
A white truck delivered his supplies. Men wearing grubby hooded
capes would haul glistening carcasses from the truck’s
back door, balanced on their straining shoulders.
Next door Mr Puttick, the grocer, stood behind his counter
in his apron, tidying cans on his shelves and weighing onions
on his scales.
From my bedroom I could see two volcanoes. I didn’t
know that then. They were just grassy mounds, always there
in my life. Mt Eden. Mt Hobson. Sometimes, on outings, we’d
go up Mt Eden so we could see both sides of the country at
once. Or we would walk up Hobson through its sheep and daffodils.
Mt Eden was best because of its thrilling crater.
Down the road was the Orakei Basin, whose flanks we scrambled
down to play by the murky water. Nobody water-ski’d
there then. The Basin’s edge was a green jungle with
narrow tracks worn through the kikuyu grass by small feet.
We’d play there for hours in leafy rustling ‘caves’
in the bamboo groves, no parents within sight or sound. There
were no worries about whether we were okay. We just were.
Sounds were different then. Steam trains chuffed along the
tracks that edged the Basin. From our house you could hear
the roar as TEAL flying boats did lumbering lift-offs from
the harbour.
Most thrills were cheap. Grown-ups drank home brew and sherry,
not wine. Takeaways? A pie or fish and chips. If you wanted
Chinese you took your own pot to a place in Greys Avenue.
They’d fill it with chicken chow mein that exuded soy-saucy
aromas you could still smell in the car the next day.
I remember cheerful parties where people sang to the strum
of ukeleles. But we had neighbours whose rows were huge and
shriek-filled. A man we knew drowned himself and my mother
came to mutter about my father’s frequent consoling
visits to the widow. Hazily, I recall a girl hammering on
the door one night, seeking help because she was being stalked
by some bloke. Life seethed beneath the surface.
Since then, of course, Auckland’s grown up a bit. The
old Benson Road shops once owned by Messrs Gallie, Puttick
and McSweeney are now chic cafes and design stores. But despite
surface changes, the life dramas don’t alter. People
keep on laughing, drinking, arguing and churning because we’re
as full of juice and life as our parents were when they were
young.
And those green volcanoes are still the big calm mounds of
old. From high up on their tops you can still see the twin
oceans. The wind still stings your cheeks. You can watch the
sun rise over Rangitoto and sink beyond Piha. Such wonderful
hills we live amongst. Next time I’m feeling grumpy
that’s where you might find me. Sitting up on some favourite
slope, putting my world to rights.
Citymix magazine
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