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