childhood memory

 Hi there

Above: 12 Manley Tce.  Recent picture

When I was a small child, maybe kindergarten age or earlier, my parents and I moved in with my grandparents at 12 Manley Terrace, in Newtown.   It was one of the oldest streets in Wellington, with several beautiful turn-of-the-century two-storey houses and an old closed-down factory that may have been a flour production place, around which we kids would play.. The old book "Streets of My City" (F L Irvine-Smith, 1948) listed the history of every street in Wellington up to when the book was printed.   Manley Terrace was in the book. 

My grandparents' eating area, off a tiny added-on kitchen, held a huge wooden dining table.  I remember my mother telling me that she had her tonsils taken out by the visiting doctor on that table.

There was a fireplace with a stool at each side of the fire.   

At one family gathering around that table, my ever-so proud grandmother declared, "Lorraine knows a song-"

"Ooooooh.. "  Four aunties, four uncles, two grand-parents, three cousins, three of my grandparents' boarders, my parents, and even the dog, Sandy, perked up his ears.

I remember marching proudly up to the far stool, and clambering up onto it.   My first public appearance!

My voice rang out -

"I'm a little teapot

short and stout

Here is my handle

Here is my spout -

Tip me over, pour me out..."

My cousins, with tremendous glee, still like to remind me,  and others, of my theatrical debut.  I am so embarrassed.