Hi there

I was throwing out hundreds of old photos. Here's a photo of my friend Shirley and I on the day we boarded 'The Northern Star' ship in Wellington,  sailing for England 30 August 1965.

I'm in the front, Shirley behind me, and two strangers behind the two of us.  A news photographer was roaming the ship taking photos. He rounded up we four and posed us on an outside stairway.  The photo was in The Sports Post the following Saturday.

I'd taken three months leave without pay (plus a few weeks' annual leave), Shirley was going to stay for two years.  I didn't work while I was away, and flew home at the finish.  Long distance flying was highly unusual in those days and in the middle of the flight, I was given a crossing the equator certificate.  A pilot even came out and talked to everyone individually.

TYPIST-IN-CHARGE, Episode 12

Typist-in-Charge, Episode 12

Curriculum Development Unit, Department of Education, August 1969-1971, Senior Typist (Display)

above: Curriculum Development Unit..  My golfball typewriter hadn't arrived yet.

The office in Hobson Street, Thorndon, was a 25 minute fast walk to the city shops.  .I could maybe, at a pinch, cut five minutes off if I cut through the Thorndon School playground, and then through the grounds of Parliament Buildings.    Thorndon School used to be the 'in' school for embassy officials to send their kids.  Many of these children would roll up to school sitting all alone in the back seat of posh chauffeur-driven limos.

We had an office assistant at the Curriculum Development Unit:  Jennie, a lovely Maori lady, a solo mum, with the happiest personality ever.  We all adored her for her liveliness and willing-to-help  attitude.  One morning she came bouncing into the typing area.

 "I'm in!  I'm in!" 

I stopped typing, and bounced around the room with her. 

"The Maori teaching course?" I burst out.  "Is that it?  Is it?  Is it-?"  

"Yes! Yes! Yes!  I've been accepted.."

Jennie was going to be practically an inaugural student for the teaching of Maori in schools project.  She spoke Maori fluently, and wanted so much to pass on her knowledge.  I was happy for her that she had achieved her goal.  I decided to take on Jennie's determination and get to my goal too. There were about half a dozen more rungs on the ladder for me.

After about 18 months in Hobson Street, the CDU moved to a brand new multi-storey building, that was a couple of blocks west of Hobson Street, at the very tippy-tip top of Molesworth Street, yet still in Thorndon.  I wouldn't have to cut through the school anymore to get to town.  Hooray, five minutes less walking to the city.  Buses were few and far between.  There were only about three shops in the entire street.

above:  Rossmore House, Molesworth Street, Thondon, Wellington.  The building on the right wasnt there at the time.

There were several other divisions of the Department of Education in Rossmore House, including the regional office typing pool where I was plonked (Mrs Fraser had since retired from the CDU, without even letting me know she was leaving).  There were about ten of us typists.  The Shorthand Typist-in-Charge, was Mrs Brown.  She stared, greedily, at my IBM Selectric Golfball typewriter, the only one in the room.

"We'll all share that machine," she said.

"But I'm a senior typist, " I babbled.  "Doing display work for the CDU.  I'm graded - "  I really didn't want to lord it over the others in the pool but I had to let this woman understand that I typed only for one division, that the golfball typewriter had been bought by the CDU.

Mrs Brown was new to the government.  She had been chosen from 'outside' because - wait for it - she could do shorthand.  She was the only one of us who had the skill.  Not that Mrs Brown did any shorthand whilst she was at Rossmore House.  She had been chosen because 'Shorthand Typist-in-Charge' had always been the official title for every rung on the in-charge graded position ladder, even though shorthand was rarely used by appointees.  Shorthand was so a dying language.

Mrs Brown obviously didn't hear my wailing about how important I was.  She started making a rota of who would share my machine.

I rang up Mrs Rowley at Head Office who was still the Lord High Executioner of Wellington typists. 

I never heard another word from Mrs Brown about taking over my machine.

It was good to be in a pool again.  I had missed the companionship of a clutch of fellow (fellow?) typists.  I became friendly with Margie who was nervously going for her drivers' licence.  We all wished her well as she nervously took off to do the test.

She was back in 20 minutes.  "I've failed..."

"Oh, no...."  We fluttered around her sorrowfully.  "What did you do wrong?" somebody asked.

"I never got out of the carpark," cried Margie.  "The instructor asked me to back out, turning right.  And ....  and ....  I kept turning the car left.  Over and over.  And over.  We went round in circles. .."

In those days there were only a couple of shops in Molesworth Street, ie, a dairy, and and the expensive dress shop, "The Mews", where it was rumoured the Prime Minister's wife and the Govermor-General's wife shopped for cocktail dresses.  

There was practically no cover when it rained.  I couldn't even cut through the grounds of Parliament anymore to get to town because The Beehive addition to old Parliament Buildings was being erected and the grounds were closed off.  It took me the same amount of time to get to Hays-Wright-Stephenson's department store as it had when I worked in Hobson Street.

Over three consecutive days, there was tremendous rain, coupled with the notorious Wellington wind.  On each of those three days, I had a different umbrella blow inside out.

"That's it,"  I decided.  "I'm putting in for any job that comes up in The Public Service official Circular -"

***

 

  

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.

 

Feeding the Sparrows

 Hi there

This winter has been cold and the sparrows have been clustering in my yard waiting to be fed.  They've reached the stage where they're beaks to the glass of my ranch-sliders, peering in to me with pleading eyes and looking so sad, yet cute!!  -