The Memories and Reflections of Tony Albrecht
From the age of 8 years to 11 years. Those times of pre puberty innocence, and life was wonderful.
January 1949.
1948 hadn’t been a very nice year, with a polio epidemic raging throughout the country, crippling and killing children at random, and children were stuck at home in the doldrums doing schoolwork. Worst of all, I wasn’t able to mix and mingle with all of my neighborhood mates, for fear of cross infection, as the disease was highly virulent and struck in a totally random fashion, with no respect for one’s state of health or socio-economic situation. To say that the country was glad to see the back of that year would be putting it mildly.
My 8th birthday was less than a month away, February 3rd. These were days of endless hot sunshine that would make today’s doomsayers and global warming advocates go into a blind panic and start hugging more trees and the “rent a mob” protestors create anarchy and carnage on our streets.
In those far off days, every year, not just on the odd occasion, we enjoyed the sunshine and warmth of summer. The gloom of a cold wet winter was soon forgotten and bare feet, bare torsos, brown skin, and the inevitable sunburnt nose were the order of the day. Every summer was like that when I was young, and it was well under way by the end of November. Dad had planted all of the summer vegetables in September and October, and we were eating delicious home-grown lettuce, tomatoes, spring onions, carrots and those special delights — sweet, new potatoes covered in melting butter. The melting butter was a special treat, as butter rationing had only finished a year or two previously, so we made the most of it. We had lived through a winter of roast mutton, “yummy”, swede and marrow “yuk,” so some nice fresh salads with corned silver-side was a delicious diversion.
However, I digress. This year was very special. We were going on a camping holiday at the beach. We were meant to go at the end of December, but us kids, myself, Gretchen, Kathryn and Michael, all came down with measles. In those days, children caught most of the infections that were on offer: measles, mumps, whooping cough, and our bodies built up a natural resistance to them, so there were very few repeat infections. I never had an inoculation, until the mass polio and tuberculosis jabs when I was in my early teens, so that kind of thinking was quite alien to our acceptance of what nature dished out to us. Of course, we had aspirin, and penicillin was being developed for general use. However, anti-biotic ointments were not available — and if you got a cut, it was usually treated with some concoction that had an unimaginably painful sting, with the general theory being that the higher the pain infliction — the more effective the cure. Names of some of these tortures like Acriflavine, Iodine, and Friars Balsam come to mind and from memory Iodine and Friars Balsam were by far the worst.
The third week of January arrived, and we set off on our great adventure. The trailer was packed with tents, food, cooking equipment and clothes, enough for 2 weeks of holiday fun at the beach. Our car in those days was a 1929 Pontiac, a grand old car that never missed a beat and looked like something out of an Al Capone movie. I can remember dad had checked and greased the trailer wheel bearings and given the car an oil change and service. Even at that young age, I was fascinated by the mechanical mysteries of motor vehicles and took a keen interest in what Dad was doing.
Our destination was Whitianga in Mercury Bay in the very beautiful Coromandel, where we were to stay at the Ohuka motor camp. The journey down to there has to be mentioned, as it was quite a major undertaking back then.
Dad thought it would be a nice diversion to travel via the 309 road and see a bit more of the peninsular on the way. What a mistake that was. From Tapu onwards, the road was un-sealed and as rough as guts, a winding and narrow hill road, and the heat was stifling. Talk about today’s droughts, we hadn’t seen a green blade of grass since passing Papakura, and that included all across the Hauraki Plains. The poor old Pontiac, she must have boiled at least half a dozen times, and with the old style up-draught carburetor being located in close proximity to the exhaust pipe, the petrol was being evaporated in the float bowl before it had a chance to get to the engine. The children’s chants of “When are we going to get there?” had long diminished — I think that we had almost given up on ever getting there — and dear Mum was her ever positive self and said, “It doesn’t matter if we have to stay here on the side of the road tonight. We have plenty of food in the trailer.” Of course, that was, as far as Dad was concerned, a challenge to be met and overcome. “We will be camping in Whitianga tonight, so no more of that kind of talk,” was his stern reply, while he worked away on getting the old car going again.
As for myself, the thought of camping by the roadside just added to the adventure: I wasn’t worried at all. In what seemed to be no time at all, we were on the eastern side of the 309 and descending down towards Whitianga, duly arriving at the campsite at about 4:00pm. Considering that we had left Auckland at around 8:00am, it had been a long and torturous drive when you compare it to a less than the 3 hour journey today. Needless to say, all future journeys went via the Tapu hill which, although it was also unsealed, was a much better road. Whitianga was only a small town in those days. The heydays of the timber industry were over, as were the gold mining days. About 180 people lived there permanently, and the main industries were fishing, a dairy company that produced butter, and tourism, which was really in its infancy.
From memory, the population increased by some 1500–2000 people over the summer period. Most of them stayed at one of the four or five camp grounds situated along the beach. It is significant that with the increasing value of coastal land, not one of those motor camps exist today, which means that today’s children very rarely get to experience the joy of spending a holiday under canvas and learning to participate in the closeness of family life that is a basic part of mucking in and doing things together. As far as the town facilities went, there was a pub, post office, two general stores, Miss Hodges haberdashery, a bakery, a billiard room, a dairy, two service station/garages, a police station, a fire station, and the diesel-engine driven power station. There was a cottage hospital part way along the beach and a fascinating old lady doctor, I think her name was Miss Logan and she had an Austin 10 — and in later years she traded it in for an Austin A70. The car was so full of junk that there was only just enough room for her to get into it. She was but one of a number of fascinating eccentrics that abided throughout the district.
Well we pitched the tent, set up the stretchers, and Mum prepared the evening meal. I had been given a model yacht for Christmas: I was busting to get it into the water, so I asked if I could go across the road to the beach. None of us had seen the beach at that stage, except out of the car windows, and they were so dusty after the journey that we could hardly see out of them.
I got the ok to go to the beach, and off I went. For the first time in my life, I stood on the sands of Buffalo Beach. Even today, more than 60 years later, I have never forgotten what my feelings were that day. I stood there in stunned silence. As I looked out over Mercury Bay, I thought that it was the most beautiful sight that I had ever seen: that feeling has never left me. That unforgettable holiday was the start of a magical love of that magnificent part of New Zealand that still endures today. It is quite amazing how a place like that becomes such an integral part of your life — that it’s the focus of your most important enjoyment each year.
As a boy of that age, I led a full and very fulfilling life. I played rugby, cricket, was a wolf cub, and had lots of close and interesting friends. We rode our bikes all over the place in Hillsborough, played in the paddocks around the area — Hillsborough was still rural in those days — and generally had a wonderful time. However, when springtime arrived and along with it the warm days that gave a promise of summer, Christmas holidays in Whitianga became my total joyous focus.
Until the age of 10, the school that I attended was Three Kings. As an 11 and 12 year old, I was a foundation pupil at Hillsborough school, which was a combination of primary and intermediate. I used to walk to school to Three Kings. For my 11th birthday, I got my first bike, so my mode of transport went through a revolutionary change. To try and express the freedom that wheeled transport gave me is almost impossible. With my mates, we cycled all over the district, to all of the local Manukau harbor beaches, to Onehunga where my grandparents on Mum’s side lived, up to One Tree Hill, and many other places. Life was sheer bliss and with no television or computers or other sedentary lifestyle distractions, we all led healthy, active, outdoor lives.
I enjoyed reading. Mum and Dad always encouraged us with books that would hold our attention. I fondly remember my “Biggles” books, and some of my favorite yarns were the “William” books that were about a young, British schoolboy who fanaticized about being a private detective and spent his free time tracking down alleged rogues, committing dastardly deeds in the country town of where he lived. It’s almost like a childhood version of the Midsomer Murders series, where almost everyone in the manor is up to some sort of skullduggery.
With both Mum and Dad coming from big families, we spent a lot of time visiting relatives, which was always great fun. At least once a fortnight, we visited Nan and Pop Grainger in Onehunga, and a lot of the cousins on Mum’s side of the family would be visiting at the same time. We would have a great time playing with them. Nan was a great baker. She would always have delicious ginger gems liberally spread with butter that we would tuck into; my mouth is watering, now as I think about them. She also had a pet budgie that was allowed out of the cage; it loved to sit on your shoulder and nibble your ear. She also had a huge black cat called Sasha, who lived until she was 20 and was so well fed that she never ever bothered the budgie, quite delightful.
Mum was the eldest child, one of five daughters, so when I arrived as the eldest grandchild and a boy as well, I was looked upon almost with reverence by Pop Grainger and was treated in a very privileged manner, indeed. Most enjoyable.
Once a month we would visit Granny and Grandpa Albrecht at Wheturangi Road, and that was usually for a lunch visit on a Sunday. Granny was a great cook and I remember she would often have cottage pie or fish pie, with lovely flaky pastry, very yummy indeed. Grandpa was a very keen gardener. He and dad spent a lot of time looking at the progress of his latest plantings and discussing the invasion of that diabolical weed Oxalis; it was without doubt the bane of Grandpa’s life.
He also used to talk about South Africa (Our descendants came from Germany originally, and they made their way to South Africa, spending about three decades there before Grandpa immigrated to New Zealand in 1903). I can remember when Verwoerd’s government came to power and with it the scourge of Apartheid. I asked Grandpa why he was so angry with this man. Even though I was only an 8 year old, he took the time to explain to me the implications that it was going to have for a lot of the people of that country, people that he loved, not least of whom was his beloved black nanny, a lady that he related to, and had a stronger bond with than his own mother. The significance of that conversation meant nothing to me at the time, but in later years my respect and admiration for my Grandpa’s integrity grew immensely.
We used to often have other visits both from and to, our Albrecht uncles, aunts, and cousins in Auckland. There was Alan and Nell in Orakei, Peter and Jean in Howick, and the twice or three times a year adventure to Geoff and Ursula at Campbell’s Bay. It was an all-day trip over to the North Shore going by ferry but we loved it, a great day’s fun.
When I think back to those days, the thing that comes through most strongly was the sense of belonging. Not just in the family sense, but in the wonderful camaraderie that I enjoyed with all of my friends, some of whom I am still in contact with today. We didn’t have a lot of money, and the country had been through a terrible war. The sadness and compromises that have to be made in those situations make me feel that I lived in a era of history that was interesting, exciting, and full of loving joy.
Footnote:
I used to sponsor a boy in Kenya for a number of years. When I saw the struggle and privations that David, his family and his village went through just to survive, I count my blessings to have been able to live the life that I have, in the country I was born in, in the era I grew up.
