The family arrived in Auckland in September 1959. I presume we went directly to Rarangi Road where we stayed with my father's cousin and his family until we could move to our own place. The journey from England took around six weeks by sea. The Rangitane was our vessel, one of a few to ply the immigration trade to New Zealand and Australia.
I can recall nothing of our departure. However when I see films of vessels leaving port with the streamers and the tooting of the vessels horn and the songs of departure, I often spontaneously weep. As a family we wished some family farewell in Auckland once at the passenger wharf at the bottom of Queen Street Again I was inconsolable, the emotions that I absorbed of loved ones leaving loved ones, a life known moving to the unknowable, high hopes and great expectations, the stuff of life.. Maybe I am just a softee but maybe there was something about the leaving of one's country for the great unknown that was indelibly etched in my emotional psyche, although with no outward markings. Who knows.
This is the song that really gets me. Imagine this sung by people on the boat and on the dock, no accompaniment, just emotion.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3-jz54Mf1Ok
When I have returned to my birth county as an adult, I have felt some deep intrinsic knowing of the place, and the people, as if I am returning home. However, I state here and now I am a Kiwi, a K 1 W 1, and proud of my country. It's social benevolence is a light house in a world of tumult and antagonism. It's vacant natural beauty is astounding and was the making of me.
Nothing glamorous with these ships. The modern day cruise liner is like a flash hotel compared to these humble boats. It had a swimming pool. And you could play deck quoits.
A cabin with no windows was our home for the six weeks. As for recollections, I remember it as being smaller, where the man is sitting talking to another man we had a large trunk or suitcase, I was on the top bunk on the right, and we spent most nights alone whilst Mum and Dad enjoyed the nips of gin for sixpence, five cents in modern currency. A man would come to our room each night with a cup of tea and two biscuits, vanilla wines, still one of my humble favourites.
Much of my time in the day I recall was consumed in the child play room. My achievements there included blocking the toilet one day so that it over flowed and flooded the place, and contracting an H bug infection on my buttock the size of a bread plate that lasted for much of the voyage. It was agony and there was doubt it would never heal and would leave a scar. Neither eventuated thankfully.
The legacy of the last act was to develop parcopresis; the fear of pooing in public places. To the extent that when in public places to wee, I always breathe through my nose so as to not let any poo particles and germs in.
If something were to happen to the Rangitane say in a violent storm in the middle of the Atlantic or Pacific Ocean, we were to strap on our buoyancy vests and continue the voyage without the boat. My bro and myself decked our during a safety drill. I am in the front.
Crossing the Equator for the first time is an ancient rite common even now in the Navy and commercial voyages. We dressed for the occasion. If there were any other highlights of the voyage, they were not recorded. We did travel through the Panama canal, apparently, we did stop at Curacao to refuel and we walked around a little and saw the very large lizards there, apparently. A warning to parents, the value of travel for the young is of limited use!
The voyage ended at Wellington. A storm prevented us arriving at our scheduled time. The Rangitane had to anchor outside Wellington Heads until the storm had subsided enough to allow safe passage in. In hindsight, given the subsequent disaster of the Wahine in 1968 with the loss of fifty three lives, I am surprised at their caution.
I recall in the morning the windy day with a grey featureless sky, the front of the vessel had seaweed wrapped around the railing. For some unknown reason I believed the boat had sunk in the night and refloated in the morning. The logic of the undeveloped brain.
And yet too, we had still to make it to Auckland.
"The flight for Auckland is soon departing. Can all passengers please get on board, pronto."
Yep, all aboard the Vickers Viscount. Obviously decked out in the colours of NAC as Air New Zealand was then called.
From Wikipedia,
The Vickers Viscount was a British medium-range turboprop airliner first flown in 1948 by Vickers-Armstrongs. A design requirement from the Brabazon Committee, it entered service in 1953 and was the first turboprop-powered airliner.
The Viscount was well received by the public for its cabin conditions, which included pressurisation, reductions in vibration and noise, and panoramic windows. It became one of the most successful and profitable of the first post-war transport aircraft;[1] 445 Viscounts were built for a range of international customers, including in North America
How we eventually made it from Whenuapai Airport, Mangere was yet to be built, to Rarangi Road, St Heliers I cannot tell you.
One image from Rarangi Road, me embracing the sun of the new country in the back garden.
