Cats & trains

[Hitcher]

Growing up we weren't poor or deprived, we just didn't have much “stuff”. There were plenty of ways kids growing up in 1960s New Zealand, particularly on a dairy farm in Taranaki, could amuse themselves and each other. However we were always appreciative when something new and exotic entered our world.

A highlight for us was when our Uncle Merv would come and stay. Merv was an aircrew Flight Sergeant in the RNZAF. Merv was young, single, well paid and had stuff as well as really good stories to share. Much of his stuff was acquired duty free on his various assignments to Australia or to Fiji.

Merv had a transistor radio. It had a short-wave band. And an earplug for private listening. But best of all, it had one of those extendible aerials that disappeared into the body of the radio itself. Small boys could amuse themselves for hours extending it and then putting it away again. Apparently. The transistor ran on batteries. It was awesome.

Merv also drove a Humber Super Snipe. It was vast. There was room in the back to play tennis, at least that's what it felt like. The seats were clad in leather. It had a push-button radio. Merv was a smoker, so the inside smelt like a gentlemen's club.

On one visit, Merv carefully unpacked and set up on our dining room floor a Hornby electric train set. It was amazing. The tracks went on forever and intersected through working points, just like real railways did, well overseas railways. Merv's set had more sidings and points than could be found in Eltham and probably Hawera combined. There were tunnels, bridges and scale model station buildings.

It was so large that electricity to power it was a limiting factor. Our farm was on the very end of the electricity supply line. This was only ever an issue during the time when all the farmers up our road were doing their evening milking. Electric current at those times was so scarce, a television's cathode ray tube wouldn't fire up. We didn't have TV but our neighbours over the road did. Mums cooking dinner would have to wait an age for potatoes to boil. Electric locomotives would just sit and hum without going anywhere.

There were electric locomotives, passenger carriages, freight wagons, coal cars and guard's wagons. Best of all was a carriage with a rocket launcher. No shit. It was powered by a spring, swivel-mounted and capable of firing in any direction above a horizontal plane. The metal rocket was capable of travelling some distance at a brisk pace. Use of it was banned when Mum was around, in case somebody lost an eye. Mums' are good like that.

Merv had a train driver's hat. This was required attire for whoever sat in the corner and got to command the switches and knobs that controlled this empire, when there was enough electricity to make things happen.

Meal times were a challenge, because this expanse of rail tycoonery ran in and around the legs of the dining room table and its chairs, as well as amongst the various other furniture in that room. Carrying food to the table and clearing up after each meal required precision and careful coordination.

Another variable that came into play was cats. We had three. Sam & Joe were half Siamese. They weren't that interested in this intrusion into what had once been their living space. They preferred to be outdoors exterminating rodents and mustelids. Our third cat was a part Persian called Smokey. He was called that before we learned that he liked curling up really close to electric heaters or close enough to sparks from an open fire that he would catch alight. During winter he always had scorch marks on his fur.

Smokey ruled the dining room. His general strategy was to treat with total contempt and ignore any intrusions into his space. So when a bunch of kids and their favourite Uncle set up an electric train set, they set it up around Smokey. They had to.

Smokey rarely showed emotion or interest in the world around him. An exception was party balloons. If one ever landed near Smokey, he would immediately pounce on it, teeth bared and claws extended. This would generally result in an explosive bang and a terrified singed Persian cat exiting the house at some pace. He never seemed to learn. Dozens of balloons over the years perished by his claws.

Trains whirred and hummed around him. Points switched in various directions. Shunting was done. Smokey cared not a jot. Until this one day...

The morning's shunting had just been completed and a fully-laden 9:30am express was rolling through the station on its way to the port. Most of the express had passed by Mt Smokey when, in balloon mode, he decided to take a swat at it. He hit the trigger on the rocket car. A projectile was launched. It hit a passing mother on the head.

Guess what we did for the rest of the day? We started by sitting outside and watching Merv smoke.

It was just fantastic. In later years I have wondered what Merv did with all of this stuff when he wasn't staying with us. It's a question I should have thought to ask while he was alive.

[Road kill]

I bet it had that electric train set smell as well.

Well it did while I was reading about it.

Thanks.

[FJRider]

I have it on good authority ... I never grew up. I just got older. Our family weren't rich by any standards ... but we were never deprived. I lived in rural Southland. I attended a four room primary school. Amid farmland ... and between two rivers. Both rivers were at a lower level to where we lived ... so home made trollys with lawnmower wheels (or similar) scavenged from the local tip always had a "track" to race down ... (we built a ramp to try a jump over the river ... ONCE) we usually went home with skin missing ... (chicks love scars eh ..)
One local farm (belonging to my best friends parents) had a rail line passing through their farm. It went to the local Coal mines or out to Tuatapere. So ... two (steam) trains ran both ways each day past the farm. We set tin cans on each of the fence posts ... which gave a good target for the engine driver and fireman to throw lumps of coal at. Which we duly collected in the evening for the house fire. re-setting the cans if required. One school holidays ... the driver stopped the train and offered us a ride in the cab out to the mines and back. WE WENT (didn't tell our parents though) ... and were gone most of the day. No one worried ... kids did that all the time. (We'd always be home for tea)
The jigger driver would take us for rides too ... a few km's down the line and the we walked home. No worries there... we took our eeling lines with us to go fishing in the creeks on the way back.
My mates mother did mountain climbing ... and taught us to abseil off the nearby over bridge onto the railway line. She taught us the "old school" method with just using a single rope wrapped around the body (with a safety rope too) ... I always worried about trains coming when we did it. But we STILL did it.
30 acres of farm had plenty to amuse two kids. No batteries required .... only city kids needed them ...

[Hobbyhorse]

I grew up in the Hawera /Eltham area in the late 40s and early 50s and I have very fond boyhood memories of the time. Your post just bought it all back to me .... thanks.

Rhys

[Ocean1]

You tell the youf todat that your Xbox was made of cardboard and that you changed the pictures with crayons and will they believe you?


Will they fuck.

[Brian d marge]

I grew up in West Ham , I saw a picture of the country side once

Stephen

[mashman]

Train sets were fuckin cool.

[FJRider]

You tell the youf todat that your Xbox was made of cardboard and that you changed the pictures with crayons and will they believe you?


Will they fuck.

Things I remember ...

TV was black and white (when and if .... we were allowed to watch it)
Our bikes had one speed and pedal backwards brake .... which sometimes worked.
Those kids that didn't have a bike got doubled on the bar of a kid that did.
Pocket money was a shilling a week. Less (or none) if you got caught doing/not doing something.
I mowed the neighbours lawn for two shillings. (his mower and he supplied the petrol)
I biked to school. AND the Dentist that had a clinic five miles away.
A shillings worth of chips was enough for three kids.
We got our milk in glass bottles.
We had to go to the post office, at the local shop to get our mail. We were lucky ... we lived next door to it.
If we wanted to go to town by bus ... (Invercargill ... 8 miles away) it left at 9.30 am, and arrived back home at 4.30 pm. NO other buses ran.
Distance to any local destination was measured in numbers of hours bike ride.
Mum didn't have a drivers licence. Few mum's did.
I learned to tickle trout age eight.
I knew the location of every wild blackberry bush within five miles of home.
I learned to cook over an open fire before I learned to cook on a stove.
Dad's belt was too thick to cut up with mums dress making scissors.
The lady two houses down on the other side of the street ... often didn't pull her bedroom curtains all the way across.
Home made telescopes were a popular toy in my street.


Oh the joys of youth ...

[007XX]

My bike had ape hangers and a cool banana seat... No tassles mind!
And my collection of marbles was bigger than some boys' and we made dirt tracks for our Matchbox cars.

Wish I could still have that sort of uncomplicated, entrancing simple fun.

Thanks you for making me think about those days.

[Pussy]

I wanted to be a topdressing pilot or a train driver when I was a kid. I should have chosen the latter!
Good read, Brett!

[Motu]

I bet you old guys were fat bullies at school in those days too.

[FJRider]

My bike had ape hangers and a cool banana seat... No tassles mind!


But did you have a piece of cardboard, held onto the front fork with a clothes peg ... to make the engine sound ... ??? :innocent: (only cool kids had that)

[jrandom]

I wanted to be a... train driver when I was a kid.

Aha.

I always wondered where she got the idea.

[FJRider]

I bet you old guys were fat bullies at school in those days too.

No .... we needed to save our energy for the fun stuff AFTER school ... and the fat kid went home to eat.

[GrayWolf]

Oh hell,
other things from the era...
Watching the litttle white dot disappear when the TV was switched off... Mum or kids holding the indoor TV antenna then suddenly Dads saying,, keep it there, dont move it.. usually when you were doing an impression of the hardest move in Twister game... BUGGER now I know where they got that idea from.
Fried bread was a TREAT, or bread and dripping Monday morning after the Sunday roast dinner.
The neighbours apples were always sweeter tasting.
The local 'rubbish dump'..... old wasteland frequently had a 'new' item like a dumped car appear on it.
Salt was not a kids friend in Winter, usually applied directly after you had just perfected your slide along the pavement.
Freedom as a nipper came in the shape of either a 3 wheeler or bike with stabilisers, flash bikes had the 'in hub' Sturmey Archer 3 speed gears.
Extended forks on your pushbike were made by wrecking several of dads hacksaw blades removing the forks off an old dunger then HAMMERING them onto you bikes fork,,, farking cool till they separated!!!!
The local duckpond was always good for chucking other kids into.

[Banditbandit]

I remember Monty Python


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xe1a1wHxTyo

[Paul in NZ]

I had an Aunty Eunice… She was a free spirit in a time when free spirits were very much frowned upon and considered unsettling influences and possibly ‘dangerous’… We loved Aunty Eunice.

She was a nurse and never married which was very odd in the early 60's. Especially since she was a bit of a looker and had no shortage of men chasing her. There was some hint of scandal that was never discussed but frankly it just made her even more exciting. She has the baby of Mums very large family and after Mums father died very young (complications from being gassed in WW1) the family led a slightly bohemian existence which suited Eunice to the bone.

She was a Red Cross Nurse during the Korean War and when she visited on leave she smoked foreign cigarettes and drank coffee. We thought that was terribly wild for a woman her age… (Probably in her 30’s). She went on leave in places like Hong Kong and sent us toys that were just eye popping in suburban Christchurch. They were just like nothing we had ever seen or could have imagined and were cooler than my mates Lego (he had just arrived from England – we had ‘Betta Builda blocks which were lameo). Frankly us kids thought she was some kind of Pirate Queen or a secret agent or something and the whole nurse thing was just a front. Surely these toys were plundered from a Merchant on the high seas?

Eunice adopted a Korean Orphan and raised him here in NZ, literally picked him up in the street as he was dying – amazing woman. When she came ‘home’ she was Matron in several country hospitals and my younger bro and I would go and stay in the wards during the holidays – hilarious fun, completely wrong and really got fussed over by all the young nurses and the patients…

Eunice was a generous free spirit and a firm shaker upper of conventional thinking right until she left us and I always remember her kindness. The excitement at Christmas and birthdays when these amazing tin plate toys and real sized cowboy guns would arrive from overseas was unreal - you really would never know what was going to appear. Everyone should have a wonderfully mad and slightly bad aunty.

[MisterD]

Train sets were fuckin cool.

At least they were until your mate who used to come round to play with yours, got a Scalextric set...

[Flip]

Driving a tractor and a small bulldozer on the farm. Nicking off with dads BSA Bantum. My first ever pig hunting trip with my older cousins and all the rabbit hunting trips we went on.

There is no wonder kids these days are self absorbed and self serving brats, they have never had any real dangerous fun and have never had any real responsibility.

[Brian d marge]

Oh hell,
other things from the era...
Watching the litttle white dot disappear when the TV was switched off... Mum or kids holding the indoor TV antenna then suddenly Dads saying,, keep it there, dont move it.. usually when you were doing an impression of the hardest move in Twister game... BUGGER now I know where they got that idea from.
Fried bread was a TREAT, or bread and dripping Monday morning after the Sunday roast dinner.
.
I love bread and dripping , my wife thinks its, eerr not so good , fiddling with the rabbits ears , to try and keep grandstand in focus for the scrambling

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Stephen

[Grubber]

My god, this is fantastic.
Takes me back a bit. try telling my kids that we used to bike near on 10 miles to the river to go eeling, then all the way back again. "Mum, we will be gone for the day fishing" reply..." be careful" and that was it, we were gone. sometimes we didn't get home again until after 7pm at night and were greeted with "did you kids have a nice day?" Life was so simple then. No cell phones or tv. Seemed so easy to make your own fun. All the kids had dark burnt skin from being outside all day, was hard to tell the difference between the maori kids and the euro's. That's why we knew nothing about racism then, we ended up being the same colour anyway.
I used to bike about 5 miles to catch the bus to town for school every day, in the ice and rain through the winter and in shorts i might add.
I would hate to think how many miles i did on my bike in those days.
Black and white tv, if you actually had one. no programmes till 6pm at night and shutdown again around 11pm i think with the Goodnight Kiwi at the end. Man if you got to see that, you were up very late. always remember the agonising wait you had for the TV to warm up, that was punishing at times.
I could go on and on, but i have to work so damn hard for my money these days i just don't have the time.:msn-wink:

[ducatilover]

At least they were until your mate who used to come round to play with yours, got a Scalextric set...
I was the mate who got the extremely large table piled with twisting turning HO scale Marklin excellence. :headbang:
All my mates didn't give a fuck, they had just all received GameBoys.

My train set was brilliant
Then when the others upgraded to GameBoys with colour, I got a new (to me) Piano

Explains why I am so bleedin' awesome :lol:

[ellipsis]

...growing up in Lyttelton in the sixties was pretty cool...we had a big train sets to play with and they rolled in and out of the tunnel every day, full of coal or mutton or cheese...we had big ships to play with too, and harbour board punts for being scallywags in the harbour with, and when they were building Cashin Quay and a constant train of Euclids were carting rock from the quarry to the sea we were left with the biggest moonscape to bash our bikes to pieces on...we had free range to do whatever we wanted with all this stuff and if we got out of hand we inevitably got a bollocking from an adult who knew us all well and when we got home it wouldn't be long before your old man or your mum new what you were doing...dangerous shit upon reflection but fuck all of us got much more than broken bones and stitches...cant remember a death from my generation of kids there when we were playing...the authorities did not like us jumping from the tops of the cranes on the wharf...I never did that...I didn't mind being called a chicken...I always wanted a slot car set but that was out of the question...never even thought about asking for one...

[Banditbandit]

Well Fuck Me ... I'll bet you all grew up in Godzone?

[MSTRS]

Well Fuck Me ... I'll bet you all grew up in Godzone?

And most of us who did, mourn the loss of it too. We'd like to know who to blame...:ar15:

[MisterD]

Well Fuck Me ... I'll bet you all grew up in Godzone?

No, a couple of hundred miles South, but we occasionally got to go to Yorkshire on holiday.

[HenryDorsetCase]

I wanted to be a topdressing pilot or a train driver when I was a kid. I should have chosen the latter!
Good read, Brett!

never too late. My mate who is a train driver started retraining for it age 42 or so. He is currently working in Perth.

[Banditbandit]

never too late. My mate who is a train driver started retraining for it age 42 or so. He is currently working in Perth.

Yeah ... 'tis ... we won't have trains in a couple more years ... It's been fucked by Donkey and his mates (past and present)

[mashman]

At least they were until your mate who used to come round to play with yours, got a Scalextric set...

:rofl: Dad had trains. I had scalextric :niceone:

[Daffyd]

We had a 5 acre paddock with a pond across the street that was a great playground. Tadpoles, frogs in the pond. My older brother, Graeme, had model aeroplanes and was often extracting them from the pond. I had a cousin, girl, who was a very good athlete. She would come stay with us in the holidays. One summer Graeme and she cut a 440yd running track with Dad's hand hedge clippers, a scythe and a sickle so she could train.
I remember cycling to High School in the winter, across frozen puddles without the ice breaking!
Our punishment for "indiscretions" was a few wallops with a razor strop that hung behind the bathroom door... usually meted out by Mother as Dad was away working most weeks.
Tea was always accompanied by, "Dad and Dave," Life with Dexter," on the old 7 valve Columbus radio.
Week's highlight was the Goon Show on Sunday nights.
Thems were the days!

[HenryDorsetCase]

when we were like 12, 13, 14 my best mates parents had a smallholding outside the small town we lived in. We took over the front paddock and had this home made go kart that we'd go round and round in. later it was our motorbikes till we could ride them on the road (age 15) in various stages of illegality. The term grom wrenching doesnt cover it. Say what you like, Suzuki TS 125s and 185's were tough. one of our mates had a "Big" bike: A Honda XL250 motosport a wee bit later we were all so jellybags.

[pete376403]

When I was about 12 or so, (so nearly 50 years ago) me and a mate (same age) would catch the 6am or thereabouts unit to Wellington, then the railcar to Levin for a day the motor races, and back afterwards, getting home about 8pm. No adult supervision of course. Probably spent less than 10 - 15 shillings for the whole day.

That wasn't considered anything too special back then.

[mashman]

We lived in a cul-de-sac of about 5 houses with tonnes of kids.
We had a 6ft snooker table on a picnic table in a spare room that had a dart board on the door and was perforated from years of pissed people and kids learning how to play. The train set was often up under the table and around the room. The scalextric was in my room and when we used to leap around bits of plaster used to drop from the ceiling in the kitchen and mum would get pissed. Dad wouldn't be too happy either if the Beeza was in bits in the kitchen. The CB radio was always a great way to wind down for the evening and the weekends came quickly. A weekend full of numerous possibilities.

Was it to be the cricket pitch or crown bowling green over the back wall of my mates place across the road. Mainly cricket in the nets with bruised shins and the bigger boys hammering balls in like missiles. Would we pass the nets and head for the fence of the school over the back wall of another mate across the road, climb it (musta been about 30 feet) and on to the roof before lowering ourselves into the gym through the window that was never locked to vault the horse or beat the shit out of each other on the mats. Would we head to the bottom of the road with a ball or a racket and cross the main road to play football on the hockey pitch. If we got lucky the big boys and some of the older fellas from the local football club would be playing on the grass pitch and they'd let us join in, earning more bruises and learning how to play a physical game. On the odd occassion we'd move further down the field to the rugby posts and show our prowess at getting the ball under the bar, ha. Or we could do the long jump, well short jump or practice judo in the sand. When Wimbledon was on we'd head for the tennis court between the rugby and football pitch typing a piece of orange twine from fence to fence and accusing each others shots of going under and not over. On the shit days we'd head for the football pitch and hang a right into the abandoned water works or the bus depot and get into all sorts of dangerous situations, be they riding cars 20ft above the floor across vast warehouses, or perhaps sliding down the ventilation shoots on to the top of a water tank into the depths of a darkness that we never fully explored as it was more exciting to never know what was down there. Climbing across the semi concrete holed corrugated roof of the bus station was always an adventure and then dropping into the depot and opening the huge corrugated steel doors to let the hoards in. The bottom of the road was and absolute adventure land for getting cuts and bruises, be it whackin yer thumb banging nails into trees to make the higher branches accessible, or falling off the wall and through the barb wire, or dropping down off the water works roof and almost breaking your ankles if you fucked it up.

At the top of the road we had the graveyard. To this day it's still the biggest I've ever seen. Accessed via bars that the older boys had bent as there was barbed wire and some fucked up thick grease shit that if you got it on yer clothes mum was gonna kill ya. We used to source bits of wood, grab a hacksaw and cut out skateboard decks and catapults to ride the hill down fro the Cemo. My mates sister used to do hand stands until she smashed her face open one day. She was fuckin hot. The graves were littered with slate and multi coloured stones and we had sliced heads and large bruises from the bigger boys and their black widow catapults v's out knicker elastic y shaped efforts that we had cut out. Every now and then a shopping trolley would appear in the street and we'd chop it up and my mates dad would weld the front wheels and we'd ride the hill in total panic at the lack of control. We'd climb the old trees and scale the church when playing hide and seek or we'd lose our cars or soldiers in the mound of dirt that was used for filling in the graves. Every now and then Ernie would come flying out of his office, cursing and wailing that he was gonna kill us. We'd roar with laughter and utter fear and flee for our lives screaming "Ernie the fastest milkman in the west" and every now and then the ground keeper of the cricket pitch would loose his jack russell on us for setting off the beer kegs trying to get a drink. We'd slide off the ventilation shaft of the small electricity building that served the TV ariel and iffen we leant too far forwards we'd land face first with that awkward ugh sound that ya made when winding yerself. We'd time each other around the 2/3 mile course through the grave yard and on occasion we'd visit the library at the top.

Going further afield (about 3 miles, or 9p on any number of buses) we had the prom and on stormy days we'd head down there on our bikes and get soaked by the waves coming over the wall. All along knowing that we'd end up at my grans house naked under a towel eating chocolate cake or a kit kat until out clothes were dry. There was no better time to go to the spade (as in cards) shaped open air pool as it was nearly empty and never felt quite as cold as it did on sunny days. We'd get summer passes and spend nearly every day down there. You never took any good shoes though as there were some bastards that would knick 'em. However you could buy them back (or upgrade then) at the arcades down the road iffen you knew who to speak to. The arcade was a great place to earn some money. Just wandering around watching the machines, learning the reels and helping people out when the jackpot was there for 10p, sometimes 20p. Watching the bigger boys emptying the phone boxes opened up an entirely new revenue stream and you could usually make enough cash to buy some trendy clothes from thems that acquire stuff.

Come conquer time it was time to grab the away day ticket. 30p to ride the buses all day. We'd grab my mums shopping trolly and head off 20 or so miles and wander down the lanes to the private land with rows and rows of conquer trees to fall out of. Jesus what a haul, a whole season in a day and a few return legs to sell conquers to those who didn't know where to look. Fark there was so much to do, so many places to go, so many people to go with and so little worry that everyone in the street had their doors unlocked and depending on where the kids were meeting, or where most had gone at the start of the day, houses bristled with life and noise on a scale you only find at birthday party's.

Do I miss those days? With a passion I cannot explain. Ahhhhhhhhh. Cheers for the flashback.

[Big Dave]

I went the full Gomaz Adams on my train set.

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How many of these?

http://www.retrocrush.com/archive2/cooltoys/

[Motu]

When I was about 12 or so, (so nearly 50 years ago) me and a mate (same age) would catch the 6am or thereabouts unit to Wellington, then the railcar to Levin for a day the motor races, and back afterwards, getting home about 8pm. No adult supervision of course. Probably spent less than 10 - 15 shillings for the whole day.

That wasn't considered anything too special back then.

On saturday night my brother and I would walk to stock cars at Waikaraka Park, at least 10km - Mum would give us entry money and enough for chips and a coke. We'd get home just before midnight. 13 and 14 year old kids walking dodgy industrial areas of Auckland on a saturday night - no problems. When my brother got his license we could go to speedway and Pukekohe and every MX race we could.

I didn't have any exotic Uncles or Aunties who would turn up unannounced loaded with goodies - but did have a grandfather who turned up with a beast he'd just slaughtered in the back of his Mini. This was before anyone had freezers, and my auntie sent him packing with a flea in his ear. He also turned up with a kuri for the boys once....my father wasn't happy. The dog ran away overnight....yeah right.

[ellipsis]

...sounding very much like an older blokes thread...yeehaaa...over half of our under 7 stone rugby team and probably more than that would get taken out to Templeton Speedway, now Ronnie Moore Stadium, on the odd saturday night after a good game, it was like a trip to mars from Lyttelton, all of us in a metallic green Ford Custom 300, by a local chap involved big time in our rugby. Hot dogs and fantas on him while we watched Ole Olson and Barry Briggs and Ronnie and Ivan and the rest battle on the cinders...lucky stuff...that bloke who took us is still alive and smiling I hear...

[Brian d marge]

my favourite was my Ferrari 1960 330 tr and the Brabbam scaletrix

not much to say about west ham and Belfast , in the early 70s ,,,pretty shit really

later in NZ , pushing mums landcrab past the bedroom window at 5 in the morning to " go for a hoon "

missing a corner and stuffing a fair amount of grass up the radiator ....

Fire, now that was fun,,,,,
271453
jubilee,, my nan and her mum, west ham

Stephen

[Grumph]

Easter for me was always one of the year highlights through the late 50's. The old man was chief lapscorer at Cust so that weekend was always brilliant. Told to go and wander so the days were spent walking from the start to the esses to the sunken bridge watching, listening and smelling the racing...and getting shouted at by Ray Shearman...
Saturday night after practise, Jack Banks who lived next door to us and looked after Tommy McCleary's bikes would always lift the heads and check things out....then fire the bikes!! One year when they'd had trouble the fireup came at about 1AM....the old man was not pleased and shouted out the bedroom window that McCleary was on minus one lap at the start....
Never any problems with the bunch of kids wandering round the circuit....todays youth would find something to set fire to I'm sure...

[Grubber]

Oh my god1 i used to frequent Ruapuna Park Speedway place in my early days with my 2 older brothers. Ivan Major was my hero in those days. World champ in all!
Used to go up nearly every 2nd Saturday for a look. Hotdgos old style and yea the Fanta was always good.
At 13 or so i was driving tractors with large implements all over the farm. Big no no these days.
Yes these were simple days, with no worries to burden ones happy times. Always food on the table and always a laugh to be had.

[Banditbandit]

And most of us who did, mourn the loss of it too. We'd like to know who to blame...:ar15:

Blame the bastardsd who voted for the neo-Liberals and their fucked economic policies - both National and Labour ..

[PrincessBandit]

Ah what a cool thread. Most of my childhood was spent in 70's Papakura with a brief foray to Thames. Milk was 4cents a pint (I still have a glass milk bottle and cream bottle in the vain hope they might come back one day...); Dad was the only driver in our family and would make sure that the car had petrol on Friday in case we needed to go anywhere on the weekend; us kids all shared bedrooms; we had a 12" black and white tv on which the damned picture kept rolling (it had a knob on the side to try to keep it steady); going into town meant walking most of the time; Farmers Trading Company allowed mum to bring home 3 dresses for me to try on (I was only getting one) and she was trusted to return them and pay for the one chosen; there wasn't a lot of money in the house but mum made sure all us kids had gymnastics, dancing and music lessons rather than all the latest toys (but we had tons of fun creating our own games and toys). Ahhh. While I wouldn't exactly say I'd want to go back to "New Zealand being shut on the weekends and public holidays" there was a lot of simple pleasures to be appreciated back then.
Today, with reference to the OP, our cat's favourite place is down in the man cave with Balu watching his model trains.

[Road kill]

Yeah I do remember all that stuff,but it was always somebody else's and it was always somebody else enjoying it,,family type people.

I never had a family after about 7 years old an the people I did live with couldn't of cared less where or what I was doing,,,and not in the easy living trusting days kind of way,they really didn't give a damn.

So I went fishing and spent plenty of time dreaming of the day I'd get a bike or a car an blow the whole place,never to be seen again.

Today I still go fishing,don't have much time for people,and keep "my family" very close.

Now days "those people" have been heard to ask why I never vist or pick up the phone,,even though they've never bothered themselves.

When I hear that I go back to being a 7 year old and often ask "myself" what "their" problem is,or have they always just been that blind to the effects of their own actions.

Threads like this tend to do the same thing,,not in the above a bad way,,just the memories.

I caught some fine fish.

[PrincessBandit]

I'm sure you are not alone in not having the idyllic childhood memories that some of us have, and there are plenty of kids today who still experience the type of childhood you describe. At least you have developed a sense of self preservation and knowing what's important to you despite what others do or don't do. You are also able to use your own life experience to break that cycle for your next generation.

[Banditbandit]

Yeah I do remember all that stuff,but it was always somebody else's and it was always somebody else enjoying it,,family type people.

I never had a family after about 7 years old an the people I did live with couldn't of cared less where or what I was doing,,,and not in the easy living trusting days kind of way,they really didn't give a damn.

So I went fishing and spent plenty of time dreaming of the day I'd get a bike or a car an blow the whole place,never to be seen again.

Today I still go fishing,don't have much time for people,and keep "my family" very close.

Now days "those people" have been heard to ask why I never vist or pick up the phone,,even though they've never bothered themselves.

When I hear that I go back to being a 7 year old and often ask "myself" what "their" problem is,or have they always just been that blind to the effects of their own actions.

Threads like this tend to do the same thing,,not in the above a bad way,,just the memories.

I caught some fine fish.

Yes. I don't like remembering ... the past was a very dark and violent place ... until I left home ... and I have a little to do with my family as possible ...

[cc rider]

When I was 4yo we lived in Tenterfield, NSW. It was semi-rural, so there was the usual outhouse (we had to check for redbacks everytime), chooks flying in onto the kitchen table much to the amusement of us kids. One memorable day during my big brother's bath-time, constant calls for mum were met with the predictable "What's going on in there?"... she may have expected to find a waterlogged floor or a lil boy in urgent need of a pee... but I can tell you, she never expected to find a fully grown cow casually hanging-out in our bathroom. We loved that cow :rofl: We didn't even own a cow :blink:

Dad worked for a mining co & holidays were sometimes spent gold panning or exploring open-cut mines. I loved it. I guess that's why I like that dad has been giving me some of his stone & fossil collection. I'm the proud owner of dinosaur poo (Coprolites) :cool:

When I was 4 1/2 yo, my sister 7 & brother 6 were playing superman on the front verandah. This involved climbing up onto the top rail & jumping onto the deck. Naturally I wanted in. Unfortunately I didn't quite get the rules of the game. My approach was gud. Scramble to the top. That's were things didn't go to plan. Instead of jumping onto the deck, I jumped onto the ground. :thud: What a dick.
One lil broken leg in a very big cast & crutches. I'm told my catch cry during recovery was "Cup of tea, ly down, pill." Hmmm... still is. Haha!

When I was 5yo, I was chased by a bear... but that's another story.

[Brian d marge]

Tin bath by the fire ...3rd one in

Stephen

[cc rider]

Measuring the glasses of coke so no-one got more then the other.

[Brian d marge]

Measuring the glasses of coke so no-one got more then the other.
I just did lines

Stephen

[sinfull]

Need more bling to give !

Keep this up Hitch and folk will start short cutting through the site to your profile, to see what new story you may have written !

[imdying]

she never expected to find a fully grown cow casually hanging-out in our bathroom. We loved that cow :rofl: We didn't even own a cow :blink:That made me giggle...

[FJRider]

Measuring the glasses of coke so no-one got more then the other.

My little sister and I had the choice of pouring the glasses (or cutting cake) ... or first choice on which glassful (or slice) to take.

[SPman]

I wanted to be a topdressing pilot or a train driver when I was a kid. I should have chosen the latter!
Good read, Brett!
I should have chosen the former.........train driving is boring in the age of diesels....anyone can do it.

[cc rider]

I just did lines

StephenWe did sherbert straws uncut :Punk:

[PrincessBandit]

My little sister and I had the choice of pouring the glasses (or cutting cake) ... or first choice on which glassful (or slice) to take.

Yep our mum was onto that one too - if you got to cut or pour, the other person got first choice...I can tell you we got really good at making sure everything was equal! (well as equal as kids could make it). :laugh: