Birkenhead about 85 years ago – a large and luscious strawberry and vegetable patch – young people tried to get jobs picking strawberries – getting up each morning to pick before the sun got too hot – and get the fruit to market. Birkenhead was then one of the fastest growing suburbs. Birkdale was also a large fruit and vegetable growing area. My father used to take us there in the old Ford car to get veges and fruit for the week. It was then like going out to the backblock country. Roads and amenities were a very far cry from today – in fact it was countrified

My father (George Giles) worked for the Birkenhead Borough Council. He was foreman of the road works. The Council buildings were a one storey building in Mokoia Road, near the first bus stop past Colonial Road (Seddon Road). He kept one or two cows at the back of the house opposite, here it was all paddock. My sister and I loved going with Dad to catch the cow, which would try to elude us! Dad milked it every day, for the family – that was before Cliff Utting had his milk run. The land back there was all light bush, up hill and down gully. He would take the milk home and Mum would scauld it. No fridges or anything then! Indeed, we kept it cool sometimes by putting it under a cool bush in the garden. When all the cream was cool and thick on top, there was competition as to who had the cream. It was lovely on top of bread and home made plum jam.

When Dad was foreman of the road works, he supervised the laying of the footpaths on the school side of the road – by Birkenhead School. Also the roads around that area. He was instrumental in supervising the roads being built round Highbury. On the corner of Rawene Road in Highbury, there were no shops. There was a maternity home run by a Miss or Mrs Hams or McKenzie. I think Nurse McKenzie married Mr Hams, who was a boarder. I worked there for a while when I was sixteen. (now nearly 89).

There were no street lights like there are now. Dad would put a row of lantern along where work was done that day. He would send two of us girls up the road at dusk to check to see if the lights were still on. We lived at Colonial Road (Seddon Road).

Another remembrance of those very early days is when we moved in a horse and dray from where we were living in Roseberry Avenue to Seddon Road. Us three youngest ones were under five at the time. I remember the ride on the dray, and the first time I went to ‘the little place’ at the back of the section. I got lost coming back up to the house. This was later moved up to nearer the house.

Well, some Maoris were still living in Birkenhead-Beach Haven, and I, a very small child, was scared of them! I was a very timid, shy little thing when we had visitors and they kissed everyone when they said goodbye. I found somewhere to hide until they were gone. Anyway, I saw two Maoris coming down the road selling flax kits. Mum always tried to buy something from them. Well, I shot out the gate and went down the road a little to the first corner and hid in the gutter. When I thought they were gone I went home.

Another remembrance is that the baker, butcher and grocer all came to the house to collect your order. And the milkman was Cliff Utting. His two daughters put the milk in a billy left at the gate. And Cliff would call at the house to be paid. The butcher, Stotts, left late orders of meat outside, tied on a rail or something for people who were late picking it up. There was no worry about dogs or cats, or it being stolen.

Also another thing. The Birkenhead Municipal Band would come around every Christmas time and play outside our place in Seddon Road. They would all be on the back of a lorry. One of them would come rattling a tin. Us girls would be hanging out the front window ready to put money in the tin.

I went to Birkenhead Primary School which I think was just one building. There was a large playing area at the back. At the school fair one year, one of the things they had was ‘catching the greasy pig’. I don’t remember if anyone ever caught it, but it was great fun watching. At school we started writing in chalk on a blackboard. Then, on a slate with a slate pencil, then a class or two later, with pen and ink, dipping the pen in the inkwell at the corner of the desk. We always came home for lunch. There was a lady whose house was at the right side of the entrance and she sold toffee apples. She was popular! At assembly in the morning, we all formed up in classes outside. The flag was raised each morning, and I think lowered at night. Each class marched into their classroom with their teacher. At Northcote, it was just one school – Northcote Junior High. We walked there and back – and often at lunchtime. There was no school bus this side of Verrans. It was a few years before Northcote High was built on a piece of the football field, I think. And I think it was two rooms, built in tin.

Schools then used to go to the Winter Exhibition, in sheds at the bottom of Queen Street. We used to put entries in for competition.

There was only one secondary school on the shore round about the 1930s – Takapuna Grammar – so I went to Auckland Girls’Grammar.


Stott and sons butcher's trap about 1920

Stott's first motor delivery van - A model T Ford