Good Times

Good Times March 2019

The Sunday fortnightly visits to my paternal grandparents were usually regarded as a chore by my mother, but I remember them with great warmth and fondness. We usually came home with generous gifts of fruit and vegetables from Grandpa’s garden and Grandma always had a tiered cake-stand loaded with sweets – black balls, barleysugars and licorice allsorts. I used to peel the coloured layers from the allsorts and give the unwonted licorice to my brother, who liked the unusual taste. Grandma had a part-time job at a Point Chevalier sweet factory and shop. I went into the shop with her once, in school holidays and was captivated by a display of sugar mice and handsome marzipan penguins. Next Easter Sunday I was delighted to receive a beautiful penguin of my own, and lovingly held it stroked and admired it and carried it around in my pocket for some days until a stern ultimatum was given – "Eat that grubby, fluffy-covered thing now or it will be thrown out." I sobbed bitter tears and had to close my eyes before biting off the now drooping head and reluctantly nibbling that delicious marzipan bird. That was my only sad memory of Grandma’s sweets. Grandma made large baking dishes full of her peanut brownie slab, which she generously cut into large pieces – not like the small dainty biscuits at home. Family dinner was usually a roast carved by Grandpa and all the vegetables were in lidded chinaware and passed around. A dresser beside the table always held a variety of glass dishes of stewed fruit, a couple of pastry pies and jugs of custard and cream. One memorable evening my bachelor Uncle George, while chatting animatedly about his latest dairy factory construction project in the Waikato mistakenly doused his peach pie with a jug of home-made mayonnaise instead of custard, and I watched in fascinated horror as he attacked his desert with his usual great gusto. “George!” exclaimed Grandma – "You are a disgrace!" His cheerful retort was – "You can call me anything you like, as long as it's not ‘late for dinner’." At the end of the meal, the tablecloth was removed and the much-loved sight of the rich red velvet table cover was revealed once more. Grandpa brought out the housie cards and counters and we filled the evening with a few innocent games. I thought Grandpa was very funny – he said “legs eleven, clickety click 66, number one on its own”, as he called the numbers, and if there were any slices of desert pie left over before we went home again, he would say - "Who's for some pie-tiddly-I-tie. Special nights were when uncle George brought out all the family instruments – his beloved violin, the mandolin with Mother of Pearl inlay, the classic guitar, the ukulele's and the big string bass the neighbour’s boys would play, and we had a pleasant musical evening with lots of Irish and country-style tunes and songs. Grandma would sit with a small glass of sherry, tapping her feet and nodding her head to the beat of the music – the other adults drank Grandpa’s homebrew and all the children were allowed a real soft drink in a bottle. We clustered around Uncle George’s grand cave-like home-made fridge and freezer compartment he had built into the kitchen wall. The doors were recycled off large truck cabs, complete with super-sized hinges and handles and when the door clanged open, great gusts of super-chilled air spilled out and frosty, clinking bottles were handed around. He genrously handed out a selection of Disney comics for us, too, I always chose Uncle Scrooge McDuck, who was my favourite role model. When we were older, the comic books became classics – "The Black Tulip”, “Kidnapped”, “Treasure Island”, “Swiss family Robinson”, before seamlessly morphing into National Geographic Magazine or Popular Mechanics. Sadly, Uncle George was seldom home with his parents, he was often away for many months working on many significant country projects in his job as a steel construction company rigging foreman. Many of the major dairy factories, freezing works, fruit packing sheds, bridges and viaducts throughout the North Island were built by him and his teams of Maori, Yugoslav and other workers to all seemed to love music, like Uncle George. There was always great excitement when he was home in Mount Albert. Sometimes he took us to a movie – he loved the Civic Theatre or the speedway at Western Springs. He was a much-loved larger-than-life character, with a loud voice, ruddy wind-chapped cheeks, wind-swept hair, always in paint-splattered shoes with makeshift laces. If wearing a tie was called for, he always hung it outside his pullover, instead of tucking it inside. “If I'm obliged to wear one of those done things, it might as well be seen,” he said. I hated the noise and crashes of stock cars at the speedway but never turned down a chance to go out with Uncle George. Those nights usually meant American-style hotdogs and shapely bottles of Coca-Cola! Those truly worth the happy days of my life – the good times.