NEW  ZEALAND
FOLK * STORY
Convent Kid
Mike Subritzky
Home
Kia ora. This is Saint Joseph's Parish, Waihi, as seen through the eyes of a 10 year old. Any parishioner, in any small town in New Zealand, who lived through this same period in history will immediately relate to what I have written. This time in history was ours, we all lived it.


1. Our Convent School. Baptism, Irishman of the old school, Starting school, First Holy Communion, Getting to school, The poor nuns, Sister Perpetua's anger, Our Homeland Aotearoa, Sister Mercedes, Altar Boys, Drinking altar wine, Pay back.

2. Special Events. Cracker season, Father Felix Donnelly, Saint Patrick's Day, The Academy Picture Theatre, Footy and Basketball, The School Picnic, Bazaars and Garden Parties, Calf Club, The Inspectors' visits, Archbishop Liston's visit, The Circus, The last moko.

3. Things Start to Change. Pope John the 23rd, Confirmation, The Space Race, The Sad Days, President Kennedy, The Egg a Day Club, Phantom rings, Battle Dress Jackets, Watching the News, Sister Berchmans' class, Full circle, Dominus Vobiscum.


The Convent Kid.
Mike Subritzky, 1955

I was born in Katikati, just over the hill from Waihi on the 13th June 1950, at the time my family were living in the KDV mill camp at Ongare Point. I was 2 weeks old when my mother and her friend Rama Tarau took me through to Saint Joseph's church in Waihi in a taxi. Mass in Katikati was held in the Orange Lodge and there was no baptismal font. I was baptised by Father Michael Crawford and Hone and Rama Tarau became my Godparents.

In 1953, my family moved to Waihi and my earliest memory is that of a toddler, being lifted down from my mothers cane pram so that she could negotiate a set of tram lines (from the gold mining days) which ran across Kenny Street, not far from the Waihi Courthouse. My elder sisters, Stephanie and Leonie attended Saint Joseph's Convent School, as did my older brother Joseph and I can even remember going to 'bazaars' in the old Waihi Miners Hall, with it's out-house toilets and a crack in the wall up near the stage where the honeysuckle used to peek through, and you could even see the sky. The Miners Hall was ready to fall down.
I was about four years old when Saint Joseph's parish received a new curate. His name was Father Felix Donnelly and he served the parish under the watchful eye of the Reverend Father James O'Connor. Father O'Connor was a true blue Irishman of the old school and was known to enjoy a good whiskey and a smoke. His Irish temper when he lost his rag was legend, and he was not averse to kicking young tear-aways at school in the seat of their pants.

One year the parish held a children's fancy dress ball and my mother dressed us all up in various costumes she made herself. Stephanie and Leonie were dressed as Gypsies and my brother Joseph was a 'swag-man', so by the time mum and my sisters got to me there wasn't much left in the way of props so I was made to wear a set of wings and my younger sister Mary-Ann's nappies. I later won first prize in the junior section and a photograph was taken by Mr. Malcolm the town's photographer showing Father Donnelly holding me above his head on the hall's stage so that everyone could see me - I was dressed as cupid, complete with a cardboard bow and arrow

Starting School


Sister Mary Eucharia , 1959
(She is now Sister Mary Breen)
I started school on my fifth birthday, and my first teacher was Sister Mary Eucharia. I actually got off to a bit of a bad start in life because by early that same afternoon I had gotten bored and asked Sister if I could go to the toilet. Well I went to to toilet and then decided that I missed my mother too much and walked home. Naturally enough at about 2.30 when the 'Tiny Tots' were being released my absence was noticed, as well when I finally got home my mother was horrified that I had wagged on my first day at school. My education was the subject of that night's family Rosary.

The school was laid out as four class rooms. The primers class room was a self contained building detached from the main school block, and the main school was an L shape with two class rooms on the south side and one on the north with a corridor running east/west. Moving north from the school was a two storied convent which was the barracks for about a dozen Sisters of Mercy and north again, an old wooden church (Saint Joseph's), then north from the church was a wooden presbytery where the parish priest and curate resided.

The tennis courts were as they are today and on the western boundary of the school grounds was a black creosote painted hall. This was the second parish hall, the first one was built in the northern part of the school field, between Bob Caundle's house and the presbytery. School legend had it that this first hall blew down one night during a violent storm. The remains, a large raised concrete area was one of the best spots for boys to play war games. This same concrete area served as a Roman Fort, a French Foreign Legion outpost and a US Cavalry stockade, depending upon which movie had been screened at the Academy picture threatre the previous Saturday afternoon.

I stayed with Sister Eucharia until I reached Standard 1 and then myself and my classmates Johnny Callaghan, Stephen Sale, Clem Ducey, Graham Healey, Brett Carnachan, and Kevin Malone were moved over to the senior school rooms and we were then taught by Sister Mary Assumptor. The girls in my class were Hellen McHardy, Janet Furey, Christine Furey, Noeline Pipe, Patricia O'Dwyer, and Erin Healey. Sister Eucharia was a real honey, a young Irish nun who was an outstanding teacher and I think we all regretted leaving her care. Sister Assumptor was a very fair teacher and taught my class for a while and then I think she was posted to the Mother House in Auckland due to ill health and in her place we received Sister Mary Perpetua.


First Holy Communion


Father Hayes with Mary Anne
on her First Holy Communion Waihi 1959

Just before myself and my class mates reached age seven, the church changed the rules required for fasting. Catholics at that time in history fasted on Fridays, eating no meat what-so-ever, except for fish, and if you were going to Communion on Sunday morning it was a requirement that you fasted from midnight on the Saturday night. In our house the whole family (apart from my then athiest father) fasted, whether you were going to Communion or not, so it was a great relief for hungry young Catholics when this rule was changed to the three hour fast.

 

First Holy Communions were a very formal occassion and involved the entire church community. Father Hayes was the Parish Priest when I made my First Communion and we had to learn parrot fashion the shortened version of the prayer 'The Act of Contriction' (I never did learn the other version). And then on the Friday afternoon before The Feast of Christ the King, we walked in procession to the the church and there we made our First Confession. At seven years of age it was pretty hard to come up with some decent sins, so myself, Johnny Callaghan and Clem Ducey pooled all of our misdemenours and by the time we got to the church each of us had enough sins for Father to give us a decent pennence.

On Sunday, we then all arrived at church early. All boys were dressed in a white shirt, with school tie, school shorts, shoes and sox while the girls wore very lacey white dresses. Each child had a First Communion medal pinned on their left breast and then we sat as a group in about three rows, just in front of the 'Holy Name Society' banner. As all of the prayers were in Latin we had to ensure that we replied "Amen" to Father Hayes's "Corpus Christi" and then stuck our tongue out far enough so that he has something to place the host on. After each First Communion, there was always a group photograph taken standing in front of the grotto of Our Lady, and then it was over to the hall for out First Communion Breakfast. The whole event was made to feel like a huge Birthday party. The nuns from memory sat in a group on the stage with the curtains drawn as at that time they were forbidden to eat with the community.


Getting to School

Getting to school each morning was always a lot of fun. I had the choice of either going along Adams Street and teaming up with Gene Allen and his oldest sister Lois (now Mrs Watkins), but generally they always left for school very early which meant that I would then have to face Mrs Muir's dog 'Jumbo' on my own. Jumbo, was a huge Saint Bernard who just loved kids, he would jump on top of you and then once you were lying prone on the ground he would lick you from head to toe, so that you went to school smelling of dog breath. The other choice was to walk all the way up to the top of Rosemont Road and then turn right onto Union Street. Unfortunately by the time you got to the top of Rosemont Road on any given morning there would be about a half a dozen non-Catholic kids en-route to the South Scholl waiting for you singing that age old taunt: "Convent Dogs! Sitting on Logs!...Eatin' Bellies Outta' Frogs!" So generally most days getting to, and from, Saint Joseph's school was something of an adventure.

The poor nuns

I guess that I was in about Standard two or three when the church started running out of nuns because the Standard Four classroom was shut down and that room became the school singing room. The music teacher was Sister Mary Koska and as well as teaching us singing she also taught the piano to members of the public. I believe that at the time, Sister Koska's music lessons was the only payment that the nuns actually received.* The kitchen nun was for a number of years Sister Mary Mercedes and she had a vegetable garden which also suplimented the convent. Local families, and especially the farming family's, the McHardys, McKinneys, O'Flaherty, Fowlers, Mulherns, Bicknells and others often gifted meat and produce to the nuns which helped them with their meagre income. Prior to Vatican II, a nun only possessed the habit she wore and perhaps a change of clothing.

( * Footnote: at that time, each teaching Sister was paid 150 pounds per annum by the bishop. They had to give music lessons to earn enough to survive. During those same years, the bishop paid teaching Brothers 300 pounds p.a. while my aunt, a cook for the local hospital board, was paid 500 pounds p.a., and my father's truck driver was paid 750 pounds p.a. John Archer)


Sister Perpetua's anger

Sister Mary Perpetua, was an extremely elderly nun who should have been retired years before, but due to the shortage of teaching staff she had been sent to Waihi as a replacement teacher. Sister Perpetua has the distinction of being the only nun to ever make me cry while I was a Saint Joseph's. It was at the time of the change from ink filled fountain pens to the new 'biro' type of pen. We were still required to write with fountain pens, but we were allowed to rule our pages with the red biro's. My biro had run out of ink and Stephen Sale and myself attempted to suck some red ink up into the tube of the biro and then replace the head. This was done during a morning Christian Doctrine lecture by one of the priests. Naturally enough our system of refilling the biro didn't work and I had red ink on my face and hands from trying.

When Sister Perpetua re-entered the classroom at the end of the lesson she took one look at my face and hands and dragged me by the ear out to the front of the class where she then broke several rulers over me, she then moved on to a triangular ruler however, that also broke after a while. Finally she seized a length of one inch dowel which had served as the blackboard pointer. I was then dragged out into the corridor and beaten mercilessly on the back and legs by Sister Perpetua for several minutes until finally she had exhausted herself. I was a mass of bruises for many days afterwards and the memory lasted a lifetime. I mention this beating simply because it happened and was a part of that period in history.


Our Homeland Aotearoa

I was in about Standard II when I heard Sister Mary Koska running through a song about New Zealand with a senior class. The song had a beautiful harmony and ended with the words "Our Homeland Aotearoa".

Anyway, when it came time for my class to learn a new song we were taught another stirring British song and I rapidly lost interest to the point where I was made to remain behind after class, which usually signalled the strap. I was given the opportunity to explain myself and when I said that the song was boring and I wanted to learn the one about Aotearoa, there was a pause and then Sister Koska told me to report to the Convent after school...needless to say I thought that Father Hayes or Father Donnelly were going to deal with me.

After an entire day spent in silent terror I waited for the bell to be rung at three o'clock and then walked over to the Convent where the nuns lived. Sister Koska met me at the door and took me into the first room on the right, which was her music room.

She then opened the piano and took out the sheet music and taught me how to sing the song...It was the first Kiwi folk song I ever learned.

When the Tui sits in the Kowhai tree
and the sun tips the mountain tops with gold
when the Rata blooms in the forest glade,
and the hills glow with sunny tints untold.

I love to roam through bush and fern
and hear the Bell Bird sing
and feel the touch of the wind on my face
while the joy in my heart does ring.

There are some who long for coral sands
and some for wind swept plains
while others roam the ocean wide
then pine for home again.

But give to me the care free life
by mountain, lake or shore
of the lovely land of the Long White Cloud,
Our Homeland Aotearoa.

Thank you Sister Mary Koska.


Sister Mercedes

I think the kindest nun in the parish was Sister Mary Mercedes. She was a jolly looking lady, with rosy cheeks, and just a little overweight. She looked like a female version of Friar Tuck. Whereas all of the other nuns were always prim and proper, and wore habits picture perfect, Sister Mercedes always had an apron on and her sleeves rolled up.

Every once in a while you might have a reason to report to the rear of the convent, to the kitchen and either collect an item overlooked by one of the teaching nuns, or to pass on a message. Sister Mercedes would be in the kitchen, covered in flour and would answer the door with a twinkle in her eye. She would then fetch the required item and on her return give you a couple of pieces of homemade shortbread or a cookie, but you had to eat it at the doorway before you returned to the classroom.

She was a beautiful old lady then, and in fact lived to a very great age, passing away in the early months of the new millenium.


Altar Boys

I was selected to be an altar boy when I was about 8 years old and this required us to learn Latin, as the entire Roman Catholic world used Latin as it's standardized language. As an altar boy we had to arrive early for Mass, go into the church and get changed into a black gown called a soutane, and then over this was placed a white lace shirt called a surplice. We got dressed in the small sacristry on the left of the altar and the Priests got dressed on the right hand side. They wore a number of 15th century items of clothing over their shirt and trousers so it must have been quite hot wearing all of this stuff on a summer's day.

At that time in history altar boys always managed to get away with quite a lot of "high jinks" as the priest almost always faced the altar with his back to the congregation. The nuns who filled the first 2 rows at the front left of the church always had their heads bowed, veils drawn forwards, eyes closed and deep in prayer. And as well, most of the rest of the congregation had their eyes down and into their "Sunday Missals" trying to keep up with the flow of the Latin ...so no-one was watching the altar. At times up there on the altar there were elbow jolts, leg trips and almost fist fights that occurred during Sunday Mass.

Down in amongst the congregation families usually sat in the exact same seats each week. My mother and sisters usually sat in about the fourth pew just behind the nuns and directly behind her were the Barron family, Mr and Mrs Barron, John and Rosemary My youngest brother Chris was something of a handful for my mother and began playing up in church. One morning Christopher's mischief got too much for Jack Barron and he leaned over and gave him a clip around the ears for which my mother was eternally grateful. Chris never misbehaved in chuch again.

I was an altar boy for a period of about 8 years, as were all three of my brothers at various times. My brother Joe and I often had competitions while serving mass, eg if the Priest didn't like the taste of wine we would always try and pour as much wine into his chalice as possible, because he had to consume all of it as part of the service. And if the Priest liked wine we would pour just a minimal amount which would always infuriate Father Hayes. When washing their hands we would often try and pour water all over their fingers and hands and try and get them as wet as possible.


Drinking altar wine

We were always told by the nuns that altar wine was special and that is was pure and had no alcohol content. Back then only Priests drank the altar wine, Communion in both forms (bread and wine) came in later in the late 1960s. After mass it was the altar boys job to put away the various crucibles which contained the water and the wine. The water went straight down the sink whilst the wine was carefully poured back into the current 'opened' bottle. The bottles had very beautiful and inlaid labels and I think was produced by Catholic Monks down in Hawkes Bay. By the time we were cleaning up after Mass the church was all but emptied and on one occasion Terry Mischefski dared my brother Joe to drink some of Father's altar wine. Joe could never resist a dare and took a quick taste of the wine in the crucible. "Not bad!" declared Joe. "It tastes a bit like cooking sherry."

I was still waiting for the sky to open and a lightening bolt to come down from the clouds and incinerate him but nothing happened and so Terry and myself tried some as well. It tasted jolly good and was warm all of the way down to our boots.

Later on we realised that the sacristan, Sister Mary Bernardette (the nun whose job it was to look after the inside of the church) knew exactly how much was left inside the opened bottle as she marked the level, but she had absolutely no idea how many full bottles she had! We couldn't believe it! We couldn't take a sneaky slug of altar wine because Sister Bernardette would know, but we could "liberate" a whole bottle and no-one would be any the wiser.

And so after another one of our falling outs with Father Hayes we lifted one of his bottles of altar wine and consumed the contents in our secret hide out over the next couple of weeks.


Pay back

Father Hayes was quite a stern priest and he often punished us after Mass by making us polish brass or sweeping out the sacristary for some misdemeanor, but we would always get our revenge. We would wait near the presbytery, and then when all was quiet we would sneak over to the priests' garage, open up his box of clay bird shells, grab about a half a dozen cartridges and then pour out the lead shot from inside. We would then refill the cartridges with sand and using an old altar candle, heat and reseal the end of each cartridge. Father Hayes was always cross with either my brother Joe, Gene Allen or myself and by the same token he was also probably the lousiest clay bird shooter in the entire district.

Section 2. Special Events

Cracker season

Fr James O'Connor, with Joe Subritzky
1st Holy Communion Waihi 1955

The school year was unofficially divided into a number of 'seasons', there was marble season, footy season, bird nesting season, fruit raiding season, blackberry season, swimming season and cracker season. I liked cracker season best of all. Being Catholics we were never allowed to have a 'guy' on top of our bonfire (Guy Fawkes was something of a failed Catholic hero), but we were given official dispensation by Father O'Connor to enjoy lighting bonfires and setting off crackers.

When cracker season arrived, most of the boys at Saint Joseph's would go scavanging for bottles. A small soft drink bottle was worth thruppence and a large drink bottle sixpence, a beer bottle was worth a penny and a half gallon flagon was worth two bob. Naturally enough as kids we knew where stashes of these bottles had been gathering around the district and during cracker season these provided a source of income for us to buy fireworks. (Two bob, or 24 pence, was about a twenty minutes wages for a working man, equal to about 3 dollars in NZ today)

On the corner of Seddon Street and Hazard Street stood Mr Wong's fruit shop. There was no such thing as OSH (Occupational Health and Saftey) back then and Mr Wong sold fireworks that nowadays one would need a blasting ticket to use. Both Spearings Stationary and Rickard's Book Shop sold "mighty cannons", "double-happy's" and "jumping jacks", but Mr Wong sold some serious items of explosive chinese hardware. The names, and all instructions were written in Cantonese so we were never quite sure what exactly was going to happen once we had lit the fuse. Suffice to say that some varieties even left a crater in the ground after they went off. It's probably little wonder that myself and my three brothers became Gunners in the Royal New Zealand Artillery -- Mr Wong has a lot to answer for.

On one occassion, I think it was the spring flower show and the schools were competing in the new War Memorial Hall, when myself and a mate Gene Allen slipped out from the hall and brought a large bag of fireworks from Mr Wong. We then wandered around the back of the town library and let a couple of bangers off on the parade ground of the old Army drill hall. It then occurred to us that Reggie Bell, the town librarian might ring someone in authority and so we slipped down an alleyway and came back out onto Seddon Street right beside Mr Rickard's shop. I don't know why we did it, because we were both in school uniform, and as well were both very well known to Tex and his wife, but we decidied to give him a bit of a fright.

I took out one of these Chinese bangers, which was red and white checkboard colours and between Gene and myself we prized open the advertising billboard for the New Zealand Truth. The posters were actually stapled each week, one on top of the other so when Gene and I prized the used posters out from the backing board, it must have been about half an inch thick. Into this hole between the posters and the board we forced one of Mr Wong's red and white bangers. It was meant as a prank to scare Mr Rickard. We then lit the fuse and were about to duck back down the alleyway, when who should walk out of the memorial hall...Father Donnelly and he spotted us instantly.


Father Felix Donnelly

We pretended not to see him and slunk into the alley when the next minute there was an almighty bang! We started running but Father Donnelly was a very fit man and sprinted across the road and caught up with us near the drill hall. First he demanded our bag of crackers and the matches, then he gave both of us a couple of swipes on the bum. He then frog-marched both of us back down the alleyway to where a very angry Mr Rickard was trying to salvage the now smouldering ruins of his sandwich board, the paper posters had been blown to pieces and there was small bits of paper all over the footpath. Mr Rickard looked at both of us and shook his head murmuring "bloody kids".

Father Donnelly took us both by our jerseys into the shop and up to the counter where we were then made to apologise to a very cross Mrs Rickard. We then (with very sincere expressions on our faces) apologised to both Mr and Mrs Rickard and immediately shot out of the shop, across Seddon Street and into the flower show where we tried to merge with all of the other Convent kids and look as insignificant as possible.

We were both certain that Father Donnelly was going to inform on us to the Head Nun, but he never did and we were both certain that he would tell our parents about our act of vandalism to Mr Rickard's Truth poster, but again he never did. Thank you Father Donnelly!

Father Donnelly was a real "live wire" in the Parish who got involved with the young people. He formed the local Catholic Youth Movement, he also with the assistance of my own mother, Terry Mischefski and Peter and Mavis McKinney, founded the Waihi branch of the Legion of Mary. There were two Father Donnellys in the district, our own Felix, who was the Curate at Waihi, and also his brother Father Kevin Donnelly who was a resident priest in Te Aroha.

He was an outstanding guy, really hands on and into everything. He had a black (I think), Volks Wagon and with this car he organised youth programs, (table tennis, rock and roll etc), in the parish hall. Swimming trips to the Tauranga bridge water hole, trips to the beach, and I think even bush walks. He was single handedly responsible for the increase in attendance at mass of all of the teenagers in the parish and made us proud of being Catholic. He also gave me back my bag of fireworks after Mass on Christmas Day and declined to tell my mother why he was holding them for me.


Saint Patricks Day

At that time in New Zealand history it was considered "correct" to speak English with a cultured "English" accent, however at Waihi Convent a number of words were pronounced differently.The Parish Priest was Irish, all the nuns were Irish and as well many of the senior members of the congregation were Irish, so an Irish pronunciation of a number of words was very common.

In fact the most important day on the Saint Joseph's school calendar after Christmas Day and Easter was Saint Patricks Day and on that day every girl and boy at the school came to school beddecked in green ribbons. We all wished each other "Erin Go Brae" (Ireland Forever), and went to a special mass where we sung "Hail Glorious Saint Patrick, Dear Saint of our Isle, on us thy poor children, bestow a sweet smile�"


The Academy Picture Theatre

The most important places in my early life were the Roman Catholic Church, the Convent School, and as well the Academy Picture Theatre. Followed closely by Tex Richard's book shop and Spearings Stationery both of which also sold lead soldiers. Later as I grew even older, Wally Kingsford's Bike shop gained importance as he sold all sorts of fishing tackle and adventure gear, and as well the hardware shop on the corner of Seddon Street and Moresby Avenue where Mr Asby sold WWII bayonets for seven and sixpence.

But the Academy picture theatre was probably the centre of my entire universe and every Saturday afternoon myself and the rest of Waihi's children would go and watch the movies. It cost 9 pence (about $1 at today's NZ values) to sit in the first three rows which were always snapped up very quickly, and so I think that the Saturday afternoon movies in Waihi were about the only thing in my life I was actually early for.

There was no TV back then, I think TV arrived in the early 1960's and so the pictures were the town's main source of entertainment. The actual building still stands and I can remember the queue for the picture theatre stretching often up to about Wallace Supplies, or even Mrs Jesney's beauty shop, but when the biblical yarn "The Greatest Story Ever Told" came to town, the queue reached right back as far as Clark's the Chemist, on the corner of Seddon Street and Rosemont Road, and not everyone got to see the movie.

At half time the theatre used to play a song which sounded to my young ears as "The Maori Grenadiers." I can only really remember the chorus which went like this:

We can lick the Brooklyn Guards,
if they'll only play the cards,
and we run like the devil
when the ground is level
for about 400 yards.

And the girls the little dears
they're in love up to their ears
when they see us coming
when they see us running
we're the Maori Grenadiers!

(Footnote: This was probably The Bowery Grenadiers a song about rival Hibernian volunteer fire departments in mid-1800s New York. Mike would have heard the popular Mitch Miller version being played. Listen to this short MP3. John Archer)


Footy and Basketball

Rugby was about the only sport that Saint Joseph's took seriously and our coaches were Father Donnelly, Mr Wheeler, Mr McHardy and Mr O'Flaherty. At the same time that the boys were being taught seven-a-side barefoot rugby, the girls were being taught basketball (now called netball) by Mrs Alexander (I think). All of these sports were then put to an annual test of Catholic Schools which was always held at Te Aroha.

On the day of the competition we would all get out our green and black streamers and bedeck two of Mr Richie's buses and then off we would go, and singing all the way. It was one of our big adventures for the year. The other being our school picnic. I don't know how long it took to get to Te Aroha, but the roads back then were a horror story and I had usually thrown up into a brown paper bag by about the middle of the Karangahake Gorge.

I don't think the boys ever won any of the football tournaments that I can remember, we often used to beat Paeroa and a couple of the other schools, but generally Te Aroha was usually too strong, plus they had the advantage of playing on their home ground. Our girls usually did much better and would often win one of the trophies.


The School Picnic

Towards the end of the year the nuns organised the school picnic. Often it would be at Waihi Beach but sometimes they went even further afield, including the hot pools at Katikati and also the not so hot pools at Matamata. Great excitement would fill the school on the week of the picnic and all sorts of games and adventures were planned. On the day of the picnic we would once again cram into two of Mr Richie's buses and then off we would all go singing and cheering.

The mothers of the farming kids would often come, Mrs McHardy (I think there were three Mrs McHardy), Mrs Mulhern (I think there were two Mrs Mulherns), Mrs Thompson, Mrs Bicknell, and Mrs Wheeler. They would assist in supervising the kids and as well preparing lunch inside the beach hall. Lunch was usually spagetti and baked bean sandwiches and a large milk can full of cordial. The priests would often come too. I don't know how the nuns coped with the heat on those days. Back then they were shrouded from head to toe in a long black habit, with a white wimple raised above their foreheads. Once again, they would eat behind curtains or in another room.

Going home was always a lot of fun, because by then the sunburn would be just starting to kick in and as well the sand and salt all through our clothing would be starting to irritate tired young bodies. The next several days were often spent in bed with backs, hands and faces covered in Calamine lotion.


Bazaars and Garden Parties

Each year the parish organised a bazaar which was usually held in the Memorial Hall. The whole parish got behind this venture and all sorts of hand made items were produced. A number of my mother's non-Catholic friends would also knit things for it as well. One woman, Mrs Mida Langdon used to knit or crochet some absolutely beautiful items which were often raffled. The nuns made fudge, toffee apples and turkish delight. Their turkish delight was the very best I have ever tasted. The bazaars were a wonderful break from school and everyone was guaranteed a bargain.

Sometimes the parish organised a 'Garden Party' which was a huge affair and had all sorts of things on sale. I think there was even a beer tent. Above the din of the crowd boomed Bob Caundle's voice as he was always in charge of the quick-fire raffles. At one of these garden parties my mother took a ticket in a picnic hamper. It was closed and wrapped in cellophane. She later won it and we had so much stuff to carry home that Bert Mischefski took us in his big old car. When my parents got inside and opened the cane hamper, it actually contained about a dozen bottles of various spirits and liquours...there wasn't a plate or cup anywhere! Well naturally enough Bert and my parents sat down and had a 'spot' or two. All three were very unwell the following morning and I don't think that my mother made it to Mass. My mother kept the cane hamper and it served the family for years as a sewing basket.


Calf Club

One day a year we had 'Calf Club' and it gave those kids who had pet calves a chance to bring them to school and compete for ribbons. It was always a lot of fun, because many of the towny kids would adopt a calf and then show it on the day, on some occassions it would turn into a mini rodeo. I think it was Ian McHardy who had the most well trained calf I had ever seen and he won the ribbon in his grade.

I decided to enter one year and adopted my neighbour Mr Ward's hereford calf called 'Matilda'. On the day of the calf club, Mr Bicknell went down and picked up the calf and I somehow or other won two ribbons and a cup, which I still have!!! I must remember to return the cup to Phil Mulhern, it's probably an antique by now.


The Inspectors' visits

Apart from the devil, I think that there were only two people on earth that the nuns feared. One was the Archbishop, His Eminence James Michael Liston, and the other one was the school inspector. We were normally made aware that the inspectors were coming perhaps a day or two before their arrival and then the entire school sprung into action. All 108 of us. Windows were washed and then polished with brasso and newspaper, the tennis courts were swept and all rubbish was minutely searched out and burned in the school incinerator (a 44 gallon drum with a hole cut in the bottom).

Even the school milk box was scrubbed sparkling clean and all of the crates refilled and stacked with 144 empty half pint bottles. Back then, each school child was required to drink a half a pint of milk each day, the milk was very creamy and although some of the kids avoided drinking it when they could, I loved it and held the milk drinking record when I was in Form 2; I think it was 4 or 5 bottles without stopping. In winter time we all sat around the rooms 'hot dog' and as the nun boiled up a large saucepan of milk for the class cocoa. These were very happy moments in the morning's activities as that was the time of story telling. The nuns were brilliant story tellers, all of them and if they read a story about pirates, they made the ocean move, the ship creak and the pirates larger than life. It was while waiting for cocoa to heat that Sister Berchmans read me my first "anti-war" story, it was about a Priest in the army during World War I, and was called "Fighting Father Duffy."

Anyway I digress, the Convent Schools were pretty much oppressed in New Zealand back then, receiving no funds whatever from the New Zealand Government and as well, the teaching standards of the nuns, (all women), "must" always be of the same exacting standards of all public schools which were mainly run by men. From memory, all the head teachers of all of the other public schools (apart from all girl schools) were males during the entire time I was at school. So there was tremendous pressure on the nuns not only to perform to the same standards as the public schools, but to even try and excell. In any event as any ex-convent pupil of the period will confirm, an education at a convent school in the 1950/60's generally put a pupil light years ahead of his public school companions in arithmetic, english, reading, writing and singing.

The school inspectors were always middle aged, faceless, grey suits that came into the classroom in the morning and sat at the back for about an hour. Prior to their arrival each nun made it crystal clear to every child in the class that if they were not on their very best behaviour, certain swift and terrible retribution would surely follow the very instant the inspector closed the door on completion of his visit.

The inspector would request a couple of books to check and so naturally the nun would rattle off the names of six students, all of whom she already knew had spotless neat handwriting with dozens of stamps of "The Sacred Heart" for good work on their pages.

These would be checked and the inspector would generally be gone before the tolling of the "Angelus" on the school bell just before lunch time "The Angel of the Lord appeared unto Mary -"


Archbishop Liston's visit

Whenever Bishop Liston was coming there was always the added chores of getting Saint Joseph's Church knocked into shape. The church was an old wooden structure with rows of wooden pews that generations of Catholic boys and my sister Leonie had carved their initials into during our many trips to the church for Mass, Benedition or choir practice. The building had a very warm community feel about it but it was well past its "use-by" date and was beginning to look more than a little tired. It was actually strengthened by a series of steel rods that were attached to either side at about the same level as the choir loft.

We always hoped that Bishop Liston would arrive on a Thursday. Once he arrived, usually in a large dark coloured 1930's V8 sedan, we would be formed up by our classes at the sweet pea trellis between the school and the nuns' two story barracks. We would then get inspected by the head nun, pure white hankies with small red crosses on them would appear from black sleeves, nuns would spit onto them and grubby Catholic children's faces would be wiped clean. Socks and stockings would be pulled up, green girdles adjusted, black and green ties straightened and hair brushed out of children's eyes. Once the head nun was finally happy, the nuns would draw their veils forward to cover their faces and we would march in pairs, along the concrete path, past the convent and into the front door of the church where we would usually sit close to the organ which was always played by Sister Mary Koska.

After the service was over we generally made our own way out of the church, a row at a time, moving to the central isle, reverently genuflecting, and quietly walking outside. His Eminence, Archbishop Liston, an elderly gentleman with a very kindly face would be outside chatting to various parishioners and we would then all line up and shake hands with him, turning his right palm upwards and kissing a huge jewelled ring that his Emmence wore. By now the nuns would be quietly lurking in the background keeping a very discreet but watchful eye on our behaviour. Then one of the nuns would quietly suggest to us that we might like to ask the Archbishop for a day off school.

Archbishop Liston was a real pushover for kids and I think that he gave us a day off school every single time he ever visited Waihi, and if he came on a Thursday we generally got the rest of Thursday and Friday off. The nuns, would then get a very well earned day off as well, and whereas most folks relax on Saturday and Sunday, these days were busiest days in the week for the nuns, where they did all of the husbandry on the convent on the Saturday, and then attended a number of devotional services on the Sunday so a day off from the Bishop was appreciated by them as well. After Bishop Liston came Bishop Delargy, and I remember that he only ever gave a half a day off so he wasn't as popular as his predecessor.

The Circus

The circus usually came to town about three times a year. Sometimes a Grand Parade would take place up Seddon Street, and sometimes the full circus would be unloaded from the railway station and would then move slowly in convoy along Union Street, heading in the direction of the 'Rec' (now called Morgan Park).

Circuses back then were huge affairs boasting elephants, giraffes, lions, tigers, horses, and monkeys by the dozen. If ever they passed by Saint Joseph's everyone would pour outside of the class rooms and watch in awe as the circus came to town. Usually the elephants would be ridden or led by their trainers, and sometimes there would even be clowns. And then, as soon as school had ended we would tear down on bicycles to the Rec and stare in wonder at these strange animals from the other side of the world.


Waiting for a procession down Seddon Street at Waihi.
However this was not a circus, but the 1962 Diamond Jubilee celebration.


The last moko

The last Maori parishioner in Waihi to wear a moko was old Mrs Richards, Danny Richards grandmother. Danny had been whangaied (Maori adoption) back to his grandmother and as a kid he was always up to various pranks. I don't think she was on the phone because she often had to come to school and discuss Danny's education with one or another of the nuns.

Whenever she came to the school the older girls would study her from a distance. This very elderly Maori woman, who was dressed all in black and wore greenstone ornaments and a dark blue chin moko. She was the last of her generation.


Section 3. Things Start to Change

Pope John the 23rd

One day the Pope died and I thought it was the end of the world. Classes ceased and we spent what seemed like days and nights in the church lighting candles, saying prayers and singing hymns. My brother Dave didn't think much of the deceased Pope as he reckoned that he used to bless "Eytie" tanks during the war. This tended to upset my poor mother who regarded any association between the Pope and Adolf Hitler as blasphemy.

The misery and sadness caused by the Pope's death lasted for about a week and then one day we went to school and all of the nuns were very happy because someone in the Vatican had started a fire and the smoke turned white and so God had found a new Pope. Shortly afterwards the school was sent a colour portrait of the new Pope and his name was Pope John the 23rd. The new Pope was a fat jolly looking chap who looked just like Santa Claus with a haircut and a shave so I figured that the world wasn't going to stop and that the Catholic Church was in pretty good hands.

Shortly afterwards the new Pope decided that the altar in the church at Waihi was too close to the wall and so Father Sherrin pulled it out and started saying Mass facing the congregation. This had a terrible effect on us altar boys as we now had to go to church and actually pay attention because Father Sherrin and Father Mullens were watching our every move.


Confirmation

I was ten years old when I was confirmed and this was another great occassion in the parish. It required each child being confirmed to obtain a sponsor and in our family this created something of a drama for me as my mother was a convert and my father was an athiest. I had no Catholic aunts or uncles. I left it a little late before I started approaching various parishioners to be my sponsor and by then they had all been chosen by my classmates.

I was in a state of near desperation as the big date loomed towards me when finally my mother suggested that I hadn't tried Mr Gallagher, the town Vet. I rode around there immediately on my bike and asked him if he would sponsor me, and he replied that he would be very happy to do so.

On the day of our confirmation the boys wore a white shirt, school tie, school shorts, shoes and socks. The girls (I think) wore a white dress. We were all given a red sash which we wore over our right shoulder and then during the course of the Mass we were individually presented to Bishop Delargy, kneeling at the front of the altar rails while our sponsor stood behind us and placed a hand on our shoulder. After the service we had another party in the parish hall.


The Space Race

One day Mr Kruschev fired a missile up into outer space and the next day everyone at Saint Joseph's learned two new words, one was satellite and the other was sputnik...the space race between the United States and Russia was on. That afternoon as I was walking home Mr Partridge next door told me to look up at the sky that night at about seven oclock and I would be able to see the sputnik. That night at about quarter to seven my whole family went out onto Rosemont Road to discover the entire town standing outside of their houses, everyone was waiting for the sputnik which duly made its appearance and floated across the sky. It was absolutely amazing to think that man had made such an incredible machine.

The Sad Days

I can only ever remember three children dying while I was at school; the first being my own baby brother Terrence who died when he was three days old. When we had the Funeral Mass for him the entire school turned out and sang beautifully.

The second child was young Alistar McHardy who was hit by a car as he was crossing Tauranga Road coming home from school. He was a beautiful young child, the splitting image of his father and his death was felt by the entire school for a long time afterwards.

The third child to die was a young girl who had actually left Saint Joseph's and was attending Waihi College. Unfortunately I can't remember her name but her parents lived directly opposite the parish hall.

She died of leukemia and I was an altar boy at her Requiem Mass. I was also an altar boy for Mrs Caundle's funeral, and afterwards Bob got special permission for the altar boys to go to his house for a meal. I think the other altar boys were John and Ian McHardy, John Barron, and a couple of others. It was the first time we had ever seen that new drink "Pepsi-Cola" (now called Pepsi).


President Kennedy's assassination

Another sad day that made an impact on my young life was the day that US President John Kennedy was assassinated. President Kennedy was an Irish, Catholic American and he was the first ever (Irish Catholic), to become President of the United States. He was regarded as a role model and hero to Catholics everywhere. Great things were expected of him during his term in office, but that was not to be.

I had been playing outside on that morning and I came inside to get a snack. My mother was at the kitchen table wearing an apron and rolling out dough to make scones. she had tears running down her cheeks and as I watched they fell from her cheeks and splashed into the flour as she worked. I asked her why she was crying and she then informed me that President Kennedy was dead, he had been shot by an assassin.


The Egg a Day Club

Each spring our school received a special magazine which promoted New Zealand products, industry, and agriculture.The name of the magazine escapes me but inside there were a host of free projects that we could write away and become involved with. A lot of kids wrote to such places as the Chelsea Sugar Refinery and were rewarded with information packs on the history and production of sugar.

There were many other organisations that we wrote to but I think the most popular was the Egg Board. It had an organisation called the "Egg a Day Club" which rewarded young followers with badges and also certificates, if they wrote to the board and confirmed that they ate at least one egg every day. I think most Form I and Form II pupils proudly sported the green and white 'Egg A Day Club' badge on their school uniforms.


Mike with his "Phantom Ring" and his little brother Christopher.
Mike still owns this taonga.

 


Phantom rings

Hard on the heels of the 'Egg a Day' club were Phantom rings. To own and wear a phantom ring, with its' haunting luminous eyes was the prized possession of each and every school boy at Saint Joseph's.

To obtain a phantom ring was an absolute drama. You first had to buy a particular Phantom comic that actually had an official phantom ring coupon on the back cover, there were no such things as photocopy machines back then, and if you didn't apply on the official coupon the company wouldn't send you the ring. A phantom ring cost 5 shillings, and had to be purchased from a company in Australia.

After obtaining an official coupon, which were as rare as rocking horse saddles, you then needed to go to the Waihi Post Office and purchase an overseas 'postal note'. This then cost an extra sixpence, and as well the postage both ways, meaning that the postal note had to also include enough money for a stamp.


Battle Dress Jackets

Sometime in the mid 1950s all of our fathers were released from their military reserve commitment from World War II and one day one of the Fowler boys wore his father's old battle dress jacket to school. The next day everyone wore their fathers' old uniform jackets to school. Wayne Johnston even wore his father's navy jumper.

Eddie Golaboski had been a career soldier in the US Marines and his son Mike wore that jacket which was very colourful and had "3 up and 3 down" chevrons on each sleeve. That was the jacket that everyone wanted to borrow.

Mike Geddy turned up to school a couple of days later wearing a tired old battle-dress jacket that had patches sewn into it, and crooked chevron sewn on one sleeve. On the epalutes was a navy blue slide with the letters 'L.R.D.G' embroided in red. None of us had ever heard of an LRDG and so we asked Mike and his brothers Myles and Wayne what an LRDG was? They didn't seem to know so that night when each of us got home we asked our fathers what LRDG stood for. Mr Geddy, who didn't much talk about the war had been a Trooper in the Long Range Desert Group, a hard-hitting Commando Unit in the Western Desert. So then that old patched LRDG jacket became the jacket that everyone wanted to wear.


Watching the News

Back in the fifties there was no such thing as television and to watch the news you had to go to the Academy picture theatre and watch the 'Movietone News' which was done in black and white and had a couple of Kookaburras chattering at the very beginning. Natuarally the news was weeks' and sometimes months' old.

When New Zealand sent a team to the Rome Olympics there was quite a bit of excitement in Waihi as a local athlete Val Morgan had been selected and took part in the games. Within weeks of the games ending a complete movie of it arrived in the Academy and the nuns took the entire school to watch it. It was just so very exciting to be watching a piece of history so soon after the event, and in living colour too. It was also tremendous in the fact that New Zealand did so well in the middle distance running. The awesome speed and power of Peter Snell as he came from the back of the field to win the gold medal was just fantastic.

Later when television came to Waihi in the early 1960's, HM Queen Elizabeth made a second visit to New Zealand and her arrival created a buzz of excitement. The ever-resourceful nuns arranged for Bob Caundle to put his black and white TV up high on his veranda and the whole school sat on his front lawn and watched her arrival live! It was the first time I think we had ever seen any public event presented live on television.

Bob Caundle was a real character. He actually had just one leg and used a pirate crutch to get around. He was a cobbler by trade and repaired many of my family's footwear. There was nothing that Bob couldn't do and that included riding a bicycle. He has a deep powerful voice and sang in the church choir. Living right beside the school he also served as a mentor to many of us. He never talked down at a kid, but spoke to them as an equal. His house was also fascinating as his shop was actually dug under the house and had a trapdoor upstairs under a carpet.


Sister Berchmans' class

When I got to Standard Four, I was taught by Sister Mary Berchmans* for the next three years. Sister Mary Berchmans was the Head Nun at Saint Joseph's and was an excellent teacher, who stood no nonsense in her classes.

By the time we were in Form II however we were all developing into fairly big boys and it became something of a 'sport' to see who could get the most 'cuts' off Sister Berchmans each week. I was usually a front runner. Sister Berchmans always gave the strap, and she had a graduted scale of offending so that we knew basically what we could expect for any of the class infringements.

By now, myself and my classmates were almost the same size as most of the Sisters, and in most cases considerably taller, and so our continual 'high-jinks' ensured that Sister Berchmans was one of the fittest nuns in the Order of Mercy. I think from memory my record for 'cuts' was 16 for a week...Brett Carnahan was pobably the all time winner because not only did he score well with his class room activities, he generally never did his homework.

Mind you Sister Berchmans was not silly, and if she thought we were having a cuts competition she would instead punish us with 100 lines, and that generally involved all members of the class trying to disguise their handwriting so that the required lines looked like they had been written by the student being punished. Patricia O'Dwyer, Erin Healey and Kathleen Golaboski could always be relied upon to assist us by forging our lines. It was Sister Berchmans who first got me interested in poetry and also writing.

Believe it or not when my class finally left Saint Joseph's in about 1964 Sister Mary Berchmans had tears in her eyes when she bade us goodbye. She gave each of us a small gift, mine was a picture of "Jesus - The Prince of Peace". I still have it.

(* Footnote: All girls who became Sisters of Mercy were renamed after suitable Catholic saints. She was renamed after Saint John Berchmans, a pious 17th century Jesuit priest. John Archer )


Full circle

For most of his life my father had been a virtual athiest. My family moved to Thames in about 1968 and my father brought a car. He would drive my mother to chuch and then sit outside and read the Sunday paper. In 1990, my parents moved back to Katikati so that they could be near the sea as my mother was terminally ill and had difficulty breathing. She then needed assistance to get into Saint Pius X Church so my father began escorting her to her seat, and remaining for the service.

One day he astounded my entire family by announcing that he was going to become a Catholic! I thought it might be just a bit of a whim, but he got stuck in, and did his studies and even read the bible. Because of the importance of Saint Joseph's to our family my father chose to be made a Catholic in Waihi. On the 23 April 1993, my father was received into the church at Saint Joseph's parish in Waihi where he received his First Holy Communion, and also was Confirmed on the same day. He took the name Joseph as his Confirmation name; he was 78. The Lord works in mysterious ways!


Dominus Vobiscum

In closing, may I say that I owe a great debt of gratitude to the Sisters of Mercy who taught me at Saint Joseph's Convent School in Waihi all of those years ago. My secondary education was mainly spent catching eels and hanging out with mates under Tauranga bridge while we all waited to turn 15 and glide into an apprenticeship or join the armed forces. I joined the armed forces and led a pretty colourful life serving some 25 years as a professional soldier.

My education as a 'Convent Kid' taught by the Sisters of Mercy, held me in good stead. "Dominus Vobiscum".

Also by Mike Subritzky:
- At Assembly Place "Lima" - an old gunner's poems.
- "Merry Christmas and keep your head down" - peace-keeping in Rhodesia.


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Published 10 Dec, 2001
Photos added July 2007.