I started school the year WW2 was declared, 1939. Joyce Davis (nee Heron) was in my class right through school. then the Bay was a fairly isolated country village. We lived by the corner of Bolton Street and our nearest neighbor was on the corner of Puketea Street, so there were plenty of empty sections on which to play our favourite game of “rounders”.
Craigavon Park is a recreational area in Blockhouse Bay and bordering Green Bay, Auckland. This park with its bush setting with walking tracks, playing areas and children’s playground offers residents of the surrounding area the opportunity to enjoy the outdoors without having to venture far from the Blockhouse Bay main street and shopping area. Named after Lord Craigavon from Ireland (and Marianne’s birthplace), this park was donated by Marianne Caughey (Mrs W. H. Smith) as a gift to Auckland in November 1929.
A wet afternoon and a box of old photos needing labelling and sorting, but soon I found myself remembering back to the 1940s. One memory led to another and though the photos are still largely unsorted, I had a fascinating afternoon, even going right back to commencing school during the early days of WWII.
Blockhouse Bay Historical Society
A Gift To Our Community
From 1939, Helen Blows, with sons Bruce, Keith, Ray and Don, lived at 20 Mitchell Street, and the family were all very involved in Bay life.
After service on the “Leander” in WW2, Bruce Blows, and his wife Billie, bought two acres of land across the road on the corner of Connell and Mitchell Streets and built their home in 1946.
When Bruce and Billie were first living on this property, their friend John A.R. Blandford, an Auckland representative cricketer, was playing in England and brought home acorns taken from a mighty oak tree in Sherwood Forest. He gave them three acorns, which were planted on the very corner of their property. All three grew very well but became intertwined, so two were cut out, leaving the remaining one to grow into the mighty specimen oak tree there today.
Alexander Turnbull Library
After having the pleasure of hearing at our April meeting, Tyl von Randow’s talk on his childhood in Shanghai during WW2, this is the story of his Mother’s fame here in Auckland as an artist and contemporary designer of hand woven fabrics.
After the communists came to Shanghai, Ilse von Randow and her two sons, in April 1952, through refugee status, settled in Auckland. When Ilse was living in Shanghai she had designed woven fabrics for textile companies, and when settled here, over the next fourteen years, she became a central figure in the establishment of modernist craft weaving in New Zealand.
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