Mum... by Gary and others - Note that this page is still under construction so it's all jumbled at the moment and photos to be added
This is something of a belated tribute to Mum, a truly selfeless and remarkable, if occasionally frustrating woman. I had given Mum a few nudges to get her memoirs done, and she handed over the completed exercise book a couple of years ago, in 2005. I initially transcribed the thing verbatim (except where the odd context issue required a minor tweak), and this is what you see on Mum's page by Mum. There are however so many things Mum left out that it really does need a few stories tacked onto it, and that's what we have here.

I said frustrating above, because Mum always put others ahead of herself, sometimes to her detriment. One thing she did want was peace and quiet, and rather like a destitute artist whose paintings sell for millions after their death, she got her wish in the end. Mum also had a great sense of humour, although it was the dry variety, so she would never laugh out loud. It was more about subtle comments, eye rolling and barely contained giggling. Sometimes the giggles would slip out if she had a drink. Mum was not a drinker and the drink referred to would be a thimble-sized glass of wine, perhaps at Xmas or when at our place for dinner. Sniffing the cork would almost be enough to make her red in the face and tipsy. As a kid, I do remember us having a bottle of Blackberry Nip (the older folk may recall this stuff), and the tiniest glass of this fortified wine was partaken of on rare occasions.
 
Believe it or not, Blackberry Nip is still made by Sapich Brother in Henderson. It's listed on their website under specialty wines, with Cherry Brandy, Apricot Brandy and something called Purple Death. Actually, us kids were allowed a sip as well (at least I did - don't know about Warwick). Definitely a cultural highlight! Note - it was Blackberry Nip we had, not Purple Death. I just added the link because it's worth a read.
 

Warwick had a friend at primary school, Rodger Houghton, and Rodger was a Dingwall boy. In those days, if your parents split, or one of them died, or some such thing, it was common to be bunged in an orphanage, even though you weren't technically an orphan. Dingwall was such a place. Mum reckoned the lunches the kids got weren't much cop, so she would send an extra lunch to school with Warwick for Rodger. Smoked cheese was a favourite of Rodger's, and he told me about this when I contacted him in Australia after Mum passed away.
 
 
 

Mum was a great letter writer. She loved writing great long letters and her handwriting was always perfect. She would even write me letters about all sorts of things, including those she preferred not to speak about on the phone. When Dad's eyesight got too bad for him to write letters, she took over the job and continued to correspond on his behalf with old friends of his, and she would read their letters aloud to him..After she passed away, so many people commented on her letters and how they had always looked forward to getting one.
 
 
 


Mum was a great collector of recipes and handy hints. In the early days, she would listen to Aunt Daisy on the radio, and studiously write down recipes she knew she would never make in a million years, and handy hints ranging from removing stains to homemade cough syrup and shoe repair. She filled countless books with these and they were kept in a kitchen drawer. Aunt Daisy also put out a couple of books and these were in Mum's library along with the ubiquitous Edmonds Cookbook. After Aunt Daisy's demise in 1963, Mum would cut recipes out of magazines and newspapers and stick them into books. Dad was a plain food eater, and there were usually set things for dinner each night of the week. In the weekends it was staples like peanut brownies, pikelets or scones for morning tea. He wouldn't vary far from his food regime and I wonder if Mum's recipe collecting was just escapism.

Mum did in fact do a lot of baking. The peanut brownies, or "PBs" were a weekly standard along with the pikelets and scones, and she had a range of other things she would bake. Every so often she would add something new, usually from some recipe she had jotted down or been given, and this would remain in favour for a while. When Aunty Margie was alive, Mum would spend a Saturday filling tins with baking, making soup etc. to take over when she visited on the Sunday. Aunty Margie had a sweet tooth, and her favourite was caramel slice with the meringe topping. Most things were made by rote and recipes were only referred to if something new was on the schedule. That's not to say that Mum had it all nailed. Every so often, she would leave out some ingredient and the result would be, shall we say... different.

Knitting patterns and handy hints also found their way into the various repositories, although not quite on the same scale.
1959 edition
 

Mum never drove. I believe she had one driving lesson from Dad before I was born, and she went straight through the intersection of Kingseat & Glenbrook Roads without stopping. There were no more lessons after that little nail biter, so. it's just as well Mum was a good walker. Living in Papatoetoe where I grew up, she would walk to Hunters Corner in the morning and to Old Papatoetoe in the afternoon. Groceries were carried in a kitbag. Some other ladies who did their shopping in this manner had a trundler to carry their groceries. You don't see these now, but they were like a big, deep basket thing with two wheels and a handle. Mum finally decided to get one of these contraptions, but like the car, she wasn't too good at controlling it, and after giving it a few goes, she reverted to the bag. The shopping trips were not entirely without their social elements, because Mum would stop and talk to various friends along the way. She was quite a fast walker, but due to the regular stops to talk, the trips could take a while. When the Otara shopping centre was built, it was not unusual for her to walk there and back to do a bit of shopping. In the early days it was somewhat more up-market of course. Supermarkets and late night shopping were yet to arrive in NZ.
 
 
 

Mum was pretty good at first aid, although some of the techniqes were a little unusual. Bandages were always made from old cotton singlets cut into strips. If they were on the smaller side, they would be fastened by cutting the loose end into two strips, tying a single knot to prevent tearing, and finally tying the two strips together around the affected limb. Larger efforts were held with a safety pin, the application of which was an opportunity to add to the injury. Got a deep prickle? No problems! A poultice made with Sunlight soap and sugar did the trick every time. Nobody else I know ever had this one! Bee stings were treated with a blue bag, and who could ever forget the smell of Dettol!
 
Speaking of Sunlight soap, long after other people's mothers were using dishwash liquid, Mum was still using Sunlight soap, held captive in a little basket arrangement that she swished furiously back and forth under the hot water. This soap was also used for laundry, along with such products as Lux flakes and Rinso. Mum only bought an automatic washing machine after her old one bit the dust and you could no longer get the old wringer models, and it was a quantum leap for her, just as any moves to more modern appliances were. The old wringer job sat in the laundry next to the copper. The water was heated in the copper and transferred to the washing machine with a bucket. Concrete tubs were used for rinsing and the wet clothes put through the wringer before hanging out on the clothes line (with wooden pegs of course).

Those same concrete tubs were where Mum used to hang a muslin bag of boiled blackberries when making blackberry jelly (blackberry jam without seeds). The blackberries were boiled with sugar in the usual jam-making way, then squished into a muslin cloth and hung from a broom handle over the tubs so that the liquid could dribble into a bowl underneath. This was then reheated and put into jars. Mum did a lot of preserving and I always enjoyed the peeling, cutting, cooking and bottling in "Agee" jars. Dad had usually grown the fruit, but sometimes we would go to Oratia in west Auckland to buy cases of things for the purpose.
 
 
 

On one or two occasions, Uncle Ern and Aunty Ruby (Refer Aunty Kath page) came to Auckland and Uncle Ern would help Dad with a few jobs like building the glasshouse and laying concrete. Uncle Ern was dead keen on having a beer or ten, and I had a pocket knife with a bottle operer that I just had to try out a few times, so we made a great team! At some point, Ruby and Ern would take us out for a drive, or bring around a few bits and pieces they'd picked up. Two I remember clearly were scallops and sweetcorn. Because these items didn't form part of the Healey diet, I'd never had either before, so it was all a bit exciting. I think the scallops were a bit of a mystery to Mam as well, because she minced them and made fritters...sacrelige! Under instruction from Ruby and Ern, I learned that once corn on the cob was cooked, it was best eaten by hand after liberal application of butter and a bit of salt. What a treat!
 
 
 

Mabel Douse was a great friend of Mum's since childhood. The Douses lived down the road. One thing that struck me when I read Mum's memoir was that there was only scant mention of Mabel (or Aunty Mabel as she was know to us kids). I'm not sure why she seemed to skip over her, and I never got around to asking. I'll just do it myself! There are a lot of gaps in this as far as when they were kids, but one thing I know is that when she worked for Silknit after leaving school, Mum would meet Mabel for lunch. They also used to get all dressed up and go to the races together. Mum once related a story where she and Mabel had gone for a sail on a yacht with some guys, and Mabel had fallen overboard. I was amazed that Mum had even gone on the yacht, because she was most definitely not a water person.
 
 
Mabel Married Don Munro and settled into a house in Coronation Road, Glenfield, not far from Aunty Margie. She got her nickname "chook" it is believed, from the fact that she had five kids in quick succession, and looked like a mother hen surrounded by her chicks. The kids were Dorothy, Isabelle, Gordon, Margaret and Catherine.

Mum didn't drive, and with Mabel living over the shore we didn't see a lot of them unless they visited us in Papatoetoe. Mum and I did go and stay there once, and I have good memories of that, and we also went with them to Redwood park on the train once. Dad stayed home in his garden of course.
 
Aunty Mabel was a great cook and cake maker. Isabelle has followed in her footsteps, and she did the cake for Jenny's and my wedding in 2000. Something you don't see every day is a wedding cake with a goat on it. The goat's name was Gordon - our big friendly Saanen goat. He was not named after Isabelle's brother Gordon, but he could have been.
 
One of the last times Mum got together with Aunty Mabel was at her 80th birthday party at Isabelle's place in Milford.