Just a pair of brown trousers

As a young child I was always out on my trike socialising! We lived in a village long associated with mums family, on the edge of the New Forest half an hour south from Stonehenge. At some stage in the early 1900’s my great grandfather Stephen Witt, a farmer miller etc, had a brick house built involving a combination bakery grocery inside and to the rear of our house with no number,  in Station Road. I remember the phone number was simply: 0901, in the 1940’s. Then there was no other business except a residential pub across the road opposite the station. Stephen  probably used the station a lot for carting his flour up to London.

 He later transferred the property to my grandfather Sam Witt. A quietly spoken man with strong views,  and intelligence laced with good humour. He used to collect coins. He and gran, sadly missed after we’d migrated. The lack of foot traffic outside the dual businesses meant that there was much delivery of customer goods involved, an added expense. My mother loved school but then the expectation  was for the children to help in the shop, so she left school at fourteen and a half, as did her older sister and brother, Gordon her older learnt to be a pilot in the air-force during the war years.

One day when out and about and late for lunch Dad came out looking for me and found me sitting on the kerb side sharing the road sweepers lunch; a bacon buttie no less. (I often wave to those who work on the road.) So it was that decades later, when out walking in Hillsborough, I came across Patsy, or she came across me. We connected up in the whisker of an eye. Over time she opened up her heart to me, and what a joy!

Patsy went twice a week to the R.S.A. Social Club and followed up with a bit of shopping. We’d meet up casually now and then for a catch-up. We might walk along the Manukau Harbour with its water soft piscine fringe and rich birdlife. We’d sieve through our lives, recalling memories and occasionally wrap ourselves in and around the silence. Her stout hand bag never left her side, determinedly draped over one arm or another.

“I do need to visit the op shop again Sarah, my rain coats seen better days.” She’d say.

Patsy was a bold and energetic woman , and old enough to be my mother, (who was in a nearby Rest Home.) Never would Patsy ‘wear her heart on her sleeve. Her shoulder length hair neatly framed a mostly smiling face enhanced with stunning blue eyes. She engaged readily with people. We had that in common, ha, ha. 

Over the years I learnt that Patsy’s parents had travelled up from the South Island . She and an older sister had been born in Gisbourne in the 1920’s. Their father an Australian. Like most of the population her family was severely challenged by ‘The Depression.’ Food scarce, ironically meat was cheap! Her parents separated when she was a two year old, her father probably returned to Aussie.

“To me he’s just a pair of ‘brown trousers.’ That’s all I remember of him.”

Social welfare intervened and thankfully the girls were fostered out and subsequently adopted into a family of four, including two boys.

“The Social Workers took quite an authoritative stance, Patsy said. Her matter – of – fact position a camouflage. They’d rummage through our drawers and pick out our precious hand-made items and discard grubby toys, (which could have been washed) and tossed them out of the window. Never mind our hidden feelings about attachment.

If Patsy’s early days had proved turbulent, her life was to gradually improve. The sisters attended their Grey Lynn school happily, subsequently the family shifted to One Tree Hill. Here first job in a bakery business meant travelling to Newmarket. Which meant she needed to rush to catch a ‘rare bus’ in Great South Road.

She laughed. “I only lasted two days. Just as well, the doughnuts were so yummy.”

A Yorkshireman proved to be a great boss in her second job before she would come to wear her white starched  nursing uniform. He was a manufacturing jeweller a most understanding of men based near the city wharf. 

“The few times I happened to be late, usually when the bus service was late, he never scolded or docked my pay!”

“Did you ever go to any dances in your time off?” I enquired, both Mum and I loved dancing, me beginning from ballet as a child. 

“No I would go bike riding with a girl -friend and we’d also go to activities at the Y.W.C.A. They taught us how to use the high flying ropes and climbing facilities.”

“Sounds as though one was very well supervised then?”

“Yes, we certainly were, Patsy responding cheerfully.

Then back in 1946 , I began my nursing practise. I loved every minute. We stayed at the Cargen Hotel for the first three months, sitting in for exams and lectures every week. Overall despite the shortage of food, following WW2., we thoroughly enjoyed ourselves. There would be four of us sharing a table and we’d deal out a pack of cards afterwards, and have a bit of a laugh together and finish up with a discussion around our exam work, with a pen in hand!”

Patsy remembered her wages as fourteen shillings and tuppence, with board. She met her husband Andrew in Greenlane Hospital, when he was visiting his Mother. They hitched up in 1949 and had four children.

“We did so enjoy our camping trips around the North and South Islands. One year we bought a tent in Symonds Street and my clever thrifty husband altered the length of the canvas to fit all six of us in. We’d snuggle in together. There were never any arguments as to who slept where! Andrew also bought a Holden from a garage in Otahuhu, improving the cars performance by adding another gear. He was a wonderful chap, inside and out of his family.”

“Not only that Sarah, but you’d never believe that he’d build our home in his spare time. It took him all of three years. Neighbours were amazing too. When it came to placing to placing the roof on, they’d turned up unexpectantly and we got it done in record time.”

“ Jeepers what a wonderful memory to hold  and you’re still living in the house which your darling husband built Patsy.”  (I left the area late in 2015, realising we all tend to carry stories along in out hearts.)

“They’ll have to take me out of here in a box she’d say vibrantly.”