The continuing story of my journey as a Boy Entrant in the RNZAF in 1956

About 6.30pm on 15th Jan 1956, the family took me down to the Auckland Railway Station to catch the “Limited” overnight train to Wellington about 12 hours away.

After we had found the right carriage, paid an extra shilling (10 cents) for the use of a pillow for the trip, gone through all the tearful farewells that families like to inflict on a 16 and a half year old, (with lots of other similar aged blokes around, going through the same routine) I boarded the train.

There were enough of us to fill the first 2 carriages behind the engine, 2nd class of course.

We were off on the start of growing up to be what we are now, for better or worse. For most of us, better.

For most of us this was the first long train trip we had ever done. We had been on 30 minute trips to stops around Auckland, but this was a biggie. 12 hours of sitting on seats that had been well squashed by many large, heavy people, until as we found out later, the floor was almost as soft.

[image source - Google]

We spent the first while staring out the un-open-able windows, watching the scenery flash by in the dark. After a while we tossed coins, etc and one bloke won the seat to try and curl up on, while the other climbed down under the seats and curled up there, on the floor. I lost (or perhaps won) the toss and ended up on the floor.

Around 12.30 am the first stop of note was Taumaranui. The train stopped here for 10 minutes so passengers could get out and purchase a sandwich and, or, a pie and cup of tea, served in and on one quarter inch thick, unbreakable crockery.

The fun then was trying to climb the steps that had been designed to be just outside your reach from the platform, without spilling or loosing you purchases. For a young stomach that was important, after all it was 7 hours since it had been fed, and you didn’t want to lose anything, or more important, miss the train.

The start of friendships were made there, with one bloke holding another’s stuff while he climbed aboard, and then him holding the other blokes stuff while he climbed on, mutual satisfaction all around.

At our recent 60 year reunion, mention was still made of this act of friendship between us.

We got back to our seats and scoffed the food and tea down before the train could jerk and make us spill something.

Then we waited and waited and waited, finally about 30 minutes later the Guard came through to explain that a north bound train had fallen off the rails in the middle of the Rarimu Spiral, (a notorious stretch of the north /south rail system). We were to be bussed to National Park rail station and board the north bound train for the rest of the journey.

Finally they found a couple of bus drivers sober enough to drive us, dug out the local garage owner to open up and fill the busses and trucks with fuel, and commence.

Of course, they started with the Sleeper Passengers first, followed by 1st class, and finally us 2nd class blokes.

On arrival at National Park we found that Railway drivers never want to push a train, so they had managed to get the engine to the south end of the train so they could pull it.

Some of the blokes reasoned that “If we were nearest to the engine before, we should be nearest the engine now” so they climbed into the sleeper carriages. The rest of us knew our place and went to the last two carriages, 2nd class.

It seemed like forever for all the freight to be trucked over between the two trains, but eventually, as dawn was breaking, we continued our trip to Wellington.

As we explored the carriage we found that the guards had collected all the used crockery from the other Pie and Tea stop - Taihape, ready for unloading at Taumarunui and placed them in boxes by the doors of our carriages.

We also found a window that with 6 of us helping, could opened 3-4 inches. And from there on until we ran out, as the train passed over every bridge, viaduct or trestle, a shower of cups, saucers and plates would emerge out of the last two carriages, and we would watch in awe as a railway cup would land on a tar sealed road, bounce a couple of times, and disappear into the roadside shrubbery still unbroken.

Eventually we arrived in Wellington, got fed another pie and cup of tea, at the railway station and then assembled in approximately 3 ranks to be marched to the interisland steamer Tamahine.

For some reason this ship had a permanent list to the right. As we boarded and waited for sailing time we watched the crew loading the ship.

image source

Long before “Roll On, Roll Off” ferries where you could drive your car onto the ship yourself, the rich could take their car across Cook Strait onboard the Tamahine by giving their keys to a wharfie. He drove the car onto a pallet that was attached to a crane with a rope in each corner. The crane would lift the pallet, swing around until the pallet was in the right place and then lower the pallet to the ship’s deck. Then another ship’s crewman drove the car off for parking.

There was no insurance cover and rumor has it that some cars were lifted without the park brake being set, with splashing results.

Fortunately we had a good calm crossing and reached Picton on time.

We were assembled and roll called, marched, again in approximately 3 columns, to the train that was to take us to Blenheim, 30 to 45 min away.

We all boarded, and then the guard found that there were more of us than there were seats, so 6 or 7 of us were taken to the guards van in the rear to sit on the mail bags for the journey.

We arrived in Blenheim, and suddenly everybody was getting concerned about how many of us there were, so we had another roll call to make sure nobody had gone missing.

The truck pulled up, dropped the rear flap to show the usual wooden slat seats front to back on each side and a pair in the middle.

We arrived in Woodbourne just in time to make tea at our new home for the next year, and for some two years.

We were roll called into flights - groups of 20 boys, who then found the drill instructors had a good grasp of the English language, with some verbal combinations that weren’t in common every day speech. They got us into three column wide formations, and marched us to our barracks.

These were 4 dormitories set in an H pattern, with toilets / showers in the center. 20 boys to a room. A bed, wardrobe and 4 draws per boy.

We dropped our bags, lined up again and marched off to tea.

After tea we were formed up in our new barrack groups and had to wait until the last one had finished tea so we could be marched back to our barracks for the night.
When we got back we found that each bed had a “Blanket Pack” on it. This was 1 blanket folded in quarters lengthwise, four blankets folded in eighths so that no raw edges showed, and arranged blanket, sheet, two blankets, sheet, one blanket all wrapped around the outside by the long wrapped blanket. It was a work of art, and if flipped over, could be carried by grabbing the outside blanket.

We then set about making up our beds for the night only to find half of us had never done that job before, as Mum had always done it for us. Later we also learned about doing the washing and ironing as well, but that is another yarn.