My Early Life (continued)

I was about 12 the second time I went to boarding school along with my sister, Helen, maybe Mary too. This was at St Philomena's in South Dunedin not too far away from St Clair where we lived, in fact I once raced home to get supplies for a midnight feast. My mother was in Wakari Hospital recuperating on the verandah with plenty of fresh air after her big operation to remove what was called a spot. We were not allowed to go and see her - perhaps they thought she had TB and would be infectious. We went to people's places in the school holidays - Mary Anderson's in Central Otago, Kathryn O'Neil's also up that way, the Hardiman's farm near Mataura, Carrie O'Neills, out of Dunedin. My mother came home and was nursed at home by the Sisters of the Assumption and we came home for the rest of my what was then called Stanard 6 year. The following year we came north to Auckland, as my father had a job as a senior inspector with the IRD. We girls went to St Mary's ollege, walking each morning from 23 Faulder Avenue in Westmere, past Coxes Creek, up the ZigZag to the Herne Bay bus terminus where we got the bus to Three Lamps. Three years later we shifted to 199 Jervois Rd, a big old villa with nice harbour views over to the Chelsea Sugarworks. School C, UE accredited, then a Form VII year before going to Auckland University , majoring in English and German. Took a year off to go to Germany part way through where I had a couple of semesters in Saarbrucken, where Mum had grown up. It is a city not far from the French border. I saw quite a lot of my Tante Anne-Marie, Mum's sister, Onkel Willi and twins Gabi and Joachim who were about 10, who lived about 100 kms away in Nieder-Floersheim. Picked grapes during the grape harvest and enjoyed the German wine and my aunt's baking and cooking. However homesickness kicked in and I went home shortly after Christmas and finished off my degree back home.

I got my first job at Auckland Public Library and worked there for 18 months as an intermediate library in the Music Dept, which was in with lending non-fiction on the ground floor of the old library, which is now part of the Art Gallery. There was a separate floor for NZ material and reading room on the first floor, the children's room was tucked away one floor up and the staff room was up another flight of stairs . I graduated in May 1968 and a couple of weeks later set sail again for Germany where I had a job in Wolfsburg Public Library to go to.

(More later)