Petone

I have warm memories of Petone. In my younger days - I was 21 at the time - I moved to Petone and boarded with an elderly widow and worked at the General Motors car, truck and Frigidaire appliance factory just around the corner from where I lived. On Thursdays and Fridays we finished work about 3.30pm so I used to race home, change into my swimming togs and go down to the Petone beach for a swim on the hot days in summer.

At GM's I had a good job as an electrical tester of Frigidaire electric stoves, fridges and freezers. I was their test electrician. I enjoyed the work and the staff were wonderful people to work with.

While I worked there, and was living with the widow, I used to go to dances in Lower Hutt, not far away, on Saturday nights, which is where I met Jill while I was there with another girl. I met her when my partner accepted a dance with another fellow, so I asked Jill. Nothing happened that night but two weeks later I decided to go back to the dance hoping Jill would be there, and I remember saying to my landlady "Tonight I'm going to meet the girl I am going to marry," and I hoped very much that Jill would be at the dance.

Behold she was! And that was the start of our courtship. We married a year later. I was 24 and she was 20, and we took a flat in Petone.

Later we had the opportunity of renting a cheaper part-house in Lower Hutt, buying the whole house a couple of years later. Then we began our family and later we moved back to Hamilton, which was my home town, because of my aging parents. Though we moved to another town after my parents passed away we returned later and are happily settled in Hamilton now.