Life #21: Social Avenue
This chapter revisits the avenue and abode of our post-farming years, recollecting family stories and drawing parallels to the evolution of our family home. Dedicated to my younger siblings, Steve and Linda, and to Bev, for these childhood memories we will always share.
We lived down at number ten, on Fifteenth Avenue
A brick veneer residence; it even had a view
With farming getting tough
Mum and Dad had enough
So we’d left Ohauiti, to start again anew
We made this major move, in nineteen sixty-seven
Four siblings two and five, me nine and Bev eleven
No more milking the cows
Sold the chooks and the sows
Living closer to town, our new home felt like heaven
Plush shag pile carpeting, and linoleum floors
Reupholstered lounge chairs, matched the suite from the stores
A phone nook in the wall
At the top of the hall
A gigantic basement, with two glass sliding doors
The crackly old wireless, and vintage gramophone
The black and white TV, Kodak camera monochrome
Farm photos were wall-mounted
Days forever recounted
Our gumboots were nearly, the only footwear we owned
The Chevrolet farm truck, was repainted blue
Dad would drive it to work, all shiny and new
And parked in the carport
For family transport
A Holden station wagon, to fit all of us crew
On Sunday afternoons, that Holden would rove
Mum in the front knitting, Dad smoked as he drove
Some kids in the boot
Whatever the route
To farms, hot pools, picnics, remote beaches and coves
Steve and I shared a bedroom, overlooking the avenue
The traffic got heavier, as Tauranga city grew
That busy thoroughfare
Could take you anywhere
But just where we were destined, not one of us yet knew
My Noddy series books, were a younger kid’s fad
But later they were banned, had correctness gone mad
I would sit on our swing
Wonder what life will bring
How far will I venture, from this family pad
We could wade across to Rat Island at low tide
We’d play by the water, and build huts where we’d hide
I’d tinker in the basement
Our football lawn adjacent
To the tin shed Dad built, to keep my cacti inside
There was a private playground, by the nearby motel
Steve and Linda were playing, when suddenly she fell
Broke her leg on the see-saw
She would’ve only been four
Steve piggybacked her home, clearly hurting like hell
Our front fence bloomed roses, from bright yellow to rouge
Dad’s vegetable garden, was abundant and huge
Plump tomatoes he’d grow
Neatly staked out in rows
Toiling over that soil, was his weekend refuge
Mum stuck to her knitting, at the dining window seat
Bev excelled at the piano, my own lessons incomplete
Bev often played along
To all their chosen songs
Vera Lynn and The Seekers, requested on repeat
The Bay of Plenty Times, Dad thoroughly read
Mum searched shopping specials, in the double page spread
Or would study the horses
She and Nana joined forces
I remember the smell, of fresh-baked Sunday bread
Mum’s annual Christmas pudding, had threepence coins in the mix
She’d make a mean pavlova; the bowl and whisk left for licks
Home-cooked biscuits in the tin
In case visitors called in
Or a baked rice pudding , she’d whip up in two ticks
Around the dining table, games of cards we would play
The Formica gloss surface, was fashion in its day
Old jerseys we’d unpick
Wool for Mum to re-knit
Sold newspapers to butchers, for them to wrap their meat trays
Homework in the sewing room, by Mum’s Pfaff and foot cable
Or on the end of my bed, at the folding card table
Many nights I would curse it
Was this study all worth it
Quite often concentration, not so focussed and stable
Diesel trucks rumbled past, from the depot up the road
A petrol station and shop, were opposite our abode
Out the window I’d stare
At the cars they’d repair
I’d contemplate swapping, our very different workloads
We found part-time jobs, to help pay our own way
Before school, weekends, and each school holiday
From groceries to paper rounds
Then Friday nights walked the town
I’d borrow the Anglia, if Dad said it’s okay
We would skateboard down, our steep asphalt drive
From old roller skates, our boards were derived
In the basement played darts
One once pierced through the glass
The seventies were a wonderful time to be alive
But four kids still at school, they struggled to afford
So they brought in a lodger, to pay money for board
Whilst adding to our means
Bev was now in mid-teens
Had to share her small bedroom, for that extra reward
But the boarder was stealing, Mum’s Fair Isle knitted tops
Immediately evicted, they should have called the cops
Dad still brought home the bacon
But confidence was shaken
He started making home brew, I can still smell the hops
That brew was so strong, bottles would burst their lids
If too many consumed, you could soon hit the skids
After work Dad uncoiled
As veggies over-boiled
Then dishes and school lunches, were jobs left for us kids
The day Bev got married, everyone was elated
The house was repainted, and newly decorated
Gifts from one and all
Were displayed down the hall
Our home and the wedding, were together celebrated
I remember Mum and Dad, overbrimming with pride
With guests from far and wide, and their beautiful bride
Bev not quite twenty
Happiness a plenty
But from this moment forward, marked the turning of the tide
For barely another, four years would unfold
While away at university, some things stay untold
Before starting my travels
Fifteenth Avenue unravels
Our parents separated, and our family home is sold
Then our avenue became, an industrial zone
To fit a car sales yard, they repositioned our home
They stripped its brick veneer
Yet it’s still our yesteryear
Though very hard to tell, it is the house we once owned
Just as our old farmland, had become residential
Our avenue succumbed, to commercial potential
I search for more evidence
That this was our residence
Reminiscent reflections, tinged deeply sentimental
I imagine Mum scrubbing, those linoleum floors
Dad digging in the garden, kneeling down on all fours
I visualise Mum sitting
At the front window knitting
While the basement may have gone, I still hear those sliding doors
I stare back in nostalgia, from that same petrol station
Thankful that this avenue, offered different destinations
Tears well in my eyes
At our dwelling’s demise
Fourteen formative years, as the Holmes’s habitation
I see it’s not number ten, Fifteenth Avenue anymore
Squeezed above our old neighbours, where we played football next door
This childhood abode
Bears a burdensome load
Memories etched in those walls …. where they’ll remain forevermore
Kevin Holmes • 15th January 2026
