Figure 1.--.

Shortly after my 13th birthday I went to live in a church run home for children of broken homes. I went there in mid 1973 and stayed until December 1975 when I went to live with my father. When I arrived at the home I was the oldest boy by about 2 years, there was a girl my age and one a year older. The youngest children were about 3 or 4. Some children had been there for several years and others only stayed for a few weeks.

Intermediate School Uniform

In New Zealand most schools have a uniform and when I went to live at the home I was in Form 2 at Intermediate School. Our uniform was navy blue shirt, shorts, vee-neck jersey with school colors around the neck and black shoes with navy knee socks which had the same trim as the jerseys. For PE we wore blue tee shirts and shorts. When I got home from school I had to change out of the uniform and get into other clothes to save wear and tear on the uniform. Once you grew out of clothes, they were handed down to smaller children.

Clothes at the Home

For a start I had all my own clothes but as I grew out of them I was given clothes from the store-room. Often clothes were donated to the home as well. We were always keen to see what 'new' stuff had arrived. We mainly wore tee shirts or short sleeved shirts in the summer, the younger boys wore shorts mostly and the older boys wore jeans or corduroy pants or shorts. Usually we had our clothes put out for us to wear so we didn't have much choice on what we wore. We wore a white shirt to church with either black shorts or black longs. In the colder winter months we had checked (plaid) flannel shirts and woolen jerseys and usually longs to wear. Not long after I went to the home one of the staff members washed my jerseys in hot water and then put them in the clothes dryer. So from fitting a 13 year old, they went to fitting the 6 & 7 year old boys. There was nothing else that fitted my and the matron said there was no money to buy me new jerseys so I wore a tee shirt and two flannel shirts for warmth.

New Matron

We got a new matron at the home in late 1973. The new matron had a rule that the boys had to do up the top button on their shirts at all times. The younger boys didn't seem to mind but us older ones objected as hardly anyone at school did it and we felt it was babyish. Our protests fell on deaf ears, the matron said we looked smarter and that rules were rules. If we undid them some of the girls would tell on us and we would get into trouble. In the end, it was less hassle just to do our collars up and forget about it. But I was not looking forward to going to a new school with my shirt done up.

Secondary School Uniform

At the end of 1973 I was alsi due to start High School in 1974 and needed a new uniform. Instead of navy blue, everything was grey with the school colors around the jersey and socks. Forms 3 and 4 wore shorts. We had white shorts and tee shirts for PE. Unfortunately for me the grey school uniform shirt and shorts I was given were rather mis-matched. The shorts were too big for me and had long legs which reached almost down to my knees. The school shirts were too small and the sleeves were really short on me. The collar was very tight but I still had to do it up. I thought I was going to choke with it. Off to my new school I went. The first day was really terrible. Everyone asked me if my shoes were having a party and inviting my shorts down. And someone with their top button done up was a novelty at high school. Having to wear glasses didn't help either and I remember bursting into tears when I got home after the first day. The teasing stopped after a while after people realized that I was from the childrens' home and had to wear what I was given. After a few weeks some larger school shirts arrived and I was given those which were a lot more comfortable, at least I didn't feel like I was choking all the time. I had to keep the hated long shorts (or short longs as everyone called them) as I was told I would grow into them in no time. I wore those shorts for three years at high school. Back then school shorts came about halfway down the top half of your legs - not down to your knees. It's ironic that the fashion is now for longer shorts, I would have been right in style.

Hair Cuts

One threat that was used against the boys at the home was that we would be made to have our hair cut short. This would have been a fate worse than death. Back then the fashion was to have hair over your ears and down over the collar. The staff at the home would cut our hair, and the mere though of a 'short back and sides' would have us behaving well for weeks. I think they would enjoy our nervousness sitting there not knowing what kind of haircut we were going to end up with.

Retrospective

It all seems amusing now looking back at the 2 ½ years I spent at the home, it didn't seem much like fun at the time. We were looked after well, and it was sad to learn of the hard times that some of the children had had in the past. There was always plenty of chores to do around the place, and I guess that taught us responsibility. Being the oldest boy, I got sick of filling coal buckets and getting firewood in. It was either that or drying dishes. The children's home is closed now, but I sometimes wonder what happened to the other kids that were there.

Matt

Created: June 8, 2002
Last updated: June 8, 2002