MAKING MISCHIEF

Betty Hunt readily admits that she hated school. But she had a ball once school was over for 
the day.

The second youngest of five children, Mrs Hunt was born in Dunedin in the Depression years 
and lived in Mornington. Her father drove cable cars up and down High Street.

She doesn't remember the Depression days but recalls her father's words: "He said we didn't 
have much money but we were fortunate he had a job and we always had something on our 
backs and something in our tummies."

Mrs Hunt says school was pretty tough. The teachers who had taught her older siblings were 
still there when she became a schoolgirl and she had a fair idea of what they were like even 
before she was taught by them.

She hated school: "I used to play the wag and once I got away with it for a whole week. I 
can't remember what I did when I was supposed to be at school, but I can remember I was 
playing on some swings when someone potted me.

"I was dragged back to school and told off - we weren't often hit, only when we'd done 
something really bad."

After school was the best time of the day as far as young Betty was concerned: "We lived in a 
street where there were a lot of families and we used to play on the streets. We could go 
anywhere without fear because there were policemen on the streets and we got to know them 
all."

There was a Friday ritual: “My father was working so I don't think I ever took a pillowcase, 
but I used to go down to the Phoenix Biscuit Factory with my friends whose fathers didn't 
have jobs. They'd get a pillowcase full of scrap - broken biscuits - for just one shilling and 
sixpence (15 cents)”.

Mrs Hunt remembers the fun the children had with paper chases. Someone would tear up 
pieces of paper and drop them along the streets while the rest of the children followed.

There were plenty of opportunities for getting into mischief She smiles as she recalls some of 
their childhood escapades.

"There was an elderly woman living in the street who had a beautiful garden of daffodils. 
When they were out we'd pick them. I swear every house in the street had daffodils by the 
end of the day. Ooh, we were awful," she laughs.

She can also remember the boys causing mayhem, no doubt encouraged by the girls: " The 
boys were dreadful. Fire alarms were set on lamp-posts in those days the boys would set 
them off, then chase the fire engines to see where they were going!"

After completing their primary education Mrs Hunt's siblings went on to technical college. 
However, she left school at the end of Standard Six. She was thirteen.

"I worked in a florist shop in High Street for ten years," she relates. "I started during the war 
when the owner's husband was away and I can remember my first pay packet.

"It was 18 shillings and a penny ($1.81). After I'd given my parents board money, I went out 
and bought my first pair of nylon stockings. Up to then I'd only had sockettes - ankle socks.

"The boss used to come to work with a nice hat which I admired so with my second pay I 
bought a hat."

Mrs Hunt has many pleasant memories of her teenage years.

"I remember VJ Day at the end of the war. The Exchange was just thick with people hugging 
and kissing one another, singing and jumping with joy. It was wonderful."

She also remembers the legendary Joe Brown Town Hall dances of the late forties.

"I used to go to the dance every Saturday night - I met a lot of boys there," she chuckles.

"They used two halls and you could go from one to the other. There was modern dancing in 
one hall and old time dancing in the other. I liked the old time dances better - dances such as 
the foxtrot, Canadian Schottische, maxina and military two step."

Mrs Hunt recalls having to leave the dance to catch the last tram to Mornington which left 
from the bottom of High Street at 11 pm. She then had to walk the rest of the way home.

"It was so dark but we were never scared because there was nothing to be scared of," she 
explains.

It was the absence of fear which makes Betty Hunt grateful that she grew up in the 1940s and 
not the 1990s.


This item from the Otago Age Concern Publication  Memories are Made of This
is used with permission
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