Sandringham, Auckland - October 2024.
The walls are painted bright yellow—not the sickly hue Charlotte Perkins Gilman described in The Yellow Wallpaper; it’s a sunshine-and-rainbows yellow. The kind that makes you smile without realising. He’s sitting at one end of the faux leather sofa, the side closest to the exit, with a stack of paper on his lap. They appear to be crossword puzzles at first, but then you realise the crosswords are merely one side of the sheet and that he’s written on the other.
This is not Hugh’s home. We are meeting in the playroom at the Sandringham Community Centre on Kitchener Road. We bought biscuits. He brought a book on bridge, extensive notes on the area’s history, his memories, and memories of his father. His scribbles on the back of crossword puzzles are not the only thing guiding our conversation. Everything around us—the shops in Sandringham Village, the trees, the footpath, the school—has witnessed Hugh’s life. If only these walls could speak is the common refrain of the historian, and in a way, they can. Hugh understands their language, a language derived from shared history, and, with that knowledge, speaks on their behalf.
Hugh’s grandfather, a Scottish immigrant, did not arrive in Sandringham but in a suburb called Edendale, which was then little more than a village surrounded by swamplands. During the rainy seasons, Edendale Rd, Gribblehirst Park, and Eden Park became lakes, flooded by water from higher parts of Mt Albert, Mt Roskill, and Epsom. It would not be until the early 1920s that drainage infrastructure alleviated flooding in the suburb. Today, Edendale School is one of the few institutions that preserves the suburb’s original name, which was changed to Sandringham in 1929.
Sandringham might have seemed a peculiar name at the time, for the flood-prone farmland had little resemblance to its namesake, the royal family’s 20,000-acre estate in the Norfolk Coast Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty. But in some respects, 1920s Sandringham was an ugly duckling on the cusp of transformation. The arrival of the tramline down Edendale Road in 1925 marked the beginning of a period of significant infrastructure and economic development for the area. Edendale School’s student population, which was 146 when it opened in 1909, quickly ballooned to 929 by 1925, making it the third-largest primary school in the country. By the late 1920s, when Hugh’s father was at Kōwhai Intermediate School, Sandringham Village had taken on most of its present-day appearance. However, the Mayfair Theatre, built in 1927, no longer occupies its former seat between Calgary St and Halesowen Ave.
Hugh is the third generation of his family to live in Sandringham. His grandfather, a member of the Scottish regiment during WWI, and his father, who spent his entire life in Sandringham, were both tailors and ran a shop in Sandringham Village. Intergenerational family trades were the norm for his father and grandfather’s generation, but Hugh, a child of the '50s, was not interested in running a tailor shop. Instead, he worked at Smith & Caughey’s and later for Russell & Somers Shipping Ltd. Even after the tailor shop closed, Hugh’s father remained devoted to his craft, working from home and providing alterations for clothing stores and locals.
Hugh’s father had rented a house at the corner of Taumata Rd and Duncan Ave, one of the few two-storey houses in a suburb filled with neat rows of single-storey California-style bungalows. “He told me that if you saw a tram coming…if you really ran down Duncan Ave, you would just catch it when it got to Sandringham,” Hugh recalled. There were other things that Hugh’s father had told him, and he glances down now at the bullet-pointed notes in his lap, pausing to sift through decades of memories and conversations. There were the occasional gorse fires down by Haverstock Rd, where the new development is today; the relief workers who built the bottom playing field at Edendale School during the Great Depression; and farmland that stretched as far as the eye could see.
The only remaining farmland in the area now belongs to Mount Albert Grammar School (MAGS), which sits at the base of Owairaka/Mt Albert. Owairaka translates to “the place of Wairaka”. Wairaka was the daughter of Chief Toroa, who sailed the Mataatua canoe from Hawaiki to the Bay of Plenty. From there, Wairaka led a section of her tribe to Auckland and established a pā on the maunga. When the British arrived, they named it Mt Albert in honour of Prince Albert, to whom Queen Victoria was newly married. However, the landscape has changed. In the time of Wairaka, the maunga was far more imposing than it is today, having been relentlessly quarried during the 19th century for balsamic rock. It is estimated that 1.5 million cubic metres of scoria were removed from Mt Albert, reducing its height by 15 metres (Dunsford 101). Mt Albert’s “beheading” and its diminished shadow is a testament to how little in our landscape remains pure and untouched since the time of our ancestors, no matter how much the notion of “purity” is prized in the language of social and environmental conservation.
The school is built on what was once part of the Kerr Taylor estate, stretching over 600 acres across Auckland’s western suburbs. When Hugh’s father attended MAGS in the early 1930s, everything south beyond Owairaka Ave was still farmland. However, this changed quickly during the post-war housing shortage. When Hugh started at MAGS in 1964, those former farmlands began to be peppered with houses, including a vast development of state homes built on the Wesley Estate during the 1940s.
1949
Mount Albert Grammar School opened in 1922 with a roll of 287 boys and 11 staff members under the leadership of Headmaster F. W. Gamble. His successor, William Caradus, was appointed in 1947. As more of the Kerr Taylor estate came onto the market, the Board purchased land to serve as playing fields. Over time, the playing grounds would be converted into permanent classrooms as the school's population grew.
Mount Albert Grammar School, 1949. Taken by Whites Aviation Ltd. Alexander Turnbull Library, WA-19560-G
1956
Murray Nairn was appointed the third headmaster of MAGS in 1954. The immediate problem the school encountered at the time was its lack of permanent classrooms. Since opening, the only new buildings that had been opened were the hall and gymnasium, and the school had become reliant on prefabs. 1956 saw extensive renovations across the school, including the painting of the main building's exterior—all this in preparation for a visit from the Duke of Edinburgh in December.
Mount Albert Grammar School, 1956. Taken by Whites Aviation Ltd. Alexander Turnbull Library, Wellington, New Zealand, WA-42818.
1959
Several new buildings were erected during Nairn's tenure. In 1958, an extension to the nothern wing of the main building was completed (visible left side of main building).
Mount Albert Grammar School, 1959. Taken by Whites Aviation Ltd. Alexander Turnbull Library, WA-51798.
1964
In 1963, the extension to the northern wing completed in 1958 was further extended (visible left side of main building). In 1964, a new technical "T-Block" was built (visible back right corner of main campus)
Mount Albert Grammar School, 1964. Taken by Whites Aviation Ltd. Alexander Turnbull Library, WA-62870-G.
1968
The final stage of Nairn's rebuilding program was completed at the start of 1968. The new two-story D-Block is visible on the far right side of the main campus. Murray Nairn retired at the end of the following year.
For the first time in many, many years, the school is without prefabs.
— Headmaster Murray Nairn, addressing parents in 1968.
Mount Albert Grammar School, 1968. Taken by Whites Aviation Ltd. Alexander Turnbull Library, WA-67722-G.
1972
G. M (Maurice) Hall became Headmaster at the beginning of 1970. The new School House was completed in 1971, and MAGS celebrated its golden jubilee the following year.
Mount Albert Grammar School, 1972. Taken by Whites Aviation Ltd. Alexander Turnbull Library, WA-70117-G.
When Hugh’s mother sent him up the road to buy groceries, he recalls having to choose between several dairies, butchers and grocers, including the Independent Grocers Alliance, the Four Square opposite Coyle St, the Self Help Co-Operative Grocery, and the Blue and White at 542 Sandringham Road. These names have all but disappeared from suburban life. Only a dozen Four Squares remain in the greater Auckland region, including one in Onehunga and Britomart. Four Square Britomart is open every day between 7:00 am and 8:00 pm, but it wasn’t that long ago that Hugh skipped the main village on the weekends and opted instead for the dairy opposite his school, for all the grocers would have been closed.
The “great New Zealand weekend” was a safeguarded social practice well into the 1980s, but that wasn’t always the case. Sunday is the “day of rest”, as decreed by Emperor Constantine in 321 AD, but most workers in the 19th century worked six-day weeks. By the 1920s, it was common practice for Saturday to be a half-holiday, and the introduction of the Shops and Offices Amendment Act of 1945 set a 40-hour working week as standard. From then on, most shops were shut over the weekend, except for hardware stores, which were open on Saturday mornings, and dairies, which were open seven days a week.
What else was there in the village? Hugh recalls a barber shop, two chemists, a haberdashery, some electrical stores, an ASB branch, and two fish and chip shops. “There were no such things as takeaways like Kentucky Fried [Chicken] and things like that…I think I went to Australia to find out what Kentucky Fried [Chicken] was all about. The fish shops at five o’clock on Friday nights were just bedlam. Everybody came in to buy fish and chips for tea.”
Hugh’s grandmother died before he was born, but she had three sisters who all lived on the corner of Carrie St and Coyle St. One of them, “Auntie Bell”, became his adoptive grandmother. Going to the cinema was their preferred form of entertainment. The closest was obviously the Mayfair, just across the road, but its viewings were limited, and it was nowhere as exciting as going to the picture theatres in town. “It was a really big deal to go into town,” Hugh recalled. “You had to get dressed up…you didn’t just go into town like everybody does now.”
The first electric trams in Auckland began operating in 1902 and continued to be expanded into the 1930s before they began to be slowly phased out in favour of trolleybuses. Hugh has vague recollections of the tram, but mainly, he remembers his father telling him that one must never take another man’s seat. “They were really picky. The men going into town each had their own seat, and if someone sat in their seat, it was a big deal. They got really angry about it!” The last tram route in Auckland closed in 1956.
One can understand why Hugh opted to work in the city rather than in his family’s tailor shop. Fashionable shopping destinations like Smith & Caughey’s have a certain allure, and going into town was imbued with ceremony. Smith & Caughey’s occupies one of the most iconic buildings on Queen St, designed by Chicago-trained architect Roy Alstan Lippincott and opened in 1929. Lippincott also designed the original University of Auckland Arts Building, featuring the iconic octagonal clock tower. In 2024, it was announced that Smith & Caughey’s would be downsized due to poor sales, with the closure of its Newmarket store and the reduction of the flagship Queen St store from two storeys to one.
Farmers, on the other hand, has continued to thrive, but it wasn’t always the upscale suburban department store it is now. Hugh recalls riding the shuttle from Queen St to the Farmers flagship store on Hobson St, where he would lunch with his great-aunt after a morning at the cinemas. Since opening in 1920, the original Farmers building was expanded several times to include a rooftop playground, tearooms, a high-rise parking building, and in 1955, the first set of escalators in Auckland. Originally a mid-level retail store, Farmers shifted its focus towards fashion after the introduction of The Warehouse. Today, the aptly named Heritage Hotel occupies the original Farmers building.
Hugh’s father had attended Kōwhai Intermediate School and wanted Hugh to do the same. When Kōwhai opened in 1922, it became the first intermediate school in the country; existing schools like Edendale catered to students from infants to teenagers, which in some cases proved strenuous. On opening day, 188 pupils transferred from Edendale to attend Kōwhai Junior High, as it was called. Four years later, Brixton School, now called Balmoral, was established. By the time Hugh reached the end of his primary schooling, he had no uncertainty about which one he wanted to attend. “My father wanted me to go to Kōwhai because it was easier to get on a bus and go down there. But I said, ‘No, no, no! All my mates are going to Balmoral, and I’m going there too, please!’”
When Hugh began at MAGS in 1964, the school, which had been built in his father’s childhood, was over forty years old. The third headmaster, Murray Nairn, was entering his tenth year at MAGS, and the deputy headmaster was G. L. “Dad” Weir, a member of the foundation class at MAGS in 1922. “Dad Weir was a New Zealand Cricket International,” said Hugh, glancing at his notes. “He played cricket for New Zealand in the 1930s.” After retiring from cricket in 1937, Weir returned to MAGS to teach. He would remain at MAGS until 1978. In the ‘80s, Hugh’s two sons would also attend MAGS, this time under the leadership of headmaster Maurice Hall, who passed away in May 2024.
Under Nairn’s leadership, the school grounds received a significant overhaul during Hugh’s time there. Although the MAGS student population had grown significantly, its buildings had not. In 1954, with over 1000 students, the school had “two permanent classrooms fewer than when its roll was only 500” (Stone and MacMillan 120). Most classroom demands were met with prefabs. By 1968, the year after Hugh graduated from Mount Albert Grammar, three new buildings had been built to replace all the school’s prefabs. “For the first time in many, many years,” Nairn said, “the school is without prefabs” (Stone and MacMillan 123).
Since then, dozens of new prefabs have occupied the school grounds as the school’s roll has grown. It is currently the country’s second-largest school, with nearly 3500 students. In 2021, the all-weather G. L. Weir Sports Center was opened, followed by the three-storey Nairn building in 2024, which provides eighteen new classrooms, a whare wānanga, and a revamped library.
Bridge kept coming up in our email correspondence with Hugh, and today, he’s brought a book by the British bridge player and writer Terence Reese. In a career spanning over four decades, Reese won the European Championship four times (in 1948, 1949, 1954, and 1963), the Bermuda Bowl in 1955, and The Sunday Times Invitational in 1964. He was also an editor for the British Bridge World magazine and wrote over 90 books. Hugh’s is a copy of Bridge—A Penguin Handbook published in 1963, though he received it as a Christmas present in 1966. It’s a battered paperback copy with yellow pages bent in the corners. The cover is a colourful illustration of playing cards sitting around a table, their shadows projected into an infinite, two-dimensional, maroon-filled space. It feels ominous in the way that cards are inherently ominous, how a shuffled deck reflects life’s uncertainty, not to mention its connotations with smoky, candle-lit parlours.
“Good players differ from average players mostly in this: that the good player tries to play all 52 cards, and the average player plays only the 26 which he can see.” Wrote Terrence Reece. Perhaps that is why Hugh is drawn to them over other forms of entertainment from his pre-TV childhood. In chess or draughts, you can see all the pieces laid out before you like a battleground. By comparison, Bridge feels like espionage.
New Zealand’s first official TV transmission was made on 1 June 1960 at 7:30 pm from Auckland’s Shortland St TV studios. By April of the following year, advertisements began to be introduced to TV, though television advertisements on Sundays would not be legal until 1989. And in 1966, New Zealand’s longest-running TV program began: Country Calendar, which was initially only a 15-minute news roundup. “I can remember going to the shops with my father one Friday night—I suppose I must have been about ten—and we saw all these people at the front of a store and said, ‘Oh look! There’s a TV!’ And that was the first I’d ever seen of one.”
Hugh’s first job was delivering the Herald on weekday mornings. He recalls following the milkman down the street, but mainly, he remembers being paid a pound a week. “In those days, that was an awful lot of money,” he said. “You could buy an ice cream for four pence, and you could go to the pictures for four shillings!” The decimal currency system would be introduced in 1967, on July 10th, to be exact. The date is embedded in every Kiwi who was old enough to watch TV in 1966, for TVNZ ran an upbeat jingle repeatedly throughout the previous year to remind viewers of the change from pounds to dollars: Don’t shed a tear in July next year, for cumbersome pounds and pence. From July next year…
In the near future, Hugh plans to visit Europe. He’s been to the UK before but never across the channel, so he’s been picking the brains of the Europe-travelled he’s met at the Mt Albert Bridge Club. He plays every Friday; the rest of the week, he works in the tenancy tribunal at the Auckland District Court. Most of his immediate family is here in New Zealand now. Since his grandfather left Scotland with his second youngest brother, the rest have emigrated, mostly to New Zealand, the United States, and Canada. Hugh last visited the UK in 2016 and made a point of visiting where his grandfather lived. He tells us about the narrow streets, the oddly numbered houses, and memories that he will pass on to his children and their children. They will know the name of the small town in Scotland where their family came from, and they will remember the names of those who left, but they will call Sandringham their home.
Credits:
Original text and photographs by Lize Deng. Archival photos used with permission from Alexander Turnbull Library and Auckland Library Heritage Collections. Thank you to Hugh Anderson for sharing his story, and to the Sandringham Project in Community Empowerment (SPiCE) for supporting this project. This work is made possible by funding from the Albert-Eden Local Board.
Additional Sources:
- Deborah Dunsford, Mt Albert Then and Now: A history of Mt Albert, Morningside, Kingsland, St Lukes, Sandringham and Owairaka. Mount Albert Historical Society Incorporated, 2016.
- R. C. J. Stone and N. A. C. McMillan, Tradition and Change, Mount Albert Grammar School: The First Seventy-Five Years. Mount Albert Grammar School, 1997.