A brief glimpse into who we once were.
It turns out that quite a lot happened in NZ in 1961. Clearly the most significant part was my birth on September 13th which my Grandmother tastelessly described to me when I was 13 yrs old as “an accident”. My mother never forgave her. She preferred the term “unplanned”. I’m assuming my three elder brothers were better organised.
- This was the first national Waitangi Day celebration. The then Government couldn’t bring themselves to create another public holiday, so people had to choose to make Waitangi a holiday by sacrificing a different public holiday.
- This was the peak year for Baby Boomers. Fertility was rampant and women were having an average of 4 each. It soon fell off though and the surging number of kids fell sharply after that and the Baby Boom generation petered out in 1964.
- Wild excitement met the first Golden Kiwi draw in December. Mr. O’Connor won first prize of 12,000.00 Pounds. In total, 250,000 tickets were sold. Mr O’Connor, if he had chosen to could have bought a 3 bedroom house in a nice Wellington suburb, a new six-cylinder car and had plenty of spending money left over.
- The death penalty was final “put to the sword” so to speak. Labour had scrapped it in 1941, National restored it in 1950 and between then and 1957 when Labour took office again, eight more men winged their way to heaven. National was back by 1960, but by then the party was not united on the issue and a free vote was held in Parliament and by 41 votes to 30, the death penalty was no more. Fascinatingly, even Robert “Piggy” Muldoon voted against it.
- The very first Golden Shears competition was held at the Masterton War Memorial Stadium and out of the 300 Kiwi & Aussie shearers, Ivan Bowen (brother of Godfrey Bowen) was the inaugural winner.
- Before Air New Zealand, there was TEAL (Tasman Empire Airways Ltd) and god help us all, it was half owned by the Australians. This year saw the Government become 100% owners and I bet the service improved markedly.
- Western Samoa, a state that the League of Nations awarded to New Zealand through a mandate held a referendum that overwhelmingly supported independence. New Zealand had ruled since December 1920 following it’s former masters (Germany) were beaten in World War
- After fighting valiantly for 7 years with the City Council, Auckland got its first liquor license for a restaurant when Restaurateur Otto Groen won the right to serve white wine to lucky punters at The Gourmet in Shortland Street.
So that was New Zealand in 1961. Do you remember? Want to see your year of birth here? Let me know what year it is and you'll see this in a coming edition. Don't forget to tell anyone you think might be interested to subscribe.
