"He's a very artistic man, as you can see. That beautiful painting he gave me. It's written on the back with his best writing. I can see him now, turning that picture over, writing ever so slowly...that painting was for me. And he said, "I'm not giving you girls anything with a handle on, `cause that means work. I want you to remember me for my art"

"And when we got a fridge we thought we were rich. Really thought we were rich because we had a fridge...we really did think we were rich because we were one of the first people in the railway settlement to get a refrigerator. It was just so wonderful. We thought we were very Americanised, so to speak"

I was not aware of the difference with my small town roots

I believed all men were equal until I trod the path of growing up

It was painful to realise my family were poor

We had a fridge. I thought we were rich.

We did not have the social graces

Nor the sense to realise we're not regarded with favour

To be invited to the Annual High School dance.

My skin was white. Was there a difference from my brown skinned friends?

I learned I must neither speak out for nor against

We mixed and matched to our father's occupations

My eyes widened as I viewed the world for what it was

I have nothing to offer, though I look quite good

Pair of solid pins to hold a proud head.

I could never express the love I felt for my caring parents

They wore cardboard in their shoes to give greenhide leather on our growing feet.

I'm older now, though sometimes wiser

I see my fathers crippled body and wonder if he resented rearing us

Walking off a farm he loved to join an occupation he worked and hated.

His two pound two and tuppence collected each week

To keep his cherished brood

Not born a public servant, fortunate to have a job at all.

I wonder if he thinks about the gentleman in the well cut suit

Who talked him into buying worthless shares at Moke Creek

My father never was a gambling man nor a greedy man

His thoughts were for helping us with his modest means

I hope the Aussie bloke sleeps well, with peace, we bear no grudge

Dad had his first flight in his life to check his bona fides

"It's okay" he said to mother, "He would not cheat on smaller folk."

Ashes to ashes, dust to dust.

Now my folk see things they want to see and hear the things they want to hear

God bless them for their gentleness.

In the twilight of their lives they debate politics to stimulate lonely minds

Perhaps it medicates the pain of failure I sense they feel they've been

Sometimes I'm a traitor to their cause for I have thoughts that contradict

They're quite sure New Zealand is heading for another deep depression

Though, I've been brain washed through my childhood years

"And I used to swing on the garden gate and yell out, "Catholic dogs dead night frogs on a Sunday morning." and they'd say very rude things back"

"The boys that I met were usually quite innocent, but there were some that you'd say, "Look don't. He belongs to the Wandering Hands Society. Stay away from him"

"Sex wasn't a priority. We were too busy having fun. Perhaps we were very young in our minds but that wasn't a ...they say it happens naturally but I must have been awfully young in my mind and so was Allan. Nothing went on"

"The adults thought it was haywire because Rock `n' Roll was...only the racy people did that, but all the young kids were dying to learn Rock `n' Roll, instead of dancing the three step polonaise they used to call it the three step mayonnaise and anybody that could Rock `n' Roll was really socially acceptable. I mean it was just change. And then I met Steve, my husband now, and I remember seeing him with his "Drake cut" haircut and his Drainpipe trousers. And he looked wonderful. It was all new, you see, new blood into Hamilton"

"But I decided after a while that it wasn't really nice being called a pillion pussy. They used to be called milk bar cowboys with their pillion pussy's and I found that not quite nice. So I decided I wouldn't ride on the back of my boyfriends motorbike and I'd only go out with him if he could borrow his mother's car, his father's car which was a little Series E Morris Minor"

"When you look at the Massey street area now and see the traffic, you realise...where has fifty years gone? It's such... We've seen so many changes our age group, we really have, a lot of changes"