Calf Club day
Meghan Hawkes looks back on life in Waipa in 1947
Calf Club days at Waipā schools – St Peter’s, Cambridge.
Paterangi School’s Calf Club Day was well attended by parents and friends. It was also the school show and in the two class rooms were samples of the children’s work in all subjects.
When the pets were assembled for judging there were 18 calves, two lambs, five cats and kittens, four dogs and one chicken. Lunch was set out picnic-style under the trees. At 2pm the unveiling of the Roll of Honour of ex-pupils of Paterangi School began. Mr Germann said it was fitting that remembrance of scholars who served their country should be permanently honoured. Mr Malone hoped those on the roll would always be remembered – not honoured that day and then forgotten. He then advised the children “Do unto others as you would they should do to you. Try to find the good, not the evil in everyone; think not of self so much, try to understand the other fellow, for only then will the horrors of war and the need of these Rolls of Honour be no longer necessary.”
A mouse baked into a loaf of bread was discovered by a Te Awamutu resident after four slices had been cut. A local baker was prosecuted by the Health Department for selling bread unfit for human consumption. He pled guilty and was fined five pounds. The man had an unblemished record and since the occurrence had overhauled his premises and plant.
Te Awamutu’s Crusader Group, which met weekly in the lunch hour at the local High School, had its first-term outing climbing Mt Pirongia. The boys were transported to the start of the climb in private cars and a resident of Pirongia acted as guide. The day’s steamy heat did not dampen the group’s enthusiasm, though it proved an endurance test. When the first peak was reached the billy was boiled on a portable primus stove and after lunch almost the whole party continued along the ridge. Unfortunately the view was spoilt due to haze. The descent was made in half the time, and the whole happy expedition was accomplished between the times of morning and evening milking.
A letter posted at Ōhaupō to the Te Awamutu Fire Brigade contained a 10 shilling note which the sender said was payment for a piece of old rope lent to him at the fire station one night to tow his car from Te Awamutu to Ōhaupō.
“That was years ago,” the writer said. “The rope was lost, so to square everything I am enclosing the money to be used for any fund or purpose, as you think fit. I don’t want to give my name.”
