Friday afternoons in 1950s Blenheim

Take a walk through yesteryear as Russell Gifford recalls the excitement of Friday afternoons in mid-century Blenheim, when farming families came into town to do their shopping and the town had a different look and feel to that of today.

OPINION: In the mid-50s, Friday afternoon was the time the farming community of Marlborough would come to town.

Car parks would fill up and the streets of Blenheim would be busier than usual.

There was much to be done. Visits to the bank and maybe the accountant. A 44-gallon drum of tractor petrol to be dropped off, to be collected later. Eggs to be delivered to McMurtries, followed by grocery shopping at the Farmers. Brown paper bags and string hanging from a roll.

“What’s the price of a small packet of nutmeg Mr Soper?”

“Four and tuppence ha’penny.” He knew the price of each item in the shop.

Bacon was sliced on the spot. You could even ask for half a pound of broken biscuits from a supply kept in a big square tin.

There was a big shiny cash register about the size of a dog kennel.

Then there would be a visit to the “middle China man … He has the best bananas!”

The women would pause at intersections to share the issues of the day. They could of course have retreated to the comfort of a tea rooms but frugality, which was the mood of the times, ensured that that notion didn’t gain any traction.

An errand for the boy. Pop down to York Pennys. They kept our copy of the Weekly News.

We knew it as the Auckland Weekly, even if the boy was a little uncertain about the exact location of Auckland. The pink coloured weekly was valued in our household.

There was a shiny black and white photo section in the middle.

Maybe the Korean War or apples being loaded on to a ship at Opua. Some fiction, and an architectural offering from Max Rosenfield and a generous quantity of classified advertising. Some of the advertising was a little suggestive in a mid-fifties kind of way.

There was series by Pierre Clostermann describing his fighter pilot experiences flying out of Tangmere and another about “edge of the seat” driving of the Taneatua Express. There must have been a recipe section as well. Professor Blaiklock would offer his scholarly Grammaticus article on the last page. So, something for everyone.

Eventually the centre photos were in colour. I remember being in Melbourne in 1971 and reading of the sad demise of the Weekly News. I had lost a friend.

But back to York Pennys. What a treasure trove. In addition to magazines and toys, he was the Meccano stockist. For a mechanically minded young boy this was an attraction beyond measure.

One window was given over to a display of Meccano sets with pride of place given to a sizeable constructed model of a traction engine, followed by a hammerhead crane, followed by a locomotive. What a gift to the small boys of a small town.

Inside there was a big mahogany chest containing many, many, little drawers.

You could ask for a 5-hole strip or a trunnion plate or a box of nuts and bolts.

I saved and saved until I could purchase a Gears Set. It came in a blue box and had enough components to build a car differential. How magical was that!

So, I might have finished off the afternoon ambling past shops like Hopward and Bendall, and Miller McKays, and Cuddons and Cresswells. All had generous window displays of tools.

Lots of people needed to compare the quality and the prices of things like saws and hammers and spirit levels. A bit difficult to do that now. It’s now Placemakers or nothing.