Hidden letter reveals days gone by in 1980s
Once upon a time Ted Witterick wrote a letter to the future.
When he was done, he folded it into an empty cigarette packet and hid it in the walls of the house he had built by the sea, and there it stayed.
Nearly 40 years later – long after he died – the letter, written in 1981, was found by another man: this time rebuilding the house.
‘‘Yours from the past,’’ it was signed.
The discovery of Witterick’s letter in the Ka¯ piti Coast house has painted a picture of both early 1980s New Zealand and the man who lived it.
‘‘This cigarette packet when full cost $1.08, milk is 25c a pint, bread about 60c a loaf,’’ he wrote.
‘‘Petrol is $10 for 15 litres, 4 litres of oil paint $25, matches 8c a box, we changed to decimal currency in 1973 and 1 pound = $2.’’
The Space Shuttle had just made its first successful flight, Prime Minister Robert Muldoon was ‘‘facing an election threat from Social Credit’’ and, locally, water from the town supply had just been laid on.
‘‘Half a gallon of sherry $8.50, $3.20 per bottle beer, in cans $11 a box. Inland letter rate 25c per letter.’’
Prices of the house and section were included as were more even more personal details: Witterick’s salary was $17,000.
Tax was nearly 50 per cent. ‘‘I hope you found this of interest, don’t criticise my building skills – I’m a technician in Victoria University and travel daily by car. 1971 Viva.’’
Ray Levy bought the property in 2008 and found the letter on Sunday, while he was putting in a fireplace.
‘‘I found a Winfield packet and in the letter was just inside.
‘‘I thought: this is pretty cool.’’ He planned to frame the letter and – if he ever left the house – would leave it where he found it, along with a letter of his own.
‘‘It’s part of the house, it would be wrong to take it away.’’
Witterick’s daughter, Di Daniels, wasn’t surprised by the find, saying it was just like her dad to hide a letter in the wall.
A self-made man who grew up in Guernsey, after the war Witterick worked to restore communications to the island in the English Channel, she said.
‘‘He sailed around the island in his yacht with my 18-month-old brother tied to the mast so he didn’t fall off.’’
A keen inventor and gregarious soul, Witterick was known to invite strangers into the family home and pick up hitchhikers.
‘‘He wrote poetry in the style of Pam Ayres and had a funny, smutty sense of humour which my mother hated.’’
He was exploring computers and had printed out his memoirs when he was killed in an accident in 1995.
He would have been thrilled by the attention the discovery had brought.
‘‘Everyone is saying: he would be looking down from heaven and smiling; and I think: no he wouldn’t, he was an atheist,’’ Daniels said.