Memory to the fore in 1960s city project
Upper Hutt’s celebration of earning city status in 1966 took a nostalgic step last week with the launch of an oral history collection.
Historian Caren Wilton has been recording people’s memories of the 1960s, the decade where Upper Hutt came of age.
The interviews are on the city’s Recollect site and those interested can listen to what life was like back in the day.
‘‘It was a transforming decade for Upper Hutt and all New Zealand city heritage and research co-ordinator Reid Perkins said at the launch in the central library.
Oral history was was very democratic, Wilton said
‘‘Everybody is important and it allows you to zoom in on the small things, the domestic details, what we ate, what clothes we wore and what entertainment there was.’’
‘‘Upper Hutt was a boom town with full employment, housing subdivisions on the go and the town the choice of home for many young families,’’ Wilton said.
She was particularly impressed to learn Upper Hutt was a ’’hotbed’’ of musical activity with bands like The Fourmyula and The Dedikation emerging out of the colleges.
Wayne Mason, the writer of New Zealand’s greatest song Nature, was interviewed along with Ray Ahipene-Mercer, a founder player in The Dedikation and a current Wellington city councillor while Stefan Brown [ and Ebony] wrote and played ‘‘Big Norm’’, the early 1970’s hit recognising the Prime Minister Norm Kirk.
Upper Hutt retailing was at a high with ‘‘choc-a-bloc’’ Friday evenings.
Noeline Henderson, who with her husband, Ray, moved from Wellington to Upper Hutt in 1960 remembers the shopping.
‘‘It was a vibrant place. Every shop you could think of was in Upper Hutt. And the shops were just beautiful, absolutely beautiful,’’ she said.
‘‘There was everything here, you had your lingerie shops, your shoe shops. The butchers,plenty of butchers. But now it’s all supermarkets and it’s not the same,’’ Henderson says. ‘‘Hazelwoods was brilliant. ‘‘They had everything you wanted – furniture, they had the hardware store, they had women’s clothing, the men’s clothing.’’