 From a Kiwi Perspective 1960's Ajax cleaner, in a tin. Bakelite telephones. Barbecues meant food cooked with fire and embers. Basketball was called ‘Indoor Basketball’. Black & white televisions that took ages to warm up. Black-out curtains in classrooms to be drawn for watching films. Bottle drives. Bread fried in dripping and sprinkled with sugar. Bread tokens, and the baker delivered. Brylcreem, men’s greasy hair cream. Cane dolls prams. Cars didn’t need seat belts. Chocolate-coated real hokey-pokey bars, unwrapped. Christmas puddings cooked in cloth. Cuban missile crisis. Dark brown roller blinds. Dial-up telephones. Doctors made house calls. Domestic violence wasn’t a crime. Drinking and driving. Drinking from the garden hose. Dripping used for frying. Films at school were on reels and projected on to a white screen. Fluoride was added to the Hutt Valley water supply. Girls wore dresses and skirts. Glass bottles of milk delivered by the milkman early every morning and left by the letterbox. Glass coffee jars. Green- & cream-coloured stoves. Griffins tins of broken biscuits. Gumboots were always black and they lasted till you outgrew them. Half-pint bottles of warm milk every morning at school. Home-made cable-knitted cardigans and jerseys. Houses filled with cigarette smoke. Housing New Zealand was called ‘State Advances’. Hutt Valley telephone numbers began with "69". It wasn’t illegal for parents to smack their own children. Jaffa half-dip ice-blocks. Leaded paint. Leather lace-up school shoes. Lettuce leaves and sugar. Lolly machines: A bag full of sherbert lollies for threepence. Mini skirts. Morris Minors. ’Net’ curtains were “posh”. Netball was called ‘Basketball’. No automatic teller machines (ATM’s). No CD’s, DVD’s or video tapes. No computers in evidence anywhere. No Eftpos. No gas barbecues. No home computers, lap-tops, answer-phones, (mobile) cell-phones, MP3 players or VCR’s. No personal satellite dishes, remote controls or SKY. No Playstations, PSP’s or X-Boxes. No skateboards. No sunscreen and “slip slop slap”. No Te Papa (I much preferred the old Buckle Street museum in Wellington). No Velcroe. One person managed to read the news on the telly all by themselves. Open fires piled high with coal and Carbonettes. Parliament was in the old government buildings. No The Beehive. Post Office Savings Bank. Riding bikes without helmets. Roller-skating rinks. Rolling screens on televisions. Running under the hose on hot summer days. Shadow boxes. Short back & sides. Sindy dolls. Sixpences in the (home-made) Christmas puddings. Sunshine cordial concentrate, made with half a gallon of water and two CUPS of sugar. Tea was loose and tea bags weren’t available. Teachers could hurt feelings. Teachers could smack, strap & cane. Teachers were respected. Telephone 'party lines' where ‘phone lines were shared between several houses. Television programmes: The Lone Ranger, Town & Around with Peter Read, Voyage Beneath the Sea. The Shadows music played at the pictures before the film started. Three ceramic flying birds on the wall. Tiger tea. Uncovered bread left in the bottom of the letterbox by the baker with just a piece of paper wrapped around the middle. Uncovered chocolate bars and chocolate fish at the dairies. Upper Hutt was a toll call from Lower Hutt. Valve radios. Vauxhall Veloxes. Vauxhall Wyverns. Vegetables cooked with salt. Wide-slat white, metal venetian blinds. 1963/64 The Donna Reid Show. One television channel, that started around 2pm and went off air before 11pm. 1967 10 July 1967 10 April 1968 21 July 1969 (20th in America) 1970's $10 was a full tank of petrol. ’Casey Casen’s’ pop music count-down every Thursday night. 45’s (45rpm records). All the taxis were Holden Kingswoods. Austin Maxis. Bedford buses on which you “pulled the cord” when you wanted to get off. Boys with long hair. Capes. Coastlands in Paraparaumu, the only shopping centre open on the weekends. 'Digital' clock radios. Digital watches. Disney’s coloured comics. Europa “100% New Zealand-owned” petrol stations. First colour televisions. Fish & chips wrapped in newspaper. Ford Anglias. High boots. LP’s (33rpm records). Margarine became available. Mark I Zephyrs. Mark II Cortinas. Mark III Zephyrs. Maxi skirts. Midi skirts. Music & singers/groups: New Zealand singers/groups: No GST. No The Warehouse. P/E ‘rompers’. PA Vauxhalls. Patent leather shoes. Peanut Butter didn’t have sugar in it. Police and Traffic were two different departments. Police drove grey Holden Kingswoods. Princess Tina girls’ magazine. Psychedelic fabrics. Radiograms. Railcars. Shops opened at 9am and closed at 5:30pm. One late night per week; closed on the weekend. Stopping at Taihape Railway Station for a cup of tea on the way to Auckland. Sunbathing lathered in coconut oil. Superman comics. Television and stereo remote controls were attached by a wire. The tv news was still read by only one person. The strap and the cane at school. Thursday late night shopping in Lower Hutt. Tonka cars and trucks. Traffic cops in black & white cars, with red lights. Transistor radios. Tri-coloured sheets of plastic that were stuck on black & white television screens to give illusion of colour. TV programmes: University education was free. Vauxhall Victors. Vietnam war. Wooden butterflies on the front of houses. You could leave your job one day and get another the next. You got your driving licence at 15 and you were a fully-fledged driver. Your driving licence was a little book. November 1973
20 December 1976 |
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Remembering the 1960's & 70's |