My Account
For most motorists on State Highway 1, Hatfields Beach is just a picturesque place to zip through on their way north or south. But for long-time Silverdale resident Don McErlich Snr, it echoes with memories of a childhood spent carting water for the house and shooting wild goats for food. Although he only lived there for about two years, it made an indelible impression on the youngster who had just moved north from Auckland during the polio epidemic in 1948. Here Don shares his perspective of a life spent almost entirely on the Hibiscus Coast …
I was about 10 when I moved with my mother Lola and my stepfather Jack Warner to the tiny cottage at Hatfields Beach owned by Ben Straka. The cottage was just north of the bridge and it’s not an exaggeration to say we were pretty poor. There was no electricity just candles or a white spirit tilly lamp and water had to be carried from a spring in the bush. Hot water for the tin bath meant boiling it up in the copper which was also used for the washing. I guess a lot of people these days wouldn’t even know what a copper was. I was an only child so it was pretty lonely but most of my spare time was spent doing chores anyway. We would shoot wild goats for food and pick mushrooms from the side of the road, and there always seemed to be firewood to chop. Our neighbours were the Hendersons who owned a farm at Hatfields and Eddie Charles, who ran a beach store, just above Otanerua Road.
The Waiwera taxi would take four of us to the three-classroom school in Silverdale each day. Discipline was strict and I remember on one occasion being falsely accused of talking and being lined up for the leather strap. Something in me though said “bugger this, it wasn’t me” so I pulled my hand away at the last minute. The strap came down and whacked the Principal on his leg. Next minute he was swinging the strap in all directions trying to hit me. He ended up falling into an old tea chest so I scooted back into the classroom. At the end of the day, he called me over and admitted he had “lost it” and we agreed not to mention it again.
I was pretty stroppy at school and handy with my fists, but it was a way of protecting myself. I stutter and it’s meant I’ve had to endure a lot of teasing. It’s affected a lot of things in my life. For instance, I didn’t use a phone until I was 22 and when Judy (nee Litchfield) and I were married, we went to a registry office in Auckland because I couldn’t face the prospect of saying my vows in church. Everyone kept feeling her stomach because that was the only reason people were married in registry offices in those days. I feel I’ve slowly overcome the stutter to some extent but it has taught me to listen well because asking someone to repeat what they said was never an option.
I had an ambition to be a mechanic when I was still at high school in Takapuna but I wasn’t getting on with my stepfather at the time and ran away from home at 15. I ended up living in a room with three other guys, in Symonds Street, and working for Smith & Smith Hardware, in Hobson Street, and then Nestles. Finally, Mum and Dad tracked me down and we sorted things out, and I came home to a mechanic’s apprenticeship with McDonalds Engineering in Silverdale.
Keith McDonald was my boss and when the Silverdale Volunteer Fire Brigade formed, he was the first fire chief. He encouraged all his staff to volunteer but I said ‘no’. In the end he said ‘do you think I’m going to leave you here in charge of the garage when we’re all out fighting fires?’ so that’s how I became a volunteer! When I retired in 1990, I’d been with the brigade for 35 years and for five of those years I was the fire chief. Although there were some difficult situations and sad times, there is a lot of camaraderie in the service and I really valued the friendships I made. When the fire service started, we had a siren but no fire truck so we would throw the beaters, shovels and backpacks into the bosses car, and off we’d go. In 1953, we were able to purchase a secondhand 1934 Ford V8 from Dargaville with money raised from a motorbike race day on Orewa Beach. We had to apply for Ministry of Transport permission to close the beach because at that time, it was still classified as the main road. When McDonalds closed I transferred to NT Gatmans, then worked for the Takapuna Bus Company before joining the Waitemata Electric Power Board as a lineman based at Stanmore Bay.
Judy and I met at one of the dances which were held regularly around the district. We bought a section in Tavern Road before we were married, applied for a Housing Corporation loan and had a house to move into after our honeymoon. We’ve lived there all our married life and it is were we raised both our kids – Don and Heather. Of course the surrounding countryside looked a bit different then – the new industrial area was just farm land. I owned about 10 acres across the road for a while when I ended up in partnership with a friend Ian Cross who was running a turkey farm. He had hundreds of these turkeys and they were a real nuisance. They were always escaping, pooping all over the school and drowning in the school pool. It took us about 18 months before we could finally get rid of them all. I ran dry stock on the property for a while but then got an offer that was too good to pass up.
I’d been crook for while and in 1998 the headaches, head noises and dizziness were getting worse. When my doctor suggested seasickness pills I decided it was time for a new doctor. Within 10 days of seeing a specialist, I was in the operating theatre. It was a benign brain tumour that had calcified. This was causing fluid to accumulate around the brain so a shunt, or long thin tube, was put in to drain away the fluid that was causing the pressure. It took three operations to get everything working right. I still get a bit crook but I know how to manage it now. Life keeps me pretty busy – I’m the treasurer and secretary of the Silverdale Volunteer Fire and Emergency Services, and treasurer of the Silverdale and District Historical Society.
Silverdale is great community and although the roads are definitely busier than they used to be, traffic jams are nothing new. Orewa and Waiwera have always been popular holiday destinations for Aucklanders, and there were once lots of motor camps to cater for them including Pinewoods at Red Beach which had a soundshell where they would hold talent quests, picture shows and music. In Orewa there was a roller skating rink, pictures in old hall and boxing matches were popular at Christmas time. Things have changed but I still wouldn’t choose to live anywhere else.
