Mary Hall 1927 -

Mary Hall has been living in Levin for 31 years. She was however born in England in 1927 and lived through many things including the Second World War.

She lived at home with her mother and four younger brothers and sisters as her father was off fighting in the War. She describes this time as ‘rough’ although at the time she was so used to it that she didn’t notice just how rough it really was.

Having grandchildren of her own now who are going through their teen years, seeing what their lives are like and comparing their experiences to her own, she can see great differences. ‘We didn’t think it was rough because we had to get used to it. We got used to it because it was just there.’

She was twelve when the war started in 1940 and informed us that at this stage she and her family were sleeping in a shelter in her back yard. At this point in time, her youngest brother was only six months old and trying to cram everyone into the small shelter wasn’t easy.

Mary recalls that she would be walking down the street around 7o’clock and the sirens would go off, and she would run to the nearest shelter and wait there until it was safe for people to come out again. Early in the war the sirens would go off and everyone would run as fast as they could to the shelters. By the end of the war people just strolled along. They coulsee the planes dropping their bombs, hear the explosion and see something of the impact, but there seemed little point in panicking.

By the time Mary was fourteen, she was working as many hours as she could. She didn’t get to choose her job. It was more a case of lining up after school and being told.‘You, you go here and the rest of you go to this job’.

A year later Mary became a full time nanny looking after her younger brothers and sisters while her mother went to work full time again.

During the war years all families were given coupon ration books. They received approximately forty coupons per year. These coupons were used to buy shoes, and clothing. They would find out when the next shipment of stockings were coming in and try and get there early, line up in huge lines with their coupons and hope that there would still be some stockings left by the time they finally got to the front. ‘They were mostly rayon, but silks were the best.’

Things like a new coat could cost up to twenty coupons, so with a forty coupon limit in a year it was self explanatory that you couldn’t buy many items of new clothing in a year and what you did buy had to be saved up for.

By the end of her working week Mary would have about two shillings to use toward her own expenses, as the rest of her pay she gave to her mother to help with paying the bills. With her two shillings, she had to pay for her bus fares to and from work and any luxuries such as a trip to the picture theatre with friends.

Mary believes that schooling in New Zealand is much better than when she attended school in Liverpool. While she was at school during the war they only had half days. One week classes would be in the morning and the next week they would be in the afternoon. Classes in her day were overcrowded and she felt far more comfortable seeing her own children at schools in Levin. New Zealand, where classes were of good sizes by comparison and the basics of learning were better taught.

The lifestyle in New Zealand definitely suits growing children. Growing up during the war, Mary coped with food rationing. Foods that were rationed became complete luxury items. Bananas, orange or ice-cream were rare treats. The family received two ounces of butter each a week, which was not a lot for a family of five. She got used to everything being in short supply. ‘I see young teenagers going off to McDonalds today because they feel peckish. We couldn’t do that. If we felt peckish, tough luck!’

Mary lived in England for eleven years after the war and then at the age of twenty-nine she made the decision to move to New Zealand. She left England with three of her friends in December 1956 and arrived in New Zealand in January 1957. While on the voyage to New Zealand she met the man who is now her husband.

Mary arrived in Wellington and got a fright when she realised that the small apparently deserted city was the capital of New Zealand! She compared it to a small town in England. An early memory of Wellington harbour though has stayed with her ever since. When she got off the boat she looked out across the harbour to see the most beautiful sunset she had ever seen. She says she would have liked to stay and watch if forever.

She and her husband lived for some time in Wellington but when they decided to build a house they close to move to Levin because it was cheaper.

She has lived in Levin ever since. Mary likes Levin and the rest of New Zealand better than Liverpool and the rest of England. She likes the openness and the fact that you can see so much more sky. In Liverpool the buildings got in the way. In Levin other places are easier to get to. To get to the beach in Liverpool you had to queue up, but in Levin you can drive right on to it! In short Mary says: ‘I wouldn’t live anywhere else in the world and I think Wellington harbour is the most beautiful in the world.’