A good Petone man.

Bob Howitt

This coming Labour Weekend that great school Hutt Valley Memorial Technical College more commonly known to those in the Hutt as ‘Petone Tech’ is having a reunion for no other reason than to celebrate the memory of a College mis-understood by everyone that didn’t go there and now cherished by those that did, if not while we were students.

This weeks ‘Memoir of a Villager’ is written by one of the Worlds best Rugby writers- Bob Howitt an ex pupil of HVMTC and a man who admitted to me he has dined out on his Petone association on more than a few occasions but probably no more than the times we have labelled Bob Howitt a good Petone man.

Bob returns to the Village for the Tech reunion and here is his Memoir.

"Excuse me," I asked the fellow at the Flagstaff Club luncheon in Wellington a couple of years back, "did you just describe Petone as trendy?" "Yes, it's a very trendy place these days."
My gulp echoed around the room. Petone, trendy? Were we talking about the same town I grew up in, the one where effluent from the Gear Meat Works used to colour the waters around the wharf, where takeaway food was limited to three fish and chip shops and a night out was movies at the Palace Theatre or a session at the Working Men's Club?

When this individual assured me that Petone had indeed undergone a remarkable metamorphosis, it was obvious I needed to check out the 'village' where I had spent the first 21 years of my life.
That opportunity came when I was in Wellington for the National bowls championships last summer. Brother Nolan, another Petone old boy (he was a speedy winger in the late 1940s), and myself drove down from the Woburn Bowling Club to put the lie to these exaggerated claims.
To our astonishment, there were all these cafes, restaurants and bars, natty pavements and smart looking shops. Miracles were possible.
And not only had the Esplanade developed a charming character but dear old Bolton St, where I grew up, was unrecognisable with swish, attractive two-storey houses having replaced many of the old cottages.
It was a special day, sparking a rush of nostalgic reminiscences from the two of us as we drove home.

Now while I've proudly promoted my Petone affiliation throughout my career, the fact is I didn't have that much to do with the Petone Rugby Club. Yes, I darted around like a demented wasp in the midgets - featuring once in a curtainraiser to a McBain Shield match at Petone Rec when, as a forward, I'm positive I never handled the ball in the entire game - but my club association was restricted to two seasons because of my commitment to journalism. The Evening Post, which I joined in 1959, was soon assigning me to Saturday afternoon fixtures which totally stymied my playing career.

My season with the Petone fourths, around 1960, was memorable (a) because we won the competition and (b) because our coach was Bob Scott. In those days we addressed him as Mr Scott because we were in awe of his status as a footballer. He always beat us to the top of the Korokoro Hill in the pre-season runs, which blew us away because he was so old. Must have been all of 39!

I'm honoured to call Bob Scott a good personal friend these days. We play together in the same team at the annual rugby bowls tournament at Mt Maunganui, we belong to the Equipage sports club in Auckland and we enjoy reminiscing on rugby's good old days.

Must tell you of the occasion I was sharing a motel with Bob at Mt Maunganui and realised I'd left my shampoo at home. "Hey, Bob," I called out, "would you have any shamp . . .?"At that moment the ball-headed legend materialised in front of me. "Nah, forget it!"

Growing up in Petone was special. My dad was forever recalling the deeds of those great footballing families, the Nicholls and the Ryans. And from a seriously young age I attended senior club games at the Petone Rec and listened, fascinated, as Dad and his brother-in-law Jack Asplet condemned the selectors for never giving Jack Dougan a better go at rep level.

I had a couple of memorable seasons in the Petone Tech first fifteen. Dave Sorenson, father of Mark of softball fame and possessed of a prodigious boot, was our first-five and Brian Harris, who now lives on Bribie Island north of Brisbane our fullback.

Somehow, I got appointed captain. God knows why, for I cannot remember delivering one worthwhile speech, but I did lead the haka with a certain panache and produced an end-of-season review of each match - most of which we won - complete with statistics (a sort of miniature forerunner of the NZ Rugby Annual). My uncle, Jim Howitt, then a director of the Evening Post, was sufficiently impressed he recommended me for a position in the reading room of his illustrious newspaper. And so was launched a career in journalism.

Briefly, before moving to Auckland, I turned out for a couple of social rugby games for the Evening Post. My boots had lain idle on our porch for many months before I tossed them into my sports bag and headed to a venue somewhere in the city. When I produced them from the bag I noticed a cobweb in one of them, so banged it on the concrete floor. Out fell a large trap door spider. You've never seen a group of social players move faster! Turned out we had a whole family of the little beasties living down the side of our house.

It's ironic I should develop a passion (that my wife refers to as an obsession) for bowls, because I grew up believing playing bowls was directly related to alcoholism. You see, we had a neighbour in Bolton St who obviously balanced a glass of beer in one hand while delivering the bowl with the other. He was very noisy (very, very noisy) when he lurched home from the bowling club at weekends. My mother used to lecture me on the evils of alcohol and successfully convinced her impressionable youngest son that entering a bowling club was a short cut to damnation.

It's a shame my mother didn't survive another decade. I could have taken her to my bowling club at Takapuna and shown her what a wonderful sporting institution it is, with not an alcoholic in sight!

While at Petone Tech I earned pocket money by working for one of the fruiterers . . . bagging potatoes, serving in the shop and
delivering orders. One dark, stormy Friday evening I was cycling along the Esplanade with a sack of potatoes on board when I slammed into a pot hole. As the spuds crashed to the ground, the bike came to a dead stop and I was propelled forward on to the gravely road. With hands and knees bloodied and sore, and holding back the tears, I stoically delivered the order, as the southerly lashed me with hail. I then wheeled my buckled bike the half mile back home. Ah, yes, those were the days . . .!

I have another vivid memory of a crash on the Esplanade, between a motor cycle and a car, on the corner of our street. Nosey Bob decided to investigate, before the cops arrived. Intrigued, I ventured towards accident scene, taking a closer look at what seemed like pegs lying on the ground. Then I realised they were the motor cyclist's fingers. I threw up at the curb before racing back to the safety of my home.

Noting that Petone tangled (none too effectively, unfortunately) with Northern Suburbs in the semi-final of the Jubilee Cup this year was a reminder of how dramatically the landscape has changed in
Wellington club rugby.

Petone and Poneke are the only two clubs that retain their identity from those that participated in the Jubilee Cup back in the 1950s and 1960s. Tawa and Johnsonville have survived, but 40-odd years ago they were absolute minnows.

The clubs that constituted the senior competition when I was a teenager were Athletic, Hutt, Marist, Onslow, Oriental, Petone, Poneke, St Pats, Taita, University, Wellington College Old Boys and Wellington.

There was a club out in the Northern Suburbs zone called Paremata-Plimmerton who operated in the senior second division and whose greatest claim to fame was it produced Ken Gray, the legendary All Black prop.

The only teams that ever seriously challenged Petone's supremacy were Onslow, Poneke, University and occasionally Athletic and Wellington.

They used to say the blinds would be down in the village if Petone lost, and indeed a heavy depression seemed to settle over the town on those rare occasions that Petone stumbled, usually at Athletic Park. It was rare indeed for the team to falter at Petone Rec.

Petone Tech is having its reunion in late October. I'll be down for the weekend, an exciting opportunity to check out the trendiness of the place I've been fortunate enough to call home.

Memoirs archive