I lived the first ten twelve years of my life in small communities, like Levin and Feilding. Then in 1937 we moved to a real metyropolis; Hastings in Hawkes Bay. Would you believe there were twelve thousand people living there; two primary schools and a high school, plus a separate school for Cath0olic kids.
And there so many amenities, like footpaths for pedestrians, a milk treatment station where farm milk was pasterurised and bottled before delivery to residents' houses, and a gas works where coal was burned and gas extracted for reticulation through the area, a camping ground, another park with a aviary, and another with a band rotunda, also the wonderful Municipal Theatre, which was awarded a prize when it did not fall down in the catostrophic earthquake on Fenruary 3, 1931. In another part of this building was the Assembly rooms, where a good rpoportion of Hastings's 12,000 people could attend functions like the Masonic Ball and the Hunt Club Ball.
And every week my Dad set our rubbish bin outside our gate from where it was emptied into the borough rubbnish truck and taken to the dump.And all these amenities were p[rovided out of rates as a matter of course.
As well as these amenities the population of Hastings enjoyed things like Blossom Day Parades, where the first Marching Team took part in 1938.
Hastings was a pretty good town to grow up in.
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