Ok, so now you have a brief insight as to where I came from.

Although I have some very sketchy memories of Emerald Glen when I was a little fulla, my earliest vivid memory is of attending Kindy at the St Johns Hall (I think that’;s what it was called) in Knight Avenue Paraparaumu Beach.
The hall isn’t even there any more, some clever dude decided it would be pretty cool to build a couple of houses there instead.
Anyway, I recall one horrible day at kindy when it was morning tea time and I went to get my kindy case which contained my ‘play lunch’.
Well as I recall, My little grey kindy case was one of about 30 other identical cases and I couldn’t for the life if me find mine!
When I did, I discovered that Mum had put in there a Pear (along with other stuff I don’t remember’.
This pear, as it turned out was not ready to be eaten and was in fact so hard I was unable to even bite it!
Yes, there were tears, full drama.
Fuck Mum, what were you thinking?

From there, it was off to primary school at Paraparaumu beach School.
I remember one day being in the car with my parents and 2 brothers when Mum and Dad starting talking about getting me ‘enrolled’ at school.
This scared the shit out of me because I had no idea what ‘enrolled’ meant….to me it had something to with a steam roller and I wasn’t having a fucking bar of it.
Yes, more tears, another full drama.
Day one at school.
Mrs Latham, lovely lady, great teacher from what I recall.
I guess my early years at Pram Beach School were much like everyone elses, we just went to school, did our shit and went home again,.
The one point of difference from then to now I think is the fact that back then, all of us kids either walked to school, or rode a bike that was capable of all the shit kids do on bikes nowadays and more!
It seems nowadays kids all get a ride to school in a fucking great 4 wheel drive or a flash car that mum has to work 50 hours a week to pay for.
Back then, when school started/finished, there was rarely a car in sight.

I recall one day when I was only about 5 or 6 and my older brother who was 7 or 8 was charged with making sure I got to and from school as mum was at work (That’s how we rolled back then)
Anyway, we made it to Michael Road on the way home which was a lot of empty sections back then and I needed a wee.
I was wearing my really cool grey school shorts with a buttons instead of a zip, and I couldn’t get the fucking buttons undone.
My bro was having no part of undoing my pants, and kept walking while I stood there stuggling with my buttons.
End result, I pissed my pants.

So pretty much my first few years at school were rather mundane I guess.
Met some really good mates who are still mates today, although I don’t see as much of them as I’d like.

The next stage of my story starts a little later on when I was around when I got to about form 1, and thanks to my ole man, discovered this fucking great game called rugby.
I discovered that while I enjoyed playing it, I was actually pretty fuckin good at it too.
many hours were spent on the field at Pram Beach school at lunch time and after school honing my skills at kickinjg goals and shit.
My dad was heavily involved in Paraparaumu rugby, and was the President for I think about 5 years running, although I can’t recall the actual years.
Our whole life back then was rugby, rugby club, rugby practice, rugby sleep, rugby eat, rugby every fucking thing.
We loved it.
A lot.
Anyway, around this time this well known rugby player moved to Waikanae.
There was no Waikanae rugby club then, so this dude played for Paraparaumu.
His name: Joe Karam.
I was in awe of this man, he was my fuckin hero, and now him and my dad were drinking beer together and talking shit.
They were great mates.
How unbelievably fucking cool is that!!
One day, he even brought his best mate to out place to drink beer with the ole man……Grant Batty!!
I even got to interview Joe for a school project which was very cool.
he even wrote me a special little note and signed it for me.
I treasured that for years, although I lost it long ago.

Around this time, I met the 2 people who influenced my rugby hugely.

One was my teacher, Peter Giles, the other was my best mates ole man, Tony Cook.

That’s where we start next time……