What was happening in Aotearoa in 1963?
The 1960’s was a time of huge social change all around the western world. Although New Zealand was a long way behind the times in many respects, we did get our groove on in a modest way.
The year didn’t start so very happily. On February 7th, a bus that had 35 passengers failed to navigate the Brynerwyn Hills when the braked failed and Harold the driver couldn’t do anything about it. The bus plummeted off a nearly vertical fall of 30 metres and landed in a mangled state on the banks of the Piroa Stream. To this day it is New Zealand’s worst bus crash and I sure hope it retains that record for a long time.
For an absolute world first, Bob Charles, Kiwi golfing hero won the British Open, the oldest and arguably most prestigious of the professional tournaments. He beat American Phil Rodgers in a 36 hole playoff. Incidentally, Bob went on to win the Senior British Open 30 years later. That gave him 70 titles in 50 years on the circuit.
Something to remember about looking back in time is scale. In the 21st Century we expect grimly about 50 murders a year in Godzone. In 1963 it was about 3 on average, Imagine the horror when in two separate incidents, we lost four police officers. The first two were DI Wallace Chalmers and DS Neville Power who got shot by Victor Wasmuth in a shooting in the Waitakere Ranges. That was January off to a bad start.
Then, just the following months Constables James Richardson and Brian Schultz were shot dead sitting in their police car after attending a domestic situation. As a result of these horrible incidents, by the following year, the police set to and began forming the Armed Offenders Squad.
Sorry to pour more grim tidings, but at the other end of the year came the Bassett Road Machine Gun Murders which brought a real flavour of Mafia hits to sleepy Auckland. On New Years Eve, career crims Ronald Jorgensen and John Gillies gunned down Fred Walker and James Speight who were quaintly described as “sly groggers” a name given to people who traded in booze at a time that alcohol was much less freely available.
BOAC (or British Overseas Airways Corporation) was the original name for what is now British Airways and they began a twice weekly jet service from London to Auckland. They flew the radical de Havilland Comet which was an amazing looking plane for the time but had a terrible habit of catastrophic decompression, sending a number of jets falling out of the sky and hundreds of passengers and crew winging their way to heaven rather sooner than they anticipated.
The flight took 37 hours and could carry around 80 passengers. New Zealand entered the jet age in 1968.
I had no idea about this, but in 1963 Massey Agricultural College and the Palmerston North campus of Victoria University merged and formed what we now know as Massey University.
In exciting historical anachronism news, Queen Elizabeth and her rather naughty husband Prince Phillip returned to grace us with their presence and no doubt faced rapturous crowds dressed in their Sunday Best wherever they trekked.
As if we hadn’t seen enough unnecessary death in 1963, it also starred our single worst domestic air accident when all 23 crew and passengers on a DC3 crashed into the Kaimai Ranges on the Bay of Plenty side.
I’m too young to remember her, but anyone born before 1950 would almost certainly have known Aunt Daisy, or by her real name Maud Basham. I can’t quite discern when her career on radio started, but it must have been the very late 1920s or early 1930s. Anyway, by 1936 she was on ZB and her show was all very wholesome with the key theme being domesticity. She was much beloved and died in 1963.
Bursting into the 20th Century, Auckland was blessed this year with Lynmall, a shopping extravaganza straight out of America.
Well, it isn’t the 1960s without All Black news. These titans departed for a tour up north and as was the custom then, it wasn’t a fly-in/fly-out kind of affair. They were on the road for 4 months, playing tests in the British Isles, France and Canada. They only lost one game and that was against the plucky Taffy club side called Newport, who I believe have not stopped celebrating in the ensuing 62 years. They drew against Scotland too. Captain was Brian Lochore, an inspiring and tough individual. Go boys.
Now, let’s finish with Kiwi music. The two most recognised bands (and clearly the recipients of the most thrown undies at the time) were Max Marritt & The Meteors and Ray Columbus & The Invaders. Here’s a couple of links to have a gander at what they were up to.
Max https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ItgZ95oJ_sw&ab_channel=DjayOlskool
Ray https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=begMgjEBdAw&ab_channel=Elagabalus65
So that’s who we were in 1963. A lot going on. Some great and some terrible. Sounds like the ‘60’s, right?