KEY POINTS:
On an average day it would take Alison Brown - a stocking exchange post trading clerk or "chalky" - about 10 minutes to get the opening prices up for the top 50 stocks.
On the day of the share market crash she took more than 20 minutes.
"Brierley
was the third one down and I was on that for a good five minutes," said Brown. "The minute I put the quote up it would be just gone again."
Her arm cramped and chalk ran out as she tried to keep up.
"I can still remember that day - it's a day I'll never forget."
Before arriving at work Brown had already heard Wall Street had crashed.
Brown said the trading floor operators came in early, warning the chalkies they were in for a busy day, and the public gallery was already full.
Prior to the bell opening the morning session at 9.30am, the chalkies were instructed to scrub the board clean of all the previous day's prices.
Brown said the lack of a starting price added to the pressure the chalkies were under.
"You might hear them yell '59' and you look at the price and know that that was $2.59 because you could already see," said Brown. "But because you had no prices at all you're just hearing all these numbers [and] trying to work out what they were actually saying."
The stock exchange traded in two sessions - a morning session lasting an hour or so in the morning and a second session ran from 2.15pm to just after 3pm.
"By that time the gallery was even more packed ... I've never seen it like that before - it was amazing," she said.
"The floor was packed as well because all the operators had extra staff down to help them. TV cameras were down there - it was all on."
Brown began working at the exchange straight from school as a 16-year-old at the end of 1985 on a starting salary of $8000.
She said chalkies needed to remain calm under pressure and be a little bit thick-skinned. They worked with their backs mainly to the trading floor and had to know the voices of the individual trading floor operators.
"Each different operator or each different company, they've got their own number so you had to remember all the different voices, who they were and what company they were with."
There were only three women working as chalkies when she started, but that number doubled at the peak trading.
Brown stayed on as a chalky until 1991 when the Auckland exchange closed its doors in June 1991. The sound of the ringing of the bell, champagne corks and a rousing rendition of "For they are jolly good fellows" for the two remaining chalkies followed the final trade - for Robt Jones Investments.
Over Brown's time the board had shrunk from 324 companies during the 1980s down to 105.
Where are they now?
Another look at those flying high at the time of the 1987 turmoil.
Graeme Hart
Floated Rank Group in January of that fateful year. Twenty years later, after deals including Burns Philp, New Zealand Dairy Foods and Carter Holt Harvey, he's the richest man in the land.
Sir Ron Brierley
By the mid-1980s, Brierley Investments was the country's biggest company. He is currently chairman of Guinness Peat Group and retains his reputation for generating wealth.
Craig Heatley
Headed up Rainbow Corp with interests in tourism, manufacturing and retailing before it was bought by Brierley. Heatley was instrumental in launching Sky Network Television and now runs his own investment company.
Colin Reynolds
Reynolds was chairman of investment group Chase Corp, which had a presence in New Zealand, Australia, Hong Kong, the United States and Britain. At its peak it was worth $1.3 billion but in 1989 was placed under statutory management and reported the largest loss for a New Zealand company of $841 million. His Symphony Group is now half-owner of the ING Property Trust's management company.
Allan Hawkins
Hawkins was Equiticorp chairman and CEO. He acquired major interests in firms including Feltex, Fisher & Paykel and Carter Holt Harvey but Equiticorp collapsed and he got a jail term. Now Hawkins is chairman and CEO of Cynotech Holdings, which runs Budget Loans and Merlin Foods.
Rod Petricevic
Founded investment group Euro-National, which took complex positions with stocks including Ariadne, Renouf Corporation and Kupe. When the market crashed, the put options were worth considerably less than first hoped. Petricevic's private vehicle, finance house Bridgecorp, was placed in receivership in July owing 18,000 investors in New Zealand and Australia about $500 million.
