My father, Peter Cape, was head of talks and religious broadcasting and transferred from radio to television. In 1961 he was given an Imperial Relations Trust Bursary to study television techniques with the BBC in London.
The Cape family, Peter, Barbara, Stephanie and Christopher, set sail for England from Wellington in March 1962 aboard the MS Oranje, a passenger liner operated by the Royal Dutch Mail Nederland Line.
Our first port of call would be Tahiti in French Polynesia. I was 7. The ocean was vast. The air was crisp and salt laden. Life on board turned out to be unique and colourful for all of us.
My sister and I had Correspondence School lessons to complete but they took second place to real life. Days were filled with good food and friendly crew, lots of activity, competitions and prizes, races and deck games.
There was a huge, deep swimming pool on the upper after deck. Greasy pole pillow fights were staged for the adults across this pool where they could beat the daylights out of each other and be unhorsed into the drink. Nanny State ACC today would probably frown on such games but this was 1962.
Blindfolded pink porridge feeding of your partner across a table on the deck was worthy of any pig sty. Apple bobbing was fun. That's biting the apple floating in a bucket of water.
Deck quoits were popular. Rope rings were tossed on to targets painted on the deck. There were fancy dress parties and Saint Nicholas Day was celebrated with much fanfare. He arrived with his two Black Peters.
The ship's catering crew dressed in fluffy white bunny costumes for Easter.
Every day a news booklet was produced titled "TODAY".
My parents had their share of fancy dress and formal occasions too. Shipboard friendships bloomed. I have one slide showing my mother as "Cool Cat" (in leopard skin and pussycat mask, holding an Audrey Hepburn cigarette holder out of Breakfast at Tiffany's) and my robed father as "Hot Dog" with a brown paper dog's head and long string of red sausages standing beside "Today Man" (dressed in a top hat and suit made of Today booklets) and his partner "Cleopatra".
I had my eighth birthday around the time we crossed the international dateline. Candles on a cake and all the trimmings on April 3 made the day fantastic.
Being a Dutch luxury liner the table fare was Dutch, international and sophisticated. The dinner menus, printed in Dutch and English had a picturesque front cover featuring a rural townscape.
The menu for April 1, 1962 featured Clear Turtle Soup, Potage Reine Margot, Boiled Turbot, Hollandaise Sauce, Carrots, Boiled Potatoes, Roast Saddle of Lamb, Mint Sauce, Spinach, Rissolée Potatoes, Hamsteak with Apple, Tomatoes, Match Potatoes, Macaroni, Monte Christo Salad, Shrimp Mayonnaise, Cucumber and Beetroot Salads with Plaza or Caroline Dressings, and to finish, Bavarois Clermont or Vanilla Ice-cream and Fruit.
"Coffee first sitting will be served in the deck lounges."
For April 25: Russian Eggs, Consommé Bretonne, Potage Champenoise, Fried Cacap, Ravigôte Sauce, Braised Duckling Isabelle, Greengage Compote, Cooked Hoorn Ham, Salted Calf's Tongue Westmóreland, Boston Pie. I could continue but you get the idea.
The ship's passenger list was international and spanned the generations. I was able to teach a French girl, about my own age, how to play draughts. I couldn't speak French. She couldn't speak English, but we communicated well.
I found it interesting to learn, from my mother, that the French, unlike the English, allowed their children to drink wine, while perhaps not early in the day, certainly early in life and possibly for breakfast as well. I know the French families on board allowed that. It was part of normal life and not a bad idea.
I recall my parents allowing me to have wine at our dinner table fairly early in life. The etiquette was that food and wine went together.
Tropical days passed and temperatures rose. I'm unsure of how long this leg of our journey lasted but eventually the rugged green profile of Tahiti rose out of the Pacific Ocean and we sailed into French Polynesia's capital, Pape'ete.
I still have the thatched wooden model hut we purchased there during the few days spent provisioning and sightseeing before setting sail again eastward for the Panama Canal.
More to come.
