It was 1962 in the closing days of April when I arrived in Southampton with my family on board the MS Oranje after nearly five weeks traversing the globe from Wellington NZ, via Tahiti, Panama and Florida USA.
My father, Peter Cape, was a producer with WNTV1 and he was to train in London with the BBC in modern production techniques for two months and take that knowledge back to New Zealand.
He had been granted funding from the Imperial Relations Trust for the trip which would involve seven months of travel and study of everything from lifestyle and housing to heritage sites, cottage art and craft industries, visiting, interviewing and photographing to build a picture of life in the British Isles.
There were four of us, my mother Barbara, my sister Stephanie, my father Peter and me and a bunch of pet white mice which began as two purchased at Shepherds Bush Market in London.
My father kept a diary from the day we landed in England. Transcribing that diary has been a mission of many hours. His writing is indecipherable at times but his observation and wit is keen and I'm using his words to tell this story.
Before starting one or two footnotes are worth mentioning. My father was an ordained Anglican minister. Close friends of my parents were Alex and Gabriella MacLeod. The Central Office of Information (COI), based in London, was a regular point of contact. It was closed in December 2011. The English Speaking Union (ESU) in London was a regular liaison point for my parents and friends. All of these are referred to in the diary.
It must have been a major exercise in logistics to set up accommodation, bank accounts, and learn the vagrancies of transport routes, not to mention coping with people and attitudes in a new country. The fact that my father's parents were English and my mother's hailed from the MacLeods of Skye was to prove something of a two edged sword.
We arrived in late April 1962 in spring. Our first accommodation was at a hostel near Kensington, London.
April 29, 1962, Sunday
Arrived Southampton/ Waterloo. Met by Lex & Min Jackson. Afternoon and evening with MacLeods then panic rush to get to hostel before 10.30. Clean but I don't like dormitories.
May 1, 1962, Tuesday
Paul Oestenchan has a flat for us in a vicarage in Ashley Green, near Berkhampstead.
May 2, 1962, Wednesday
Paul Oestenhan moves us to Vicarage, Ashley Green. One final word from the Warden of the Hostel (we were photographing the bombed ruins of Holland House) "Please come out of the bushes!" [Holland House, also known as Cope Castle (pictured), is a grade one listed historic building. It is an early Jacobean country house in Kensington, London, built in 1605 for diplomat Sir Walter Cope. A magnificent building, it was nearly obliterated on September 27, 1940 during the German Blitz with 22 incendiary bombs. The East Wing and the library survived. Its ruins, in Holland Park, are now owned by the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea].
May 3, 1962, Thursday
Explored Ashley Green's one shop/Post Office, and Berkhampstead. Heaven knows where we are in relation to anything else!
May 4, 1962, Friday
Went by bus to St Albans; only six miles but it involved four changes of bus – 7/6 each in fares. Magnificent mixture Norman architecture shown to us by Dean's Verger, to whom we showed my IRC letter of introduction. Rained and we got saturated coming home.
[My father's letter was probably from the Imperial Relations Trust. His writing is diabolically unreadable at times].
May 5, 1962, Saturday
pm Highgate. 37 Talbot Rd. We've got a house in Highgate.
[Calling it a house is slightly inaccurate. It was more of a three storey brick dwelling, part of an attached row of similar dwellings with bay windows and front doors that were barely 15 feet from the road. The front garden was tiny. The back garden was long and thin. In our case it contained a rectangular bath-sized fishpond which was extremely useful for floating boats full of pet mice on. It was comfortably upper middle class with something of an overgrown wilderness around the backyard].
May 6, 1962, Sunday
Took three services at Ashley Green parish church.
May 7, 1962, Monday
Depart A5 9.20
Arrive. 9.45
Cooks : Arcadia Nov or Oranje Feb [This was a reference to Cooks Tours and the return trip to New Zealand]
Bank – mail + cash
Suitcase – bandage
Ring: Wimbledon : Smith WIM 2830
Richmond : Guinness WEL 3318/10
Johnsons: 3pm Lex FLE 1566 SW 1 6071
British Rail last late trains to Chesham. Midnight x Baker St. 10/4
Post mail
Check bag to Marylebone
Luggage? Price day return to Shepherds Bush
Season to Shepherds Bush £2: Includes Sunday next? No
12.45 Min Jackson English Speaking Union
Cost. Ashley Green £4 14 6 rent
£2.8.0 fares
£1.18.1 day Barbara & Christopher
£8.6.0
May 8, 1962, Tuesday
10.20am. Common Room, Woodstock Grove
The course looks a pretty solid 8 weeks' work. [This was the course with the BBC]
Lex and Gabs took us to a Segovia concert at the Royal College of Music and then to dinner at Otellos in Soho. We slept on the floor of their flat.
Wedding Anniversary
[My parents were married in Christchurch at the Church of St Michaels and All Angels in 1951]
May 10, 1962, Thursday
6pm English Speaking Union JJ – ABC (possibly ABC broadcasting network)
May 12, 1962, Saturday
TV.
So it was that by mid-May my father had started his course with the BBC at the Television Centre. The Cape family had settled into home in Highgate and we were adapting to life in metropolitan London, a long way from semirural life in Stokes Valley and Wellington, New Zealand.
Former members are 'more than welcome' to return, RSA Welfare Trust president says.