MICHAEL HARCOURT LABONE

19.12.1940 - 28.6.2005

MEMORIES OF MIKE MY BROTHER BY TONY

My first memories of Michael are when he was about 10 years of age and we were living at 116 Parkvale Road Karori Wellington, and were a family of six children with our sister Lesley being 2 years older than Mike and myself five years younger with Ray was six years younger, Stephen next at eight years younger than Mike and Jacqueline 10 years younger.

We lived in a three bedroom house, Mum and Dad were in the front main bedroom Lesley and Jacqueline in the room between ours (The four boys) and Mum and Dads bedroom. The house had a separate lounge at the front facing west with the main entrance to the house separating the lounge and Mum and Dads bedroom. The hallway was “L” shaped and past through to the bathroom at the end of the hall on the south side. A door opened to the kitchen that was located at the back of the house on the eastern side with the boy’s room on the northern end of the kitchen and the wash house and back door on the southern end of the kitchen.

In our bedroom were two sets of bunks built by Grandad Mackenzie. Michael was in the top bunk on the northern side of the room and I was underneath with Raymond on the top bunk on the southern side of the room opposite Michael with Stephen underneath. The set of bunks Michael and I slept in were slightly larger than the ones Raymond and Stephen were in. Both sets of bunks had six sets of drawers underneath with three drawers for each of us and in these were our clothes. The bunks were a design similar to a ships bunk. At the end of the room was a Scotch chest and this accommodated other clothing items and in later years the three drawers on top of the chest Michael later had items such as Brylcreme and his combs and razors.

At night we would all go to bed together and next to our pillows and against the walls were our personal items such as special toys and books. In Mikes case he had made his own crystal set radio and he would tune into his favourite programs by attaching his old ex military headphones bulldog clips onto lumps of solder that were on the copper wire wound around a shellacked cardboard tube. He had rigged a length of copper wire from the shed at the back of the garden to a post next to our bedroom window. The wire then went through the window to his crystal set and Mike would listen to specific stories on 2ZB, 2YD or music on 2YA. On occasions we boys would talk of various things that interested boys. Such as the difference in various aeroplanes, ships such as dreadnaughts battle ships and sailing ships, atom bombs and the difference of hydrogen bombs, movies and space travel.. Michael would tell us stories of Pirates and as we got older and Michael became interested in girls he would tell us bawdy tails mainly a figment of his imagination or something he had heard and we would listen in hanging on every word and laugh nervously before falling asleep.

In the kitchen we had a long table with a chair at each end for Mum and Dad, we kids had forms on each side of the table and would sit down to breakfast of toast, porridge or week-bix and usually a dose of maltexo. School clothes were worn for the week and washed on Saturday and play clothes were used at other times except when going to Sunday school when we wore our Sunday best. Clothes were handed down, so I got Michaels when he grew out of them and my clothes were past onto Ray. On this table Mike would draw in pencil pictures of mainly boats and planes but anything else that took his fancy as we all did. Also this was where the homework for school was done as Mum could supervise us while preparing dinner.

2

One of Mikes most prized toys was his scooter, how he loved that scooter, it was a wooden job that Grandad had made for him and he would zoom around the paths with his gumboots on using his heal on the rear wheel as a brake. Mum had shown also shown Mike how to build a bow and arrow and these were very effective and he was quiet a marksman. He would build wooden swords and use the rubbish tin lid as his shield and then have sword fights or use the rotary clothes line poll as a villain, attacking it with gusto and calling out “Take that”. Mike loved to roam the hills around our house. It was Cowboys and Indians, hid and seek, or just loll around in the long grass.

At the right time of the year we would collect mushrooms or blackberries from Kilmister’s farm. On occasions we would lose sight of time and as the evenings grew dark Mum would call to us to come home. If we were further away she would whistle very loudly in the same manner as she called her sheep dogs. When we heard the whistle we new we were in trouble. Many a time we would get a cuff around the ear from her for being out to late. Unfortunately for Leslie and Mike they were the oldest and usually suffered the first hit with us in tow behind. We developed a skill of ducking as the long arm of Mum shot by our ear and we would run inside. We worked on the idea that if Mum missed on the first shot she never took a second swing so we would get away with it.

Lesley and Mike were usually responsible for taking us to and from school, to the pictures or swimming pool on Saturdays and Sunday school on Sundays. As a group on Saturday morning we all gathered around the back door and polish our shoes in preparation for Sunday school and the rest of the week. Mum washed our clothes by boiling them in a copper boiler and then scrubbed on a washing board and rung out on a hand ringer. After lunch it was off to the Regal theatre for a movie.

Mikes first bike was a 28 inch mans bike and he had difficulty in casting his leg over the bar so he rode it with his leg between the bar until he grew enough to ride it properly. He showed us how to make a flap of cardboard that was held onto the bottom section of the bikes frame by a peg. The card board protruded into the wheel between the spokes so that when the wheel turned the cardboard flaps against the spokes making a noise emulating a motorcycle engine.

Mike just loved his holidays in the sounds at Aunty Jeans and Uncle Harold’s farm at Ngakuta Bay. Firstly was the exciting trip on the steamer Tamahine from Wellington to Picton and then travelling from Picton to Ngakuta Bay on a dirt road initially in a horse and cart and later in a 1955 Austin A40 Utility that Uncle Harold bought. On arrival at the farm the Welcome from Aunty Jean was overwhelming this was the penultimate loving lady. Small and beaming she would fuss over us. Mike loved it he could help Uncle Harold with milking and he had a special relationship with Spike the dog. He could roam the beach swim from the wharf and let his imagination run wild. Mike was free and then there was the back bedroom that he slept in and was only reached from outside the main house, here he could be himself. At night there was always games such as in door bowls along the long hall. Cards in the dinning room or dominos on the lounge floor. The food was a fabulous porridge with milk directly and warm from the cow with out the cream being separated. Mike like the rest of us sat in the kitchen that had been warmed by the wood burning oven. At night the thump of the engine driving lighting generator was a comforting sound and on going to bed Uncle Harold would turn it off and we would light our candles. This was another world and Mike loved it. Life here was an adventure driving back in the utility meant that only Mum Dad and Uncle Harold would fit in the cab so we kids sat in the back of the utility with a tarpaulin covering us and the rain pouring down. At one stage the utility got bogged in the mud and Mum, Dad and Mike had to get out and push. They were

3

covered in mud as the utility slithered up the hill wheels spinning. Everything about these holidays was an adventure and Mike was in his element. In the dinning room of the Tamahine we would hoe into the food with great relish and the Stewards who took a liking to us kids enjoyed serving us with extras. On one trip Mike cut his foot deeply on the beach, Mum and Uncle Harold had to take him to Blenheim Hospital to get it sewn up. On another time our cousins Peter, John and Alex Mackenzie were also staying. Mike and Peter who were a similar age got on very well together.

As I grew older there was a sibling rivalry between us that on occasions broke out into scuffles that usually meant we got a belt around the ear from Mum. During this period Michael had started at Wellington College a boy’s school and Michael was showing good academic results. Mike appeared to enjoy college life and continued to tell us stories of activities at school and the punishments dished out by the teachers. One teacher nick named “Fanny Flaws” impressed him by bending a 4 inch nail with his hands. The jargon used at this school was a copy of English high schools and everyone was called by their surnames and this impressed us as this was something new.

During this time Lesley and Mike and their friends around the neighbourhood used to play in a deserted house some distance up the road and to scare us younger kids off the told us the house was possessed by ghosts and if we wandered up the road then they would leap out from the house with sheets over them and hoot and holler sending us kids running terrified down the road. Of cause ultimately we plucked up enough courage to look inside and found the house empty.

Mike gathered around him a group of friends, “Karori Boys”, and Mike persuaded them to build a fort in the vacant property owned by Mr Davis next to our place in the middle of six foot high gorse. David Hemsley lived next to the Mobil Petrol Station in Karori and Roger Nodwell lived near Campbell Street. The boys had access to car case timber and this was to be used in the construction with the walls covered in shiplap planks and the roof covered in mouthoid. Fist they had to cut a path through the gorse a distance of 100 yards. But they decided to cut a maze of various paths to fool those who were not invited by them. The first obstacle was a bog to cross, they hid a plank in the surrounding bush and disguised the entrance, then built mock graves with tombstones and on these placed epitaphs “Here lye’s John Dow whose curiosity killed him”. All along the tracks were signs warning those who entered of the danger of going further and that they would meet a grizzly death if they continued. On arrival at the fort it was an outstandingly well made hut of two rooms. The main room was furnished with cupboards and sink, wooden tables and chairs and in the second room there were two sets of bunks on each side of the room. The huts head room was eight feet and the main room was ten foot by ten foot with the bedroom being smaller. They had placed a mock “H” shaped television aerial similar to those they had seen in movies on the roof some fifteen feet high. There was a “Long drop” some twenty feet away with the area around the hut cleared for about twenty feet. This was an amazing feat for boys aged thirteen to fourteen years old. They were allowed to stay some nights at the hut. This must have been a tremendous risk for Mum and Dad as they had candles and kerosene lamps in the gorse, not to mention their smoking. We were in awe of Michael as he knew so many things.

Mike loved to go with Dad to motorcycle meetings and during this period Lesley had introduced Dad to a father of her girlfriend a Mr Horshom and he became so interested in motorcycling that he bought a motorcycle and joined Dad on rides and they became great friends. Mr Horshom had a second daughter Patrica and this girl became Mike’s first girlfriend. However she went on to become New Zealands Prima Ballerina and Mike a Motorcycle Mechanic.

4

When Mike left school he went to work a “Tolley and Spence” a motorcycle shop in Willis Street. As Dad was a motorcyclist there was a tremendous interest in motorcycles in all of us. Dad would always take one of us on his bike when he went for rides and Mike sure had motorcycles in his blood. He was a very good apprentice but he also had a bullet proof attitude to life and his ability to ride bikes. Initially Dad would take him to work on the back of his 1953 BSA B31 but it was not long before Mike bought a 1952 BSA B31 and rode to work and back on it. Once he had found the freedom of his own bike he let lose and hung out at the local milk bar with other youths. Some of his friends had motorbikes and others cars. Mike then bought a 1954 BSA Goldflash 650 colour gold. This was a beautiful bike and at the time few were more powerful. He rode like a demon and stories of his feats were legendary. Then the local Traffic Cops would call with complaints of his dangerous driving and Mike had to go to court and lost his licence for some time. His employer Mr Spence a paraplegic had taken a shine to Mike and kept him employed even though Mike did not have a licence. Mike had been active with Dad in the Ixion Motorcycle Club and entered club events. I recall seeing him travel at ninety seven miles per hour over a “flying quarter” on his Goldflash in the Waiararapa.

Lesley had gone nursing and then got married while Mike was still at college. Stephen had been moved into the bedroom with Jacqueline and as we four boys were still in the same room it was time for Mum and Dad to find a more room, so we moved to Brooklyn in November 1957. Dad and I shifted the furniture and shortly after Dad suffered his first heart attack. Mike was a very adventurous youth and was living life to the full and about a year later he purchased a 1958 Matchless 500 twin. He would scare the daylights out of us whenever he took us to school on the back of his bike by roaring down Brooklyn Hill road with the mufflers hanging up on the ground on every bend. Tragedy struck Mike when he pushed the envelope to far, one night he travelled down Ghuznee Street at high speed and attempted to turn into Marion Street but struck a parking meter snapping the poll of at the ground writing off his bike and seriously injuring himself.

Mike was unconscious for six weeks and Mum and Dad were by his side when they could but Mum had four other up and coming teenagers and Dad who was seriously ill with his heart. Mum had to work in a cake shop, get home for us kids, prepare meals, look after Dad whose fragile life meant he would be in and out of hospital and then Mum had to deal with Mike. We had reports from the hospital of him raving and swearing in bed and then having to be physically restrained because on one occasion he got out of bed with no clothes on and was floundering around the ward with a broken leg flapping, serious head injuries and other broken bones. After six weeks Mike came around and after six months of his leg in traction he came home and convalesced for two years. During this time he had a 1938 Ford 10. His temperament had changed and he was very withdrawn from the family.

After two years Uncle Denis Robertson a childhood and life long friend of Dad’s got Mike a job with his company as a Company Representative. This was a tremendous opportunity for Mike and he progressed very quickly with the company. A couple of years later he left that Company and joined 3M as a Company Representative and was highly regarded. While working for this company he met Ellen and they Married, buying their first home in Highbury Wellington and it was there that they had there son Adrian. Then they moved to Churton Park and Mike was working for Xerox and later transferred to Sydney Australia.

We called to see Mike in Australia and at that time Mike was with Shelia and appeared very happy.

Go in peace Mike and we will remember the good times brother. Tony