Got to school and found the AV room Stockroom had been broken into and a video rec Taken. Mrs C called Cops, they came with fingerprint kit etc. Crooks had lifted skylight to get in, bust down the door, lifted the recorder and walked out a side door.

I guess that being broken into wasn’t any newer an experience for the staff at MAGS than it would have been for the staff at any school I attended back in England. After all, schools were chock full of the sorts of things that might appeal to criminals, such as audio-visual aids. We didn’t even have a video recorder at home, so stealing the one from school seemed like a huge crime.

Nine years later, whilst I was working in my first job as a lawyer, we encountered some pretty smart criminals. Offices in those days were not full of computers – I am not sure that we even had one – but there were other valuable things such as photocopiers.

These thieves broke in over a weekend (there was an alleyway – or ‘entry’ as the locals rather appropriately called it – running along the back of the building so it was easy for them to work unseen) and stole the two photocopiers from the office. They weren’t as successful as they could have been because they dropped the smaller of the two in the alley, breaking it beyond repair.

You’re now wondering why I called them clever, if they dropped and broke half of their haul. Well, they knew that we would have to replace the copiers, and pretty quickly. After all, that was the only way to produce copy documents in an office in those days, there was no running an extra off on the computer like we do now. So they simply came back the following weekend and stole the replacements. After that, we installed an alarm.

I am not sure I took in that much from my Nana. There were occasionally useful things, such as if the roasting tin falls out of the hot oven, don’t try and catch it; or that you can wind up ardent communists by suggesting that the Morning Star must be rubbish because it is only about eight pages long and has no sport in it. I guess that the most significant things I learned from her were that fairness is everything, and that you can eat peanut butter well beyond the stated ‘use by’ date.

I really did learn little from Grandad Bob, as he died when I was 18. This is one of my big regrets, as I have since discovered that one of my few culinary skills involves jointing and boning meat and, as a butcher, there is so much he could have taught me in that respect. I also greatly admire that he became a butcher by accident – he was simply the first boy to get to the shop when they contacted his school and asked for someone – and yet he made it his career and stuck with it until he retired.

From Grandad I learned many things, not all of them ones which my mother would approve of. I can in theory (I have not done it for 25 years, but I still remember the basics) repair a flat roof. I know that, every now and then, a well aimed pound note will get you unexpected results (such as into the owners’ car park on Derby Day). Most of all, though, he taught me a lot about running your own business. Despite being entirely self-employed he would never take on work that he couldn’t do, or commit to doing something within a certain time frame if he knew that he couldn’t. I remember him saying to people “I can’t do impossibilities” and as they seemed to respect his honesty I have adopted that approach myself. (The success and respect he enjoyed is, of course, something I can only dream of.)

Which brings us to Gran. What did I learn from her? To be honest, I am not sure. When I broke my arm, she (having been though the same thing with Grandad less than a decade before) was the most relentlessly enthusiastic about me learning to use it again, and I have her to thank for that, as the only way in which my left arm is inferior to my right is in the angle that it functions at.

The things I remember most, though, are the little tricks of life that she taught me. She had a saying, “There’s no point getting old if you don’t get crafty” and she often surprised me by pointing out that there was a better way of doing something that I was doing.

The one that always sticks in my mind was when I was chopping up vegetables for dinner. I was probably around fifteen or sixteen and was demonstrating the other culinary talent (who knew that there would be two?) that I have – being able to chop things very finely*, when she stopped me and told me to cut much larger pieces. When I queried this, she pointed out that Lisa and Kevin, being young, would insist that they only had a certain number of each vegetable. By making the vegetables as chunky as possible, they would get the same amount of nutrition without a fight over how much they should eat.

Wisdom handed down through the ages is often the safest kind. I hope I have some of my own to impart one day.

*Yes, my only kitchen skills involve knives. I can’t explain it either. I’m quite safe, though. Honest.

PE. We’ve got Stevenson (hooray) but as he’s on 3rd Form Camp We’ve got this ‘chink’ taking us. We played football on the hockey pitch with two balls!

Oh dear. Of all of the cringingly embarrassing entries in this diary, this one probably takes the biscuit. Even allowing for the fact that times were somewhat less enlightened then, the use of the term above to describe a person of Chinese origin almost pains me now. If only I had known what my life was to involve later! Mr Wong, on the most miniscule chance that you are reading this, I apologise most sincerely. As I do to everyone else.

As for the games we played, sports teachers throughout my childhood had a habit of doing this. It seemed that if inspiration failed them, they would just stick us on a playing field to play a game and then throw an extra ball or balls into the mix. Sometimes it wasn’t even a ball from that game. Something combining footballs and rugby balls was always very popular, I recall.

In fact, this sort of thing used to just make me angry and disinterested. I felt that games were played a particular way for a reason and there was no need to meddle with that. Moreover, the problem with doing this was that, having cirumvented the rules of the game anyway, the result would be complete anarchy on the pitch with the game degenerating into little more than a kicking contest. I liked sport, I looked forward to my PE lessons, and I didn’t expect this.

Back To School. BOO. Went to the Wine Shop with Dad + Karen. Lemonade + Crisps for Supper Yum Yum

Every child bemoans the fact that they have to return to school after a holiday, don’t they? Certainly I had had one of the most memorable of my weeks in New Zealand, both for good reasons (the thermal baths and the late night football) and bad (staying in a place which gave me nightmares, not to mention an afternoon with the house full of girls) so returning to school was always going to be a humdrum event no matter how good a scholar I was.

I don’t really remember the wine shop, though I do recall an off-licence type place somewhere near the chip shop. Being taken there by Dad and bought a drink and crisps is something that I don’t recall happening that often as children, no matter where we were living at the time. It was definitely an Event, though (you can tell this from the unusually enthusiastic ‘Yum Yum’ in the narrative!), and one which I am looking forward to replicating with my own son when he is old enough to appreciate it.

Got up at 2am to watch V Dull FA Cup Final between Spurs + QPR. 1-1 aet. Now I’ll have to watch on Fri Morn to see who wins.

Some of you will read this and think that no football match on earth is worth getting up at 2am to watch. To me, it was one of the advantages of being 11 hours ahead of my home country, although I was surprised that I was allowed to get up in the middle of the night to see the game – not, of course, that I wouldn’t have created hell if I hadn’t been allowed to!

I remember being somewhat jealous that the game went to a replay. I had been to the previous year’s cup final replay and had a great time, and I knew that my Uncle Allan, as a Spurs fan, would be going to this one. This was despite the fact that this was the first FA Cup final I had watched where I would be bored rather than excited by the whole spectacle. I am sure that the hour of the day had something to do with this.

This was all a precursor of two things. First and foremost, that was the first of many times that I got up in the middle of the night to watch sport, both in New Zealand and deep into my adult life. In fact, I must be one of the few parents to ever regret their child beginning to sleep through the night, as it deprived me of an excuse to get up and watch cricket from Australia.

Second, FA Cup finals did become very boring a few years after that and I don’t think I have made a concious effort to sit and watch one since about 1995.

Long trip home, but not so dull.

Went To Youth Group. Played storming the heights at 1 Tree Hill Vs Browns Bay. One BB Girl bust her arm. Came home filfy.

‘Storming the Heights’ was exactly the same game as ‘Capture the Flag’ in every respect except that there was only one flag, which was at the top of the hill and guarded by one youth group. The other youth group had to ‘storm’ up the hill and try and sieze the flag, then return it to their ‘base’ at the bottom of the hill. The team at the top of the hill protected the flag by ‘capturing’ their opponents, which basically meant grabbing hold of them.

From my point of view there were three problems with this game. First and foremost, I had never played it before and was too cowardly to ask the rules, though I got the general idea. Added to the problem of playing a game which you have not bothered to ask the rules of was the fact that it was only the second time I had spent any time with members of this youth group, so I didn’t have much of a clue who was on my team. Compounding that was the third problem – it was pitch dark and drizzly.

As I remember it, I was pretty quickly captured when we were the attacking side and then sat in the dark for what seemed like ages when we were the defending team. I do remember the girl with the broken arm being helped down the hill and that she had fallen whilst trying to run down it when we were attacking. Which in itself creates a puzzle. The hill was steep enough to cause such an accident, but you can’t play games on most of the side of One Tree Hill as it has a road running up it. This leads me to wonder if we were actually playing in the crater of an extinct volcano, and why I didn’t notice this.

Went to some local thermal areas am. Had lunch, looked in at the Geothermal Info centre. Went to Cherry Island. It is dull.

The only thing that I can now recall about this day is that, at the Geothermal Information centre, I was suddenly seized with the urge to use the toilet for the first time since we had arrived in the area. I had, it seems, been thoroughly put off by the facilities at the bach, which resulted in something approaching this scene when we arrived* at the Geothermal place.

Cherry Island I have had to look up, because I remember nothing about it at all. From the description it sounds like somewhere we went to entertain Lisa and Kevin and I am not at all surprised that even the Geothermal Information Centre was more interesting to me than it. Bungee jumping hadn’t been invented then and, frankly, I am not surprised that the place closed!

*Without the laxatives, obviously. And I am pretty sure I used the correct bathroom

Played golf with Dad and Uncle Neil. Didn’t do too bad. 10 holes in 78. at that rate I would have been around an 18 hole in only 141!

Had lunch in a restaurant.

Went to the Aratiatia rapids by the hydro electric station. The to Woolies and –> Thermal Pools.

Anyone who has ever had the misfortune to share a three- or four-ball with me should know that my awful golf started at an early age. In fact, you might argue that it has been downhill ever since this day, since this was the first time that I swung a club in anger.

One thing that I remember clearly about that round was that one hole had a raised green, which I first chipped the ball over, and then chipped straight back over the other way. Part of the problem was that I couldn’t actually see on to the green at the height I was then, so had no idea how hard to strike the ball.

My third attempt soared almost vertically, but came down on to the green. I climbed up after it, couldn’t see it and assumed I had overhit it again. That was when Dad and Uncle Neil directed me to the hole, in which nestled my ball. Hmmm…

Aratiatia is quite impressive. It is a dam at the top of a gorge. The water is held back and then released a couple of times a day, quickly filling the gorge.

Went to the Thermal areas an Rotorua – what a long drive. They are really great. Got some honey from the honey centre.

There really is nowhere like Rotorua, at least in my experience. Geysers, bubbling mud, landscape streaked with sulphur and of course a less than delicate aroma of that gas. To a teenage boy that sort of thing is a golden experience and I embraced every moment of it.

I was starting to develop a love of honey. I remember it as one of Mum’s treats from childhood, one of the things that she would eat and we children would occasionally have. The person I really remember eating it, though, is Grandad, who would eat it on thick slices of buttered bread. I prefer mine on toast and, intriguingly, eating local honey really does seem to have improved my hay fever.

I’m pretty sure that Rotorua isn’t that long a drive from Taupo and I can only imagine that I was still a bit tired and grumpy from the half day coach ride the day before when I wrote this.

I suppose it is inevitable that some of our friends felt that they had to side with one of us or the other, which was odd because, at least so far as I was concerned, there was no need to do so. I don’t want to know what Helen is up to now, but who am I to tell anyone who they can and cannot be friends with?

For some, though, this was clearly a big issue and there were several people who I thought were good friends of mine who I have not heard from since we split. It isn’t anything that I have ever lost any sleep over, but it is something slightly strange.

What it does make me grateful for, though, is the friendships that endured through that time, the people that knew both of us and who decided that they could cope with still knowing both of us. Although all of my friends are dear to me, those people will always be especially so, because they are clearly the ones who liked me for who I am and not simply for who I was married to at the time.