And so I was

You know, in all the years I lived with my parents I never did find out where they were living when I was born! I was born on 12 November 1940, the first child of Ron & Gwen Whitney, in the St Clare Maternity Home in Williamson Ave, Grey Lynn.

I don’t have a photo of the old maternity home but with the compliments of Google this is where it used to be before it closed down in 1956, it’s now a fitness gym. On the corner of Williamson Ave & MacKelvie St.

This is my very first photo taken when I was three weeks old, outside the house we were living in at the time.

As I said I never knew where that was until recently when I found this little snippet in the newspaper dated 4 Dec 1940:-

This was the list of over 2000 names & addresses of the men who had been called up to serve their country in the second World War, my father was living at 8 Margaret St, Ponsonby. As this was just a month after I’d been born I presume I was living there also! I’ve been to Google Maps and had a look at 8 Margaret St and it looks to me as though it is still the same house with no alterations since then. However, I can’t really tell because of the overgrown garden and also the house next door has gone so it’s hard to say if it is the same house or not, what do you think?

I think I need to go and look at it in person to compare properly.

When I was nine months old we moved to 42 Wellpark Ave where I spent the next 23 years of my life.