Mrs McGregor remembers

Press, Volume CXII, Issue 33094, 8 December 1972, Page 3

Mrs McGregor remembers

(New Zealand Press Association) < WELLINGTON, December 7. Mrs Mary McGregor remembers the sunny Saturday 35 years ago as if it were just the other day.

“It was a beautiful morning and you couldn’t get near the place for buses and trams,” she recalled in her broad Scots accent today. It was on Saturday, September 20, 1937, that the Prime Minister, Michael Joseph Savage, handed the keys of the country’s first State house to Mr and Mrs David McGregor. “There were cheers, and musical honours were given to the Ministers who then made their way to a furniture van and returned carrying several chairs and other articles into the house,” says a newspaper report of the occasion. BIG INTEREST Mrs McGregor recalls that interest in the new house was so high that people kept coming round for days to peer through the windows. Thirty-five years later the McGregors are still at 12 Fife Lane, Miramar; and another 74,999 State houses have been built. The 75,000 th was opened in Universal Drive, Massey, near Auckland, this week., Back in 1937 there had been a veritable miniCabinet of Labour parliamentarians on hand for the opening of the McGregors’ house. Mr Savage handed over the key, the Minister of Finance (Mr Walter Nash) and the Minister of Defence (Mr Fred Jones) were in attendance; John A. Lee acted as master of ceremonies, and introduced the Minister of Public Works and local M.P., Mr Bob Semple, who said the Miramar house was “the beginning of a great national job.” Then, the formalities over, the politicians stripped off their coats, rolled up their sleeves, and carried the McGregors’ furniture into the bare house.

In 1937, the rent on 12 Fife Lane was 32s 6d a week “provided we looked after the place.”

When the McGregors decided to join the 24,000 people who have bought State houses the price was $2500. They finished paying it off three years ago, and now say they would not accept less than $lB,OOO for it. “But we won’t be leaving,” says Mrs McGregor, “we’ve got it very nice now. I think they’ll be carrying Dad and me out of here.”