IN OLD WELLINGTON

Evening Post, Volume CXVIII, Issue 57, 5 September 1934, Page 8

IN OLD WELLINGTON

(To the Editor.)

Sir, —"While awaiting the departure of a bus last week I happened to notice the old two-storeyed building, part of the Hotel Cecil, being pulled down, and my memory drifted back again to my boyhood days when I -ed there with my sister (Mrs. X, Harriot) and her husband, who carried on a business as a bootmaker. I chanced to notice several holes in the clay bank at the back of tho disappearing building, and I could not help being surprised to sco those holes there after about sixty years. My sister, who was a lover of flowers, had no garden in which to grow them, so, determined not to be denied the beauty of a few blooms, sho dug holes in tho clay wall and planted her seeds in them, where, after a while, the flowers grew for her. In those days there was, on the northern side of tho building, a little grocer shop carried on by a Mr. Osborne, and towards the corner of the street was a Mr. Cooper's aerated water shop; while next"to that was a very tiny shop owned by a Mr. Gradey, a watchmaker. On the southern side of the building was a stable, which. ran through from Lambton Quay to Sydney Street This belonged to a Mr. McCall. The proprietor of the hot:el itself was a Mr. McGinnity.

The main road then was barely wido enough for two. carts to pass, ancl tho water came up almost to the. road. Directly opposite the hotel was Brown's Wharf.* I have cause to remember this wharf as my brother, while fishing, slip ped from it into tne water ami was lying, half-drowned, on the bottom, when a policeman, known as "Big Davey," dived in and rescued him.

Perhaps some of the old identities will remember the amusement caused by two dogs, one called "Nipper" and tho other "Snapper," who would fetch potatoes from a bag outside Mr. Osborne's store, for passers-by to throw into the.sea, so that they might return them. Should they lose sight of a potato the dogs would return' for another, and, at the end of the week, tho storekeeper was in a sorry plight over losing' about a hundredweight of potatoes. Many were the arguments that these dogs caused. Perhaps, too, some may remember scooping up oysters out of the sea where Lambton Station now stands. Later, when tho site was filled in I sat at the top-storey window of the hotel on the Queen's Birthday and watched tho parade of the Volunteers. I should like to write some more of imy reminiscences, but I fear I am already trespassing on your valuable space. Hoping this may be of interest to you as a fragment of Wellington's early history.—l am, etc., ALBERT E. BOYD.