Horoera School Goes to Auckland

Te Ao Hou, March 1962, Page 11

Horoera School Goes to Auckland by Margaret A. Hiha First of all I had better locate Horoera. We are actually only seven miles from Te Araroa, on the East Coast, and also seven miles from the East Cape. Our isolation is because of lack of access. We are cut off from Te Araroa by an unbridged river, the Awatere. After rain this is so dangerous that no-one can cross it. We have no shops and no electricity. Our one asset is our proximity to the sea, which yields a regular supply of food. It is because of the river that most of our children had been no further afield than Te Araroa, and this is why we felt that an educational tour would be so beneficial for them. Our school is a two-teacher one, the teachers being my husband and myself. We have twenty-five children in the classes Standard Three to Form II. To take them to Auckland for a week would cost £230. Their parents were all in favour of the idea, and they were undeterred by the seemingly exorbitant cost involved. We discussed ways of raising the money, and hoped that a concert would ‘rake in the kale’. This was a big undertaking, as there are only fourteen families in the area. For it to be a success, everyone had to do something at the concert, from tiny tots to grandparents. And each one did pull his weight, so there was little chance of failure. We worked hard at our concert practices. We had a very varied programme, with individual items and group skits as well as Maori items. The adults found it difficult to remember action songs and haka from one week to the next, so we began practicing on Wednesday nights as well as on Sunday afternoons. Even so, the week before the concert we were appalled at our lack of perfection. A pep talk by one of the older generation worked wonders, and the dress rehearsal came smoothly to an end. With the usual differences ironed out, the night of our first performance rolled around.