The Witch of Valley Road

There were several rubbish tips worth scavenging around where Henry and the James boys lived and much to their mothers’ chagrin they brought all manner of items home that they thought might be useful. Not much ever was, but they did find bicycle parts that could be reused so the four managed to keep their rickety, hand-me-down machines going. They were therefore mobile, although they couldn’t venture too far without one or other breaking down, making teamwork necessary for the homeward journey.

The Heathcote River was a good place to check out and under the Fairview Street Bridge they caught cockabullies and fished for ‘crawlies’ with a safety pins and bread. Seldom did they manage to bring one above the surface and never did they land one! They knew they were actually fresh water crayfish, which nowadays is a delicacy. Sadly, no longer do crawlies survive in the now turgid water. But had they realized they were edible…

The rubble from the remains of Ballantyne’s department store, which burnt down late 1947 was dumped across the river, the site where they were going to build the new Princess Margaret Hospital. The area became their playground too. Y’know they say the hospital is past its use-by date and they intend to pull it down? At first they hoped to find body parts of the ‘missing’ amongst the rubble but when they found nothing, they built their own version of a cycle course. It proved a challenge; the other challenge was avoiding old Mr. Anderson who had taken on the role of ‘guardian of the relics and chief booter-offer’! 

Hackthorn Road, which climbs up the Cashmere Hills was also a part of their territory. They climbed the hill, pushing their bikes until they were puffed and then they free-wheeled down like the wind, at breakneck speed! Indeed they were lucky not to break their necks! There were tram tracks in the middle of the road, and it was easy for a wheel to become wedged, which would tip them off, resulting in grazed knees and elbows, not to mention the ripped clothing! None of them had brakes, except Henry who had a back-pedal brake – although it never actually worked, nevertheless he was proud of it! Mr. James, finally put a stop to the nonsense when he spotted them one day careering down the hill! He undid his belt making them scatter!

The boys knew where all the fruit trees were and they paid regular visits to them. There was a choice plumb tree in the property that is now Cashmere High School. The boys were expert climbers and it seemed nobody owned the tree so they were just ‘harvesting’, not raiding. Along Valley Road they found a cherry plumb tree in the grounds of the tennis courts. This tree produced the earliest fruit in the season, they considered it risky because they thought the tennis players might catch them. They were cautious. Once Jessie fell out of the tree and the racket he made caused the rest to make a run for it, but disappointing when they looked around, none the tennis players had taken the slightest notice!

A little further up Valley Road was a narrow, bush-line track the boys knew as ‘the wiggly-woggly track’, so named because of the way it wound its way up to Dyers Pass Road. The track was steep and the boys liked to push their bikes up as far as their wind and leg muscles would allow, and then they tried to negotiate the bends while racing down. They never fully mastered it and the occasional pedestrian was forced to take sanctuary in the bushes!

From their vantage point high on the track, among the trees below, they could see an old weatherboard house that looked to be deserted, in particular there was an apricot tree with golden fruit! Tony was the smallest of the four so Wayne, the oldest among them, pushed him onto the green and untended lawn. He was ordered to check if the house was indeed deserted. He quickly returned to say that the room he looked into had books along one wall and paintings on the other. They discussed the possibility of crossing the lawn, when Henry spotted a dark shape, possibly a person with white hair, pass another window! The boys retreated.

On their way back down Valley Road, they met Violet, the girl Henry had to sit next to in class! He didn’t much like the smell of her, but actually it wasn’t so bad sitting next to her because she could talk about tadpoles and frogs. In reply to his question about the house, he received a warning. A mysterious, grey-haired witch lives there! She seemed to come and go but nobody ever sees her. The kids on the street are all scared of her because Stuart, the curly headed boy, was walking past the house just on dusk one day when she appeared like magic, out of the bushes! He took fright and ran home but the next day he was taken to hospital with an asthma attack and has never completely recovered!

The brave boys planned to go back. Well they had never seen a proper witch! Young Tony abstained, so only the three went the next afternoon. It was a dismal, foggy day and the long grass was damp but it would muffle any sound of a footfall. It was Henry who was pushed forward this time and what Tony had said was correct. The first room was a library of sorts, but gloomy. He looked into another timber lined room with a fireplace, above the fireplace was a painting of a woman in dark clothing and to the right of the fireplace there was a rack with plates on it. He heard a noise and peeped around the corner of the house.

There was a tall, grey-haired woman standing in the doorway holding a broom, a birch broom! She wasn’t dressed in black as Henry would have assumed, he only noticed her light blue twinset top. She wore several strings of pearls and her hair was not quite white, as in the image they had of her, but grey and rather wavy. No pointy hat. For Henry those things were a fuzzy periphery, he focused on her face, which was serious, with no warts or scars, squarish and her eyes were brown. He would never forget that face! Their eyes locked for a second, or was that half an eternity? Anyway Henry ran! Apricots or not, they never went back!

Nine years later, Queens Birthday 1966, Henry was home for the long weekend and opened The Press to see if he was included in the Queen’s Birthday Honours list. Not this year again, maybe next year. His eyes settled on the photo of a brand new Dame! Dame Ngaio Marsh, the famous crime writer. She had received the honour for her contribution to theatre in New Zealand. He recognised the face, how could he ever forget it? It was none other than the Witch of Valley Road!