INSIDE BACK COVER ROBBIE BK01;  I could write much more about my family from those days, but as it was a fair while ago and I know I cannot get it all right. There are no real secrets to hide but some things that many families would think are bugger all, can cause all sorts of  arguments etc, so I will take this bit of old advice. SOME SLEEPING DOGS ARE BEST LEFT ASLEEP, and leave it at that.(Although we all know, they are never truly asleep just waiting for somebody to say something then it is all on again. Bugger that, been there and done that already mate)  So I will just keep tweaking the books every time I turn the computer on.
 The old man only had a few dogs but black & white collies were always called Lassie and every other breed was Jack.  Until about 2000  farm dogs have always  been  part of my life , that photo was taken at Manawaru in 1949,
ABC
It is not long and Dad has a job on a farm at WHENUAKITE  (all the BOB BOOKS have a NZ map on the last page)  From there it's to MANAWARU for a few months then to ATHENREE for a bit longer. By the time we move next, Ken and I had a little sister, Margaret. The move to TARIKI was a major move about the same as the first one. Johns Road at Tariki was where I spent the longest period of my childhood and started to know what the word WORK really meant. It was during this period that I really started to catch the horse, dog, and vehicle bug. Prior to Tiriki moving was just something that happened, something that every body did sooner or later and I had never wondered about the why and there-fores of it, however now I am around thirteen and wanted to know all about the whys and what have yous'. That did not go down too good with the old man so we were only ever told things on the NEED TO KNOW BASIS. All my life it has been a mystery to me why we were yanked out of  there and dumped on that bloody Waiheke Island. I suppose that tells you where we headed next, what a bloody dump in those days people only lived there because it was CHEAP. The next   move to BETHLEHEM  (near Tauranga)  then OTUMOETAI at Tauranga followed quite quickly, however by then I just went with the flow as my grand kids say today. I quite enjoyed Tauranga College after some of the previous rat bag schools and their teachers but by then the damage to my will or ability to learn had been temporally lost. Actually what is nearer the true is that my ability to have any respect for  some of those  so called teachers tarnished my ability to listen to any of them  GOOD or BAD.