Arrival in New Zealand and meeting my uncle Arnett

Uncle Arnett Eastwood
















I arrived in Christchurch New Zealand on the twelfth October about 3.30 NZT. When you fly into Christchurch one usually comes in over the Southern Alps which is very spectacular with mountains full of snow. It was a brilliant sunny day which made it more spectacular. By the time I got through the immigration and baggage control it was well after four. But Arnett was there with his step daughter Joan to meet me. You could see he was pleased to see me. Hello Kevin in a broad Whitefield accent. Though he has been in New Zealand over fifty years his accent is just the same as when he landed. On every public and what Arnett thinks is an important occasion He always wears his blue Return Service Association blazer with it badge and his medals. He has it on today so telling me without words that he is very pleased to see me and that he considers this an important occasion in his life. I give him a hug which he is not used to and he gives me an embarrassed one back. He looks a lot thinner and smaller than when I last saw him. He is under five foot, though he will insist when you push him that he is five foot two and a half. We have a bit of a chatter while Joan gets the car.

We arrive at Hoani Street. The state house was built just after the war and Evelyn his wife and himself moved there soon after they got married. It was Evelyn’s second marriage her first husband had died and she was left with two girls Sylvia and Joan, who Arnett has treated as his own. Arnett was thirty six when he married and Evelyn was forty seven though only admitted to being forty one. The house itself is a typical state house, very functional with no frills. I think in the fifty years he has been there not many things have changed in the furniture and décor either. Arnett still has the same double bed that Evelyn and himself bought when they first moved into the house. There seems to be a big dip in the middle, which always reminds me of the bed the old lady is lying on in Hitchcock’s film Psycho. There is the same lino down throughout the house with sliding carpets, though he has made some concession by carpeting the hall and his bedroom. Most of the furniture is from the fifties with a few relative new pieces, such as the Television and a couple of coffee tables. The cooker and electric fire are old but work very well. And as he says why get a new one if the old one is working. If everyone followed his philosophy I suppose we wouldn’t be in the mess we are in re global warming. Joan says her good bye and we have our supper and sit down for a good chat. Over the next few days I get to know my uncle a lot better and he reveals a lot about himself which is a small part of history. I personally think his life though very mundane now has in fact been very interesting and in my next blog will tell you some of his history.