Children of Leonard James and Lillias Helen Beck

Leonard never married but was always the favourite uncle of his brothers children.

Len lived at 40 Churchill St, Whakatane, with his father Jim and worked at the Whakatane Board Mills.

Len was known as ‘Skin’ or ‘Skinny’ to his family and friends.

It was always thought that he was in love with his brothers wife Muriel and when she died in 1980, Len just pined away.

Len loved horse racing and often came to Auckland to attend the bigger race meetings in Auckland.

Len collected all his threepence pieces to put into the Xmas pudding and what was left over shared between Chris & I.

Christmas was a time the family got together at Whakatane, but as the house was so small the family stayed in a tent or the garage.

Bill passed his Proficiency Exam in Form 2, a bit like School Cert. He was always proud of the fact.
 

Bill was a farm worker in the Thames Valley area, during the depression he wandered over the country to look for work. He walked into Napier 3 days after the Earthquake that happened on 3 February, 1931.
 

Bill worked as a carpenter with Hall and Fletcher Construction, as he was in what was called an essential service during the war he never joined the services, but did belong to the Home Guard. It was during the war years that Greenlane Hospital was built, a construction project Bill was employed on.
 

He stayed with Fletchers and at the time of his retirement at 60 he was working as a Steel Foreman with Fletcher Steel.
 

Bill played Representative Hockey as a young man. He loved his rugby, fishing and beer (usually spent Boxing Day at the pub across the road). He was also an avid photographer.

Do you know how long it used to take Dad to get from Auckland to Whakatane! Eight hours, it wasn’t until Len came down in his new Valiant one year and he said it took him 3 hours, that I realised that dad was doing a pub crawl from Auckland to Whakatane.
 

At least mum and I got to have a look at the shops and have an ice-cream, we would then stop on the side of the road usually under the shade of an over hanging tree and dad would have a snooze. As we didn’t own our own vehicle dad would hire a vehicle, usually a Standard 10 and when he couldn’t get one of those he hired a Triumph Herald. How he packed that vehicle was a pure work of art.
 

Chris and I wiled away the hours playing “Spotto” a game that we used to get from the B.P. Stations, we had to look for items and tick them off when we saw them, it may have been a car with a blue trailer light, a dog, a Maori place name. Dad had to shout the winner an ice-cream or a fizzy drink. Another game we played in the car was ‘I spy’.
 

Dad would always go crook at the speeders, he would say we’ll catch up with them, and sure enough we did when they stopped to fill up with petrol. We usually spent 2 weeks at Whakatane, we went on day trips to the hot pools at Awakeri, Opitiki, and once we were even going to go to Gisborne, but we only got as far as Te Kaha, dad had a beer in the pub there and then we turned around and went back to Grandads.
 

Dad often fished on the surf beaches between Whakatane and Opitiki while us kids swam in the surf.

Grandad had plum trees groaning with plums and we use to gorge ourselves silly on them.
 

Before Uncle Len added the toilet to the back porch they had a long drop out the back, it wasn’t very nice when it got too hot in the summer, and it was always full of spiders, something I didn’t like to much when I was young.
 

Grandad also kept chooks, I remember peeking around the corner one day when he loped the head of one, the damn thing kept running around the chicken coop with no head on.
 

On December 20, 1939 he married Muriel Stevens at the Holy Trinity Church, Otahuhu. The marriage lasted 40yrs and they had 5 children. When they first married they lived in Otahuhu with Muriels mother. They moved to Orakei where they spent most of their married life, 1st at Awarua Cres, then 46 Reihana St, and later 49 Ngake St. Bill stayed on there after Muriel passed away in 1980, when he could no longer look after himself he went into the Arran Court Rest Home till his death of heart failure in 1993. Bill was Cremated at Waikumete Crematorium on the 11 December, 1993. He was 82 yrs old.