Tony Watkins

At Karaka Bay it was a tradition that when anyone brought their own Herald down the hill they also brought everyone else’s Heralds down. Quite apart from issues of courtesy and friendship it made common sense. When everyone helped everyone else it made life easier for everyone.

No one who lives at Karaka Bay needs to read fiction. The real thing is just so much more interesting.

The police wanted me to work with them to bring an “attempted murder” charge against Bill Grayson. With enough witnesses they felt confident they would secure a conviction, which of course is what the police needed to gain promotion. I refused.

It is an enormous generalisation but you could suggest that European civilisation was based on exploitation. Ships were the technology and they roamed the world bringing home gold, silver, spices, attitudes, ideas, and raw materials to keep the factories producing ever more goods.

A number of residents of Karaka Bay, who asked not to be named, for obvious reasons, have asserted their right to act as censors of the opinions and web pages of other people. They do not believe that freedom of speech has any place in a democracy. This brings into focus not only the real climate change issue but also the source of so many woes in our society.

Human beings are astonishingly inconsistent, in that they tend to have one set of rules for themselves and a different set for other people. The only locals who complain if anyone is standing on the path when they want to barge past are the same people who have completely blocked off the public access past their own house.

It all began when Rae parked her new Peugot so that she was blocking in other cars in the Peacock Street carpark. It was a selfish and stupid thing to do and one which was bound to have consequences.

When it was no longer possible in 1997 for Jojo to get down the hill in her wheelchair Neil Beken offered to bring her around in his waka.

It took five Auckland City Council arborists to condemn the old Mexican Pine, with other pine trees cut down to provide all the paper on which they wrote their reports. Then they all went away.

Dogs, or more specifically dog owners, have always been a problem at Karaka Bay. They foul the foreshore so that is unsafe to swim or even sit on the grass for a picnic. They chase all the birds. They destroy the atmosphere of the Bay with their persistent barking.