Breaking up the boarders

The Marlborough Express

Earlier this month, Innes House, the 42-year-old combined Marlborough colleges' boarding facility, closed its doors for the final time. Over the years, the time-worn house had been a second home to more than a thousand students from all over Marlborough, the wider South Island and overseas. JO GILBERT talks to a few former boarders and supervisors about their memories of hostel life.

Stuffing potatoes down exhaust pipes, wrangling flagons of apple cider, midnight kitchen raids, and sneaking into dorms containing the opposite sex in the dead of the night are a handful of the more print-friendly tales to come from former Innes House boarders.

As far as boarding schools go, Innes may not have been the flashest, but it was comfortable and it was a home away from home for many Marlborough Boys' College, Marlborough Girls' College and Bohally Intermediate students in its 42 years of operation.

Boarders came from all over Marlborough and the wider South Island, as well as overseas, from areas such as Asia and the Pacific Islands.

But falling student numbers and rising costs meant the 42-year-old hostel closed its doors for the final time on July 3, the last day of the second term.

Without a $600,000 cash injection to carry out vital maintenance at the institution to attract more boarders, the Innes House management committee made the decision to close the hostel in May.

According to The Gold and the Blue, the book written for the Marlborough colleges' centenary in 2000, it was in 1964, after years of "agitation, struggling and representation to Government" by the special hostel committee, with support from the Women's Division of Federated Farmers and The Marlborough Express, that education minister Arthur Kinsella announced Marlborough was to have a co-educational hostel.

Named after Marlborough High School's first headmaster, Dr John Innes, and designed by Wellington architect James H Hall-Kenny, Innes House consisted of four dormitories, studies, administration rooms, recreational facilities and a dining room, catering for 39 boys and 33 girls. It was officially opened by the education minister on March 11, 1967.

However, less than a month after opening, the hostel was extended to accommodate another 20 students.

In 1969, boarder numbers peaked with 118 students but by the late 1980s, the hostel had only marginal numbers.

Despite a small spike in students about five years ago that took boarder numbers into the 50s, numbers have again fallen off over the last few years.

When the possibility of closure was made public in April, the hostel had 26 boys' college boarders and nine girls' college boarders. This was well down on the minimum 65 students needed to make it viable.

On the day it closed, 17 boarders remained, all of whom had found private board in Blenheim from term three.

The dedicated and skilled Innes House staff did their best to keep students occupied, as it was "only when idle that we got into mischief", says foundation boarder Chris Dawkins, of Waihopai Valley.

With fond memories of Saturday night dances, bike rallies across the Wairau Plains, winter weekends at Rotoiti Lodge and movie nights, Chris says he has equally tender recollections of mischievous antics that went on while he was a boarder from 1967 to 1970.

One particular anecdote involved potatoes from the hostel's kitchen and the exhaust pipe of "a dream car", house supervisor Lloyd Kerr's Jaguar Mark 2.

The boys involved were rewarded with a caning, he says.

The greenhouses on Rapaura Rd were a popular stop, Chris says, as some of the "more mature-looking boys" would visit to wrangle a flagon of apple cider and share it with the house.

"That was a great cause for a bit of hilarity. We had a lot of fun with that."

But both the house manager, Mr Knowles, and Mr Kerr had strong family values, which created a supportive, family-like atmosphere for the about 80 boarders, he says.

With three sisters, Chris says the house gave him a great opportunity to bond with boys the same age from similar farming backgrounds, with similar interests in sport and the outdoors.

"I made lifelong friends there and I still keep in touch with a lot of them. In fact, I was best man at one of my good friends from the house's wedding."

The hostel also afforded many of its boarders from rural areas sporting and cultural opportunities they wouldn't have had out in the country; something many boarders recall fondly.

As for the food, Chris says it wasn't "too bad", as he had a market for it at the boys' college taking it back to school after lunch to sell to the day boys to make a bit of pocket money.

Jane Bay (nee Fowler) says memories of writing letters home on Sundays, eating competitions and being "too chicken" to sneak out and meet boys at night come to mind when she thinks of Innes House.

The foundation boarder from the Wairau Valley says she loved the way living in the hostel gave her access to sports, as she was "a country girl who was big into her sport".

And although she might not have summoned the courage to sneak out and meet boys, she does admit to being an accessory in one incident.

"Once I, along with a couple of others, helped my extremely homesick roommate. We helped her run away and catch a train to Christchurch. I stuffed her bed to make it look like she was in it for when the supervisors did their checks.

"Somehow I didn't get into trouble, but she did. It didn't matter, though, as she didn't last long after that."

Sneaking down to the girls' dorms and smoking down at Pollard Park were "boarding tricks" in the house's early days, says former boarder Tony Moore.

The former Wairau Valley lad, now living in Perth, Australia, boarded at Innes for four years from 1969.

Hostel life was fun, he says, and full of characters.

"It was a particularly interesting experience to have it as co-educational, considering school was single sex ... I never got caught going down to the girls' dorms."

Sneaking into the dorms of the opposite sex was more of a challenge to see if you could get away with it, rather than anything particularly risque, says Wendy Price (nee Leov).

"You had to sneak through the living room and communal areas and past the staff quarters and then you had to stay in the wardrobe and keep quiet when the staff did their rounds. That was about the `naughtiness' of it, really; it was a challenge."

As the fifth child in her Omaka Valley family to board at Innes, Wendy says it was a lot of fun and allowed her to play sports and spend time with friends after school.

Like many others, she also made lifelong friends at the hostel during her four years to 1983.

"The worst thing was some of the food. The mashed potato made from potato flakes and the really runny macaroni cheese were terrible. It wasn't all bad, but those two things really stuck out and I still can't really eat macaroni cheese."

Attending a single-sex school meant boys were "demystified" by living in the hostel, she says.

"We soon realised they were just a pain and much like brothers."

Being able to spend time with her friends whenever she felt like it was what Juliet Croucher loved the most about her four years at Innes House.

From Parnassus, Juliet started at Marlborough Girls' in 1998, her fourth form (year 10) year.

Midnight kitchen raids, late-night conversations with friends, watching rugby games on TV at "obscene hours" with the student tutors, and the end-of-year formal dinners were favourites from her time in the house.

The food, Juliet says, was her "least favourite thing", as although she appreciated how hard it was to cook for a large group, there was plenty of room for improvement. In fact, some of her best memories from the hostel include sneaking pizza in when "we really couldn't face dinner".

Former house manager Jim Knowles said life at the hostel was hard work, but enjoyable and rewarding.

As Innes House's manager for its first four years, Jim lived in a house on the hostel grounds with his late wife, Dorothy, and their four children.

For the most part, the boarders were very good, he says, but managing the hostel and working fulltime at the boys' college as a maths teacher made for very long days.

"We [myself and the supervisors] did what we could to make it a family-like environment for the kids, but it was structured as it had to be.

"While I was there, it [the hostel's occupancy] peaked with 118 students and that was too much."

The well-liked former manager said he used to enjoy taking boarders fishing and on winter trips to Rotoiti Lodge.

In fact, at almost 40 years since his departure, he says he still keeps in touch with some of his old charges.

"One April Fool's Day they pinched the spark plugs out of my car."

Ironically, says Jim's son Peter, after his father was a big part of the first years of Innes House, he was a member of the hostel's management committee the group that made the decision to close it.

"It's funny really how it turned out; Dad started it up and I closed it down."

As the last permanent house managers, Ray Russell and his wife, Gail, managed Innes House for about eight years before finishing up a few months ago.

Ray says they loved the contact with the teenagers.

"You really get to see a different side of the kids when you live with them; warts and all.

"And you get to know them and their families, you get to know them like they're your family. But, like every family, you have your ups and downs."

But numbers were a problem during their tenure, he says, as boarding school became a less popular notion and transport options increased.

The highest occupancy the couple saw was just over 80 boarders in about 2003-2004.

However, that was too many, says Ray.

"The needs of the kids have changed since the hostel was built and they needed more recreational areas. Seventy would've been a good number.

"With the closure I feel really sad for the kids who have been there for a quite a few years especially. It was like their home."

The worst thing was some of the food. The mashed potato made from potato flakes and the really runny macaroni cheese were terrible. It wasn't all bad but those two things really stuck out and I still can't really eat macaroni cheese.  Wendy Price (nee Leov)