Meet Geoff Parish, a lecturer in the School of Building Construction who has been teaching at Unitec for close to 35 years. We asked him to share some of his memories and learn more about his time at Unitec.
At school in the UK, I had wanted to build bridges, then in 1954 my headmaster told me civil engineers built bridges so I wanted to become one. However, in 1961 I became an articled construction management trainee instead – meaning I had five years of guaranteed employment.
If life is a journey, mine was interrupted in 1975 when I met a Kiwi girl in London. A few weeks later I proposed to her with the proviso that we would never leave England. Never say never! We got married at Saint Joseph’s Church in Takapuna and lived on Channel View Road by Takapuna Beach. We were the street’s sole inhabitants – life in New Zealand was whole lot different in the late 1970s.
Takapuna Beach 1970s post Harbour Bridge construction but pre Toll removal
I swam every evening out to the buoys at the end of the ski run – I only later learned about the sharks, especially the hammerheads – had I known about them earlier I wouldn’t have ventured so far out – the ski boats were dangerous enough especially when swimming across the ski run.
Fast forward to 1986. Life was tough and got even tougher in construction. A National government had maintained the excellent living standards of the average Kiwi by borrowing more money – which couldn’t last for ever. A new Labour government adopted National party tactics and ‘Rogernomics’ entered the political lexicon. New Zealand turned virtually overnight from being possibly the most protected economy on the planet to the most open one. The rest, as they say, is history.
This sent the construction industry into turmoil, creating a lot of uncertainty for a contractor like me, so I decided I needed a more stable job.
Carrington Hospital 1895
Whau Lunatic Asylum was built in 1865 on the Oakley Farm Estate and was later renamed Carrington Hospital, eventually becoming Carrington Polytechnic.
In the 1990s, Building One, as we now know it, was taken over by Carrington Polytechnic. I had some knowledge of it having supplied carpentry apprentices to it. I was also on an industrial panel that collaborated with the Institute.
My very first contact had been to attend a wedding reception at the back of Building 054. Truth is stranger than fiction and the groom wore a gorilla costume which livened up the proceedings. At that time the bride’s father was the head of Carrington Hospital and lived there with his family.
It was renamed Unitec because the name Carrington was supposedly associated with the mental health facility. For a while we were popularly and quite aptly known as ‘Loonitec’ given that we tried, but failed, to reinvent ourselves as a ‘new kind’ of “university” until the government refused the status change.
I was told that teaching was stressful, but I wondered how something so enjoyable could be stressful, especially when compared to running a construction company. We actually employed trades as employees in the ‘old’ days, not independent contractors, and paid them wages – that is stressful. It also led to better quality construction.
It may sound slightly naff to say it, but the more knowledge you give away the more you get back – while being paid to do it. That can’t be bad can it? A problem with the construction industry is that it is so complex you can only learn so much from reading about it – doing it is what really counts.
My main reason for still being at Unitec is its proximity to Auckland. Auckland is like nowhere else that I’ve been to, and now I consider overseas as a place to visit, and then to come home. I’ve lived longer in New Zealand than in the UK, and the only thing I still miss is the River Thames close to Hammersmith Bridge where I met my wife and where my rowing club is situated. If I have an issue with Auckland apart from its traffic, it is that the Waikato River is seriously under-utilised.
As an immigrant, I acknowledge and appreciate the privilege of being allowed to live in New Zealand but scratch my surface and I am still English. I regularly read The Guardian Weekly and follow the UK’s progress, especially in the construction field (nice place to visit but wouldn’t want to live there).
Finally on education, the system has changed so much at Unitec over the past 35 years and even today as we become Te Pūkenga – the New Zealand Institute of Skills and Technology.
Heraclitus said ‘Change is the only constant in life’ which is certainly true of education. Students, however, are still the key element that makes teaching enjoyable, and apart from their greater numbers and increased diversity, they are no different from the ones I first encountered in 1987, there are just a lot more of them.
The world has changed and is still changing. Our knowledge base has expanded exponentially as has our access to it, the words Google and Wikipedia both only entered the common dictionary for the first time this century, for example.
How the students cope with that expansion is the big question. But we mostly accept the world as it is when we first experience it and I doubt that today’s students are surprised by what they are confronted with at Unitec.
Plus ça change plus c’est la même chose maybe.
At least Te Tiriti is finally being given the recognition and the role it deserves, but has not received from the government for more than180 years. I sometimes tell my students the tide brought me here and when it went out, it left me behind, and I think perhaps New Zealand’s tide is starting to turn at last.
Ngā mihi nui ki a koe
Geoff