The article below has been published in a new book:
....and then came the bridge
A History of Long Bay and Torbay
compiled by Marie Gray and Jennifer Sturm
This is an excellent account of the history and pioneering people of this unique area - highly recommended. Unfortunately Mary Giles passed away in April, 2009. Marie Gray came to Mum's funeral and I told her how proud Mum had been to see the story about Mary & Ces in that book.
Ces and Mary Giles arrived in Torbay in 1952, seeking a warmer climate than Hamilton to assist their son,
Ron, recover from Glandular TB. They purchased the small grocery store that was then on the corner of Auld & Beach Roads, across the road from what is now the service station. The owner of the grocery store, Les Sewell, also sold them a small house in Bridge Road (now Deep Creek Rd), where Mary still lives; Ces having died in 1980. The original grocery store was a miniature version of that famous TV grocery store – Arkwright’s in ‘Open All Hours’. It is hard for the younger generation to believe that the grocer used to go around the store, collecting all the grocery items from the shelves to fulfill the order of the customer.
A few years later, Ces & Mary opened one of the first ever ‘mini-supermarkets’ just up Beach Rd, where the store is now a dairy. It was quite an adjustment for customers to have to pick up a basket and find their own grocery items! The Torbay Shopping Centre was rather unique, in those days, in that the shops were the only ones in Auckland allowed to open on Saturday mornings – Torbay being deemed a ‘holiday suburb’. The upside was that the shops were all closed on Wednesday afternoons.
The outgoing couple immediately made an impact on the small community that was then Torbay. Ces was a keen sportsman, having excelled in a variety of sports at Hamilton Boys High School; being in the 1st XV, 1st XI cricket, 1st XI Hockey, and was a champion athlete. So good in fact that his Hop, Step and Jump record stood for over 30 years.
Ces quickly became the Champion Singles Player at the Torbay Tennis Club and at the Torbay Indoor Bowling Club as well.
The couple soon joined the local Presbyterian Church, which in those days was held in the historic St Marys By The Sea Church, at the top of Bridge Rd (Ces & Mary later became Elders of this church). The church was later moved to the bush stretch of Glen Var Rd but was destroyed by fire several years later; a big loss of one of the iconic buildings of Torbay.
Ces & Mary were very popular with many Torbay church-going teenagers as they often were camp ‘Mum & Dad’ at the Bible Class Camps held at Orewa. One of those same teenagers, Bruce Duske, went on to become Moderator of the Presbyterian Church.
Those Torbay teenagers also probably knew Ces & Mary from the days when they helped Allen Kilduff run ‘The Club’ at the Torbay Community Hall. Allen selflessly devoted a huge amount of time and energy to providing an evening of games & activities every Friday night for hundreds of Torbay kids over the years he ran The Club. Ces & Mary were also there helping out on Saturday nights, over summer, when dances were held for all the campers from Long Bay Campground.
Attractive as Long Bay might be, it was not the choice of beach for the Torbay shopkeepers. They tended to gather late afternoon on Wednesdays at ‘The Cove’, which was what the locals called the little beach at the end of Rock Isle Rd. Barbeques would be fired up, ‘snarlers’ (sausages) burned and salads shared – as would stories of customers’ goings on. Torbay may have changed a lot in 50 years – but some things never change.
