Hinerangi Vaimoso
Memories, no matter how wonderful, tend to fade.
So for many of us, it's hard to remember, or even imagine, life as it was in the mid-1950s, in particular the day Hastings celebrated its coming of age.
But for 74-year-old Rosemary Makin the journey back to the day Hastings was proclaimed a city was always going to be easy.
Tucked away in a cupboard at her Te Awanga home was an edition of the Herald-Tribune from Saturday, September 8, 1956, the day Hastings was officially declared a city.
"I'm quite a hoarder," she laughed.
"I've always kept quite an archive of papers which really interested me. I've still got the paper from the day President Kennedy died."
While the city's proclamation stole the front page on that red letter day, there were plenty of other events to read about, even though they took something of a back seat - page 25.
Readers were stung with the bad news that the world-renowned Napier wrestler Pat O'Connor had pledged his allegiance to his wife's home country, USA, in the hopes of chasing the world title.
Residents in Whangarei spent the evening of September 7 watching an unidentified flying object in the sky, which apparently morphed into a multitude of shapes and colours.
Actually, there must have been something in the air that night.
Hastings man Mr D Gordon reported a red and blue illuminated object had been seen flying over Oliphant Road.
New research by a Hawke's Bay mother, whose child was one of many swept into the Davy Crockett fan club, showed the famous frontier bushman may not have just been a myth, but a living legend.
Meanwhile, the Postmaster-General's Department in Sydney began an investigation into the sale of some troublesome underwear.
A leading department store in Melbourne sold "telephone" underpants which featured a rather risque design of female christian names alongside what was believed to be cancelled Melbourne phone numbers.
But - shock, horror - curious customers dialled the digits to find the numbers were still in operation.
The calls' recipients in fact lived in Sydney, but unfortunately didn't go by the names that were printed on the underwear.
Kiwi-Aussie rivalry was still alive and well.
Our counterparts across the ditch had kicked up a stink about New Zealanders sending Merino wool to other countries and were calling for a ban on the NZ export.
The Assies argued that other countries were benefiting from years of Australian industry research.
Doctors and tobacco companies clashed over the medical fraternity's desire to discourage young people from smoking because of the potential health risks.
The link between cancer and cigarettes had not been fully proven at that stage so the Tobacco industry took home the victory.
In 1956, Martin Luther King's Civil Rights movement had yet to spread across the US and one story reported that 100 armed men had hustled a group of reporters out of Clay, Kentucky, to avoid any filming of the anti-negro campaign taking place at the local school.
Mrs Makin said times had changed since she last read that newspaper in 1956.
Everything from social issues to the scale of crime, from the size of the type used then and now, to the price of the broadsheet.
When the city was proclaimed a city, the then Miss Ritchie, whose parents owned Thomas Ritchie & Sons Plumbers and Electricians, had just returned from "what they call the big OE these days," arriving just in time to catch the traditional blossom parade.
"So many people don't hand this knowledge down to their children which is really sad because once we've gone, there'll be no history left," Mrs Makin said.
Paper history of Hastings in 50s
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