KEY POINTS:
Shirley Carline never really liked walking to school.
So in 1933, when Parnell School was shifted from Fraser Park on the Parnell Rise to the corner of Gladstone and St Stephens Aves, she was delighted.
"We lived right across the road."
Now Shirley Gavin, the 86-year-old looks back with fondness to her youth spent growing up in Parnell and attending the primary school, which is now 135 years old.
"They were very happy days."
Parnell School held a gala day on Sunday to mark the anniversary and Mrs Gavin helped to plant a pohutukawa tree on the edge of the school field with the youngest pupil, Cameron Blyth, who started school last week.
The day was also an opportunity for organisers of the planned 140th jubilee to publicise the first major reunion since the 1973 centenary.
Organiser Brian O'Brien said he was hoping to get former students registered well ahead of the event.
Mr O'Brien, who attended the school from 1947 to 1956, remembers features no longer present at the school such as the stands where bottled milk was provided for the pupils, and the bell tower.
Having arrived at the school shortly after the end of World War II, he also recalled the concrete bunker air raid shelters and participating in formal parades around the school grounds to martial music.
"It was quite military in style."
