Schoolboy's front-seat view

David Hutcheson (left) and Frank Keegan have vivid memories of the bridge's big day. Photo / Martin Sykes

David Hutcheson was in his best school uniform, eager to help his grandmother Lady Annie Allum collect the first tolls from motorists eager to hand over the cash on the day the bridge opened.

Accompanied in one of eight "hamburger stand" toll booths by a bridge control officer wearing war medals, the 12-year-old stood ready to play his part in what one civic leader described as Auckland's greatest celebration "since VE [Victory in Europe] Day".

Although nobody could predict how popular the bridge would prove, David Hutcheson was amazed at what he saw coming towards them from Takapuna.

"I can only describe it as a phalanx of vehicles, like a tidal wave moving down the motorway," he recalls.

"This was just the most exciting thing to happen to me in my life - here I was, collecting two and sixpence a shot, the old half crowns, pressingand pulling levers and all sortsof talking going on through the radio."

Up on the bridge, in his new combination fire tender and vehicle-recovery truck, control officer Frank Keegan was soon rushing with a jerry can to a car holding up the opening-day throng because it had run out of petrol.

Aged 24, he was the youngest of 25 control officers to be selected from 296 applicants for Auckland's big day.

He worked on the bridge until its controlling authority was wound up in 1984 with its construction loans fully repaid from the last toll.

Many control officers were recruited from the returned armed forces. Others included redundant ferry boat captains, and and Mr Keegan came from the Fire Service.

The young David Hutcheson, despite being able to ride on the coat-tails of his grandfather and authority chairman Sir John Allum at bridge events, says that never made him any less deferential to the control officers and recalled often seeing Mr Keegan on duty while passing through the toll plaza on this way home to Takapuna.

The pair met again before the bridge's 50th anniversary, to marvel at the legacy left by his grandfather.

Mr Keegan recalled the importance placed by the bridge authority on good public relations to win over motorists to the idea of paying tolls.

"It was anticipated there would be some resistance so we had to make it as painless as possible," he said. "We had to greet all motorists with 'good morning' et cetera and be polite at all times."

Most reciprocated the courtesy, with the exception of a few "ratbags" such as a man who heated his toll coin with a cigarette lighter before dropping it into an officer's hand.

Drivers had all sorts of excuses for not paying tolls.

"It was quite common for wives to run their husbands to work in their nightdresses, only to find on their return journey that they had forgotten to take their purses and had no cash."