Joyce Amy Chisholm

Joyce Chisholm was b: 5th Dec 1909 at Wellington. Back then, Island Bay was sparsely settled and Joyce recalled a childhood made secure by a well organised mother, who was fortunate to have people in to help with many of the day to day chores, including a piano teacher who came in to teach Joyce weekly, and a dressmaker who appeared four times a year to sew new clothes for a growing girl. The beach was their playground, a place to explore for Joyce and younger brother along with the family's wire-haired fox terrier, Pickles. He would accompany the children and enjoyed nothing better than sniffing round in the sand and to roll in newly deposited seaweed, or fragments of fish, often rotten, left by the Italian fishermen. The smell when he returned home was not usually appreciated and Pickles would try to slink away and hide to avoid the enssential bath!

Distance from Island Bay School meant Joyce's mother Amy kept her home till she was close to seven and taught her to read so she was able to fit in, in Std.1 when she was enrolled. The first few years Joyce were happy, but her senior school years there left unpleasant memories - large classes and the harsh discipline of the the leather strap handed out by teachers for misbehaviour and the bullying that frightened a rather quiet shy child. A contrast to Secondary school she travelled in to school by tram to Wellington Girls College - now learning became a pleasure.

The family moved to Rona Bay at the beginning of 1925 - this meant a walk in all weathers to Days Bay to catch the ferry over to the Wellington wharf and up to school. The ferry trip continued when Joyce started her tertiary education. Despite the difficulties in her home life, Joyce shared being Head Prefect in 1926 with her friend, and gained her Higher Leaving Certificate - this provided her with a grant to help pay tuition fees for University.

Due to restricted finances Joyce was unable to take full-time university study but  opportunities were offered by the Education Department. They were appointing young school leavers as Probationary teacher trainees in primary schools. Joyce applied and was accepted, to do a Probationary year at Brooklyn Primary School for an £80 a year allowance. This year was followed by two years of teacher training at Wellington Teacher's College. During these three years, when university was in session, she rushed along at the end of the school day, to Victoria University College to attend lectures, which began at 4 to suit the part-time students. Training College completed Joyce was appointed as a student teacher back to Brooklyn Primary, but having forty eight children in a classroom gave no time nor energy for study.