The lobby, around 1900. The lobby was the centre of parliamentary life. Here, bets were made and tricks played, and the more boisterous Member of Parliament sometimes put on the odd impromptu sporting or wrestling match as well.
Lieutenant Colonel Lawrence Wright was a doctor in the Medical Corps. At Gerawla he helped set up the hospital, but was also sports officer, responsible for making a rugby field as he describes here
Jim Barclay fought with the 27 Machine Gun Battalion all through the North African campaign. Here he recalls going to the pictures at the infamous Shafto's cinema at Maadi Camp.
Eleanor Fraser served in the Women's War Service Auxiliary as a Tui in the New Zealand Forces Club in Cairo. She left for Egypt in September 1941 with 29 other young women with whom she would work in the club, behind one of the counters supplying refreshments to the troops on leave. Here she describes the routine of the club
In the late 1950s and through the 1960s coffee bars sprang up all over Wellington city, with names like La Scala, the Picasso, Sans Souci Coffee Shoppe, Tete a Tete, and the International Coffee Lounge run by Wellington celebrity Carmen.
Although Wellington's first restaurants opened in the nineteenth century, the mid 1930s saw the emergence of a different type of establishment, the milk bar, which in many ways was the forerunner to the modern cafe.
A menu from the French Maid Coffee House The interior of the French Maid Coffee House, 1940s By Nancy Swarbrick The rise of coffee houses in the 1940s, 50s and 60s was not a phenomenon confined to Wellington, or indeed to New Zealand.
Folk musicians at the Monde Marie coffee house by Wayne Taitoko Entertainment generally and music in particular have always been a part of the Wellington cafe scene.
Although the American forces worked hard, they all craved some time off. But New Zealand leisure-habits were very different to American ones. So the visitors devised their own forms of entertainment and established enclaves of American culture.
New Zealand in the 1940s and 1950s has been described as a drab and uniform place. From the late 1950s, however, a café culture was established throughout the country
For many people of both nations the most memorable aspect of the American invasion was the home visits. Often these were arranged formally, with New Zealand families signing up to offer the Americans a weekend at home.
Prisoners of war took any opportunity to fill in the long hours of incarceration. Here POWs at Stalag XVIIIA parade in costumes made from recycled material from Red Cross parcels in a 'carnival' called Roman Holiday
Before e-games, people played all sorts of games around Christmas time.
Some of these games, such as the ‘Light the cigarette race’ and 'the slave market', haven’t stood the test of time very well.
During the Second World War New Zealanders discovered that familiar places suddenly had new uses. The grandstand at Hutt Park became a movie theatre each night
