1/1/2008 - AFS pioneers relive Kiwi experience
by Jean White
Stuff.Co.Nz
1957 the Soviet Union started the space race by launching the Sputnik satellite, the United States conducted its first underground nuclear test, and 24 students became guinea pigs in an American Field Service programme to create friendships across the world.
Nancy McFarland (nee McKeown) and Cecilia Riddell (nee Miles) of California were 17 when they were selected to take a two-week journey by ship to New Zealand in the AFS programme.
They returned down under in November to help celebrate the 60th reunion of AFS New Zealand and spoke to the North Shore Times about their voyage 50 years ago.
After docking in Auckland, Mrs McFarland was sent to live with Stanley Bay hosts Cyril and Dorothy Cockerill while Mrs Riddell lived in Milford with Jimmy and Margaret Murray-Lee.
The women attended Takapuna Grammar School from May to December with a third student, Joel Meister from Arizona.
Mrs McFarland had never travelled outside of the United States and was homesick for the first few days but says she was lucky to go to the grammar school.
“Most schools were segregated, but the grammar school was co-ed.”
She says the Kiwi males were socially behind and very curious about American girls.
“And we were happy to teach them. We dated several guys. There were good times.”
Mrs McFarland says the school experience was “really different but wonderful”.
“The students asked us if the film Blackboard Jungle was really true.”
The 1955 film was about an idealistic teacher faced with issues of race and class.
She says the subjects were a challenge, because they arrived in the middle of the school year. But she enjoyed the fact that school started 35 minutes later and lunch was 20 minutes longer than she was used to.
For a year after she returned home she was asked to give speeches, write articles and show photos of her trip.
“It was all so new. They wanted to know if the exchanges would work.”
Mrs McFarland says the experience has affected her life.
She has hosted her own AFS students and has been a district representative. She revisited New Zealand in 1985 and 2004.
“The people are so nice here. I love New Zealand, it’s my second home.”
Mrs Riddell didn’t fare quite so well in her first few days, immediately falling ill with suspected appendicitis.
In another mishap she fell off a horse and hit her head on a porcelain tub.
But she loved her host family.
“They bought a piano just for me to practise on.”
She says the students wanted to know about American teens, “our music, our life, if I had met Elvis”.
Going to New Zealand was like taking a step back in time, says Mrs Riddell.
“It wasn’t modernised. It was at a level about 25 years behind the US.”
She says the grammar school had a very strict uniform code of gloves, hat, jacket, tie, black stockings and black Oxford shoes.
“And no makeup. But I liked it. In the US the teens got so silly about their clothes. And school opened with a prayer period. We don’t have religion in our schools.”
English was taught by Accidental Life author Phoebe Meikle (1910-1997) who was at Takapuna Grammar School for more than 25 years.
“She was a forward thinking teacher. We did lots of writing. I kept in touch with her and have stacks of her correspondence.”
Mrs Riddell says when she returned to her US high school she saw it with an outsider’s view.
“I was disappointed. I had thought of it as glamorous but my friends seemed superficial.
“They were into their boyfriends and no one was interested in my story.”
She has kept in touch with her host family over the years and has been back to visit in 1990 and 2002.
“It goes on with visits from children and grandchildren. That first trip to New Zealand has changed my life’s dynamics.”
AFS has been going for more than 90 years, offering programmes in more than 60 countries on all continents.
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