1958: Three Kings Carols by Candlelight

December 13, 2024

By AHNZ

Three Kings Carols by Candlelight est.1958 was a Mount Roskill Borough Council initiative. Back then local government was local and Auckland had 20-something mayors. Borough Mayor Keith Hay made dramatic structural changes in this era (First Turning) and Mount Roskill became New Zealand’s largest borough.

“CAROLS NAME CHANGE
Disappointed to read in your paper that a celebration established in 1958, Three Kings Carols by Candlelight has had a name change. (It is now called Carols at the Kings) Why? On whose approval? I find it a shame that it seems like everything has to change. It was perfectly fine as it was.” – Maree Smith, Three Kings. Western Leader (Dec 2024)

Keith Hay…”After one term on Mount Roskill Borough Council he was elected mayor in 1953. Here, too, he was an entrepreneurial leader. He swiftly sold council plant, contracted out services, doubled the rates, and borrowed £1 million. His council made dramatic improvements to the basic amenities of a semi-rural district. The population grew quickly and Mount Roskill became New Zealand’s largest borough. Hay encouraged a policy of self-help under which the council provided materials and led citizens in working bees to construct their footpaths and a local swimming pool. He promoted a Christian vision of suburban life (opening council meetings with prayer), and was influential in creating the ‘Bible belt’ character of Mount Roskill – a no-licence suburb with 26 churches for 35,000 people by 1988. He did less to promote the community’s cultural assets. When Hay retired from the mayoralty in 1974..” –  Dictionary of New Zealand Biography (2000)

Smith asks a good question. Someone at Auckland Supercity Council has made a re-branding choice in recent years. Got their fingers in our heritage with no oversight from the public. There’s a trend in the 2020s for bureaucrats to not ask permission and just see what sticks. If there’s push-back they’ll apologise. (Even the Solicitor-General did it recently with two-teir sentencing guidelines.)

Mount Roskill Borough

Mount Roskill Borough (1947-1989) was, of course, wiped out by Local Government assassins Michael Bassett and Brian Elwood. Ref. 1989: The Great Amalgamation, AHNZ

Before its demise the Borough came up with their own motto: People and Progress.

And, Coat of Arms (image right.)

According to Central Leader (1976) “In the process of selecting suitable colors for the shield, a new shade of green was developed and named Roskill Green.” That heritage colour now lost in the swirl of Auckland’s amalgamated brew. The thing to do would be to take this crest down to Bunnings Warehouse Mt Roskill and hold the green up to their paint tinting scanner to produce some buckets of Roskill Green. Might be an idea to do that soon before the old crest turns up in the refuse the way Masterton District Council recently did with history entrusted to them. 

—
Image ref: Carols by Candlelight, 13 December 1975, Auckland Council Archives.

Image ref. “Great news. The Mt Roskill Crest has been found in the basement of the restored Municpal building. I look forward to seeing it hanging in the reopened buuilding.” – Mount Roskill People 1840-1940, Meta (2018)

Ref. Central Leader (1976,) Timespanner to Mt Roskill People, ibid

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