Road Trip 2013 - Celebrating 50 Years of Friendships

So we left Tauranga

An easy drive, I was quite taken with this little local school in Te Poi, I love the way they beautify the boring buildings

Not such a lengthy trip this time, but we did stop for lunch in Cambridge

We found this wonderful little Café

Café Fifty Five

Now this is what I call sandwich lunch.

Club sandwiches and lovely little pies

One last stop on this wonderful Road Trip

Hamilton

Why are we in Hamilton,?

Well because, Debbie and David live there

Time for a bit of background here I feel.

Once again a little indulgent...

Someone has to document our lives, it seems I have automatically volunteered me!

It is the 6 degrees of separation all over again. I love the fact that we are still friends with all of these people. So these visits on this Road Trip are really special

Around 1970, Dale and his brother Craig both decided that they wanted to work for themselves.
They put their musical prowess into it's best use...They had been moonlighting, writing jingles, for various Ad Agencies

It seemed there would be enough work to go freelance.

So January Productions was born

The business grew and next thing they were making commercials for Agencies and also started to make Video Presentations for selected Clients

Lion Breweries was one.
Below: Tony Preston, right at a meeting with Dale and Craig and some others

Their contact there, Tony Preston was getting restless he fancied the idea of working on the other side.
Below: Tony with Jeannie Douche, mentioned in earlier post, in the 80's

This was taken at Tony's 40th I think. Gosh that was a while ago.

Dale suggested that he joined forces with Terry Christie,
Below: on Acrux in Waitemata Harbour, circa 1978

Terry was Creative Director at Inglis Wright,
They should form a boutique Agency, using Dale and Craig for their production.

Back then, it was very difficult to get Media Accreditation,

Warwick Woodward had full Accreditation, with all media, and they enlisted his help
So Preston Christie Woodward was born

He was a silent partner.
Below right - Warwick with Dale

As an aside, Warwick also lent Dale and I, his accreditation when we started Calypso Communications. We were very grateful

But I digress

John Hood our neighbour in Chudleigh Grove, Churton Park
The King of Chudleigh Grove

who ran Quickstik, had an office on The Terrace.
His company was growing and moving on.

They needed tenants for their premises

Perfect …so January Productions moved into the Pink Palace.
The view, not too bad!

Once again it seemed obvious that to get more clout, the two boutique houses should merge

Terry and Tony moved into the Terrace

So Campaign was born.
Bit of Campaign Memorabilia

In the 80's The Pink Palace was demolished to increase the James Cook Hotel
Sad, great memories and a lot of history from that building

As the business grew, it was obvious that Campaign needed to open an Auckland Office

Dale was spending 2 days a week in Auckland,

At that time, that was the only place in NZ to do Video Production

He was the main electronic producer at the agency

Old friends from Wellington, who had moved to Auckland in 1967

Pete and Glenys Burt were his saviours
The Burts with yours truly Club Med, circa 1978

Where we met Joyce in the yellow bikini...Those were the days

Sorry back to the tale

The “Burt Hilton” was Dale’s place of residence during this time

Kept him sane

Pete had worked with Dale and Terry, plus Marty in those early years at Inglis Wright…
Below: Pete and Dale about to tackle the Wellington Harbour. Would you trust these men?

Bit better?

But Auckland and a new job called him and by 1967 they were resident in Remuera

Dale was up there so often,, bringing lots of work on which he needed Pete to work his artistic magic.

There was so much work about and before too long, Dale had talked Pete into freelancing.

So Concept was born

It was obvious that Campaign needed an Auckland Office

So the Campaign Boys bought a house in Parnell to use for their office.

They hired a girl, Annie Bastow, (ex Wellington,) brought in David Innes to run the office and service Auckland Clients

Pete set up his business, Concept, there as well

David moved on and in came Phil Fiebig

He had worked with Annie at Colenso in Wellington

In fact he came from Wainuiomata, probably went to the Wainui Youth Club

Phil lived in Devonport with his wife Sally,…occasionally to give the Burts a break,

Dale stayed with Phil and Sally.

Next door lived Michael Dow and his wife Debbie Gascoigne

Michael was the entrepreneurial owner/operator of Record Warehouse

This was probably the most innovative Record Store in New Zealand at the time

On our visits to Auckland along with the Burts, we met up with Phil, Sally, Michael and Debbie.

We all clicked.

In 1977 it was obvious that we needed to be in Auckland as well

The trips to Auckland were taking their toll, and Dales major client, Polygram Records had also moved to Auckland. Stu Rubin his client and his wife Yvonne, bought a house on the North Shore and so another liaison was formed.
Below: Stu in full flight...on his right Ms Julia Cameron, of course she is important to us as well, we worked together for many years. Our Footrot Flats Years. Great times

Yvonne with yours truly Sydney 1985.

Below Stu and Yvonne

Another Major Client was the Dairy Board and the Contact there was Catherine Saunders
She also was moving to Auckland. Once again proof that excellent friends can be made through business.
Below: Catherine and Bill Saunders with Rocky and Jeannie Douche at the inaugural Royal Cajun Yacht Club Function. Circa 1992

Meanwhile John McCready and his family after 3 or so years in the UK, returned to New Zealand and also made Auckland their home.
CBS Records in 1978, decided that the company was big enough to stand on its on two feet in New Zealand and separated out from Polygram Records
They hired John to run it and of course he hired Dale and Campaign to be his Ad Agency.

Below, John with Shona Laing in the 70's, receiving New Zealand Music Award for her Album

Dale also with Shona, recording her first album

Of course we had just renovated our house

and it was a bit of a wrench but hey

Let’s Move on,

We found a wonderful property in Remuera .

Luckily by the time we moved , we had a good base of Wellington friends living in Auckland, so it was an easy transition, as it turned out.

During this time Michael and Debbie had also moved into Mt Eden.

Debbie and I had become firm friends. They were amongst our new Auckland friends.
Below: Debbie at Arney Cres during an afternoon of drinks and fun

She introduced us to Sheryl,

through these girls was our entry into Air NZ Staff, so to speak

Below: Jude Finch, Debbie, Sheryl at Dale's 40th Birthday

Then we met Lana, our constant friend and travelling companion

Below: Lana and Yours truly in Dijon waiting for a train 1985

Lots of digressing here, but with these degrees of separation...The web just spreads

The Arney Cres House became a Mecca for friends, family, great for entertaining and we did a lot of that in the early 80’s. We did major alterations, put in a pool

Meanwhile Campaign like Topsy just grew.

The Agency merged with another Agency.

Of course the Little house in Parnell was no longer able to accommodate them all, so new premises were found.

After a short stay in Ponsonby. they found a building about to be built in Parnell,

While this was being completed they hired an office in Khyber Pass
They finally moved in to Parnell. Very posh it was too. Note the typewriter in the background, I guess very state of the art then.

More and more people were hired and circa 1982, David Green a media whiz along with Wade Robinson were hired to run the ever increasing Media Shop at the Agency.
Below: David with Annie Bastow at one of the infamous Campaign Auckland Christmas Parties held of course at Antoines

Phil and David

As usual we managed to merge our friends and business partners together.
Below: The Original Campaigners taken in 2010

In 1985 Michael and Debbie parted and Debbie joined David who had left Campaign to go to a Melbourne Agency.

So back to the journey.

After many years traveling and living all over the place, Debbie and David are now living in Hamilton. Our last port of call on this trip. The property they inhabit is beautiful.

A lifestyle block just 5 minutes from Hamilton Central.

Very peaceful and a lovely place to complete our road trip.

Our hosts busy in the kitchen

Look what the cat brought in

No...Not these guys!!!

David and Debbie with Rocky

Farewell guys. once again we had a great time

So back on the road

One of the things I love about this time of the year, the fresh produce on sale at the side of the road.

Almost home but I realized I didn’t have a picture of the Mighty Waikato, so we stopped opposite Mount Taupiri which is the spiritual home and final resting place of the Waikato Maori tribes