SPRING
in the archives Once again, another spring comes to the south of the world and the sequence of blossoming trees and vivid new green lifts the spirits after the long dull months of winter. Particularly lovely from the archivist’s point of view is a new young Awanui cherry sapling planted on School House lawn – just now in full flower – a joy to see not just because of its current profusion of blossom, but also because of the promise it represents for years of blossom to come.
Returning to our roots Sir Edwin Mitchelson in the School gardens with Headmistress Miss Ethel Sandford.
As a reasonably competent gardener, the archivist knows what an act of faith it is to plant a tree. One plants not knowing what the coming years will bring, but in hope that such a tree will thrive and will grow to delight those who are not yet here. I can imagine that for founding Board Chair Sir Edwin Mitchelson, establishing the School was something similar. In fact, at his passing, Miss Pulling recorded the many times Sir Edwin, commenting on the School’s opening on a mortgage debt, had said, “This School was built on faith and nothing else.” But then Sir Edwin was a keen gardener too, often coming up to the School with gifts of flowering shrubs and perennials. Born in Auckland around 1846, raised with stories of gardens back in England, like many inhabitants of early Auckland, the young Mitchelson must have taken so much pleasure with each new introduction of European garden flowers and trees.
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