Tauranga came into being 1873 after 50,000 acres of land was confiscated from the Maori people after the Battles of ‘Gate Pa' and ‘Te Ranga'.
I was born in Tauranga at Waimarie Nursing Home. Today the Law Firm ‘McKenzie & Elvin' Brown Street.
My Grandfather (William Tasman Smith) came to Tauranga 1934 when the population was 3000.
My Norwegian Father (Kristian Revfeim) married my Pakeha Mother Tauranga 1936.
My Great Grandfather in law (David Cambie) Irish Immigrant arrived in Tauranga to fight in the Maori Wars with promise of land. My partner's great French Grandfather (Napoleon Bidois) married a Tauranga Maori woman.
To notify Tauranga the First World War had ended 1918, three fires were lit - the Mount at Maungawhare, Otumoetai, and highest point Te Puna.
Tauranga becoming a city, celebrations commenced from my family home ‘Maungawhare' Otumoetai 1963.
Coronation year 1953, my father employed by the Tauranga Borough Council, decorated the Tauranga Town Hall with ‘small lights' highlighting a crown and the whole building.
The Town Hall a beautiful building built on land given generously by the Maori people of Tauranga for use as a town centre.
Tauranga's heart bled when this building was destroyed in 1987 with sit down groups from Maori and Pakeha.

Alys Ingrid Wicksteed (Revfeim)