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	*Many exploits were carried out, as described below and in the Training College Radio -see menu left*		*Ardmore Engineering School staff*
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		A couple of hundred young males mostly aged 18-22 living in a large residential complex. Within walking distance was TC, a residential training college with about 500 girls and about 100 boys. No shortage of female company! TC had a coffee bar and showed movies some evenings. The girls had to be in their halls by 10pm unless they had signed out for the weekend to an address with a phone. (An easy challenge). Halls re-opened 6am to readmit the sometimes dishevelled girls who were often put through windows in the early hours. If you had not arranged any female company for a party, Hall D was the one to go to. A select few engineers joined the AAAGH club, which required running naked through a girl's hall from one end to another yelling AAAGH! My wife tells me that the girls used to arm themselves with a dictionary and an umbrella to repel intruders during these events. A real goat was also let loose in one of the halls at one point. In those days, there were no computers, no cellphones, no internet or email, no copying machines. I think one landline phone for the whole complex. See however how we commandeered that for our own night time use the Training College Radio page. Hand-written letters were sent & received from family. Drugs had not arrived on the student scene except for a minority of long-hairs in Auckland Arts School. There was only one female at the Engineering School, she was an Asian and lived in a room at the training college. There were several Asian students at Engineering School, mostly from wealthy families in Malaysia, Singapore, Viet Nam and even one from Nigeria. Generally they wore jandals over socks and spent a lot of time trying to keep their side-valve Morris Minor running. They were not keen on the food from the caterers and had their own kitchen in an outbuilding. They were not used to cleaning up after themselves and the kitchen was a mess. All foreigners were known as 'Arabs' or 'VC' for the Vietnamese. The caterers for Engineering School prepared the food at training college and brought it down in a van. The contractor also owned a pig farm and seemed to try and cook the most tasteless food that would all end up in the large slops bucket. Everyone who ate there at some point had the dreaded 'lurgi' and spent hours in the toilet. On many occasions a trip to Papakura for a hamburger was called for.Two Aussie maids added some colour for a few months, one became pregnant with an engineering baby. Pubs had 6 o'clock closing until October 1967, The Clevedon pub, being a farmers' pub, opened early and closed early (4pm?) which resulted in a frantic rush to Papakura to get there before 6pm. This resulted in a number of car crashes, I remember one time being given the job of driving becuse I was the only one too drunk to sing. Thanks to the Mini's fabulous hydrolastic suspension we got there very quickly and in one piece. When exams were on, cars with engines running would be outside the exam rooms and headed full speed to the Clevedon Pub to line up a row of jugs before 'Last Orders Please'. In the Engineering School a business known as 'Syndicate' managed 24 hour beer sales with secure locked storage. This business was sold on each year to new incoming students, as were the stencils for the magazine 'Fester'. In those days fireworks sales were unrestricted and it was possible to buy 'Thundercrackers' which were about 4 inches long and made a very satisfying bang. By threading some 5 amp fusewire through the cracker and attaching to the filament wires of a broken light bulb, a very big bang would ensue when some unsuspecting student turned the light on in his dark booby-trapped room. This was further developed with a tube containing flour which made the room white. The final devious scheme had the flour tube wired to the second pole of a pull-on-pull-off roof switch. Poor student went to bed, read a book, wanted to sleep, pulled the light switch and boom! Flour everywhere in the dark. Quite a few students had done some military training. In those days there was a lottery of birthdays held and those that came up had to do 6 weeks at an army camp. Their knowledge included the making of large bangs. We found a book in the Engineering School library which explained how to use easily obtained components for satisfactory bangs. Two or three engineers would go down to TC at about 3am, set them off at a pre-arranged signal and vacate. Two or three loud bangs would ensue and usually someone would set off the fire alarm requiring all the girls to line up outside in their nightwear. The TC boys that operated the fire engine took a very dim view of these events. On one occassion some lads decided to let off a banger in the corridor of the Engineering School hostel. After lighting it and waiting for the f use to burn down, they had second thoughts about it doing damage, and covered it with an upside down rubbish drum. Unfortunately the drum was projected into the air with such speed it crashed into the ceiling and lifted up the rafters. The rebuilding job carried out at Arnies insistance took a considerable time. Reminiscences from Doug with additions from Rod.
				The staff were great and very capable of handling their difficult charges. We have been given an incident with Segedin as an example:- One year my name appeared on a list of those who had "failed terms” for Engineering Mathematics - meaning of course that I was not permitted to sit the final exam. It seems that I had missed too many of Prof. Segedin’s lectures, and he’d been keeping track! The notice did suggest that the sinners should go for an interview with Segedin. It was a short interview. When I entered his office, he was sitting at his desk, glaring across the room at me. The interview: What are you doing here? Er…I failed terms. Go AWAY! I did not really know how to interpret this, but still harbouring doubts I turned up at the exam and they did mark my paper. I liked that man.


The Lurgi creator
The Lurgi creator