I was the youngest by 3 years but we all got on well and they kept a brotherly-eye out for me. Within two weeks my friend moved back home, the subjects she wanted to do clashed and I ended up flatting with three guys. I was a genuinely fresh-faced ‘first in family’ student enrolled at both Dunedin Teachers College and the University of Otago, firmly wearing a pair of rose-tinted glasses. It was to be a great adventure, this leaving my family and friends in Christchurch, embarking on an independent life and creating a new home of my own. My best friend and I had decided to move to Otago together with dreams of attending Varsity to study art history and classics, imagining we’d be taking part in student protests, solving the world’s problems over illegal drinks at the Robbie or Albert Arms, and attaining svelte silhouettes by living on Two Minute Noodles. I was a naive 18 year old from Christchurch trying to save a bit of money by flatting rather than going into Halls. It looked it’s age and seemed to be propped up by its neighbours. 888 Cumberland Street was a saggingly derelict weatherboard terrace house, built around 1880 by George Aldrich. My parents were standing behind me quietly radiating horror. I stood in front of the dirty shallow porch of my flat and it wasn’t quite as I’d remembered on my first viewing four months earlier. I had a sinking feeling in my stomach that January when I arrived in Dunedin.
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