There’s something to be said for going home. Back to our roots. Back to the scenes of our childhood memories. Where you just ask someone their surname and the picture is painted, the connections made.

Last night I went to the opening of a new cricket and tennis pavilion at Kamo recreation ground in Whangarei. I went along with Dad who came up from Dunedin in 1958 at the age of 24 and never went back, despite the only shower facilities at Kamo rugby club being the local creek.

I spent a lot of my childhood at Whangarei and Kamo rugby, tennis, squash and cricket clubs and grounds. And just across the way at Kamo bowling club where my grandmother played. Sunburn in the summer and mud and the smell of Deep Heat in the winter. When I was 12, we moved to Auckland with Mum, but Northland is still my “home.”

Kamo rec is one of my few childhood hangouts that still exist. My school and church are gone, replaced by companies who can pay higher rents. The Warehouse is now where the Northland cricket ground used to be.

I was surprised to find out that in 1957 and 1958 my grandmother was also the Kamo tennis champ, and a member of the committee. Apparently the committee “did, in fact, have a lot of ‘fun’… It organised dances and it had lively discussions.” Including it seems, discussions about a pavilion… and plans for the first tennis pavilion were put in place.

Yesterday, 60 years later, a bigger, but still modest, pavilion was opened. This time, 20 years in the making, a collaboration between cricket and tennis and no doubt a lot more paperwork and box ticking required.

It was wonderful to catch up with old friends of my parents from both codes, and hear stories and antics of some of the characters of the club, now passed and buried near each other in Kamo cemetery up the road. They have left a legacy. I have decided I need to drink more gin and do more crazy stuff in the time I have left.

It was wonderful to be somewhere where I felt so at home and share the night with Dad. And now this new pavilion is for the generations to come, their sport, their families and their connections. Hopefully there is no wifi.