“It used to shock me, even at that age, to see old ladies singing in the streets, and soldiers returned from World War One selling matches in the gutter to survive. This made me realise I had to do my best to do away with all this sort of thing. That is where it all began.” – The Rev Canon Douglas Caswell

Daily Photo – The Chapel of Christ the King

On my second morning in Auckland, as I watched the rain blow sideways, I remembered I’d made a promise to myself to visit a place called Selwyn Village. I stared at the deluge, finished my coffee, and pulled out my phone to consult the Auckland bus timetable. It was immediately apparent that this was going to require multiple bus changes and a heroic amount of patience.

The village was the vision of Auckland City Missioner Reverend Douglas Caswell, who is, among other things, my grandfather. When the village officially opened in 1954, it transformed retirement care for the elderly by creating a compassionate, self-contained community for vulnerable seniors. The last time I was there was at least twenty years ago and, despite the rain, I was keen to reconnect a few dots in my memory and see what had changed.

Arriving, I stepped off the bus into puddles and took a moment to reorient myself. The buildings I was used to seeing, including those my grandmother once called home, were gone, replaced by something more modern and less 1950s-ish. My main focus, however, was the village chapel, where a memorial to my grandfather stands. I made a dash through the rain and, after shaking myself off like a shaggy dog, was greeted warmly by two village chaplains, who also happened to be two of the nicest people I’ve ever met. We chatted for a while and they showed me around before apologising that they had to hurry off to conduct pastoral visits in the nearby apartments. 

For the next hour, I read through information about my grandfather and his vision for a better kind of care for the elderly. I read about my grandparents’ determined fundraising efforts, studied original chapel designs from more than sixty-five years ago, sat where my grandmother would sit at every service (as would we on visits), and briefly wandered the gardens between showers, admiring the Caswell Memorial Light dedicated to my grandfather.

Eventually the bus appeared and I stepped aboard, wondering why memories of grandparents remain such prized treasures in our hearts. With that, the bus rattled off into the pouring rain.