24. Lighting a fag in Tanuki’s Cave by James Curtis

One of David’s favourite places in Auckland was Tanuki’s Cave, a Japanese yakatori grill and sake bar in Queen St. He’d been there a few times with Dad and Michele, when he was visiting from Linton.

When I came home from London for Christmas in December 2004, that is where David and I, Dad and Michele, and Richard and Kuljit went to celebrate. We had a really good time. David loved all the different meat dishes cooked right in front of you, and the beer and the warm sake of course. David offered to pay for the whole meal that night and gave Dad $150. Dad took it but gave it back to him later.

When Dad, Michele and Kuljit left, the three of us stayed on and we were the last in the restaurant. David had a game he liked to play where he would head butt us. It was something he learnt in the army and he thought it was quite funny. This was also the first night of the smoking ban in New Zealand, which was a real challenge for someone like David. He rolled up a fag, lit it and started smoking in the restaurant. The bar staff noticed this very quickly and told him he couldn’t do that, so David had a few puffs and stubbed out his cigarette. David didn’t like people telling him what to do and he enjoyed pushing the limits, but he didn’t go too far that night.

It was a really nice family evening. I liked Tanuki’s Cave because David liked it and I’ve been back several times since.

23. Hanging out at Muritai School by James Curtis

Skateboarding at Muritai School brought us all together. It gave us all somewhere to go after high school. Most people brought their skateboards to skate on the ramps that the youth worker Chris Casey had helped the boys build. Even kids who lived in the Hutt would come out to skate on those ramps. They were really popular.
 
We formed a bit of a community really. There was Dave and me, Tom Owers, Tom Rainey-Smith, Shamus and Sam Boyer, Harley Tripey, Matt Tuffin, Reuben Nicholas and Tom Lynch. Sometimes the older brothers Sam Rainey-Smith and Stephen Owers would join us. We felt like the rebels, listening to punk music in our cars and skating. You could have up to 40 kids down there, just mucking around and hanging out together. 
 

I just tagged along really, but I had my car and sometimes my motorbike and that made me popular. We liked playing the US band NOFX on our car stereos. It’s skate punk type music -- ante-establishment, anarchistic and ante-capitalism. They were one of our favourite bands. 

To play "180 Degrees" by the punk rock band NOFX Click Here
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Sometimes we would go to Ryan Cowley’s place and sit in the garage smoking and drinking beer. One night, some of Ryan’s friends were staying over. Dave, Tom and I thought it would be funny to light fireworks in the driveway at night time and the run off. But unfortunately, Ryan’s father heard us and got into his car and chased after us. Eventually he found us in Muritai School and really lost his cool. I am not sure he handled it very well. But I guess we could be pretty annoying too.
 
The principal of Muritai School, Pete Pointon, let the skateboarding go for a while, but he had trouble with Dave and Tom and eventually banned the skaters. Then the skating ramps moved over to San Antonio. Things changed a bit after that.

22. Holidays at El Rancho by James Curtis

Sometimes during the school holidays, Mum would send me and Dave to El Rancho Christian holiday camp in Waikanae. We enjoyed the activities on offer, including a “flying carpet”, which gave you a ride around a field on a rug pulled along by a tractor. There was a mud slide, air rifles, horse riding, a flying fox and a sweet shop. There really was a lot to do at these camps.
 

We were not so keen on the Bible bashing sessions, however. They tried to scare us, saying that if we and our parents did not become Christians, we would go to hell. We didn’t believe what they were saying and would take the piss a bit. In fact, we tried to push it as far as we could go, which probably annoyed them a lot. However, we did think it was cool when our cabin leader asked the Holy Spirit to come into each of us. We all felt something quite special that night.

Overall, going to those camps was a good experience. At least we began thinking about things. One of the youth leaders took a particular interest in Dave and Tom and came to visit us in Eastbourne a few times. He was rather intense, I think.

21. The 402 Muritai Road weapons programme by James Curtis

It was Dave and me against the world.

Our weapons programme began quite simply, making bows and arrows out of all the bamboo growing on our property. Later we got a bit more sophisticated and started putting fins on the back of the arrows. Then we discovered we could tape nails on the front and would aim them at targets down the back of the section.
 

The plums were a great temptation, of course, and were great ammunition for the various sling shots we made or were given. Uncle Colin gave us some primo sling shots once, which Mum wasn’t at all happy about. She had to confiscate them in the end, especially when she found out we sometimes fired them at birds.
 

Joey guns were great for shooting gum nuts. We made these out of bits of pipe and fingers from old rubber gloves taped onto the ends with masking tape. You could get different gloves that would shoot the nuts at greater or shorter distances. Dave and I would play a “war” game with Stephen, Chris and Matthew Galbreath next door and Patrick Rountree up the road, using all three properties. We would be in teams and then hide from each other. You could take prisoners of war and put them in captivity. We used pretend guns sometimes. The tree forts we made were part of the war game. Some of the trees on our property ended up with so many nails hammered into them, they were virtually destroyed. We liked to help out the Galbreath boys on their fort design and construction too. We also played a lot of “war”games with the Baker brothers. They even attacked our house one day.

Attacking the judge’s house next door was great fun when we got home from school. We really wanted to flatten his house, for some reason. We would throw eggs, tomatoes, rotten fruit, old 78 records belonging to my Dad, anything we could think of really, at his house and at his nice white chimney. We also fired BB guns over the fence. 

He would get so angry with us and would come over to see Mum to try and find out why we kept doing it and what she could do to stop it. Really, there was nothing much she could do – we were just so determined to annoy everyone. Funnily enough, the judge and I made up in the end and he even let me keep my motorbike in his garage, which was better than storing it by the shed at home.

Dave and I eventually moved onto bomb making, using things like baking soda and vinegar and putting it in a canister. There were lots of other missiles we made too.
 

Around Guy Fawkes, we would use fireworks in our war games. Eventually the community picked up on our fireworks wars and we would have a big war down at Bishops Park, which Dave and I led. We were the Curtis brothers, our own entity, and this was illustrated best through the feuds we had with other families. It was total mayhem. Roman candles, which came in 20-shots, was a favourite weapon, as was Thunder in the Blue Sky, which made an extremely loud bang. We would fire this above people’s heads to frighten them. Unfortunately, this firework was banned after the first year. We made skyrocket launchers, a pipe in which we could fire off our skyrockets horizontally at people. Mostly we shot the little fireworks at people.
 

The morning after Guy Fawkes, Dave and I would get up at dawn and head out on our bikes to collect unlit or dud fire works from the parks and beaches. We would bring them back in New World plastic bags and hide them under our beds. Then we would spend the next few weeks emptying out the gunpowder and recycling it as bomb-making material.
 

One morning, after Mum had gone to work, we let off a big fireworks bomb in the back garden. Jill next door rang the local policeman Jo Mitchell to tell him a weapon had been fired next door. He was around in five minutes, but he didn’t do anything. He was just a push over, really.
 

Dave and I just loved our weapons programme. I would say our passion and enthusiasm for it were equally matched.

20. Camping at Butterfly Creek by James Curtis

One Saturday, David, Tom Owers and I decided to go camping for a night at Butterfly Creek. David and Tom would have been at primary school still and I had probably started at Petone College.
 

Tom’s father Bill decided to walk over the hill with us, as he liked walking anyway. We had a three-person tent and backpacks laden with beer and some food. Unfortunately, the beer started to leak and we worried Bill would notice and might take it from us. Anyway, fortunately he didn’t notice and he left us in the late afternoon to set up camp.

We pitched the tent, made a campfire, ate the baked beans and drank all the beer. It was a great place to go camping, so close to home but you really felt away from it all in the bush as the darkness fell. I also remember going camping over there when I was at Muritai School.

19. Go kart racing thrills by James Curtis

Go kart racing down Kowhai Street was a really dangerous activity but Dave and I loved it. We had a great little trolley that we bought from a garage sale – just a wooden box, really, with four wheels and a steering wheel. Richard Sarginson, who lived in Mahoe Street, had one too.
 
Often we would take our trolley to Greenwood Park where we would roll down the bank in it, but taking it up to the top of Kowhai Street and rolling down from the top to the bottom at high speed was really challenging and dangerous. It was a miracle no one got hurt or killed, really.

Dave and I also loved riding our BMX bikes around the neighbourhood and in Greenwood Park. We also played a lot of ball tag with Chris and Stephen Galbreath, who were our neighbours, and with Patrick Rountree, who lived two doors away on the other side. We would play this game, using a tennis ball, in the three properties and down at Greenwood Park.

18. Exploring Eastbourne by James Curtis

Dave and I were great companions. We would do so much together. Nana often said we were more like twins than brothers of different ages. Exploring Eastbourne, the beach, the bush and the hills, was a really lovely aspect of our childhood. I have so many little memories of the things I did with Dave. One time we visited a goat which was kept behind a fence on a property in the Eastbourne hills. We spent a lot of time on our bikes. Once we found a waterfall spring in the bush near Burden’s Gate, which we drank from on more than one occasion.
 
Dave and I, along with the Galbreath brothers, would build dams at the mouth of the storm water pipe at the beach near us. We would spend hours doing this, particularly in the summer. And we played cricket with the Galbreaths and Partick Rountree at Greenwood Park. We would play cricket at home too, but Mum was not too keen on that, as there was always a chance a ball would fly through a window. I often think how different our childhood would have been if we had not had the Galbreaths living next door.

I also remember taking long walks with Dad and Dave along the Hutt River, when we were staying with him in Moera at weekends. Also, sneaking off for smokes with Dave down at the Eastbourne beach or down at the park.
 

17. David's biography by Anne Manchester

David William Curtis was a most beautiful baby who shot into this world (his birth at Lower Hutt Hospital was pretty quick) at around the 11th hour on the 11th day of the 11th month of 1983. Immediately his personality seemed evident – determined, positive, energetic, ready to take on the world. He was, above all, my gift to James – I wanted James to have someone to grow up alongside, someone to love and care for, and maybe even to learn from.

He was baptised the following year at Eastbourne’s St Alban’s Anglican Church, with his aunt Catherine and great uncle Colin pledged as his godparents. It was my mother, David’s grandmother, who had suggested the name David, a Hebrew name meaning “beloved”, a most fitting choice.

David, during his all too brief life, brought me great joy and great pain. He was a high spirited, mischievous and very determined child, who delighted, frustrated and exhausted his parents in turn. One of his earliest and fondest memories was eating mince stew for lunch at the Avalon Child Care Centre, which he and James attended in the mornings while I was working part-time for the New Zealand Film Archive. He even appeared in a couple of television commercials during this era, his mop of unruly blond hair and blue eyes making him a very appealing subject.

He and James spent many family Christmas holidays in Christchurch, staying with their granddad, where they enjoyed the summer produce like raspberries, swimming at Jelly Park Pool and pottering about with their granddad in his workshop.

David, aged four, attended the Eastbourne Kindergarten in the mornings. When I began a journalism course at Wellington Polytechnic, my friend Debbie McColl would pick him up after kindy and take him back to Point Howard where David played happily with Sam and little Emily until I picked him up mid-afternoon.

When he was six and James nine, his father Graham and I separated and the two boys lived primarily with me in Eastbourne. They spent a lot of time together -- perhaps their parents’ separation helped them grow closer and become even more dependent on each other. As they grew older, they spent increasing amounts of time with Graham, then living in Moera, often week and week about between both their homes.

David was a boy who challenged authority and pushed boundaries in every field of his life – at home, at school and in the community. Encounters with school principals, the local constable or irate neighbours were reasonably common experiences for me during these years. I often wondered which of the two brothers led the other astray, but James assures me the odds were about even. David would often tell me he was just dumb and I worked so hard to convince him the truth was quite the opposite.

For years, his chief recreation was skateboarding, a passion he shared with his great mate Tom Owers, Scott Duncan and many others. A popular after school activity was gathering with his mates at Muritai School and playing on the skateboard ramps that the local youth worker Chris Casey had helped the “gang” build. Fishing off the Eastbourne Wharf with Stephen Galbreath was another passion and he had a brief flurry with surfing. He showed considerable talent on the soccer field when he played for the Eastbourne soccer club. However, he did not pursue this sport beyond primary school. David rather turned against skateboarding when he fell and broke his arm when he was about 17. His arm was in plaster when he attended Richard and Kuljit’s wedding in Auckland in 2002.
 
David’s only other encounter with Hutt Hospital (except for his birth) happened about aged ten when he was admitted for observation during a dangerous hallucinatory experience after ingesting datura seeds or leaves. This unfortunate incident was orchestrated by James’s less than desirable friend Shaun.

David, like James, tried his hand at a number of after-school jobs. However, he proved to be less conscientious at them than his brother. His first job was delivering newspapers and circulars around Eastbourne, pushing his deliveries around in an old pushchair. I was pleased to see him take on this little job, as he was very keen to increase his pocket money, but I was less delighted when I found many of the newspapers stashed under the house - not great for those expecting their papers nor for the man paying him for the deliveries as well as creating something of a fire hazard. In typical David fashion, he showed little remorse when his delivery technique was sprung. Selective delivery was his method, he told me.

He spent a brief few weeks working at the local butchers shop, but gave this up rather quickly when he discovered an aversion to raw meat. More successful was his time as a trolley boy at Pak ‘N Save in Petone. This time, he was more motivated, taking this job on in preparation for his application for his electrical engineering apprenticeship. He was then keen to show evidence of some work experience.

 
David travelled overseas four times: twice to the United Kingdom with James and Graham when he was nine and 17 (Graham’s wife Michele was there for the second trip). There he met up with his extended Curtis family and got to know London, Worthing and Ross-on-Wye a little. During his first visit to the UK, he and James spent many a happy hour on the pier at Worthing playing on the slot machines. He returned home proudly with a bag of plastic trophies -- key rings and other little toys --  evidence of his success on these machines. He also went to Sydney with Graham and James when he was ten, and to Fiji with me in 2002 where he took much delight in haggling in the market places for souvenirs. He and James also had a number of holidays around New Zealand with me.

He left Hutt Valley High School at the end of the sixth form, having spent that year living entirely with Graham and Michele in Petone, seeming to cut himself off from his Eastbourne life altogether. The following year he began a three-year apprenticeship in electrical engineering with the electrical training company Etco. That same year, Graham and Michele moved to Auckland. David decided to stay on in Wellington and returned to live with me in Eastbourne. He was a diligent apprentice, hardly missing a day’s work. He did a lot of his practical work at the Malvina Major Retirement Village in Kilbirnie and at Parliament during its refurbishment.

However, the job did not give him the job satisfaction he had hoped for and, in 2003, at the age of 19, he decided to join the army as a sapper, a field engineer, encouraged by his friend Shaun Dunlop. I listened sceptically to David as he explained this new idea to me. I truly doubted David, with his rebellious nature and rather too-ready lip, would be able to accept army discipline. But only weeks into his basic training, I realised my doubts were unnecessary. I will never forget the pain of farewelling him at the Wellington Railway Station, as he waited to board the bus to Waiouru, along with the other new recruits. He was awkward and distant and I returned to work upset at our unloving farewell. Within weeks, David was writing me affectionate letters, describing his adventures during his training and telling me how important I was to him. For me, this was the greatest miracle of my life.

David accepted the rigours and discipline of army life with enthusiasm. In fact he once told Bill Owers, Tom’s father, that the best thing about the army was the discipline. I believe the army turned David’s life around. It was his finishing school. The army took over the role of parent and nurtured David into the wonderful, loving, open human being whom so many grew to know, appreciate and admire during the last 15 months of his life. One of his proudest (and perhaps most nerve-wracking) days was “march out” day in December 2003. David had survived his three months’ basic training at Waiouru, had mastered the drill and the army haka, and would soon be on his way to Linton Army Camp to begin his sapper training. Seeing David on the parade ground in his dress uniform, trying hard not to let his platoon down on this special day, was a truly memorable occasion. I am sure Graham, Michele, Catherine and Ariana, who were all there to support him, will never forget it either.

During his time in the army, David discovered who he was and what he wanted for his future. He grew very fit and strong, with a wonderful physique. I had never seen anyone so comfortable in his own skin as David. He healed all the broken relationships in his life, particularly with me. He became my rock, the most loving, helpful and supportive son a parent could wish for. He wanted to be the best brother he could be to James and he continued to be a loyal friend to all his old and new friends. I know he wanted to make my life a little easier in any way he could and I know he looked forward to his relationships with all the members of his family, particularly with James, growing closer as each year went by. He planned a great career in the army and was working hard towards an overseas deployment in the near future. He once said he might consider joining the police force at some stage, a surprising statement considering his contact with the constabulary in his younger years.

In mid-December 2004, David and James stood side by side at their grandfather’s funeral in Christchurch, speaking publicly about what he had meant to them. They looked so handsome and impressed all there with their confidence and co-operation in this sad role as grandsons. We had a very happy family Christmas in Eastbourne and a brief but wonderful holiday with Uncle Colin and his little canine companion Andrew at Lake Ferry between Christmas and New Year. The future looked so bright for us all. How could we ever have imagined that such happiness would be shattered so utterly, that within two days David would be dead, having fallen down a 15-foot bank at a property in Brooklyn, Wellington, where he and James were attending a New Year’s Eve party with some other Eastbourne friends. Only moments before he fell down onto the road where he was killed instantly, he had been sitting on the bank (which was not really a bank at all), chatting to an old friend Reuben Nicolas, telling him about his new life in the army and texting his girlfriend Emma who he was due to meet down town later that evening.

The tragedy of David’s death devastated so many people and has been so terribly hard to accept. I for one always believed I would never be truly happy until I knew David was happy and until our relationship as mother and son was resolved. I thank God and thank David that this miracle came to pass. The wonder of this enables me to live my life as best as I can into the future, sustained by the memories of my dependable, handsome and most loving son.

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