Awen Guttenbeil, one of the Warriors’ longest serving players, with eleven seasons in his second-row jersey

"I remember always being outside in the back yard for a game of something whether it be touch, cricket, soccer, basketball or our self-made obstacle courses for our bmx bikes. We would try and ignore the cries of ‘DINNER’S READY’ from the mothers in our street so we could have just one more bowl, kick, shot or ride. We'd do our best to keep playing till it got too dark to see."

Stephen Tindall, founder of The Warehouse and the Tindall Foundation

“When we were kids we knew all our neighbours, we even had a gate between us and our closest neighbours and I was often sent next door to borrow or lend some baking ingredients or return some. They were all our friends. We were surrounded by families and most of the kids went to school with me. A number of us walked to school together. After school we always played at each others’ homes. When I went to intermediate I mowed a few lawns for some of the more elderly neighbours. We definitely all knew and interacted with our neighbours all the time. It was fabulous!”

Bob Harvey, Waitakere City Mayor

“I first became aware of the kindness of neighbours in 1947. I was seven years old and living in a small house in Newton Gully. It was a wet winter, my father was at sea on a trawler and my brother was three months old in a cot. My mother was desperate to light the coal range. The wood was damp and in frustration she poured, through the lid, the contents of my father’s paintbrush cleaner – it was petrol. The ash from the night before was still warm. The sheet of flame flew up the floor and in seconds the whole kitchen, and it seemed my mother, was engulfed in flames. She backed into the alcove off the kitchen calling to me to take the baby outside. This I did, leaving her trapped in the burning house.

So when I called out to the nearest neighbour from the street for help, every door seemed to fly open. The alarm on the nearby lamp post was pressed and the back door was smashed in and my mother released. I was overwhelmed by the spirit of support. My mother spent months in hospital and lived into her 80’s.

I often drive down the street, now an inner-city fashionable area, where no-one would know or maybe has never spoken to their neighbours.”

 Peta Mathias, chef, author and broadcaster

“I have very colourful memories of our childhood neighbours on King Edward Ave in Epsom. It was a very white area and right in the middle was this great Samoan family - very unusual in those days. Their boys were friends with my brothers and they would regularly have big fights and say they were never talking to each other again till they died. They had many relatives turn up from the islands to party, dress up, dance, eat and sing for days on end and they would sleep all over the floors and verandas. Nothing as wild as that ever happened in my house. Also they ate really unusual food like taro leaves cooked with pork and coconut milk which I had never seen before. Our fathers had chickens but didn't have the heart to kill their own chooks when the time came, so would swap back yards and do each others head chopping. To me this wonderful family were the most exotic thing since sliced bread.”

John Banks, aka Banksie, Auckland City Mayor

"Good neighbours made all the difference to families on our street where I grew up, and we all consciously made the effort to be good to each other" 

 Andrew Williams, North Shore City Mayor

"We had one of the very first TV's in our town of Waipukurau in Central Hawkes Bay. It was the early 60's and Mum and Dad would invite neighbours over at night to watch the exciting new shows like Coronation Street, Z Cars and Danger Man. The lounge would be full of family friends from around the neighbourhood in awe of this new TV set.

Progressive dinners used to be popular around the neighbourhood. So much fun, with groups of people moving from home to home wondering what the next treat they would be in store for.

We played lots of games amongst neighbours out on the street or on big front lawns. Bull rush, soccer, rugby kicks, hide and seek, and bike races went on for hours and hours - especially on summer nights"