BroTown.....

I loved this story I got from a fellow homeschooling Mum in Auckland, and have republished it here with her permission ;o)

Brotown may not be everyone's cup of tea but we always watch it because it's about our neighbourhood.

We live in Sandringham not Morningside, (next suburb) but the show has bits of the whole area. Its central Auckland BTW not South Auckland. Places in the show are based on real places and fully recognisable.

St Sylvesters is Mt Albert Grammar (beautifully caricatured as well) and some scenes at school picture Mt Albert Primary which is in Morningside. The beach the boys sometimes go to is Pt Chev beach.

Wednesday's episode was about youth gangs which are endemic around our area - the street recently featured on TV where the poor woman has 10 kids, the oldest ones of whom are youth gang leaders who wreak havoc on the nearby community, is a few streets away from our house.

Our place is on a corner and has a long paling fence. We moved there in 2000 and the fence was tagged shortly afterwards. The council painted out the tagging but a few days later the fence was tagged again. So I went out with my own can of paint and added to the tag, in large letters, "is gay". (Not meaning to offend gays, but because gansta culture is highly homophobic). It stayed there several days till the council painted it out.

After that, although the properties round about were forever getting tagged, out fence remained pristine till 2006 when it was tagged again by a lad who must have been too young in 2000 to know what would happen.

Again I strolled out with my paintbrush and added my own comment to the tag. Our fence hasn't been touched since. Then, while watching Brotown, we were thrilled to see - yes, our paling fence, faithfully rendered, with one of the characters adding "is gay" to the gang tag. I was so proud!