My last ever school exam was on December 3, 1997. It was Art History, which was supposed to be my best subject, but I knew hardly any of the paintings that they gave us, and so months later found out that I actually got my lowest exam score (it was a B. I was smart) on it. Most of the other seventh formers had finished their exams the previous Friday, so it was just our one class there at school on that day. When I finished the exam, I took one last long look around Onslow College, my home for the past three years, and then drove my parents' van down to Super Liquor in Johnsonville, where I bought a bottle of Malibu, my heart pounding as I hoped that noone would ask me for ID, as I was 17, not the requiste 20. But they'd been serving me since I was 14, so there was no reason for them to stop.

At home, I took my time getting dressed, wearing the long black dress my mother had bought me the previous year at Zebrano, shelling out the insanely expensive $300 to avoid having to make me a dress, an "aubergine" satin cross-over top my sister had made me for the Smokefree Fashion Awards earlier that year that I'd got a ticket to since I'd written some fashion stories for the Youth Focus section of the Evening Post, and the high-heeled Mary Janes I'd finally found in Mischief Porirua, which had been stretched by the store since they were only a 10.5 and I was whole-heartedly an 11. I'd been trotting around the house in them for the past two weeks, giggling at how insanely tall they made me, but I still wasn't comfortable with their level of comfortness. I packed my docs in my backpack as well as a waterbottle full of Malibu and a bottle of wine my mother gave me, and she dropped me off at the pre-ball.

Bridget's dad was rich. I'm sure that's a vulgar expression, but the pre-ball was held in a house in Roseneath that featured an indoor swimming pool and a downstairs entertaining area with a wet bar. Most of the seventh form were there, except for the Telecom Brat who was apparently off drinking at the Koru Lounge beforehand. We were a small class of maybe 100 people, and there weren't too many gaping divisions. Onslow was good like that. A fleet of taxi vans took us down to the Plaza International Hotel (now the Duxton, now banning school balls), where we got to ride the external elevator up to the ballroom on some high-up floor, which featured mirrors on the ceiling, and staff who encouraged us to put our backpacks into a big closet. Having none of that, Rosalie and I went down to sit on the traffic island between the hotel and the Rialto, and drink more malibu. The heels came off shortly after that, in the big bathroom where the staff confiscated a hip flask of bourbon from the bogan chicks but ignored my water bottle. There was a buffet dinner, and the dancefloor was packed whenever Prodigy tracks came on, which was often. A lot of time was spent sprawled on the couches and armchairs out in the lobby to get a little air. Malibu and wine and spinning around in circles looking up at the mirrored ceiling were not always the best combination, but it probably wasn't as bad as doing acid at the midyear fancy-dress ball at the Rockpool on Queen's Wharf, and then spinning around in circles by the helicopter launch pad until I fell over and only my viking helmet horns saved me from splattering out my brains everywhere. Our photographer at both balls was Ian Jorgensen, voted most likely to never leave the school, since he was two years older than us but still hanging around. Now you'll know him better as Blink. He didn't have a beard then. Instead he had poems written about him in which he was called HorseBoy.

Eventually, and without any Molly Ringwald moments of having my one true love ask me to dance (my one true love was at that time a boy I knew over the internets from Christchurch that I was yet to meet or declare my feelings for), people started drifting off, so we headed down to the Railway Station for the afterparty. Previously tickets had been sold for $15 that promised alcohol, but then that was switched to $5 for BYO. That was a total ripoff. The afterball was in some hall-type space off one of the train platforms, devoid of any kind of character except for the few ruggers that Onlsow had (apparently we had a rugby team after all, who knew?) sitting around tables. Lame. Instead, an invitation went around those in the know - or those who clung to the peripheries - to go to John's house in Thorndon. I had the biggest crush on John ever, fuelled by discussions about coffee, and one time in the library where he knocked over a shelf of books and I helped him pick them up in a way that totally should have resulted in us kissing, except of course I'm not actually Molly Ringwald, as we already discovered, so naturally I was keen, even if it meant going to a party with my assorted arch nemisisisis.

To get to John's house, we had to walk up through the Bolton Street Cemetary, where I'd never been before. It was utterly fantastic, dark, spooky, and exciting, and I wanted to explore it more, but instead I settled for sitting on the floor in a crowded downstairs living space in John's big expensiv old house, and wandering around the garden trying not to fall into the goldfish pond. To be honest, it was rather boring, since there was no more booze, but everyone was filled with a sort of bonding camarderie, given that this was going to be the last time we'd all be together. Eventually some time after 4am, someone got the idea that they wanted to watch the sunrise from the top of the cable car, and we all set off for the Botanic Gardens. I was so very very glad that I had my boots on. Bridget and I somehow got seperated from the rest of the group, and weren't sure what the right way to go was. We based our destination on the NIWA building we could see in the far distance, and somehow got lost anyway. We ended up in the children's area, which is one of my most favourite playgrounds ever. The swings made me feel ever so slightly sick, but I still decided to roll down a hill in my $300 dress. It was fantastic! And then, somehow we made it to the top of the cable car and caught up with everyone else.

The day was a little overcast, so the sunrise wasn't all that spectacular, but the joy of having stayed up all night and the fact that it was all a new experience made it totally worthwhile.But there's only so much standing around you can do after that. The two people who had cellphones were called upon to summon us taxis, and I got one with Kate, the girl I'd been best friends with since we were five. She had the brilliant idea of diverting the cab to Lambton Quay so we could go to the bakery, so that we could get the first bread of the morning, even if she wasn't intentionally quoting Bjork, and so we devoured bread and juice in the taxi during the long ride up to Ngaio. When I finally got to bed sometime after 7am, I was totally satisfied that even though there was no romance, it was a totally epic night, and I'd never forget it.

Great story, Jo (though I'm pretty sure NIWA had moved out of the MetService building by '97). Mine will seem tame by comparison: I have some untamed ones, but they're perhaps a bit too incriminating.

Back in the day, probably late 90s or early noughties, Blair St could have actually passed as classy. Or at least Class A. Boulôt was still Mondo Cucina, (in)famous for Krug- & coke-fuelled "lunches" that started at 11am and ended after midnight. The bar that is now Red Square was sometimes referred to as "Bacon", at least after the raid, since that's what you get when you take the "E" out of "Beacon". Not only was Establishment still Opera, but they actually played opera rather than top 40 crud. Ponderosa was still the much-lamented CO₂, while Hummingbird and the defunct Paradiso Bar/Blue Room were just one big happy boozy Paradiso (I once tried to teach a married Eng Lit lecturer the Tango on top of a table at 3am, but that's another story). So what was in Maya before it became known for lysergic decor and exploding cocktails?

Well, among many ventures in that space was a bar and steak house called Exchange; posher than the Green Parrot but far less buttoned down than Crazy Horse. The lounge revival was in full swing (so to speak), and the Benj Berryman Hiptet was the purveyor of louche loungey jazz to the Martinirati. Rat Pack wannabe Benj would leap up on the bar at various venues, with a tumbler of Scotch in one hand and an old-time microphone & cigarette in the other, and belt out classics from the golden era of swingin' cheese. The Hiptet had a residency at Exchange, and there's one particular evening I'll never forget.

It was one of those muggy, sultry, slightly drizzly January nights when the temperature never drops below twenty and citizens start to wonder whether air conditioning might be justified in Wellington after all. All the front windows had been folded away at the Exchange, so that all that stood between the bar and Blair St was a low wall. Benj was in full swing while we savoured some after dinner maltage, when we began to notice that across the way, in a doorway between Mondo and Opera, a couple were lugging a couch out of a doorway. It seemed rather a late hour to be moving flat, their purpose soon became clear when they plonked the couch on the pavement, placed an ice bucket next to it, popped open a bottle of bubbly and settled down to enjoy the music.

After a while, the Hiptet noticed, and one by one they picked up their instruments and moved towards the windows. Benj stepped out, followed by the trumpeter, trombonist and even the bassist. With only the drummer and electric guitarist remaining stuck inside, the rest of the band formed a conga line and headed across the road to the couple. Before you could say "staaart spreading the neeeews", the couple joined in the conga and followed the band back into the bar. We and the other patrons were all press-ganged into the line, which wound its way back into the open, up and down Blair St and gathering patrons from all the adjacent bars. The impromptu dance session eventually petered out after a few songs, but it's a lasting reminder of the early days of inner city living, when the response to noisy bars wasn't "Call noise control!" but "If you can't beat 'em, join 'em".