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Today café culture is as
much a part of the Wellington landscape as the wind. Yet
Wellington's first café didn't make an appearance till
1958.
Mary Seddon is a bit of a
character, quite a lot of a character really. In recent
years the granddaughter of turn of the centrury premier
"King" Dick Seddon has caught the public eye with a
well-publicised spat with Wellington City Council over
her desire to build a driveway through the Town Belt.
"Oh that's why you came
round", she says indignantly. "I thought you were a
lovely grandson to see his granny's old friend. Bugger
you". My granny, Helen Mason, made the crockery for the
cafés opening. It was her first commission. Having New
Zealand pottery was just one of the things Mary wanted.
After hitching around
Europe and working in cafés, we got back to New Zealand
and found there was really nothing except milk bars.
New Zealand artist Sue
Skerman provided the art and the idea to use indigenous
potters.
The menu was simple - dish
of the day and dish of the day only. "And then we did
salads. They weren't carefully arranged. We actually
made the salads up in plastic buckets."
They used a Kona machine
to make their coffee. "We used Toops and Neilsens, mixed
for me especially, and I paid extra to have a little bit
of Costa Rican in it."
Mary started the Monde
Marie in the days
of 6 o'clock closing when there wasn't anywhere else to
go at night. It still took several years before anyone realised what a good idea she'd had.
"That's one of the
reasons I got out of it, people were copying me left
right and centre. We were terribly worried when it first
happened. We rushed round with 20 cent pieces and bought
coffee to watch what they were doing."
They borrowed many of her
ideas - such as providing entertainment that she had
picked up in Europe. "I had singers every night. I got
them by sitting on the telephone and ringing everyone I
knew then going out and seeing people. It grew and we
were the folksong centre of New Zealand."
The recently honoured Dame
Kate Harcourt worked the day shift. "Then I came in in
the evening at about 6 o'clock with the night staff and
we carried on".
It was never very popular
during the day, but the night crowd made the place come
alive. It became obvious after about a year when the
cafe was packed to the gills that Monde Marie
needed expanding. Next door was taken over and the
capacity doubled to about 100 people.
She had her fair share of
embryonic celebrities. "Barry Crump! He was with a
drunken lady and I told him to get her out of here." He
said "Oh Mary, you've got to observe life."
Monde Marie cafe provided a
focus for Wellington's counter-culture, which arrived
with the 60's
On the corner where her
cafe once plied its trade there is now an Italian
Restaurant. But like seedlings from the tree, many cafes
have sprung up not far from the site of their precursor.
They line Majoribanks St and Courtenay Place and have
spread to every corner of Wellington. Seddon and her
place started the scene
Glory days at the Monde
Marie-- by Karl du Fresne
There were people at Mary
Seddon's funeral who hadn't seen her for 40 years . It
didn't matter that they had long since lost contact with
her; the formidable Seddon had made such a lasting
impression they felt compelled to see her off. Or
perhaps they just couldn't believe she had expired, and
needed to confirm it for themselves.
She was born on the West
Coast with an instant claim to fame, being the
granddaughter of turn-of-the-century Liberal Party
premier Richard "King Dick" Seddon. Her father, Thomas
Seddon, was an MP in the declining years of the party.
But Mary was determined to
make her own mark in her own right. She did a BA at
Victoria during the war years, and was a lethal left
winger for the Victoria women's hockey team, whacking
her opponents' legs as often as she struck the ball.
Seddon's glory days were
those of the Monde Marie, which she opened on the corner
of Majoribanks and Roxburgh streets in 1958 and operated
until 1970. It was the heyday of coffee bars and folk
music, and the two fads converged under Seddon's often
imperious proprietorship.
The Monde Marie had all
the standard 60's motifs - including fishing nets strung
under the ceiling and
wax-encrusted candles on the
tables - but it was a serious coffee bar catering for
hard-core folk music enthusiasts.
Seddons waitresses wore
black stockings and short skirts - "cheeky, but not so
cheeky as to up-stage Mary."
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