Playing rugby overseas back in 1957.......Four Southland men play in London on their O.E.

It was 1957 and four young Invercargill sportsmen just returned to New Zealand after roaming England and the Continent in a 1933 car which they bought in London for forty pounds.  They travelled 15,000 miles in it and only parted with the vehicle at the last moment before leaving for New Zealand.

Bob Harrington, Ross Church, Owen Brown and Bruce Cockroft.

They were;  Ross Church, Owen Brown and Bruce Cockroft and Bob Harrington.
The former two were members of the Pirates Rugby Club and the latter, members of the Old Boy's club.
After attending the Melbourne Olympic Games in 1956 and seeing something of Australia they settled in London and joined up with the Millhill Rugby Club.
This club had churned out great first class players such as W. H. Sobey and Roger Spong, half backs in the 1930 British team that toured New Zealand.
Harrington, Cockroft and Brown were given a game in the third division. Selectors loved their style and they were promptly relegated to the senior fifteen.
The Millhill seniors went on to win every game and against the Slough team, Harrington and Cockroft scored six of the seven tries between them, and against Old Elizabethans, a team which had their line crossed few times in earlier games.
They said that you find two types of footballers over there, teams like the Wasps and Harlequins have top players where the England XV are found.
Then you have your second grade clubs, such as Millhill where rugby is played for the sake of the game and not competitively.
They went on to say there was little emphasis on training at the club, but everyone turned out at the weekends and often trips of up to 70 miles would be made.
The Invercargill men had seen two of the Rugby Internationals played by England, against France and against Scotland.  They thought the standard of club Rugby was inferior to that in New Zealand.
Wherever they went they spent time enjoying the local sights. They toured the whole Continent and Scandinavia by car.  They saw Denmark, Germany to Hamburg where , on a Sunday night, they were amazed to walk through a nightclub area where at 12.30a.m. the whole place was so lit up it seemed more like daylight.  The streets and cafes were absolutely crowded.
They stayed with friends in Amsterdam and saw "life as the Dutch live it" before travelling through Belgium and France and back to London.  A short stay there they set off once more and this time travelled through England, Scotland and Wales.
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A letter from Owen to his father dated 20th July 1957, sent from Stockholm Sweden read:
Dear Father,
I have addressed this one to you in return for the one which I received from you the other day.  You will see by the above where we are, its a big farm and market gardens and we are all working here for a while to get a bit of money.  You will laugh over this, but our job has been halving bloody cabbages we started on lot of about 5 to 6 acres which we get paid 300 kroners for = 20 pounds and that took us two and a half days we are  now on another lot of about 2 to 3 acres but the weeds are a dam sight thicker.  From here we wrote to the bank and got them to send over all the mail that was waiting for us and we got quite a stack each. 
I was pleased to hear that Pirates were doing well in the football.  Ted Mortimer must be playing fairly well to get in the town team.  You said that Lindsay Sutherland wrote to me well I didn't get it but it may be still on the way give him and Margaret my congratulations on having a son.  The weather must be something awful over there I'm gald I am not there this season, we are still having good weather although we have had rain quite a bit but it not cold.  We work by contract so carry on during the showers unless it gets too heavy.  We started off living in the tent but they have given us a room to live in above the packing room where they pack the vegetables for the market etc.  It is a big room about 20" X 20' with a range, table and four chairs so we are very comfortable.  The only thing we have to buy is a meat as we got our vegetables.
We want to know how and if our basketball team is still going, who's playing for it and how many games they have won.  Also I have not heard yet who is coaching the Pirates team.
The Duries will have arrived by now I hope everything was alright for them and they got a house alright.  You must have had quite some fun with Pat next door. I'd like to have seen it.  
Well  have to start cooking dinner now and we are going into Stockholm this afternoon which is about 10 miles away and then back to the cabbages tommorrow.  If you write to this address we will probably be here for about 4 or 5 weeks.   Cheerio for now.  Owen.

See the Original letter