Ray Forman

Members of the New Zealand basketball team practise at the YMCA for their upcoming trip next month to the International Games for the Deaf.

Seventeen New Zealanders, en route to the tenth annual International Games for the Deaf in Washington D.C., have been squeezing some Mexico City sightseeing into a brief lay-over during their trip. New Zealand's contingent, headed by Stewart Smith, includes a basketball team, wrestler, trackmen, table tennis players and a swimmer.

Two Napier indoor basketball players have been selected for the Silent Olympics at Washington D.C. in June 1965. The two deaf players are Mervyn and Ray Foreman. Both brothers, who have played basketball since 1949, have represented Hawkes Bay in inter-provincial play. In 1951, the brothers moved to Auckland, where they played for the Deaf Demons and also represented Auckland. Their selection for the New Zealand team for the Silent Olympics was announced this week.

The New Zealand indoor basketball team at the Deaf Olympics in Washington recently did not win a game. Yet to Napier's Forman brothers, Mervyn and Ray, the experience was one never to be forgotten.

Napier Deaf brother and sisters – Doreen Howell and Ray Forman – talk about their experiences in the 1931 earthquake.