Weekend away - 2

Back to the fair in the neighbouring township. Alan drove me there at about ten in the morning and arranged to meet me in the early afternoon, when he would return with Joan. I walked the last part of the way as the central area was crammed with stalls selling everything from pottery to tapa cloth, by way of other arts and crafts from around the country and the Pacific islands.

The sun was hot and rising high. Only the small, round grassy section in the main square gave any shade. A pipe band stood close by, sometimes marching while they played, with a woman banging the big drum strapped to her, while youngsters with side drums wielded their sticks adroitly, in unison.

Eventually, I found a seat at the sole picnic table. Someone else sat down too, and said something to me. “That’s a fine Scottish accent you have,” I commented, not quite sure what he had said.

“I’ve been here forty-two years,” he replied without a trace of anything south of Glasgow in his voice.

He told me he’d been back to Scotland recently and was mistaken by a phone caller for his brother, who had never left the land of his birth. The caller refused to believe he was just visiting from New Zealand, convinced the brother was trying to pull his leg.

When I returned to Alan and Joan’s house that evening after a walk and a picnic meal, Joan was sitting at a table on the patio with a young couple who had moved in next door, but who I initially took for paying guests. The man, I later found out, was of Fijian descent and was armed with a number of cans of beer, one of which he offered me, prompting my usual explanation that it was on my banned list, along with coffee and dairy products.

There was also a young man and woman from the Czech Republic. She was not yet twenty-one. Her name was Jana, but in New Zealand she called herself Jane. He was David, and much taller than his slender girlfriend. They had come to the area to pick apples for three months, but were going to stay for a year.

Two other guests were at a wedding in Wellington and didn’t return until the rest of us had gone to bed. Long before then we were joined by Alan — and his bottle of home distilled rum, or whiskey. I asked innocently whether it was legal to have your own still and was assured, not only by Neil but also the Fijian neighbour, that it was perfectly OK. Of course, it isn’t. Alan produces firewater with an alcohol content of eighty-six per cent (!), then dilutes it to forty-three.

David, the young Czech, had a half-full bottle of Irish whiskey on the table and Jana drank not only from that but also accepted some of Neil’s brew when offered. Joan had told me earlier that Neil had to drink — and smoke — because of a serious injury as a helicopter pilot. And with quite a lot of alcohol inside him, he became very talkative, telling me in a low voice across the table about his past career.

He was brought up on a local farm, evidently a large and flourishing one for it had its own Tiger Moth plane, which Alan learnt to fly at the age of twelve! Flying on your own property was not covered by the regulations, which anyway seemed to be extremely lax. He went on to tell me about the time when he was flying DC3s in Canada, spraying crops in formation with others, who did everything wrong until he pointed out their errors to the man in charge, a former Spitfire pilot in the Second World War.

He also spoke at length about his time flying helicopters, hunting deer in dangerous country, flying low in deep ravines. He called it ‘the wild west’. Farmers could fire shotguns at them and shatter the windscreen. Neil had a ‘shooter’ on board and a winch-man, with an extremely hazardous job. When deer were shot, he was lowered to gut the carcasses before getting them winched up. Neil said they lost I think it was four men and two pilots during his time in this most precarious occupation before he came a cropper himself.

Apart from taking potshots at them, farmers might stretch a wire across the gully and one day he flew straight into one, losing or severely damaging the rotor blades and coming down with a crash. Joan told me he had been put in a body bag and it was a miracle that he survived. But the misadventure hadn’t cured him from wanting to fly helicopters again, albeit for the less hazardous task of showing visitors the surrounding countryside.

Weekend away

A few years back I gave the rugby sevens weekend a miss to spend a couple of days at a tiny township about an hour’s train journey away, staying bed and breakfast at a private home that took paying guests.

My host, lets call him Alan, a lean man in upper middle age, was waiting for me at the station, though there was not very far to go and I had little luggage with me. His wife, we can call her Joan, as talkative as they come, welcomed me with tea in the garden and then offered to show me round the area.

Our first stop was the library, where she introduced me to the librarian. After that came the most chaotic bookshop I have ever seen, with books heaped higgledy piggledy on tables as well as lining the shelves. It was run by a friend of Joan’s, who offered to take me to the country fair in a township some twenty miles away the next day, a major biannual event in the local calender. We would leave at seven in the morning and be back by ten. There was a little discussion about breakfast. “We can have it when we get back,” the woman said.

Next was the art gallery and another introduction. Surprisingly, they had a number of impressive works by well-known New Zealand artists. We continued past the local Information Centre, which was closed. Joan said it was only open in the morning and manned by volunteers. The Heritage Museum was shut too, so we crossed the road and said hello to the local estate agent.

The township, Featherstone, has but one main road. Travelling by car I suppose you could be out of it almost before you knew you were in it. Many of the buildings are old, almost all are timber-built and it is evident that little has changed for decades. The hills are very close on one side of the wide valley, which is wine country, with tour operators offering wine-tasting trips to the vineyards.

We proceeded a little farther along the road before turning back, Joan talking all the time. By then I felt in need of more exercise than I’d got from our slow, stop-and-start stroll and decided to explore a little for myself. With unexpected consequences. This is what happened:

On the outskirts of town is a short bushwalk that I decided to investigate. I got there after taking some wrong turns and went just a little way along the path. It was rather steep, but I could already see that there was a good view to be had. Nearby was a timber-built house. A couple were sitting at a table outside it, drinking a glass of white wine, doubtless from one of the local vineyards.

I walked a little farther uphill. ‘I must take some pictures,’ I told myself. But I had to find the right spot for there were lots of trees and bushes in the way. Perhaps I had passed the best point. OK, I’d take the photos on the way down. The path was getting steeper and steeper. And darker. It was now five o’clock in the evening and the sun wasn’t sufficiently high to penetrate. I was also worried about my knee, which I’d hurt earlier in Auckland so I turned round and went back, now with camera in hand.

Reaching a point where there wasn’t much vegetation to hide the view, I took a few shots, continued almost to the starting point of the path, raised the camera, pressed the release, then repeated the process. The couple were still sitting at their table. I carried on.

“Have you taken any good pictures?” the man suddenly asks, and I realise they have been aware of my presence all the time. He is now standing up, looking towards me.

“I hope so,” I reply.

He says something else, which I don’t quite catch, so I take a few steps in his direction.

“You get a better view from here,” he says. “Go up behind the house. But be careful. It’s rather steep.”

So I walk onto their property, say hello to the man’s wife, and see that they have an enchanting view across the valley to the hills on the far side, now almost golden brown in the early evening sunlight. I see too, that there is also quite a large lake lower down the valley.

I explain that I hurt my knee a couple of months before and he tells me to go slowly and be very careful. Which I am. I take my photos and come down again.

“Have a seat,” he says, and offers me a glass of wine. I thank him, but explain that alcohol, coffee and dairy products are on my banned list. Whereupon his wife gets up, goes into the house and comes back with something both alcohol- and sugar-free. Which I drink, after we have introduced ourselves. He is Neal and she is Val.

We talk. After a while Val gets up again and returns with maps so that I can better see the lie of the land. They also hand me a rather large pair of binoculars. We stay at the table, and talk much more until Neal suggests we go in. He is a member of a threatened species in the modern communications world, an amateur radio operator, a HAM, and will try to contact Sweden.

They rise and I follow them into the house, admiring the view from the lounge and also Neal’s study, which is full of different kinds of apparatus. He looks up a catalogue of radio codes for cities around the world and we find some from Sweden, fail to make contact. It may be because of the time difference. It is seven in the evening here, seven in the morning in Sweden.

I see that Neal is somewhat disappointed. But just then Val comes in and puts a plate of freshly cooked fish, green beans, tomato and half a lemon in front of me. Neal gets a similar plate. I am almost embarrassed by their hospitality. They have grown the beans and tomatoes themselves, Val explains. She understands full well how I feel, but waves it aside.

When I eventually leave it is pitch dark outside and the air is much colder. I am wearing a short-sleeved shirt without a sweater, but decline the jacket they offer to lend me.

“I’ll walk fast,” I state and we say goodbye after exchanging e-mail addresses.

Back at the little guest house where I am staying I tell Alan where I have been and ask Joan if her friend is serious about going to the fair at seven in the morning.

“She wants us to be ready at half-past-six,” Joan replies. I wasn’t sure who the ‘us’ referred to. “But we don’t have to go then,” she adds. “We can go later. We’ll take you.”

Which they did. But that’s another story.

Postscript
I can add, however, that Alan phoned me in Wellington four or five days later. What are you doing at the weekend?” he asked.

A little taken aback, I told him I was busy on the Saturday but wasn’t doing anything on the Sunday.

“I’ll pick you up,” he said.

And he did, though it meant driving over a range of hills. But that too, is another story.

Wellington invasion

The city was invaded this past weekend by countless monks, nuns, bishops, nurses, native Americans, cowboys, aviators, polo players, jockeys, apparitions, braying beasts, bears, outsize birds, even walking talking cream cakes, beer bottles, wads of multi-coloured flounce and much else straight from the world of the weird and wonderful. Yes, it was the weekend of the annual Wellington leg of the international rugby sevens series, which here is always the signal for a fancy dress binge that brings in hordes of revellers and many warmly welcome dollars.

This time there were some differences, however. Never before has a section of the stadium been set aside for those actually interested in what goes on on the pitch. Special tickets were issued for aisles 24-28, called the ‘rugby zone’. Then those under 25, or looking under 25, had to offer proof of their age to get the wristband entitling them to buy beer. You never have been allowed to bring your own booze to the stadium, or any other drinks for that matter, hot or cold, but in the past it was primarily to maintain a monopoly on sales within. (Of course, the pubs in town have done excellent business. As usual.)

Why the sudden change? Well, the international rugby authorities have their eye on Wellington now that this form of the game has acquired Olympic status and is due to be included in the 2016 Games. They certainly don’t want it to gain a bacchanalian reputation and risk being kicked out. So Wellington was warned.

Costume restrictions are not so new. Complete or near-nudity is out - I don’t know whether a fig-leaf bedecked Adam and Eve got in but they did have quite a few leaves between them - so is anything that can be used as, or looks like, a weapon. Costumes that overlap the seat or obstruct the view of others are likewise banned, as are flagpoles more than a metre long, picnic baskets, commercially prepared food (not a mouthful may stand in the way of arena sales), prams and pushchairs. But you can bring an empty water bottle provided it doesn’t hold more than a litre, and fill it inside. Anything in it when you arrive will be tipped out.

There was clearly some improvement. The police say crowds were on the whole well-behaved. There were slightly fewer arrests than usual, fewer people ejected from the stadium, fewer helpless beings needing assistance, though much of the time thousands of seats remained empty while those who should have been keeping them warm were out on the town, where the party always continues after the last whistle has been blown.

So most people were happy.

Postscript. If you happen to care about the result of the 16-nation tournament, England won, edging past Kenya in the final, while a disappointed New Zealand side won the play-off for third place.

King Dick

That you have to be a mountain goat to walk about in Wellington is simply not true. But if like me, you go almost everywhere on foot, it would certainly help. Built on and around the hills that almost dip into the sea here, the only really flat area in the central city area is land reclaimed from the deep, albeit assisted by an earthquake in 1855.

It is hardly surprising therefore that a prime attraction in the city is a cable car that elevates you from the busy thoroughfare of Lambton Quay to a lookout in the heights high above, just inside the upper entrance to the botanical gardens, (called here the Botanic Garden despite undeniable evidence that the plural form would be more accurate). It is a rare visitor to the capital city who has not stared out over the broad deep-sea harbour and its surroundings from this impressive vantage point.

But let’s forget the cable car and other vehicles and walk uphill from the farther end of Lambton Quay, along the memorial trail that takes you through the old cemetery where the early European (predominantly British) settlers are buried. Their resting place has been sacrilegiously cut in two by a motorway, but the path continues across it as an inclined footbridge before winding steeply upwards again until you eventually reach the tombs of two former Prime Ministers. The larger of these edifices as you leave the memorial park, with a bronze figure atop a tall pillar, is that of King Dick.

Richard John Seddon was born in 1854, was apprenticed to an engineer, joined the gold rush to the South Island of New Zealand in 1866 after first trying his luck in Australia, became mayor of a small town in 1877, was elected to Parliament in 1879 – and became Prime Minister 14 years later. Not bad for a lad from Lancashire who left school at the age of 12. His Government set the pace for social welfare legislation in the West in the last decade of the century. New Zealand women were first in the world to be given the vote, in 1893, (although he wasn’t in favour of the move himself); old age pensions were introduced, the penny post, the coalmines were nationalised, and so on.

Yes, King Dick achieved a lot and might have achieved still more had he not died in office. Inscribed on his tomb are the words, “A strong and resolute personality with an indomitable will enabled Richard John Seddon to carry out the humane and progressive legislation which characterised the 13 years of his administration.”

More than a century on I can’t help thinking what he would make of more recent reforms that have led to the country having the fastest growing gap between the incomes of rich and poor in the OECD area. But then his smiling current counterpart is a former successful currency trader, also with an indomitable will – to sell off large chunks of state-owned assets to private investors.

I wonder whether he is resting in peace, King Dick.

The Stockholm Winter

The Stockholm winter struck early this time, in the dull, dark days of November, growing invreasingly severe, albeit somewhat brightening the December darkness. Friends with living space at ground level complained of being blocked in, of having to shovel aside great mounds of snow, and then when the temperature rose and the rain fell only to freeze, of the bone-breaking hazard of stepping out of the front door. The hospitals are overworked when it's like that.


All this I have noted with great sympathy and understanding while contemplating the blue-green waters of the Waitemata Harbour in Auckland, and now the gently rippling surface of Lake Taupo on the central plateau of New Zealand’s North Island. The temperature is in the mid-20s Celsius, the sun bright, the sky blue, while a bellbird in the shade of a nearby tree provides a wondrous musical background to my thoughts. I can put words to his song. ‘Do you know how well-off you are?’ he warbles.

Listen! There he goes again.

Postscript: I have been to Auckland many times before but not until this latest visit have I seen people begging in Queen Street, the main commercial thoroughfare in the country’s largest city by very far. No bellbirds there.

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Sweden and the Games - final

Swedish competitors were remarkably successful, but none more so than those in the ‘Running Deer Shooting, Double Shot’ event in which they took the first eight places! They also won the Team Single Shot event. In all, they took 7 gold, 6 silver and 4 bronze in the 18 shooting events and 4 out of the 5 equestrian gold. They won all three medals in the triple jump, also had seven out of the eight finalists in the Women’s Platform Diving. The Modern Pentathlon was also a great Swedish success, with Swedes in the first four places, plus sixth and seventh.

In track and field athletics, however, US athletes were dominant. They were 1st, 2nd, 3rd and 5th in the 100m after seven (!) false starts in the final, the first three by the gold medal winner, Ralph Craig. Craig also took gold in the 200m, with Lippincott second. The US took the first four places in the 110m hurdles and the 800m, when all four runners broke the previous world record. In the pole vault, the US was 1st, 2nd, 3rd and 4th equal. They were also 1st, 2nd, 3rd and 5th in the shot put.

The 1500m was won by Arnold Jackson from Britain, with the photo finish camera used to determine second and third places. The man adjudged to come second, Abel Kiviat of the US took part in the torch relay in 1984 at the age of 91, carrying it for 1 km in NY City.

The Greco Roman wrestling bout between Russia’s Martin Klein and Alfred Asikainen from Finland went on for more than 11 hours before Klein won. But both men were too exhausted to fight Swede Claes Johansson in the final and he was declared the middleweight champion, with Klein second and Asikainen third. The light-heavyweight final between the Swedish hope Anders Ahlgren and Finn Ivar Böhling was abandoned after nine hours. Both were declared to have lost (!) with no gold awarded. They were given silver medals instead.

The Games were officially ended on 27th July with a banquet at which Coubertin made a hopeful speech about the future. But the First World War broke out two years later and the 1916 Games that were supposed to be in Berlin, were never held. Many of the competitors who took part in Stockholm were killed in the war, while Otto Herschmann, a member of the Austrian silver-medal sabre team and previously a bronze medal winner in 1896 in the 100m freestyle swimming, died in a Nazi concentration camp in Poland in June 1942. He was President of the Austrian Olympic Committee in 1912, making him the only sitting national OC President to win an Olympic medal.

Olympics - Sweden and the Games 3

The thorny question of professionalism also raised its head. The star athlete of the Games was Jim Thorpe, who won both the pentathlon and the decathlon as well as performing well in individual events. The Swedish king told him he was the greatest athlete in the world, Tsar Nicholas gave him a jewel-encrusted chalice and he was also presented with a bronze bust of Sweden’s Gustav V, but he was stripped of his medals when it became known he had played minor league baseball in North Carolina for a small sum of money. It was not until long after he had died in poverty that he was officially reinstated. Replicas of the medals were given to his family and there is a memorial plaque to him at the old Olympic Stadium in Stockholm.

The impressive red-brick venue, still in use, was constructed in two years, financed by lotteries as the Riksdag (Parliament) was doubtful about the project. The cost was far greater than originally estimated, so little has changed in that respect too. There was no Olympic Village. The US contingent lived on the boat they came to Stockholm in, while most others stayed at small hotels or rented private rooms.

There were also two tennis events, one indoors, the other out. Both were held before the official opening of the Games, indoors at the beginning of May, outdoors in late June. The covered court tournament attracted a stronger entry as the other one clashed with Wimbledon. There was disappointment for the Swedes in the outdoor mixed doubles final, won by a German pair. The home players would undoubtedly have given a better account of themselves had Sigrid Fick not smashed her partner’s face instead of the ball early in the match. According to the official report of the Games, the incident ‘seemed to put him off his game, for his play fell off tremendously’.

The soccer tournament was popular, with eleven teams, all from Europe, taking part. Britain beat Denmark 4-2 in the final in front of a crowd of 25,000. Eleven of the side’s 15 goals in the tournament were scored by Harold Walden, who later became a popular music-hall comedian. The most remarkable feat, however, came from Gottfried Fuchs of Germany, who scored ten goals in one match, against Russia.
(More to come)