Last Run

LAST RUN

He’d fallen over a cliff
And he’d broken his leg.
Just a mustering dog.
And he looked at me, up there on the hill,
Showing no hurt, as if he’d taken no ill,
And his ears, and his tail,
And his dark eyes too,
Said plainly,
‘Well, Boss, what do we do?
Any more sheep to head.
Give me a run.’
But he’d never head sheep any more.

His day was done,
He thought it was fun
When I lifted the gun.

Bruce Stronach

This is a poem I have an affection for as it is one I used to introduce third-formers to poetry. The finality of the last three lines always left a gasp of surprise and horror in the air. Rarely has rhyme been so effective. Town students, boys as well as girls, expressed indignation at the dog being put down. ‘He should have been nursed, sir.” These were the ‘60s and ‘70s. Would today’s students be so sentimental?

Animal death was a fact of my upbringing and to the country students in my classes. While my early wellbeing depended on an economy of fattening lambs and cattle for the works, I recall the pain of loved, trusting dogs having to be destroyed, dogs I had helped rear as puppies.

'50s Experience

In my second year at university I fell in love. Before or between lectures we strolled through the botanic gardens in that blissful state of involvement with some significant other that happens only once for the first time. I mooned around daydreaming about the strange sweetness of existence. We went to the Boranvansky ballet together - Swan Lake ever since is associated in my mind with romance

I was grass green over matters of the heart. Much of my learning about relationships between the sexes was based upon what I’d seen on the movies. One early third-term day she suggested a walk in the park. No manoeuvres, straight to the point. She'd been seriously thinking about her study, and how our relationship stood in the way. She owed it to me to tell me I cared for her more than she for me. A Minister's daughter she did not want to be a manse wife herself. She was the first girl I had taken out seriously, I should take others out as well. Hurt, I realised the correctness of her assessment. Not like later, when head over heels in lust and desire, rejection stung like hell, and numb with despair I hung in hoping for the miracle. The fact that I didn't do this tells its own story. She did it well, disengaging herself graciously. My compliments across the years.

After the break-up I joined the hostel movie brigade: Friday 5 o' clock session, rushed pie cart meal, 8 o' clock session, the same formula repeated on Saturday evening. For a while I saw just about every movie in town. They were fifties movies - great on the Second World War, John Mills on the bridge of a destroyer saluting the flag as his ship went down; the Carry On capers, Sid James and cronies with their sexual innuendo; other English comedies with Alec Guinness, Rex Harrison and Terry Thomas; and musicals of which Carmen Jones ("beat out that rhythm on a drum") endures most.

I saw a thousand Apaches bite the dust and Alan Ladd, Jimmy Stewart and Gary Cooper hang up their guns time after time only to sling them round their hips again ("a man's gotta do what a man's gotta do"). I identified more with their heroic deeds than with James Dean. The film from the period I recollect most vividly is Shane. I swallowed that American dream holus-bolus, while not responding to more complex portrayal of its consequences (On the Waterfront, The Wild One or The Blackboard Jungle).

My adult’s generation's movies symbolically ended with Charlie Chaplin disappearing into the horizon twirling his cane - poignant and sentimental melodrama. Mine ended with the gunman spurring his horse over the ridge to his next lonely battle. It was not an era for the camera of ambiguity. The movies that impacted mostly ended with defeat - The Caine Mutiny and Viva Zapata.

Among the female actors there I recall Kay Kendall who died tragically young, sultry Ava Gardner, always Marilyn Monroe, and a young waif called Audrey Hepburn in her first film Roman Holiday. Bill Haley’s Rock Around the Clock saw the beginning of a new craze. When rock and roll burst upon the scene, enjoying my exploration of classical music I was not greatly impressed but took part in the gyrations that seemed to be called for.

Oldsmobile

My mother said "Guess what?" Kids at any age hate that question. It assumes adult superiority. I would have been about three years old. Probably the excitement in her eyes helped seal in the memory. She supplied her own answer. "Pop’s brought a new car. He's bringing it round." [Pop was my grandfather}. We were living in a small house near the Catholic church in Little River.

To add to the excitement, Mr Aitken, an elderly neighbour, buzzed in on his old water-cooled motor cycle to bring us a large basket of freshly picked juicy cherries from his orchard. Just as he started to leave, the new car cruised up the drive, crushing fennel, blackberry and periwinkle along the verges, billowing clouds of dust, scattering pups, chooks, and causing Mr Aitken to dismount hastily and wheel his cumbersome machine out of the way.

The car was a big pre-war Oldsmobile – the same black red as the cherries. The flashest car in Little River, it remained a sleek symbol of technology, mobility, glamour and power during my childhood years. Pop drove it like a king. Lounging against it he would discuss fat lamb prices, the meaning of life or spin a tale to engage a child’s fancy. During the war years it often served as the local ambulance - Yankee marines with malaria relapses, locals with heart attacks, hands half-severed in a farm accident, women in labour. (Mum often drove in such circumstances. She was an excellent driver). He took his dogs in the capacious boot to muster, to trials, to breed - my job to make sure the vents were open. Whenever we shifted house we went in the Oldsmobile. And Mum drove it to his funeral.

The motor car has been a constant throughout my life though during the war years with petrol rationing there were not that many around. There were hitching posts outside the Little River post office and railway station and they were used. In Christchurch dray carts still delivered goods, especially beer barrels. When the war ended and rationing was eventually lifted the era of the car really began. Quickly, there were flasher cars than the Oldsmobile around. The local farmers began to bypass the railway – trucking their lambs straight to the works and wool through to the stores. Women went through to Christchurch to the larger maternity hospitals. Little River hospital closed and then the railway line. Stepfather Dick drove us through to Lancaster Park to see the All Blacks play.

When I started teaching I realised I could afford a car. I saw the bank manager and arranged a loan. He offered me further money to invest in shares for the new oil refinery at Marsden Point. Shares were beyond my experience and it had been drummed into me as post-Depression lore ‘borrow as little as you have to.” I turned his offer down. Looking back I wonder how my life might have panned out if I had invested in the stockmarket at that stage. I used the car loan to buy a Morris Minor.

New Zealand’s economic history can be followed from my car ownership – Austin, then several Hillman, then a switch to Honda, Subaru and the last a Toyota Corolla.
At the time I failed to make the connection between the refinery and the motor-industry.

The Spark's Farewell

“Man is in love, and loves what vanishes.’ Putting aside the arguments over the word ‘man’, this quotation from Yeats sums up my romanticism. My good friend Colin James represents the alternative approach – the classical, scientific, 18th century. We have ding-dong arguments over my continued use of the word ‘heart’. He sees it as a muscle essential for the body’s life. I accept that but I also use it in a wider sense as a metaphor for feeling and a sensibility. Technically he’s correct.

But words like ‘heart’ and ‘soul’ are part and parcel of my world-view. To me that use is valid. This is why I like Ron Mason’s sonnet A Spark’s Farewell To Its Clay.

Well clay it’s strange at last we’ve come to it:
after much merriment we must give up
our ancient friendship, :no more shall we sup
in pleasant quiet places wanly-lit
nor wander through the falling rain, sharp-smit
and buffeted you, while I within snug-shut:
no longer taste the mingled bitter-sweet cup
of life the one inscrutable has thought fit

To give us: no longer know the strife
that we from old have each with each maintained :
now our companionship has certain end
end without end: at last of this our life
you surely have gained blank earth walls my friend
and I? God only knows what I have gained.


I first read it when a student as I was struggling with the concept of the resurrection of the body. What happened to the soul? The answer Mason supplied is what I sensed then and accept now. Heaven knows. But I appreciate the sentiment of the enjoyed partnership along the way. It’s valid.

Scientists tell us that in time the sun will cool and that life as we know it on Earth will no longer be possible. It seems unbelievable that not only will humanity cease to exist but giraffe, lion, kea, sooty shearwater, potato, kauri, moss and rose will also vanish. All I can say is that for over 70 years my spark and clay, meat and mind, body and soul have co-existed. The heart and head have endured their conflicts. There have been good days and bad days. But I give thanks for the combination.

General Motors

The American taxpayer is now the majority shareholder of General Motors. The Canadian taxpayer also has a considerable interest. What would Lenin and Mao have to say? Even Atlee. Obama has a lot at stake here. He had Hobson’s choice. He’s inherited the whirlwind that others helped create.

The New York Times yesterday had a column claiming that Reagan’s actions in removing the New Deal safeguards began the slide to the present financial crisis. It figures. People forget the reasons why such measures were introduced. Here, Douglas and Richardson followed the same path. Our welfare state arose from the depression.

Under Reagan and Bush public debt increased. So did private debt. Here, Kiwisaver and the Cullen Fund were attempts to alter that culture. The knee-capping of both will have long-term consequences. With the best will in the world the individual cannot always be responsible for their own well-being. Forces beyond their control can sweep away years of industry and thrift.

I am not advocating the abandonment of personal responsibility. Rather, I am arguing that the State has a role to ensure fairness and justice. The present American reaction to this recession suggests that unfettered capitalism has its limits.

At a personal level I didn’t make a conscious choice to be a public servant. I drifted into teaching, found I enjoyed it and from there on followed where opportunity arose. I never wanted or expected to make a fortune. The work was satisfying and gave me space to pursue my literary interests. I assumed the welfare state and a pension at the end. I have been lucky. But will others be so fortunate?

Fiona Farrell (3)

I’ve finished Limestone. Rather I’ve burnt through it. Will read it again soon to savour it more slowly. I did twig how it would end about three-quarters through. But I won’t reveal that. Not since I read Fiona Kidman’s Captive Wife have I been so engrossed in a New Zealand novel. They are both worthy additions to our already over-crowded bookshelves.

Anne and I are both bibliophiles. When we first got together we had separate libraries. The day we decided to merge them sealed our commitment to one another more than any vows we’d made. Where we had duplicate copies hard decisions had to be taken. School prizes took precedent. Appearance counted but sometimes dilapidation reflected a cherishing which won out. Slowly we negotiated our way through the process – second book buyers did well for a while.

One book I was very reluctant to give away was a volume of sermons given to me by Bishop of Christchurch and signed by him. “Will you read it again?” Anne asked.
“No!”
“Well, why keep it?”
“The association.”
“We’re not a museum. Put it in the pile.”
Reluctantly I did. I’ve never felt the need for the book since it left the house. Indeed, I’d forgotten the event until my mind wandered up this particular cul-de-sac just now.

Fiona Farrell(2)

Queen’s Birthday – another bleak southerly day so what better way than to continue reading 'Limestone'. Fiona Farrell grew up in limestone country but now lives on Banks Peninsula. In the opening of her novel - a paen of praise for limestone - the narrator says that those who grow up on basalt have a sense of insecurity.

That’s made me pause to think. Those sentinel hills of childhood’s Little River seemed permanently solid. I knew Akaroa and Lyttelton harbours were old volcano craters but somehow I never envisaged boiling rock. I always put my insecurity down to my father's death when I was five. Maybe I was wrong. Certainly in Auckland I feel aware of the volcanic presence. It is not so long since Rangitoto last erupted. Likewise in Wellington the fault-line is strikingly obvious.

Farrell’s description of the long haul flight from New Zealand to Heathrow reminded me of David Lodge’s writing. She describes Oamaru lovingly. ‘St Patrick’s with a bosomy Latinate dome, St Luke’s with it's demure English spire, and an assortment of determinedly dowdy little non-conformist chapels. They built schools mimicking Eton with mullioned windows and Virginia creeper and harbour-side warehouses with carved archetraves resembling twisted rope.’

It’s a novel you want it to end to find out what happened. At the same time you don’t want it to end because you’re enjoying it so much. Farrell’s technique’s like a detective story sucking in the reader The plot keeps getting interrupted by what appears to be another diversion but which adds another strand to an already complex story. Brilliant!