My Wife’s Wed to the Wharf

 First published in June, 1991, in NZ Fisherman, now merged in 2000 with Game Fisher to become NZ Fishing News. This is an enlarged version of the original one published in Column 8.

We used to be able to get into our car without having a fishing rod poke us in the ear, or a fishhook catch us up the nostril. The car never smelt superfresh, but now it smells of super fish, what with tackle boxes, buckets and nets.

We used to be able to go to the freezer, take our an icecream container and be sure of finding icecream in it. Not anymore. It’s just as likely to contain dozens of sprats, bait for future salmon.

Since my wife had her ears pierced about a year ago, I used to expect, quite reasonably, to see earrings dangling from my wife’s ears. Now I’m just as likely to see a couple of swivels, those little coupling devices that allow the hook to turn freely.

My wife has had a number of hobbies over the years but fishing is definitely number one. She says she’ll stop going out when it gets cold and go back to sewing but, to be honest, I can still see her out there in the sleet and hail, keeping her hands warm round a cup of hot soup from her flask.

I suppose I should have read the signs, considering who her forebears were. She comes from English Norfolk stock – a true Norfolk broad – and was brought up on the coast, where fishermen are two a penny, and winkles, mussels and crabs part of the regular diet.

Since the middle of last year, I’d been getting NZ Fisherman sent to me each month. I’d begun to find her reading it. In the Christmas holidays I picked up Take a Kid Fishing at Whitcoulls. That was the straw that broke the camel’s back.

We discussed buying a fishing rod to encourage the kids. My wife decided to justify the expense by having one as an early birthday present. Supposedly it was for all the family, but it soon became my wife’s alone.

At first we took everybody out fishing. That soon sorted out the enthusiasts from the apathetics. My wife was definitely an enthusiast.

After a few outings she found the rod wasn’t big enough to catch salmon – I mean, no one wants to catch sprats for the rest of their fishing days, do they? So she had her 1992 birthday. (No wonder I’m so hard up.)

And catch a salmon she did. From the Dunedin wharf, which has become her second home. The first I knew about the catch was when she arrived in my bookshop with her bucked and pulled out this limp creature, nearly two kilos in weight and 40 centimetres long. The bookshop had a lingering fragrance for some hours.

Before my wife got into fishing, I had this false picture of fishermen as a breed that kept pretty much to themselves. And definitely not friendly. The attitude may have been based on stories I’d heard of fishermen up north who were likely to toss their neighbour into the water because they’d got their lines crossed, or someone had invaded their personal space. Fishing etiquette seemed to have gone out the window with chivalry towards women.

Both my wife and I have been pleasantly surprised to find that in Dunedin, at least, this isn’t the case. Instead of the more experienced fishermen ignoring this novice, they’ve helped her again and again.

When her hook caught round one of the wharf supports, taking a length of line and the float with it, her first reaction was to be a bit peeved and go off and buy another float.

On returning, one of her fellow fishermen asked why she’d bothered. At low tide he used his net to catch hold of the float and pull the rest of the line up, with the sprat that had been bait still attached.

When she caught her first salmon, one of the fishermen was there with his net to hoist it up out of the water for her. (She’s caught two salmon in her short time of fishing, including one just after the weekend competition held in March. We might survive the recession yet.)

When the second salmon arrived, she was off on her own. A firm yell for help brought a fisherman running right round the perimeter of the wharf. Someone else told her how to gut the salmon after scaling it, preferably under running water; how to remove the head properly, particularly since by the lack of a dorsal fin it could be seen to be a tagged specimen; where to take the head for recording; and how to tell the sex by the shape of the mouth; the male has more of a hook on the lower lip.

Fishermen are just as helpful about telling her when to throw something back because it’s too small, or what to do with the razor-toothed barracouta that occasionally turn up on her line.

By watching other fishermen, she’s been able to gauge where to put her sprat jig, and how deep. And no one’s charged her for the advice. They haven’t even made her pay for the odd sprat they’ve handed over when she’s run out.

She’s been really encouraged by the support she’s received down at the wharf. I guess it’s worth having a smelly car as a trade-off for an occasional salmon that’s big enough to invite the neighbours over to help us eat.

My only concern is that she’s now got her eye on a fishing trawler…

Fishing Trawler, UK, 
photo courtesy Peter Jemmett

 

 

 

 

Fishing

 First published on 17 April, 1991. I think this is the original piece on this idea: I used it more than once in various permutations. 

We used to be able to get into our car without having a fishing rod poke us in the ear, or a fishhook catch us up the nostril. The car never smelt superfresh, but now it smells of super fish, what with tackle boxes, buckets and nets.

We used to be able to go to the freezer, take our an icecream container and be sure of finding icecream in it. Not anymore. It’s just as likely to contain dozens of sprats, bait for future salmon.

I used to expect, quite reasonably, to see earrings dangling from my wife’s ears. Now I’m just as likely to see a couple of swivels, the little coupling devices that allow the hook to turn freely.

Since I wrote about hobbies some time ago, my wife has got into fishing – not in a big way, really, but enough to encourage her to go out at any opportunity. Beats watching idiotic sit-coms on the telly.

I suppose I should have read the signs, considering who her forebears were. She comes from English Norfolk stock – a true Norfolk broad – and was brought up on the coast, where fishermen are two a penny, and winkles, mussels and crabs part of the regular diet.

By a curious set of circumstances, I’d sown the seed by getting a fishing magazine sent to me each month. And in the Christmas holidays I picked up a booklet in Whitcoulls about taking kids fishing. I really only wanted it for research – honest I did.

She requested an early birthday present, and we bought our first fishing rod. I say ‘our’ because supposedly it was for all the family, but it soon became my wife’s alone. Then she found it wasn’t big enough to catch salmon, so 1992’s birthday came early too. (No wonder I’m so hard up.)

Before my wife got into fishing, I used to think fishermen were a pretty taciturn lot, reminiscing about the last catch and brooding about the next. Both my wife and I have been pleasantly surprising to find that, in Dunedin at least, this isn’t the case. (Though I hear that  up north, the fishing etiquette of former days is going the way of all other etiquette, with people tossed into the water if they tread on someone else’s fishing space.)

In spite of being a novice, my wife has made the wharf her second home. And instead of being ignored by the more experienced fishermen, she’s been helped again and again.

When her hook caught round one of the wharf supports, taking a length of line and the float with it, her first reaction was to be a bit peeved and go off and buy another float.

On returning, one of her fellow fishermen asked why she’d bothered. At low tide he used his net to catch hold of the float and pull the rest of the line up, with the sprat that had been bait still attached.

When she caught her first salmon, one of the fishermen was there with his net to hoist it up out of the water for her. (She’s caught two salmon in her short time of fishing, including one just after the recent weekend competition. We might survive the recession yet.)

Someone else told her how to gut the salmon after scaling it, preferably under running water; how to remove the head properly, particularly since by the lack of a dorsal fin it could be seen as a tagged specimen; where to take the head for recording; and how to tell the sex by the shape of the mouth; the male has more of a hook on the lower lip.

She’s been really encouraged by the support she’s received down at the wharf. My only concern is that she’s now got her eye on a fishing trawler.

Salmon statue, Rakaia, New Zealand
Courtesy of Michal Klajban

The first fishing magazine had been sent to me for research into what sort of articles they were looking for. For some reason the following issues just kept turning up – for free.

My wife did most of her fishing off the wharf on the Harbour. Salmon were in good supply because the smolt were released each year, the salmon went up the Leith Stream, and came back to the Harbour when mature.

A slightly expanded version of this column appears here. 

 

 

Reading articles

First published in Column 8 on 31.10.90

A music canterbury
Source unknown

No doubt every reader of this column has come across articles telling him/her How-to-do everything from catching a slimy mackerel to carving a music canterbury.

(You can tell from that sentence that I’ve read an article on How To Use Inclusive Language.)

Even writers’ magazines feature such articles, so that we get the absurdity of the How to Write a How-To Article.

You don’t believe me? Last the year the American magazine The Writer published an article called ‘Writing the How-To-Do-It.’ This year they had another: ‘Tips on Writing the How-To Article.’

I had decided, in view of some comments made about this column, to give 10 short tips entitled How to Read an Article, but I ran out of ideas when I got to number four.

My alternative would be to give four long-winded statements on the same theme. However, since I read in an article entitled ‘How to Keep to the Point’ that long-windedness is no longer in, I’ll give some short sharp remarks on it instead.

One: Read the article the writer wrote. Of course, this may be harder than you think. His eloquence may outdo his clarity.

He may have the gift a few correspondents in the Letters to the Editor columns have: that of driving off in a tangent whenever the road sign says ‘Straight Ahead.’

Two – this is my next point. Are you still with me? Approach his article without bias  - he should have tried to approach his subject in the same way.

However, if he’s at all like me, approaching anything without bias is rather like asking a bowl to roll straight. Not only it is ‘inconceivable,’ to quote one of the characters from The Princess Bride – but it rather takes away from the fun.

By the way, have you noticed? I may have read an article entitled How To Use Inclusive Language, but not much of it has sunk in.

My third point: read all the writer has to say, before you disagree. (The fact that I seldom do this does not make the rule null and void.)

Follow the writer through to his conclusion – he may be going to a place you hadn’t expected. Don’t jump off at a stop before he does.

Four: Don’t, the moment you disagree with something, write a letter to the editor.

I love rushing into print and writing what appears to be a well-thought out and erudite letter (I love using obscure words as well).

Usually I blame the writer for things he never said, conclusions he never came to, and ideas that never entered his head.

Unless I’m very disciplined about it, I’m likely to go off on a tangent, drawing on my vast experience of life. Mostly it has nothing to do with what the writer wrote.

Letters to the Editor are great for having a dig at the writer – I know, because I’ve done it.

Having lately been on the receiving end of a few myself – and I don’t include among these the one from the esteemed University Librarian – I’ve found letter writers have often read an article I never wrote.

Instead they’ve read their version of my words, and it’s their interpretation of them they get so incensed about.

Plainly I’ll have to find an article – probably amongst the University Library’s vast selection of 9756 magazine titles – that tells me How To Write So That No One Will Misunderstand Me.

Do you think I will?

(P. S. I invited my wife to read this article. She didn’t get past the first line without jumping to the wrong conclusion.)

))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))

 A few notes…

A ‘bowl’ - as in the game of bowls – has a built-in bias.

Curiously, I wrote ‘unconceivable’ in the original – neither I nor the sub-editor noticed.

In my very first published column I queried why the local library would have so many magazines in their stack, and got a wry reply (in the Letters to the Editor) as to reason for this.

  

Fly away

 Fly Away

 First published in Column 8, 24.10.90

 I don’t travel by plane very often – getting away twice this year is unusual.

So when I have six take-offs and six touchdowns – all because I wanted to fly to Hamilton and back – I have ample opportunity to note the changes.

In the past, for example, didn’t one of the stewards used to read that safety measures speech over the intercom while the others went through the routine?

Now Air New Zealand has a recorded male voice doing the job. He reminds me of those irritatingly smug voiceovers at the end of a television programme: the ones that tell you what’s coming next – when you already know.

It’s like having someone reading the newspaper over your shoulder out loud.

What really got me about his little speech was the last line. ‘In the unlikely event of an emergency, listen to your stewards. They know what to do.’

The condescension in the tone implied one should remember that all flying passengers have the mental age of 6-year-olds.

Perhaps in the unlikely event of an emergency we do regress to the 6-year-old level. Fortunately, in the course of my six take-offs and six touchdowns, there was no chance to find out.

Plainly the recording has had a detrimental effect on the stewards or – pursers, as they have reverted to calling them.

One young fellow, obviously bored with having to go through the motions yet again (and never having the chance to put into practice all those emergency techniques he’d learnt in steward school) was a second or two ahead of the voice.

He pulled down the gas mask before we heard it would happen; he put it over his mouth and nose before we were informed why we should do so; and he had everything packed away again while the voice was still finishing.

I expected the intercom to comment – ‘We know what to do – just give us a chance to finish, mate!’

The other side of flying in which there has been an improvement – though I doubt if folks doing a weightwatchers diet would rejoice – was that between every stop you get a ‘light meal.’

Morning tea was served between Dunedin and Christchurch, where I arrived towards lunchtime. Unaware of the food deluge to come, I decided to get a snack at the cafeteria, in case they starved me for the rest of the trip.

I finished up with four ‘light; meals. And the last thing you feel after all those is light.

Perhaps there are three reasons for all this food.

A more practical person than I am suggested it’s to keep up with the competition.

I prefer to think it’s to give all those highly-paid stewards – there were four on one hop – something to do. After all, no one gets air-sick these days – unless like a friend of mine they spend too much time in the Koru Club waiting for a delayed flight.

My favourite reason, however, and I suspect it’s the real one, is this. In the event of an emergency those ‘light’ meals – all three of them – would keep you weighed down in your seat.

Then the stewards can deal with you effectively. You’ll be too heavy to leap about and panic.

This column, one of the first to be written but not the first to be published, has dated considerably. Regular light meals on short hops within the country are often missing these days. No longer do we have a ‘smug’ voiceover; now we have supposedly humorous skits done by minor celebrities on the little screens in front of us. But the hosts and hostesses (as I think they’ve reverted to calling them) still do the demonstrations, even though no one is watching.

As for no one getting air-sick. It does still happen. I came back to Dunedin airport some while ago and because of a fault with the lights at the airport  - which had all gone out - the pilots couldn’t see where to land. So we circled and circled around the in the midst of a storm, bumping up and down endlessly. I just wanted to open one of the doors and jump out. But one unfortunate guy just across the aisle from me was sick, continually, and there was no sign of a host or hostess to help.

Rhododendrons

 First published in Column 8, 17^th Oct, 1990

 I’ve been a bit slow getting my 1990 celebration off the ground. Having to organise a year or more in advance is a bit much for a person of not excessive brain.

I got my idea when I used to do house to house deliveries round the Maori Hill area.

So dazzling were the blazing glories of rhododendrons that I’d finish up delivering in the wrong letterboxes.

It seemed to me that we need to make even more of Dunedin’s invasion by this Asian alien.

I hear some cry: We have Rhododendron Week, don’t we? Yes, we do, and there’s a great banner across Stuart St to prove it. But I don’t think we’ve really made a big enough celebration of it yet.

Just compare Rhododendron Week to Alexandra’s Blossom Festival. They’re hardly to be thought of in the same breath, are they?

I’d like to see Dunedin considered as Rhododendron City.

That’s why it’s a pity I wasn’t quicker off the mark with my 1990 ideas.

I could have made use of the oodles of money the Government was throwing at us to fund my scheme for Every Garden a Rhododendron Garden. (And maybe given some people employment in the process.)

Or my plan for replacing the dreary plants along the motorway between Burnside and Green Island with rhododendrons. Can you imagine what it would be like in October coming into Dunedin from the South?

We could plant rhododendrons all along Andersons Bay Rd – in fact in any space where they’d fit.

If they grow so well here, why not make the most of it? And if they’re so easy to maintain, why not let more people have the opportunity to plant them?

Having said all that, we’ve had a bit of a problem with some of ours this year. (Think they’re sulking because the usual gardener’s a bit crook.)

One of ours has practically keeled over – a most unusual state for the hardy rhodie – and several have decided not to flower.

The gardener says they’re putting in a ‘Year of Growth.’ Maybe it’s their Asian background.

That kind of year might be the only drawback to making more of our rhododendron season – what if the entire rhodie population decided to have a ‘Year of Growth’ together?

It’s something I hadn’t thought of until now, but no doubt horticulturalists could ensure that we had a balanced mixture of flowering plants and just plain growing ones.

I don’t think there’s much balance amongst the 18 varieties in our garden.

We’re not as organised as our neighbours. Their plants bloom in decent order. As one lot of flowers dies off the next are arriving, so there’s a continual display down the line.

Ours come out higgledy-piggledy round the garden.

Fireman Jeff causes the Winsome Princess Alice to go into a Royal Flush of Pink Pearl – under the Yellow Moon.

Anna Rose Whitney, with early Christmas Cheer, rings out Jingle Bells, and the Unknown Warrior, in Purple Splendour and bothered by a Bumblebee, raises the Blue Peter in the midst of the September Snow.

It’s all go at this time of the year.

One of the larger rhododendrons in our Oamaru garden

 Some notes to this piece:

The ‘usual gardener’ was my mother who lived with us for 21 years before going to a place where rhododendrons bloom all eternity around.

It’s only since my wife and I moved to Oamaru, a city some 110 kilometres north of Dunedin, that I’ve discovered that rhododendrons don’t necessarily look after themselves. It does depend on the climate. In Dunedin there was generally enough moisture in the air to keep them flourishing. But in Oamaru the days can be hot and dry and rhododendrons start to gasp for water.

Thus it was that not long after we arrived here, one of the rhododendrons did keel over, literally, and was found to be dead from the roots up. The following year another one turned black, and had to be taken out. A third almost died of the same problem. It turned out that the problem was mostly…lack of water.

This was the only way I managed to rescue a newish rhodie we’d brought with us from Dunedin. It had been given to me by one of my daughters for my birthday (or Christmas) and after establishing itself well the leaves started to curl up at the edges and turn dark. In retrospect there may have been another reason for its near demise: it was planted near a well-established kowhai tree, and my suspicion is that the kowhai was sucking up all available water in the area.

In the end I took the risk of moving the rhododendron, and gave it heaps of water. It’s now happily surviving in an area where the nearest trees don’t disturb it.

As for Dunedin becoming Rhododendron City…since I wrote this piece 35 years ago, the city has planted rhododendrons along the motorway – though not quite in the area I suggested – and there are vastly more of them in private gardens and public parks. The Botanical Gardens itself has a large area entirely devoted to rhododendrons; they make a terrific display for three or four months of the year.

First Column 8

 The very first Column 8 – as far as I can work out from my diary – though it wasn’t the first to be written. That appeared a week or two later. Unusually it was published without a title and was fitted in under part of a letter to the Editor that spread across at least three columns. This one appeared on the 10th October 1990. 

 Untitled.

 I see the Public Library has come to the end of a survey they’ve been doing. They were trying to find out which of the magazines they subscribe to are actually read.

I don’t know if anyone else shared a sneaky feeling I had. If my favourite magazine was cancelled, how would I ever keep up to date with it?

When faced with a survey sheet that had only a single tick on it was anyone else tempted to give it a few complimentary ones?

It’s a bit like wires that get put across roadways to count the traffic. I’d love to go and drive over them a few more times – just in case they’re planning to close the road.

When you’re only interested in certain magazines, you can fail to appreciate just how many the library actually gets each month.

Computer buffs maybe don’t know about those on gardening; fashion devotees may not notice the ones on football. In fact it was only when I had to do a bit of research that I came to appreciate just how many hundreds of different magazines the library holds.

And not only how many hundreds of different ones, but also how many years they cover: some of them date back to the 1930s.

But if I get inspired by the large numbers of magazines the Public Library carries, I have to admit it’s probably beaten hollow by those in the University Library.

And even more amazing, the stacks where the magazines are stored at this library are all wide open to view.

I did an exploratory visit down there one evening recently, trying to find out just what was held. I could have been there from tea-time to midnight and not even begun to scratch the surface, but I did come up with some peculiar items.

It makes you wonder just what the collecting policy is for periodicals at the University. Or perhaps I should say, what it’s been in the past, since a number of magazines appear to have copies up until a decade or so ago. Then they peter out.

Either there was some ruthless purging about that time or some ruthless pilfering.

Be that as it may, what is there is fascinating. Magazines in all sorts of languages, along with well-known English language ones, like Time and Newsweek. There are newspapers too: for example, the New York and the London Times.

The shelves house magazines on every sort of subject, political, literary, professional, historic, plus magazines that no one every hears of anymore or never heard of at all. There are copies of Blackwood’s dating from last century containing original stories by Dickens.

I think my favourite curiosity was this – several shelves spanning several decades of an English women’s magazine. What academic use would that have?

Perhaps many years ago some lady member of the staff dreamed up a crafty plan. In order to read her favourite magazine over her morning cuppa, in the most economical way, she filled in a little form – and let the library pay her subscription.

Monarch Range advertisement from the October 1928 Country Gentleman
courtesy Don O'Brien - Wikimedia Commons

 The last couple of paragraphs caused a member of the University staff to write and inform me that my suspicion about a female staff member was far off the track. The magazines were held to keep track of cultural changes not just in such things as fashion, or homemaking, but in changes in thinking and viewpoints over several decades. Here's the letter that appeared a week or two after the column was published. 

Michael Wooliscroft, then the University Librarian, wrote:

Sir, I wish to respond to some of the points in Mike Crowl’s Column Eight of October 10. I am glad that
he found the periodicals collection in the University’s Central Library so interesting. Currently the University Library obtains 9756 periodical titles for the Central, Dental, Hocken, Law, Medical and Science Libraries – 5507 by paid subscription and 4419 by donation.

Use of periodicals in a University is different to that of many other libraries and the open access feature which Mike Crowl took advantage of is important. In some subject areas, especially in science and medicine, but increasingly so in the social sciences and in commerce, the periodical literature can be more important, or as important, as the book stock.

The reason that quite a number of periodicals ‘peter out’ in the early 1980s is a financial one, when funding did not keep up with the rises in periodicals subscriptions and there was a major cancellation exercise.

The English women’s magazine which Mike refers to, presumably Woman’s Journal, was a donation. The library holds copies of that magazine from 1927 to 1980.

While the library has limited space this title was accepted because of its long run for serious academic purposes. For instance, the changes in the way products have been advertised over the years is of interest to the marketing department. The way women are portrayed is of interest to the new course in women’s studies. And the content in general is of interest to social historians.

I would like to assure Mike Crowl that libraries do not use university funds to pay for subscriptions for their own personal reading. And as our compulsory retirement age is 65, this would mean that his mythical ‘lady member of staff’ would have had to initiate the subscription at the tender age of 12. We do not employ persons of either sex at such a tender age.

Photo of Michael Wooliscroft courtesy of Dunedin Recollect

Apologies

 The following is one of the earliest columns I produced for Column 8. It was published on the 14th November, 1990. Paul Holmes was a well-known broadcaster with strong opinions; Richard Prebble was at this time an MP. 

Apologies

 Back at the beginning of the year, so I’m informed, Paul Holmes put his foot in it and said some things on his show that he shouldn’t have about Mr Prebble.

An apology, on air, was demanded.

I didn’t catch the apology, but it took 38 pages recently from the Broadcasting Standards Authority to say that the aforesaid apology didn’t appear genuine.

Though at times Mr Holmes can open a festering wound to great effect, his usual approach to things that come within firing range is to shoot them down with both barrels. Fast.

So I can’t say I’m surprised at any lack of sincerity.

The BSA felt our beloved Paul was experienced enough to be capable of apologising on television, without making it look as though he didn’t mean it!

Are you with me?

Apparently it’s all right to apologise and not mean it – as long as you don’t show you don’t mean it.

The report reminded me of an incident in my shop recently. I hope a certain little boy’s mother won’t object to my mentioning it.

I’ll apologise in advance – though in view of what I’ve been saying about Mr Holmes above, my apology may not appear to have much substance.

We have a toy box in the shop to occupy small children while their parents are browsing. The young man in question, a pre-schooler, became attached to a small wheel-shaped article with little suction caps around the perimeter.

As the toy is of no great value to us, I should have paid attention to my instincts and told him to take it home.

His mother spied something she wanted, and bought it. Having done so, they left, and I thought nothing more about the little toy. Some minutes later, there was something of a hullaballoo at the door. The boy and his mother had returned. She placed the little suction toy on the counter.

The youth was red-faced, and in great fury at having to return the ‘stolen’ toy. His mother asked him what he was going to say to The Man.

His lips clamped shut, and he looked ready to explode. His mother repeated her request. No response except that he backed off a little.

I should have been warned.

His mother asked him once more to say what he was supposed to say, and he said it.

It came out like a blast from a factory whistle at knock-off time. ‘SORRRRRRYYYYY!!!!!’ Amazing that such a little fellow could produce so much noise.

I think even Queen Victoria on her pedestal across in the Gardens might have been shaken. (Shaken but not amused.) Certainly a number of leaves fell off the trees.

The lad vanished behind a stack of books, and I heard him mutter in a rather disgusted tone, ‘Sorry…sorry!’

His mother looked at me blankly. ‘I don’t think he means it,’ she said.

After reading about Paul Holmes, I think the little fellow was in famous company.

Statue of Queen Victoria, Queens Gardens, Dunedin 
Courtesy Lisa Watkins, Wikimedia Commons

The Little Man in the Background

 First published Sept 1988 in Mouthpiece, the official journal of the Brass Band Association of New Zealand. The comments should not be taken seriously; this was meant to be humorous and ironic. Equally, writing as though all brass band players were male is a sign of the age of this piece. There were in fact a number of top female brass players in the bands, just as there were excellent female accompanists in the Competitions.

 Three years ago I became an official appendix – sorry, official accompanist to the Trust Bank St Kilda Band. In other words I have the privilege of travelling to National Competitions at someone else’s expense, in return for a small service.

Before this I had normally accompanied singers, who are a law unto themselves. Many amateur singers know little music, consider the words irrelevant, and are only interested in the ‘voice.’ I have found bandsmen, on the other hand, to be marvellous musicians for the most part, and very conscious of the composer’s directions.

However, there are times when the ‘traditional’ way of playing a piece imposes itself somewhat on the composer’s intentions. Accompanists, Beware! At such times, the soloist may take a mighty pause – not just for breath – while you go gaily on; he may rallentando where you see only allegro; he may give great expressive emphasis to a phrase that appears to you to be as original as something written at the time Adam’s sons were blowing their own trumpets.

For all this, the bandsmen I know are a conscientious lot who apparently spend hours practicing, building up those muscular lips and lungs, and thinking, living and drinking in (no, not just drinking) band music.

So we will arrive at the Competition having spent a good deal of time rehearsing. In spite of this and the marvellous performances given in the privacy of our own homes, something can go haywire, and the poor soloist may play as though he’s sightreading the entire piece. Very distressing for all concerned, including the accompanist, who knows just how well this person can play.

At my first Competition, I had spent a lot of time with a cornettist, whom I reckoned must be the top favourite. A day or two before he was due to play, he developed that bane of bandsmen, a cold sore. It so threw him off course that in the performance he played only a page of music – about thirty seconds’ worth – before vanishing from the hall in frustration. At times like this the accompanist feels like someone who’s painted himself into a corner. Does he carry on and whistle to his own accompaniment, in a vain attempt to persuade the judge that all is well? Preferably not. He tries to leave with dignity, while the audience shuffle their feet and mumble, and the friends of the soloist depart more rapidly than usual.

It was here, also, I first encountered that most strange of rituals: the Draw. In my naivety, I expected that the person first on the list would play first. No, sir! And nobody told me that the number playing doesn’t have anything to do with the number in the ‘Draw,’ and that the person on the door may be talking in programme number or draw number when you enquire who’s on next, and that to be drawn first is not a privilege, and last is just as bad, and that sometimes there just doesn’t seem to be anybody who know who plays when! Fortunately, this year, someone decided wisely to hold the draws earlier and we were able to sit down in our motel and figure out how I could be in three or four places at once.

This was a great relief. The previous year, in Auckland, I had been shuttled from an upstairs hall in one building to a house in a street across a traffic-congested main road and back again in order to find out where I was supposed to be. Perhaps bandsmen have built-in radars for this sort of thing. For pianists, it’s exhausting. The soloist will usually be in the right place at the right time. The pianist has a tendency to come in blowing and panting from having climbed two flights of stairs. He is then expected to look calm and collected – and remember who and what he’s supposed to be accompanying.

At least in National Comps, there are no cuts. We play the piece from whoa to go – including those nineteenth century epics that require the pianist to play the same chord twenty-nine times in a row – and then do a repeat!

In local competitions, the soloist may decide to cut this variation or that – sometimes at the last minute. Unfortunately you find the previous person who used the music has marked different sections to be cut. In the heat of the moment you ask: which cut is in? (Or is it which cut is out?)

Other bandsmen may present you with a sheaf of photocopied pages that appear to be in order; until you start to play. Worse, if they are not tacked together, down they slide off the stand and float merrily around the room to the accompaniment of the soloist’s cadenza. You hope that he’s still got another four or five fusillades to go while you grab the music and try to get it to stand up straight.

To be fair, it is only a few soloists who decide at the last minute they are going to  have a blow. Most give me at least two days’ notice!

For all these ups and downs, accompanying the quality soloists of today is an exciting business, especially when they play contemporary music. Here the accompanist is no longer treated like background music to films – ‘good if not noticed’ – but like partner. May the partnership be long and fruitful.

 

A few comments: I should have been used to having a bandsmen leave the stage before he’d finished; on several occasions over the years, singers had done the same thing to me.

And it was unfair to write as though singers in general were far less capable at their art than bandsmen. I’ve played for many top quality singers.

And if the music floated off the music stand I had only myself to blame. Back in the mid-sixties I was accompanist for a group called The Opera Quartet. We not only toured the entire country performing at up to three high schools a day, but did the occasional concert in the evening for paying audiences. At one of these, my music slid off the stand and onto the floor. The singer carried on; I scrabbled around for the music. After the concert an audience member came up to me and, without much subtlety, indicated that it was my responsibility to make sure the music didn’t go wandering, and that I had spoiled the concert. It was a tough but important lesson.

 

Learning at an ACE School

I recently came across a clipping from the 80s, a report I did for the local newspaper, the Otago Daily Times. I was working as an assistant pastor at the Assembly of God church in Dunedin at that time, and the church had opened an ACE School for its children. ACE : Accelerated Christian Education. This brief report on how the children learned gives some idea of their daily work.  

At one Dunedin school the pupils decide how much work they are going to do each day.

Children attending the Assembly of God Christian School, in South Dunedin, set their own goals by writing down how many pages of work they expect to complete each day.

They learn five subjects and if they do not complete the amount of work they set themselves then they have to finish it at home that night.

Most of the time, however, they get through this work in about two hours, and that leaves the rest of the day for sport, art, reading and writing stories, music and projects.

Children work at their own pace: in fact their workbooks are called Paces.

That means they do not have to worry about someone else being able to do their maths faster than them, and they do not need to worry if other children can spell better.

Each child works through a few pages out of each of their five Paces each day – when these are revision Paces, the children find they can go faster if they want.

There are five core subjects; English and word-building (which work on spelling and grammar), science, social studies, and maths.

The children may have to do two or three tests every two weeks and will be expected to get at least 80 percent in each test, or else do the whole Pace again.

The good news is that children have every chance of success if they did the work throughout the Pace in a careful way.

In fact, it is normal for the children to get more than 90 percent regularly – often 100 percent – and very rare that they have to repeat a Pace.

The children even correct their own work, most of the time, from special answer books, and cannot go on until each section is right.

You might think that it would be easy to cheat, but remember when children do a test they have to know the work – or repeat it!

What does the teacher do during all this time?

She is kept very busy: even though most of the work is explained in the Pace, the children still need to read sections of their Paces aloud to the teacher, and to  have help with things they do not understand.

Photo courtesy of Mikasa Schools

Jake Atlas

Libraries have always called to me, in whatever town or city I am. 

When I used to work in the Dunedin City Council, right in the heart of the city, the new, much-enlarged Library was built right next door. I can remember the first day it opened to the public: I ran out of my office at morning tea, took a few steps across a newly-built courtyard, and was in the Library door, racing up and down the stairs to see what was on each new floor, and amazed that the old library, which had seemed big enough to me before had somehow expanded into this five-storey building. 

I used to say it was my second home, and I got to know all sorts of nooks and crannies. 

Four and a half years ago my wife and I moved to a smaller town. My first impressions of the library here were not great: it seemed cramped (it was) and there didn't seem a lot of choice - something I was wrong about. Nevertheless, I decided that perhaps at last I could, in a modest way, fulfil a dream I'd always had of working in a library. 

I asked if they took on volunteers to do menial tasks. Yes, they did. I told them I'd be interested, and within a week or two I had a job putting books back on shelves. At most it took an hour and a half, and some days, if the numbers of returned books weren't large, I'd be home after an hour. 

The best thing about the job was that it proved that this 'little' library had a large number of books I'd never seen, and better still, it forced me to look at subject areas I wouldn't normally have bothered with before. 

There was one other bonus. A moveable trolley of books that were now redundant, and which were available to readers to take home for a dollar a pop. But for me, being a worker in the place - I was permitted to take any book I wanted for free. 

This was how, in the middle of last year, I came across Rob Lloyd Jones' series of four books about a character called Jake Atlas. As Lloyd Jones notes: they're part Mission Impossible and part Indiana Jones. 

Jake and his twin sister, Pan, are the children of a seemingly dull couple of parents who vanish early in the first story, Jake Atlas and the Tomb of the Emerald Snake. Jake doesn't do well at school - he seems to be a troublemaker, and his twin sister, who has a brilliant brain, dresses as a Goth. But once released from school, and 'ordinary life,' they prove to be a formidable pair. Through a series of over-the-top adventures they manage not only to find their parents (who are also far more formidable than the the twins had thought) but to chase down a group who are, as you might expect, intent on taking over the world. 

During the course of the four books this ongoing chase invariably results in the destruction of a number of significant world-renowned archaeological treasures - usually unintentionally at the hands of Jake. 

The first two books (the second is The Hunt for the Feathered God) have a similar format, lots of excitement, impossible adventures, and a huge climax. 

And then Lloyd Jones takes a considerable risk with his characters, especially Jake. In the third book, The Quest for the Crystal Mountain, which is mostly set in Tibet, Jake starts to see the world through different eyes, aided in particular by a young Tibetan monk. At first Jake pooh-poohs the values of the spiritual life that the monks have lived by for centuries, but by the end of the book he's begun to change: perhaps the goal he and his family have been focused on isn't the most important thing. 

This may not suit all readers, even though the third book is crammed full of adventures, like the previous two. The fourth in the series, The Keys of the Apocalypse, continues down the unusual path Lloyd Jones has chosen to take. Much bigger in scope, with a 'villain' who's not even human, this book allows Jake to grow as a person. 

I wrote to Lloyd Jones commending him about the way in which this book showed Jake gaining considerable insight into himself and into his actions. He replied - and I hope he won't mind me quoting his email - '...the ending to the series did cause a little disagreement between myself and the publisher, who pushed for a larger, action based finale. I was able to convince them that a quieter ending would feel more powerful (it wasn’t as if the series was already lacking in action) and luckily they trusted me.'

Not all his readers agreed with the direction the books took. Some reviewers on Goodreads, for instance, seemed to miss the point that the books weren't all whiz and bang; others were full of praise for the way in which the series 'grew.'  

Apart from this somewhat unusual turn-away from writing four books all with the same formula - which Lloyd Jones could have done - the books have a wonderful first person viewpoint full of subtle humour and clever character drawing. They're immensely readable - the pages fly by, and there are no slow sections. I'd recommend them to middle grade boys in particular, but not just to them. As an adult reader I was never bored, and never felt as though the author was trying too hard to achieve his purposes. 

Top quality stories, though I'd advise you to read them in order. 

For better or worse?

 While searching for something else today I came across the printed copy of the first article I ever wrote that received a payment: a huge payment of $25. Note the slight formal tone – it was published in the Dunedin Star Midweek’s Soap Box column, on July 27th, 1988. For the sake of history, I'm adding it to my blog, outdated and all as it may be...

When it comes to the matter of a casino in Dunedin, it is difficult not to let my bias run riot. However, to be fair, it is necessary to look at the subject objectively. Some people believe it would be the salvation of our struggling tourist industry. Others see it only in terms of the havoc it could wreak on our society. Are there any good sides to casinos?

The president of the Tourist Industry Federation, Mr Barry Thomas, claims that tourists require entertainment at night, after having viewed our magnificent scenery during the day. He says casinos provide this. obviously, as a city that expects tourists to visit we have to provide an all-round experience for them. are the people who come to see our scenery in fact the same kind of tourists who want to spend time and lots of money in a casino. Can we cater for both?

Certainly I know from experience that overseas visitors expect far more at any tourist place they go to. They are used to souvenir shops, eating places, and even some kind of alternative entertainment. Do we need to concentrate more on this side and less on adding to the attractions we already have? Can we make our present attractions really viable?

The Tasmanian experience seems to crop up again and again in arguments about casinos. (In fact, there are two casinos on the island, one in Hobart and another in Launceston. There are also casinos in Adelaide, Darwin, Perth, Alice Springs and the Gold Coast.)

We hear of the ‘exemplary organisation and behaviour’ witnessed there. certainly that seems to be a plus. In fact, for those businessmen tendering for the latest casino development in Australia, there has already been some upset. Any hint of wrongdoing in the past life of the company has been investigated.

That seems good. I say ‘seems’ because we would have to assume that our own council, or the Government, was prepared to go to the same lengths.

Now that is fine at the outset. There may be no obvious crime in the running of the casino, but what about ‘hidden’ crimes? What about crimes committed by those who are unable to control their gambling addiction? No specific record is kept of this problem area, but it doesn’t take much imagination to realise that many people are affected in a direct and indirect way by the problem.

We have been told that the casino in Dunedin would produce 500 jobs. That sounds excellent. I don’t know of any other industry which has been set up of late which could promise so much. However, this assumes that the tourists will come, and bring their largesse with them. perhaps they will, if Auckland, Wellington and Christchurch don’t all decide to get in on the act as well.

Are we capable of providing the kind of service that these big spenders insist on- or at least are used to?

I remember stopping over in Los Angeles one night, and having ‘breakfast’ at some strange time of the morning – about 3 am, I think. The waitress who served us was as bright and pleasant at the time of day as one could wish. Doe he have that attitude to service here in Dunedin? We have tended to be so egalitarian in our approach to each other that we find it difficult to give service any longer. The evidence is in most of our shops.  

We would have to work hard at our attitudes to provide the kind of service overseas guests expect – even when they are rude with it!

So much for the good points. Unfortunately it seems to me that the bad points far outweigh the good. I’ve already alluded to the addictive aspect of casinos. One writer even suggests that pensioners and beneficiaries might leave their Housie behind and take up ‘something more sophisticated.’ I can see a lot of hard-up people in these categories, if that’s the case.

Even if the casino were to provide video games at 20c, 50c or more, as they do in Australia, it isn’t difficult to see the speed with which lots of money would go down the drain.

One Australian writers says: ‘The only consistent winners in Australian gambling are the casinos.’ And it has been shown in psychological studies of gamblers that they are unable to appreciate the fact that they lose far more than they gain.

We see this in race-course betting in our country now, and in Lotto, and the Golden Kiwi. Another writer says that even in Australia, local residents account for a large part of casino patronage. So where is the advantage to those who live here? If we are only going to be putting more of our money into someone else’s pockets what benefit is that to Dunedin?

Social service agencies in Australia generally agree that casinos only add to the problems of addicts and their families. Again, in the long run, it is the local who pays, either through his taxes, or into some kind of charity.

Big businessmen and investors would perhaps feel that a casino and its subsidiaries would be worth putting their money into. But the Australian Business Journal actually recommends the reverse. They say that the shareholding returns are not very high, and very inconsistent.

Finally what effect would it have on the quality of life in Dunedin? Do we really want a city that goes ahead at any cost? Do we want a city where the high-life is the norm, and where the gap between the rich and the poor gets greater each year?

We already have a much more stable ‘tourist’ population in the city, for several months of the year. The accompanying industry provides employment for a considerable number of people. I’m speaking of the University. Is Otago University as well-known as Cambridge or Oxford? What would it take to make it so? And wouldn’t the side-effects be far more beneficial socially than a business that doesn’t give tuppence of the victims?

The buildings that contain the Southern Cross Hotel
and Casino

()()()()()()()()()

The Casino came, and stayed, so presumably it's profitable for someone. Along with the Scenic Hotel Southern Cross it stretches across three buildings. The tallest of these is the former State Insurance Company building, which was relatively new when I got my first adult job there. The 'State' occupied almost the entire six storeys. Today all its work is done online.