Missed opportunities...

Last weekend was one of those much celebrated Long NZ Weekends, treasured by kids at school as a one day respite from teachers, celebrating some obscure and arcane annual festival. In this instance it was the Sovereign’s Birthday, which being Queen Elizabeth is obviously “Queen’s Birthday Weekend”. That her actual birthday is in April is of no consequence. There must have been at least one Monarch in the past who was born on the first Monday in June. It is “Monday-ised” as well so it is always a long weekend. It is the last of them too until the end of October when Labour Weekend ushers in summer.

We spent the weekend amid the gales and calm, rain and sun, in Opononi. A very nice weekend too. We got some work done, we read, we ate and drank more than we should.

On Sunday we drove down to Rawene. We had had some work done by an electrician. What he had done was good and proper. We were also without hot water for some reason; probably because the heater element had blown. That is why we were dropping off a door key to the electrician. On the way back, we stopped off at the store and picked up dinner things.

We were driving back to the bach and there was this man walking toward us on the road. Nothing remarkable about that you might say.

In his mid 20’s, slim, good looking and very well presented. He was dressed; two piece suit, white shirt, tie, bowler hat and tramping boots. On his back he had a pikau, bedroll and tent.

As we drove toward him I commented to my wife “I would just love to get his photo”. Her reply was short and, even more to the point, accurate. “No. You would end up talking for a long time and I want to get home”. So we passed him by.

Now to explain.

Part of NZ’s folklore, coming mainly from the 1885 depression, is the “tradition” of the swagger. It is a tradition NZ and Australia share. The men were from all walks; failed gold-miners, farmers forced off their land by the banks, labourers looking for work, shearers, the list goes on. Their life was hard especially during the winter. It was not uncommon after a heavy snow to find a body in a ditch or under a tree where they had tried to shelter, either very ill or dead from hypothermia (exposure as it was then). There was no government welfare, only the charity of townsfolk in providing a couple of days meals for a few hours work or the local soup kitchen if there was one. There was no transport. The distance between one hope and the next was a day's walking at most. There were annual convocations; predetermined - almost traditional - meeting places such as the gathering at the start of the shearing season. An unofficial headcount would show who had not made it from the last meeting. Very few went without being remembered.

There is an excellent historical novel, written by John A Lee titled “Shining with the Shiner”. If you can track it down, read it. It gives (as does all of Lee’s stories) a very accurate picture of NZ at the turn of the 19th century. Lee was a boy at the end of the true swagger era in the 1890s, a criminal at age 8 and sentenced to “Borstal Training” in his teens, a raging left wing Unionist in the 1920s and later he got into national politics, became a Minister in the First Labour Government and was subsequently sacked by his own party for criticizing Labour Party policies in the late 1930’s. He was an orator of considerable repute.

I still feel sad about that missed opportunity.