Recording a passion

This past weekend was the Christchurch Model Train show. This year, about the 30^th event, I did not return home empty handed. I had bought a train set – a Marklin starter set comprising a small tank loco, two wagons, some track and remote controller.

                                         Roy's  new train set

 In my youth I had been a railway modelling guru. Those days I could afford little more than a Marklin catalogue. It was great bedtime reading. I settled for a less expensive brand funded by school holiday raspberry picking. It was an eight mile bicycle ride to the Yaldhurst raspberry farm. I was keen. Those days I had a friend of the same age and same railway interest. He was Neil Andrews.

Neil Andrews shows how it is done at the Train Show

 One stage we combined our model trains in a layout in his back garden shed. It was great for a while. Then one day, the last day of the 1959 May school holidays, Neil suggested we borrow (without asking) a camera from our respective absent families. I knew where my brother kept his Agfa Clack.

We set off cycling to the Linwood locomotive depot, having first called in at the local chemist to buy a roll of film. Teenage boys typically called into the chemist to buy French Letters. Our purchases did start with ``f’’. Unknown to me, buying that first roll of 120 film was the beginning of a lifelong passion – photography. The film was subsequently returned to the chemist shop for processing.

The eight 6 x 9 cm glossy prints I collected a couple of days later weren’t art pieces by any means. But they were encouraging. I soon began to think. Well model railways were an expression for my big interest in railways. Would photography do that better?  Well, yes, I concluded. The photography fledgling interest took off at a great pace. I got a summer holiday job in a camera store. The cash earned purchased my first 35 mm camera, a Kodak Retinette. Initially the camera was taken to the railway and became necessary kit for train journeys. Other subjects interested. I enjoyed the outdoors and I could photograph my occasional girlfriend. I acquired more cameras and experimented with larger formats. I worked in photo studios and eventually started my own photography business. It was mostly weddings and portraits. Looking back, the amount of toil I did- not just the photography but also the developing and printing. I should have made lots of money. Sadly I was not a gifted business person. Later I started writing, initially as an opportunity to sell photographs for magazines and books. It snowballed until I got my first scribe’s employment –on the Christchurch Press. So that was my life for most of my life. And so enjoyable.

Recently in a moment of weakness I volunteered to join the committee of the Christchurch Big Model Railway Show. I was the only non-railway modeller involved. The great thing about it was meeting up with my friend of many years ago, Neil Andrews. While I had taken on new interests, Neil had stuck to railway modelling. We reminisced about our efforts to follow our railway interest. This mostly involved cycling throughout Canterbury province in search of railway items of interest. Much of our recall had an element of truth. Maybe there was a tad of exaggeration and a lie or three. Most impressive were Neil’s stories following his model train interest throughout America and Europe. He had, for instance, been to all the great model train exhibitions and events in Germany. Amongst it all I mentioned one year I would buy some model train stuff to once again get involved. Another prompt was been elected Patron of the Christchurch Model Railway Club. This was owing to my long time railway interest. So here I am with my first ever Marklin bits and pieces. One of the train show’s long-time trade exhibitors had been Toottoot.co.nz importers of Marklin. Where it will all go from here is anyone’s guess. For a start, the models look great gathering dust on top of the bookcase.

                                              One of Roy's successful photographs of the 1970s

                               Kids love the model train show. Many kids are in their 70s.

                                        Railway modelling at its best. Scene at Lyttelton in 1963

Creative identity emerges from wreckage

I am enjoying most of the reemerging city of Christchurch where I live. The central city is taking shape following devastating earthquakes in September 2010 and February 2011. The latter cost the lives of 185 people, many of them visiting students. From the wreckage some interesting things have emerged. The most noticeable is street art that appeared on walls left blank in the wake of demolished buildings. One of the first murals to attract attention was a portrait of a model, Teresa Oman, on a brick wall bordering Quest apartments in Worcester Street. It was the work of Rone, a street artist from Melbourne.

Rone mural Worcester st

 Others followed. Murals were also adorning blank spaces of new buildings. Street art was transforming the city and providing an alternative identity. Some began while the central city was mostly cordoned off and under guard. Maybe it was an exercise in distraction from earthquake wreckage. Creativity was becoming a factor in the rejuvenation of the city. An element of comedy accompanied some of the art.  Two street art gurus, George Shaw and Shannon Webster, in 2013, founded New Zealand’s first street art festival, Oi You! Rise in co-operation with Canterbury museum. The festival roped in famous street artists internationally including Banksy. Rise won the New Zealand museum show of the year. The festival encouraged street art as something introducing a new energy to the uncrumpling city. Along with imported street mural painters, locals joined in. Owen Dippie from the North Island gave us Dancer’s last bow adorning the rear wall of the rebuilt Isaac Theatre Royal. This became a favourite. 

Dancer's last bow

Creativity knew no boundaries as demonstrated in the most recent mural I photographed. It is an eye-catching three-dimensional illusion on the Otautahi building in the SALT district. SALT is an abbreviation of bordering streets –St Asaph, Lichfield and Tuam. SALT is in Tuam Street opposite Alice Cinema. High Street lanes are integral to SALT.  The district will become an attraction on the High Street tram route extension. The Otautahi mural is the concept of Oi you! festival creators, Shaw and Webster. They wanted to continue the Street Art theme in the SALT district development.  Otautahi presented a mammoth challenge. Following a time staring at a blank wall they engaged signwriter Paul Walters and graffiti artist Guy Ellis, the latter working under the moniker DCYPHER. They finalised their three-dimensional illusion design and went to work. Five artists with buckets of house paint spent two and a half weeks to complete the mural. It was lined out with a rule and marker. No masking tape was used. Straight lines were hand painted.  Illusion it may be but it looks as real as it is spectacular.

Otautahi SALT District

Alice Cinema mural

● Christchurch is recognised as one of the world’s notable street art cities. It is included, generously, in a lavish Street Art guide by Lonely Planet.

                                       Kowhai and finch Ibis Hotel

Journey to mateship

I am frequently invited to the annual farewell of South Island JET (Japan Education Teaching) candidates. The farewell, organised by the Japanese Consular Office, includes a generous afternoon tea, limited formalities and an opportunity to chat to candidates. JET offers a wonderful opportunity for young people to work for one year in Japan.  JET was set up by Japanese authorities in 1987 to provide grassroots international exchange between Japan and other countries. To date JET has attracted 66,000 candidates from more than 40 countries.  This year’s intake included 21 from New Zealand’s South Island. Two young women told me they were keen to try Japanese whisky. I assured them they wouldn’t be disappointed.

South Island Jet candidates 2019

Following the reception the candidates gather their luggage and board a bus to the airport. They spend a night in Auckland the next day fly to Japan aboard Air NZ. I must admit to feeling a tad regretful at JET farewell events. Not only was I born too soon but, born in 1943, I was brought up with a distaste for Japan.

I recall as a young person visiting Port Lyttelton and seeing train loads of scrap metal awaiting its loading onto a nearby ship with a strange name and registered in port called Yokohama. We thought, ``Our rubbish is good enough for Japan.’’ In our ignorance we never considered our ``rubbish’’ was going to contribute to building one of the world’s most modern and efficient nations. The rest, as they say, is history. My dislike of Japan continued. If us kids came across a vehicle in need of a clean we would write ``Made in Japan.’’ in the grime. That was a great insult. We had no idea Japan would be making motorcars that did not leak oil and were not worn out after 70,000 km.

Then my interest in photography got going. Japan started making cameras. But, of course, quality cameras were made in Germany weren’t they? I recall an early promotion for Asahi Pentax SLR (single lens reflex) cameras. Its slogan was simply ``Just hold a Pentax.’’ That was so futuristic. I picked up a Pentax S1A a camera shop employee proffered. Within a couple of minutes I was hooked and set my mind on purchasing one. Pentax was arguably the front-runner in Japanese camera brands. Pentax looked sleek compared with chunky German-made cameras.

Introducing the Pentax Spotmatic

 Nikon, also an early favourite, was initially somewhat cumbersome. Japan modernised the camera with a variety of innovations. Pentax pioneered through-the-lens metering with their Spotmatic model. Another plus was the self-returning mirror meaning the viewing was not blacked out by the mirror when an exposure was made. Also, the aperture mechanism in the lens automatically stopped down to the pre-set value before the shutter operated.

Fuji film would soon challenge those long-time stalwarts of Kodak and Agfa. So I was taking Japanese-made photography gear on board. I had several Pentax cameras before changing my preference to Nikon.

 But what about the bastards who made this stuff?

Another big interest –and the reason for photography, was railways. A mentor and doyen of railways, Gordon Troup, had a vast library of railway books. On one occasion he lent me, The Lure of Japan’s Railways by Naotaka Hirota.

 Hirota’s photography was an art form rather than just duplicating a view as he saw it. Those days he was regarded a top-notch photographer of railways. He recognised Japanese emotional response to their country’s seasonal changes. Seasons provide abundant changes and beauty in nature which Hirata worked into his photography. The book was published in 1969 by the Japan Times. That was the early days of Japan’s superexpress or Shinkansen high-speed train. I met Naotaka Hirota twice during my Japan travels. One of his ambitions with his railway photography was to build friendships through shared interests in railways and photography. To look at his railway photography is to also experience Japanese culture. He told me about 6000 railway photographs are published each month in Japan. Railway photographers are consequently recognised by the photographic industry. Naotaka was frequently being asked to try out and review new equipment.

For some years I was associated with Makoto Sugiurui an editor of a Japan railway magazine, Tetsudo Journal. Makoto enjoyed working with an English text. He placed several of my stories. Thus, some of those 6000 railway photographs published each month in Japan were my own.

Makoto and I also shared a strong interest in Alpine regions.

Seiichiro Ichikawa was an interesting friend. He was a director of Sapporo Breweries.

I became friends with photographers in Japan. One was Tatsuro Okazaki in Osaka. Tatsuro was an artist with a camera. He encouraged my developing love for Japan and its people. In 2012 I travelled to Japan to photograph the autumn with Tatsuro.

Autumn at a temple in Japan

Temple lady in Kyoto

Moon Bridge Rikugien  Gardens Tokyo

 I have a Japanese partner and have made friendships with a variety of wonderful Japanese people. In 2004 my partner and I had cycled the length of Japan following negotiations with principals in the World Peace Bell movement to have a World Peace Bell gifted to New Zealand. It has become a striking feature in Christchurch Botanic Gardens. So not only did I learn to become friends with people I was taught to dislike when growing up, I was inspired to found a New Zealand chapter of a peace movement initiated by The World Peace Bell Association with headquarters in Tokyo. Japan has offered me wonderful experiences, friendships and rewarding journeying.

● The World Peace Bell Association in Japan has ties with the United Nations. Two years ago, I was presented with a Civic Award for my efforts in bringing the World Peace Bell to enhance the city of Christchurch.

                                                     Roy and the NZ World Peace Bell

                                                               NZ World Peace Bell, Chch Botanic Gardens

Worship beside the ocean

I am attempting not to be a fraud.  I admit to being somewhat of an agnostic but I have an appreciation for places of worship along with their stories. The Continental European world offers grand cathedrals, ornately decorated and furnished. Standing in such glorious places, I feel insignificant. I also marvel that people centuries ago had the dogged faith to set about building such glorious edifices to their God.

Cathedral in Bruges, Belgium

 Half a world away, in Aotearoa-New Zealand, places of worship were also inspired by people of great faith. Their appealing churches, in many cases, were highlighted owing to their locations, delightfully tucked away in amazing natural surroundings. Many were constructed with locally sourced materials – stone or timber. One thinks of the ever-so-popular stone Church of the Good Shepherd overlooking Lake Tekapo. In Franz Josef village, St James church was famed when the glacier (since retreated) was framed in the altar window. A window above the altar of the Arthur’s Pass chapel frames Avalanche Creek waterfall.  Peel Forest has its tiny Church of the Holy Innocents semi-disguised by mature podocarp forest. In New Zealand’s North Island, my pick is the wooden Ruakokere Anglican church sitting on a promontory close to the winding road connecting small towns scattered along the East Cape SH 35. It had long been on my wish list to visit. I eventually had an opportunity during a multi-day bicycle trip, in February 2011, from Gisborne to Whakatane. It was not difficult to spot, it being alone in the landscape –a radiant landmark with its sun-drenched white exterior contrasting with a deep blue sky flecked with wind-driven clouds.

Ruakokere Anglican church, East Cape

Also known as The Church of Loaves and Fishes –a well-known bible story, the landmark church was constructed in 1894 by pioneer builder, Duncan Stirling.

Stirling worked for several years building on the East Coast. He came to the attention of Maori elders as a suitable husband for Mihi Kotukutuku, a Maori maiden. Mihi Kotukutuku and Duncan Sterling were married in the Ruakokere church in 1896. The ceremony was conducted by Bishop Leonard Williams. Duncan Stirling spoke only a little Maori. Mihi’s extended family, to ensure the marriage was a success, became Anglicans.    

Duncan Stirling built a beautiful, many-roomed home for Mihi at Raukokore. It became known locally as Stirling Castle. There, Mihi soon produced a son, the first of 10 children. Duncan continued his building business and later became a cropping farmer growing mostly maize. Maize is a cereal grain also known as ``corn.’’

Mihi became a local chief. She was entitled to the first share of fish, especially moki, caught each season at Cape Runaway. She distributed the fish amongst her people.  

She was also an expert at growing enormous kumara by traditional methods. Her kumara were also distributed locally.

I ponder the story of Duncan and his Maori wife Mihi as I explore the simple interior of Raukokore church with its rows of basic wooden pews and traditional font for infant baptisms. And I discovered one more snippet of Raukokore folklore. Being close to the ocean, in recent years a colony of penguins have made their home beneath the church. Church attendees complain the building frequently ``smelt somewhat fishy.’’

                                                   Font Ruakokere Anglican church

East Cape sunset

                               

The Cut out Girl

`Without families you don’t get stories.’

This is without doubt one of the most fascinating books I have read –a real page turner. Its author, Bart van Es, was born in the Netherlands. At a young age he was taken to Britain where he grew up, eventually becoming an Oxford University professor of English literature. At some stage he finds out his grandparents, Jans and Henk van Es had sheltered Jewish girls during the Nazi occupation of the Netherlands. This leads him to meet with Hesseline (Lien for short). By then Lien is in her 80s.  The Netherlands has a history of being a favoured country for people escaping conflict. At the time of the Nazi occupation an estimated 18,000 Jewish people were living in The Hague. Of those 2000 survived. Across the Netherlands 104,000 Dutch Jews, many of them children, died during WW2. Lien’s parents had sent their daughter to a safe shelter just a month before they were themselves arrested and sent to their deaths in Auschwitz.

 Bart van Es magnificently weaves a story of Lien’s war years and how they rebound on her adult life. She has been cut out of her own family and, later, through curious misunderstandings, the van Es family. At one stage she lived with a family where she was treated as a servant and suffered sexual abuse. The story brilliantly unfolds with the author visiting locations relevant to Lien’s life. This way the reader gets an insight into Dutch culture. This I found fascinating having cycled through much of the Netherlands in 2008 as a prelude to a Scandinavian bicycle tour. I have vivid memories of visiting the Anne Frank house in Amsterdam.

I had been introduced to Dutch people who had, post WW2, immigrated to New Zealand.  We didn’t like them. They worked hard and showed us up. I recall, as a teenager, having a Dutch boss. We unfairly called him a ``Dutch bastard.’’ He was off side for insisting we youngsters did the day’s work for the day’s pay. And he set a good example. I should have been more charitable, having been fascinated by the history of Dutchman, Abel Tasman, the first European to discover my country –New Zealand. 

View overlooking Tasman Bay to Golden Bay where Dutch navigator, Abel Tasman made his New Zealand landfall in December 1642

The cycle tour in the Netherlands introduced us to some great, kind, people. I recall, when lost, having asked a couple for directions. We were invited to their nearby home for coffee. We kept in touch for many years. On returning to New Zealand I attempted to track down my former Dutch ``bastard’’ boss. Regrettably, I was not successful. He had a large garden from which he frequently brought us lettuces.

The Cut out girl thus rekindled agreeable memories. As a writer myself, I am partial to ``people’’ stories. For many years I enjoyed penning a ``I remember when’’ series for Latitude magazine. Van ES writing about his distant relatives and a Jewish girl they sheltered transplants ``people’’ writing into a whole new realm. The Cut out Girl is a `must read’ especially at a time when, in many countries, white supremacy and anti-Antisemitism are dangerously on the rise, recklessly spurred on by too many rogue world leaders.

Now when it rains  

Now when it Rains is a writer’s memoir by Jeffrey Paparoa Holman.

Holman tells us ``Memoir is a perilous Journey, where the writer is the subject and the subject is the writer.’’ I am drawn to this book having read Holman’s earlier work, The lost pilot. The story is about his journey through Japan in a brave effort to trace relatives of a Kamikaze pilot who was shot down when attacking a ship his father was aboard during the later days of WW2.

As with the earlier work, Now when it rains is a page turner. Born in the UK, he arrives in New Zealand in 1950 with his Grandmother and mother. Initially living in Auckland where his Navy-rating father had arrived the previous year, the family eventually settles on the South Island West Coast, in small settlements including Blackball close to Greymouth.

Despite being a brighter student at school, he leaves at a young age owing to a disagreement over courses he would take. He admits pride dictates his next move. So, aged 15, he is introduced to the rigours of working in a sawmill. He later becomes a shearing shed hand on the West Coast and the lower North Island. His father is an unrepentant drunk and it is likely Holman’s early employment that led him to alcoholism. He amusingly writes about a less than sober driver of a D9 bulldozer negotiating a path all too close to a corrugated iron sawmill. One of Jeffrey’s jobs is a skddie, someone who strips logs of stones and other obstructions that might foul a saw blade.

Throughout, he has an ambition to become a writer, a poet in particular. He falls in in with like minded people including poet James K. Baxter. Through these groups, discussing everything from atheism to Zen Buddhism, he is introduced to drugs, a problem he has to deal with along with alcoholism. He finds employment in mental institutions which were anything but fun jobs. We are introduced to his romances including his first wife who tragically dies in a road crash somewhere between Greymouth and Christchurch. Along with travelling a long road to recovery from drug addiction, the author has to come to terms with an aggressive father. A trip to the UK has him employed once again in a mental institution. It is the only occupation he has qualifications for, albeit only vaguely. Luckily it does not go well. Salvation is when he applies to work in a Waterstones Charing Cross bookshop. The bookshop enables him to enhance his passion for books and writing while introducing him to worthy authors, some of whom he tracks down during travels. This employment also contributes to his recovery from drug addiction.  Over cups of coffee with Jeffrey, we discover many things in common. We had both been employed on the Press newspapers. He was a reader and I was a reporter. We had also been drawn to the same travel Destinations, including Japan, the Czech Republic and Dresden. We were also both published authors.  And we both get around on bicycles. I did not quite share his enthusiasm for Bob Dylan.

While his UK bookshop employment is going famously, he feels his real home is New Zealand. His family support him returning. Curiously he has to apply for a New Zealand passport along with New Zealand citizenship even though he had previously been living in New Zealand for several years. In 1950 he was able to travel to New Zealand on his mother’s passport.  Prior to going to try his luck in the UK, he had been working on s degree at the University of Canterbury. On his return to Christchurch he discovers he can take up at Canterbury where he left off. He graduates and through an Anglican Maori Mission discovers an interest in Maori culture and language. Various holiday jobs include a stint on a Christchurch rubbish truck. Studies continue with Jeffrey attaining a doctorate. Several collections of his poems are successfully published. He decides to add a middle name to Jeffrey Holman. His choice of ``Paparoa’’ reflects his Maori interests along with the West Coast environment where he grows up and eventually returns to. These days Jeffrey continues to write and travel. He is a born storyteller with ample stories to tell. Now when it rains –the title of one of his poems, is available from selected bookshops including Scorpio in Christchurch. Jeffrey told me his present wife, Jeanette, read each chapter as it was finished. And she was always waiting to read the next. The memoir is also a commendable account of l970s life in New Zealand.

Punakaiki blow holes, striking feature of the Paparoa National Park. 

Measuring success via wellbeing.

The New Zealand’s 2019 budget scheduled for May 30 will be the first where well-being rather than GDP (Gross Domestic Product) will be in the front seat. New Zealand boasted of a ``rockstar’’ economy for many years with a GDP growth the envy of many countries. Yet homeless people and child poverty were rife. Well-being is a measure of satisfaction achieved by reducing the impact of social issue woes brought about by domestic violence, mental health issues and deprived children.  Minister of finance, Grant Robertson, concedes the long-used GDP measure is an arthritic dinosaur. The ``well-being’’ concept is not new according to my present reading. The Blue Zones of Happiness   by Dan Buettner. The book is series of ``lessons from the world’s happiest people.’’ Buettner is a New York Times best-selling author.

It was one-time British Prime Minister, David Cameron, who claimed it was time to admit there was more to life than money.  ``Well-being cannot be measured by money or traded in markets,’’ he said during his 2010 campaign to instigate well-being as a measure of success. Well-being is about the beauty of surroundings and culture. ``Improving our society’s sense of well-being is, I believe, the central political challenge of our times.’’ 

One cannot imagine Cameron’s tory mates agreeing but German Chancellor, Angela Merkel, came to a similar conclusion in 2013 following a two-year study of nationwide growth, prosperity and quality of life.

``We look at the stock exchange index or currencies on the news each morning and talk a lot about growth in terms of gross domestic product but we often don’t prioritise what is really most important to people,’’ said Merkel. And a former French president, Nicolas Sarkozy, said in 2009 ``there has been a troubling disconnect in recent years between what government statics are saying about the economy and what most people are feeling.’’

As was the case during New Zealand’s years of so-called ``rockstar’’ economy, French people were not feeling any better about their lives despite rising production and profits. ``The world over, citizens think we are lying to them and that the figures are wrong or being manipulated,’’ said Sarkozy. ``And they have reasons to think that.’’

GDP is the total value of goods and services produced in a nation divided by its population. When GDP is rising it suggests people are employed and spending money. But most worthy economists will admit GDP does not say anything important about society such as who is doing well in a larger sense and who isn’t. An example is that while GDP in the US increased over many years, most Americans were worse off.

Joseph Stinglitz who won the Nobel Prize in economics in 2001, said, ``the real benefits have gone to the very top. At the bottom, real wages adjusted for today are lower than they were 60 years ago. ``So this is an economic system not working for most people.’’

So while I predict many Kiwis will scoff at the concept of a well-being budget, our government has been willing to create an economic plan based on a wealth of quality international research. Our New Zealand Government has the courage to set a new tack in economic management. Let us wish them well. If successful, other countries are likely to take on well-being.   People all-over stand to benefit.