Every day a little sadder, a little madder, someone get me a ladder (Emerson Lake & Palmer)

PJ, Wozza and Annette on Jackett's Island, Motueka, 1994

Wie geht's?

Recently, I learnt of Peter Joyce's death in early March, from Annette.

PJ and I became friends when I joined the staff at Waimea College in 1990. I became Head of English the same year, and PJ was one of the teachers in the English department.

An accidental but excellent English teacher (he accidentally got into the wrong recruiting line at University), he was extremely quick witted and funny, quietly spoken, principled, extremely bright, a sceptic, an enthusiastic tennis player (we'd play on weekends sometimes and every Friday after school with two of his Nayland College mates), and...well, we just got on and enjoyed each other's company, really.

Together we produced the school's end of year magazine for four years, were part of an all-conquering pub quiz team, aimed to outdo each other's Tetris scores (he always beat my latest high score), laughed at all sorts of crazy things, and we discussed grammar issues and music endlessly.

He suffered from tinnitus, and one day I forgot that when he was complaining in the staff room about the loudness of a visiting rock band, I jokingly and ill-advisedly, said, "Lighten up, PJ". He wasn't impressed and told me so.

It would became an in-joke but I've never forgotten that lesson.

After I left Waimea College to go back to Auckland to work, we kept in touch. He set me up for a job in China in 2012 that saved our bacon and we often discussed the absurd case that was brought against him. PJ wrote a book about it - very Peter, that response.

Even though I've not visited Nelson in many years, I find it hard to grasp that he's passed away.

So, PJ - I'll play Jack Bruce's Songs For A Tailor album, and Emerson Lake And Palmer's Still...You Turn Me On for you today (we often puzzled over the nonsense lyric that I've quoted above), and give thanks for having met you. 

As with all of the students you taught, my life is the richer for it.

Love and peace to Nida and Ken - WNP

 

Wow, reality, what a concept (Robin Williams)

Tonight and forever (You may say I'm a dreamer - Chapter 6, part 6)

With Annette, Jo and PJ

By 1989, Colin had moved on,  and we were sick of living in Auckland. 

Dad had moved on as well and had remarried by June. Second wife Nita had been mum's bridesmaid all those years before. 

Jacky and I welcomed the marriage, Ross was less magnanimous. The wedding went well, I spoke at the wedding to welcome Nita to the whanau, and clearly Dad was happy and that was enough for me. Both he and Nita had had enough tragedy and bad days.

Inevitably, dad now had less space in his life for the grand kids. That's just a fact - we certainly didn't begrudge him. Ross had also recently married and, naturally, he was now less inclined to spend time with us as well. 

Ross has always needed a best friend. In younger years he'd always latch onto one friend at a time and pretty much ignore everyone else while in that friendship. Lynda was his first female best friend. They are well suited and, to this day, they remain a tight unit with their two sons.

Our sibling relationship hasn't really changed much over the years. Typical of brothers, we have always been on the opposite sides of issues, and we've always found things to fight about. 

Growing up, there were many heated discussions at the dinner table as my ideas and thoughts were often at odds with his and my parents. An example is the racially selected Springbok tour in 1981. I marched against it and in our house, I was definitely alone on the issue.

Ross and dad had many things in common. I stood outside their relationship. I enjoy art and literature, they loved electronics and making things that produce noise (model airplanes, go carts, and so on). 

Ross has a science degree, mine's in the arts. I love music with a passion, he doesn't. I love sport, he doesn't. He's good with money. I'm not. He's happy working from home. I'm not.

I could go on but, believe me, the sequence holds up. We're opposites.

I love my brother, but the only thing we really have in common is our parents and now they are not around anymore.

Briefly when dad died we had a moment but that passed and we live our own lives with our own families. So be it.

For all these reasons, there was nothing keeping us in Auckland.

Dornwell Road in Three Kings had been a good central spot to live. While I commuted to Macleans, Keegan went to Three Kings Primary and enjoyed the multi-cultural feel there. Jacky was at home, looking after Adam and our new baby, Samantha. They were yet to start school so that also contributed to our rationalisation that this was a timely move.

With Peter Joyce and magazine crew,
the hirsute, colourful shirts/ skinny tie years had continued

Nelson came from out of the blue, more accurately, from out of the Education Gazette. I'd never been there and when I told Jacky of an assistant Head of English job at a Nelson school she said, perkily, "Yeah - I could live in Nelson!"

Everything fell into place quickly. I got the job after a phone call, we sold our house in Three Kings, flew down during a long weekend for a look around and bought a house in Wakefield before flying back to pack up the kids.

Chilling at Waimea

We moved in the May holidays of 1989. Our place looked over pine tree forests, farmland and a river. Snow peaked mountains were visible from our second floor bedroom. Easy to get blase about all this!

After Macleans, Waimea College was a major shock to the system. No sophisticated  city kids here. Instead, the rural client base provided a more laid back, basic feel. For two terms I struggled with trying to maintain high Macleans' values while accepting my new reality. 

No one had ever sworn at me before. A boy in my class told me to 'Firetruck Off!' It was a shock! And I didn't like it.

Actually, I didn't know what to do. When it happened I went immediately to the Associate Deputy Principal, Geoff Ashton and asked his advice. Geoff was always pretty calm and he handled things but I went back to class feeling discombobulated.

I'd also walked into a situation where two English staff members (Mary Hall and Grant Rawlence) had been passed over for the job given to me. They were frosty and watching me keenly!

PJ wisely takes a step backwards. The big hair years!

But then the nineties started and the Head of English (Aileen Ambler) left on promotion, leaving me in temporary charge. Fellow English staff members, Peter Joyce, Jo Kahl and Annette Sivak were great fun, fabulous teachers and kind hearted souls. The students stopped swearing at me and actually turned out to be good sorts!

I was rewarded with the permanent job and started to build on the confidence that Colin had kick started in me. The Head of English job came largely from being in the right place at the right time. It's ironic - after all those failed attempts as a student, since then I have continued to have huge success.

Some wonderful characters crossed my path at Waimea. Students like James Scott, Sam and Leda Sivak, Rowena McQueen, Chris Seifried, Kimberly Anderson, Susie Dulieu, Natasha Fijn and Jason Richards. They made life very easy for me. 

Jason, of course, is well known to NZ racing enthusiasts. Tragically, he passed away in 2011. The wiki link fails to mention his schooling, where we knew him (and remember him) for his killer smile and personality.

Peter Joyce is a great English teacher, very intelligent, and hugely funny. We became tennis partners and had a lot of fun at pub quizzes. One of his inspired ideas was to host a games and dessert night for the department - top entertainment!! I'm sure he won't mind me thinking that (to myself). 

John Clarke was also on the staff - we'd cross paths many times in the years to come, including in the Middle East! Tragically, he also died far too young. Like Jason, Clarkie was a fine human being.

With the Borlases

More firm close friendships kicked off during the Nelson nineties. 

Annette's family moved into the house next to us in Wakefield. The Sivaks  - Sam, Leda, Luke and Stas became great neighbours and friends. Like the Borlases - another family living close by that Jacky made friends with. Duncan, Steph, Terri, and Steve (close in age to Adam) continue to be our southern Spring Grove buddies.

With Annette and Stas

These Nelson years were also important for Jade Michelle Purdy's emergence (yep - more on this and Stephanie Borlase's antics coming in the Family Man chapter). 

It was during my five years at Waimea that I also started this autobiography. It ended with a comment along the lines of - what next in my brilliant career? 

That thought was left hanging and...it will continue to do so - you'll have to wait for the next bits and the family history - up next is the music chapter, as per the original text.

Love and peace - Wozza

Now, Is, Here Now (George Harrison)

The start of our Chinese adventure has been delayed a tad by a significant health issue for SWMBO. After another month of treatment she will be able to join me in China is the plan. My boss (Luis) has been rock solid in his understanding of the situation.  Three days before flying to China we had to radically change plans and Luis took it completely in his stride and has offered us unstinting encouragement throughout the last month.

Close family and whanau (extended family) have been a huge positive support network over the last month or so - sharing the burden and the joys - which is as it should be right?

A special mention needs to go to whanau member Peter Joyce who set the whole China thing in motion many months ago. His casual mention of my name to his colleague produced a ripple effect that has ultimately resulted in a happy outcome for SWMBO and me. You're a life saver PJ!!

All that has obviously occupied our time to a huge extent but we've also been feverishly keeping our minds busy with odd jobs around the property. For me that means fixing misbehaving gates, building fences, water blasting and painting, repairs to electric fences and water systems, putting the tractor to good use and generally humbugging in the A.R.T. room as much as possible.

Today is the anniversary of Graham Nugent Purdy's passing in 2009 and he has been all about the place of late - in our thoughts and in our presence in other ways. He gave us a promise that he would continue to look after us and that certainly appears to be the case. Such strength!

Love and peace - Wozza

Love is understanding, don't you know that this is true (The Monkees)

For Pete's sake: during PJ's reply to the previous post he included the following apposite observations:

The sort of culture I am complaining about does not conflict with what you value – notably kiwiana. Nor does it conflict with the higher culture asserted by Frank Lloyd Wright (I even listen to Schubert). It is more to do with modes of behaviour and social expectation...In that sense, cultural expectation does in my estimation do more harm than good. If a group of NZ Peruvians flock together because they like to play their Andean flutes, I have no objection. However, if they denigrate Westerners’ tendency to be punctual, calling it“emotionally cold”, that is different (this is an actual example, from when I was in Peru in1981).
A more relevant quote from Orwell would perhaps be his account of travels in Morocco, in which he wonders about what Western travellers value when they go to a poor country.  Orwell upbraids them for valuing “local colour” (for example, oxcarts instead of cars), while we should want them to develop. He doesn’t mention culture per se, but his observation simply that he would agree with me. He and I are both universalists.  

This is the point: a couple of generations ago, being a universalist meant that you cared; nowadays you show you care by being a relativist. I regard this as an oddshift. For example, many Maori leaders of the past wanted Maori people to be more Western; nowadays that notion would be derided as seeking to become “brown pakehas”.

His statement that he's a 'universalist' got me thinking. I know very little about being a universalist, aside from the religious idea that all people will gain salvation and that Robert Fulghum was (is?) a Unitarian minister.

I asked PJ for clarification and he sent the following:

What I mean is the belief that solutions to problems do not usually vary according to location or social/cultural group. It suggests that, for example, what benefits pakeha benefits Maori, so there is little point seeking a specific Maori solution to their socioeconomic problems. We are all human beings with similar aspirations. 

Broadly speaking, the political left used to be universalist in this way. Michael Joseph Savage would have thought the new left's relativist, culturally sensitive ideas very odd. This shift in what it means to care about the downtrodden has been well explained in Nick Cohen's book What's Left - one of the best books on modern politics you'll ever read. He shines some light on other things, notably the religion of anti-Americanism.

I have no problems with this view and would say that I am also have a 'universalist' outlook. Being in the Arabic school for 16 months has shown me that the 'solutions' to education here are the same as for Maori and Pakeha in Nu Zild and are the same for the students I taught in the UK.

The same approaches based on establishing a positive relationship work in each of those different cultural contexts.

Less than a week now until we fly back to NZ from the sandpit. SWMBO and I are both getting a triffle antsy about things and we're really looking forward to starting the next chapter of our adventure back in the Hawke's Bay.

Love and peace to all - Wozza

Loving would be easy if your colors were like my dreams (Culture Club)

Dear PJ

Many thanks for sending your article on culture. A most interesting topic that I’m drawn to from both a schooling context (school cultures are fascinating) and from a pakeha Nu Zild point of view. As you point out I’m also super keen on pop music.

So pull up a chair, reach for a cokerama and a slice of Pav. and consider my response.

Clearly you’re not writing about 'culture' in terms of your taste in high (fine arts) or low culture (the Blue Mink song Melting Pot would be an example of low culture of course).

Nor were you appraising culture as it relates to language and custom I don't think.

Instead you consider culture in terms of national identity, as in Nu Zilders supposedly have a shared culture (a set of shared attitudes, values, goals, and practices that shape and influence us).
Equally as clearly, your basic reaction to this notion is poppycock, fiddlesticks and 'is not'.
Instead, because modern Nu Zild is such a diverse place, you see a 'brave new cultureless world'.

Okay so…my two cents:

Short version:

Are we headed for a brave new cultureless world? No I don’t believe so.

Long version:

NZ icon - Jeanette Thomas

If I think about NZ culture I tend to think of kiwiana (buzzy bees, pavlova, Footrot Flats, Phar Lapp, weetbix kids), iconic kiwi personalities (Barry Crump, Tim Finn, Ginette MacDonald, Ed Hillary, Fred Dagg, Billy T, Jeanette Thomas, Patrick Cameron, Mayor Tim et al), men-in-black sports heroes (‘Pinetree’ Meads, Jack Lovelock, ‘Buck’ Shelford, Waka Nathan, Mark Todd, Don Clarke, the 1972 Olympic rowing 8), national disasters (Wahine, 1981 Springbok tour, Gallipoli, Cave Creek, Pike River, Erebus, various devastating earthquakes), national successes (1987 and 2011 Rugby World Cups, 1982 and 2010 World Cup Soccer teams), great NZ music (Split Enz, Bambino Beats, Daggy and the Dickheads) various holidays/commemorations (ANZAC, Waitangi) and, of course, there is Kapa Haka.




Bambino Beats

Is that eclectic mix shared by all Aucklanders? Um...no, it’s not. Probably only an aging minority could relate to my list. Auckland houses the largest congregation of humans in NZ and as a bunch they are probably the most diverse ethnically speaking (I'm guessing here). So it’s very unlikely.

Is it shared by my neighbours in Waipukurau and Otane? Yes! Pretty much exclusively. Why? Because the rural heartland is definitely neither a large congregation nor is it like Auckland in any demographic way.

As a middle class, middle aged pakeha, I think that cultural history binds me towards my neighbours in many ways. We share some things, in much the same way that Muslims share some things. It does give us (for good or otherwise) a cultural identity.

Whenever I meet other NZers in my work in the Middle East, who also tend towards middle age and middle class status, we immediately have a shared history, shared work ethic, and a similar perspective on the world.

NZ is small, isolated, and, to the rest of the world, inconsequential. The tyranny of distance has meant that we do emerge with a real sense of culture, not a fake one. Gandhi thought 'a nation's culture resides in the hearts and in the soul of its people'. I think that’s right and it is constantly evolving.

The NZ culture is a cross pollinated mix that resides in all New Zealanders (including you PJ) - whatever they sound or look like. For me, it exists, it’s real and it's useful. We don’t all have to share aspects of my own cultural makeup. We are different but equal, as you originally thought.

My paternal great grandfather brought my grandfather from Rochdale (just north of Manchester) to NZ when he was a young boy. My mother’s side of the family includes aspects of other celtic origins but was essentially of pioneer King Country stock. Where ever I go I take that mixture with me. By a fluke I was born in NZ and started off life wanting to kick a ball like Don Clarke. When I return to Rochdale I immediately feel home but I'm not a Brit and I don't share a British history aside from the legacy that NZ was left with.

Having suggested that cultural identity doesn't really exist anymore, you then appear to want a bob each way and contend that 'cultural identity does more harm than good'. I'm not sure why you think that but George Orwell would be inclined to agree.

In his essay on the sporting spirit George writes:

I am always amazed when I hear people saying that sport creates goodwill between the nations, and that if only the common peoples of the world could meet one another at football or cricket, they would have no inclination to meet on the battlefield. Even if one didn't know from concrete examples (the 1936 Olympic Games, for instance) that international sporting contests lead to orgies of hatred, one could deduce it from general principles.

For me, you and old George are overstating things somewhat. I definitely feel my cultural identity far more when I am away from home. My latent cultural baggage seems to well up and become more obviously part of me. Maybe because of the stark juxtaposition with the Muslim culture that exists all around me. When the world cup was on, it bound me together with fellow kiwis in a very positive way. When I saw the scenes in NZ at the Viaduct Basin I felt a real kinship with a disparate bunch of ethnicities and age groups. All bound by that All Black victory. We were all together, sharing the cultural moment that will continue to link us in the future.

The final words belong to Frank Lloyd Wright (quasi subject of  the great Paul Simon farewell song to Art Garfunkel – hey I needed one arcane pop reference);

Noble life demands a noble architecture for noble uses of noble men. Lack of culture means what it has always meant: ignoble civilization and therefore imminent downfall.

 

It continues to be fine and hot at this end!

Love and peace - Wozza