It is only now that I feel as though I am back in the
land of reality, the land of the forever long white clouds.
Having been hit with the common old bug and virus that
every second Kiwi seemed to have contracted over the winter months, it is only
in the past couple of days that I am feeling anything like my normal self.
The good intentions of returning home and hitting the
roads in my running shoes, or enjoying clocking up lost mileage in the bike
legs, then regaining any semblance of swimming – well that all went out the
door. Managed two or three bike rides
whilst pretending that it was just a cold and I’d train my way through it.
Dingbat. If any
of my crew had done that I would have given them lecture No 247 on the
stupidity of being stupid.
I paid for it – became more bogged and clogged up,
lost my voice and had to succumb to another dosage of antibiotics to attack the
virus that had strongly developed by the end of the second week.
All was not helped by not resting – there is so much
to do and much needed doing immediately so I attempted to purge through the
many physical chores that were causing me some mental grief – consequently my list
of 53 items on my Tuit list has diminished a little, so I rather feel some good
was achieved by my refusing to curl up and cough.
Anyway, all is well and apart from an overhanging
tiredness I’m feeling almost full throttle now (and could certainly throttle a
few) and looking forward to moving into the future.
Which is going to be my segue into things of the past.
While I was away my sleuthful brother, whose latest
pet project is seeking family history, unearthed a hand written and type
written memoir that was written in 1983 by a great uncle of ours, Uncle
Ted. His full name Edward Cook. My brother allowed me to take the memoir manuscript
home and I found it compelling reading, if a little tedious at times, but
fascinating due to the fact it was real, it is history, it generally covers a
16 year period of when he was a teenage school boy in The Great Depression, to
his spending over three years as a prisoner of war in German POW camps during World War
Two.
We, this baby boomer generation of mine and all the
generations proceeding can have no idea of the day to day living folk endured
during those hard years of The Great Depression and the following war torn times. We are
so busy now being so busy and those that are not are so busy convince
themselves they are, that we do not take the time to stop, listen and record
some of the stories our elders could have told us, had we actually stopped and
listened.
My uncle was born during the First World War to poor
farming parents who lived on poor farming scrub land somewhere up north near
the Hokianga Harbour. A little place
called Rangiahua; State Highway 1 runs through the area but if one drives that
way when heading to Rawene, not a skerrick of what once was remains, today it
is beautiful, rolling farmland.
Uncle Ted was one of twelve children, Maori, poor and
with little resources. As a child I
remember him as being a quiet, warm man who myself and all my cousins felt an
affection for due to his slow and kind manner and words. He walked with a walking stick and I vaguely
remember being told as a child the need for the stick was due to a war injury, no other information was
forthcoming, nor sought.
Being Maori, being poor and being from the northern
wop-wops one would presume he and his siblings would not be well educated or
eloquent. Wrong presumption as this
memoir of his will show he was very well education and had a beauty about his
ability to script a memoir with words and phrases eloquently put on paper. I would like to insert three passages from
just the first thirty pages of his typed up memories.
The first passage is referring to his final year as
Head Boy of his school house at Hamilton Technical High School – at the
approximate age of seventeen. It details
his love of the game of cricket. I too
like cricket and surely wallowed in reading his descriptive manner of his
experience as a seventeen year old. One
does not need to be a cricket lover to enjoy his writing:
“So it was 1929 my final year at Hamilton Technical High
School. I was Head Boy of Arawa House,
vice-caption of the First Eleven, a member of the First Fifteen, was a school prefect
and indeed, at the time did not take it as any great achievement but thinking
back now, holding these positions in all field games and then involved in the
running of the school affairs would seem that I played no small part. For a school with a roll predominantly white,
I was one of perhaps only half a dozen non-white, and so to hold all these
positions gives me much satisfaction.
I do not wish to labour my writings directly at
cricket, but really at this stage it was always my first love: the beauty of the game, the different
settings, the dress itself of all the different players, the splendor and
beauty of most grounds, the majesty and grace of some of the overseas players
it had at those times always enthralled me, just to sit there in the shade of
the trees enclosing the park itself, to
glory in the artistic touch now being unfolded before my very eyes, both from the
overseas stars as well as our own, such as Jimmy Mills a left-hand and elegant
opening batsman from Auckland.” …
He goes on:
“To this day I can still see Kumar Shar Duleepsingi,
with his Cambridge Blue University cap on head, striding out majestically to
the wicket to take up his stance at the batting crease. He was tall, slim, truly looked the part of
the high-ranking Indian prince he was.
His manner, dress and bearing really suited such an elegant figure. His technique, artistry of stroke play was true
poetry. To this day I often think of
Duleep and how fortunate I was at having witnessed the wizardary unfolded by
such a cricketing master.
Then he
writes about another, an Australian cricketer, a bowler –
“Hans Ebeling, most surely one of the fastest to grace
a cricket field at any time. Seeing his
approach, the long smooth run-up, his delivery of a ball, then to see a stump
go hurtling backward, shattered by the speed and impact for a distance of the
length of a cricket pitch, the distance of 22 yards; the sight of seeing this
beheld my love of cricket for a lifetime.”
Uncle then
moves his story to his eventual leaving of school and returning north to work
with two of his brothers and his parents on the farm they were scratching a
living for survival from as it was during The Great Depression years. There are superb descriptive pages of the
land, the house they lived in, the old milking shed where they hand milked
their cows early mornings and afternoons – and then describes the hard work
they all participated in in clearing the rough, hilly and scrub covered land.
“In the early 30’s our main occupation on the farm
when not hand milking the cows was to continue to clear our hilly and scrub
covered land. Both Mum & Dad many times accompanied us up the hill to clear
the scrub and tea-tree, even come rain or sunshine, increasing our tea-tree
cutting power. How we all plodded along
through narrow trackways between the tall scrub paths, through still standing
tea-tree, mud slush near ankle deep, till finally reaching the area where the
tree felling was in progress. Mum would
be dressed for the day’s work, men’s working boots protecting her feet against
the tea-tree stumps, a sack apron adorning her waist, carrying her own
slash-hook or two, while on her back, carried piggy-back style, would be the
young grandchild. In those days of near
pioneering farming, most womenfolk were expected to do their part in helping in
the manual labour; I think we all took it as a matter of course. Mum would see
that the grandchild, at perhaps 2 or 3 years of age, was made as comfortable as
possible, bedded down on an old cow-rug with coats for outer covering, knowing
that in time sleep would come to him, then would allow her to take up her slash
hook adding further woman-power to the tree felling in hand.”
…… he then comes to a dramatic period in his
life
“So now I come to that evening of 3rd
September 1939, this is one evening I will always remember. There were just the 3 of us, Mum, Dad and
myself sitting before the open fire in the front room, Mum and Dad were seated; I was standing on the one side leaning against what was meant to be a
mantelpiece. We all 3 all so silent,
gazing at the flames, as though waiting on someone to arrive, something to
happen, or some important news flash, as it was to be, broadcast over our newly
acquired radio. That was the reason for
complete silence. None of us moved or
spoke. The silence was intense. It seemed our interest was wholly on those
flames being drawn up the chimney. We
waited, still in silence, calm and unmoved, waiting for the other news bulletin
that was certain to follow an earlier news flash. We did not have long to wait – minutes,
perhaps, but it seemed hours, when our Prime Minister of the time, in a voice
slow and deliberate, as though searching and pondering on each separate word,
made that announcement – that we, as a member of the Commonwealth, were to
follow the lead of the mother-country who, from that moment of the day the 3rd
of September, the year 1939, now considered herself as being at a state of
war.
Still now it must have been 15 or 20 minutes since
that first declaration, still in silence, still flame-gazing, Mum was to
finally interrupt the still silence with:
“If you think you should go, if you want to go, we will give our
blessing to your decision.” Without
change of position, without change of her gaze, those were the only words
spoken that whole evening. My parents gave
me their blessing and finalised my decision.
I know myself, I never spoke a word.
I just went over to them both, patted each on a shoulder, and went off
to my own bedroom.
It was the 4th September 1939, the day
following the declaration of war, I enlisted for the Special Force to be our
countries initial contribution of aid.
This part of UncleTed’s memoir only takes us up to Page 30. The rest of
the 240 pages takes in his over three year stay as a prisoner of
war in German POW camps in Italy and Austria.
Finally, after all these years, I now know why Uncle Ted walked with a
walking stick.
It is a fascinating
story & I feel very responsible about doing something with this memoir.
I am hoping that
any of you who are reading this will find my story today a little reminder that
– all lives have stories. Stories from
previous family members are jewels of history, to be treasured and nurtured.
Most of us have uncles and aunties and parents, all of whom will have stories, stories you may
know nothing about. Their lives, their
hopes, their energies, their early desires, their regrets, their loves, obstacles, grief, despairs, illnesses
– like it or not, the stories they lived are what make you today.
I keep
thinking of the old saying – every new beginning comes from some other
beginnings end … Record their
beginnings before they, the story, end.
