PART ONE: CHRISTCHURCH & GREYMOUTH

For the past fifty years I’ve lived an expatriate life, having left New Zealand in 1963, a year marked by a much more momentous event -- Kennedy’s assassination. This lengthy  absence has been punctuated by occasional visits, the last about ten years ago.   On the current occasion, encouraged by Nora, I was to make a visit ‘while you can still enjoy it’, since long haul travel and advancing years don't always make a good match.

When, after a long journey via Melbourne, I finally arrived in Christchurch, it was to be the start of three weeks visiting a combination of the unfamiliar, such as the Marlborough area of the South Island, and of the relatively familiar, such as Wellington, my native city, and Auckland, where I went to university.    In the process, I would meet some cousins – one of whom I hadn’t met for sixty years --  and old friends, as well as have an opportunity to reflect on the changes which had taken place in my native country and myself over those fifty years.

Christchurch was in some ways an odd place to begin, since it had been badly wrecked by serious earthquakes in 2010 and 2012. At first, the arriving visitor is not aware of this, since the new airport is very smart, traffic is flowing and there are no obvious signs of damage, until on skirting the CBD, the route passes abandoned and damaged commercial buildings and eventually, the dramatic wreck of what was the truly ‘iconic’ Anglican cathedral.  In fact, although I didn't visit the CBD, being driven around the perimeter at night revealed a lifeless cordoned off area, truly a ghost of its former self, while empty sites scattered at intervals elsewhere showed that the quakes had a widespread and serious impact.

According to my cousin Lorraine, this impact is still being felt, while in the local press I read reports on the plight of people still living in temporary accommodation, unable to return to their wrecked properties.  Likewise, the commercial and tourist life of the city has been affected to the extent that the daily train service from Christchurch to Picton is now suspended during the winter months for lack of demand.    Elsewhere I learned of the ‘Christchurch effect’ on the economy and on decisions which, while motivated by sympathy for the city, may be disadvantageous for other parts of the island. A frequently cited example is the long mooted proposal to replace Picton as the main interisland ferry port with a newly built one nearer to Christchurch. Needless to say, the people of Picton, and latterly of Nelson, are not very happy with this plan.

One of the most interesting outcomes of the destruction has been the effect on church life, because not only was the cathedral destroyed, but many other places of worship were damaged irreparably.  It seems that various denominations have been forced to share premises and are now realizing that maybe rebuilding their old places of worship isn't  such a good idea, so why not continue sharing?   This seemed to me to be an excellent example of ecumenical spirit combined with Kiwi practicality which might be usefully adopted more widely among people of all faiths.

The brevity of my stay in Christchurch meant it was more efficient to make use of taxis rather than buses to get around, and this introduced me to that part of the service sector which universally provides a first step on the economic ladder for immigrants.  In fact, I had already been introduced to the immigrant presence at my motel, whose manager/owner is Korean.  His daughter is studying medicine at Otago, making the second generation transition into the professions.   I wasn't able to establish whether this kind of trajectory was typical of the families of the immigrant taxi drivers I met in Christchurch and elsewhere, but what I did find was considerable diversity in their places of origin, from China to Ethiopia and many Asian countries in between.  Quite unexpectedly,  I also encountered a disturbing instance of racism on the part of a middle aged native Kiwi taxi driver, who in the course of our chat while en route to the railway station referred to the Prime Minister as a ‘bloody Jew’. 

On this occasion, I was going to catch an early departing TransAlpine train for the first of three train journeys I was to take, having decided that train travel would be a better way to see the sights than by driving a hire car, which has been my way of getting around on previous visits.  It turned out that the railway system reflects many of the changes which have taken place in New Zealand during the past fifty years.  When I left NZ, jet travel was in its infancy, and flying, either domestically or internationally, was a luxury.  Travel between main cities, such as Wellington and Auckland, was mostly by train, despite the length of the journey and the discomfort.

Today mass use of the railways seems to be confined to the urban networks, and the inter-city system appears to be pretty much in terminal decline, except for tourism, as air travel has replaced rail. Visitors like me are encouraged to buy rail and bus travel passes which provide combinations of travel and a fixed number of rail or bus days.  I had elected to buy a rail pass which gave me 3 ‘rail days’ over two weeks, starting with the return east-west TransAlpine journey from Christchurch to Greymouth.  The utilitarian rolling stock of 50 years ago has been replaced by smart, comfortable – even luxurious – carriages made in Dunedin, and the rear carriage of the train is a open sided observation car so that travellers can enjoy to the full the sights and smells of the passing landscape , while capturing the scenery on their cameras and mobile phones.

The first part of the journey, lasting about an hour, goes across the Canterbury Plains, a vast area of flat land devoted for generations to the raising and fattening of sheep.   Huge hedges provide shelter, and the impression is that of moving between vast outdoor rooms.  In fact, as we moved across the landscape, I realized that we were passing through a huge agricultural factory devoted to the efficient production of first class protein, much of which is exported, mostly to markets in the Middle East and Asia which were unheard of fifty years ago, when the UK was the main market for chilled and frozen lamb and mutton.  Now slaughtering is carried out according to Muslim rites and consumers in Iran and the Gulf states eat Canterbury lamb for dinner.

 Once the train leaves the plains, the route meanders through increasingly hilly, even mountainous, terrain which, as elsewhere in New Zealand would have been a challenge to the railway engineers constructing the lines and building the bridges and viaducts.  As the route travels further west and higher and higher, the hills become more spectacular and the dry landscape of the eastern side of the island gives way to the wet and forested western side because both islands of New Zealand have distinctly different  east-west coast climates. 

The interior of the South Island is sparsely populated. Farmsteads are isolated and few and far between.  The two townships at which the train stops – Arthur’s Pass and Otira – have never been large, and Otira in particular gives the impression to the railway traveller of being very down at heel, although apparently it is popular with those pursuing an alternative life style. Overshadowed by mist and bush covered hills, the colourfully painted cottages, probably relics of the days when the railway was a significant part of the Otira economy, are now part of the life style choice. 

The journey continued through misty valleys, where power lines disappeared into the misty distance. Maintaining the infrastructure in such an environment must be a constant struggle and will call for the rugged tramping (i.e., hiking) skills which are an important part of the recreational attractions of this region of New Zealand.

 Having passed along the shore of Lake Brunner, the train eventually arrived in Greymouth, the end of the line, where quite a few of the international tourists – Chinese, Japanese, Russians, Germans among them -- joined waiting coaches destined for Nelson or Queenstown.  Those of us returning to Christchurch had about an hour to explore this small town, which had evolved as a port for the coal from the mines which formerly provided the basis for the local economy.  Consisting of two parallel streets running along the banks of the river towards the port, Greymouth is named after a 19^th Century colonial servant, whose presence is also commemorated in the eponymous Greytown in South Africa, and in the river and town in New Zealand, where he eventually became Prime Minister.   

It was Saturday, so most of the shops were closed, and the town was largely deserted. As I wandered down the main street, I passed the town library where, much to my surprise, I found a plaque commemorating a local son, Bill Pearson, who over 50 years ago had been one of my English lecturers at the University of Auckland.  Bill was also a member of the archaeological group to which, as a student of anthropology, I also belonged, and my recollection of him is in that context rather than the lecture hall, where he was a less than charismatic performer, although he was a kind and helpful tutor.   The plaque very properly celebrates his other virtues, while also demonstrating how much New Zealand has changed in half a century, since his sexual orientation, then suppressed, would now be openly acknowledged.

 Greymouth, like many parts of the South Island, is attempting to reinvent itself. There are souvenir shops and even the odd gallery, the former Bank of New Zealand building having been artfully repurposed – and renamed. Here as elsewhere tourism is replacing extractive industry. 

This kind of repurposing was, in fact, to become one of the themes of my tour. As the economic and social fabric of the country has changed, so too has the function of many buildings, and the 'New Land' gallery in Greymouth provides an unexpected example of this change of use and decoration.  Greymouth also provided an unexpected example of another contemporary development: the impact of the corporate franchise on the local high street.  In Greymouth, Robert Harris, a very good national chain of coffee shops appears, in the manner of Starbucks in other countries, to have put a small local chain out of business, the Smelting House café having brewed its last cup of coffee, reflecting an identical development in far away Henley-on-Thames where a comparable local chain has put up the shutters.  So, although New Zealand is a Starbucks free zone, national corporate power has exactly the same Starbucks effect on small local businesses. Different hemispheres, same outcomes.

There was one novelty, for which the Greymouth Evening Star deserves credit.  The walls of their car park are covered in murals depicting the history of the region from its earliest days of settlement.  Here was an acknowledgement -- indeed, a celebration --  of the hard slog -- and not a few tragedies, such as mine explosions -- that had gone into the development of the area.  A trio of Japanese tourists from the TransAlpine found this an irresistible photo opportunity.  The adjacent premises of the Evening Star continued the originality of the murals.  The street sides of the building were completely glazed so that the passer-by could see into the print floor where the presses are located, making it possible to see the day's paper actually in production.  This is a bit of newspaper theatre which is normally out of sight, yet here in sleepy Greymouth, the local paper has made a feature of it.  As Bill Pearson's roman a clef (at least as far as people in Greymouth were concerned), Coal Flat, had revealed, there is more to Greymouth than are hinted at by its prosaic town centre and the riverside warning of sewer outfall.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/75004468@N08/sets/ 

THE KIWI BLOG: REVISITING AOTEAROA/NEW ZEALAND

In May, I did a three week trip to my homeland, Aotearoa, and while I had intended to run a blog while on the trip, for various reasons, I didn't get round to it. Recently, I completed an account of the trip, and I'm now going to post it as a series of episodes.  There are also photographs which are an integral part of the story, and these are posted on flickr with the title of the relevant blog.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/75004468@N08/sets/

Altogether there are seven parts to the story and seven sets of photographs:

PART 1 : CANTERBURY & GREYMOUTH  

 PART TWO: PICTON, NELSON & THE WAIRAU VALLEY

PART 3 : WELLINGTON  

PART FOUR: ‘PALMY’ & FEILDING

PART FIVE: AUCKLAND  

PART SIX: WAIHEKE ISLAND  

PART SEVEN: REFLECTIONS 

I may also get round to reporting on accommodation and dining in case anyone wants information on this aspect of the tour.

Tooling up

Having been neglectful of blogging for ages, partly through feeling that I didn't have much to report/comment on, I've decided that it's time to start tooling up for some real blogging pending a three week trip to my homeland, New Zealand, next month (I'll be there, jet lagged, in just two weeks' time). It's exactly fifty years since I left for the wider world, and although I've been back from time to time (most recently 2004), I will be visiting what is in essence a foreign country, as witness yesterday's passing of changes to legislation permitting same sex marriage.  I believe that homosexuality was still illegal when I left NZ, so, as elsewhere of course, the situation has radically changed.

Although I don't harbour homesick thoughts for NZ (although this past winter has made me wonder why I live in the UK!), I must admit when I watched the celebrations in the NZ Parliament yesterday, and heard the singing of Pokarekare Ana, I did have a lump in my throat and a tear in my eye. So, there remains a flicker of a flame that belongs in the land of my birth.  We'll see how it survives my visit next month.

Visit:

http://www2.macleans.ca/2013/04/17/new-zealand-house-of-commons-bursts-into-song-after-legalizing-same-sex-marriage/

The loo test

Yesterday I drove an hour into deepest Surrey to collect a piece of gardening equipment: a leaf blower. I live in a leafy area (mature copper beech and chestnut in neighbouring gardens) and having experienced total lack of success with a cheapo Chinese made electric leaf blower bought from Homebase, decided to go for an expensive but highly rated petrol driven Stihl job.  Having done some price comparisons, I discovered a huge variation, from around £200 to the RRP of £295.  Furthermore, Stihl kit can't be purchased and delivered on line -- it's necessary to go to the supplier to collect it.

Fortunately, my next door neighbour had already done some keen price comparison shopping, and recommended a firm called Hire Services (Southern) Ltd, in Woking, an hour's drive away:

http://www.hsstoolshop.co.uk/

I ordered one by phone, agreed a date on which I would pick it up, and yesterday, thanks to the sat nav, eventually arrived at their premises on a trading estate.

Their premises are nothing much to look at, being a warehouse with absolutely no pretensions to retail glamour.   It is, however, a cornucopia of boys' toys.

Anyway, I was dealt with by a middle aged staff member, who, being nearer my own age, immediately made me feel more comfortable, although from observation, the younger staff members had a good way of dealing with customers both face to face and over the phone.   He took my details and quickly produced the leaf blower and proceeded to show me how to start and operate it. (Stihl produce some distinctly lethal equipment, so such briefing can be important.)

As I had another hours' drive back home, I asked if I could use a loo.  And this was the big surprise.  They were impeccable.  They were utilitarian -- no fancy tile work and plumbing -- and must have been thoroughly cleaned earlier that morning. They were spotless, smelt clean and fresh, and soap and paper towels were provided.  They were the very acme of workplace loos.

Now why was I surprised?  Well, one of the least agreeable experiences of visiting many such workplaces is the state of the wcs.   It is all too obvious that sanitary provision is not a high priority in many organizations and that the routine cleaning and servicing of such facilities are equally low priority.  (The wc at the outfit I use to service my computer is such an example.) Yet, unless there are loos especially provided for customers,  it is the staff who are the main users of these facilities.  What does the state of the loos reveal about management's attitudes towards staff?

On my return journey I pondered on the relationship between the excellent, unpretentious service of Hire Services  staff and the fact that management has provided decent loo facilities.  If the internal customer is well treated, they in turn are likely to treat the external customer well, too.   I guess that the provision of sanitation is low down in Maslow's hierarchy,   but will undoubtedly be one of Hertzberg's 'satisfiers', the state of which will affect motivation, even if only in  subtle ways.  Besides, poor sanitation isn't just a hygiene factor (literally), but is also likely to reflect more generally management's attitudes towards staff.

So, maybe there should be a loo index as part of organizational evaluation.

I also had another thought as I drove home: what a pity that I wasn't able to buy a British made leaf blower of comparable quality and price to the German product now sitting in the boot of my Japanese made car.

ATMs

Although we now live in an almost cashless era, cash still remains necessary for lots of everyday purchases, which in turn means a visit to the ATM. There are doubtless norms which are applied to the siting of these machines to make them accessible to persons of challenged height, to those in wheelchairs, and so on. What these norms don't seem to have been based on is the needs of people of average height (which means me) who find it difficult to read an ATM screen onto which the full strength (or even the partial strength) of the sun is shining.

Recently, I was in nearby Sonning Common where there is, unusually, a branch of NatWest (our bank) and as I needed some cash, I looked for the ATM. It turned out to be round the corner of the building and in full sunlight. This meant that the information on the screen was all but invisible so navigating the menus was largely a matter of hoping that experience would prove a guide to successful use. As I went through the routine, I wished that I could have forced the idiot who had located it there to spend an hour or so shackled to the machine in full summer sunlight, being forced to take out exactly£1,000 in a variety of amounts not exceeding £12.45 at a time.

Then this morning I fronted up to the ATM at our local NatWest branch. In fact, there are two ATMs, one inside, and easy to use, and one in the entrance lobby, facing the square. As there were people waiting to use the inside one, I unwisely opted to use the one in the lobby. Bad decision. The ambient light meant that the screen was very difficult to read, exacerbated by the need to bend down to try to improve the angle of visibility.

I am now left wondering whether the UK is unique in having such badly sited ATMs. Last year, in Vietnam, I was delighted to find that virtually all ATMs are housed in booths like phone boxes, and whatever the ATMs are match the requirements of users of average height. Admittedly, this must make life difficult for very short people and those who are wheel chair bound, but it did demonstrate a degree of customer concern which was unexpected -- and which I wish banks in the UK would emulate.

Expediency v. principle

Have just attended part of a public inquiry into the stopping up of a section of old highway in Henley-on-Thames where I live: local democracy at work. The section of highway was originally part of the road above the flood line, running through the very centre of Henley in parallel with the Thames, and its origins have been traced back to Roman times. Some time ago, a change in the route of the highway meant that this section of Bell Street ceased to be part of the main road, which had been relocated to a roughly parallel highway now called Northfield End.

This is an old part of town, with many buildings dating back to the C16 or C17, and there are a number of substantial houses of C18th origins or style. There is a small triangular green with some trees in front of a row of what appears to be a C18 terrace of half a dozen houses. Last century, a Mr Gunn ran a business from Bell Lane, which runs from Bell Street, and he gradually made use of parking along this section Bell Street. He even nibbled away at part of the green to increase the parking area. Eventually, a few years ago, he sold the parking and the green to a developer who had acquired the terraced houses with a view to renovating them and selling them on.

The developer's solicitor obtained verification of title from the District Council, and then sold a couple of parking spaces. It then transpired that Oxford Council had, in fact, and unbeknown to the District Council, initiated an investigation into the actual title ownership of the land concerned, since as far as the DC was aware, this part of Bell Street was still highway.

This is where things started to get sticky, augmented by the Henley Town Council's (HTC)decision to get involved and to oppose formal stopping up of the highway, as this would effectively confirm private ownership of a public space. Within the HTC the issue has become divided along party lines, with the independent Henley Residents Group (HRG), who control the Council, being against the stopping up, the Conservatives being for.

Over the past eight months or so, residents have been invited to make submissions either in support or against the stopping up and eventually the Dept of Transport has set up a public inquiry. For this afternoon only, the inquiry has been held in Henley instead of Wallingford, some 9 or 10 miles away and about forty people turned up.

The main parties are the HTC (represented by three HRG councillors), the applicant for stopping up the highway (the developer), and the chairman, appointed by the Dept of Transport. Plus interested citizens, among whom were Conservative members of HTC.

Those in favour seemed to be better organized and, like the devil, to have all the best tunes. However, three HRG members (one a councillor and former mayor) spoke to some purposes, pointing out the principle involved, namely the virtual handing over to private ownership of a public good. Also, although the piece of land concerned is small, it is one of the many small things which contribute to Henley's character, so it is important not to alienate ownership and thereby threaten the integrity of the townscape. Furthermore, as was also explained, it is historically significant, so alienating it threatens Henley's historical integrity. The one HRG councillor, who is also a district councillor, pointed out that the threatened cost to the public purse of litigation by the developer should the stopping up be prohibited was a largely meaningless threat, since the council had public liability insurance which would cover the cost and she deplored the way in which public property was in danger of being handed over to private ownership, setting a dangerous precedent.

Interestingly, there were opposing views regarding both the effects on safety of stopping and not stopping up. The most useful and sensible contribution to this part of the discussion came from one of the residents, whose voices don't seem to have been much heard among the bodies given responsibility for making decisions about changing both the status and characteristics of the section of road concerned. At least these people had a chance to put their case.

Those who are against the stopping up seemed to resort to utilitarian arguments, while those who support the stopping up seemed to be more motivated by principled ones, although members of both sides were prepared to put forward arguments which I am pretty certain were specious or irrelevant.

The inquiry continues tomorrow, and then the chairman will have to apply the wisdom of Solomon to making a decision. It is unlikely that he will be able to satisfy all stakeholders, and I suspect that ultimately, expediency will trump principle.

Olympic thoughts

Thanks goodness: it looks like being a great success, as it should, given the huge cost, over £9 billion. There is something thrilling about seeing highly skilled and trained people performing at the very edge of what is possible in their discipline. Much is made of the gold medal winners, but even the also rans are among the world's best, and their levels of performance are beyond what most people could achieve.

Much has been made of Team GB's performance, and it certainly is gratifying (and exciting!) to see them doing so well. Yesterday's winners were a fine array of multi ethnic UK, with a red headed young man from Milton Keynes, a beautiful mixed race woman from Sheffield, and a lithe dark skinned 10k metres runner from Somalia. All are British and to judge from the twiterati, are a poke in the eye for the late and unlamented Enoch Powell's 'rivers of blood' predictions.

The effect of Team GB's successes also highlights the effect of sporting success on national identity and cohesion, not just in order to demonstrate superiority and might (as appears to be the Chinese approach), but to help a diverse nation, such as GB and the USA, to establish an internal shared and transcendent identity.

Let's hope that the good feeling/good will wave that is being generated will contribute to a legacy of harmony and an enriched sense of 'Britishness', as well as to one that replaces the media focus on trivial talent with one that gives more attention to excellence achieved through a combination of dedication and hard graft. Who knows, it just might also lead to a legacy of active sports participation across a wider section of Britain's increasingly obese population.

Meanwhile, I would welcome a bit of linguistic development: the poverty of the vocabulary employed to describe Olympic performances is truly depressing. Aside from the over use of 'deliver', there is the repeated and almost exclusive use of 'amazing' and 'incredible'. Whatever happened to such adjectives as exceptional, astonishing, magnificent, wonderful, splendid, superb, breathtaking, outstanding, superlative, unrivalled, momentous, etc., etc?