Writings from the Antipodes

Hobbies & Pastimes Hobbies & Pastimes: Chat / Discussions
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64

Thank you Robert.
Now the final one in the series.

We worked as we always did, at our own pace . That meant that we each started at the beginning of two rows, Tony disappeared ahead of me, singing bawdy songs and shouting loud shouts, I stayed in the middle muttering while Ian disappeared into the adjacent maize with a roll of toilet paper.
We knocked off in the middle of the day while the temperature wavered around the 100 degrees and found a few cans of beer that we kept in the water tank. We hadn’t been back long when a black Holden pulled up behind the Land Rover , which we kept in the bedroom, alongside my bed, two gentlemen in blue got out.
“Have a beer?” said Ian by way of introduction.
The cop looked hot but steeled himself and declined.
“Been here long?” He asked.
“Couple of weeks, we’ve got the contract for the millet here”
While this little interchange was going on the other fuzz was busy looking for clues or whatever cops do.
“Your not selling tickets for a police ball are you?” says the ever tactless Tony.
I could see that the cop had not had a nice day already , so I inquired if we might be of assistance.
Before any reply eventuated Ian noticed that the cops were looking at our legs.
Sure enough the feller was looking at our legs, or more specifically feet.
“Any of you own ripple sole shoes?”
“We’ve got tractor tread and bald but no ripples” pipes Tony, “why, they illegal?”
“No. Just making inquiries- well thanks fellas”, the cop moved towards the car and I had a sudden thought,
“Hey! Charlie Slade had ripple soled shoes- sort of desert boots”
“Yeah ! That’s right ! He did too.”
“Who’se Charlie Slade?” says the cop.
“Our late fellow worker- he didn’t like my tea!” said Ian.
“An he pulled a knife on us” said Ian. We told them about the previous night’s excitement.
“Where is he now?”
“Well, he was on this heap of peanut shells for a while then he took off in that direction " Ian pointed vaguely to where Charlie was last seen. “His bag’s still here if you want it”
The cop took the bag and peered in it, “You should have hit him harder, then he’d still be here! Save us a lot of work!”
“Kiwis are you?”
“Yeah, we don’t use vowels” said Tony grinning,
He got a grin back and " Oh well, you’ll be alright then”
They took off and Ian went back into the maize with a roll of toilet paper!
Finally the great day arrived when the truck arrived to carry off the results of our
labours and the entire 14 acres had been reduced from eight feet high to four feet,
God knows what he was going to do with the leftovers but that was Tabby’s
problem. We felt such a personal involvement in helping third world housewives that one of us went with the truck to help unload and also to bring us the good news of what 14 tons of it was worth. After the grocery bill was paid , 124 pounds between us! The princely weekly rate of 7 pounds per week ! We decided that it had to be character building because it certainly wasn’t profitable!
As we were about to leave, Tabby said, “Look! I’ve got another 6 acres and I’d be prepared to split 50/50.………”
He took our reply in good heart, I expect he was used to adversity, after all he’d buggered up a cotton crop, a peanut crop now a broom millet crop and shortly a maize crop, so it was nothing new to him, he had plenty of experience to call on.
He was kind though, as we left he gave us half of his peanut crop. 3 sacks!
We ate bloody peanuts all over the continent!

65

One More Bottle.

Awake for Sweetie in the bowl of night
Has opened one more bottle of dry white,
And Lo! Her Gum has made
Another fruity cup for our delight!

To see this Siren lately rise,
And suffering is written in her eyes.
Carousing to the dawn this day,
Without encouragement of prize!

I sometimes think I’ve never been so drunk,
And noticed not the red rimmed eyes have sunk.
I’ve watched the coming of another day,
And slowly tottered to my bunk!

66

Goondiwindi.

Somewhere near Taree in New South Wales, we noticed that the Landrover’s gearbox was wobbling when you put your foot down or took your foot off the gas. It was also about then that we noticed that our rego was about to run out and we were advised by a local no-hoper, who was sleeping under our bridge, that the best thing to do would be to whip over the border into Queensland where they didn’t give a hoot about that sort of thing. We’d also been told that there was work in Queensland around the sugar cane farms and although we knew nothing about sugar cane, we were convinced, (as we often were!) that we had something to contribute to the industry.
The nearest point to Queensland from where we happened to be, took us into the little town of Goondiwindi, just over the state border. The town seemed quiet and almost deserted as we drove down the main street and out on the skirts of town we saw a deserted shed in a field which looked ideal for a brief stop to tighten up ‘Turangi’s’ , (the Landrover ) underparts.
We drove in to see if someone owned it, and if they’d mind if we borrowed it for a day or two. Sometimes you just strike it lucky without making much effort! The guy that owned the shed was an ex-pat Kiwi and a mechanical engineer to boot!
“Help yourself , mates” , he said, “and if you need anything , let me know.”
The seats came out . Then the floorboards. Then Ian went for a walk as he wasn’t into mechanical things and Tony and I applied our vast mechanical knowledge into taking the gearbox and transfer box out. We had to collect all the oil as we couldn’t afford new stuff and we carefully laid out the bits and pieces on the concrete floor of the shed so that we’d have some idea how it went back together. The lack of a comprehensive set of tools meant that it took the best part of a day to get everything out only to find that where the mounting bolts fitted the casing, needed an engineering job far beyond our experience. There was nothing else for it! We would have to ask our friendly landlord for help.
“No worries!” he said, “Give us a day or two and I’ll slot it in between jobs at work.”
We breathed a sigh of relief and went for a walk around town. It was here, in Goondiwindi that we discovered the joys of “Queensland Travellers Relief” . The idea was, it kept itinerant workers moving around looking for work. It was 27/6d a week each but you weren’t allowed to own any assets, so the Landrover was hidden somewhere, and you couldn’t collect it in the same town two weeks in a row.
We managed to extract the money for each of us then took off to find a cheap eatery. Over the weeks which eventually stretched into months, we perfected the cry of “Steak, Eggs , Onions, Tomatoes and chips” about once a week, as soon as we’d collected . Strangely, it didn’t matter what time of day it was, it was always “Steak, Eggs , Onions, Tomatoes and chips”. No imagination I guess.
Of course, one meal a week was not enough but we supplemented with rice , ‘au natural’ and for some reason we had aquired a large quantity of Milo, which, just for the sake of variety, we sometimes made ‘rice au Milo’.
One of our less successful forays was for sweet corn. It was , lets face it, theft, but we figured the farmer wouldn’t miss it and it was preferable to finding emaciated bodies in his fields. It was less than successful because we didn’t know the difference between sweet corn and maize! We cooked it, ate it and it came out looking exactly the same as when it went in! We realised the futility of it very soon and ceased this felony. We applied it to cabbages instead and the occasional turnip or swede, we were never sure of the difference, might even have been a mangol !
The re-machined gearbox was duly returned to us and the reassembly began. Despite our best efforts we still ended up with some bits left over. With some trepidation we started her up and drove about a bit, but everything seemed to work okay.
Our friendly landlord invited us for dinner, much to his wife’s disgust, after all, what sensible discerning woman want 3 filthy dirty, smelly, unshaven ruffians as guests? The dinner was much enjoyed even though it did not consist of “Steak, Eggs , Onions, Tomatoes and chips”!
We kept the spare left over bits in the glove box, in case of need and figured if we did much more mechanical maintenance we might have enough spare bits to build another Landrover!

67

Bosses!

Bosses
My first job when I left school was with the Tourist & Publicity Department of the government. While this sounded rather grand I spent my first few months in what was known as the ‘CBO’, or central booking office at the Queen Street branch of the Government Tourist Bureau all we did was sell railway tickets. My boss in this position was almost never in sight except for a brief ‘Hello’ in the staff smoko room. There were three of us, each with our own counter and little grill to look out at the public and at the end of each day we had to balance a huge journal of all the tickets we had sold against the money in the till. The only person who balanced every day without problems was the guy who had failed school certificate twice, the rest of us struggled to achieve this lofty goal. I very rarely had opportunity to explore the “Publicity” side which had been inspired by my love of photography although when I did, I was assistant to two legendary contract photographers in Marti Friedlander and Brian Brake.
After a year or so ‘itchy feet’ took over and I went to Australia with a friend I had made at the GTB. In 1961 the economics were such that New Zealand was much better off than Australia and we found work was hard to come by. As we travelled up the East coast eventually to Northern Queensland we found that all job seeking opportunities were found in the pubs. Even the Queensland equivalent of WINZ suggested we try the pub. At the pub we were directed by a man belching through a ginger mustache to “Go see Tabby Thompson, he’s looking for blokes.”
After a couple of years flitting around on my ‘OE’, I ended up in Oxford Street, London, working for a photographic studio and retail chain called “B.Bennett & Sons”. Although I was in no way related to this company, there did appear on the company letterhead “Michael J. Bennett, Co-chairman of Directors.” My boss in this branch found the fact that I could legally sign replies to letters of complaint “Michael J. Bennett” seemed to solve a lot of his problems in that the complainant felt he had gone as far as he could go. My Boss could then get on with his assessment of products at the local pub whilst leaving me in his office. It was only after nearly a year into the job, that I actually met the other M.J.Bennett, and for a while he thought I was “taking the mickey”. He had never known that I was there.

There followed a drive down the South coast to Torquay where somehow or other I became a night porter at Phyllis Court Hotel owned by a Commander Bond who could not have looked less like James Bond if he had tried. He was a compulsive numismatist and coins were his obsession. All around the hotel were coin operated machines dispensing chocolate, peanuts, drinks, cigarettes and condoms and each and every coin was examined by Commander Bond under a small macroscope attempting to catch imperfections that might make them unique. As a result of this we were paid every Thursday with a small paper bag of coins, each one of which had a red greaseproof pencil mark on it, which indicated that he had examined it. The local bank hated us!
It was also at this hotel which had a ‘no tipping’ but 10% surcharge on the bill. The manager would then distribute the tips around the staff. It was not hard when the hotel was full to work out the total incoming 10% and it was also not hard to add up what we staff were given and I found that only about 30% was being handed down to us. I almost managed a hotel strike until Commander Bond sorted it all out.
Part of my work experience in England was undertaken at the Brighton Asbestos Manufacturing Co. In 1964 this alarming title did not have the connotations that it does now and their staff requirements were unusual to say the least. As I sat down to talk with the manager at my interview, I was already starting to doubt that my immediate future was with this company and I began by informing him that I was a Kiwi and could leave at any time. This failed to put him off and I was offered the job . It seemed that in England it was almost impossible to find a truck driver who could type or a typist who could drive a truck so the job was mine. Within days of being persuaded to take the job opportunity, my new boss had inveigled me into becoming a member of the Brighton Arrows cricket team and this, in itself made me very happy. They turned out to be such a grand bunch that when I did at last leave for New Zealand, they transported all of our luggage in the company truck and the whole staff ,except for the office girl, came to see us off miles away in Southampton.

68

I here that the mention of Johnston Island used to terrify some Kiwis - is this still the case?

69

Where is Johnston island?

My father was no farmer but he loved the farmers life,
And he took along my mother as his devoted wife.
He rented an old homestead on Rangitikie Line
Weeds were up to the windows but he said, ”OK! That’s fine!”

He went off to work in town, while mother rolled up sleeves
Attacked the weeds, the windows and webs under the eves.
Each evening he came home again bringing useful stuff
Like little plants ,some garden gloves and once a box of fluff.

The box of fluff turned out to be fifty day old chicks,
“We’ll be self sufficient ”, he cried delightedly, “For in this mix-
There’s bound to be half hens for laying eggs- the rest we’ll eat“
The thought of roasted chicken drove out thoughts of other meat.

The little fluffy yellow things all ran about in haste
We fed them crumbs and something we made up as a paste.
After 6 weeks no difference between the girls and boys,
After 10 weeks we’re no better - deceived by chicken ploys.

At 14 weeks we realised their sexuality was plain!
Not a damned girl in there, not a single Jane!
Fifty bloody cockerels all cock-a-doodling fit to bust
All fighting fit, all testosterone, all fighting in the dust!

Each Saturday we’d pick the biggest and off would come his head
“X” minus 1, remaining cockerels would cheer that he was dead.
They felt no feathered ‘mateyship’ or camaraderie
They simply cock-a-doodled as loud as it can be.

Forty nine feathered fiends went in the baking dish,
Number fifty thought he’d made it and soon he got his wish.
My father, axe in hand went out the fateful day
To find that number fifty had gone and run away.

70

You really are a very talented writer and poet Ciderz.
I think we are very lucky to have you on this forum. x
You may inspire me to stop messing around and start writing again.
Although I do feel a painting may be better. xxx

71

Collections

Collections

From a very early age I was deluged with things to collect. My father travelled the world in the Royal Navy and in every port he would post a letter home and if there was a first day cover , he would make sure he sent it home to me. As the years past by my collection of stamps increased but only when I was older, perhaps mid teenage years did I instigate my five yearly sort. When I returned from my “OE” in 1967, I took this more seriously. About every five years out would come the albums, cardboard boxes and cigarette tins full of stamps and with the advent of computers and databases and online catalogues, all would be entered and the ability to compile vast amounts of information made use of. Then after a few days the stamps, first day covers and cigarette tins would be returned to their cardboard boxes and restored to the top of wardrobes.
Somewhere about  2010, during one of these five yearly sorts I was looking at the large number of first day covers that I had arranged in an Eastlight file . They were hinged at the top of the page so that each could be lifted to read the one below. As I flicked through them the light behind my desk affected a kind of ‘x-ray’ of the envelope and I noticed something inside that I had not noticed in the previous 5 yearly sorts. I extracted the paper insert to find it was a letter from my father. It was dated the 15th of February 1953, and was written in a quiet evening on board HMNZS Tui.

“Dear Mike,
I don’t know when you will get this, or even if you will get it at all.
Tui is anchored in Port Underwood in the Marlborough Sounds and all hands are stood down except the watch so I thought I would write you a letter while you are tucked up in bed in Auckland.
I hope you have enjoyed your travels with your mother and I. The time in Bermuda where we swam together in the clear waters watching sergeant-major fish swim about and crabs crawling along the sea floor 30 feet below us. We saw and felt the hurricane in 1947 and watched our little boat get turned into kindling wood from the veranda of “Cartref”, our home. Then the year on Bluck’s Island with only two houses , one of which was inhabited by Major and Mrs Kitchener, nephew of Lord Kitchener of Khartoom.
I was so pleased when the grumpy little boy cheered up in New York when we took him to Coney Island and laughed as he slid on a mat down the spiral slide . When we ate a ‘Skyscraper’ soda amongst the friendly New Yorkers who picked our accents and made us one of them and the visit to US Steel’s steel mill in Pittsburg with a friend who was a Vice President of the company.
How your mother worried, as mothers do, when you went to boarding school in Colchester after we returned to England, but how you fitted in played football and cricket and told us stories of Captain Taylor the 70 year old gym teacher who was a whizz on the parallel bars.
I hope the experiences that we had together help you when you grow up and deal with the world as an adult, be confident but kind to others especially the weak. Help those who need it in any way you can .
Your mother and I have enjoyed your company as a child and look forward to seeing you develop as a young man and hopefully achieve your dreams in adulthood.

Lots of love 
Dad  

As I read this letter from the past my eyes welled up as I thought of my beloved dad who sadly died 44 years ago. It was almost as if he knew I wouldn’t get the letter until he had gone. For 17 years he knew it had been written but I did not, until that fateful day of the 5 year stamp sort.
72

What a moving story Ciderman and how lovely to hear your father words after so many years .
He must have been a wonderful Dad .

73

My eyes welled up too Ciderman…I never had a father in my life yours sounded very special.

74

You are very talented, sir and a real asset to the forum.

75

Me too :frowning:

76

Sadly still, after all these years, it is true. :frowning:

77

[quote=“Ciderman, post: 1599236”]
Where is Johnston island?

My father was no farmer but he loved the farmers life,
And he took along my mother as his devoted wife.
He rented an old homestead on Rangitikie Line
Weeds were up to the windows but he said, ”OK! That’s fine!”

He went off to work in town, while mother rolled up sleeves
Attacked the weeds, the windows and webs under the eves.
Each evening he came home again bringing useful stuff
Like little plants ,some garden gloves and once a box of fluff.

The box of fluff turned out to be fifty day old chicks,
“We’ll be self sufficient ”, he cried delightedly, “For in this mix-
There’s bound to be half hens for laying eggs- the rest we’ll eat“
The thought of roasted chicken drove out thoughts of other meat.

The little fluffy yellow things all ran about in haste
We fed them crumbs and something we made up as a paste.
After 6 weeks no difference between the girls and boys,
After 10 weeks we’re no better - deceived by chicken ploys.

At 14 weeks we realised their sexuality was plain!
Not a damned girl in there, not a single Jane!
Fifty bloody cockerels all cock-a-doodling fit to bust
All fighting fit, all testosterone, all fighting in the dust!

Each Saturday we’d pick the biggest and off would come his head
“X” minus 1, remaining cockerels would cheer that he was dead.
They felt no feathered ‘mateyship’ or camaraderie
They simply cock-a-doodled as loud as it can be.

Forty nine feathered fiends went in the baking dish,
Number fifty thought he’d made it and soon he got his wish.
My father, axe in hand went out the fateful day
To find that number fifty had gone and run away.

http://www.johnstonmemories.com/
a place with glowing tributes! perhaps ya to young to remember it?

78

That was interesting Gummy. I had not heard of it despite my advanced age. Don’t think I fancy living there although Pitcairn Island has a certain attraction.

79

a holiday there may rejuvenate you poor old aching joints etc - they do say that small zaps of RA are good for you - better than red wine?

80

Mostly sunny
27°C
40°C
Chance of rain: 30% (< 1mm) Mostly sunny
Humidity: 9am: 52% 3pm: 39%
Wind 9am: WSW 12km/h
Wind 3pm: NW 16km/h

weather details for xmas eve in the forest - lovely - beats the city any day!

81

After 3 years of shepherding in Hawkes Bay NZ

The Shepherd.

Zephyrs softly blowing,
Seeds of truth are sowing.
From the hilly ridges
Across the natural bridges,
On the back blocks, through the valleys,
Down the pastures, to the rivers.

I can see them down below me.
A white horse that cannot know me,
And I smile as I go floating, silent by.
But I see the nose that quivers,
Big brown eyes that make me shiver
And I let him settle, slowly on my mind.

As I look across the hills that I can see,
I feel a wet and coldness by my knee
And my dog is quietly walking,
We’ve no need for idle talking.
I’ll always feel his spirit close to me,
As we go down beside the rolling sea.

82

The Accident!
The ship travelling home to New Zealand in 1965 had been a fun four weeks but after we arrived in Auckland it was important that I get a job until we decided just where we wanted to live and what our plans for the future were. After a couple of days staying with my mom and dad in their Titirangi home I applied for and got a job at the Fisher & Paykel factory that made white ware including fridges and freezers.
I found myself being part of a production line whose job was assembling a fridge with a small freezer at the top. My particular part of the operation was to install the freezer compartment and fix two screws in place. After about two hours I began to find this basically simple activity exceedingly boring and was looking for ways to make it more interesting. Each hour I timed myself and counted how many freezers I had installed. The first hour was about 12 units but by mid afternoon I was up to over 30 and at this point a nice union representative whispered quietly “Don’t go too fast - we don’t want to threaten our overtime do we”.
At the end of the production line , just across from where I was working, two women were charged with wiping down the fridges to remove finger and other marks that might have been received as the rest of us installed the components including polyurethane foam which was the insulator around the body of the fridge and freezer. The polyurethane was administered through some holes in the back of the cabinet as a liquid which foamed and filled every crevice. This always resulted in some spillage through joints and holes in the assembly which needed , for aesthetic reasons, to be completely removed and this was the task of the two quality control women, who used a range of solvents and cloths. On our breaks I often walked past the bench where they worked and the smell of volatile solvents had always been very evident. So I was very concerned to see them smoking as they worked but assumed that they knew what they were doing and perhaps I was being alarmist.
I had only been at the factory about a week when I glanced across the production line to see one of the women reach into her pocket for a lighter for the cigarette in her mouth. The flash turned into a ball of fire which engulfed the table in front of the woman with the cigarette and her co-worker fell over in fright. There did not seem to be any plan for such an event as nobody moved so I leapt for the fire extinguisher on the wall, and quickly covered her in foam. Luckily the fire seemed to be contained within a metal tray in front of her and it was entirely extinguished. Several fellow workers rushed with me over to the woman on the floor as her cigarette smoking colleague proceeded to hurl abuse at whoever had covered her in foam, ruined her uniform and wrecked her make up!

83

It was a crowded bridge in Istanbul. There was some kind of fishing competition going on as I ambled over the bridge watching everyone point their rods over the edge. I stopped and watched as a young boy hoisted a tiny fish from the waters of the Bosphorus about 50 feet below him and put it in a small bucket of water.
I peered into his bucket to look at the fish as he smiled at me. I smiled back at him , pointed down at the water below and held my palms apart. He grinned again and held his arms out as far as they would go, palms facing and laughed. I backed off a couple of paces and held my palm up and quick as a wink he held his up, indicating a fish about 8 feet long! We laughed together. Neither spoke a word of the others language but we had communicated , we were at one and we both knew it and enjoyed it!