90. In the Public Eye - Dancing Cossacks, Angels on Pinheads and Rogernomes; The Archaeology of a Box (7)

 

[For the origin of this series of blogs see 71.The Archaeology of a Box: Introduction, 10th November 2013]

 

Among the file of papers in the box are some newspaper cuttings from the Auckland Star, 1981 and 1989, and the New Zealand Herald, 1989. (I have always disliked the Herald's up-my-nose photograph!)

 

1981 was an election year, as is 2014. The Cold War was still going strong and in the first of these articles (Auckland Star, 23 March 1981) I wrote that the year 'opened to the music of the balalaika as the Cossacks of the National Party's 1975 election campaign goose-stepped across our TV screens.' This was the famous/infamous ad campaign depicting the Labour Party as the puppet of Soviet inspired socialism and of communists in New Zealand trade unions.

 

I still like the conclusion to my June 16th 1981 article on strike statistics:

 

 

 

The Focus article in The Auckland Star (June 21, 1989) is an edited extract from the paper I presented to the University's Winter Lecture Series that year. In it I wrote that 'the unregulated market will not and cannot produce equity' and that 'there is plenty of historical evidence to suggest that it will not even produce an efficient resource allocation'. Later in the piece I took issue with Rogernomics:

 

 
 

 

Here endeth the lesson from my 1989 pulpit.

 

 



89. Musings on Ageing and Dependency (plus a little Walt Whitman)

 

View from bed in Hibiscus Hospice overlooking Peninsula golf course

Today is Wednesday 11th December 2013 and I am on respite care in the Hibiscus Hospice for a week to give Sharon the opportunity to travel to Perth and spend time with her first grandchild Nolan.

On the wall here is a printed card about A4 size that will be familiar to anyone who has spent time in a New Zealand hospital. (They may be common elsewhere but I wouldn't know that.) It indicates to the hospice staff the level of dependency of the current room occupant.

In my case the I and INDEPENDENT have been circled with a black marker pen. Basically this means that I am pretty much able to take care of myself though in practice I do need some assistance with showering.

 

I had been giving some thought to my experience of, and feelings about, dependency in recent weeks so what better place to write about it than here in the peace and quiet. Especially now before the golf course is turned into yet another housing development and the peace of the hospice is dislocated by earthworks and construction clamour.

Sharon and Nolan

Saturday January 11th 2014

But of course I didn't. I find I go into such weeks full of ideas as to what I will read, write, catch up on, but little if none of it happens as the routines of each day take over. Perhaps I was too distracted by the view from my bed and the procession of golfers coming down the hill (from what, I think, must be the tenth tee) on to the fairway before me. But I did scribble some notes about ageing and dependency and have since avoided seeing if they add up to anything worthwhile to put into a blog. It will be interesting to see the date when, and if, these ideas are finally formed into something I am happy to publish.

Thursday January 16th
Finding plenty of reasons to avoid pursuing this but today I will try to write some more.

In my notebook I scribbled down a number of things:

'...the sense of power that other's dependency gives you...'

I think there is a danger that caregivers over define themselves in terms of their role as caregiver to the detriment of other important aspects of their life; a little like a mother and child relationship where the mother's total self-image is bound up in the role of mother, needing the child's dependency to bolster their sense of who they are.

"...wanting 'a psychological power of attorney' - speaking on, acting on behalf of the dependent, knowing how they are and what is best for them better than they do themselves..."

"...tendency with doctors/care service workers to talk about the patient's condition in front of the patient, pre-empting the patient's own self analysis..."

These last two scribbles are self-explanatory and I am sure are well recognised issues. It is particularly likely to happen if the patient's caregiver is present - the caregiver becomes the primary focus of attention. In my experience it happens a lot, particularly with men. I noticed last time I was in North Shore Hospital how often it was the patient's wife/partner who had to take on board the information about drugs and diet and treatments because the man had abandoned any control of these things to her. Often this is a function of memory loss or maybe just memory neglect - if you don't have to remember stuff you won't look for memory aids to help you by. As my health has fluctuated over the last eighteen months Sharon and I have found ourselves periodically needing to renegotiate how much she does for me so that now, when I am better than I was this time last year, I take back some responsibility for doing things for myself whenever I can. [I jest that I will take to driving again but know better than to do that connected to an oxygen cylinder.]

Monday January 20th
More procrastination.
As to ageing, I added nothing to my notes while in the hospice but have some earlier ones to fill out and add to.

"Ageing as the closing down of freedoms, opportunities... Locked in in older years to the person you invented and the accumulated responsibilities that accrue as a consequence - living up to an image of yourself that has become yourself.... Which version of myself did I choose to live?"

The person I am now would be something of a surprise, perhaps even shock, to the socialist London Scot I was in my teens and twenties. I would never have imagined for one moment that I would live in New Zealand for most of my life, have a career as an academic, build two houses and marry four times.

"Meditation - Zen present but it is the past that I like to meditate upon."

Much of the advice to the elderly (and to everyone these days it seems) is to live 'in the moment', to focus on the here and now and make the most of each minute - Carpe Diem/Seize the Day etc. But it is mostly the past that I like to meditate upon. This makes some sense if you have, as I do, a chronic lung condition that necessitates 24 hours a day on oxygen and makes you hyper-conscious of your breathing. If I really concentrate on the moment, as I am forced to do much of the time, it is to monitor the inflow and outflow of air through my lungs. To avoid the incipient panic that this process can engender (and override the sheer tedium of managing it effectively) I need to find distractions from the present not reinforcements of it. I do this by blogging - mostly about the past - by listening to music, reading, watching television, playing Words with Friends on my iPad and daydreaming. The most absorbing of these activities is undoubtedly the blogging.

Back in March 2012 a comment on one of my blogs was that it was sad that I seemed to be looking to the past so much. The author hoped I would find the process cathartic and then move on to deal with the present challenges in my life. I replied that some of the pieces that I posted were cathartic at the time they were written (mostly around 2000-2004) but that the principle function of my blog for me was to have some fun writing and some distraction from the routines of life with bronchiectasis*.

As to a number of the past pieces, primarily the family ones, they have opened up some interesting discussions with my sisters as we share our different memories of the same events and our different understandings of the nuances and significances surrounding those events.

Friday 24th January
More scribbles from my notebook.
Jotted down from a web item recently shared with me on Facebook:

"To the old, I would show them how death comes not with the aging process but with forgetting." - Gabriel Garcia Marquez in his letter saying goodbye to the public life due to his lymphatic cancer.

Of course Marquez is not referring to the short-term forgetting that haunts us all as we age (did I already sugar my tea or not? and other 'senior moments') but to the forgetting of significant events and experiences from our past. For me these significant events and experiences are not necessarily achievements, though I am more than content with those, indeed proud of them. What I most cherish are Proust's moments bienheureuse. Such moments are not merely happy recollections and reminiscences but blissful unexpected magic moments triggered in the recall of the past and in the Zen of my current life. I find many of them tied to times when I felt a special bond, however briefly, with another person - child, friend, lover, partner - or with the natural world around me.

All this focus on the past is not to say that I am unconscious of the pleasures of the present. One of my Dad's favourite daily mantras when we were children was "Count Your Blessings". As a rebellious teenager conscious of the mess the world was in, I found it too Panglossian for my taste, but this year I adopted it as one of three New Year resolutions. So I have recorded reflective moments and enjoyable times in my diary. Here are some of the January ones so far:

 2nd:  At Waiwera Beach with Sharon watching families playing by the sea.
 3rd:  Breakfast on the deck on a gorgeous morning.
 4th:  Anna Ivanovic beating Venus Williams to win Auckland tennis tournament.
 5th:  Visit from Elizabeth and Alan.
 6th:  Perfect day - temperature 23/24degrees, low humidity, gentle breeze; visit from Brian Henshall; walk.
 8th:  Early morning Chopin on iPad; enjoyable walk.
 9th:  Cup of tea at sunrise, the early morning sunshine warming my face, the freshness of the air after rain.
10th: Picnic lunch at beach with Sharon.
11th: Lisa dropping off fresh snapper on way home from Whangarei Heads and me still in my dressing gown.
13th: 8am sunbathe on deck with Karl Jenkins' Hear only heavenly music on the headphones; walked to beach.
14th: Huat and Lynette for lunch.
15th: Lunch at beach with Sharon plus beachwalk to edge of sea at low tide.
16th: Masssage from Ute; visit from Susie.
17th: Chat with Brian Patrick at Petanque.
18th: Drinks with Valma and Gordie sitting on their deck watching the remote controlled yachts on Kensington Lake.
19th: Pancakes and Espresso Coffee on deck for breakfast; a wet shave; watching Anna Ivanovic beat Serena Williams 4-6, 6-3, 6-3 at Australian Open. (And yes I do like to watch Anna Ivanovic because she is so beautiful.)
20th: Visit from Anne.
21st: Photo from my daughter-in-law Claire of my grandson Dominic explaining what's what to the Beefeater at the Tower of London;

tropical pork fillet tenderloin salad for dinner with glass of reisling, rounded off with a chocolate pinot noir truffle.
22nd: 6.18am - the first sip of a cup of tea.
23rd: Visit from Harriet, James, Rory and Mila - swimming at the pool plus lunch; massage from Ute.

Rory (left) and cousin Mila

James (Rory's older sister)

24th: 8am sunbathing on the deck, music on the headphones, a heron flying up the valley.

Sunday 26th January
26th:  Treated myself this morning to a fresh cannula, supplied by Thompson Engineering in the USA and so delightfully soft that I scarcely know I am wearing it [Check out their website http://softhose.com].

Enough of this. Time to round it off and let it go to the readers of my blog spread through sixty-four countries (see blog 62 for the list).

Let me leave you with some pieces from 'Sands at Seventy' that Walt Whitman, who was 72 when he died, wrote during the last years of his life.

As I Sit Writing Here
As I sit writing here, sick and grown old,
Not my least burden is that dullness of the years, querilities,
Ungracious glooms, aches, lethargy, constipation, whimpering ennui
May filter in my daily songs.

Memories
How sweet the silent backward tracings!
The wanderings as in dreams - the meditation of old times resumed - their loves, joys, persons, voyages.

Halcyon Days
Not from successful love alone,
Nor wealth, nor honor'd middle age, nor victories of politics or war;
But as life wanes, and all the turbulent passions calm,
As gorgeous, vapory, silent hues cover the evening sky,
As softness, fullness, rest, suffuse the frame, like freshier, balmier air,
As the days take on a mellower light, and the apple at last hangs really finish'd and indolent-ripe on the tree,
Then for the teeming quietest, happiest days of all!
The brooding and blissful halcyon days!

[*For previous blogs referring to my bronchiectasis see 4. My Other Online World  (November 2011) and 21."Why Me?" The History and Mystery of My Bronchiectasis (December 2011).]







 



88. War Baby: a brief note on my family background

War Baby
War with Germany had been declared in September 1939. In October my father, advised by the War Office to continue his teacher training work in the Southern Sudan, shipped out from Liverpool docks in the first war convoy to go through the Mediterranean and the Suez Canal.

I was born in the Queen Mary Nursing Home, Edinburgh, on 23^rd June 1940, a few weeks after the Dunkirk troop evacuations. A few days after I was born there was an air raid warning and everyone in the nursing home went down to the shelter.

Mum, my big sister Elizabeth and I stayed with my grandparents in Greenbank Crescent Edinburgh for a spell before moving to a cottage in Gorebridge, a mining village about twelve miles from Edinburgh. It had no air raid shelter and in October, during a particularly close air raid, Mum evacuated us all to under the bed. For most the war years of 1941 to 1944 we lived in Glen Devon, about five miles from Dollar in Clackmannanshire.

I have no recollection of course of any of that but I do remember, probably from when I was four, that the Polish Free Army had a camp in the hills on the other side of the road from our rented cottage in Glen Devon. I liked to spend time there playing in their bivouacs. Our biggest excitement of the war was when we were not allowed out because a local bull was loose and prowling around our road. Among my Mum's collection of mementoes from that time was a curl of my hair.


 
The Deeks Family
My great great great grandfather was John Deeks, a corn chandler in Bury St Edmunds, Suffolk. Deeks was a common name in the low lying parts of East Anglia in the eighteenth century, a name that was probably a variation of Dykes, meaning someone who lived by a ditch or a dyke.  

In the late eighteenth and early nineteenth century there was a lot of movement from the Suffolk area into London. The actress Barbara Windsor, best known for her parts in the Carry On films and Eastenders, was born in Shoreditch in 1937, the only child of John Deeks, a barrow boy, and Rose Ellis, a dressmaker. She too can trace her ancestry back to Suffolk; her great great great grandfather, Golding Deeks, was a Suffolk bricklayer who moved to London to find work.

I scarcely met my grandfather, William Charles Deeks (1876-1946). In a classic story of office boy to boardroom, he worked his way up to become a partner of George H Penney and Co., export buying agents in the City of London. I have a vague recollection of a dapper little man who said little and disappeared into his office almost immediately after he arrived home from work.

My Deeks grandmother- “Grannie Deeks” – ruled the family roost in Honeywell Road, Wandsworth Common, London. My father Norman Spencer Deeks (1906-1987; always called ‘Spen’) was the second of five boys.

The others were my Uncles Joe (1904-1992), Rod (1908-1994), Harry (1911-1945) - killed at the end of the war, and Geoff (1924-1976) - accidentally run over on a pedestrian crossing.

Granny Deeks served crustless salmon and cucumber sandwiches for afternoon tea and we had to have our cups of tea delicately poised, little pinkies crooked in line with her directives, desperately minding our Ps and Qs. But we were never a "posh" family. Granny was a publican's daughter and a wonderful pianist with a classical repertoire and Grandad Deeks was the son of a cashier in a mining company and grandson of a Mayfair hairdresser.

The Henderson Family
My mother’s family were from Edinburgh. Her mother Kate, my Grannie Henderson, had eight children only three of whom lived, my Aunt Lena (b.1906), my Uncle Peter (b.1907) and my mother Catherine (always known as Cathie; b.1910).
0

Before her marriage my Grannie Henderson (nee Thomson) had been in service as a table maid. My grandfather, Peter Henderson, owned two family grocery shops in Edinburgh but he died in 1944 so I scarcely knew him.

My Mum met my Dad on a Thursday evening in September 1930 at the Edinburgh Medical Mission Dispensary in the Cowgate, a very poor part of the old city. She was helping out there while waiting to start training as a State Registered Nurse at the Edinburgh Royal Infirmary and my Dad, who was a maths and physics master at Loretto, an Edinburgh Public School, was doing some voluntary work helping with dressings. They were engaged the following year and married in June 1935 after completion of my mother’s nursing studies. In December 1935 they left by sea for Nigeria to work with the Church Missionary Society at St. Andrew’s College Oyo, founded by CMS in 1896 and the first teacher training college in the country. My Dad taught sciences and my Mum ran the school dispensary. As I have reported elsewhere I didn't meet my Dad until I was three years old.



Some 1943 Family Photos

87. Vignettes of Family Life in New Zealand: (6) Christmas/New Year 1990/91



Summer evening, Lake Taupo

112 Point View Drive, 18th December 1990
    Dear Mum and Elizabeth,*
    Hope you have had a great Christmas.
    Thanks for the letter, both the handwritten one and the annual letter.
    We are getting all geared up for Christmas here - lots of social activities. In fact this next Saturday will be the first one we have had at home for the last six weeks. There were various parties to celebrate the admission to the bar of Linda and her friends. As you can see she looks pretty cute in a wig. The ones of me were awful but we will try and do better on our summer holiday and send you some more photos in January.
    As you can see my writing is getting worse and worse. It must be all the time I spend on the computer, so I thought I'd continue this letter on the machine and then at least it will be more legible!
    Last weekend we had a bar-b-que here for the Robinson family. Sacha came too but all the others - over twenty of them - were Linda's relatives - her Mum and Dad, two sisters, two brothers, five nephews, three nieces and assorted in laws and girlfriends. We took the opportunity to show off our new patio area and gas-fired barbie (that's a cooker, not a doll!) It was a great success and for a change yours truly did the cooking although all the preparation, marinating of meat etc had been done in advance and all I had to do was play the master chef.
    Kate and Harriet will be with their dad for Christmas Day this year so Linda and I are going to her mum and dad's for lunch. They have kindly invited Sacha and Lewis also - Pat is over in the UK so they were pleased to be asked. We leave for the South Island on the 27th and will be back here on January 12th. We have a week booked at a farm near Queenstown and the rest of the time will be travelling from place to place. We are looking forward to the break after all the excitement of the last few weeks. Linda and the girls have not been to the South Island in spite of all their other international travel. As you may recall the only time I went was when Stuart, Lewis and I went camping there in 1983 and were washed out of just about everything, so we are hoping for better luck with the weather.
    I had a letter from Stuart earlier this week. He is now the second longest serving member of the company** in the region where he works which tells you something about the dangers of being in the Persian Gulf as well as the opportunities for rapid promotion. You may in fact hear from him before you receive this letter since he is due for his first R&R break on December 27th and will be coming over to England to meet up with his girlfriend, Fiona. They are planning a trip to Paris but I'm sure he will be hoping to see you both. We are rather hoping he will be on R&R if and when the Americans invade Kuwait which they seem very determined to do. Tell him I have arranged for some information on correspondence course to be sent to him in Dhahran, also stuff on American Express.
    That's all for now.
    Lots of love from us all here, John xx
[  *My father died in 1987]
[**DHL]

17th January 1991
    Dear Mum and Elizabeth,
    Many thanks for the letters and for the Christmas presents and also for your telephone call. It was good to talk to you both... Thanks for the tie - very patriotic; I'll wear it for Burns' night! - and the lace tray cloth for Linda; we can see that you made good use of your trip to Scotland in your Christmas shopping. Kate and Harriet were very thrilled with their chains and initials and have been wearing them constantly. In New Zealand we would presume them to be made of paua shell, or abalone, but weren't clear whether they were some Scottish equivalent or something completely different. We spent the ten pounds that you kindly sent, Elizabeth, on some souvenirs of our holiday - greenstone from the West Coast in the form of brooches and pendants.
    We had a good Christmas Day, mostly. Lewis and Sacha joined us for Christmas lunch at Linda's mum and dad's together with Linda's neice, Helen, who is about 20. Kate and Harriet came over later in the afternoon with their father and then travelled home with us. Unfortunately on the motorway on the way home my car broke a cam shaft drive belt and we had to get a tow-truck to get it (and us) back here. There wasn't time to get it repaired before we left for the South Island on the Thursday - so we had to adjust our packing arrangements to fit everything into Linda's car which was quite a squash since it is a two-door hatchback whereas the Subaru is a four-wheel drive touring wagon. As it turned out Linda's car- which is 1800cc and very fast - went excellently all through our trip of around 3600 kilometres.



                               On the Cook Strait Ferry                                                                   Above Queenstown

    Harriet has enclosed a copy of our itinerary with her letter so that will give you some idea of where we went. We stayed put near Queenstown for about a week at Speargrass Flat near Lake Hayes. It was an excellent choice since the people who ran the Lodge were very friendly - they were both Scottish and met at catering college in Edinburgh - and had two children, a boy and a girl, Kate and Harriet's age. We had the run of a lovely house, other visitors to talk to - one from Kingsbury in North London, and American, a couple from Kent, and, on New Year's Eve, a small safari group tour from Germany, and the children had some friends to play with when we were not out enjoying some of the many amenities of the area. This time the weather was mostly excellent, warm and dry all the way down and throughout our stay at Lake Hayes and very very wet when we crossed over to the West Coast - like driving through a waterfall at some points  but the roads didn't wash away and we were able to do most of the things we planned with the exception of a trip up onto Fox Glacier and a tour out to see the nesting grounds of the kotuku or white heron.
    At Kaikoura on the way down we saw a lot of dolphins quite close to the shoreline, a well as seal and bird colonies. The area has become a centre for whale watching trips and also for boat trips that take you out in wet suits to swim among the dolphins. We didn't do either since we were really only passing through - but we did eat the delicious crayfish the area is named after. Linda's brother Tom and his wife camped there for part of their holiday and told us that the dolphin experience was quite amazing so next time we'll have to stay there longer. The scenery from Lake Tekapo down to Queenstown was very dramatic with the lakes and Southern Alps, wild lupins in full bloom, some very Scottish landscapes. As you can see from one of the photographs enclosed we got good views of Mount Cook looking along Lake Pukaki on a very clear day.
   We did a variety of things while in the Queenstown area. We all went on a trip to an old gold mining town - Macetown - 32 kms up the Arrow River Gorge from Arrowtown. This was in a land rover and involved 44 crossings of the river and a very bumpy narrow unsealed road along the side of the gorge. It was amazing to think that in the 1860s the whole area was full of gold miners, prospectors, and townships that are now deserted and in ruins. We panned for gold in the river but with no success....  (We did, however, get some gold later at Shantytown, near Greymouth on the West Coast but this was 'planted' by the people running this reconstructed gold mining town.) We also went on an evening boat trip to Walter Peak, a large high country sheep station on Lake Whakatipu, where they farm, among other things, Highland Cattle. And we had a trip on the S.S. Earnslaw for a day at the Glenorchy Races at the top of the lake. Linda, Kate and Harriet also went on a day's pony trek in the Lake Hayes, Arrowtown area which they thoroughly enjoyed - I passed on that one and went for a walk in the hills instead.



                 On the hills near Arrowtown                                                               Kate at Shantytown

    Now it is back to normal. Linda returned to work on Monday last and I have been at home this week with Kate and Harriet. Kate has been going to tennis lessons each day from 9am to 3pm and Harriet has spent most of her time playing with Rebecca, the next door neighbour's daughter. They have just made themselves a picnic lunch and are off to eat it down the potato mine, whatever and wherever that is!. The neighbours opposite have gone to Kuala Lumpar to live so their daughter, Samantha, is no longer available to play.
    Sacha stayed here on and off while we were away and moved the goat around so that he didn't starve. Lewis started his new job on Monday with Task Electronics in Newmarket. So far he seems very pleased with it since it will give him some useful experience with computer systems. Last year was a bad year for him on the job front so it was a great relief when he finally landed a reasonable job after all those years of the market garden. As far as I can make out he is responsible for stores and inventory as part of the customer services division of a small but expanding specialist electronics company.
   Stuart is still in Saudi. I spoke to him on Tuesday and told him I thought he should be out of there but he has decided to stay on for the time being. He knows the risks - he thinks - and will see what develops. The company want them to stay a bit longer although business is clearly declining sharply. He has a gas mask with him at all times and a safe room in his house which is sealed and provisioned in case of bombing or a gas attack. He says he is never more than fifteen minutes from the house during the day. I doubt that he would be able to get a flight out now anyway and his only escape route would be to drive west, probably along with thousands of others. By the time you get this letter of course the whole situation could have changed dramatically. We naturally are worried for his safety but understand the pressures on him to stay put. In fact while I have been writing this letter the Americans have launched attacks on targets in Kuwait and Iraq and there has just been a report on television from Dhahran of the air raid sirens going off there in the middle of the night. Now they are talking about gas attacks on Tel Aviv. Not a pleasant thought.
    Congratulations mother on becoming a Companion of the Society of St. Francis.
    I had forgotten, Elizabeth, that I had given you a picture of puffins for your 21st birthday - sounds awful! - so wasn't distraught that you had left it in Nigeria. As you may know the principal thing we lost when we were burgled last year was the very posh camera I bought in Singapore when we were there on our honeymoon. However, as you can see from the enclosed photographs, your 21st birthday present to me is still in excellent working order and continues to take good pictures.
    That's all for now. Back to the tv coverage of the Gulf War. Let's hope the whole affair is quickly over.
    Lots of love from us all,
   John, Linda xxx

    

 

Previous blogs in this series are (1) 72, 13th November 2013; (2) 78, 27th November 2013; (3) 80, 5th December 2013; (4) 82, 17th December 2013; and (5) 85, 28th December 2013.

86. The Archaeology of a Box: (6) Mementoes of a Working Life

I find a manila folder in my box full of papers related to my work life at Auckland University. These include:

• My full length curriculum vitae dated December 1998 - over 20 pages of it!
• A two page biographical sketch dated April 1999.
• An article from The University of Auckland Research Bulletin (May 1992) titled 'Business values permeate culture' that outlines a book I was completing at that time for Greenwood Press in the USA., plus copies of their Advance Book Information and marketing material.
• Pages from the University of Auckland News (June 1994) announcing my appointment to a professorship in the Department of Management Studies and Labour Relations.
• An invite in 1995 from The New Zealand Sports Council to a luncheon at the Ellerslie Function Centre to honour the achievements of world champions Barbara Kendall, Bruce Kendall, Aaron McIntosh, Matt Brick and Rick Wells. 
• Notices for some public lectures I gave: (1) as part of the University's Winter Lecture Series in 1989; (2) at The University of the South Pacific in Suva, Fiji, in August 1996; and (3) at the Institute of United States Studies, University of London, in 1999.
• Undated Longman Professional Conference programme "Restructuring Industrial Relations. The Challenge of Industry and Enterprise Bargaining". 

Also in the folder are some brochures and programmes from courses I was involved in during my early years on the staff at Auckland University. My first appointment was as Senior Lecturer in Business Studies in the Centre for Continuing Education. As indicated in an earlier blog (blog 75, 17 November 2013), my appointment in 1972 was the first full time business appointment made by the University. Prior to that there were a variety of evening class offerings through the Centre for Continuing Education and, in the Engineering School, a part time Diploma in Business and Industrial Administration. The business lecture courses in these programmes were conducted by staff from different departments of the university (generally within the Faculty of Commerce) or by practitioners contracted in from local organisations. When the Management Studies Department was established a few years later with the appointment of Brian Henshall as Foundation Professor, I began to teach lecture courses as part of their curriculum and formally transferred to that department in 1977.

In 1974 one of the programmes I organised and participated in was an 'Introduction to Industrial Relations.' The fees were $1 per lecture. The lecturers and outline of course contents are set out in the brochure below.





When my wife Mary was diagnosed with cancer early in 1977 she inevitably soaked up a lot of her sick leave entitlement from her job as the first Head of the new Hairdressing School at the Manukau Technical Institute and we decided we would need some additional source or sources of income. Consequently we both set up small businesses that we would be involved in on a part time basis, in her case the Hair Design Studio in Otahuhu and in my case Action Learning Systems. The Studio opened at the end of October 1977 and on the same day I ran my first Action Learning Systems workshop (see blog 85). To the best of my knowledge this workshop on Developing Negotiation Skills (Industrial Relations) was the first ever offered in New Zealand on negotiation skills, though there was considerable interest at that time about how best to conduct business and trade negotiations with the Japanese (as there is now with the Chinese). A brochure for the workshop is set out below. I have no record of the fee charged.