99. Elizabeth and the Queen at Buckingham Palace: The Archaeology of a Box (10)

[For the origin of this series of posts see blog 71. The Archaeology of a Box: Introduction (15th November 2013)] 

Within my box is another...

...and within that box a video...

 

...and four photographs of my sister Elizabeth with the Queen.

The occasion is Elizabeth's 1991 investiture at Buckingham Palace with an MBE for contributions to education and welfare services in the community in Nigeria.

Also in my large box I find a small blank envelope with photos of Elizabeth, my eighty-one year old mother and my sister Ruth taken at Buckingham Palace that day.







 

The three documents below were sent to me by Elizabeth a couple of weeks ago.

Elizabeth's MBE was announced in the Honours List of Saturday 15th June 1991. Elizabeth wrote to her friends explaining her decision to accept the award. 

   

98. Brother and Sister, Worlds Apart (4): Brotherly Love

1951 Family Photo; Mum with Stuart, Dad with Ruth

[For previous blogs in this series see 75. Dead Ducklings, War Canoes, Steel Works and a Leper Settlement (17th November 2013), 92. Tiddlywinks, Happy Families and Christmas "Down the Creeks" (16th February 2014) and 95. Vera Lynn, The Rolling Stones and Scrapping for Petrol and Water in Nigeria (17th March 2014).]

Vining Centre, Akure, March 10th.'73
   I had a letter from Stuart this week - and also your letter Ma saying how upset you are at their sharing the flat in Offord Road. I can understand how you feel about it all - but I don't think that you should torture yourselves with the idea that you have failed somehow. You have faithfully brought up all of us - and done a good job of it. Whatever choices the children make we still all have the basic stability of loving caring parents - and that counts for so much these days. Maybe living here in Nigeria and seeing some of the incredible muddles that there are in family life - the number of men who live far from their wives and children - the 'girlfriends' of married men - the promiscuity among students - even in schools. All manner of things which make people become hard and cynical and uncaring. So it seems to me that a loving, caring loyal relationship between a fellow and one girl friend has the seeds of good in it, and may work out happily in the end. You said that you liked Jutka and that she was good for Stuart. It is good that they came together for Christmas at Malvern. Stuart is not hiding some nasty hussy and keeping you in the dark.
    Don't think that I don't understand your distress about the flat arrangement. I do... but yet at the same time I think we should pray that GOD will help us all to see his positive will for the future of the relationship. GOD still loves Stuart, even in the new set up... and this Jutka too. Hang on - and I think that you will see some rays of light...
    Thank GOD that Ruth is happily engaged.

57 Sunnybrae Road, Takapuna, 18th March 1973
    Thank you for your letter and the news of Stuart and Jutka. I have taken a few days to ponder over what you have written and think how best I could convey to you my feelings on the matter. What follows is written with love and with understanding of how hurt you feel by Stuart's attitude and behaviour - but may be rather cold comfort for all that.
    First, you have to accept that Stuart is an adult and his sexual morality is his own responsibility now. He has known Jutka some time and this is not a relationship he will have entered into lightly or without a good deal of soul searching. The fact that his choices in behaviour are not the choices you would have made does not mean that in some way you have failed as parents - the real achievement surely is to bring up children who can make their own choices and accept responsibility for their own behaviour, however distasteful some of those choices may be to one's own particular moral sense.
    Second, the practical reality of the situation is that there is very little you can do about it and, I believe, very little that you should do about it. Stuart and Jutka need to be allowed to work their personal relationship out in their own way. You must realise that what you may view as something rather sordid, they may well be experiencing as something both beautiful and precious. After all there are many people, both within the church and outside it, who believe that it is the quality of the love between two people that is important, rather than the nature of the legal bond. Certainly the "permissive society" has caught on among many young people but so too, amongst the more intelligent of them, has a far greater sensitiveness in personal relationships.

March 24th.'73
    Dear Ma and Daddy,
    Thank you for your letters last week. I am glad that you were able to have a long talk with Stuart about his set-up. Why doesn't he marry her?

Family 1976. Back Row: John and Pat, Trevor and Ruth, Stuart, Jutka and Stuart. Seated: Elizabeth, Dad, Mum. In Front: Sacha and Lewis.


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[Ruth and Trevor were married on 19th January 1974 and Stuart and Jutka on August 9th 1975. I have a number of comments to make on my personal experience of Mum and Dad's changing attitudes towards romance and marriage and will post them later as a comment on this blog.]

97. Rugby World Cup, Tikitere, Fairy Springs: Vignettes of Family Life in New Zealand (7) Winter 1987




[The Rotorua date should be September not May]



Point View Drive, 24th May 1987
    Dear Mum and Dad,
    Thank you for your letter of May 6th with all the  news of Dad's operation. I am glad everything is going well and you are beginning to get back to a more normal routine and looking forward to Elizabeth's visit.
    We have been having a busy time here in our university and school holidays. Linda and I went down to Rotorua and Taupo for three days and had a very relaxing time. We stayed at the THC Hotel in Wairakei for two nights - they had a special holiday offer - and we had dinner with Dawn and David, friends who live in Taupo. We played a little tennis, some indoor bowls and snooker, and also spent a lot of time relaxing in the thermal pools.
    The following weekend Harriet and Kate came back from a week with their father and have been with us until yesterday. Lewis also came to stay for a couple of days and Linda's parents came over one Sunday for lunch together with Linda's eldest sister Cheryl and her daughter, Clare, who is the same age as Harriet. Clare stayed for three nights so the three girls have been playing a lot together. Also Kate and Harriet have been going to ballet lessons in Howick each day so we have been ferrying them there and back. Linda's mum and dad leave for a ten week world trip next week - USA, England, Europe, Russia and then back to Perth, Western Australia, to stay with their youngest son, Kelly, and his wife. They are very excited by the trip which they have been saving up for for eighteen months.    

[I kept this in my box of treasures until the 2011 World Cup when I gave it to be kept for my grandson Dominic.]

On Friday Stuart, Lewis and I went to Eden Park to see the opening ceremony and first match of the World Cup Rugby tournament. A lovely game with New Zealand beating Italy 70-6. We didn't see the Scotland France game on TV yesterday but gather it was excellent and the 20-20 result still gives both sides a chance to go to the quarter finals. Today Fiji have surprised everyone by beating Argentina 28-9. The final is in Auckland on June 20th but it is already sold out so we will have to watch on TV - we are expecting the All Blacks to win! [Which they duly did beating France 29-9 in the final. It was in the Italian match that John Kirwan, the current Auckland Blues coach, scored one of the great solo tries, running about 80 metres through the whole of the Italian side - check it out on YouTube.]
    Yesterday was a lovely sunny day so we went with Kate, Harriet and Lewis to Waiwera to the hot pools and had a picnic and a swim there. We have been seeing a bit of Lewis lately since he broke his thumb in three places a few weeks ago while playing football [i.e. soccer] so now he is out of action on the sporting front. He is doing very well at school and should qualify to go to University next year altho' he may decide to go to work for a year first.
    The coup in Fiji has been in the headlines here for the last ten days. Most people here are pretty disgusted with the attitude of the outgoing government [in Fiji] to their election loss and that they have clearly backed a military takeover rather than let the new Labour government function, especially since the new government was anti-nuclear and was also threatening to expose a lot of corruption in the previous administration. It seems now that the Fijian Indians will be effectively disenfranchised. We have a lot of them as students at the university here so we are quite worried about the racial tension in Fiji.
    Lots of love from all of us here. John xx

28th June 1987
    Dear Mum, Dad and Elizabeth,
    Thanks  for telephoning on my birthday. It was good to hear you. I received a pair of pyjamas that Linda bought for me with the money you sent - very needed and very welcome. Thank you. We had some friends and their children over on the Saturday evening before my birthday and lit the big fire in the lounge and had a lovely meal and cosy evening. I'm to buy myself an electric razor when we next get to the shops.
    Lewis is back playing soccer now after his broken thumb recovered - he broke it again at karate a few weeks ago. We haven't seen Stuart for a while and he has now moved with some friends to a house at Red Beach, near Orewa just north of Auckland. He still works in the city.
    Sorry to see you have to put up with five more years of Mrs.Thatcher. There seems to be a real north-south divide in Britain now; at least the Scots made it clear what they think of her. Our election will be in August and it seems pretty certain that Labour will get back in for another three years. At present they are leading National in the public opinion polls by 26%, 61% to 35% the biggest gap in the history of polling in New Zealand so if the Nats win it will be amazing. The government has taken a lot of steps to revitalise the New Zealand economy and is also fairly popular on its non-nuclear policy. In addition the opposition is in some disarray since Mr. Muldoon, although replaced as leader after the last general election, is still more popular within the National Party than any of his successors.
    Yesterday evening Linda and I went to the Law Students Society Annual Dinner Dance at the St. Leger room at Ellerslie racecourse. Had a lovely meal and a dance and they had a woman judge as the guest speaker. All very dressy. I think it is time I bought a new suit since I haven't done so since arriving here in 1972! Earlier in the day we had been to and fro with Kate and Harriet to the ballet classes in Highland Park when they had an afternoon presentation and tea for all those who had successfully completed their Royal Academy of Ballet examinations. Today we are having a quiet time at home catching up on some study and letter writing.
    Winter has been pretty mild so far with the occasional very cold snap. But there are already narcissi and jonquils everywhere in the 'garden'. No, we haven't thought of a new name for the house yet. Harriet wants to call it 'Daylight Saving Tree House'! - she likes the light on the trees in the summer.
    Love to you all, John, Linda and families.
    xx

August 2nd 1987
    Dear Mum and Dad,
    Thank you for your letter and your best wishes on our engagement. We have tentatively set the date for Saturday December 5th but this depends on finding someone suitable to conduct a ceremony and also a place to have it. We will have a reception here afterwards and then have a couple of weeks holiday before coming back and organising for Christmas. Everyone seems very pleased for us which is nice. We thought Kate and Harriet might wonder what having a stepfather would entail - since step-parents always seem to be 'baddies' in children's stories - but they were very excited at the idea of a wedding and volunteered straightaway to be flower girls. Linda's family seem very happy for us. We spoke to her Mum and Dad on the phone at their hotel in Bloomsbury and they will be back here next weekend after staying in Perth, Western Australia with their son Kelly and his wife. It seems like they have had a great trip so we will be looking forward to hearing all about it.
    Last night we went to Stuart's place at Red Beach for his 21st birthday party. We had been over for dinner with Lewis a couple of weeks before so knew Stuart's flatmates. Linda spent most of the day cooking savouries and sweets for the party which was a very loud and noisy affair with all his many friends. He must be about 6'3" now and weighs over 13 stone so is an impressive looking fellow. Lewis was there really enjoying himself too - dancing and chatting away like we couldn't believe; he's always so quiet when he is with us. Pat dropped Lewis off but didn't stay for more than half an hour. We left and came home about 1a.m. and they were still going strong. Stuart got your card and money gift and promised me he would write and thank you but don't hold your breath! Pat gave him a microwave oven and some cooking utensils to go with it. I gave him an album of all his childhood photographs (about 120 of them) and also some money to help him with his flying lessons or his planned trip to Europe next year. He seems to be doing very well in his job but is also looking round for other opportunities.
    I have written to Sacha care/of Sweetings [her grandparents in Southall] and had a card from her in Spain saying that she was planning to stay there another month, perhaps working there too.
    I did receive your card of Holland House; thankyou very much. Also one from Stuart [my younger brother] when he was in Italy at Lake Como. And it was Orewa where we played rounders on the beach and had a meal in the family restaurant there. You have a very good memory.
    The enclosed photo was taken in May; it's the only recent one we have.
    Hope you are well and not getting too tired.
    Lots of love from all here, John, Linda and families.

Rotorua, 2nd September 1987
    Dear Mum and Dad,
    Linda, Harriet, Kate and I are just spending a few days of the school holidays in Rotorua. We came down on Sunday and go back tomorrow, Thursday. So far the weather has been good but today it is raining so we are catching up with some letter writing. We are staying in a Motel quite near the centre of the town; it's main attraction is that it has a heated swimming pool and an outdoor play area for children with swings and trampolines so it is almost as popular as the holiday attractions of Rotorua. So far we have been to the trout springs - Rainbow and Fairy Springs; a model farm where there is a show at which you can milk the cow, sit on the bull, feed the lambs, churn the butter etc; to one of the thermal areas (Tikitere or Hell's Gate); and to a maze, so we have been having lots of fun. Also taking photographs so we should have some new ones to send you soon, it being quite a long time since we had a film developed.
    Thank you for your letter of 16th August which arrived last week. Dad's health doesn't sound too brilliant so I hope you are managing O.K. and not getting too stressed. Let me know if there is anything useful I can do.
    13th Sept. I'm afraid I didn't finish this letter at Rotorua but we had a pleasant few days break and are now back to our more normal working routines. Thanks for the card from Colwall; it sounds as though you have had some good summer weather and been able to relax a bit. I don't know what happened to our winter; it seems to have largely passed us by this year so that most of the times we have had the open fire going it has been for fun rather than heat.
    Do you remember Roddy Skinner who was a student with me at L.S.E. and is Scots? Well he was here last Thursday and Friday on a business visit so we had him over for dinner and then went to lunch with him the next day. He has worked for many years now for the European Commission in Brussels - the administrative part of the EEC [European Economic Community] or Common Market. He is currently on a three year assignment to their office in Canberra, Australia and was over here as Deputy Head of a Trade Commission. His wife and son will probably be with him next time he comes since he wants to take a holiday in NZ at some stage. It was great to see him again and gossip about old pals.
    I haven't heard from Sacha in a while but gather via Pat's mother that she has gone back to Spain. She has a boyfriend there who runs a ranch and organises horsey things for tourists so that sounds like the main attraction plus the warm climate. Lewis came and stayed last weekend and we all played some tennis which was good exercise. He is studying very hard for his university bursary exams in November.
    Lots of love from us all 'down under'.
    John, Linda and the children. xxx

 

 

96. Childhood Dream - Second Childhood Toy

When I was a small boy I was very jealous of those other kids (who I assumed must be from rich families) who had pedal-cars to play in.

Now I have my own at last, mercifully without the need to pedal. Seventy years on but well worth the wait!

On Orewa Beach at Low Tide

 

 

 

 

 

95. Vera Lynn, the Rolling Stones and Scrapping for Petrol and Water in Nigeria: Brother and Sister, Worlds Apart (3)

 

[This blog is a follow on from blogs 75. Dead Ducklings, War Canoes, Steel Works and a Leper Settlement (17th November 2013) and 92. Tiddlywinks, Happy Families and Christmas "Down the Creeks" (16th February 2014). For the origin of these letters see blog 30. Love, Death and Letters from My Mother's Hut (4th February 2012). The protocol followed in editing these letters is as before: mine are in the present typeface (Times) and Elizabeth's in Courier. Any present glossary on the events reported, or reflection on the memories that they trigger, is in italics.]

I want to clarify what I was doing in Akure beginning in 1972 - I was employed by the Church Missionary Society (C.M.S.) to teach at Vining Christian Leadership Centre (VCLC) which was originally founded as the Akure Training Centre in 1918 to train the wives of Christian teachers and church workers. In the 1970s it had become a training centre for catechists in the Anglican Church of Nigeria. The men students did a 2 year course and were encouraged to bring their wife and youngest child to be with them, living on the compound for their 2^nd year. So it was a small outfit with about 60 men who had not been to Secondary School and maybe a dozen women, who might have been to Primary School, with babies or toddlers.  The Principal was Rev Cornelius Olowomeye. He lived with his wife and family in the bungalow opposite mine. The Men’s Warden was Rev Matthew Owadayo (who later became a Bishop) and I was the Women’s Warden. I shared the women’s classes with Mama Ademoye, the Matron.
    This was completely new work for me because I was for 7 years previously the graduate geography teacher and the Vice Principal in St Monica’s Girl’s Grammar School in Ondo about 30 miles away. There were 2 Anglican secondary schools in Akure: Oyemekan G.Sch for boys and Fiwasaiye G.Sch headed by Jane Pelly and staffed with other expat teachers like Ann who came with me to Oporoma.
    My letters at the beginning of 1973 are written when I returned to Akure after spending Christmas in the creeks (see blog 92). 

31st December 1972

   Dear Ma and Daddy,

   The whole time between Christmas and New Year seems to be holiday and the shortage of petrol is getting worse. Here in Akure petrol has gone onto the black market as far as I can see. You have to pay more per gallon and also pay the Manager of the Petrol Station before he will give you any. So transport costs are rising very quckly. It now costs  £1.5.0 to go to Ibadan whereas before it cost 12/6p.

   On the road back from the creeks Ann and I visited the girl's grammar school in Asaba and the Principal there told us that Archdeacon Echenin has been 'demoted' from being Archdeacon by the Bishop. It seems to me that the Bishop of Benin is a bit round the bend for he has been acting very strangely - excommunicating the archdeacon at Ekpoma, and also a number of keen Christians in Benin who were accused of 'forming their own church' with Pentecostal leanings. The case of Arch. Echenin is a great tragedy. The incredible thing is that it was based on the fact that the Asaba G.G.S. girls didn't have a certain booklet, that the Bishop has written, at their confirmation service. So the bishop refused to confirm them - and sent them out in the middle of the service! Arch. Echenin protested and the Bishop turned on him and shouted at him - also in the middle of the Church. The next day the Bishop wrote a letter to say that Charles Ethenin was to be demoted - to be the Superintendent of the District with a drop in salary etc... and that all the furniture that belonged to the Archdeacon of Asaba would be removed from his house!!

   Today I was supposed to be going to Rev. Owadayo's father's memorial service - but I decided at the last moment not to go. It was going to be a 3 hours journey in the college van to get there - and 3 hours back again. I have had enough of driving in the last few days... anyway I don't enjoy these long services and great gatherings of expensively dressed people getting themselves in debt...just to keep up with the Jones's. So I went back to bed and slept till 10am. My ducks are laying eggs again! Happy New Year!  We have decided to wait up till 11pm. and see the British new year in!! With love, Elizabeth

 

7th January 1973

   ...it has been very hot this week. I haven't any gas yet - so food has not been very inspired with just a Kerosene stove - and now

today, Sunday, when Tokunbo is off duty they have turned off the water!! However, we are managing.

 

January 13th 1973

   This weekend the Anglican Youth Fellowship of Nigeria have their National Conference here in Akure. All their plans and organisation for it have been put a bit out of joint because they had hoped to use Oyemekan School in the absence of the pupils - but all the students are there - and so they are having to distribute their 400 or so delegates all round town and arrange cooking of food outside the school - and then bringing it in for each meal. General chaos ensues and the few stalwart helpers are running round in circles. We have some delegates in our dormitories - and Mama Ademoye and our 2 cooks are making breakfast each morning. I find it a bit miserable in that for such an event men do all the organising - and a European woman is not much use in a Yoruba kitchen. Anyway I am not a 'member' and only a visitor - but they could save themselves a lot of panic stricken running to and fro if they did a bit more advanced planning in detail it seems to me. Term starts on Friday. I hope that you are all well. With much love, Elizabeth.

 20th January 1973
    Dear Mum and Dad.
    Now we are six! The latest addition is a ten-week old kitten called Blackie who we took over this week from some neighbours. Their cat is having more kittens and lost interest in the earlier litter. So we have taken one – already house-trained and quite placid.



Lewis and Blackie

     Thank you for your letters, all the postcards for the children and the copy of Elizabeth's Christmas letter. We were sorry to hear the post to Nigeria was somewhat unreliable and hope her Christmas parcel arrives in due course.
    Thank you too for looking in at Lower Tail. We understand from our friend who is handling the sale that everything is under control. He has a buyer and contracts should be exchanged early in February, the agreed price being £16,750. Provided this all goes through fairly smoothly we should have no difficulty in settling our purchase here on time.
    The weather has been marvellous so far in January with only two rainy days and temperatures around 75 degrees most days. Today, Saturday, we are going to the North Shore Mardi Gras which is a show and includes sheepdog trials and wood-cutting competitions as well as the usual sort of carnival cum fair activities. There is a pleasant breeze so it shouldn’t be too hot. Next weekend is Anniversary Weekend so the Monday is a bank holiday – it is the big yachting/boating/regatta weekend of the year, Auckland apparently having the biggest small boat harbour in the world.
    All the normal English summer activities are going on here with the same personnel – Yvonne Goolagong won the NZ Open Tennis last week, Tony Jacklin has been here playing golf, the NZ Grand Prix was held a fortnight ago, the Pakistan cricketers have just arrived and Vera Lynn is here to sing in two concerts! Next month the Rolling Stones have a big concert in Auckland and two weeks ago there was a big open-air pop festival like the Isle of Wight ones. It all seems very familiar.
    I have now joined the local cricket club and hope to have a game in a week or two. The season ends about April 1st.
    Lots of love from us all,
    Pat, John and family.

Jan.20th 1973
   Dear Ma and Daddy,
   Thankyou for your letter of Jan 7th received last Wednesday. Our Post Office is still slow to sort - I think that it is a combination of a lack of petrol and a multitude of public holidays. Every weekend since Christmas has had a public holiday on the Monday - first the New Year, then a Moslem Festival and now tomorrow there is a special holiday to celebrate Nigeria coming second to Eqypt in the All-Africa Games!!
   There is not a lot to report this week - I won at scrabble on Tuesday night - have made progress with my knitting - our clerk is sick - and the Driver has been given his holiday now just when we all need him! Our staff meeting took 3 hours. Cornelius is very slow... and nothing is planned before the event. It can be very annoying. Sheila and Ann are coming for lunch - I am going to fry chicken... and make blackberry mousse... I hope!!

Jan 29th '73
   This week we had a bit of a 'do'. The women always go out to Women's Guild meetings on Tuesdays and usually the driver drives them in the van, but this week he is on holiday. There is a student who drives the bus often called Asojo. So I asked him to drive and then I went to Cornelius to ask if that would be O.K and at first he was asleep and then he was out - so I found the key and gave it to the student. He took the women and Mama Ademoye to the Leper Settlement and returned after Cornelius, Owadayo and I were in Chapel. Cornelius went out of chapel and without consulting any of us he told Asojo that he was suspended for 2 weeks for using the bus without permission. Then in a great rage he went off to tell the Archdeacon what he had done. You can imagine that when we came out of chapel and found the student saying he was to be suspended - I was upset because I had asked him to go and Owadayo was furious because he is the 'Men's Warden' and felt strongly that Cornelius had no business to suspend the man without consulting him. And really Cornelius was very stupid to suspend like that when he never checked up the circumstances. Anyway when he had cooled down and I explained that I had sent Asojo and Owadayo had been to the Archdeacon and the Archdeacon had phoned Cornelius he decided to climb down and the student was pardoned.
   Today I was woken at 5.30 a.m by an Urhobo student and his wife, who has just come here, "My wife has pain in her stomach." "What sort of pain?" says I. "She always has this type of pain before she sees her 'time'" (ie period). At 5.30 a.m!! I gave her a bit of my mind - and then 2 aspirin. Really, they are the limit.
   Our latest difficulty here is that there is no water. There has been no rain for a good long time so suddenly all the water is finished. I have some in my bath, and it seems to run in the taps in the night some days. We have a couple of rain water tanks on the compound so we can use these but if 'no water' continues for long we shall be in a pickle - and so will the schools - and even more so the hospital.
  
Feb. 4th 1973
   Cornelius is still busy taking decisions on his own without consulting Owadayo, the Men's Warden. This week he sent all the 2nd year students away to bring some money which they owed on some jerseys. So Owadayo discovers that all his 2nd yr students have gone away without his knowledge!!
   Our greatest trouble this week is lack of water. Suddenly Akure is completely without water in the taps. No previous instructions were given about economy so everyone is taken by surprise. So now we send people to the hospital and the doctor prescribes 'Mist Aspirin' or something - but the Dispensary can't supply - No water! If you go to the lab for a test you are asked to bring a bucket of water! In fact we are quite fortunate here because there is water in a large water tank on the compound, and yesterday we had a tanker which filled 2 other smaller tanks. But others are not so well off. Jane Pelly has very little water on her school compound - and the tanker hasn't reached her yet. It seems that they only have one tanker for the whole town! And if it stops in the street then there is a fight for the water.
   They say that this is the first time that the River Owena has failed to supply Ondo and Akure. Part of the reason is a very long time since we had rain - but also they have now started a new water scheme at Igbara-Oke and taken the water from the same River Owena - further up! So the water doesn't get to the water-works!
   On Monday night I had a hospital adventure because Tokunbo (my cook) brought his baby to me at 10.30pm breathing like a steam engine - obviously with bronchial-pneumonia. So we took her to the hospital and she was admitted with her mother. They all said it was 'serious' - she was put onto crystalline penicillin - but there is none in the hospital. So Tokunbo and I had to drive up and down the streets of Akure looking for a Chemist shop which was open. There was none - obviously at 11pm. So we returned to the hospital - and they arranged a swap whereby we used someone else's medicine and then promised to go and buy our own in the morning. Anyway by the next day Toyin the baby had responded well and the breathing was much better, She was kept in 3 days and is now home again.

4th February 1973
    Dear Mum and Dad,
    Thank you for your letter of Jan 29th. We were glad to hear everyone is wintering well - we heard from Elizabeth a little while back and she sounded in good form. We hadn't seen anything in the papers here about any flu epidemic in Britain - most of the news has been about the Vietnam cease fire (NZ had troops in Vietnam earlier in the war), about opposition to the French Bomb tests in the Pacific and to the possibility of a Springbok rugby tour during the coming winter. There has also been coverage of Mr Heath's latest measures to combat inflation and of the continued opposition of the T.U.C. (Trades Union Congress) to his policies.
    The children are all very well at the moment - Lewis' skin has cleared up fine. Yesterday Pat took them to the beach while I was playing cricket. It was a beautiful day at the sea with the temperature at c.75 degrees and a pleasant sea breeze but it was too hot for cricket! The weather has been really lovely most of January and the children look very fit. Stuart and Sacha go back to school on Tuesday February 6th so holidays are finished. Last weekend was the big Anniversary Day yachting regatta on Auckland Harbour, the Monday being the Bank Holiday and the unofficial end to the Christmas holiday period.
    We have been having 'bug' trouble since we last wrote. First the kitten got fleas and had to be powdered. And then we found some sort of maggot in the corner of the carpet which it transpired stemmed from the fleas getting onto food scraps and other garbage in the kitchen. They are all cleared up now but there is quite a variety of insect life - all of it harmless; there are cicadas which look like fat locusts, crickets which the kitten chases and then eats, plenty of moths and an odd looking black beetle which can jump!
    The university has come to life again since Anniversary Day and we have been busy dealing with applications and enrolments for our courses and with preparing lecture material. Term starts in three weeks time. The government here has recently announced its decision to postpone the building of a new university at Albany (about 8-10 miles north of Auckland) for at least a year so if it does eventually get built it will not be finished before 1977. Auckland University already has a student intake of 10,000 and is overcrowded and the city itself (present pop. 750,000) is expected to be over the 1million mark within 5 years; as you can imagine the government's decision is not approved of in university circles.
    If you do go to NZ house you can buy a street-map of Auckland in Whitcombe and Tombs, the bookshop in Royal Opera Arcade at the back of  NZ house. Love from us all, John, Pat, Stuart, Sacha and Lewis.

Feb.11th.'73
    Dear Ma and Daddy,...
    Our main news here is still lack of water and lack of rain.. The student men are going out each morning and head loading water in buckets. There is a well in the Army barracks next door. It is all a game. Some people are up all night getting water from springs or streams because there are such crowds and queues in the day time.
    We have the Magic Flute blaring here - gorgeous. Sue is drying her hair in the bedroom with the hair dryer. Miss Browning is sitting outside in a basket chair. The women students are in the kitchen. The men are off at Sunday Schools and preaching engagements.

February 18th
    Our main concern this week has still been water. We now send the bus out to a village 8 miles away where there is a tap. They go out withoil drums and other containers and bring back drinking water. Most of the washing water has to be head loaded from the local stream or from the army camp next door.

    I escaped off the compound on Saturday morning and went with Inga and Susanne to the hot springs at Ikogosi. There is plenty of water there - the swimming pool is full and the river is running as usual. We had a great time - swimming then washing ourselves, our hair and our cars in the river below the pool. We stayed the night in one of the 'Cabins' at the Baptist Camp.

Feb.19th. 8.15pm
    Dear All,
    It certainly did rain!! I went to Chapel at 6pm and the sky was black. It was obviously brewing, but I have never experienced such a storm. Perhaps we have been praying too hard!
    We were in the Chapel, which has a wide overhang of the roof but no windows on the sides. The rain drove right in - and the students kept shifting their places. The lights went out. The bush lamps were lit, but the wind blew them out. So we ended fairly promptly and all stood together in the only dry place - up beside the altar. The wind was terrific - and the lashing rain combined with lightning and thunder was awe-inspiring.
    Thump! and a tree was down over the drive - uprooted.
    Then the rain ceased and we went out to discover the electricity wires down all over the compound - several trees and branches scattered all over the place.. but no damage to buildings mercifully. The telephone was off so I went to ask E.C.N (Electric Company of Nigeria)to disconnect our electricity. There was chaos in the town with trees and wires down and in one place I saw some roofing pan hanging on the telephone wire like washing on a line.
    In my house Tokunbo had shut the windows - louvre type - but despite that the rain had got in and flooded all over the floor in the living room and in the spare bedroom. That's how your letter got so speckled with rain.
    Incredible business. But good in that the temperature has promptly dropped by 10 degrees at least and is now a cool 76 degrees Fahrenheit. And the water tank at the back of Ruth's house is 3/4 full of water. Our drought has ended with a bang!
    With love, Elizabeth

Feb.25th '73
    After our storm last Monday everyone on the compound became very concerned about cutting down trees that were near the houses in case we should have another storm. So on Tuesday we employed a woodcutter with an electric saw who said that he knew the job perfectly! We all stood and watched while he cut a tree near my house. Lo and behold it fell toward the house a with a great thump and the top branches hit the roof and broke some of the asbestos sheets and the timbers at the end!!! So we all decided to try a different woodcutter for cutting the other trees on the compound. Mercifully he knew the job and about 6 trees are now sprawled around the place without any further mishap.
   Temperatures here are still well in the 90s by day and don't fall much below 80 at night - so I was very happy yesterday to receive a gift of a super fan from the Herringtons. It was very kind of them - and came at just the right time. So now I can sit happily with the air blowing about. I even went to bed with it on last night.

 3rd March 1973.
    ... We see a lot in the papers here about strikes in Britain - the civil servants, the train drivers, the gasmen etc - and about rising prices. I don't suppose things are as bad as the press paints them.
    Stuart and Sacha have settled down very well at Sunnybrae School. It is an infants and juniors school and takes children up to the age of 11. After that they do two years of intermediate schooling before entering secondary schools a the age of 13. The infants are called primers and the juniors are called standards. Sacha is in Primer 2 class and Stuart is Primer 4/Standard1. Sunnybrae is a 'normal' school which means it is specially designed for training of student teachers - some days there seems to be one student teacher for every child. The school has a swimming pool (paid for by loans from the parents) and they both go swimming 3 times a week which is just as well since this has been the driest February since 1909 and it has been lovely and sunny just about every day for over a month, but not too hot.
    Lewis started playgroup yesterday. The play centres here are controlled by a Play Centre Association and they are remarkably well equipped and efficiently run on a voluntary basis. All the parents have to take an active part in the financing and organising of the Centre so it is a good way to get to know other people around with small children. Three different groups of children use the centre each week. Lewis goes on Tuesday and Thursday mornings and Friday afternoons. He seems very happy with it although he has had a tummy upset this week and has been off his food.
    At the moment I have a very light teaching load at the university (evenings only) but there will be more concentrated sessions during the winter. Both Pat and I have also enrolled for some evening classes at Northcote College - Pat to do Maori Arts and Crafts and me to do Woodcarving! So between us we are out every evening of the week except Fridays.
    Our financial affairs have still not sorted themselves out as the original buyer of 17 Lower Tail did not go through with it and so most of our money is still tied up in England. When it is all settled, which could be some months yet, we will get round to sorting out some arrangements for birthday presents etc.
    Glad to hear Liz would be home this year.
    Love to all. Pat John and the children.

 

94. Napoleon Buonaparte, Joey the Clown and a Chariot for Sale - All in the Day's News: The Archaeology of a Box (9)

 

 

Among the treasures in my box I find a facsimile of The Times dated Thursday, June 22nd, 1815 (price 6pence ha'penny). I have no idea now of how or why I acquired this.

For me the distinctive feature of The Times in my youth was the small ads that filled the front and back pages, replaced since 3 May 1966 by conventional news stories.

The big news story of June 22nd 1815 was the defeat of Napoleon's army at the Battle of Waterloo.

 

I have always loved reading the small ads in newspapers as they usually turn up some items of curiosity. For example, when in Hawaii in 1985, I noted these down:

• Become legally ordained minister. Credentials sent for $3 offering. Mother Earth Church.
• Divorce $25.
• [On a T-shirt] Property of 3 Mile Island Nuclear Plant. Glows in the dark.
• [A picture of Uncle Sam and the text] Join the Army. Travel to exotic distant lands; meet exciting, unusual people and kill them.
• Australia – New Zealand. 50,000 jobs. Top pay. All occupations. Free transportation.
• Women Too Expensive? Stop Dating Ripoffs! Free details.
• Avoid Death and Holocaust. Free! Cassette tape, no obligation.

This 1815 edition of The Times doesn't disappoint. Along with the apartments to rent, the houses to buy, the jobs to be filled, the businesses to be traded or wound up, the notices of sermons and meetings, the horses, ponies and cows for sale, there's a yellow chariot at 150 guineas.

 

And there's some novel entertainment:

At the Freemasons' Tavern in Lincoln's Inn Fields, William Wilberforce MP, President of the African and Asiatic Society, is to preside over the Society's Anniversary Dinner.

 William Wilberforce was a key player in the long running parliamentary campaign to abolish the slave trade. Finally in 1807 the Abolition of the Slave Trade Act abolished the slave trade in the British colonies. But although the trading in slaves was now illegal, slavery itself was not. It was not until 1833 that the Abolition of Slavery Act passed its third reading in the House of Commons. Wilberforce died three days later.

 

So What's On? in London theatres in June 1815.

 

 

At the Theatre Royal, Drury Lane, Edmund Kean (1767-1832) stars in Rule a Wife and Have a Wife, a Jacobean comedy by John Fletcher. In 1814 Drury Lane Theatre was on the verge of bankruptcy and so employed Kean, England's leading Shakespearean actor. He opened as Shylock in The Merchant of Venice to huge audiences and followed up with the lead parts in Richard III, Hamlet, Othello, Macbeth and King Lear.

 

At the Theatre Royal, Covent Garden this evening Miss O'Neill plays the title role in Isabella or, the Fatal Marriage by the English actor, playwright and theatre manager David Garrick (1717-1779). Elizabeth O'Neill (1791-1872) was an Irish actress who, after causing a sensation in Dublin was employed by Covent Garden and made her debut there in 1814 as Juliet.

On Friday June 30th a special benefit show of opera, farce and 'other entertainments' will take place for Mr Brandon, the Covent Garden's box office manager and treasurer. The comic opera The Duenna, whose lyrics were written by Richard Sheridan (1751-1815), playwright and long-term owner of the Theatre Royal, Drury Lane, was described by Byron as the 'best opera ever'.

At the Royal Amphitheatre (Astley's) a variety show featuring, among other things, a real horse race and a real fox chace. Astley's in Westminster Bridge Road was the home of the circus.

At Sadler's Wells a dance, a comic song, a melodrama and a pantomime with the Clown of Clowns, Mr Grimaldi. Joseph Grimaldi (1778-1820), actor, comedian and dancer, was the most popular entertainer of the Regency period (1811-1820). He is buried in Joseph Grimaldi Park in Islington and each year on the first Sunday in February there is a memorial service for him. Clowns attend in their full costumes to take part in the service and then put on a show for the local community.

 

 

At Vauxhall, under the patronage of the Prince Regent, a Grand Gala and Fireworks Display. Vauxhall Pleasure Gardens was London's leading venue for public entertainment and attracted enormous crowds drawn from all walks of society. Each evening at dusk a thousand oil lamps would be lit so that festivities could continue into the night. In 1817 the Battle of Waterloo was re-enacted there with a thousand soldiers participating. Here is Thackeray's description in Vanity Fair of  'all the delights of the Gardens':

the hundred thousand extra lamps, which were always lighted; the fiddlers in cocked hats, who played ravishing melodies under the gilded cockle-shell in the midst of the Gardens; the singers, both of comic and sentimental ballads, who charmed the ears there; the country dances, formed by bouncing cockneys and cockneyesses, and executed amidst jumping, thumping and laughter; the signal which announced that Madame Saqui was about to mount skyward on a slack-rope ascending to the stars; the hermit that always sat in the illuminated hermitage; the dark walks, so favourable to the interviews of young lovers; the pots of stout handed about by the people in the shabby old liveries; and the twinkling boxes, in which the happy feasters made-believe to eat slices of almost invisible ham...

 

 

 

 

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93. A Wedding in Luxembourg.

Note:
This blog is the sequel to blog 19, 'In London, In Love' (27th December 2011). The italicised text below is taken from the tape recordings made by Mary on our trip to the USA and Europe in 1981-82. The non-italicised text records some of my memories of Mary triggered by listening to her tape of a wedding we went to in Luxembourg in December 1981. Other blogs that include memories of  this trip are 5, 'Mogg's Bakery and Jack Blandiver's Clock' (5th November 2011) and 38, 'Here Comes the Can-Can. Oh, shit the tape's running out' (7th March 2012). See also blogs 15, 'Mr Oliphant's Tears' (5th November 2011) and 37, 'One Wedding, Two Funerals, Three Letters, Thirty Years' (2nd March 2012).

"It’s now Friday the eleventh. We’re still at Heathrow Airport although we did go back to John’s brother’s to sleep last night. We were all day getting from there to the airport, hanging around, and back again, and we’ve been up since six o’clock and we’re back at the airport. It’s now quarter to one. We’re hoping the Luxembourg flight will get off about two o’clock. Jan’s wedding is at six and the reception at seven. We weren’t going to go but she was so disappointed when we rang her last night that we’ve decided to make the effort and see if we can get there, but everyone at the airport’s looking pretty tired, the Christmas trees are beginning to look a bit sad and the snow is still falling down everywhere – it’s about six or seven inches deep out on the runways…

We’re in the Luxembourg aircraft now, waiting for take-off, and they’re spraying antifreeze all over the plane. It’s running down the windows like detergent suds. Meanwhile the snow is really thick and still coming down outside. It’s going to be quite an experience to take off in it.

I wish Anita and Neal could see this take off; they’d be absolutely having a heart attack. It looks like we’re going to make the wedding after all. It’s two o’clock and the wedding’s not until four and the flight will be an hour… no, the wedding’s not until six, we’ve got plenty of time. We’ll get there at what time?"

"Should be four, local time."

“Be there at four o’clock.

The runway’s absolutely covered in ice. We’re just taxiing out for our take off, piles of snow on the side of the runway where the tractor’s piled it all up. The snow’s still falling very heavily, it’s amazing we’re getting off the ground at all. There’s planes and trucks and passenger gear and walk-on things all absolutely covered in snow all over the place. The snow’s piled four or five feet deep in big piles on the side of the runway, it’s really quite scary. The snowplough’s shifting the snow on the runway, it’s going at least thirty miles an hour, really moving. One plane just landed in a cloud of snow. It looked like it was exploding.

Well, we’re taking off at last. What a terrifying experience. Still snowing. Runway’s all icy. S’posed to have an ace pilot, a grade two according to a lady at the airport, one of the best in the business. Well, the wheels are off, we’re up. Can’t see a thing. Snowing. I want to see what it’s like going through the clouds when it’s snowing. God, it’s white down there. Can see the ground, it’s absolutely amazing. There’s roads and outlines of houses and a few bits of traffic moving around and it’s, it’s just like someone’s emptied a flour bag over the whole place. I thought snow clouds would be thick and icy but they seem to be just the same…"

I’ve always preferred train travel to air travel, the relaxed pace of it. Gazing out at the passing landscape through the windows of a train has a sad but beautiful melancholy about it, like watching a sunset. But all forms of travel provide an opportunity for reflection, for looking back and planning ahead.

How would I describe Mary? In all my letters to Mum and Dad over the years, I don’t think I ever describe her to them. What could I tell them I wonder? The conventional physical things? Five feet four, curly headed blue eyed blonde (well, hairdressers’ blonde anyway), strong fingers from all that shampooing, the slightly overweight figure of someone who enjoys food and life and is not obsessed by fitness – round and cuddly isn’t it that Pat writes to Mum and Dad when she and I separate?

Perhaps I will describe the bumps on Mary’s head, as the phrenologists do in their search for character types. Has a round head so is at ease with strangers, makes friends readily and is naturally suited to sales work.

Or I will describe Mary in the conventions of a lovesick swain, some lunatic Don Quixote in thrall to his divine Esmerelda (or was that his horse?) or Launcelot singing the praises of the mystical Guinevere – the softness of her lips, the caress of her smile, the sparkling laughter in her eyes, the peaches and cream complexion. But none of that captures Mary.

I could tell them how glamorous she looks dressed to kill in her gold lamé evening jacket, how professional in her two piece cream business suit, how homely in her pale blue smock and faded jeans, or describe how sweet and serene and vulnerable she looks asleep at night with, in the words of Air Supply, her hair upon the pillow like a sleepy golden dawn, or is it a sleepy golden storm - something like that – or is that from one of our favourite Roberta Flack songs?

But that won’t capture Mary either. I need to be a poet to convey the warmth of her personality and her infectious gaiety in spite of all the dramas of her past – even the broken nose, an inheritance of her disastrous short-lived marriage, is, in my eyes, as cute as cute. But all that does is tell them how much I love her and nothing about herself.

"Landing in Luxembourg. It’s still snowing. There’s a lot of trees around the place but the snow doesn’t look as thick as at Heathrow. About an inch thick here, but it’s foggy and very dark. Hope there’s someone to meet us because we haven’t got any money…

I’m whispering because we’re in the church in Luxembourg waiting for Jan and Nico to come back from their civil ceremony, which they have before the church wedding. The clocks advanced an hour so we weren’t as early as we thought. We caught Jan on the phone just as she was going out to the civil ceremony, so all she could do was send the wedding car for us, a big Mercedes, which was hilarious because it was all decorated with white ribbon. The chauffeur, Benny, was like a character from a Walt Disney film. He had actually been a circus performer and was only about four feet six high, greyish hair and very quick moving, like a little elf around the place. We pulled in for some petrol on the way and the garage attendants congratulated John and I, thinking we’d just married! We barely had time to change, race out and get to the church.

Jan has arrived. She’s wearing a white lace top and a black skirt and a bowler hat that’s silver sequins, with a grey velvet sort of bowler edge on it and an apricot flower at the back…"

I could tell them she is a Taurus with a ruling planet in Venus, the goddess of love, and if they believe in that astrological stuff, which I know they don’t – well, how could they? – it might give them some clues to her personality – earthy, dependable, compassionate, enjoying every moment to the full, loving luxury and the creature comforts of life – jewellery, fur coats, cooking and eating and dinner parties and buying expensive beautiful things for the home, soft cushions and floral chintzes and solid rosewood furniture and flowers everywhere (in Sydney we filled our hotel room with roses) and a mulled claret with chocolate gateau in front of a cosy log fire – and (I particularly like this bit about Taureans) – cherishing and nourishing and spoiling her partner with grand romantic gestures and unexpected little tokens of affection. But that, true as it all is, won’t capture the essence of Mary either.

"I’m recording over some of the wedding ceremony stuff because the voice isn’t easy to hear and you can’t hear the service.

The church was very big, magnificent windows, really modern sculptures of bronze and brass, beautiful Madonnas and saints all round the place. It was a Catholic service and the priest celebrated mass. None of the guests seemed to know quite what to do. When Jan arrived we all walked up the aisle behind her, which was a bit tricky. She told me afterwards that she thought everyone would have been seated.

I could tell of Mary's family. Fred, her gruff kiwi jack-of-all-trades Dad, who she loves dearly and who is miffed that, now I am the new man in Mary’s life, he has to do his weekly grocery shop on his own. Her elder sister Anita, co-conspirator in many of Mary’s business ventures, the red haired party girl who, in her mid thirties, marries Neal, her flying instructor, and now, on the cusp of her fertility, is desperate not to miscarry yet again. Chrissie, her mentally ailing mother, who trains her teenage girls in the family salon in Shirley Road (though Mary really wants to be a florist) and, as children, makes them sit in the car in their underwear in case they spoil their dresses on their way to visit family friends. John, Mary’s son, apprenticed as a motor mechanic, who flats round the corner with his trainee seamstress girlfriend Lynette and sits outside the Big I on his motor bike whenever his mum goes for a drink with a strange man. And that might tell them something more of the Mary I love.

"The wedding reception was held at the Airport Hotel. The most magnificent spread of food was put on. All the guests had soup and then there was a buffet, then sweets with liqueur ice-cream, fresh fruit salad, oh, there was chocolate mousse, and then a special sort of very thick coffee and liqueurs. And plates of bonbons, biscuits and chocolates came round, then a whole lot of cigars, more wine, more drinks, schnapps, kirsch and some fancy cocktail, not kirsch but tasted like kirsch, which was very powerful stuff. The guests got quite hysterical, everyone jabbering in their different languages, and somebody took Jan’s shoe and auctioned it off. Apparently it’s an old custom where the groom has to match the highest bid to prove his love for his bride, but some of the English community that were there got a bit carried away and were frightfully boozed, and one guy started auctioning off his wife’s shoe as well, and then went round the room collecting shoes from all the women and auctioning them off. Sort of killed the main purpose of the thing but it was so hysterically funny that we had to laugh. We did manage to change some money at the airport, we needed some for the phone, but we had no idea of the value of it. At the church a collection plate went around which was a bit tricky, again because we didn’t know what the money was worth. I think we put in a bill that was worth about four dollars or something - there wasn’t much else we could do - but we daren’t bid for the shoe because we wouldn’t have had a clue what it was going up to, but the next day when they left for their honeymoon we met them at the hotel and had about an hour together. Jan had a big roll of notes from the shoe auction tucked in her purse and was going to spend that in Morocco where they went for their honeymoon."

Or I can tell stories about Mary, little vignettes that seek to encapsulate her personality. I can tell how warm and precious I feel when she puts her arm in mine and cajoles me, ever so sweetly, into yet another dress shop. I can tell how funny she is when she throws a tantrum and lies on the floor kicking her heels in the air and banging her fists on our new Persian rug because the parsimonious Scotsman in me growls at her for being so extravagant. I can tell about chicken bones thrown in restaurants and her abuse of doctors. I could tell them what fun Mary is in bed but will spare their blushes, though God knows these days we seem to have moved from phrenology, graphology, iridology, and astrology to gynaecology in our search for the keys to character, as though the clues to personality lay in the revelations of the orgasm or the excavation of the g-spot. But I hardly think to capture Mary there, she who used to think that cunnilingus was a cough syrup and conceived John the very first time she made love.

"At the wedding reception everyone was really excited, talking away and happy, and the hotel owner, Pirot someone or other, turned up with a whole lot of hats. He had an African safari hat and a Mexican - black embroidered in silver, a gigantic one, and a bowler and a whole lot of other hats. Then everybody started dancing. Thought my whole life had changed actually, I got dragged up onto the floor. We did a whole lot of sort of Greek dances where everyone just hangs on, runs around in a circle jumping up and down, and then a conga all the way through the room, and up and down the stairs.

The Luxembourgers were very elegantly dressed, simple sort of restaurant style. I thought perhaps the others had overdone it a bit. Jan’s mother and sister were there. Her mother had a brown velvet long skirt on and an elaborate blouse and sort of bolero, long bolero, and she had a wig on and on top of that was perched a funny little hat with a big rose on the top like a pompom. Her sister looked very nice though. She had, again, a long dress with a silky blouse. I wore a leather skirt and bolero I bought in London, and it was just about the right weight because it was so cold in the church, you just couldn’t have had anything light on. I’d planned to wear the same dress I’d worn to John junior’s wedding but that was completely out of the question. I wore boots, although a lot of the women wore very elegant shoes I noticed, particularly with the shoe auction going on. There’s no way they could have taken mine because I couldn’t have hauled a boot off my foot.

I can tell of Mary’s robustness in the face of adversity and how she bounces back from the disappointments of the men in her life, not least the wayward unreliable son John with his good looks and bad behaviour so reminiscent of his sad father, Mary’s ballroom dancing partner (they were New Zealand Champions) and first love, whose parents connive at the marriage of two teenagers, failing to disclose Nigel’s history of mental instability and forestall a pattern of abusive behaviour that precipitates Mary with three month old John home to mum and dad and seven years of celibacy.

Or her humiliation by Roy the Mormon who, when Mary finds him in bed with another woman, gaily informs her that he and Mary have no future together anyway because he’s looking for a wife who can go to the Celestial Kingdom with him, whereas she, in her sinfulness, will never progress beyond the Terrestrial Kingdom and will be lucky to be redeemed from the devil at the last resurrection.

Or her humiliation of the randy Henry, the Education Department official from Wellington that she dines with on his periodic forays to Auckland and who harasses her constantly until, in exasperation, she finally undresses in his hotel bedroom, lies naked on the bed watching him take off his clothes and inquires, on inspecting the apparatus, “Is that it, then?” thereby deflating his amorous intentions and extinguishing his dinner invitations for all time.

Or her disappointment in Ross, who fails to tell her of the wife back home in America yet does have the grace, on returning to his loveless marriage, to send her a copy of Sonnets from the Portuguese ‘with much love from a special friend.’

I can tell of the tender way she off-loads a motley array of boyfriends after I move in with her, watching their disappointment in smug amusement, and of the gay hairdresser ‘Gerald of London’ who, in a desperate bid to conserve their platonic friendship, arrives on the doorstep late at night considerably the worse for wear and asks Mary to marry him.

"During the dancing I teased Jan and threatened to make an announcement to everybody that she was ex New Zealand ballroom dancing queen and she’d had a lot of training. The dancing was so funny, so weird. A cross between a continental mountain goat dance and a, ah, Greek traditional. Jan was posing, she had this great big Mexican hat on, and I kept dashing up to her saying ‘You can tell you’ve had training, you can tell you’ve had dancing training, let me tell everyone just how famous you are back in the old country,’ and she was going hysterical thinking that I was about to make a big announcement. Here she is. I recorded this bit at the reception.”

“Neeta, look I can’t believe it Neeta. Do you know the trouble your scungy sister caused us? Well, we had to end up, to tell the truth we had to end up sending our wedding car to pick her up from the airport, and we had to take the best man’s car to the commune, where we had the civil ceremony, and to the church afterwards. Now, I shouldn’t say you won’t believe it because I know you will. She arrives at the church in our wedding car and we were around at the back in the sacristy with the priest, trying to sneak in the front so no one can see us getting out of a beat up old car."

"And I looked the best, everyone thought I was the bride. I totally upstaged her. But then you know her dress sense. She looked a fright. Like her mother dressed her. You didn’t really. You looked lovely. It was a lovely wedding. I didn’t say anything wrong in church and I didn’t sing anything wrong and I knelt at all the right times. I tried not to disgrace you.”“

"Neeta, I never heard her say anything at all. Oh, I have to dance, dear, I’ll talk to you later."

Or I could tell of her tarot character, the Queen of Wands, her Earth Mother signifier, the magnetic friendly self-made woman, enterprising and creative, who draws immense confidence, satisfaction and security from her business and professional achievements and recognition – though she isn’t too happy to be described as ‘The Mother of New Zealand Hairdressing’ at a function to honour her - and who is sought out by her myriad of friends as a wise counsellor in times of distress, not because she has any particular book learning or even street smarts – although she does have a hard robust tough-love edge when needed - but because they respect her experience and judgment, know she has been through her own dark days, and feel the honesty and genuineness of her sympathy and care. That would tell them something more of Mary.

“Another message from the bride and groom.”

“Am I talking to Freddie and the family again?”

“Yes.”

“Oh, that’s nice. Do you know, Freddie, what my groom just told me? He said I’m a mouse and that, that he’s the leader in everything we do, but you see he’s forgotten today’s made the big difference and today’s the big switcheroo. You know what I mean, don’t you love?

I can’t help but laughing. I’ve got your daughter here. She’s completely upstaged me, arrived late, right at the last minute as we were off to the commune and the church. We even had to send the wedding car to pick her and not even her husband up, and… she can tell you the rest when she gets home. Bye, bye Freddie, and I hope you’re feeling a lot better, and Chrissie, and love to Anita and Neal, and everyone there, and that rotten little John who just got married too.”…

What more could I say? I told Mum and Dad about Sydney and the magic of our falling in love, and could have told them more of our great romance. If they had seen the transformation in me, they would know Mary, for what she releases in me is but the mirror of her love. It is I who send her long letters from England full of extracts from Walt Whitman singing of ‘the mystic deliria’, the amorous madness, the passionate trembling, singing of ‘the beautiful, curious, breathing, laughing flesh… of the woman that loves me and whom I love more than my life’. It is I who boldly announce my full-time arrival in the lottery of her life with two suitcases left in the middle of her lounge at Huia Road and, on the top of the coffee table, a little gift and card with the message ‘You’ve won the Golden Kiwi – I hope you like it.’ It is I, the King of Cups, in my most imaginative, intuitive and romantic vein, who buys two silver-plated goblets and produces them at a candlelit dinner to toast our love and disclose, beneath the blood red wine in Mary’s cup, a silver lovers’ knot to bind us for eternity. To me Mary is elemental – the earth I am grounded in, the fire in my groin, the air I breathe, the water that nourishes me. I am in love!

_______________________________________________________________________
[Blog taken from material written in 2001/2002. Today is the 32nd anniversary of Mary's death on the 19th of February 1982. We were married for 5 days.]