Thursday 27 June 2013

A house with bells and whistles

Leave a Comment



You can’t help but have sympathy for young couples today hoping to buy their first home. In our neck of the woods it must be difficult enough, but in Auckland and to a slightly lesser extent Christchurch, it must be nigh on impossible.

I looked up the Auckland real estate websites and found the most basic home will set you back $350,000. Using Sorted’s website calculator I discovered that a $350,000 mortgage, paying back the principal and interest over 25 years, will cost the borrower $519 a week.
I recalled my own situation 50 years ago. First home buyers went cap-in-hand to the State Advances Corporation; government-owned and although we mightn’t have appreciated it at the time, extremely generous. The corporation would lend you 2500 pounds to build your first home at either three or five percent interest. The interest rate was determined depending on your wage bracket. At 20 pounds a week I just missed out on the 3% option and had to pay 5%. You could build a modest 3 bedroom home for around that price back then, ours was a little more expensive, and the difference we made up from savings and help from our parents. As best as I can recall the repayments on the State Advances loan was three pounds a week and as a percentage of my wages this was readily affordable compared to what first home buyers have to come up with today.

Construction commenced on our first home before we were married and was completed while we were on honeymoon. Our greatest fear at the time was that our friends would dress the house up for our homecoming, a regular occurrence in those days. Returning honeymooners would tend to find their new dwellings wrapped in toilet paper, “Just Married” signs scrawled on the windows and plywood, cut-out storks, attached to the chimneys.

But we had a cunning plan. We claimed that we were going away for a three week honeymoon, but returned after just two weeks. To our delight the house appeared untouched. Our friends feigned disappointment that we had returned early and admitted that they had not had an opportunity to make adjustments to the dwelling.

They lied.

On the first night in our new home, at about 1 o’clock in the morning, we were woken abruptly by an incredible noise in our bedroom. It sounded like there was a roaring party taking place around us yet when we turned the light on, the room was starkly empty. The noise however did not abate. There was the sound of  revelry and singing, voices we recognised well,  remarks made that were obviously current, therefore precluding the possibility of a recording being played at us from somewhere, but not a soul in sight. It was surreal.

I concluded electricity was involved so I jumped out of bed and rushed to the switchboard in the porch and turned off the main. The sound of the party did not stop, but now also a very loud bell rang somewhere in the bowels of the house, more deafening than the cacophony of the party, so I immediately turned the power back on.

The party goers, wherever they were, suggested we get dressed as they would soon join us. We did as we were told, the sound soon stopped and within a few minutes our friends arrived with food and drink, insisting that we party with them until daylight.

So what had they done? Well they had conspired with the builder and the electrician and placed a large speaker in the rafters, directly above our bed, behind the plaster ceiling. Wiring from this speaker was run down inside the wall, then under the lawn to the edge of our section. We had built the house on a small farm our meat company owned and the wiring connection was exposed in an adjoining paddock. The revelers then gathered at a stable complex that was part of the farm, two paddocks away from our new home. They ran a cable across the fields to an amplifier in a storeroom adjacent to the stables. The amplifier had a microphone attached. The soiree got underway at midnight and when it was in full swing, at about one o’clock, they flicked the switch on the microphone and we got the full blast of the party from the speaker above our bed, hidden behind the ceiling.

It was a masterstroke in practical joking. Anticipating that I would turn off the power was clever, although it had no effect on the party noise; the power for the amplifier was on a totally separate power system at the stables. Highly illegal for a bell to ring after you’ve turned the power off of course; it meant the supplier, not the consumer, was paying for it.

My friends had used the same clever anticipation to assume that we would have only a two week honeymoon as opposed to the three week one we signaled.

My wife, who didn’t marry my friends, must have wondered at the wisdom of accepting my proposal of marriage some months earlier. To be fair, that’s nothing new; fifty years on, I suspect she is still questioning that decision.

“Many a man who thinks to found a home discovers that he has merely opened a tavern for his friends.” - Norman Douglas.

Read More...

Wednesday 19 June 2013

In praise of two magical nights

1 comment




At the age of thirteen I appeared in a Masterton Amateur Theatrical Society production called “Our Miss Gibbs.” It was presented over eight nights in Masterton’s grand old Regent Theatre. Monday to Thursday one week, then again Monday to Thursday the following week. Back in those halcyon days the Regent 3 Cinemas was just one cinema and owners Kerridge-Odeon wouldn’t give up the lucrative Friday and Saturday night screenings.

The theatre was locked up tight on a Sunday; it was assumed we’d all be at church.

I played the part of a newspaper boy; my dialogue would have consisted of about four lines and I was on the stage for fully three minutes. If indeed there were any talent scouts in the audience then they must have missed my academy-award-winning performance. My acting career finished on the last night of the show.

So I have restricted myself to being an attender rather than a participant to the MATS stage shows over the intervening years and despite not wanting to downgrade past productions I thought this year’s Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat was the best they have ever presented. Over time it seems performers - actors and musicians - have become more and more talented and the technology has improved out of sight. I understand the Majestic Theatre sound system was recently upgraded to the tune of $30,000 and the outcome added immensely to the enjoyment of the evening.

I don’t like to single out people, but there was undoubtedly a star: a gifted lady named Lucy Cruickshank, who was described in the programme as the narrator. This “narrator” sang the part and was on stage for virtually the whole of the evening. Her voice was superb, her acting faultless and her dancing a bonus. Just how she managed the energy to do that night after night with a couple of matinees thrown in to boot was a mystery until I noticed in the programme she is a keen multi-sportswomen and has competed in a number of half-ironman competitions.

Joseph was played by the ideally-named Joseph Raea, a young man who has an assured career in drama if he wants it and accountant Mark Richardson portrayed Pharaoh flawlessly in the image of Elvis Presley. You couldn’t fault any of the leads or those in lesser roles and this was all complimented by outstanding costuming and the best sounding MATS orchestra I have ever heard under the immensely talented tutorship of Craig Thomson.

Still reeling from Joseph I concluded my week of culture by attending the Glen Miller Orchestra concert the following evening. With the rather expensive ticket prices I was surprised to see the Masterton Town Hall filled to the gunwales with swing enthusiasts.

Somehow the Town Hall was the ideal setting. Though perfectly adequate it has a rather 1940’s look about it and the 17 piece retro-orchestra seemed to be entirely at home on the stage.

Orchestra leader, trombonist and narrator Rick Gerber was somewhat less animated than Ms Cruickshank, but there is no doubt he is a very talented musician and his orchestra looked like the original band and arguably sounded even better. Again I suspect thanks to the 21st century sound system.

The band had add-ons. An attractive African-American singer named Wendy Smith-Brune and a Bing Crosby style crooner named Mark Kopitzke performed impeccably. Also two couples, described as swing dancers and who actually came from New Zealand, boogied and tap-danced their way into the audience’s hearts with aplomb. To top it off there were three captivating young American university graduates called the Swing Kittens who looked and sang like the Andrew Sisters. Their rendition of Pokarekare Ana with a fantastic backing arrangement by the orchestra was perhaps the surprising highlight of the evening.

Talk about a night of nostalgia.

After the show the cast were in the foyer to say goodnight to their appreciative audience. Old men who dream dreams and have visions were lining up to acquaint themselves with the stunningly beautiful “Andrew Sisters.”

I of course just passed by, feigning disinterest.

If there was anybody under 65 in the audience, then I didn’t see them. Muldoon’s National Superannuation is an absolute godsend.

“We’ve seen them all on street corners, many of them smoking, many of them on drugs; they’ve got no jobs to go to and once a week we see them queuing for the state hand-outs – or pensions as we call them.” - Harry Hill

Read More...

Thursday 13 June 2013

Leaky boats and jet airliners

Leave a Comment



Last August I wrote a column about how back in 1980 I employed a Vietnamese couple in my meat retailing business. Hoa and My Van Nguyen were “boat people” and had a nine month old daughter named Dyung when they arrived in Masterton. They had been sponsored by our local Rotary club and as I was president of the club at the time I felt that it was my responsibility to find them employment. However it’s not easy to place people when English is not their first language and so in the end I employed them myself, something, as it happened, I never regretted.

They exhibited three characteristics that an employer only dreams of. They were extremely hard working, they were incredibly intelligent and they were scrupulously honest. They had both been university graduates before the Vietcong banished them to the rice fields to work alongside the peasant class to cure them of their “bourgeoisie” conventions.

Neither of them knew anything about the meat business, but they acquired the skills as rapidly as they learned to speak English. They became very proficient and were a great asset to the company. Hoa’s first obligation was to save up enough money to get his father out of prison in Vietnam. Because he had worked for the Americans the Vietcong had incarcerated him and demanded $US5000 for his release. Not long after the money was handed over and Hoa’s father released he died, due to the constant beatings the Vietcong prison guards had inflicted upon him.

Before the Van Nguyen’s arrived in Masterton our club members and their wives had done up what was previously a derelict house on the corner of Cornwall Street and Ngaumutawa Road loaned to us by stock and station agents Dalgety’s. Eventually they bought their own home; a two bedroomed dwelling in Hillcrest Street. Later they purchased a three bedroomed home in High Street to accommodate a growing family. During their time here they had three more children; another daughter named Hanh, then two boys Minh and Tien. The children were educated at St Patrick’s school in Masterton and Dyung went on to Chanel College before they left my employ in 1993 and decided to resettle in Melbourne.

My’s parents had also managed to get out of Vietnam and settled in America and in 1995 Hoa and My and their family were legally able to join them.

Last week, Hoa and My came to visit. We were of course delighted to see them. They had decided to come back and catch up with those people who had helped them as refugees and it was an emotional time for us all. They now live in Austin in Texas.

Life in America is not easy. Hoa endeavoured to get a job in a butcher’s shop using my deservedly glowing reference, but was constantly turned down; He hinted that there was a touch of racism in the refusals.

He eventually got a job in an engineering shop where he is paid $18 an hour. He said most workers in the US are paid $13-14 an hour. He bought a 20-year-old three bedroomed house for $105,000 but said the neighbours don’t speak. Again I suspect xenophobia. He compared prices dollar for dollar here and thought American meat was a little cheaper, but fruit and veges and indeed most other items were on a par.

My works at the weekends at a Vietnamese-owned beauty parlour where she does manicures and facials.

An expense that they struggle to cope with is the $US600 a month medical insurance, but not to take it, Hoa said, would add huge stress to their lives.

Hoa has been back to see his mother in Vietnam on a number of occasions; he said conditions there under the Vietcong are appalling. There is no freedom as the communist government keep close tabs on all your movements. He understands western tourists think it’s a great place to visit, but living there is a different experience altogether.

They have lived in three countries since they left Vietnam and they sincerely believe New Zealand was the nicest.

It seems to be an Asian trait that life is lived almost solely to oversee improved outcomes for your children. Education is the priority and most Asian parents will strive to ensure their offspring are well tutored.

If leaving Vietnam in a rickety old boat where half the passengers died en-route was to make a better life for children born and those yet to come then Hoa and My can rest easy. Dyung is a lawyer and works as a Trust Officer for the Wells Fargo Bank in Austin, Hanh is a doctor in a New Jersey hospital, Minh has an engineering degree and works for Oracle in San Jose and Tien is about to graduate from university with a degree in biotech consulting.

I guess Masterton’s catholic school system can take a bow.

“Whenever I prepare for a journey I prepare as though for death. Should I never return, all is in order. That is what life has taught me.” - Katherine Mansfield 

Read More...

Wednesday 5 June 2013

A cynical look back to the future

Leave a Comment



I dusted off the jacket of a book that has been sitting in my bookshelf for years and browsed through its pages. The book is Wimp Walloping, written by Bob Jones. It is a collection of columns Jones composed for Wellington’s now discontinued daily newspaper The Evening Post some years back. Jones’s columns were always worth a read. Outrageous but entertaining; he mixed extreme right wing views with the odd sprinkling of uncharacteristic liberalism which made him hard to categorise. He now writes for the NZ Herald and I scour their website weekly to devour his offerings.

A chapter that caught my eye in Wimp Walloping was entitled The Greenhouse Effect and discussed the hot topic of the day: global warming, the hole in the ozone layer and the subsequent outcomes.  Jones expressed great concern. He described Wellington’s weather as being a clear indication that climate  patterns were amiss and suggested four-day southerly storms which had traditionally lashed the capital three or four times a year had become a thing of the past as Wellington bathed in almost permanently all year round balmy weather. Spring flowers he said were appearing two months earlier than usual, heating bills were way down, skin cancer was on the rise and numerous other changes were readily observable. Across the nation he reported temperatures were breaking records and the northern hemisphere had experienced a searing summer resulting in either devastating droughts or in some cases unusual sustained downpours causing large-scale flooding.

There was at the time a great deal of diverse speculation as to the likely future impact of global warming, but Jones did see some good news for New Zealand in the inevitable outcomes. He forecast that our ski industry would benefit because Australian ski slopes would be completely eliminated. Ours he thought would have to be rebuilt at higher levels. Our base agricultural industries could benefit as much of the Northern Hemisphere’s rural regions turned into dustbowls. He particularly foretold of an economic upsurge for the South Island.

All of this was not going to be without a cost. Sea walls would have to be built around our coastal settlements; these would pose particular problems for places like Wanganui and Lower Hutt with their sizable river outlets. Smaller low lying communities like Raglan would probably be doomed he thought, not being of sufficient size or importance to justify the expense of saving. Raglanites would presumably become refugees in their own country. He also opined that nuclear power stations, then unloved because of the Chernobyl disaster, would be back in favour and he forecast widespread construction of these generators.

He called for a government agency to be set up of “damn good thinkers” to monitor the situation and the editor, in a footnote to the column, said the government had heeded his advice and a group had indeed been established.

The column was written in September 1988.

Hindsight is a wonderful thing, but none of Jones’s predictions, good or bad, have come to pass.
The weather in the intervening twenty-five years has ebbed and flowed, just as it has done for centuries. Since time immemorial we have always had our doomsayers and I’m surprised that Jones fell for the dire predictions, given his disdain for the scientific community as espoused in another of his tomes on my bookshelf, the excruciatingly funny Full Circle.

Wellingtonians would have been surprised to know that they were in for a lifetime of balmy weather and will be disappointed that the spring flowers have resumed blooming in spring. If they bloomed earlier in 1988 then this must have been an aberration, not repeated, as far as I can recall, in the gardens that I fall into.

It might have seemed that global warming had finally reared its head this last summer, but the autumn brought things back to normality and since Jones’s soothsaying column, all manner of weather, good and bad, has been experienced.

In the meantime my heating bills have gone skywards.

The ski industry will be bemused with his predictions. Last time I looked - actually I have never looked - the ski lanes and chair lifts were at the same level and Australia’s snowfields will have continued to prosper. Nuclear power stations, despite their reliability, are still not favoured by most cowed communities.

Jones would not have been the only commentator to have got it wrong. I haven’t scoured my bookcase for other in-depth predictions because there will be a dearth of such writings in shelves reserved for much lighter fare.  A search of the newspaper archives of the day however would show similar forecasts, all wide of the mark.

This begs the question: What dire prognostications are being made now, that will look ridiculous with the passage of time. The widespread use of 1080 and genetically modified food slowly killing us all come to mind and there will be others.

In Biblical times false prophets were stoned to death. Today we are more circumspect. We dare not question the harbingers of bad tidings for fear that one day they may be proven right. The modern prophet meanwhile relies on our poor memory retention, and assumes that we won’t dust off old books in our bookshelves and discover that they knew less about the future than we did ourselves.

“The wisest prophets make sure of the event first.”  - Horace Walpole

Read More...