BACK IN MY TRACKS

New Zealand Listener, Volume 12, Issue 302, 6 April 1945, Page 6

BACK IN MY TRACKS

A Native Returns Vo Central Otago

Written for "The Listerier"’ by

PEN HILL

T seems to be permissible, when we reach a certain age, to look back and talk. Let that be the excuse for this afticle. I have reached a certain age. It is 50 years since I left the house in which I am writing, the fart on which I am resting, and the school in which I have just been statiding, to "contifiue ttiy education." I left, I can slill remembet painfully, with a lump in my throat as big as the Derwent potatoes we then cultivated; and little lumps can still cothe back. But for a month I have been back in my tracks. What the lucky ones among eur grandparents experienced when they returned after half a century to Great Britain I have experienced in Central Otago, and I hope it is more than egotism that makes me talk about it. * Eg * \JEW ZEALAND is beginning to age. Those of us who have lived more then 50 years here have seen the efid of pioneering and at least the dawn ol Methanisatién,; This is one of the richest agficultural districts in the South Island, but l-have seen in a month only one team of plotigh hofses. Riding horses are still used for musteting, but by no means every fmiisterer deperids on them. Maty ate caffied to their beats by car with their dogs of course, and the tired and sick sheep come back in trucks or trailers. I sat fot Kalf-an-hour to-day with two shepherds who were waiting for 4 thitd man to come up aiid 4li their convetsation was about petrol restrictiotis. Oni ofie fart I saw two boys of 15 and "17 Working a tractor in shifts, Children t6o young to go to school know what a refrigeratot is and have beén known to staft @ ear. It is alimost as femiote from the life of the ’nineties as a grand piano is from David’s harp. * * * ET it was fiot the changes that fist impressed when I fitst ¢atme batk, but the things that ate just the safe. New Zealand is ageitig, but the fiore Otago and Soiithland chafge the more

they are what they have always been. When I went to school in the ‘nineties I retufned to the same building for Sunday School. They are doing it still. When we said we had seen thousands of rabbits, we meant 20 of 30. That method of caléulating remains. The local doctor used to be an authority on evéry branch of kriowledge. The field is wider to-day, but his authotity has not diminished. The stock auctioneers uséd to be the wittiest in the world. They are still world-shakers, Motor-cars carry on the speed records that used to be made by horses, Hospitality (as distinct from charity) is as boundless as ever it was, and chafity (as distinet from gefierosity) a8 suspicious and narfow. The wifid still fiins thtough the tussocks on high days and holidays--not the gusty, disturbing witids of the North Islafid, but winds that blow with a steady rhythm, inducing calin and sleep. The speech is as broad a& it used to bé, afd ag rushed. R’s are still r-r-r’s, there is still they're, sowti is still sow-en, food (lotig 0) nearly always food (short 0). Dunedin is still D’need’n. They still dance (short a). Fifty years ago thete wete good people and bad people but no neutrals or neégatives. Thete ate none to-day. Personality ig a8 rank afid strong as the tutu and fern still gtowing. It is stithulating, but it if OverpoWering, and it always was You assett yourself or you don’t existand sométimes it is as difficult to get yourself heard as to attfact notice with a tin whistle when a brass batid is playifig. Hesitate in Otago of pipe low and vou have always been lost. bag * * QUT some things must change. Trees grow; towns decay; people die. What trees will do in 50 yeats you have to sée to bélieve. You lave also to see it to realise what the Forestry Service has done here in 40 years. Otago was never (away from the Coast) heavily bushed. It was hot when I left it dotted close with clumps of trees planted for shelter by the first faritiers: there were hotiestead platitations, but they were usually miles apart, anid you did not get the itn-

pression, as you do in pafts 6f Cafiterbury, that there had hever been a piotieer period and that settlernent went back to William the Conqueror at léast. Otago is not a Wooded province yet; but I stood yesterday of a peak overlookitig 40 miles of fatm and fun cotifitry in any diréetion, and the most conspicuous features were two black atéas 30 miles away which were State plafita-tiohs-dense forests of 20, 30, and 40 years’ gtowth, covering thousands of acrés. Atid then there ate the plars ahd weeping wilows of the Molynetix Valley. If you have not seen them in their background of sin-beaten fock you have not seen the most arresting landscape feature in your country. If I call

them incredible I am merely saying again in old age what I felt in childhood, boyhood, and youth-that they can’t be true, but are. & % * REES grow but towns decay. Lawretice 50 years ago was as livély as 4 little town can be-as lively as all towfis big 6r little até when gold is flowing through their shops atid hotels arid even through their Schools and churches. There was f6 éléctfiéity in those days

but when the last latiip had been lit at Siinfset (off the back of a horse) the streets (@very mifet thought) were as gay as Piccadilly or aris. Last week I sat iti a cat in the main streét for

fearly half-an-houir eating fruit and icé éreain. bought at the only opeti atid lighted shop, and the fest was dafkness and silence. So it is with Tapanui, with Cromwell, with Arrowtown, and with Clyde. Roxburgh has g6he ahead and Alexandta come to life again, both on fruit, but the pulse of other Central Otago towns is feéble and slow. By we * \/HAT about the people? I have said that they are as hospitable as ever, as serious, atid a8 full of charatter. What do they talk about? The old times, of cotitee, if they afe themselves old, but never of those ex: clusively. There is aliost fo historic sense in Otago; no disposition to dwell on thé past for its own sake atid forget the future. All the people I have spoken to on this visit ate fotward-looking, even those who are easily my seniors. They look ahead, and they argue ahead, with all the velemence and intensity of mén who have not been beaten by life. A cousin of 83 spoke to me for two hoiirs about his early sutveying experi-erices-all extremely interesting-then Switched without effort to the future of local government. His wife of 75 was glad that she had lived through such wonderful changes and that her grandchildren would see so many, scientifi¢ developments. My brothers, who aré years older than I am, bite at every fly east on the stream of their thoughts and néarly always make me feel foolish

afid ineffective. Evetybody has an opinion about the war-and (thanks to radio) quite as much information as I +havé, though information is my job. Not thafiy could talk calmly about polities, but not mafy ever could anywhete, and théy say nothing worse in their excitement than half the newspapers of the world say every day. They also meat what they say and say what they mean, afid afé refreshingly free of political quislings. They would laugh at you if you asked them to stipport a candidate they knew to be a liar or a rogue; jaugh at you or knock you down. It would be like asking them to sow bad seed of pay for the sefviceés of a mone gtrel bull. They are so full of foundation virtues that I feel like a cheapjack among them -a fool wheti I question them, an ingrate when I argue with them. For there are féw superior or privileged or lucky fartners here; few or ho inhefitors of wealth, They have worked for 20, 30, 40, or 50 years, some profitably, some unprofitably, and to qgiléstion the accu racy of their claitn that they are the original and only souree of national wealth is, they feel, not only nonsense but offensive nonsense. "Where would you fellows be without us?" ofie of them asked me. "Wheté you would be," I atiswered, "if we did tot exist." But I was sorry the moment I had said it. The discussion ended abruptly, and I knéw that I had dug a ditch between us that it would not be easy to fill in. It was eqlially painful when manpower probléms cropped up. "Farmers are riot esséntial’’ ene of them said with bitterness. "Making pies is essential and making cigarettes, but farmers can be done withéut." "Who told you that?" I asked, "The Governtnent. I have beer working here for 55 years, but that does not matter. If I had been a carpenter or a barber, a trimmer of nails or a producer of face paint, I ld object when an assistant is take away. But farting is fiot an esseritial industry." "Ate you sure?" "Quite certain." "Then what is the explanation?" "We're tiot impértant." "But everybédy ktiows that you ate." "Not this Goverriment. It is out te ruin us." (continued ‘on next page)

(continued from previous page) "Surely you don’t believe that?" "Of course I do. We all do." "Are you sure that you haven't yourSelves refused to be essential?" "How could we refuse when we were never asked? Anyhow, why should we refuse?" "An essential industry can’t hire and fire its men. It is protected, but it comes under control. Are you certain that your Union did not ask to remain free?" "I don’t know, what the Union does, I don’t belong to it, But I know that I can’t get a shearer or a harvester or a fencer or a rabbiter." I did not ask him what he was prepared to pay these men, or what he was able to pay them; what accommodation he could provide; or how long he could employ them. I let the discussion lapse. I remembered what a watersider said to me in Wellington when butter was rationed, and wondered how long it would be before the friction between town and country flared up into. something more sinister, I also remembered the story I was told at school 52 years ago-his school as well as mine-about the foolish knights and the two-faced shield. Parheps he had forgotten, ok NYHOW I was soon in difficulties about land and national well-being. If land is not the sole source of wealth it is not reasonable to be alarmed when it is put to other than the most productive uses. Nor should it have worried me to see many of the holdings I had known as separate farms merged now

into larger estates (one farm of 600-700 acres where there used to be two or three of 200-300). ~It should not have disturbed me to see so great an increase of gorse and broom and blackberry. Ee should not have been depressed by the deteriorated fences and pastures. But I was, and it was no use asking about these things. If I did not know the cause there was something wrong with me. Every farmer knew, but no farmer knew how to remove it. Two and three are five, but two farmers and three farm labourers are the end of safety and reason. * r Er ‘TALK like that was saddening, but there was one sadder experience. It was the discovery that of the 29 boys and girls who were at school in my last year more than half were dead. I suppose I should have expected this after half a century-it is about right actually; but I didn’t expect it, and I still feel sore about it, For I did not come here armed with vital statistics. I came to meet the boys and girls who had never strayed, who had found this corner of the world sufficient, who had cultivated it, seen the years and the seasons through, taken no notice of advertisements, of promised fortunes and excitements in remote places, who had grown up and grown old here as trees grow, stronger every year, with deeper roots and wider branches, and a more perfect adaptation to their environment. I found 11 still living, 15 dead, and three among the missing. Some had died in battle and some in childbirth; some in accidents; two by their own hand. Soon we shall all be dead and a study for statisticians, but five will be remembered. When the other 24 have been forgotten these five will live on in the stone in which I have just seen their names in district and provincial rolls of honour, and in national archives, It is doubtful if one of them ever used the word "immortality" in his life. But they are the first five of my school-fellows to achieve it. ~~ ; 1