OUR ROUGH ISLAND STORY

New Zealand Listener, Volume 17, Issue 421, 18 July 1947, Page 12

OUR ROUGH ISLAND STORY

Written for "The Listener"

by

GORDON

INGHAM

ANY observers have remarked’ on the numbers of people who are to-day leaving the cities for the smaller towns. Dissatisfied with the emptiness and frustrations of suburbia they seek to identify themselves with a community, to feel a community sense: We felt that, too, and had _ long threatened to do something about it. But one gets into a‘ routine, however futile, in town, and. so we had postponed decision until "some time." We had a section on Waiheke Island, down harbour from Auckland, and the original intention was to build a week-end bach on it. But one day we were feeling more than usually fed up with town life so we decided to combine the two ideas end make our permanent home on "the Island." Another generation would have said "Sydney or the bush, eh?" and let it go at that. But nowadays even one’s best friends make some pretensions to literacy, so we endured vaguely relevant wisecracks about the disciples of Thoreaw® and D. H. Lawrence and the search for the simple life. Except those who told us they thought we were lucky -while privately they thought we were cTazy.

According to the Scriptures, Job was the most unfortunate man who ever lived.’ But compared with the vexations and the troubles that beset the wouldbe builder of a home in these days of shortages and restrictions, Job was a happy-go-lucky chap sitting on top of the world. Of course, our permit warned us that there would be difficulty in getting supplies; but the word "difficulty" was coined in optimism. So we rented a bach until we could finish our own place and on the wettest week-end in the’ year we moved down with every stick and stitch that we owned. The Last Outpost » Looking back on the months we have been on the Island and comparing our life here with last winter, spent in rooms in the centre of Auckland, I feel that any description of the changed circumstances should be labelled "advertisement." How would you like to live on an Island, near enough to the city to see the lights at night but not near enough to hear the noise? To be within an hour

and a quarter's run of Queen Street and yet to be in a settlement so completely primitive that there is no form of authority or local government at all? This perhaps is the last "no-man’s land," the last New Zealand frontier outpost. Here time has no meaning. When first we came down here I would go to work at my accustomed hour of eight; but I had to discontinue that because no one was out of bed and no business could be transacted. So now we rise at about eight and I leave for work some time after nine and ‘stroll quietly along the beach, To most people the thought of life on an island conjures up visions of a life of indolence and perpetual sunshine and content. For once they are not far wrong. Time by the Boat Time, I said, has no meaning. Sometimes our clock is right; sometimes it isn’t even going. We see the boat come in around about 11 a.m. and leave about 4.15 p.m. and that gives us a rough idea of the time and all we need. One of our neighbours tells a story that illustrates our. manana philosophy. She had a local paperhanger come to re-cover the walls in her living room. Eventually he arrived, set up his trestles, mixed his paste and cut his paper with all that deliberation peculiar to paperhangers, Then he

remembered that he had to go to the butcher’s to collect the meat; so he went and came back three weeks later. Not that it really mattered. Admittedly they could not use the living room in the meantime, but as obviously they were still living the room they were using most became the living-room. Sunday is Friday Sunday comes early on our Island because we hold it on a Friday. In other communities, Friday is the shopping day, but here all’ the shops, and even the Post Office, close, on Friday, while the shopkeepers go to town to do their shopping. That leaves most of the population, who spend a lot of time in either stores or Post Office, with nothing to do; so they go to town for the day, too. As our enly means of communication between here and what outsiders call the mainland is by boat, these Friday trips have a picnic air. Tea or coffee is served on board and during the trip all the local gossip is retailed and all our grievances regarding this or that get a thorough airing. Deprived people who have seen only the glow-worms at Wai-e, tomo should be down here to see the: little torch lights as the homing Island- . ers.come from the boat at night. There is no organised religion on our Island, but a Labour Party meeting in our settlement attracted 91 believers(continued on next page)

(continued from previous page) and one stout fellow of the other persuasion who claimed the right to be pgpPresent and know what the Government was getting up to. Like and Unlike In common with the city people, we have no gas. But unlike them, we are promised a greater supply of electricity ~---when the power lines come through. But we can get plenty of firing, and these nights, sitting around a glowing coke and carbonette fire in the kitchen range, we think scornfully of our late landlady’s refrigerator which she let, to us as a furnished apartment. Since this is a country district, there is of course no fresh milk, nor are eggs or vegetables available. These. come _down from town on the morning boat and the whole Island repairs then to the stores to collect the rations. Because the same air of leisurely movement applies to the storekeeper, one’s shopping takes an indeterminate time. So’ what? It’s Different in Summer Of course, in summer life here takes on a different complexion. Then the week-enders, the campers, and the trippers come down in their thousands and from hundreds of baches, tents, and unbeiievable shacks-which defy the laws of gravity as well as those of the building controller-there issues sound of devilry by night..But that is only an interlude and one that is fast going as more and more permanent settlers move in. Soon, we hear, we are to have a local.body and then the days of anarchy will end. We will become more respectable and conventional. The clock will have to be wound at night and one will no longer find sheep and cattle congregated on one’s front lawn in the early morning. Then there will be more cars’ on the road (at present there are up td a dozen in our district) and our more sedate citizens will probably take to wearing shoes. But that time is not yet come, : ~ Our friends come down from town, Sand return there thankfully. We are 7 ssolated, they feel. But we remember those things that seemed vital in the. city, the must-be-attended meetings of the W.E.A., the Film Society; the anxious awaiting of the next repertory show and , the running to the outer suburbs in pursuit of some "important" picture. They seem very unreal and trivial compared with the candidatures for the Road Board, the clash of interests between permanent residents and

* campers, and the state of the tide as it affects the gathering of pipis. According to Wise’s New Zealand Index, Waiheke is 20 miles from Auckland, but that part of it in which we live, Surfdale, is 10 miles. We never have figured that one out any more than Mr. Wise did. We prefer to say "Oh, it’s only a pleasant hour and a quarter’s run in the boat." "Plenty of Scandal" We catch no trams, run for no buses or trains. Geologically, we are told, Waiheke is the oldest part of New Zealand. It certainly is still in the horse-and-buggy days. Maybe that is why it is a community and has something that is missing from the modern life of cities. Like most small communities, naturally everybody knows everyone else’s busi-ness-and talks about it. But is that any different from poring over the autobiographies which still flood the commercial library shelves, or reading the gossip from Hollywood? When first I suggested founding a small newspaper down here, the reaction of most of my fellow Islanders was "You'll get plenty of scandal to put in it if you see so-and-so." My invariable reply was that after working around the district I was in a position to blackmail half the population and sue the rest for slander. After all, it seems that the essentials of a civilised community are the same here as in town. We had our small son christened here the other Sunday. As we have no resident clergy, the christening took place in the local hall and the officiating minister was from the Melanesian Mission. It was a pleasant ceremony and the other children present were those among whom he will grow up. That will give him a sense of belonging, a sense of being in his home community. I may seem to stress that word community. But it is possibly the most important one for, us in to-day’s disintegrating society. We made the break from town with its easily accessible pleasures to a life in which there are not a great many of the usually accepted amenities, But it means for us a greater freedom because we can grow up along with our district and take on some share of the responsibility for its development. We are at liberty to assist in the shaping of our home town, and without the right to assume responsibilities there is no freedom, The Hitlers have demonstrated that,