OUR NATIONAL CHARACTER

New Zealand Listener, Volume 25, Issue 629, 20 July 1951, Page 5

OUR NATIONAL CHARACTER

eir,--i acknowledge the gentie smacking administered by Audrey Cumming in your issue of June 22. However, it would appear that there are two schools and a road of some sort in the district she mentions. Yes, we have a school, a postal service and a cream run in our district. The snag is that half the district is cut off from the other half by two miles of beach and sand hills impassable for motor vehicles; so that. when I write of the pioneer stage I

mean the pack-horse, sledge stage that still exists for many. Far beyond the city’s horizon and over the hills from our "Snake Gullies" with their Young Farmers’ Clubs and their success stories, are the districts We inhabit. Audrey Cumming has hinted that she would like a few of my experiences. Overcoming my natural modesty I may say .that I was bush-felling with my little axe at the age of four. This gave me the ingrained love of chopping the firewood which has} lasted to the present. I broke in my first wild horse at the age of seven. This accounts for my bandy legs. At the age of eight I shot my first wild boar with my little bow, and arrows-I was early taught to draw the long bow, Lack of space prevents further chronicles of my experiences. Lack of encouragement seems to have prevented the fulfilment of my early promise. Neither Audrey Cumming nor PRES has used the usual adjective "hardy" to describe the pioneer, She would prob-° ably agree that "hardy" is the correct word, but being a cultured person has refused the obvious cliche. I have not used it because I consider a more appro- priate word for many pioneers and their pioneer descendants would be something descriptive of a person who can be kidded to chew soap.

J. B.

JACKSON

(Raglan).

( Abridged.- Ed.)