You don’t choose a life, you live a life.

The quotation is from The Way, a film about a small group of people searching for meaning in their lives who ‘connect’ while on a pilgrimage in northern Spain.  Martin Sheen plays a man who has lost his son in an accident while he was on a pilgrimage.  He decides to do the same pilgrimage himself, the Camino de Santiago, to cope with the loss and to try and make sense of his son’s death.  In the process he encounters challenges faced by several others making the journey and together they find a sense of community.  The film is written and directed by Emilio Estevez, Martin Sheen’s son (in real life), who incidentally got inspiration to write the script, especially the dialogue, while working in his vineyard.  His fiancée and his parents thought he had gone slightly crazy when he started digging up the front garden to plant grapes. Those of us who live in Marlborough would understand his behaviour.

Pacific migration research

   Recent findings by University of Otago researchers in Marlborough have given insight into Pacific migration patterns. They studied the DNA of four Rangitane iwi buried at the Wairau Bar over 700 years ago. Their study of the mitochondrial DNA showed they came from ‘a variety of backgrounds rather than from a tight knit family group’.  Future research on DNA from other Pacific countries may provide more information about Polynesian migration to New Zealand.

Inaugural Reeves lecture

   Did you hear the first Reeves lecture? This lecture was initiated to honour Sir Paul Reeves who has Marlborough connections. The talk was first given in August and broadcast on Radio NZ National at 6.05pm on Monday night (22 October). Historian, Dame Anne Salmond, gave the inaugural lecture.  It wasn’t mentioned but the story I like is about the swarm of bees that flew into St John in the Wilderness Church at Koromiko while he was being christened. This church also has associations with Katherine Mansfield.  When she was visiting Picton in her youth she would sometimes accompany John Greensill, a lay preacher, and travel with him in a horse and gig from Picton to the little wooden church at Koromiko. The church is on State Highway 1 on the RHS of the road as you are driving towards Blenheim. You can stop and have a look at an Historic Places Trust plaque set on a stone in the grounds.  It is possible to see inside the historic church. There is an iron grille on the interior door but you can look through and see the pews and a giant clam shell used for christenings.

 Against the Current documentary

   The documentary I mentioned last time, Against the Current, will be screening in Marlborough next year. A November screening is scheduled for Dunedin.

 

Frankfurt Book Fair

The Frankfurt Book Fair is over for another year.  On Saturday (Friday night, Frankfurt time), Kim Hill interviewed people like the architect who designed the NZ pavilion and various authors and publishers.  The programme was recorded in four separate parts and you can hear a repeat broadcast on the Radio NZ website.  From all reports the fair was a success and the interactive screens in the NZ pavilion looked impressive from what I saw on TV. Apparently NZ has now been asked to be the Guest of Honour at the Taipei Book Festival.

Salmon Farms Update

   The Environmental Protection Authority Board of Inquiry has asked for a three-month extension because of the number of submissions received (1293), and the length of time the inquiry has taken (eight weeks instead of five).  Board Chairman Judge Whiting said the Board needs more time to make a decision. This was originally due to be made by 31 December. If Conservation Minister Kate Wilkinson agrees this could mean it will be 22 February 2013 before a decision is made. Look out for Against the Current, a documentary about environmental concerns in the Marlborough Sounds. And how did a disused salmon farm pontoon float down the Pelorus River and end up in the Havelock marina this week?

Coast Watchers' Memorial

   Isn’t it interesting that it has taken so long – 70 years – to commemorate the  17 NZ Coast watchers who were killed on Tarawa in the Gilbert Islands (now Kiribati), during WW2.  A ceremony was held and a wreath laid here in NZ in their honour yesterday, 15 October, the day they were killed in 1942, and NZ Post is funding a memorial wall in Wellington. I think one of the men was from Picton. According to some information I have read he took a tuxedo to war!  I often tell visitors on my foreshore heritage walk about these men, mostly Post and Telegraph radio operators, who were sent to the Pacific Islands to report on enemy movements.  The scow Echo which sits on the hard in Picton Harbour (eastern side opposite Edwin Fox), was involved in the war in the Pacific and spent a lot of time supplying Coast watchers with items such as radio batteries. She also rescued downed US airmen. See: theprow.co.nz for more details about the Echo. My uncle, Graeme McKay, spent time in the New Hebrides during the war and my mother said he wasn’t the same person when he returned.

Garden

   After all the wind and rain it is a lovely sunny day today and one of the first roses of the season, Fruhlingsgold, a pale yellow rose, is blooming on the pergola. The erlicheer daffodils have finished which is just as well because they would have all been blown over.  My Meyer lemon tree has died in its second year so I don’t know if it was frost or poor drainage.  I guess I will have to plant another so I can make lemon cordial. Bev McConnell has written a book about her garden, Ayrlies, in Whitford, recognised as a garden of international significance.  The book, Ayrlies: My story, my garden, has just been published.  

Recommended reads:

Fiction:

Bring up the Bodies by Hilary Mantel (UK author). Also Wolf Hall, an earlier book by the  same author

The Forrests by Emily Perkins (NZ)

Caleb’s Crossing by Geraldine Brooks (US)

Non-fiction:

The Meeting Place:  Maori and Pakeha Encounters 1642 to 1840 by Vincent O’Malley (NZ)

‘A book is finished when nothing rattles’. (Advice to writers: unknown origin)

Frankfurt Book Fair (10-14 October)

Kim Hill will be broadcasting on Radio NZ National from the Frankfurt Book Fair this Saturday morning from 8am (Friday evening, Frankfurt time). 
   Maggie Tarver, CEO, NZ Society of Authors (PEN NZ Inc), has taken a synopsis of my book, Captain Cook in Ship Cove, so hopefully a publishing company will want to follow this up.  I'm especially keen on it becoming an e-book because the digital referencing will make it easier for the reader rather than endless footnotes or endnotes.  Recently I met someone from the Sounds and they asked me if I knew the story about Cook’s ‘hidden treasure’ in the Sounds – tantalizing.

Cruise Ships

The first cruise ship of the season arrived in Picton yesterday (9 Oct), Radiance of the Sea, carrying 2,500 passengers (plus crew).  It is so large in tonnage it had to berth at Waimahara Wharf in Shakespeare Bay, the deep water port. Passengers are transported by bus round to Picton and beyond to experience the Marlborough region.  Many will have booked to go on visits to wineries to sample sauvignon blanc wine which the region is well known for internationally. Some will visit gardens and go on tours, others will enjoy the small seaport atmosphere, stroll along the Foreshore, sample Marlborough food and wine in the local cafés and browse the shops. History lovers will visit Edwin Fox and the Picton Museum. A booklet has just been published by the Picton Historical Society covering heritage aspects on the Foreshore, the development at the Eastern end and items of interest over the Coathanger bridge, including the Echo (booklet available at Picton Museum, $7.00). I love the way Picton has two historic ships on opposite sides of the harbour.
   A further 19 ships are expected over the summer season with several smaller eco-cruise boats just visiting Ship Cove and the Marlborough Sounds. See schedule: www.portmarlborough.co.nz
   In Picton cruise ship passengers are welcomed by a 'Meet and Greet' team of volunteers and i-Site representatives and given posies to wear. These posies are especially made for each ship by a team of women volunteers and are greatly appreciated by visitors.  Yesterday some posies contained roses from my garden, an old-fashioned rose, Cecile Brunner (Bush 1881, Climber 1904), also known as the ‘Sweetheart Rose’,  a tiny porcelain-pink rose used by our great-grandmothers to make a posy.  I planted it years ago and it now straddles a high wall in the vegetable garden. My neighbour, one of the volunteers, had to climb a ladder to reach the top flowers. She thought it was worth it.

Salmon Farm update:

The hearing continues and is receiving excellent coverage in the Marlborough Express.  There are some question marks now about the forecast number of jobs and the economic benefits to the region of the nine new salmon farms proposed by NZ King Salmon.  Issues raised were concern over environmental pollution of the water, threats to bird life like King Shags, and the potential especially in Tory Channel of the farms being navigation hazards. Also in a region which prides itself on natural beauty, and with the Marlborough Sounds so unspoiled, there is concern about how tourists will respond to a modified landscape. Look out for a documentary: Against the Current.

Entertainment

And yesterday we finally got TV One reception again.  It's been a blue screen since last Sunday!  Never mind I got to see Homeland on TV 3 on Monday night, the first programme of the second series. 

 

NZ King Salmon is proposing the creation of nine more salmon farms in the Marlborough Sounds. Submissions are currently being heard by a Board of Inquiry set up by the Environmental Protection Authority.  Hearings could take up to eight weeks. Opinion is divided on this.  Some people are opposed. They really care about the possible effects on the environment like pollution of the water and visual pollution. In fact 40 boats took part in a protest flotilla on Saturday. This was covered by TV One and print media.

   Earlier this year I went on a Dolphin Watch tour with visiting relatives. We called into Ruakaka Bay to view the salmon farm.  It seemed like a great enterprise but there was only one farm.  The seals basking in the sun looked happy. Then we went on to Motuara Island, a bird sanctuary and of course the place where Captain James Cook claimed sovereignty.  I dignified this inlet with the name of Queen Charlottes Sound [Now Queen Charlotte Sound], and took formal possession of it and the adjacent lands in the name and for the use of his Majesty.  As Cook hadn’t yet circumnavigated New Zealand he was probably unsure of exactly what land area he was claiming in the name of King George III. 

   With my visitors I climbed up to the top of the viewing platform on Motuara Island where you can get a panoramic view of the places mentioned by Cook.  On a clear day you can see Te-Ika-a-Maui, the North Island.  I read somewhere that ‘the fish of Maui’ could also have been a reference to the tail of the constellation, Scorpio, which resembles a fish hook.  The legendary Maui and other Polynesian explorers might have used this as a navigational tool to find New Zealand.

   I am currently working on a book outlining Cook’s time in the outer Marlborough Sounds.  He spent over 100 days at Ship Cove in the 1770s and it became his favourite anchorage to allow his men to rest, and to repair and provision the ships. In his Journal entries he describes the landscape, the weather, daily life and makes detailed observations of resident Maori.

   The main purpose of my book is to enable visitors to stand on the beach at Ship Cove or on the summit of Motuara Island or on the deck of a Cruise ship and read in Cook’s words what he thought, the problems he faced.  I am adapting the text for the modern reader. The way technology is going I think this will make a great ebook. It will be so much easier for the reader with digital referencing rather than having masses of footnotes or endnotes.  There could even be a children’s version with a treasure map.

   Like the great scholar and historian John Beaglehole said:

   It is I think worthwhile sometimes to stand upon the spot where a great man stood and to look upon things – hills and the sea – that he looked upon ... We can see him perhaps, walking up this beach, and hear the voices of his men, we can take pride in reflecting that it was through him that our history became part of the history of the world.

   Getting back to the proposed salmon farms it is essential to balance the economic benefit to the Marlborough/Nelson region like the creation of new jobs (which the government is keen on), with the long-term environmental effects. What would Cook have thought about it? With the use of a seine net and the help of skilled Maori fishermen he was able to easily catch enough fish to feed the entire ships’ company.

Who can foresee the future? What kind of legacy are we going to leave for generations to come?  Let’s hope the Board's decision is the right one.

 

 

Over the weekend mowers were in action and neighbours were water blasting their driveway and it feels like summer is not that far away though heavy rain is being forecast for the South Island in October. And today is cold. I saw two bumblebees yesterday so hopefully they will pollinate my broad beans which have lots of flowers on them.

   Poetry is the theme this week.  Did you see the article in the Sunday Star Times (24 September, A 12) about Bill Manhire? His advice to writers is to ‘Read, read, read’ (unlike some others who say: ‘Write, write, write’). Why he has an AA sign saying ‘Katherine Mansfield Birthplace’ behind him is never mentioned!

   He is quoted as saying that he’s retiring as Director of Victoria University’s Institute of Modern letters (IML), to become ‘a proper writer’.  Damien Wilkins will take over as Director. Bill Manhire has a new book out, Selected Poems (Victoria University Press). The article made me dip into my copy of What to call your Child (Godwit, 1999).  A number of the poems are based on Manhire’s experience in Antarctica. My copy is number 673 of a limited hardback edition of 1500.  ‘Visiting Mr Shackleton’ was a poem that confirmed it was OK to write Found Poetry, a form we all had a go at. I loved the way he used phrases from a visitors' book.

    There’s also a villanelle about a lucky Lotto shop.  Interesting because we mentioned this form at our last poetry meeting when one of our group had written a poem based on this form.  Another well known poem, though not in the book,  is ‘Erebus Voices’, the poem he wrote in 2004 for Sir Ed Hillary to read at the service to commemorate the 25^th anniversary of the Erebus disaster in Antarctica.

   Manhire talks about a ‘Wizard of Oz’ syndrome that is common to artists. You want the work to be ‘big and booming and occupying the whole world, but you’re just the little person behind the curtain, crossing out this word and putting in a better word.’ He doesn’t believe in inspiration, just hard work. That reminds me of the quote I put on the Picton Poets’ Facebook page a while ago.

     Bill Manhire acknowledges that in New Zealand poetry is important for ceremonial occasions like weddings and funerals but not so much in daily life whereas in other cultures it is very important to people’s lives.  In the introduction to Reflections we said that for Picton Poets poetry is ‘central to our lives helping us to convey our vision of life in this place we call home.’ Maybe looking back that statement was a bit esoteric but it seemed right at the time (Reflections, Picton Poets an anthology, (Prisma Print, 2011).

In October Bill Manhire will be at the Frankfurt Book Fair http://buchmesse.de/en

 

 

 

If I knew where the good songs come from, I’d go there more often.

– Leonard Cohen

 

I was tweeting about how there has been a change of stand for the New Zealand Society of Authors at the Frankfurt Book Fair to allow better access for New Zealand authors and now I have a German airline following my tweets!
   I know I said I was going to write more about 9/11 but today I want to tell you about something more inspiring. It is an initiative from Marlborough school students.  In 2010 Springlands School had the idea of creating a Taylor River Writers' Walk.  So far there are three poems engraved on granite plaques set on huge rocks along the riverbank.  The idea of the project was part of the school’s environmental education programme.  Students wanted to remind people to look after the river as it is special. Other schools plan to be involved in future.
    A third poem has been recently unveiled. The poem, a combined effort by three Mayfield School pupils, begins:

The Taylor River flows through Te Waiharakeke,

glistening in the sunshine,

drifting with the wind,

peaceful ...

 

   Another initiative from school students can be seen in Nelson.  Tahunanui Primary School’s Room 12 students decided to honour well known author Maurice Gee by placing a plaque on a seat at the start of the path leading up to the centre of New Zealand. The plaque reads ‘Bide a wee’ and was inspired after the students read one of Maurice Gee’s books The World around the Corner. Two of the characters meet at a seat which has a plaque with the words ‘Bide a wee’ on it. The students were disappointed to find there was no plaque on the seat as featured in the book. They wrote to the editor of the Nelson Mail and in response the Nelson City Council provided a plaque. This plaque complements the one on a chair on the banks of the Maitai River put in place by the Top of the South Branch of the New Zealand Society of Authors in May 2011. 

   The Taylor River Writers’ Walk and the new plaque for Maurice Gee will be welcome additions to the Top of the South Literary Trail scheduled to be released as a brochure or website or both in 2013.
    My mother told me once that my great-grandmother of Scottish origin used to say things like ‘Bide a wee’ meaning ‘Stay a while’, and used the word ‘bairn’ instead of child. She was also told not to ask questions so we missed out on a lot of family history. I can’t remember the phrase she used to get my mother to stop being so inquisitive but strangely enough I can still hear my mother’s voice in my head as she told me about it.

 

Sources:

Leonard Cohen quote from:  The Exercise Book: Creative writing exercises from Victoria University's Institute of Modern Letters edited by Bill Manhire, Ken Duncum, Chris Price and Damien Wilkins, Victoria University Press 2011, reprinted 2012.

 

Information about Maurice Gee plaque from NZSA Top of the South e-newsletter 14 September 2012.

Article about the Taylor River Walk: The Marlborough Express, Friday 24 August 2012

It’s eleven years since 9/11 and the destruction of the twin towers in downtown Manhattan in New York and yet it all feels so recent.

   I was in the kitchen helping my daughter get ready for school when I heard the news on the radio. I rushed to turn on the television and watched the images as they were replayed over and over again. First one plane and then another flying into the buildings, a plume of smoke rising, people running in the street and finally the buildings collapsing one after the other all in the space of about two hours. My immediate thought was if this can happen in New York then we are also at risk in New Zealand. I told my daughter she wasn’t going to school that day. I don’t know why I said that, the world suddenly seemed an unsafe place.

   On television we saw the firemen and those first on the scene going into the buildings to help and wondered if they would ever come out again. One woman passed a fireman on the stairs going up as she was coming down. She said: ‘He had such a nice face’.  Along with others I wrote an opinion piece for the Marlborough Express which was published. I talked about remembering to stop and smell the roses. It seems a bit trite now but it certainly gave us a feeling of community and of trying to spend more time with family and friends.

   Days later in the supermarket my daughter started crying and I asked her why. She said they were playing the same sad music they played on television when the Twin Towers were hit.

   A name started to surface as to who could be responsible, Osama bin Laden and an organisation called Al Quaeda. The President of the United States at the time, George Bush, retaliated by announcing the ‘War on Terror’ and invaded Afghanistan with the support of Britain. There was talk of Iraq having ‘Weapons of Mass Destruction’. Again I watched the bombing attacks on television and felt sympathy for civilians in another country.

   Osama bin Laden was eventually found in May 2011 and killed. Many believed the world would now be safer but conflict still continues in Afghanistan and elsewhere. It took a long time to decide on a fitting memorial for those who died on 9/11. A decade after the event the public could finally visit the site that had been referred to as ‘Ground Zero’ to view a National September 11 Memorial. The design enables people to walk past swamp oaks and lawns to the centre where the Twin Towers once stood. Here there are two huge pools set in the ground on the exact footprint of the original 110-storey buildings with waterfalls cascading down over granite. Around the pools are etched the names of the nearly 3000 people who were killed on 11 September 2001 in the World Trade Centre, the Pentagon and on United Airlines Flight 93. There are also the names of the six people killed in the World Trade Centre bombing in 1993.  A museum is also planned for the site.

   The architect who designed the memorial, Michael Arad said in an interview that he wanted to create a place of 'quiet reflection' in the city and the sound of the water allows this to happen drowning out trucks and other city noises. With the creation of two voids, both with waterfalls and where the pools never fill and the water vanishes underground, he wanted to represent what is no longer here and yet in some way it still is. A tree which stood in front of one of the tower buildings survived the destruction, was removed from the site, nurtured back to life and replanted on the memorial site. It is the first tree to flower in spring, weeks ahead of all the others, a symbol of hope, and people have their photographs taken in front of it.

    As a result of 9/11 security was tightened at airports around the world, anti-terrorist measures were put in place and in Picton we lost access to the main shipping wharf.