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 ARE YOU TAKING

TOO MANY
PILLS?
How your medicines can make you sick
What to ask your doctor

PLUS: The dangerous

drug combo to avoid

A RIGHT QUIET A DAUGHTER

TO DIE REVOLUTION OF PRIVILEGE
Matt Vickers The electric talks about
makes the car’s time her abusive
case for has come marriage
Lecretia’s Law
Amazing
futures
CONTENTS / April 2019

1. COVER STORY 2. TRANSPORT 3. CRIME: PART 1 4. CRIME: PART 2

TOO MANY THE POWER THE HOPE WHY DO MEN

PILLS? OF THE AND THE HURT HARM WOMEN?
BY DONNA CHISHOLM PEOPLE BY VENETIA SHERSON BY VENETIA SHERSON
BY REBECCA HAYTER
Modern medicine The author of a new The death of British
helps extend our The long-awaited book looks back at backpacker Grace
lives – but over- era of the electric what she’s learnt from Millane exposed some
prescribing pills can car looks set to a year of writing about ugly truths that need
have dangerous charge ahead. domestic violence. to be faced about
side effects. New Zealand.

28 38 48 52

Quote of
the issue
“Are you hurt?”
the women’s
refuge worker
asked. “Can
we come to
get you?”
“Yes,” was
the whispered
reply.

Venetia Sherson takes

a hard look at domestic
violence in The Hope
and the Hurt, page 48.

5. CRIME: PART 3 6. HEARTLAND 7. HEALTH 8. THE ONES THAT GOT AWAY

NOT PEOPLE THE WORKS A RIGHT SAM

LIKE US BY JOHN SUMMERS TO DIE? PILLSBURY
BY DONNA CHISHOLM BY MATT VICKERS BY SHARON STEPHENSON
New Zealand’s
The Aunties’ Jackie abandoned freezing Lecretia Seales’ The man behind
Clarke opens up works trigger widower makes some iconic Kiwi
about her own family memories. his case for death films talks about
abusive marriage. with dignity. becoming a vintner
in Arizona.

56 60 68 78

+ SUBSCRIBE to North & South now and receive a free Providore hamper! (Details, page 46.)

4 | NORTH & SOUTH | APRIL 2019

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the music of the
marae (page 22).
Upfront
Editorial
Local, vocal bodies. page 8
Conversation
Rest home care and our
school curriculum come
under scrutiny. page 12
Four Corners
Events
The best of what’s
on in April. page 18
9 / Medals Reunited
Detective work is returning
service decorations to their
rightful owners. page 20
10 / House of Song
Musician Warren Maxwell
returns to his roots. page 22
11 / Golden Daffodils
Kiwi songs tell a story
of smalltown love on
the big screen.
page 23
12 / Being Human
The remarkable work of
photographer William
Wegman and his “four-
legged muses”. page 24
13 / My Space
Auckland War Memorial
Museum’s John Glen
hits the roof. page 26
6 | NORTH & SOUTH | APRIL 2019
Left: Recording
Opinion
Social Studies
Margo White finds
comfort in lists. page 85
Nerd Nation
Jenny Nicholls
looks at the curious
evolution of man’s
best friend. page 87
Politics
Bevan Rapson on
the interminable talk
about tax. page 89
Grammarian
Ray Prebble makes
sense of abbreviations.
page 91
Right: The confusing new
world of coffee (page 101).
Far right: The business
end of the Heartland
Flyer (page 106).
Review
Music
Phil Gifford’s tribute to
star-makers John Mayall
and Al Park. page 93
New Zealand Books
Peter Wells’ farewell,
Fleur Adcock poetry and
Young Farmers. page 95
International Books
A Trump-era thriller,
Jackie Chan’s memoir
and brave new
fiction. page 97
Film & Television
Trench warfare, two
wild TV cop shows and
a film classic. page 99
ARIZONA, US
8
Map of
contents 13 5
LAST PICTURE
3 SHOW:
MT MAUNGANUI
1 3 11
2 6
TRAVEL:
PAEKĀKĀRIKI
4 - WOODVILLE
6
9 10
7 7
1 12
1
6
6
The Good Life
Food
Jean Teng looks at the
serious business of Puzzles
brewing coffee. page 101 Graeme Wilson’s
crosswords. page 120
Travel
Jenny Nicholls catches Last Words
the Heartland Flyer to Nostalgia and word play
Woodville. page 106 with Paul Little. page 122
High Heels & Gumboots Last Picture Show
Rebecca Hayter swaps A paddle-board view off
city life for 10 acres in Mt Maunganui’s Motuotau
Golden Bay. page 116 (Rabbit Island). page 123
 editorial
FOR THE PAST couple of
months in my east Auckland
neighbourhood, Pakuranga
MP Simeon Brown’s youth-
ful face has been plastered on
fences, inviting residents to a
public meeting on transport.
By the end of February,
some of the billboards had
LOCAL, been embellished with tag-
gers’ favoured facial features:
VOCAL the mono-brow and tooth-
BODIES brush moustache. But Brown’s
timing was spot-on as Auck-
Virginia Larson land commuters prepared for
“March madness”, the city’s
perfect storm of traffic con-
gestion, with schools back,
the university year starting
and everyone bar a few malin-
gerers home from their sum-
mer holidays. All you need is
an actual storm, even a decent
downpour, and gridlock is
pretty much guaranteed.
East Auckland is also about
to experience stage one of
AMETI, the friendly-sounding
acronym for a $1.2 billion east-
ern busway that promises
“dedicated, congestion-free”
bus lanes all over the show,
“supported by new cycling
and walking connections… and
urban design improvements”.
For Auckland’s congestion,
I blame our forefathers for
siting the city on a narrow
isthmus, decades of poor
urban planning (if only Rob
Muldoon hadn’t shelved may-
ARE YOU TAKING or Sir Dove-Myer Robinson’s
TOO MANY far-sighted rapid-rail plan
PILLS?
How your medicines can make you sick
in the 70s), and the Key
What to ask your doctor
Government’s immigration
programme that flattered
PLUS: The dangerous GDP figures while funnel-
drug combo to avoid
ling tens of thousands of new
A RIGHT
TO DIE
QUIET
REVOLUTION
A DAUGHTER
OF PRIVILEGE
residents into already over-
Matt Vickers The electric talks about
car’s time her abusive
makes the
case for
Lecretia’s Law
has come marriage crowded suburbs and onto a
groaning transport network.
COVER CREDITS As one of the 50,000 daily
Design: Jenny Nicholls commuters who use Pakuranga
Photography: Rd – soon to be bus-laned
Getty Images and “T2-ed” – I decided to
8 | NORTH & SOUTH | APRIL 2019
go to the 7pm meeting at the
Bucklands Beach Yacht Club.
It would also be interesting to
observe democracy in action,
I thought. Local authority elec-
tions will be held nationwide
this October, and enrolment
campaigns will start in July, in
the hopes of lifting our parlous
voter turnout – 43% in 2016.
We peaked in 1989, when 57%
of voters bothered to fill out
their ballots for mayors, coun-
cillors, district health boards
and the likes.
Democracy in action is al-
ways messy, even when the
audience is told upfront to
“show respect” and confine
their questions to the matters
at hand. Democracy in action
also, inevitably, has micro-
phone issues. The brave man
from AMETI was onto his
third mic by the time he got
to his mantra for surviving
the construction period: “Re-
route, re-mode, re-time and
reduce.”
Boiled down, if 10% of the
area’s mostly single-occupant
drivers don’t find other ways
to get to work, the Pakuranga
highway and its feeder roads
will grind to a halt.
Looking around the room
– there were at least 200 in
attendance – I figured half of
them were past their commut-
ing days. But when the first
question for AMETI man was,
“Where’s the money coming
from?” and someone in the
back shouted “Rising rates!”,
I assumed the Gold Carders in
the audience were much more
concerned about their rates
bills than whether or not East
Auckland ever “gets moving
again”. AMETI will, in fact, be
funded mostly by ratepayers,
with input from the regional
fuel tax. But yes, Mainlanders,
some of your taxes are being
hoovered into this mighty
house-demolishing, road- and
bridge-building exercise. And
what do you care if it currently
takes 15 minutes to make a left-
hand turn from Cascades Rd?
Back at the yacht club, respect
reserves were running low.
“Why don’t the cyclists
pay for it!” Cyclophobia is a
baffling affliction. Surely the
more cyclists on the roads, the
better? And in east Auckland,
cyclists have waited a long
time for a safe ride into town.
“The people giving you
advice should go back to ele-
mentary school!”
“Personal insults aren’t ac-
ceptable here!”
“It wasn’t personal!”
Then a young man in the
front stood up and spoke
intelligently and succinct-
ly about how T2-bus lanes
could encourage car-pool-
ing and public transport use,
while requiring compromises
from all parties. There was a
half-hearted “Virtue signal-
ling!” from someone trying,
and failing, to sound up with
this phrase du jour.
Later, I tracked down the
voice of reason in the front
row and found it belonged to
16-year-old Ben Fraser, a Year
13 student. He was well versed
on AMETI and, as deputy chair
of the Howick Youth Council,
had surveyed 13- to 24-year-
olds on the different transport
options. Last year, he was in-
volved in a by-election informa-
tion campaign targeting young
people via social media.
“You can’t push a message
to young people like ‘Vote, it’s
your civic duty,’” he told me.
“What works better is saying,
‘Your vote could influence
how much it costs you to bus
to uni.’”
Democracy very much in ac-
tion, and in capable – teenage
– hands. +
We’re lucky in New Zealand.
This little island of ours is
perfectly poised for raising our
animals, thanks to our perfect
grass-growing climate. We get
good amounts of both sun and
rain, we have glacial streams
cutting through our lush pasture,
and our animals have an
abundance of space to roam.
It stands to reason that these
conditions produce some
great and contented animals.
So if you’ve ever wondered how
we can produce meat that’s more
delicious than anywhere else in
the world, the answer is simple,
it goes way back to our roots.

www.silverfernfarms.com

behind
the story
JENNY NICHOLLS
Ken Downie photographs Ja1271, a coal-fired
steam locomotive, at Paekākāriki station.
Toot toot!
W
hen photographer Ken Downie came face
to face with the 100-tonne, coal-fired steam
locomotive that stars in our travel story
(The Flyer, page 106), little did he realise he was meeting
a fellow Dunedin-ite. Both Downie and locomotive
Ja1271 hail from the city – one from the drowsy beachside
suburb of St Clair, and the other from South Dunedin’s
Hillside Railway Workshops, a few miles away. Downie
was also startled to discover the symbol of a bygone era
was only three years older than him: it was built in 1956.
That same year, the very last steam locomotive made at
Hillside, Ja1274, rolled off the production line; it’s now
on display at Toitū Otago Settlers Museum in Dunedin.
Downie vividly recalls, as a 10-year-old, riding the “express”
to Invercargill, pulled by this locomotive – and seeing the
Hillside workshop through the carriage window on his way
out of Dunedin, along the South Island’s main trunk line.
The route, steeped in the history of the south, still carries
freight from Christchurch to Dunedin and Invercargill.
There’s been talk of restoring a passenger service on
the line, if not, sadly, the old steam express service. One
enthusiast for the scheme is Invercargill mayor Tim
Shadbolt, who told the Southland Express in 2017 that
it would provide a “fantastic boost” to the region.
For this issue, Downie also delved into his personal
image library for John Summers’ essay on old and
abandoned freezing works (The Works, page 60). One
of the locations featured? Burnside Freezing Works,
Dunedin – sited, naturally, on the main trunk line.
10 | NORTH & SOUTH | APRIL 2019
EDITORIAL
EDITOR Virginia Larson
EDITOR-AT-LARGE Donna Chisholm
DEPUTY EDITOR Joanna Wane
SENIOR WRITER Mike White
SUBEDITORS Bevan Rapson, Mary de Ruyter
FOOD WRITER & EVENTS EDITOR Jean Teng
ART DIRECTOR Jenny Nicholls
COLUMNISTS Phil Gifford (Music), Rebecca Hayter (High Heels
& Gumboots), Paul Little (NZ Books & Last Words), Jenny Nicholls
(Nerd Nation), Bevan Rapson (Politics), Margo White (Social Studies),
Ray Prebble (Grammar), Graeme Wilson (Crosswords & Whiz Quiz)
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 WHAT’S YOUR
PROPERTY
REALLY WORTH?
Are you considering the purchase or sale of a
home - or wish to use the equity in your asset?
Everyone can have an opinion on a property’s value – and
normally everyone does! But is it coming from someone
UIBUIBTUFSUJBSZRVBMJmDBUJPOTJOQSPQFSUZWBMVBUJPO "SF
UIFZJOEFQFOEFOU %JGGFSFOUTFSWJDFT TVDIBT$PVODJM$7T

and free ‘valuation’ sites) claim to provide a valuation but
most of them create confusion and are simply estimates.
If you require sound valuation advice, there
is no substitute for a Registered Valuer.
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Registered
ost
Valuers are m an
e
trusted to giv ket
r
accurate ma
valuation h,
t Researc
*Curia Marke
Feb 2018

www.nziv.org.nz
conversation
The Old, the Young
Inside a rest home horror The Revenant: Plus: How to
story: How to keep NZ’s toughest catch more fish –
your loved ones safe adventure race and order yum cha

and the Restless

Below: Hannah Sheehan and son Miles, with
two of their flatmates. Hannah’s ex and his

RETHINKING
new partner also share the Auckland house.

THE KIWI DREAM

THIS
IS HOW
WE LIVE
NOW
Under scrutiny: rest home care
A mother of
one flatting
with her ex
Two couples,
one mortgage
and our school curriculum.
The struggles
of a lifetime
renter
Going solo
versus
communal
living

IN DEFENCE OF
STATE CARE
Farming out our demented
old folks to privately owned
rest homes is a recent idea
(Inside a Rest Home Horror
Story, March). Not so long
ago, our designated psychi-
atric hospitals would always
accommodate these suffer-
ers, but we destroyed those
H U LTO N A RC H IV E , G E T T Y
Above: A nurse
with elderly
patients in a
day room at the
Netherne Mental
institutions for ideological Hospital in Surrey,
reasons in the 1990s. An England, 1953.
application for admission
(usually by family or whoev-
er held power of attorney)
needed the signature of two
medical practitioners. The
police would then place
the patient in the nearest

Join the chat about issues of the day on our Facebook page: facebook.com/northandsouthnz. We welcome your views while
keeping you up with North & South news. For more stories from the North & South team, see noted.co.nz. To sign up for a
fortnightly email newsletter from North & South, go to bit.ly/northandsouthedm.

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Auckland 1141; EMAIL north&south@bauermedia.co.nz.

12 | NORTH & SOUTH | APRIL 2019


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The skeleton of a
Tyrannosaurus rex.
WHIZ QUIZ
1. Waitangi’s Treaty House was originally
the home of which British official?
2. Tūranga was the former name of
which New Zealand town?
3. American Evelyn Berezin, who died in
December last year aged 93, is known for what?
4. What line of work is a taxonomist involved in?
5. Who won the Cecil B. DeMille Award
at this year’s Golden Globes?
mental hospital, which
always had specially trained
psychiatrists in charge of all
treatment and medication. In
the old days (unlike today),
there was a real respect for
habeas corpus legislation. To
forcibly contain and treat a
free citizen needed legisla-
tive backing – and hospital
psychiatrists were actually a
part of the legal checks and
balances of the legislation
(the local magistrate would
also visit the patient regu-
larly). State hospitals were
obliged to keep only the truly
demented patients.
As a psychiatric social work-
er at Porirua Hospital in 1965,
I remember well one very old,
quite wealthy orchardist from
Hawke’s Bay who was com-
mitted as a mental patient by
his family. He was frail and
meek but apart from that there
was really nothing wrong with
him. We understood he had
been contemplating chang-
ing his will! We discharged
him forthwith. He was a very
happy and relieved old chap
when I took him to the train
at Porirua Station.
It is amusing to note that in
August last year our Human
Rights Commission suddenly
realised many people are resid-
ing and being treated in de-
mentia wards without legal
backing. This, of course, is an
unintended consequence of
the enactment of the Mental
Health (Compulsory Assess-
ment and Treatment) Act 1992.
We urgently need to revise
our mental health legislation.
We need a comprehensive
legal framework for the treat-
ment of our demented popu-
lation, including functional
dementia sufferers, as we had
until 1992.
ANDY ESPERSEN, NELSON
POWER GRAB
I read the rest home story
with horror, yet realise it
could happen to anyone. An
EPA [enduring power of at-
torney] can all too easily be-
come a prison [for the inca-
pacitated individual] under
the current system. It is also
cumbersome, expensive and
time consuming. A while ago,
an elderly woman I know
gave EPA to her son, who was
in his 40s. He sold her house
and put her out on the street.
I am single and have no
children. My brother is very
resentful that I inherited an
equal share of our parents’

6. Which three US states have only

four letters in their names?

7. How many fingers did the monster Tyrannosaurus

rex have on each of his tiny forelimbs?

8. How often does a private car need

a warrant of fitness inspection?

9. The abbreviation SPQR, besides being

the name of an Auckland restaurant, has a
long history. What does it stand for?

10. What is that pesky gas that makes fruit

ripen too quickly if stored near bananas?
11. Singer Roberta Joan Anderson is
better known by what name?
12. Which New Zealand artist inscribed a
painting with “O God it can be dark here, and
manuka in bloom may breed despair”?
Answers to Whiz Quiz on page 120
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14 | NORTH & SOUTH | APRIL 2019

“An EPA
[enduring
power of
attorney] can
all too easily
become a
prison.”
estate. He has other issues
with me, which I recognise,
but I prefer to handle these
by staying away from him.
We are both in our early 70s
now and I don’t foresee any-
thing changing between us.
I therefore decided some
time ago that I will not set up
an EPA until after his death.
It is possible I will never
have an EPA. I’m sure other
family members would carry
out my EPA very well, but
they would be subject to con-
tinued onslaughts from my
brother, who would not have
my best interests in mind,
only his own. I can’t be sure
they would stand up to this,
nor should they have to.
NAME AND ADDRESS
SUPPLIED
NOT RESTING EASY
As a long-time reader of
North & South, I would like
to commend you for the “rest
home horror” story. From me
and my partner – our hearts
go out to [the writer] Alice
McCarthy. Hers is a startling
story but one that appears to
be quite common. It’s fair to
say many people would not
be aware of what can happen
[in these institutions].
Rest homes are popping up
in many cities; also retirement
villages, from which the el-
derly can easily progress from
an independent life to one of
dependence and, from there,
to the situation described in
the article: total dependence.
And at a cost.
There are good general
rules overseeing rest homes,
but who considers the actual
care of the client or patient?
The [rest home] owner-in-
vestor has to pay extra for
qualified medical staff, which
reduces the profits. We’ve
also heard about high legal
costs being endured by cli-
ents when EPA issues have to
be addressed.
So often the government
of the day says it “will look
into these issues” but there’s
no follow-up.
SHIRLEY CROWLEY-BARR-
SMITH, TAURANGA
SORTED!
I found myself nodding all
the way through the March
editorial, Think Tank, about
teaching kids the skills they
really need. Virginia Larson
mentioned that my organi-
sation, the Commission for
Financial Capability (CFFC),
has some units available to
teach students about mon-
ey, but they are optional for
teachers to use, and, unless
a student is taking a subject
such as economics or ac-
counting, most leave school
with little knowledge or abil-
ity in managing their finances.
Hopefully, that will soon
change through CFFC’s
free Sorted in Schools pro-
gramme, the first govern-
ment-backed financial capa-
bility programme aligned to
subjects across the national
curriculum.
Named after our respect-
ed personal finance website
(sorted.org.nz), Sorted in
Schools will be part of core
subjects, including maths,
English, science, social stud-
ies, technology and even
PE. For example, an English
class studying a novel about
someone who falls into debt
could spend a lesson looking
at what debt is, the differ-
ence between good debt and
bad debt, and the total cost
of taking on a loan once you
add interest and fees.
We’ve started rolling out
learning packages for Years
9-10 for the New Zealand
curriculum, and are develop-
ing the first Māori Medium
Education resources in te
reo. These resources will be
trialled later this term.
We’ll develop resources for
senior secondary once we’ve
received recommendations
from the NCEA review. Top-
ics range from budgeting and
borrowing, to KiwiSaver, in-
surance and investing.
So far, half of all secondary
schools throughout the
country have registered their
interest in Sorted in Schools,
including a large number of
kura [education centres].
And students really want it,
too. A CFFC survey revealed
82% of school leavers want-
ed to learn about money
during class, particularly
about budgeting and loans.
It’s never been easier for
young people to gain access
to credit than it is today. Our
youth are constantly targeted
by lenders, and need help to
ensure they don’t get sucked
into cycles of bad debt that
could hold them back. Sorted
in Schools will equip them
with the tools they need to
make informed and effective
decisions about money.
As a community, we need
to ensure all students leave
school confident about mon-
ey and how to make it work
for them. We welcome any
approaches and feedback
through our website sorte-
dinschools.org.nz as we build
a network to prepare young
New Zealanders for a healthy
financial future.
NICK THOMSON, CFFC
DIRECTOR OF LEARNING
NORTH & SOUTH | APRIL 2019 | 15
WISHFUL THINKING
In the editorial Think Tank
we are led to believe that
school leavers can be trained
to be critical thinkers.
I’d like to suggest that this is
wishful thinking. Indeed, this
assumes the role of the uni-
versity is different to that of
the secondary school, and the
compulsory system. But in
both arenas the default posi-
tion has the student learn to
repeat the information and
the particular viewpoint of
the instructor, usually in the
form of a three-hour examina-
tion. The student crams the
information into their head,
writes it in an acceptable form
for the instructor to read, and
then forgets most of it.
The editorial suggests that
students can be trained to
“discount personal opinion,
prejudice and anecdote”,
which is objectively separat-
ed from evidence. But most
academics create courses
based on their personal pref-
erences in academic theory,
which are usually ideological
agendas, with some personal
prejudices and anecdotes for
them to base lectures on. Un-
like in the school system,
where there is meant to be a
national curriculum, each
university can do its own
thing, even if they start off
with the standard or classic
texts (which are invariably
written overseas).
Students at every level
are expected to conduct
literature reviews, in which
the academic discipline is
replicated, especially as post-
graduates when they are
supposedly meant to conduct
new research.
So there is no actual critical
training in this system, and
anyone who dares to be crit-
ical of a particular position
needs to know how attached
the academic is to it. If he/
she does not get what they
expect to read, the student
can always be failed; and any
attempt at original research
can be rejected if it is deemed
to not be in the interests of
the university (this has hap-
pened to me more than
once). The idea of what an
“interest” might be is always
malleable, but does not in-
volve reaching a critical view
at all, and most students
know to stick to the received
wisdom.
In any case, most jobs actu-
ally involve doing a very pre-
scribed task, not making up
Invitation to Illustrators
some critical perspective on
how to do it differently.
SIMON BOYCE, WELLINGTON
SHARED HUMANITY
“Surely Māori children had
access to the same local
schools as Pākehā?” writes
Brenda Barnes [Letters,
March, in response to Han-
nah Brown’s Sense of an End-
ing story on Sally Wast in the
January issue.].
No. By and large, they are
concentrated in low-decile
schools where they most de-
cidedly do not have the same
educational opportunity.
[Barnes then claims Māori
children] are, “… not being
helped with their homework
or taken to the local library”.
You will find proportionally
more Māori kids in accessi-
ble libraries than Pākehā any
day of the week. But not help-
ing with homework when the
parents have not enjoyed the
necessary education in school
culture and social expecta-
tions? Quite likely. I’ve known
a multitude of Māori parents
who truly value schooling for
their kids but don’t have
Barnes’ facility in the English
language or intuitive under-
standing of school culture
that would enable them to
bring aspiration to reality.
I sat in a waiting-room re-
cently, with equal numbers
of Pākehā and Māori/Pasifika
(if we use the superficial cat-
egorisation of brown skin).
In this instance, the Pākehā
kids ran riot, while the Poly-
nesians sat quietly. Did any
mum read to them? No. Not
even the Pākehā mother,
who I knew (and so knew
she could read). But I had no
way of knowing the reading
skills of the other mothers.
What I do know is the Poly-
nesian mums were exercis-
ing responsibility for their
kids, or they wouldn’t have
been there.
Are Māori disproportion-
ately represented in the [poor
health/abuse/imprisonment]
stats? Yes. I’m not sure Pāke-
hā are being blamed for this
into a community where,
despite parents’ struggles
children are loved. The chal-
lenge for all of us is to get
beside our fellow New Zea-
landers, irrespective of racial
tagging, with informed care
and shared humanity.
MICHAEL L. DRAKE,
AUCKLAND
LETTER OF THE MONTH
ARMED AND
DANGEROUS?
I found your article on the
AOS (Unmasking the Armed
Offenders Squad, January)
surprising for several rea-
sons. First, North & South
has been strongly critical of
the excesses of the NZ Po-
lice (and also of our special
forces) in the past. And sec-
ond, this article was effec-
tively a puff piece and de-
void of any larger or critical
perspective.
I do not doubt our police
need capacity and training
to respond to firearm inci-
dents. But are there any
dangers to our society, and
to our concepts of due judi-
cial process, of having 16
squads of highly skilled and
armed AOS “covering the
country 24/7”? And is it re-

H
any more than Māori, as
achette NZ is delighted to launch the Margaret Mahy Barnes suggests, but blame
Illustration Prize. Mahy’s books have entertained gen- doesn’t offer a solution. The
erations of Kiwi readers and this prize offers the unique stats show the reality, a reality
opportunity for an unpublished, New Zealand-based that won’t change without
illustrator to illustrate her 1971 classic, The Boy with Two Shad- some form of transforming
ows. The Margaret Mahy estate and Hachette NZ invite illus- intervention.
trators to interpret this iconic story of a witch asking a young How about we replace
boy to mind her shadow while she goes on holiday. Creativity blame and shame with com-
is encouraged: The Boy with Two Shadows could be The Girl passion? How about we rec-
with Two Shadows; the setting could move to the future or to ognise the reality that we
a mythical land. have a growing community of
The winner will receive a $1000 cash prize, a $500 library children whose parents, for
of books and the opportunity for this project to be developed whatever reason, do not have
into a published picture book. The Margaret Mahy Illustration and cannot access the cultur-
Prize is part of a year-long celebra- al capital, parenting skills and
tion marking the 50th anniversary educational enrichment to
of A Lion in the Meadow. break the cycle of poverty,
•Submissions open 21 March 2019; dysfunctional family life, and
shortlist announced 8 August; win- poor health in which they eke
ner announced 29 August. Terms out an existence.
and conditions will be available on The real challenge is to find
Hachette.co.nz from 21 March. a way to take their richly en-
dowed knowledge and skills
ally a triumph for equality
of the sexes that many more
women are now determined
to endure the largely mind-
less conformity testing of
AOS selection?
When Sir Robert Peel es-
tablished the first disciplined
police service for London in
1829, he was firm that it was
distinguished from the army
by an absence of evident
force. Now, in New Zealand,
Star Wars militarism and in-
timidation are being cultivat-
ed by a police elite that avows
its own “humility”. As Mag-
nus Pym (and John Le Carré)
astutely observes, a society
that admires its shock troops
had better be bloody careful
about where it’s going.
PETER STANLEY,
TAURANGA +

16 | NORTH & SOUTH | APRIL 2019

 From Facebook:

In our February story Nicest Ices, we scoured the country

for the best ice cream, sorbet and gelato spots. We also
asked you to let us know if we’d missed a gem.
Judi McMillan: “Great idea… One place not noted but
worth mentioning is Nom Nom in Clyde, Otago. It’s
tucked away off the beaten track, on a back street.
A local artist, Debbie Paton, owns it and the ice cream
is divine. It’s a great place to visit, very Kiwi. And
Debbie is passionate about making ice cream.”

Jessica DuBois responded to Mike White’s story on New

Zealand’s toughest adventure race, The Revenant (March):
“I am with the fitness studio that helped train and sponsor
Chadd Wright, one of the competitors in the race, and L I S T IC L E
he recently shared the article with me. Mike White writes
beautifully. I’m a writer myself and, as much as I adore Prices then and now (in today’s dollars)
Chadd and am proud of him, the first thing I thought at the Microwave oven Washing machine
end of the article was how incredibly well it was written.” 1988: $1330 1965: $4050
• And from an eagle-eyed reader, regarding the March 2019: $400 2019: $600
Whiz Quiz question, “What are all the factors of 52?” Television Vacuum cleaner
The answer given was “1, 2, 4, 13, 26.” D. Francis wrote: 1966: 23-inch b/w TV: 1949: $2040
“In the same way that if two is a factor of six then so is $4500 2019: $599
three, then if you assert one to be a factor of 52, then 2019: 43-inch smart
SOURCES: STATS NEW ZEALAND,
you must also include 52. Sorry to be pedantic!” TV: $744 BRISCOES, SMITHS CITY, NOEL LEEMING

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 FOUR CORNERS / EVENTS edited by Joanna Wane
ON TOUR
Finn
Andrews
FINN
ANDREWS
15 March-14 April
Ever seen Finn Andrews
without his signature
bowler hat? The Veils
frontman – and his hat – is
kicking off a 13-date tour at
Womad in New Plymouth,
to celebrate his upcoming
debut solo album One Piece
at a Time. Some venues
will be treated to solo
performances; at others
he’ll be accompanied by a
full live band, strings and
songwriter Reb Fountain.
18 | NORTH & SOUTH | APRIL 2019
ON TOUR
NORAH
JONES
23-29 April
It’s been 14 years
since Norah Jones
last played here,
Kiss the Sky riding the success of
her massive debut
N AT I O N W I D E hit “Come Away with
Me” – and her latest
AUTUMN FEST album, Day Breaks,
signals a return to the
Wānaka’s Festival of Colour embraces the artistic rainbow piano-laden sound
with an impressive spread of music, visual art, theatre of her jazzy roots.
and dance. The Royal New Zealand Ballet performs three
contemporary works, two of which tell the story of women’s
suffrage; baroque musician Jordi Savall time-travels
Wānaka back to 17th-century France; the New Zealand
Dance Company performs Kiss the Sky; and Tusiata Avia’s
Wild Dogs under my Skirt is poetry in action (2-7 April).
Also on the festival circuit: the UPSURGE Bay of Islands
Art Festival includes a first-time writer’s festival (2-7 April);
Motueka Kai Fest (7 April) celebrates harvest time; and
the Tāiko Festival in Punakaiki (26-27 April) heralds the
seasonal arrival of the Tāiko, a local bird hero, with a welcome
parade, music, native tree planting and a community market. BLENHEIM
MISS JEAN
AUCKL AND
BATTEN
18-21 April
A fearless aviator,
Jean Batten was
famed for her 1936
flight from England
to New Zealand in a
single-engine plane,
armed with only
a compass and a
watch for navigation.
MANDELA MY LIFE
Alex Ellis shines in
this solo show, set
on the eve of the
13 April-4 August
last leg of Batten’s
The first international tour of Mandela My Life: The journey as Australian
Official Exhibition stops by at Auckland’s Eden Park, authorities try to keep
where flour bombs famously rained down onto the rugby her grounded (at the
pitch in protest at apartheid during the 1981 Springbok ASB Marlborough
tour. Through film footage, documents, personal artefacts Theatre, as part of
and new audio-visual pieces, the exhibition explores a nationwide tour).
Nelson Mandela’s rich and politically charged life.
 N E W P LY M O U T H / A S H B U R T O N
CHASING RAINBOWS
7 April
Be showered with colour along the 5km Mitre 10 Rainbow
Run in New Plymouth, with some fun spot prizes, a mass
colour throw and a seaside market waiting at the finishing line
at Ngāmotu Beach. Ashburton hosts the Get Coloured by
CanInspire colour fun run on the same day, at Lake Hood;
proceeds will be donated to the CanInspire Charitable Trust,
which supports Cantabrians through illness, trauma and loss.
WELLINGTON
THE CHILDREN
Circa Theatre, 30 March-27 April
Retired couple and nuclear physicists Hazel and Robin
live an idyllic life filled with yoga and farming. Everything
changes when an old friend – a nuclear physicist – shows
up at their door. A tense drama, The Children deals with
some very serious questions about the future of our planet.
N AT I O N W I D E
THE ROAD THAT WASN’T THERE
2 April-23 May
Fantastical theatre for both kids and adults, The Road
that Wasn’t There uses puppetry, shadow play and
live music to spin the darkly humorous tale of a young
woman who finds herself in a paper world – and realises
her fictional actions can have very real consequences.
Tim Minchin
ON TOUR
KINGS OF COMEDY
Multi-talented Australian Tim Minchin graces the New
Zealand stage for the first time in a decade, belting out
irreverent comedy tunes at the piano (14-19 April); observational
comedian Danny Bhoy swoops in with his Scottish accent
on a four-city tour with a brand-new show (23-29 April);
Welshman Rob Brydon (The Trip, Would I Lie to You?) riffs
off the crowd with signature improvisation in I Am Standing
Up (2-4 April); and Ronny Chieng (Crazy Rich Asians and a
correspondent on The Daily Show with Trevor Noah) performs
his one-man stand-up Tone Issues in Auckland (2 April).
N AT I O N W I D E
CATS!
12 April-5 May
Munkustrap, Rum Tum Tugger and the rest of the Jellicles
hit 15 centres around New Zealand, singing along their
“Journey to the Heaviside Layer”, to decide which cat will
be reborn into a new life. Since its premiere on London’s
West End in 1981, this evergreen Andrew Lloyd Webber
musical has grossed more than $US342 million.
NORTH & SOUTH | APRIL 2019 | 19
 NELSON
TI M C U FF

LOST,
A
fter 37 years in the army and air force, the
last thing Ian Martyn expected to become

STOLEN OR
was a detective. The hours he’s spent digging
into historic documents since he retired
aren’t crime-related though, but to reunite

STRAYED
service medals with the families of the
men and women they were awarded to.
Since establishing Medals Reunited New Zealand
(MRNZ) in 2014, the former major has become an ace
Service medals are at genealogy, finding the rightful owners of more than
being reunited with 250 medals (medalsreunitednz.co.nz). “Ancestry.com is
my main tool because my work often requires building
their rightful owners a family tree,” says Martyn, who operates from a small
thanks to former major office – “The Bunker”, he calls it – at his home in Nelson.
His detective work began in 2011, when he tried to
Ian Martyn and his locate the medals of his great-grandfather, infantry
determined research. soldier Private John (Jack) Ormsby Sullivan, who’d
survived Gallipoli but died on the Somme. “I concluded
his father had sold them after becoming destitute
in the Great Depression,” says Martyn. “I haven’t
found them – yet – but was saddened by the volume

20 | NORTH & SOUTH | APRIL 2019


of named medals being traded on the internet and
wondered why they weren’t still with the families.”
Since then, Martyn has made it his mission to return
misplaced awards to where they belong, setting up a
website and spreading word of his service, which is free.
Sometimes medals arrive in the post – from deceased
estates, recovered by police or even, on occasion, dug
up in people’s gardens. Other times, he’s asked to locate
missing medals, and he often acts as an intermediary
between vendors and families. With the twists and turns
of history, including adoption or divorce, matching
medals with descendant families is no easy feat.
Helping Martyn in his mission is partner Carolynne
Davies, who supports him by providing rations into
the early hours when he’s hot on the trail, and former
army pal Brian Ramsay, who helps promote his work,
and mounts medals for veterans and their families.
Where possible, deliveries are made in person. When
a World War I Victory Medal was sent in by a navy
captain who’d found it among his father’s effects, it was
discovered after many intensive hours of research that
Above and left: Retired army major
Ian Martyn has become an ace
at genealogy, finding the rightful
owners of more than 250 medals.
the recipient, Private Henry Bevan of the New Zealand
Expeditionary Force, had been a Māori All Black. Martyn
successfully placed the medal, along with two others
he uncovered during his hunt, with Bevan’s nephew.
In another case, he reunited medals salvaged from
a rubbish dump with a veteran whose family had
mistakenly discarded them when he was moving house.
A committed royalist, Martyn modestly keeps his
own decorations for service at home and overseas
tucked away, unless on parade (he personally designed
the ribbon for one of them, a United Nations service
medal for a mission in East Timor). However, he
proudly displays the medals awarded to his uncle, a
World War II bomber pilot who was lost in action.
“Any I can’t find correct homes for, I would pass to
the relevant forces museum, but so far that’s not been
necessary,” he says. “There are many still out there
and, were it in my power, I’d like to save and return
them all. Obviously that’s not possible and I have to
limit myself or I’d never leave the computer. But it’s a
pleasure being of service.” FIONA TERRY
NORTH & SOUTH | APRIL 2019 | 21
 WA I R A R A PA
THE HOUSE OF SONG
Musician Warren Maxwell has returned to his roots.
TRINITY ROOTS frontman
Warren Maxwell is laying down
history, recording 25 waiata
composed and sung by Wairarapa
Māori, as part of a cultural project
aimed at connecting iwi with their
music across four generations.
It’s somewhat of a departure for
the acclaimed musician, who’s
used to recording and composing
contemporary music – typically
sung in English – for his dub-reggae
band, but there were some fitting
connections. Maxwell traces his
own whakapapa to Ngāi Tūhoe,
Ngāti Rakaipaaka and Ngāi Te Rangi,
and his recording studio is at the
entrance to the Wairarapa region,
in Featherston, where he lives.
22 | NORTH & SOUTH | APRIL 2019
Maxwell, a music lecturer at Massey
University, spent many hours at marae
around the region last year, recording
a mix of traditional and contemporary
waiata composed and sung by Māori,
from children at Te Kōhanga Reo
o Hinetearorangi in Masterton
to whānau from local marae, and
“nannies’’ from Te Rangimarie Marae
in Rangiotū, near Palmerston North.
The waiata, composed by local
Māori and those with links to the
Wairarapa, are a rich resource for hapū
from Cape Palliser up to Mangakino,
north of Taupō, where a number of
descendants of Wairarapa iwi now live.
Maxwell, guitarist and lead
singer with Trinity Roots since
1998, approached the project quite
VI C TO R IA B I R K I N S H AW
differently to recording the music of
a contemporary band, relishing the
experience of being greeted to each
marae with a pōwhiri and engaging
with local Māori through their waiata.
“I’ve recorded kaupapa Māori
groups before, but I have never gone
to marae like this and collected songs
off-site,” he says. “It wasn’t just a
matter of setting up microphones
and getting on with it. There is a
real kind of richness in terms of
the diversity of the songs and the
flavour of the music. What I love
most about the songs is the integrity
of the performances, and these will
resonate across the generations.’’
Deborah Davidson, chairperson of
the Wairarapa Moana Trust, says each
 H A M I LT O N
Above: Rose McIver and George
Mason sing their way through the
Kiwi songbook in Daffodils.
Left: Musician Warren Maxwell with
“Nanny’’ Mihi Namana at UCOL’s
Whakaoriori Marae in Masterton.
marae was asked to sing its favourite
waiata as a cultural record before
kaumātua and other elders passed
on. The recordings will be released
slowly on Spotify and iTunes, and
a limited number of DVDs will be
gifted to kaumātua. Each recording
was also filmed, and these will be
uploaded to the trust’s YouTube
channel. “They are a taonga for our
people and our region,’’ she says.
Some songs in the collection feature
guitars, others are choral pieces.
One, composed by Wellington-based
songwriter Hone Hurihanganui,
“sounds like a spaghetti Western”,
says Maxwell. The last in the series,
“Whakapukepuke Ai I Aue”, was
written two years ago by “Nanny’’
Mihi Namana with her friend, Lou
Cook, to be sung at tangi. Namana
says it references the sadness
of the person’s passing and the
local landscape: their ancestral
mountains and the local Rumahanga
River. Sadly, Cook died last year,
on Namana’s 80th birthday.
Now 81, Namana has lived in the
region since she moved there with
her family at the age of eight. She
often sings at marae, particularly at
tangi. “These waiata are important
to our hapū and that’s why each
marae has its own songs. Some of
my children and mokopuna live in
Australia, so this will be a way they
can listen to waiata from here.’’
SARAH CATHERALL
A HOST OF GOLDEN DAFFODILS
Five decades of Kiwi songs tell a story
of smalltown love on the big screen.
ROCHELLE BRIGHT is calling
from Hamilton. Of course she is.
It’s where her parents first laid
eyes on each other among the
daffodils at Hamilton Gardens in the
1960s – 20 years after her paternal
grandparents first met at exactly
the same spot. She’s never tempted
fate by setting foot there herself
when the daffodils are in bloom.
Bright’s old hometown was the
backdrop for her musical stage show
Daffodils, based on her parents’
star-crossed love story; a smash hit
featuring a soundtrack of iconic
Kiwi songs, it toured New Zealand
and Australia, and won a prestigious
Scotsman Fringe First award at
the Edinburgh Fringe in 2016. And
now Hamilton is the setting of a
new feature-film adaptation of the
musical, opening nationwide on
21 March, starring Rose McIver
and George Mason (who quit Home
and Away to take up the role).
Bright wrote the film script for
Daffodils, too, and is played onscreen by
singer Kimbra, in what she describes as
a piece of “dream casting” by director
David Stubbs. “It feels quite symbolic,
being back where it all began,” says
the Auckland-based writer, who’s
down in Hamilton visiting a friend.
Her mother and sister are coming over
from Perth for the film’s premiere.
Telling her family’s “semi-
autobiographical” story has been a
bittersweet experience for Bright, who
was a youngster when her parents
divorced, and only 14 when her father
died. “Daffodils has always been a
search to know my dad,” she says.
“There was a lot not spoken that my
dad wouldn’t share with my mum,
and stuff Mum didn’t share with me.
“All of it comes from a core element
of truth and what I remember as a
young child, but it’s funny what you
remember and what you cling to, and
what actually happened. So truth is
a very hazy thing to begin with, and
then the songs created new storylines.
There are moments when you can
step away and look at it as an art
work, and then little moments that
pull you into the truth of that time.”
Shot in CinemaScope, Daffodils
is drenched with colour and pays
homage to the mood and fashions
of the time, from beehive hairdos to
classic tail-finned cars. As the story
unfolds, McIvor and Mason sing their
way through the Kiwi songbook, from
a deliciously subversive version of
Darcy Clay’s “Jesus I was Evil” to Bic
Runga’s “Drive”, and the Mutton Birds’
“Anchor Me”, which Bright describes
as one of the most beautiful and most
complex love songs ever written.
Inevitably, scriptwriters remain one
step removed from the film shoot, but
Bright made sure she was on set for
a scene at the Starlight Ballroom, a
60s hot spot in Hamilton where her
parents went on a date. “That was
pretty magical because the ballroom
doesn’t exist anymore, but it’s been
such a big part of the play and now
the film, and my family history. It
was wonderful.” JOANNA WANE
NORTH & SOUTH | APRIL 2019 | 23
 CHRISTCHURCH N AT I O N W I D E

DO THE
BLUEBEAT

“ TA M I N O WITH MAG I C FLU TE” 1 9 9 6 . CO PY R I G HT WI LLIA M WEG MA N

Sixties popster Dinah
Lee might not be the
first person you’d
associate with reggae,
but her hit single “Do
the Bluebeat” showed
the first influences
of Jamaican music
reaching these shores,
writes Gareth Shute in
AudioCulture’s Aotearoa
Reggae Timeline
(audioculture.co.nz).
From 70s Grey Lynn
band Backyard to
Herbs, Ardijah, Upper
Hutt Posse, Nesian
Mystik and Katchafire,
Kiwis have embraced
reggae’s roots as
“struggle music”,
blending politics and
protest with a distinctly
Polynesian vibe. And
we can’t get enough of
it. In February, Dunedin
band Six60 sold out
Auckland’s Western
Springs Stadium –
40 years after Bob
Marley and the Wailers
played there.
THE ART OF BEING HUMAN AudioCulture profiles
hundreds of artists,
It’s hard to know who’s more famous: American photographer William Wegman or his dogs. His first
Weimaraner, Man Ray, starred in so many of Wegman’s whimsical works – often dressed in costume labels, venues and
and adopting humanlike poses – that New York’s Village Voice named him “Man of the Year” when he landmark moments
died in 1982. His successor, Fay Wray, shot to art-world stardom, and so did several generations of her in the history of New
pups. William Wegman: Being Human celebrates three decades of collaboration between the artist and Zealand music. With a
his “four-legged muses” in an exhibition that examines the human condition through photography and rich archive of photos,
video, at the Christchurch Art Gallery from 6 April to 28 July. audio tracks and album
covers, it’s a real gem.

N AT I O N W I D E

DOG DAY OUT

Dreamt up by a group of “dog mad” young women, New Zealand’s largest dog-walking event
began three years ago as a bit of a joke. But its debut was so popular – with some 17,000
people taking part nationwide – that the Big Dog Walk has become a highlight of the canine
calendar. Money from sponsors and donations on the day goes to the For Lots of Dogs fund,
which distributes food to dog charities such as Adoptadog, SPCA, Chained Dog Rehabilitation
and Rehoming, Passion4Paws and animal shelters throughout the country.
VIVI EN N E H ALDA N E

The next Big Dog Walk is on 7 April from 10am, with events in central Auckland, Waitangi Park
in Wellington and Heard Park in Christchurch (for details, visit “TheBigDogWalkWithLotsofDogs”
page on Facebook). You don’t have a dog? No problem. Anyone is welcome to come along, says
organiser Alice McKinley. “You just have to really like dogs.” VIVIENNE HALDANE

24 | NORTH & SOUTH | APRIL 2019

FROM DELIVERING BABIES TO
DELIVERING VACCINATIONS,
YOU HELP US GET THERE.

Through conflict, natural disasters and disease,

we are there. As an independent organisation,
we receive no government funding. Help us
continue to go where others don’t. Donate now.
A Médecins Sans Frontières nurse tends to a little patient in a Therapeutic Feeding Centre
in South Sudan. © Brendan Bannon / Médecins Sans Frontières

msf.org.nz
John Glen on the roof of the
Auckland War Memorial AUCKLAND
Museum, above recently
restored decorative
skylights at the front of the
building. Right: One of the
spectacular rooftop views,
across Auckland Domain
MY SPACE
and out to the harbour.

JOHN GLEN
John Glen looks out over the vast configuration of
pipes, ducts, solar panels and other technological
paraphernalia that colonise the Auckland War
Memorial Museum’s rooftop. “These systems
keep the living building breathing,” says Glen, the
museum’s head of building infrastructure, who
runs occasional guided rooftop tours. “And that
helps care for and preserve the taonga within.”
The imposing landmark was built in three stages:
the original neo-classical front section opened
in 1929 as a memorial to World War I and blends
aesthetically with the second section, constructed
in 1960 as a memorial to World War II.
The third section, the Grand Atrium, was completed
in 2006 and increased the overall footprint of the
building by 60% – its copper and glass dome sits high
above the rear of the museum like a giant stingray.
Until recently, these buildings were highly
dysfunctional, says Glen, who has a background in
energy management. “It was only about seven years
ago we began seriously reducing our carbon footprint
from 1856 tonnes to 970 tonnes, knocking $400,000
off the power and gas bill every year.” But it’s getting
those three difficult structures to work together so
successfully that makes him proudest. Today, it’s one
of the most sustainable museums in the world, using
a range of energy conservation techniques, including
recycling the same air in the building at night, using
a wider band of temperature and humidity controls
through heating and cooling, and planning energy
usage around specific visitor numbers. “It’s not just
the solar panels; they are the icing on the cake.”
The museum has undergone a major restoration since
the 1990s, including earthquake strengthening; the
ongoing process of meticulously maintaining a building
of such enormous proportions is also immense.
“It’s like restoring a classic car,” says Glen, who
hopes to hold rooftop tours on a regular basis in
the near future (aucklandmuseum.com). “So far,
we’ve mainly done school groups. It’s great showing
kids how a sustainable building really works.”
K E N DOWN I E

KE N DOWNIE
 COVER STORY
A
t lunchtime every day
for the past two years,
Southland retiree
Anne Irwin, 67, has
grabbed a glass of milk
and downed a palmful of the nine med-
icines she needs to stay alive and well.
There are six pills to manage her hyper-
tension and heart failure, and aspirin
to prevent blood clots. Then there’s the
tablet to stop the nausea associated with
the other pills and an antidepressant to
lift her mood. At night, she’ll take her
tenth: a pill to help her sleep.
There have been times, Irwin says,
when she’s felt she is on so many pills
that she’d rattle if you shook her, but af-
ter nearly five years of doctors “tinker-
ing” to get a medicine mix that suits her,
she’s not about to argue with the number
she takes, even though a couple have side
effects she’d rather do without.
“One makes me sleepy… that’s a nui-
sance but because I take them all to-
gether, I haven’t figured out which one
it is. I think it might be the venlafaxine
[antidepressant].”
But, there’s a very big upside. With-
out the drugs, Irwin would likely die.
Within days of stopping one or other of
her heart drugs, she becomes breathless
and her ankles swell. “Fifteen years ago,
I was told if I didn’t take the pills I prob-
ably wouldn’t have long to live.”
28 | NORTH & SOUTH | APRIL 2019
It’s likely she’s had hypertension most
of her life, a complication of a kidney
infection she had as a child.
Late last year, an American locum at
the rural practice she attends said she
was doing so well, he’d try to wean her
off one of the drugs, a beta blocker. She
stopped taking it for the three months
until her next appointment, but her
blood pressure rose alarmingly and she
felt fatigued, so was put back on it. “I
feel quite healthy and find it hard to be-
lieve that I feel this well after spending
many years struggling.”
For Irwin, who worked as a medical
secretary and later trained as a nurse,
the potpourri of pills is just an accepted
part of her life. “I know the ones that
were giving me bad effects and they’ve
been whittled out.” But she is still trying
to find the best possible combination.
After her latest visit to her GP in January,
she decided to try stopping the angina
prevention drug she was on for chest
pain, after tests showed no evidence of
coronary artery disease. “I’m pleased be-
cause it tended to make my neck muscles
a bit weak and I had difficulty holding
my head up.” At her own initiative, she’s
trying to eliminate the Losec she takes
to settle her stomach. From her nursing
training, she knows it shouldn’t be taken
long-term, despite the fact it has made
GETTY
her life “much more pleasant”.
 BY THE TIME WE REACH OUR LATE 60S, A QUARTER OF US
WILL BE TAKING A SMORGASBORD OF MEDICINES THAT WE
HOPE WILL EXTEND OUR LIVES. BUT BY HOW MUCH AND
AT WHAT COST? DONNA CHISHOLM INVESTIGATES.

ARE YOU TAKING

TOO MANY PILLS? Donna Chisholm is North & South’s editor-at-large.

Southland retiree Anne Irwin, 67. At lunchtime every day for the past two years, she has grabbed
a glass of milk and downed a palmful of the nine medicines she needs to stay alive.
C
hanging prescriptions to
get the most benefit takes
fine-tuning, patience and
a good doctor, says Irwin.
Even then, her experience shows, stop-
ping medicines can be much more dif-
ficult than starting them. But GPs and
specialists say there is an increasing
awareness of the potential downsides of
overmedication, especially in older peo-
ple who are prescribed many different
drugs that may interact with each other,
or cause confusion and falls.
By the age of 65, 25% of us are on five
or more long-term medicines – a figure
that rises sharply to 53% by the age of 75
and nearly 60% at 85. It’s understanda-
ble, in that we’re obviously developing
more conditions that can be treated.
The problem is that at the same time,
our bodies are becoming less efficient at
metabolising and excreting medicines.
From the mid-70s, our kidneys work less
well, so more of the “active” medicine we
30 | NORTH & SOUTH | APRIL 2019
take accumulates in the blood, causing a
greater effect. For people on anti-hyper-
tensive medication, this can mean their
blood pressure drops too low, causing
postural hypotension, or dizziness on
standing. In addition, the likelihood of
gaining a meaningful survival benefit
from each drug reduces with every year
that passes.
University of Otago researchers have
been at the forefront of efforts to raise
awareness of the problem. Recent papers
led by Professor Dee Mangin, director of
the university’s Primary Care Research
Group and a chair in family medicine at
McMaster University in Canada, as well
as by geriatrician Hamish Jamieson and
psychiatrist Roger Mulder, have found:
• Almost half of patients (43%)
are being prescribed common
medicines – for depression,
heartburn and osteoporosis – for
longer than recommended, tipping
the balance of risks and benefits.
J EN N A- LEE S H AV E
• Elderly patients taking a
combination of high-risk medicines
for sleeping, pain or incontinence,
are twice as likely as others to fall
and break bones, with many dying
within a year of their injury.
• Increasing numbers of New
Zealanders are thought to be using
drugs designed to treat bipolar
disorder and schizophrenia as
sleep aids. The highest users are
European women over 65.
The Health Quality and Safety Com-
mission (HQSC) has since 2013 pub-
lished in its Atlas of Healthcare Variation
the polypharmacy rates in district health
board areas. It says multiple prescrip-
tions are more likely to be appropriate in
the robust “young elderly”, but problem-
atic in the frail “old elderly”, and suggests
the focus should be on the latter in the
battle to wean people off pills that may
be doing more harm than good.
Mangin calls her own father Ron, 90,

Professor Dee Mangin calls her own father Ron, 90, a “de-prescribing poster boy”.
a “de-prescribing poster boy”. “He had
a huge bleed from his warfarin-aspirin
combo, cognition problems with his cho-
lesterol-lowering statin, too low a heart
rate with his beta blocker and he was
over-treated with blood pressure drugs,
resulting in weakness and dizziness,”
she says. Since being taken off the med-
ications, he’s walking up to 5km each
morning.
The drugs were prescribed after a
small heart attack at the age of 70, the
result of a previously undiagnosed faulty
heart valve that was then replaced. Dee
Mangin says he initially had trouble per-
suading the doctors that “less is more”:
both his GP and cardiologist encouraged
him that even with normal cholesterol,
and no heart attack risk factors, aspirin
and statins would reduce his risk still fur-
ther. But he soon noticed he had trouble
remembering things and the statin dose
was halved. “His mind re-emerged in a
way that was very striking,” she says. He
then went back to his GP and stopped
the statin altogether. But health prob-
lems related to his medicines didn’t end
there. After he felt unwell walking up
a gravel road near his home, a doctor
took his pulse and found it was just 40
– about half what it should have been.
Cue the end of his beta blocker, as well.
A life-threatening bleed a year or so later
led to the end of his aspirin. His blood
pressure remained fine, even when the
medicines were stopped.
She says beta blockers used after a
heart attack are of some benefit for the
first year, but not for longer than three.
“They can be useful in heart failure,
but my father didn’t develop this until
much later, so there was a period of years
when he was taking it unnecessarily and
people just assumed it was for blood
pressure. His heart was repaired with a
life-transforming intervention of modern
medicine. But modern medicines then
nearly killed him.”
TO M M AN G I N
SINCE BEING
TAKEN OFF HIS
MEDICATIONS,
RON MANGIN,
90, IS WALKING
UP TO 5KM
EACH MORNING.
Ron Mangin, who lives in Christchurch,
says his experience shows it’s always
worth talking to your doctor about a care-
ful trial to reduce your medicines to see
how you feel and then decide whether
they’re still doing you good. Before he
stopped the beta blocker, he says, he could
hardly walk. “I’d lost my capacity to exer-
cise, but now I feel full of energy. It has
given me a different life.”
NORTH & SOUTH | APRIL 2019 | 31
 A 2010 paper co-authored by Dee
Mangin reported a trial involving 70
elderly patients with a mean age of 83.
When the Good Palliative-Geriatric
Practice algorithm (see page 33) was
applied to their medicines, it recom-
mended more than half be stopped.
Most commonly, these were anti-hy-
pertension drugs, diuretics, statins, ben-
zodiazepines, proton pump inhibitors
(such as Losec), and antidepressants.
She and her colleagues in Ontario
have been trialling a programme known
as Taper, to reduce polypharmacy as a
“routine prevention” in older adults.
Taper (team approach to polypharmacy
evaluation reduction) involves patients,
pharmacists and doctors, and focuses on
what matters to patients – which symp-
toms bother them the most, which if any
drugs they’d like to stop, and whether
symptom relief or illness prevention
(for example, by using statins to reduce
cholesterol) is more important to them.
People aged over 65 are now taking
TRIPLE-WHAMMY
WARNING
One combination of common
medicines is so potentially dangerous
it’s known as the “triple whammy”.
The Health Quality and Safety
Commission has recently begun
monitoring use of the trio: an ACE
(angiotensin converting enzyme)
inhibitor for hypertension, a diuretic
and an NSAID (non-steroidal anti-
inflammatory drug), which increase
the risk of kidney damage and renal
failure in older people. In 2016
(the latest year for which figures
are available), 3.2% of over 65s –
22,000 people – were prescribed
the “triple whammy”. Rates were
significantly higher – around 4.5%
– in Māori and Pasifika people, and
32 | NORTH & SOUTH | APRIL 2019
an average of seven medicines each, she
estimates. “We need to focus as much, if
not more, on when to stop or reduce the
dose of drugs as we do on starting them,
especially in older age.” She says doctors
can be so used to checking, for example,
whether a blood pressure reading is too
high, that they may not notice if it’s too
low for someone that age. Patients also
feel nervous about raising the issue of
stopping a medicine, because the drugs
have been recommended for them, but
they also fear not being allowed to restart
once they stop. “The whole medical sys-
tem is geared to support us in when and
how to start treatment; the guidelines
and algorithms are all about do this or
start that if you reach this threshold and
if that doesn’t work, try this. But we don’t
have anything similar for stopping.”
Taper suggests a temporary drug holi-
day, with agreed criteria for a medicine to
be restarted if required. “De-prescribing
is a bit of a buzzword,” says Mangin,
“but I don’t like it particularly, because
Left: Medicine safety specialist William Allan.
it’s possible the real number taking
the combination is even higher
because NSAIDs are commonly
sold without a prescription. Brands
of the medicine, which are used to
treat pain and inflammation, include
Nurofen, Voltaren and Celebrex.
The freedom of access worries
some GPs. Whangārei GP Tim
Cunningham describes the rate
of over-the-counter dispensing of
NSAIDs as an epidemic. Because of
the risks of the combination in certain
patients, they tended to be prescribed
“with a lot of thought. Having 80- or
90-year-olds on Nurofen dispensed
by a 15-year-old on [supermarket]
checkout beggars belief.”
Asked if GPs should be more
proactive about warning patients
about problematic combinations,
Cunningham says: “Yeah, if you
want to try to put the onus on GPs
for the use of drugs that are too
dangerous to really be out there
unchecked.” When he prescribes the
common anti-hypertensive Inhibace
Plus, which contains a diuretic, his
computer automatically produces
a statement in capitals for the label
it implies you have to stop and push the
person out and say, ‘See you later.’”
That’s one reason it’s a difficult conver-
sation for doctors to have. “From a pa-
tient’s perspective, it’s a challenge when
a doctor says, ‘Stop taking this medicine
that you’ve been taking for five years.’
The patient’s saying, ‘Well, it’s worked so
far. I haven’t had a stroke, why should I
stop?’ It’s very easy for the patient to see
it either as a cost-saving move, or that
they’re being ‘written off’.
“Most patients, if you have the time
to go through it with them, are quite
understanding. But all their experience
up to that point is that these medicines
are really important; you mustn’t for-
get to take your tablets. And if I’m a GP
and I suddenly stop something, what
happens if my patient has a stroke the
next week?”
The HQSC divides polypharmacy statis-
tics into people on 5-7, 8-11 or more than
11 drugs. Coincidentally, Anne Irwin, who
we met at the start of this story, is in the
of the pill bottle warning anti-
inflammatories should not be taken
with it. “Many GPs would have real
concerns about prescribing anti-
inflammatories in people over 65,
anyway. This is the group that tends
to have a high rate of osteoarthritis
and gets a lot of benefits from these,
but they are dangerous drugs,
both for their interactions and
their individual effects, especially
gastrointestinal bleeding.”
At a minimum, the drugs should
be pharmacist-only, and the
pharmacist should have a checklist
to go through before the pills are
dispensed. “One of the problems is
that sometimes patients don’t know
what drugs they are on. But you’ve
still got to ask, are these critical
medications for these patients to
be on, given the risks involved?”
The HQSC’s medicine safety
specialist, William Allan, says the
risks of the “triple whammy” have
been known for many years. “But
it’s still not getting through to the
sharp end of prescribers. People
are still on these combinations –
that’s the disappointing thing.”
Southern DHB, which has a significantly
higher percentage of its over-65s receiv-
ing multiple medicines than those in oth-
er areas. Just over 40% are on five or more
long-term drugs, the highest rate in the
country, slightly ahead of Hutt (39%), but
way ahead of neighbouring Canterbury
(33%), and Auckland (32.6%). Irwin is
among the 11.5% of Southerners on 8-10
long-term meds – again, the highest rate
in New Zealand.
The Southern DHB’s chief medical
officer, geriatrician Dr Nigel Millar, is
a former chief executive of the HQSC
and one of the architects of the Atlas of
Healthcare Variation, which compares
DHB data in a range of clinical areas,
from cancer to cardiovascular disease.
He concedes the information shows the
prescribing to older adults in his DHB
is out of step with best practice, but he
says it’s not alone in the need to change.
“When I was a junior doctor, we used
to worry a lot about the harm of med-
ication and be very careful when pre-
scribing anything, but now there is a
guideline for everything so doctors tend
to worry whether they are letting the
patient down by not prescribing.
“I have a jaundiced view of guidelines
and how much influence the pharma-
ceutical companies have on them. You
can accumulate medications quite rap-
idly if you go with the common guide-
lines for managing chronic conditions,
yet there is very little evidence beyond a
certain age that that is beneficial. When
a person is 83, the question of wheth-
er they should be on a [cholesterol-
lowering] statin, for example, is really
difficult. As a geriatrician, I would say
probably not unless you are a really fit
83-year-old, because it might do you
more harm than good, but GPs are going
to worry they may be criticised for not
prescribing it.”
The DHB regards the prescribing
rates as a “custom and practice” issue,
but a high doctor-patient ratio (1:1000
compared to the average of around
1:1500) and lack of access to good data
also contributes, says Lisa Gestro, the
DHB’s executive director of primary
and community strategy. “It’s fair to say
we haven’t been on the forefront of IT
or advanced technology, so a lot of our
systems don’t talk well to each other.”
The HQSC data is leading many DHBs
to hire pharmacists to work alongside
time-strapped GPs to review the med-
icines of older patients, and those on
THE GOOD PALLIATIVE-GERIATIC PRACTICE ALGORITHIM
An evidence-based consensus exists for using the drug for the indication
given in its current dosing rate, in this patient’s age group and disability level,
and the benefit outweighs all possible known adverse effects?
Yes No / Not Sure
Indication seems valid and relevant in this
patient’s age group and disability level?
Yes
Do the known adverse reactions of the drug
outweigh possible benefit in old disabled patients?
No
Any adverse symptoms or signs that
may be related to the drug?
No
Is there another drug that may be
superior to the one in question?
No
Can the dosing rate be reduced
with no significant risk?
No
CONTINUE WITH THE SAME DOSING RATE
REVISED FROM GARFINKEL ET AL WITH PERMISSION FROM THE ISRAEL MEDICAL JOURNAL.
multiple drugs. It mirrors similar moves
in the UK, where the NHS is spending
more than £100 million to employ 1500
clinical pharmacists in general practices
by 2020; from June, each primary care
network in the UK (covering 30,000-
50,000 patients) will get £38,000 to-
wards hiring a pharmacist.
The commission’s medicine safety
specialist William Allan, in his former
job as chief pharmacist at the Hawke’s
Bay District Health Board, introduced
DHB-funded pharmacist facilitators
in general practice to reduce costs and
improve patient safety. Initially, cost
was a driver – the board faced a $1.15m
overspend in its community pharma-
ceuticals budget in 2011, despite unmet
need among Māori, Pasifika and those in
the lowest decile areas. A pilot launched
a few years later resulted in an estimat-
ed $500,000 saving on the community
drugs budget and also reduced falls, and
the programme was rolled out in 2017.
The DHB now pays for eight full-time
pharmacists in general practices, cov-
ering 80% of patients. The pharmacists
can spend up to an hour with patients
reviewing medicines – a luxury of time
GPs usually don’t have.
The Southern DHB’s primary health
}
No
STOP
DRUG
Yes
}
Yes
CHANGE
DRUG
Yes
Yes
REDUCE DOSE
network, WellSouth, employs six full-
time pharmacists, partly because of the
Atlas information, but there were oth-
er indicators. “Given we spend $100
million annually on prescription drugs
(for a population of 350,000) – more
than 10% of our total expenditure – we
need to think long and hard about it,”
says Gestro.
S
o how many medicines are too
many and which ones should
be the first to be stopped? “I
think anyone on more than
about eight medicines is potentially at
risk,” says retired clinical pharmacologist
Tim Maling, who was at the forefront
of efforts to improve the safety of pre-
scribing, founding the now-defunct Na-
tional Preferred Medicines Centre that
ran for 10 years from 1991, and a clinical
management plan for GP prescribing in
Wairarapa that was later rolled out in
Whanganui. “It’s not sensible to pick out
a single number, but it does give people a
point from which to work.”
He says inappropriate multi-medica-
tion is a “huge problem” and prompted
him to set up the Wairarapa interven-
tion about five years ago. “We’d see pa-
tients taking 20 or more drugs a day, and
NORTH & SOUTH | APRIL 2019 | 33
 DRUG TEST
There’s plenty you can do
as a patient to make sure
you’re taking the right
medicines for you.
• If possible, use the same
pharmacy each time you
pick up your medicines.
• If you’re unsure, ask
the pharmacist to explain
what’s on the label.
• If your medicine looks
different from usual, ask
the pharmacist why.
• Before taking your first
dose, be sure you know how
to take the medicine and
be alert for side effects.
• Take your medicines at the
right time, in the right amount.
• Write down any side
effects and tell your doctor
or nurse about them.
• Keep a medication card
and keep it updated.
• If you are taking many
different medicines, your
pharmacy can provide
a blister pack.
• When seeing the doctor or
any other health professional,
take a list of your medicines,
or the medicines themselves,
to the appointment.
• Remind your doctor
about any allergies.
• Ask about side effects
and what to avoid when
taking the medicine.
Source: Health Quality and
Safety Commission.
34 | NORTH & SOUTH | APRIL 2019
Retired clinical pharmacologist Tim Maling has been at the
forefront of efforts to improve the safety of prescribing.
this was a crazy situation.”
In many cases, they were prescribed
by different specialists working in si-
los, but he says the patient’s general
practitioner can be reluctant to alter the
prescriptions. “With multiple drugs on
board, the risk to the patient increases
considerably and in many cases out-
weighs the benefits. We found in the
region there were more than 2000 peo-
ple taking more than six standard drugs
a day.” An initial audit of 50 patients in
the scheme found it had reduced pre-
scriptions significantly and lowered
drug costs by about 35%. Maling says
that although a couple of GPs were re-
sistant to the idea and found it “threat-
ening”, most were very open to change.
Canterbury DHB, though adjacent
to Southern, has one of the country’s
lowest rates of polypharmacy (33%
compared to Southern’s 40%) and that’s
probably the result of early recognition
of the problem by Mangin and Les Toop,
a professor of general practice at the
University of Otago, Christchurch.
Toop is a former chair of the Pegasus
primary health network in Canterbury,
which covers 400,000 patients and has
introduced an education programme –
now adopted in seven other parts of the
country – that gives practices feedback
on the numbers of patients they have on
multiple pills, and summarises prescrib-
ing evidence.
Toop says many patients are seeing
not only their GP but two or three spe-
cialists. And, when they’re admitted
to hospital, doctors “tend to add more
medicines rather than take them away.
People come out with a whole lot more
pills, because [doctors] are slavishly fol-
lowing guidelines. But when you’re over
80, nearly every pill has a poor evidence
base or harms as well.”
Christchurch Hospital developed a
“pill pruner” project for elderly inpa-
tients in 2009, to audit their pill-taking,
stop the use of inappropriate drugs, and
start ones they should be on, but where
possible restrict the number of new
ones prescribed on discharge.
Geriatrician Carl Hanger, who was
part of the group that introduced the
scheme, says it takes effort and wasn’t
used routinely hospital-wide. “The jun-
ior doctors who do quite a bit of the
prescribing are less aware of it.” The
hospital is now trying to resurrect the
programme. “We have to change the
habits of multiple prescribers.”
Staff from the DHB’s medication
management service talked to patients
about why and how they were taking
each medicine. “It’s really worthwhile,
because you find out they’re taking a
neighbour’s sleeping tablet – or you
think they’re taking something you pre-
scribed and they stopped taking it three
months ago.”
Hanger says the pill pruner pro-
gramme improved the transition of pa-
tients after discharge back into the care
of their GPs. The discharge summary to
GPs noted not only what medications
had changed but, crucially, why they
Left: Professor of general practice Les Toop. Centre: Geriatrician Hamish Jamieson. Right: HQSC evaluation manager Catherine Gerard.
had been changed. “We managed to
make sure that got put on the discharge
prescription as well so it went to the
dispensing pharmacist, so they’re also
in the loop as to why.”
But ask which common drugs should
be stopped first, and doctors and phar-
macists will give you the same answer:
“It’s complicated.” Toop puts heart,
psychiatric and pain meds at the top
of the list for review, saying many anti-
psychotic drugs are being used as sleep-
ing pills and sedatives. Combinations
of antidepressants and painkillers can
also cause a cascade of prescribing to
prevent the side effects.
“More isn’t always better. I think the
public gets that – I’ve never met any-
one on 13 pills who wants a 14th. But
it’s complex, and every combination
is a bit different. To address that, you
need people not only with the skills
and knowledge, but also with the time.
You have to think of the interactions,
and which medicines have the poten-
tial for the most harm and which have
the most benefit, and then try to avoid
taking one pill to counteract the effect
of another. It’s what strains the brains
of prescribers the most and, if you are
time-pressured, it’s really hard.”
Eleven-plus pills a day is regarded
as “extreme” polypharmacy but that
doesn’t mean multiple prescriptions
are always problematic or inappropri-
ate. “The most I had a patient on was
about 24, and there were almost none
we could cut out.”
Clinical pharmacist Dr Linda Bryant,
who works in two Wellington general
practices, prescribing, reviewing and
advising on patient medication, looks
at the benefit-risk ratio in patients over
75, or who have a limited life expec-
tancy. “We want to make sure younger
people are taking their cardiovascular
medicine, but as people get older, the
benefits reduce because the life expec-
tancy potential is less and they will get
more unwanted effects.
“Stopping medicines is quite a con-
versation; people can feel, ‘I’ve reached
85, I’m not worth it anymore.’ If we take
people who go into residential care –
and it sounds really harsh – these peo-
ple don’t have a long life expectancy, so
we need to be able to talk to them about
being realistic about that. In that group
of people, we very consciously reduce
medicines. We leave ones that are useful
for symptom control, but you can say
well, we really don’t need to control the
blood pressure quite so much, because
if someone has a life expectancy of two
years, you’re not going to be extending
it much.”
A study published last year, led by Uni-
versity of Otago, Christchurch, research-
er and geriatrician Hamish Jamieson,
showed a high correlation between cer-
tain medications and the risk of falls.
Patients taking three or more sedatives
or so-called anti-cholinergic drugs that
affect cognition were more than twice
as likely to break their hip than those
taking none, and between 20% and 30%
of elderly people who broke their hip
died within a year. Anti-cholinergics are
commonly prescribed for urinary incon-
tinence and Parkinson’s disease.
“People can be given a drug for pain,
a drug for sleeping and one for urinary
incontinence. Singly they are okay, but
there are cumulative side effects and
older people on multiple medications
are more at risk,” says Jamieson.
Another study, published last year
by Jamieson’s colleague, psychiatrist
Professor Roger Mulder, also identified
anti-psychotic drugs as a problem, par-
ticularly in women over 65 (5% of that
group are using them). The study found
use of anti-psychotics, designed to treat
conditions such as bipolar disorder and
schizophrenia, has increased by almost
50% in less than a decade, indicating
doctors are prescribing them “off-label”
as a sleep aid, or to treat anxiety. The
study found the highest usage on the
West Coast, which had almost twice
the rate of Counties Manukau, the DHB
with the lowest usage.
HQSC evaluation manager Catherine
Gerard says because the polypharmacy
Atlas data covers only people 65 and
older, some of the complicating varia-
tions between DHB patient populations
are taken out of the equation. One po-
tential weakness is that the information
shows which drugs are dispensed, but
not why they’re prescribed or whether
they are taken. It does, however, show
DHBs where they can get the most
health gains. “Before, there was no way
you could look by DHB and know how
many medications people were getting,
so it was hard to have the conversation
about what’s appropriate.”
She says in patients 85 and older, there
is very little clinical trial evidence for
many medicines, particularly those
aimed at preventing events that might
happen years in the future. “So you say,
hang on, why are people over 85 receiv-
ing most medications when they’re the
least likely to benefit long-term?” +
NORTH & SOUTH | APRIL 2019 | 35
 Business partners
Ali Tocker (left) and
daughter Sarah.

TRADING WITH
THE CURRENCY OF
GREAT LEADERSHIP
Leadership consultancy
Tocker Associates
talk industry game-
changers and the
knock-on effect of
inclusion and diversity
for business success.

W
hat is great What do the people following the to see how they have been such a
leadership? Not the leaders expect? They want trust, great influence in helping shape
jargon, the mantras confidence and humility, and much leadership in New Zealand.
or the clichés, but more. The truth is that a one- The ease of their relationship
real, honest leadership that drives currency foundation strengthens comes from strong family values and
and impacts and changes the world. and drives all others: courage. a mutual respect built on integrity
The kind of leadership that enables Ali and Sarah Tocker are a and years of listening and learning
employees to be better and mother- daughter team who truly from everything around them.
businesses to thrive. understand this. Their leadership Ali is a veteran in the leadership
ADVT2019 CS24945 04/19

This question has been around for
ages, and the wide consensus is that
it is bold, takes calculated, but spirited
risks, has reasoned judgment,
assertiveness and honesty.
development skills and knowledge
span over 20 years and their
reputation in both the public and
private sectors back this up. Sitting
opposite these two women, it’s easy
arena, her passion for development
born during her years within the
professional education sector. During
her tenure as a highly regarded
educational leader, it became clear to

her that there was a need for
practical leadership development
that could yield real, tangible results
for growth and success.
In 1997, she founded Tocker
Associates, a boutique consultancy
focused on bespoke leadership
development and strategic planning
by developing leaders, coaching
executives and managers, facilitating
workshops and managing conflict.
Their secret? Learning. All the time.
Mostly, it’s to stay ahead of the times
and up-to-date on the latest trends,
to be always one step ahead and able
to set the standard and the direction
within the leadership development
sector. Being first to market, with
things that work in real businesses,
is important to them.
It is their agility to adapt and grow
teams and individuals that last year
caught the attention of The Skills
Organisation, one of New Zealand’s
largest Industry Training
Organisations, providing work-based
qualifications and consultation – a
partnership that now enables Tocker
Associates to expand their footprint
across the country.
Tockers’ reputation is built on
experience and strong values, which
underpin their ability to teach
businesses the reality of leadership
to navigate the disruptive times we
live in. Tocker Associates’ no-
nonsense, straightforward talk sets
the team apart. Telling a client the
truth, even an uncomfortable truth,
to help them step out of their
comfort zone – that takes courage.
This learning is now one of their
flagship success stories in the form of
the professional programmes they’ve
helped develop and run in partnership
with Outward Bound. A custom-built
programme where participants swap
the boardroom for the outdoors, it’s
all about perspective and learning to
navigate the challenges of courage
and diversity.
“The intense 360-degree feedback
we include helps participants to
understand how to respond
courageously to leadership
opportunities,” says Ali, adding that
in her opinion, “a little bit of
discomfort is good”. She firmly
To find out more, visit tocker.net.nz
Inspirational quotes from innovative leaders
and business people adorn the walls at
Tocker Associates’ business space.
“Leaders need to
realise that diversity
doesn’t work without
inclusion.” ALI TOCKER
believes that an attitude of taking
the stairs and not the lift is the
underlying principle when it comes
to learning about yourself and the
hard yards needed to succeed.
Many CEOs afterwards managed
to effectively drive significant
change. But the best result by far,
it seems, benefits all: the ability to
limit meetings and boost efficient
information-sharing across their
businesses.
Sarah adds that it’s the difficult
conversations and being able to put
often-unpopular opinions on the
table that truly boosts growth. To do
that, you need a degree of courage
and vulnerability, she says.
Courageous leaders step forward.
They take some risks and they lead
change when times are tough.
“These are the leaders who have the
real strategic advantage,” says
Sarah. “They are regarded as
trustworthy and they are able to
lead by example. People have
amazing bullshit detectors, and they
know real when they see it. Great
leaders are the ones who show up
and tell the truth about themselves,
as well as about the business.”
A DV E RTOR I A L
Times of transition, change and
uncertainty call for bold, confident
and courageous leadership. Sarah
believes failure is a great teacher, and
good leaders need courage to be
able to fail early AND to learn from
the experience. Owning your failings,
she says, carries a lot of weight.
Celebrating 20+ years of
successful leadership development,
Tocker Associates is venturing into
the greater New Zealand landscape.
For Ali, New Zealand is in a fantastic
position to get back to the world-
leading practices it once boasted
and help businesses to truly
understand and embrace the
growing change and diversity of
what New Zealand has become.
The biggest change-factor? A far
more diverse and globalised
marketplace, and business must learn
to understand the challenges of this.
The first step? Understanding that
diversity and inclusion are two
different things. Employing people
from different backgrounds, with
different perspectives, does not
mean they will have a voice.
Diversity focuses on the
differences, while inclusion seeks to
get the best from the people who
bring those differences. Sometimes
diversity in organisations looks like
you invited your vegetarian friend to
dinner and served them meat and
three veg. Employing people who
look different is one thing; including
their thinking and their perspectives,
however, will ensure growth and real
inclusion. What meal options are
going to work? You might even need
to learn a few new recipes.
“Leaders need to realise that
diversity doesn’t work without
inclusion,” says Ali. “Make space at
the table and find out what inclusion
actually means to them, not to you.
Encourage participation. Let them
feel welcome and listen to their
ideas. Not everyone will agree. That
will be a good thing sometimes.”
Without courage, you cannot make
a difference. Without courage you
have symptomatic conversations –
the ones that go around and around.
Ali and Sarah’s goal is to have tough
conversations well and once.
 TRANSPORT
O
ver the roar of explosions
as pistons compress va-
porised fuel and air in
internal combustion en-
gines everywhere, it is
easy to miss the quiet
revolution of electric vehicles – especial-
ly because many of the participants are
hiding in plain sight.
Most are Japanese cars; some are Te-
slas, BMWs or Mercedes. Their drivers
include professionals, young couples,
greenies, retirees and even the editor of
this magazine, part of a movement that
runs counter to one of the most power-
ful industries in the world: oil.
Don’t expect a definitive moment
when the silent coup succeeds. More
likely will be a gradual awareness that
our lives have evolved differently from
a world that ran predominantly on fossil
fuels. Like the difference between a
time when telephones connected with
a wiggly cord to the kitchen wall and
our now-world of smartphones.
Like all good revolutions, this one brings
new acronyms: EV (electric vehicle), ICE
(internal combustion engine) and PHEV
Rebecca Hayter is a North & South contributing writer.
38 | NORTH & SOUTH | APRIL 2019
(plug-in hybrid electric vehicle).
EVs may be silent, but in New Zealand
their owners are not. They have a voice,
thanks to a world-first citizen science
project, Flip the Fleet. Its founder is
Henrik Moller, emeritus professor of
zoology, Otago University. “Most of my
life I’ve worked with communities to
bring about change from the bottom up,”
says Moller, who considered himself re-
tired until he bought an EV. “I thought
I’d better learn to use Facebook because
there were all these EV support groups.
I started watching debates about what
was happening with their batteries and
instrumentation and thought, ‘Well,
that’s crazy. They are all thinking about
what’s happening, just based on their
own car.’ So I blurted out: ‘Why don’t we
all share data as EV owners?’”
Dima Ivanov, an EV owner at
Whangaparāoa, responded: “Good idea.
Why don’t we use my business-bench-
marking software?” Moller and Ivanov
publicly launched Flip the Fleet in June
2017. Daniel Myall, another EV owner
and a statistician researching Parkinson’s
disease, volunteered to analyse the data.
GETTY
 THE
POWER
OF THE
PEOPLE
It’s a quiet revolution, but more
and more Kiwis are cutting up
their fuel cards and going electric.
Rebecca Hayter gets into the nuts
and volts of the EV movement.

NORTH & SOUTH | APRIL 2019 | 39

TH E LIS TEN ER

Flip the Fleet founders Henrik Moller (left) and Dima Ivanov. The project gathers data on performance,
battery health, maintenance and repair costs, public charging costs and charging behaviour.

“If I’d invested $30,000 in a term deposit, I would be lucky to get

4% return, and any interest gained would be taxed. Buying an EV
represented a tax-free 10% annual gain on my ‘investment’.”

Data? EVs are a geek’s delight. Every
month, more than 1400 Flip the Fleet EV
and PHEV owners insert a decoder into
a port beneath their vehicle’s dash. The
dongle downloads its performance data
to an app; for Nissan Leafs, this is Leaf-
Spy. Monthly data includes the EV’s av-
erage distance travelled, efficiency (kilo-
metre per kilowatt hour), average speed
and – the biggie for an EV – the health of
the lithium battery. Flip the Fleet also
gathers data on maintenance and repair
costs, public charging costs and charging
behaviour, among other issues. It’s infor-
mation by democracy – by EV owners for
EV owners – and it’s earned Flip the
Fleet $88,583 of co-funding from the
Energy Efficiency and Conservation Au-
thority (EECA) Low Emission Vehicles
Contestable Fund for providing “inde-
pendent, authoritative information”.
Citizen science is also about heart:
the experiences and observations that
drive the decision to buy, as much as
the numbers. Flip the Fleet asks the
questions in its monthly 1-click surveys.
For example, in Survey #18: why did you
buy your battery electric vehicle?
“I was spending $80-$120 per week
on petrol… We are saving $400-$500 a
month on fuel alone, never mind that
lack of other expenses for upkeep of the
car,” responded one.
One retiree had cashed in his KiwiSaver
to buy an EV in a $30,000 “reverse” in-
vestment. He saves $2500-$3000 per year
in petrol, oil and maintenance costs. “If I’d
invested the $30,000 principal in a term
deposit, I would be lucky to get 4% return
and any interest gained would be taxed.
Buying the EV represented a tax-free 10%
annual gain on my ‘investment’.”
Another agreed he’d first looked at an
EV for cost savings: “Then I drove one...
I was 100% sold, the instant torque and
silent acceleration was addictive. The
other benefits then started to make an
impact: silent ride, lower stress driving,
full tank in the morning, lower house-
hold power costs at night.”
Running and maintaining an EV
costs about a quarter of the cost of
running a traditional ICE car. In an-
swer to another question, on the im-
pact of EV ownership on individual
mobility patterns, a pensioner wrote:
“Making an hour trip into Wellington
to visit my new granddaughter was
costly ($20 at least) with my previous
[ICE] car. Now I don’t even think about
it and visit when I want.”
Another respondent noted: “I used to
hate driving (due to concern of environ-
mental consequences – aka ‘carbon
guilt’), but now… I’ll pick up my kids
after school on a rainy day if I can,
whereas previously I would have just let
them walk in the rain.”
For the elderly, another plus is that in
the absence of engine noise, a hard-of-
hearing couple can talk to each other
while driving.

40 | NORTH & SOUTH | APRIL 2019


K EN D OWN I E
Joe Camuso of Whangārei believes EVs could even end wars. “I would
say in most wars since World War II... oil played a huge part.”
Some EV owners feel so good about
their emission-free driving they want to
reduce emissions wherever they can.
For some, it’s a small beginning: “When
our ICE lawnmower died we bought a
battery-powered mower to replace it.”
Another drives his EV to Christchurch
and back, 380km each way, to reduce
CO2 emissions rather than fly.
Then there’s American-born Joe
Camuso of Whangārei, who sees an
even bigger picture. He believes EVs
can end wars. “I would say in most wars
since World War II, and even in World
Wars I and II, oil played a huge part as
countries fought to control vast reserves.
The Syrian war today is an oil war. Russia
has an oil-gas pipeline to Europe. The
West-friendly Saudi/Kuwait-proposed
pipeline route goes through Syria. The
Russia-backed, proposed Iran pipeline
goes through Syria.
“If I gave you a barrel of crude oil,
there’s not one person on the planet
who can make that into a useful product
without an army of chemical engineers,
electrical engineers and huge support
from the military-industrial complex.
However, if I give you 10 solar panels
and electric transport, you can be com-
pletely self-sufficient in your transport
needs and free from oil companies. You
clean up your cities: no big cloud of
smoke and loud roar as a bus takes off
at the lights in downtown Auckland.”
Camuso works with a regional council
that runs 12 electric vehicles out of a total
fleet of 30. Last year, the EVs covered
200,000km, saving $33,000.
This is not the world’s first attempt at
electric cars. They appeared in the early
20th century but were swept aside by
the internal combustion engine’s supe-
rior power and reliability. In the 1990s,
as chronicled in the film Who Killed the
Electric Car?, the California Air Re-
sources Board tried to force General
Motors and other big manufacturers to
build a minimum number of zero emis-
sion cars. The car makers unwillingly
complied, but they supplied all the elec-
tric cars on lease arrangements while
taking their government to court. Gen-
eral Motors and its buddies won the
case. When the leases expired, the man-
ufacturers took back possession of their
electric cars and scrapped them. They
had far too much invested in the inter-
nal combustion industry to let it go.
This time, the EV revolution has some
trump cards: a worldwide urgency
around climate change, and a perfect
collision of smart technologies – ad-
vanced lithium battery technology, apps,
smart-phones and GPS. They make EVs
a leader in emerging transport options
such as car-share schemes and driverless
cars. But there’s a problem.
The electron in the room is the EV bat-
tery, specifically for the Nissan Leaf, of
which New Zealand has about 8000. On
average, EV lithium batteries lose 3% of
their capacity every year. Eventually,
they will need replacement, but Nissan
doesn’t support cars that have come into
the country secondhand.
“It takes time to gear up,” says Camuso.
“You just can’t get on the phone and or-
der 500,000 electric motors and battery
packs. Ford and BMW are all restricted
because they don’t have the batteries to
build the cars, whereas Tesla, five years
ago, started building the biggest battery
factory in the world, which allows them
to build 1000 cars a day. General Motors
can only build 2000 cars a month.” Car
manufacturers are an unlikely hand-
brake, but used-car dealers are the good
guys. Moller is batting for them.
“Secondhand car importers are left
vulnerable by lack of support from the
vehicle manufacturers, who have shown
complete reluctance to take responsibil-
ity for their product if they’ve been
brought into New Zealand secondhand,”
NORTH & SOUTH | APRIL 2019 | 41

GETTY
Robots work on Tesla’s Model X in the company’s Fremont, California factory.
R EB ECC A H AY TER
Albie Burgers and the bank of solar panels outside his Golden Bay home. They
power the Burgers’ Nissan Leaf and elderly, converted-EV Daihatsu Charade.
he says. “I believe this is unethical.” He
wants to see changes to the Consumer
Guarantees Act to ensure manufacturer
support for secondhand EVs.
“If we don’t get enough supply for New
Zealand to make the transition, then
we’ll have to do much more costly things
for a net-carbon-zero economy,” says
Moller. “It’s crucial batteries can be re-
furbished and replaced. That is the weak
link. New Zealand is unique in the world
42 | NORTH & SOUTH | APRIL 2019
in trying to make this major change to
electric transport without strong subsi-
dies and also relying predominantly on
secondhand EV imports.”
T
he fastest uptake of EVs in New
Zealand is in multi-car house-
holds that replace one ICE car
with an EV or PHEV and keep
the second ICE car as back-up. Moller
hopes government incentives will en-
courage even more uptake in this sector.
The hybrid households tend to do
away with the your-car/my-car model.
Instead, they allocate the cars depend-
ing on the day’s needs. Whoever is driv-
ing the greatest distance gets the EV, to
make the greatest saving on fuel.
Dima Ivanov works from home on the
Whangaparāoa Peninsula and usually
has the ICE car at his disposal, while his
wife Olga takes their three-year-old to
daycare in the EV. But if Ivanov is going
to Auckland, a round trip of 85km, he’ll
take the EV to save fuel.
For trips beyond the EV’s 100km
range, or requiring some grunt to tow
the boat, they usually take the ICE car,
but on a recent weekend to the Bay of
Islands, they took their Nissan Leaf.
They stopped at public charging sta-
tions at Kaiwaka, Whangārei and Ker-
ikeri, and borrowed a portable battery
charger to use at their motel. “We did
around 600km for $45,” says Ivanov.
Some families have gone all-EV, such
as Albie and Felicity Burgers in Golden
Bay. They bought their first EV in 2013:
a 1988 Daihatsu Charade that had been
partially converted from petrol power to
electric, using cables in lieu of number-
eight wire. Then, its lead-acid, deep cy-
cle batteries gave a range of only 25km.
With six lithium batteries, all expected
to last 20 years, it now has a range of
100km. One battery is in a plywood box
under the bonnet; the other five are
where the back seat used to be. Accel-
eration on this DIY model is “pathetic”
and the top speed is 70kmh.
Three years ago, determined to never
use another drop of fossil fuel again, the
Burgers replaced their second car with a
Nissan Leaf. It can top 120kmh and has
a range of 130km if driven efficiently.
The main power source for both cars
is a bank of solar panels in the paddock
beside the house. A car charging during
full sunshine will draw about 3kW. The
solar panels are rated at 5kW, so this
leaves a surplus of at least 2kW for other
household running or to sell back to the
national grid. The couple regularly has
power bills in the negative, where the
power company credits their account.
Felicity calls it driving on sunshine.
The Burgers’ all-EV example is a great
tonic for a major criticism of EVs: range
anxiety – the fear of a battery running
flat, like an ICE car running out of fuel.
You can’t hitchhike to the nearest gas
station for a jerry can of electricity. “If
it’s too far to go in an EV,” Albie says,
“it’s too far to go.”
They’ve had three long trips: Auck-
land to Tākaka when they bought the
car; Tākaka to Christchurch, Arthur’s
Pass, West Coast, Murchison and back
home; Tākaka to Invercargill and back.
“You can’t just say, ‘I think I’ll go to
Christchurch,’” says Felicity. “You have
to plan ahead.” Apps such as PlugShare
list charging options to aid the planning.
The first option is likely to be public
chargers, of which ChargeNet has more

than 100 in towns throughout New Zea-
land, and counting. Unlike the oily envi-
ronment of a petrol station forecourt,
charging stations are ungreased lightning:
slick, neat footprints barely noticeable in
shopping malls and car parks.
Some towns have free chargers, usually
supplied by local authorities or electricity
suppliers to encourage uptake, and they
tend to attract queues at popular times. A
serious crime against EV etiquette is to
leave a fully charged car blocking a charg-
er while you finish your shopping. Worse,
parking an ICE car on a charging station.
This can incite ICE rage.
Charging technology is charging
ahead. Ultra-fast chargers from Por-
sche take just 12 minutes to charge up
for 400km of driving, so a 160km
charge in five minutes is likely within
a few years. For now, 97% of charging
happens at home, taking two to three
hours overnight. Fast chargers on high-
ways top up a battery in about 30
minutes, while standard chargers take
two or three hours. For a busy person,
that might be torture, but many EVers
regard charging as time to stop and
smell the roses. Transportation meets
mindfulness.
Or, for the Burgers, playfulness. On a
trip north, they stopped at Masterton for
J O H N CO LLI E
Ed Harvey was in his final year at university when he converted
his Honda Accord to electric. Four years ago, he set up EVnex in
Christchurch, to install charging stations for commercial fleets.
“We see towns we wouldn’t see other- drive as a golf cart. Environmentally, they
wise,” Felicity says. create a bigger carbon footprint to man-
Other charging options for travelling ufacture than a conventional car, and
away from home include camping grounds we’re told it may soon be impossible to
and private homes that have registered replace batteries in Nissan Leafs here.
their services, like couch-surfing for EVs. Flip the Fleet’s Henrik Moller accepts
Ed Harvey set up EVnex, for commercial this backlash. “It’s a well-known
fleets, four years ago. It builds charging phenomenon that when you’re bringing
stations and cloud management software in a new technology, you get hype it’s
for EV charging. EVnex installs charging going to be the saviour to everything
stations in the company carpark for em- and it builds to a peak of unrealisable
ployees, fleet vehicles and potentially cus- expectations. That sets people up for
tomers. Through EVnex cloud manage- disappointment and there’s a hell of a
ment software, the client can monitor and dump, which is called the trough of
control its EV charging, for example with disillusionment.”
swipe cards, and stagger charging times to Gradually, a better-informed pick-up
avoid peak loading. As more EVs appear leads to the slope of enlightenment
in suburbs around the country, this type of and finally the plateau of integration.
technology may allocate charging times to It may sound like tantric guidebook
each household overnight to take advan- meets marketing spiel, but Flip the
tage of off-peak rates. Fleet aims to smooth out the peaks and
troughs. “It’s a contest around the un-

T
a three-hour charge stop. Expectations
were low but they went to Queen Eliza-
beth Park and had a wonderful time
checking out the playground’s miniature
railway, pirate ship and medieval castle.
o the non-converted, EVs suffer
an image problem as being gut-
less, vulnerable to short battery
range and about as much fun to
known and who’s got trusted informa-
tion in that first phase. That’s exactly
where we are now.”
Moller publishes the bad news along
with the good. Sure, EVs use more energy

NORTH & SOUTH | APRIL 2019 | 43

 in manufacture than a conventional car
EVs use more does, he says. “But then you save on the
energy in petrol emissions and pay off that initial
manufacture than investment of CO2.” EV motors are expect-
ed to last for 800,000km or more, making
a conventional car maximum use of that initial investment,
does, says Henrik because there is no mechanical wear in the
Moller. “But then engine and minimal vibration.
you save on the As for fun, EVers reckon their subur-
ban runabouts take off like a Ferrari.
petrol emissions Golf carts were never like this. And
and pay off that who can mock the luxury long-range
initial investment models of Mercedes and Tesla, with
of CO2.” the ability to upload software improve-
ments automatically while their own-
ers sleep?
Along with governments worldwide,
New Zealand has committed to be net
carbon zero by 2050. Transport contrib-
utes one-fifth of our emissions and that
contribution is increasing, so it’s timely
Joe Camuso is a
fan of Yoogo Share,
a car-sharing
company operating
in Christchurch
and Auckland.
GETTY
to encourage citizens and corporations
to cut the umbilical cord to the fuel
bowser. Norway has led the way with
subsidies for buying EVs, exemption
from new car import duties, free park-
ing, nil road user charges and subsidised
car registration costs.
The New Zealand Government has
committed to waive road user charges
for EVs until they comprise 2% of the
national car fleet. That would be around
64,000 EVs, a target the government has
set to achieve by 2021.
Camuso says the economic side is as
important as the environmental side.
“The New Zealand electric grid is 80%
renewable electric energy in hydro, geo-
thermal, wind and solar. Of this, Kiwis
own 51% of the generation and 100% of
the grid, yet we pay billions of dollars to
oil companies offshore.
“When we fill up on electricity, we fill
up on companies that Kiwis own, so the
money is staying in the country and em-
ploying Kiwis. When we fill up on gas-
oline, we are importing approximately
$8 billion worth of oil per year.”
Apart from government incentives,
the evolution of EVs will drive their
popularity. In only one or two years,
there will be more EVs on the market
with a 400km range at realistic prices,
and super-fast chargers will enable
200km worth of charging within five
minutes – about the same as filling a
petrol tank. At the current rate of bat-
tery technology improvement, short-
haul international flights, eg London to
Paris, in electrically powered aircraft
will be an option within 10 years.

EVs may soon even take an active role

in how we manage our power bill, pri-
vately and nationally, and help us

CAR SHARING IS HERE through power outages. V2H (vehicle

to house) and V2G (vehicle to grid)
For those of us who name our cars and treat the front passenger seat like a second office, technology allow the electricity already
it’s scary to think of sharing a car. And who dares to come between a bloke and the stored in the car’s battery to be taken
cherished “vroom-vroom” of his V8? We might have to get over it. In the next decade, out again.
expect to see a major reduction in privately owned vehicles. Instead, an app will identify In V2H, the EV owner can use the
shared vehicles available in our neighbourhood: a hatchback for the morning commute, electricity to power their home during
a sports car for a burst of follicular freedom, or a ute to pick up a new lounge suite. emergency electricity outages. In V2G,
Our phone will receive a code to unlock the car we’ve chosen. At the end of the trip, the owner charges the car during
we will leave the car within a designated area, unless we require it for further use, and cheaper, low-peak times and sells the
enjoy the freedom from insurance, registration and maintenance costs for a vehicle that power back to the national grid during
is used for only 5% of the time. Unlikely? It’s already happening in Norway, Denmark peak demand at a higher price, poten-
and the US, among others. In fact, it’s happening in New Zealand with Yoogo Share in tially contributing to lower electricity
Christchurch and Auckland, and Mevo Car Share in Wellington. YourDrive is another prices for everyone. This already oc-
service where private car owners can rent their car (EV or conventional ICE) to others curs in Japan and Norway.
to share costs. A little further into the future, autonomous EVs or ICE cars may drive It’s a perfect synergy: saving money and
K EN D OWN I E

themselves to our smartphone summons. saving the planet – and the best incentive
for getting more EVs on the road. +

44 | NORTH & SOUTH | APRIL 2019

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 CRIME

THE
HOPE
AND THE
HURT What I’ve learned from a year
of writing about domestic
violence. By Venetia Sherson.

I
was deputy editor of the Waikato
Times in 1996, when Leon Colin
Wilson strangled and stabbed to
death his former partner, Leonie
Mary Newman, in a Huntly house.
The court reporter wrote that Wilson,
a 27-year-old Kaitaia man, had been
charged with murder and remanded in
custody for a depositions hearing. The
story appeared on page one, below the
fold. The lead that day was about on-
going ructions over rates.
A month later, on page eight, the news-
paper reported Wilson had pleaded
guilty to murder. The following month,
Justice Penlington jailed him for life,
with a minimum of 10 years before he
was eligible for parole. The court heard
Wilson strangled Newman so hard, he
broke his thumb; then he stabbed her 28
GETTY
words “Property of Leon” tattooed on
her face. Wilson told police, “If I can’t
have her, no one will.”
Leonie Newman was 26 when she was
murdered. She had three children aged
nine, six and five. After the sentencing,
her mother told the newspaper, “The
nine-year-old – Mereana – is finding it
very hard at the moment. The two young
ones – I don’t really think it’s sunk in
for them yet.”
The newspaper didn’t tell Newman’s
backstory. It was never reported she was
a terrible cook but would present her kids
with takeaway fish and chips with a flour-
ish as if they were 10-course meals; that
she once baked a birthday cake shaped
like a pig’s head and whooped with de-
light when they ate the snout; or that she
spent hours brushing the tangles out of
I learned that last year from Mereana,
now aged 32, who has a two-year-old son
with dimpled arms, a serious face and
curly black hair. I also learned that, as a
child, Mereana distracted her brothers
by making mud pies in the garden while,
inside the house, her mother had her head
shoved through a wardrobe door.
When I began writing about domestic
violence last year, I thought I knew a
lot about it. I knew family violence was
about power and control, not anger; that
phrases like “he must have just snapped”
inferred men were pushed over the edge
by stress – or by the woman they lived
with; I knew police and many people
referred to partner violence as “just a
domestic”.
What I didn’t realise was how little I
knew. Dozens of interviews with survi-

times with a boning knife. She had the her daughter’s hair. vors and people who work with them

Venetia Sherson is a contributing writer and co-author of the book Stand by Me:
The Story of Te Whakaruruhau Waikato Women’s Refuge.

48 | NORTH & SOUTH | APRIL 2019


Above: Mother of three Leonie Newman was murdered by her former
partner in 1996 when her daughter Mereana, pictured above, was nine.
have demonstrated the crushing reality
of domestic violence, and the almost
unbelievable courage and determination
of women who survive and those who
help them rebuild their lives.
I also know that myths about family
violence continue to be perpetuated:
that it’s a crime of the poor and uned-
ucated; it’s always physical; that the cops
and courts can solve it; and that if a
woman stays with the man who harms
her, her situation can’t be that bad.
All of them are false.
FRONTLINE CRISIS worker Marion
Shaw, 34, was on duty at Te Whakaru-
ruhau Waikato Women’s Refuge one
Sunday when the phone rang at 3am.
A woman was crying, and in the back-
ground, there were sounds of fists pum-
50 | NORTH & SOUTH | APRIL 2019
melling flesh. An angry voice screamed,
“Who are you calling, bitch?”
“Where are you?” Shaw asked. It’s the
most important question. An address
means frontline staff have somewhere
to go, or somewhere to direct the cops.
She also asked, “Are you safe?”
The phone went dead but then it rang
again. The woman said, “He’s passed out
on the couch.” “Are you hurt?” Shaw
asked. “Can we come to get you?” “Yes,”
was the whispered reply. They took her
to an emergency clinic, where a doctor
dressed her cuts and put her wrenched
arm in a sling. She said her partner was
unemployed and stressed. There was no
money and no car. He drank all day. “Do
you want to go to a safe house?” Shaw
asked. The woman shook her head. “He’ll
be okay now. He’ll have slept it off.”
Women go back on average seven times.
Shaw, who graduated with a law degree
from Waikato University in 2017, says,
“You never say, ‘You’re mad to stay.’ If
she shuts the door on you, you’ll lose her.
But by calling you, she has taken the first
step. One day, she may walk out for good.”
Leaving a relationship, no matter how
abusive, is never easy. Women often love
the men who harm them, at least ini-
tially. They may worry about the reaction
or even rejection from family and
friends. They often blame themselves
for their partner’s violence or believe
that, with time and effort, they can
change him. Lack of money may also
limit their ability to leave, especially if
children are involved. If you are eco-
nomically dependent on someone, you
rely on them to pay the rent and put
food on the table. If you are the one
working, and can’t afford childcare, it
makes it harder to leave. If you walk out,
there is also a greater risk of being fur-
ther harmed – or killed. Abusers often
stalk, harass or threaten a woman who
tries to leave. “If you leave, I’ll kill you,”
is not an empty threat. Leonie Newman
was running from her former partner
when he murdered her.
Domestic abuse is not only about phys-
ical violence, of course. In fact, it’s rare
that the first act of abuse is a violent
one. It may begin with name-calling,
threats, possessiveness and isolation.
One man I interviewed told his partner
he’d had an affair with her best friend,
to drive a wedge between them. Anoth-
er said he forced his wife to have sex
every day so she would have more kids,
which limited her options. When he
found contraceptives in her bag, he
threatened to kill her beloved dog.
What at first may appear to be doting
attention can escalate into extreme con-
trol. A woman who escaped an abusive
relationship, and later joined the police,
said at first, she thought she was lucky
when her partner wanted to phone her
constantly. Then she realised his intent.
“He’d call 10 to 12 times a day. He was
stalking me on the phone, wanting to know
what I was doing and who I was with.”
Another woman’s partner would never
leave her alone with their baby. “He knew
if I had her on my own, I would run.”
Myths about domestic violence extend
to profiles of the perpetrator. It’s easy to
label a tattooed, coarse, brown-skinned
man as a potential abuser. Media court
reports appear to affirm our views. But

Top: Roni Albert, left and Ariana Simpson, long-time friends and the
founders of Te Whakaruruhau Waikato Women’s Refuge. Above: Refuge
frontline worker Marion Shaw with her seven-year-old son, Te Aotaki.
stereotypes only exist from a distance;
get closer and they dissolve. Perpetrators
come in all shapes, colours and bank
balances. Among them are surgeons,
judges, detectives and corporate bigwigs.
Te Whakaruruhau takes calls from
women married to men who are the
pillars of society. It may appear these
women have the means and nous to get
out. But they battle shame and public
humiliation. And not being believed.
Abusers are often charming, generous
and well-presented people. Because
abuse is carried out only in the privacy
of their own home, their Jekyll and Hyde
personality is never evident. One of the
perpetrators I interviewed – a man now
remorseful – turned up in a smart jacket,
collar and tie and freshly pressed slacks.
He spoke in a soft, educated voice. You
would have picked him for a high-flyer
except for the small, black electronic
ankle bracelet hidden out of sight.
THE ROLE OF a journalist, according
to Samuel G. Freedman, who wrote the
book Letters to a Young Journalist, is to
be “an honest broker of information”. I
have always taken that to mean journal-
ists have a responsibility to unearth and
understand the essence of a story, and
make it meaningful to their audience. In
the year spent co-writing Stand By Me
with fellow journalist Denise Irvine, I’ve
had to confront the reality that media
have played a part in downplaying and
normalising domestic violence. A man
assaulting another man in the pub or a
woman attacked at random out jogging is
more newsworthy than a woman getting
beaten by her partner. Unless there is a
significant twist in a domestic violence
crime, or the perpetrator is a famous face,
stories are seldom reported. Domestic
violence is noted chiefly as statistics: on
average, 13 New Zealand women are killed
by their partners each year; in 2017, there
were more than 120,000 police callouts for
family violence, 328 each day; one every
four minutes.
When I sat with women to record their
stories, I heard details that chilled me
to the bone. Some had never told their
stories publicly. They took time to gath-
er their thoughts and consider who
might be harmed by their accounts,
including their children. Like the many
cups of tea shared, the stories took time
to brew. Details were added and sub-
tracted. The stories were filled with hurt
– but also hope.
If there is hope, it largely comes from
organisations like Te Whakaruruhau,
formed in Hamilton in 1986 and based on
Māori whānau values of non-judgmental
care: awhi (love), manaaki (to surround
and nurture) and tiaki (to take care of ),
where women heal, grow stronger and
learn skills to forge new paths. It’s a
powerful kaupapa and recognised and
respected by government agencies, ac-
ademics and corporate funders.
The refuge founders Roni Albert and
Ariana Simpson – both awarded QSMs
in 2012 – know about domestic abuse
from the ground up. In the early days,
they confronted perpetrators, sheltered
women with their bodies and hustled
them to safety in their one-bedroom flat.
Today, while they run a multimillion-
dollar organisation with dozens of
like-minded generous souls, they still
work on the frontline so they can relay
real stories to the lawmakers, government
agencies, police, courts and those who
fund their work. They operate six safe
houses and are often stretched for space.
What will it take to make a difference,
I ask Roni Albert. “An understanding and
a determination by everyone involved to
speak with one voice,” she says. “It won’t
be solved by criminal justice. We need
to agree on the things we know work.
We can’t be pulling in different direc-
tions.” She tells a story of an incident a
few nights before in which a young moth-
er was told she would have her baby
uplifted by the courts. “We knew she’d
been abused, but she was too scared to
tell. We had to fight for 48 hours for au-
thorities to make the right decision.”
NORTH & SOUTH | APRIL 2019 | 51
 She also takes hope from young wom-
en like Leonie Newman’s daughter,
Mereana, who she keeps in touch with.
Albert first met Leonie in the early 1980s,
when she fetched up at a safe house in a
car crammed with three toddlers, plus
treasures and trinkets she sold to raise
money to pay for her board.
Back then, Albert says, Leonie was
a pretty young woman with shoulder-
length hair and beautiful skin. “None
of her money went on drugs or alcohol.
She had a hugely kind heart and she was
patient with her kids.” She last saw her
shortly before she was murdered. “She
was skinny and anxious. By then her face
was tattooed. She came to the refuge be-
cause she wanted to turn her life around.
She was strong, but not physically strong
enough to save herself from this man.”
Mereana also has vivid memories of
her mother: of when she dressed up to
go to a party wearing a velvet and lace
dress and gumboots; of handwritten PART 2
postcards sent to the kids when she was

WHY DO
away; of being bundled into a car late
at night to hide out in the bush. She made
a vow on her mother’s casket that if any

MEN HARM
man lifted a hand to her, he would be
out the door. She is taking that message
to other young women. Which is why

WOMEN?
her face is on the cover of the book.

When Grace Millane was killed last year, there

was an outpouring of anger. Many asked,
how could this happen in New Zealand?
Others asked, why are we surprised?

Stand By Me: The Story of
Te Whakaruruhau Waikato
Women’s Refuge by Venetia
O
n a warm spring day in
Hamilton, eight men gath-
ered to share a pork curry
in the Hamilton suburb of
Frankton. Before they ate,
Eric, a large man with a soft voice, said
a karakia. He introduced the group, who
didn’t know each other, but had some-
thing in common: each had punched,
kicked, near-throttled or violently threat-
ened a woman in their lives.
Glendon, 37, a man with slicked-back,
Rua, 30, a thin man wearing a hoodie,
half-throttled his partner when she
was pregnant with their second child.
Adam’s father ran with the Mongrel
Mob and raised him to intimidate and
cause pain to all he came across. He
said, “I never used my fists or boots on
my partner, but I took pleasure in mak-
ing her feel worthless.”
Eric sat silently, while the men shared
their stories. Later he said, “I’ve been
married 30 years. Half my kids know me
H AG EN H O PK I N S / G E T T Y

Sherson and Denise Irvine
(published by Te Whakaruruhau
Waikato Women’s Refuge, $29.95;
waikatowomensrefuge.co.nz).
fair hair, volunteered he had been im-
prisoned seven times for striking his
partner; offences, he claimed, that
related to alcohol, drugs and “people
who take me down the wrong road”.
as a man who was violent; the other half
can’t believe that’s true.” Against the
backdrop of shocking stories laid bare
over lunch, it was a small beacon of hope.
Men’s violence towards women gets

52 | NORTH & SOUTH | APRIL 2019

 Above: Aucklanders hold a peace walk in memory of 22-year-old British
backpacker Grace Millane, whose body was found in the Waitakere Ranges
last December. A 27-year-old man has been charged with her murder.

people riled up. Last year, when young
British tourist Grace Millane was killed,
allegedly by a man she didn’t know,
there was a collective storm of rage
and shame. But, when it was pointed
out by many that the vast majority of
female homicides in New Zealand are
not freak incidents involving strangers
but carried out by men the women know
– and that this country has one of the
highest levels of violence against women
among OECD countries – the response
was more subdued. “Why?” was the
PH I L WALTER / G E T T Y
were said to be contributors. So were
physical strength (“I didn’t mean to
hurt her”) and testosterone (“I couldn’t
stop”). Still others claimed it was simply
misogyny. “Women have very little idea
of how much men hate them,” wrote
Germaine Greer, 40 years ago, in the
feminist bestseller The Female Eunuch.
What is known is that men’s violence
sends thousands of New Zealand women
to doctors’ rooms and emergency depart-
ments every year. The question – why do
men kill, maim or terrorise women? – is
WHEN HAMILTON community psy-
chologist Dr Neville Robertson was
growing up in the 50s and 60s, there
was only one way to be a bloke: staunch,
rugby-loving and unemotional. “If you
were hurt by another kid, you were told
not to cry and to fight back. Young men
were raised to be in charge. The social
tropes were: a ship can have only one
captain; someone has to wear the pants.
That someone was sure as hell the man.”
Over many years working with men
who have abused women and research-

question posed. more complicated. ing domestic violence in his role as a

Many pointed to poverty; others said senior lecturer at the University of Wai-
drugs and alcohol were to blame. Social- “I didn’t hate her. I just wanted to kato, Robertson has seen the “win at all
isation, colonisation and even capitalism show her who was boss.” – Adam costs” philosophy played out many times.

NORTH & SOUTH | APRIL 2019 | 53

“One day, when I was stressed, my son
disobeyed me and I punched him in the
head. The next day, I saw him do the same
to his sister, so I punched him again.”
“One of the clearest ways of establishing
your masculine credentials is to keep
your partner in line. There’s a point
where a decision is made, often fuelled
by the notion, ‘I’m not going to back
down; I’m the one in charge,’ and often
accompanied by denigration like ‘stupid
bitch’ or a slap. Booze, general stress,
poverty; all those things exacerbate it.
But, to me, at the heart, is that he wants
to be the final arbiter.”
Many studies support his view. British
criminologists Rebecca and Russell Do-
bash, authors of the book When Men
Murder Women, spent 10 years interview-
ing murderers serving life sentences in
British prisons and conducted the biggest-
ever study of men who kill women. Their
research found the majority of women
were murdered by jealous, possessive
and controlling men. “The real issue is
the sense of entitlement in masculine
culture that is so prevalent,” they said in
an interview with The Guardian news-
paper at the completion of their study.
“The thread that runs through this is the
man’s sense of ownership of the woman
and his control over the continuation or
cessation of the relationship.”
Robertson says controls and violence
can escalate at pregnancy when a man
feels he is no longer the centre of his
partner’s world. “Through self-interest
and self-centredness, he may try to dis-
rupt the bond between mother and
child.” But controls do not always involve
physical violence, he says. They also
include behaviours not visible to out-
siders such as intimidation, threats,
emotional and economic abuse. A man
might prevent his partner from getting
or keeping a job, call her names, chip
away at her self-esteem or isolate her
from friends and family. Children can
be used as weapons, as in, “I’ll tell the
courts you’re a bad mother.”
In 2015, the UK introduced a law en-
abling charges to be brought where there
was evidence of repeated or controlling
behaviour within an intimate relation-
ship. Robertson would like to see the
same law here. “One of the difficulties
with the New Zealand criminal justice
system is that it will focus only on this
54 | NORTH & SOUTH | APRIL 2019
punch or that push, because you’re not
allowed to introduce prejudicial evi-
dence about how he has been a bastard
the previous day or has been monitoring
her phone calls for months.”
But he says the criminal justice system
will not solve men’s violence against
women. “That will only come through
changes in the way boys are raised and
the way masculinity is defined. There is
a form of hegemonic masculinity which
tends to attract all the attention – suc-
cessful, authoritative, super-provider. We
need to chip away at that. The more we
can promote diverse ways of being a
bloke, the more helpful it will be.”
“One day, when I was stressed, my
son disobeyed me and I punched
him in the head. The next day, I saw
him do the same to his sister, so I
punched him again.” – Nikora
DARRIN HAIMONA has spent more than
three decades working with groups to
break the cycle of violence against women.
He was the first male facilitator at the
Hamilton Abuse Intervention Project, and
now advises the government on issues to
do with Māori violence. He agrees with
Robertson that power and control are
at the root of violence against women,
and says those beliefs are embedded in
the history of a Western culture that
condoned it. “Our society was formed
around ideas of privilege, violence and
use of power. For so many years, wom-
en were considered assets of men. They
were like chattels. It was legally okay for
men to beat them and anyone else who
was considered inferior.”
Like Robertson, he believes many men
are fearful to be seen as weak. “That
says you’re a failure and you don’t meet
the standards of being a man. Boys grow
up believing real men use force. They
model the violent behaviours of their
fathers and grandfathers, because they
believe violence is the only way to gain
and hold control.”
He acknowledges there has been a lot
of work done in promoting the rights
of women and children, but says there
is still an undercurrent that implies, “In
some circumstances, I was justified in
beating up my partner, because she was
out of line or mucking around.”
“That says the violence is justified be-
cause women provoke men. We put the
blame on the victim, rather than hold a
perpetrator accountable.”
The challenge for New Zealand, he says,
is to shift the thinking around what good
healthy relationships and positive role
models look like. “We’ve identified the
problems but we haven’t identified alter-
native solutions. In Māori-specific values,
before Western ideologies and values were
adopted, women were seldom abused.
They were revered because they could
maintain the tribe through birth. Decision-
making was different. It didn’t diminish
anyone’s mana or integrity. It valued old
and young, men and women.”
Haimona says many men who beat or
threaten the women in their lives know
their relationship is based only on fear
and intimidation. But they also know
that in having power and control, they
have lost what they wanted from a rela-
tionship: love, respect and trust. “You’re
told you are a loser if you can’t control
your children – a poor parent. If you can’t
control your partner, you’re told you are
weak. This permeates through a relation-
ship, which makes it hard to change.”
“The last time I walked out of Springhill
Prison, I thought, if I keep going down
this road, I’m going to be sent away
for a very long time.” – Glendon
IN HIS 22 YEARS with the Corrections
Department, clinical psychologist Dr
Nick Wilson has seen thousands of vi-
olent prisoners. Among them are men
who have battered and raped women
– or killed them. They come in many
shapes and forms, so he is reluctant to
nail his colours to the mast on any single
cause. “Risk comes from many different
areas. What drives crime for John is not
necessarily the same for Peter. You can’t
have a simplistic approach, which is why,
if you looked solely at power and con-
trol, typically put out there as the key
explanation for violence against women,
you miss a whole lot of risk.”
Wilson says there are differences in
the ability to be violent – “one can’t put
aside that men are physically more ca-
pable of violence” – but there are also
commonalities for risk across sub-groups
including gender and ethnicity.
One is an acceptance of violence as a
 solution in any situation by men who
have antisocial personality traits. “For
them, violence is seen as an effective tool
per se. In their view, violence works.”
The same group also has high impul-
sivity. “They want rewards; they want
them now and they don’t deal well with
being told ‘no’.”
Another common trait is social-skill
deficits, which can also relate to per-
sonality types. “They might be psycho-
pathic or there might be a range of
personality patterns that mean they
don’t have skills, or they don’t see the
need to use those skills.”
A third is negative attitudes towards
women – “the misogynistic part” –
which may be modelled from generation
to generation. “You’re not only modelling
violence, but – in relation to women –
you are also modelling that you have a
right to treat [women] differently.”
Wilson says substance abuse is fre-
quently blamed but can be a convenient
or available excuse. “Crime is like a piece
of Swiss cheese: all the holes have to
line up. You can pay a lot of attention to
the final piece of the puzzle and fail to
recognise that substance abuse just pro-
vided an opportunity. For example,
substance abuse may precede violence
and mean it is more likely to happen
that day, but it does not explain violence
patterns over time. If you have a man
who is already angry because of his per-
sonality or his stable belief system, sub-
stance abuse could just be the trigger.”
He concedes macro factors – such as
changing society’s attitudes towards
violence – will make a difference over
time. “But there is a generation out there
that has already formed beliefs and vi-
olent patterns of behaviour. They are
not necessarily open to changing. When
those individuals commit a crime, we
need to detect and convict them, but
also manage risk through targeted long-
term treatments.
“If you’re dealing with people whose
personality characteristics support their
violence, you’re not going to change that
in the short term through treatment of
one issue, because their risk is support-
ed by so many factors.
“If you treat just one factor, you rely
on that one issue to explain and manage
their risk (‘I’m only violent because I
have a substance abuse problem’). Very
rarely have I found someone is only vi-
olent because they are under the influ-
GETTY
ence. You can’t assume he is safe, just
because he’s not drinking. That would on an assault charge. “She only stayed
be a very fragile safety.” with me, because she didn’t want an-
other hiding.” He wraps up on a tearful
“They always have choices.” – Eric note. “I’m sorry. I really want to get back
with her.” The others nod. Sharing their
AT THEIR lunch in Hamilton, the men stories helps build trust.
have cleared their plates and praised the “You have to create an atmosphere
cook, who is part of the group. All of where they feel comfortable to talk
them have committed to a future without about their stuff,” Eric says later. “A
violence. “I’ve realised that my relation- key to success is to get them to a place
ship was based on fear,” says Rua, who where they make the right choices. They
is due to appear in court the next day always have choices.”
STATS OF SHAME
M
ore than half of New Zealand women are likely to experience psychological
and emotional violence in their intimate relationships, a study involving
nearly 3000 women found. The survey, done by Auckland University’s
School of Population Health in 2003 and reported in 2011, found 46% of
women reported having been insulted or made to feel bad about themselves in intimate
relationships, while 30% said they’d been belittled or humiliated in front of others
and 26% said their partner had done things deliberately to scare or intimidate them.
Data from the same study, published in 2010, shows that Māori and Pasifika women
are over-represented, and European and Asian groups are under-represented in intimate
partner violence, and the incidence of violence increased as socio-economic status
reduced. There is little data available as to whether women in the “leafy suburbs” are
more likely to be exposed to psychological than physical violence (see No One Is Immune,
overleaf). However, a paper published in the Australian and New Zealand Journal of
Public Health, based on research from the Youth 2000 series of surveys, showed more
than 60% of high school students from the wealthiest families, who got on with their
parents and had low exposure to physical violence, reported witnessing emotional
violence. A similar proportion of teens from the poorest homes reported witnessing
emotional violence, and were three times more likely to witness physical violence.
A regularly cited 2004 paper by Spanish researcher Maria Pico-Alfonso, from the
University of Valencia, found the psychological component of intimate partner violence
was the strongest predictor of post-traumatic stress disorder. Further data from the
NZ Violence Against Women study shows that, amongst women who have experi-
enced violence, the experience of recent emotional violence enhances the likelihood
of suicidal thoughts.
NORTH & SOUTH | APRIL 2019 | 55
 PART 3

No One Is Immune
Months after being widowed, The Aunties’ Jackie Clark – daughter of
privilege turned women’s charity founder – talks for the first time about
her own abusive marriage. Donna Chisholm reports.

I
t’s May 1991 and Jackie Clark is
celebrating her engagement to
Ian Goodison, the man she would
call, when he died in the early
hours of last New Year’s Eve, the
love of her life.
There’s a photo taken at their party in
the home they shared in Mt Eden, Auck-
land that shows him slouching against
the dated floral wallpaper, clutching a
beer bottle in one hand, and most of
Clark’s right breast in the other. He chats
idly with a mate as his new fiancée sits
next to him grimacing, her eyes closed
and her body skewed awkwardly.
It’s a raw glimpse into the years of
humiliation and psychological violence
K EN D OWN I E
Clark didn’t see it that way. “I thought
that was loving and wonderful. I was
quite pleased at being possessed.” When
she found the picture again in early
January, though, she was shocked and
repelled. “It was crass and vulgar… and
really fucken hurtful.”
As anyone who reads her social media
will know, Clark liberally seasons many
of her comments and communications
with the salty expletive. She is a verbal
provocateur who relishes the F-word
as an all-purpose descriptor. You don’t
F with her. She doesn’t give a F. You’re
a complete F-wit and you can F right
off. This time, though, she chokes it out
through a sob. The salt is in her wound.
controlling and manipulative game-
player, she’s finally ready to talk about
that past to raise awareness of what she
believes is an under-reported underbel-
ly of domestic violence against women
living in relative wealth and privilege.
When sorting Goodison’s things after
his death, she found a letter she’d written
him a few weeks before their engagement
that provided the catalyst for the discus-
sion. He’d kept little else from that time,
making her think he’d come to terms with
his own behaviour, and taken responsi-
bility for it. She’s using it to show what
domestic violence can look like “in the
leafy suburbs”, how it feels, and why it’s
so hidden.

that marked the early years of her mar- And now, after her nearly 30-year Before Goodison died, of liver cirrho-
riage. Of course, the then 26-year-old marriage to a man she describes as a sis in Middlemore Hospital at the age of

56 | NORTH & SOUTH | APRIL 2019

Left: Jackie Clark, pictured
with her new puppy, Iggy,
named after her late husband
Ian Goodison’s initials.
Right: Snapshots from the
couple’s 28 years together,
including on their wedding day
(far right), and a photo taken
in 1991 at their engagement
party (right), which Clark now
sees as a sign of Goodison’s
controlling attitude towards her.

just 60, “I told him explicitly I would be

talking [publicly] about our marriage
when he died. He said, ‘I know, and it’s
okay – do it.’” Goodison died just hours
before the government announced Clark’s
QSM in the New Year Honours list for
services to the charity she founded five
years ago, The Aunties, which helps
women survivors of domestic abuse.
We’ve published an abridged version
of Clark’s letter on page 58. It’s full of
“red flags” she now realises are signals
of abuse. “In this letter, I am giving him
permission to shape me. Modify me. I am
apologising for who I am. For who I have
been. After just three months. I am con-
stantly blaming myself and owning shit
that probably wasn’t mine to own. When
people think that in their minds, what
they’re doing is victim-blaming. The red
flags aren’t about the behaviour that led
to the apologies – they’re about the apol-
ogies. You apologise for everything, all
the time. I got into a relationship with
this person deliberately, because I felt
they were stronger than me.
“My entire life, I felt I was too assertive,
too dominant, too domineering. When
you are a really strong person, it’s hard
being strong all the time for everybody
and sometimes you want someone to
carry that load and carry you. I thought
he was that person. He didn’t take any
shit and I thought that was a good thing.
He called me out constantly. Things were
my fault all the time.”
She says when Goodison asked her
father, pioneering industrialist and
yachting patron Sir Tom Clark, the
founder of Crown Lynn (later Ceram-
co), for permission to marry, “Dad said,
‘Good. Maybe you can control her.’ I was
devastated.” The late Sir Tom fathered
nine children during three marriages;
Jackie was the eldest of three children
born to his third wife, Trish.
The letter shows how deep her insecu-
rities ran. “At the very basic level of human
need, it came from my mother not loving
me in the way I needed to be loved and
that wasn’t her fault. We can only love
somebody the way we know how to love
people. Sometimes it’s not enough for that
person; it’s not our fault, it’s just how it
is. For me, it comes from always feeling
like an outsider in my own family.”
Clark and Goodison married at the
Clark family deer farm at the South
Kaipara Heads in November 1992. She
wore navy trousers, a white blouse and
a navy-and-white patterned jacket that
a dressmaker made for her. Her mother
told her it wasn’t how she expected her
Clark says
women in higher
socio-economic
communities who
are being abused
believe they are
alone and feel
ashamed. “They
don’t do anything
about it until it’s
too late.”
daughter to look on her wedding day.
“I was a constant disappointment to my
mother. I was 16 when she told me I was
fat. And I came from a large family where
you had to literally shout to get noticed.”
Goodison never raised a hand to her,
she says, but the level of emotional ma-
nipulation and psychological cruelty was
extreme. “What I remember is not what
he said or even did sometimes, but how
I felt. He worked in management for
Telecom and had a pager. He would
never call back when I paged him and
would often stay out late drinking. The
worst was when he stayed out overnight,
ignored all my pages and came back at
3pm the next day. He did this twice and
I forgave him because I was so relieved
he was back.”

NORTH & SOUTH | APRIL 2019 | 57


LETTER OF INTENT
Jackie Clark has highlighted the “red flag” passages in
this abridged version of her “love letter” to her soon-to-be
husband, written three months after they met.
5 May 1991
Dear Ian
I’m feeling many things at the moment. Scared – because
I have possibly alienated you recently with my erratic
behaviour and I don’t want to lose you because of it.
Confused – because I’m not really who I’ve been making out to be
all these years. Strong as an ox, able to carry both the worries of the
world on my own without needing anyone to help. An assertive
woman who doesn’t need a man to be fulfilled. A bubbly good-time
girl. All these things are falsehoods that I have created because I
have a fear of not being liked for myself, because I imagined that
I needed nobody, because I have always been so defensive about
that need we all have to be loved and made to feel special.
I am also confused because my relationships have always been with
weaker men – who needed me more than I needed them. I have never
known until now what it was like to feel protected, safe, and be happy
in so feeling. I am used to being dominant, aggressive, over-assertive
and suddenly I find myself happy not to be and feeling that I must kick
out against that. But I realise that this is what I have always wanted in
a man, and more what I actually needed to match such overwhelming
behaviour. But most of all, I’m confused because I enjoy being “led”, if
you like, being allowed to sit back and let someone else be strong when
I don’t feel like it. Because you see, that’s something new in my world.
I have tried, unconsciously, I believe, to destroy what could be
something extremely precious. I wouldn’t treat my long-term friends
as I have recently been treating you – I love you, I love what we have
– possibly, with any luck, if I don’t stuff it up – what we could have.
I just hope that you can accept me, flaws and all and continue to love
me in spite of it. Even when you’re tired and I get pissed off because
you sound, on the phone, not very pleased to hear my dulcet tones!
I realise I sometimes demand more of your attention than
you can afford. I love you – but you already know that. I
cherish you, I respect you, I admire you for your strength and
tolerance. I even like your friends! But I think, darling, most
of all I still get butterflies in my stomach before I see you.
I demand nothing of you, but that you trust me. All that flirtation
is simply a scared person saying that what I feel for you is strong
and it frightens me. Quite simply, no matter how much I bitch
and nag and threaten and demand, I state here and now I want to
change that unpleasant aspect of my personality, because I love
you and for once in my life, I’m not afraid to say it, because I know
I mean it this time. All I can say is, you must be one hell of a guy.
Yours,
Jackie xxxx
58 | NORTH & SOUTH | APRIL 2019
Failing to return her calls was deliber-
ate, she says. “He didn’t like me ringing
him too much. He thought I was trying
to control him.” She says after one argu-
ment, she brought home flowers to apol-
ogise (“I always apologised”), but found
a note on the table to say he’d gone up
north and didn’t know when he’d be back.
“This was my ultimate fear coming true
– him leaving me. I was terrified of it. He
said it a lot… ‘We’re getting a divorce’ or
whatever.”
She says she was upstairs frantically
phoning police and friends to find out
where he was and if he was okay, only
to find out later that he’d walked in at
some point during her calls and “spent
the entire time just listening”.
The first three years of their marriage
was punctuated with drinking binges.
“I’m not blaming the alcohol… but he
was a mean and nasty piece of shit when
he was drunk. He was always a
game-player but he was much meaner
verbally.” After one binge that went on
for three days, Clark resolved to leave
him, and rang her mother to ask if she
could move into an apartment her par-
ents owned in town. She waited until
Goodison woke up to break the news.
“I looked at him, and he looked at me,
and he said, ‘I’m stopping drinking.’”
Lady Clark told North & South that
when Jackie first brought Goodison
home, she disliked him almost instantly.
“I don’t think any of us liked him very
much. He wasn’t stupid. He was actually
quite smart, but he was a bit arrogant. He
would come up with her for Christmas
on the farm but quite quickly he’d want
her to take him home, and in the end he
never came at all.
“I just felt he really wasn’t very nice
to her and I tried not to have anything
to do with him. I simply didn’t like him
and the way he looked.”
She says she’s surprised her daughter
put up with him. “He would ring her if
she was out and ask where the corkscrew
was and she’d have to go home and find
it for him.”
She says her daughter “has always been
a puzzle to me. Always. I don’t quite
know where she came from.” She points
out that by the time Jackie was born,
when she was 23, she was also raising
Sir Tom’s three children (aged 10 and
under) from his second marriage and
she soon had six children to cope with.
As Jackie was growing up, the older
children were going through the turbu-

lent teen years. Their relationship now
is better than it’s ever been, she says,
partly because of her pride at the work
her daughter is doing for others, even
if she still squirms at the extent to which
Jackie shares her soul on social media.
IN 1996, GOODISON was diagnosed with
acute lymphoblastic leukaemia. Doctors
said he had a 30% chance of survival, and
bombed his body with radiotherapy and
chemotherapy for a year. He survived,
but Jackie Clark says the toll it took on
his body contributed to his early death.
But, she says, his leukaemia saved her
marriage. “Because I had power for a
year. Maximum power.”
After that, she says, “something shift-
ed. He became a gentler man.”
Clark says in recent years, when Good-
ison was again in failing health, he finally
apologised for the way he’d treated her.
“He didn’t call it domestic violence; he
would never use those words. He would
just say, ‘I was a shit to you and I’m really
sorry.’ He was embarrassed about it.”
She’d still tell her 30-year-old self to
leave the relationship if she could. “I’d
say, ‘Don’t put up with that shit. If some-
one is telling you really clearly who they
are, get the fuck out.’ But I’m glad I stayed
with him because I was 10 times more
in love with him 15 years after we married
than I was the day I married. I fell more
and more in love with him. He was fun-
ny and he was very, very smart. We had
a good laugh together. He was my mate.
After all of that shit, he was my mate.”
So, isn’t she undermining her own
advice? “No, because that’s me. I’m an
extraordinarily loyal person. I don’t talk
to women about their relationships un-
less they are at risk of physical harm. I
don’t often give advice about staying or
leaving. But I most definitely would say,
and I’ve said to women in the recent past,
‘Do you want 25 more years of this shit?’
I think people need to know how com-
plicated things are, and ours is a really
good example of that. People assume
these things are really simple, but no
relationship is ever simple.”
She concedes she “would have been
much better off” had she left her marriage
25 years ago. The misery of those early
years have fundamentally shaped her. “It
was Ian logic to think, ‘If I’m really shit
to you when I’m alive, when I die you’ll
be okay.’ And he was right.”
She says many of the women she’s met
through her work with The Aunties have
told her the emotional abuse is more
harmful. “They say, ‘A broken leg... bro-
ken arms, mostly it’s just bruises and
shit’. The psychological stuff is what
steals your soul. And it takes longer to
recover – a lifetime.
“Words have far more power than any-
thing, and I know because I’ve lived it.
The psychological games just wear you
down; it’s drip, drip, drip… like water
torture. I tried really hard to love Ian
Jackie Clark says
her late husband, Ian
Goodison (left), never
hit her, but the level of
emotional manipulation
and psychological
cruelty was extreme.
and for that to be enough for him. But
he was almost a professionally dissatis-
fied person; a glass-is-half-empty person.”
By the time Goodison died, Clark could
say, and mean it from her heart, that he
was her greatest and only love. “Ian and
I had a grand, long love story. He became
one of my closest friends. I loved him
truly.”
And yet, she says, after 28 years to-
gether, the shadows of the earlier abuse
hung over her to the end. “In the last
days, he expressed a wish to die at home
and my response was to go into panic
mode, to do what he asked and pre-
pare everything, even though I knew
it wouldn’t happen. It was my default
setting. It felt just like it used to be, when
he’d say ‘Jump’ and I’d ask ‘How high?’”
She hopes her story will help change
the narrative around domestic violence
in New Zealand and get women to look
at the reality of their own relationships.
“We frame it as primarily physical, and
occurring in Māori and Pasifika com-
munities much more than anywhere
else, and we know that’s rubbish. While
that narrative exists, women over here
[in higher socio-economic communities]
believe they are alone, that it’s a source
of shame, and they don’t do anything
about it until it’s too late.”
Goodison’s death has freed her, she says.
“The thing I feared for all of these years
has happened. So fuck everything. I’m
unfettered. I’m fearless. Watch out.” +
NORTH & SOUTH | APRIL 2019 | 59
 THE WORKS John Summers wonders if his abiding interest
in New Zealand’s abandoned freezing works is
actually a long farewell to his grandfather.

John Summers is a North & South contributing

writer. Photography by Ken Downie.

The Mataura Freezing Works, on the Mataura River near Gore, photographed in 2009.
Opened in 1893, the works are still in operation.
HEARTLAND

NORTH & SOUTH | APRIL 2019 | 61

O
ne summer, we drove
north-east, beyond Gis-
borne to the quiet bays on
that coast: Tolaga Bay,
Tokomaru Bay. Towns where sand set-
tles between the stones in the asphalt
and, walking down the street, you’re as
likely to be passed by a kid on a horse as
by a car.
There was a campground we planned
to stay at, but it was a treeless field. No
toilets, no kitchen. “We’re pretty re-
laxed around here,” the owner said,
but we weren’t, so drove on to another.
After pitching the tent, we walked to the
end of the bay and onto a dilapidated
wharf to look out at the empty sea – no
ship had docked here for decades.
We inspected a brick and concrete
building, caved in at one side and crum-
bling. Grass grew in and around it. Close
by were more of the same. The sea air
had rendered them dull and chalky,
turning them into part of the landscape,
unremarkable to the locals. These build-
ings were the old freezing works, and
all that remained of an outpost of an
Overlooking the Tokomaru Sheepfarmers’ Freezing Company Ltd works at Waima, photographed in the early 1900s.
62 | NORTH & SOUTH | APRIL 2019
enormous meat trade that once meant
there were works like these in every
corner of the country.
Like any empire, the meat trade had
its own creation myth. Its Romulus and
Remus were two Scots entrepreneurs,
Thomas Brydone and William Soltau
Davidson, who sent the first shipment
of refrigerated meat to England. The fro-
zen lambs stowed aboard the Dunedin
would sell there for twice what they’d
have fetched back home. They received
favourable mention in The Times and the
House of Lords, and a trajectory of plen-
ty was born. By 1900, we were exporting
more than three million sheep a year.
When the chairman of the Meat Board
retired in 1980, he was given a necklace
of chop bones as a goodbye gift.
The other thing we know of empires
is they fall. There are still freezing
works left, of course, but it’s not the
industry it was, not the one that once
had us striking a deal where England
bought all the meat we had to sell.
Historian James Belich writes of a com-
placency that came with that ready
demand. For a long time, we made little
effort to pursue other markets; our first
trade envoy to Japan didn’t speak the
language, could barely order a cab. So
when the English began looking to
Europe for their meat, taking the first
steps in the experiment they are now
attempting to undo, we were left with
no ready replacement.
England joined the Europ ean
Economic Community in 1973, and still
the freezing works rattled on, propped
up by subsidies. The plaster was ripped
off in the next decade, when the Lange
government abruptly ended agricultural
assistance. From 1980 to 1995, there was
a roll-call of freezing works closures:
Southdown, Picton, Petone, Pātea,
Shortland, Whakatū, Islington, Burnside,
Westfield, Waingawa, Tōmoana, Fielding,
Aotearoa, Whangārei and Kaiti. When
people talk about the freezing works
now, they’re mostly talking about things
that are gone.
Who mourns that old business of
slaughter? You’ll find those Tokomaru
Bay buildings on the website of Heritage
The Finegand Meat Works near Balclutha. Silver Fern Farms now employs about 1200 people at the
Finegand plant, and at the height of the season it buses in extra workers each day from Dunedin.
New Zealand, listed as a category two
historic place. When the Pātea freezing
works closed in Taranaki – an event
akin to a natural disaster, warned a gov-
ernment report at the time – the local
historical society pushed to have the
chimney preserved. It would be a mon-
ument, said society president Jacq Dw-
yer, but their plans were foiled when the
council demolished it. Instead, Dwyer
and her society created a small museum
to the freezing works. Two old refriger-
ation compressors, a mannequin
dressed as a butcher, a collection of old
photos and half a dozen fibreglass sheep
in what used to be the town’s ANZ bank.
One closed business within another.
From this distance, it seems an odd
thing to commemorate. Don’t freezing
works float on a puddle of blood, sit atop
a hill of bones? Arguably, one of our most
memorable music videos is “AFFCO” by
post-punk group the Skeptics, which was
filmed at Auckland’s Westfield works.
It shows sheep being stunned and
slaughtered as mechanically as lids are
fastened to jars. Front man David D’Ath
sang while smeared with blood (actually
food colouring and baby oil) and bound in
cling-wrap. It was enough to turn people
to vegetarianism, although director Stuart
Page said later they were simply trying
to document a part of New Zealand
life, the killing chain. TVNZ recognised
this, noting the video’s “everyday scenes
at freezing works” before refusing
to broadcast it. On YouTube, it still
carries a warning: “This video may be
inappropriate for some users.”
I asked Dwyer about the impulse to
preserve and commemorate an industry
too gruesome for TV. She spoke about
the need to do something with those
compressors – how valuable they were
– then, when I pressed her again, how
out-of-towners wanted to see something
that represented the old freezing works.
I was being unfair, really, looking for
her to articulate the things I wondered
about, to do the job I should be doing
myself. For a long time, I’d toyed with the
idea of writing a brief history of the
freezing works in this country. It seemed
strange no one had done so already.
There’s a history of kitchens in New Zea-
land, and of comparatively young indus-
tries such as wine, but there’s no single
book on the freezing works, a place
where so many New Zealanders spent
their days. I collected what books there
were. Meat Acts, a 1999 volume commis-
sioned by the NZ Meat Producers Board
to commemorate its 75th anniversary in
1997. The book that came closest to what
I wanted to achieve, but that focused
only on the East Coast, was Sheridan
Gundry’s Making a Killing. (These titles!
There’s also Peter Norman’s freezing-
works memoir called The Meat in the
Sandwich.)
I decided on some of the points I
would include – the voyage of the Dun-
edin, but also the next ship that sailed
from Port Chalmers and its bizarre car-
go of dead things: sheep, beef and pork,
of course, but also barracuda, pūkeko
and a cask of penguin skins. Another list
that also seems to encapsulate the aspi-
rations and appetites of an era was the
meal we dished up to the Shah of Iran
in 1974 as part of those patchy efforts to
woo new markets. The menu comprised
roast baby lamb garni, crown roast lamb
in aspic, lamb medallions madelon and
roast leg of lamb, as well as beef, turkey
and chicken. But despite my list-making,
I never got much further, rewriting the
NORTH & SOUTH | APRIL 2019 | 63

Top: The writer’s grandfather, Henry Donaghey, on his last day at the
Islington Freezing Works. Around his neck is one of the cloth mutton bags
his department made. Above: Inside Horotiu Freezing Works, 1955.
same three paragraphs every few
months. I’m not a historian and had no
real interest in putting in the hours that
would be needed among the archives
and microfiche readers.
W
ithin my family, the freezing
works were both long gone
and never far away. We
dried ourselves on blue towels embroi-
dered with “New Zealand Refrigerating
64 | NORTH & SOUTH | APRIL 2019
GETTY
Co”; I still have, in my kitchen drawer, a
mean, wooden-handled butcher knife
that holds a good edge. To spend any
time with my uncle or grandfather was
to hear the works mentioned, and just
like that: “the works”. It was assumed
you knew they were referring to the
Islington freezing works, just beyond
Hornby where they lived. My grand-
father started there following a joinery
apprenticeship, which he spent building
state houses. Three government-issue
saws hung in his shed. Once he got to
the works, he stayed until the day my
grandmother brought in a cake for his
retirement. The works had paid for his
home in Hornby, the trip he took to
Sydney for his son’s wedding, and the
superannuation scheme that would let
him prune roses and potter in his garage
during his last years.
Often, on the weekend or after school,
I’d prop my bike against the tin walls of
that garage and wander in, inhaling the
scents of turned wood, and blood-and-
bone fertiliser. He was a genial if not effu-
sive man; a smile and a nod told you he
was pleased to see you. I usually turned
up with some idea about building some-
thing: a CD stand, a toolbox, maybe. What
a pain I was, I now realise. But he never
said so, just wandered out to his timber
stack to see what might be suitable.
Building the thing would be his job
too, but for the most basic tasks. That
state-house apprenticeship had given
him a wizardry with hand tools. Some
things reveal their magic – it’s clear
what a power saw does – but look at a
plane as if you’ve never seen one before.
Could you guess that in the right hands,
my grandfather’s thick hands, it could
make a rough, wide old board perfectly
flat on every edge? I hung about, in
theory to learn some of these skills. In
truth, it was his presence I’d come seek-
ing. His company was a balm and in that
shed, crowded with oiled tools and old
things, the anxieties of School Certifi-
cate maths, schoolyard hierarchies and
a looming, uncertain future all shrank
and went still.
He and I worked, for the most part, in
silence. Our soundtrack was the slick-
slick of the plane. Now and again, I’d
break it to ramble on about something
I’d seen in a book on carpentry. He’d
listen, seemingly interested, although it
must have been like Stephen Hawking
having someone tell him there are these
things called black holes. But while he
wasn’t a big talker, occasionally he told
me some story of his own. “There was a
fella at the works…” is how these yarns
all started; they usually contained a de-
scription of a job done well and, al-
though he never extracted it, a lesson of
some kind.
In one, I remember the “fella” was his
first foreman. My grandfather designed
and made a wheelbarrow that would be
better suited to the freezing works than
the ones they were using, but the fore-
man told him it was useless, and cast it
aside. Later, a man from another depart-
ment would find it and ask for four more.
Because this story highlighted his own
abilities, I wouldn’t say it was typical of
his work-shed genre, and it’s telling that
he tried to present it as about the fore-
man rather than himself. Maybe that’s
the reason I remember it, when so much
else of our time together has faded, and
I find myself 10 years after his death
mourning again, this time for memories
as well as the man himself.
To write about the freezing works, I
also needed to talk to my Uncle Dale.
My conversation with him was a re-
minder of how they both spoke. “The
works had its own lingo,” Dale told me,
explaining that the expression “the
gun’s gone off” meant the killing chain
had closed and the men who staffed it
would need to look for another job until
the next season. But I suspected that
while you might trace this lingo to the
works, you couldn’t say it stayed there.
It was of them and their world more
generally. “All hair-cream and no socks”
was an expression I’d heard Dale use.
“He’d done a stretch in the chokey” was
another, describing a man they worked
with who was either a thief, or at least
knew how to get his hands on things.
Within these stories, the man in ques-
tion almost always had some nickname.
A laundryman was “Willy Shrinkem”,
and a small man who liked to pick fights
became “the Dehydrated Giant”. There
was “Hot Foot”, “Biggie Rat”, “Sleepy
Fox”, also “Death”, which sounds like a
bizarre thing to call someone, but prob-
ably makes sense in a slaughterhouse.
It would make sense, too, in a Ronald
Hugh Morrieson novel. The freezing
works lurk in his Pallet on the Floor as a
source of gothic horror, a place that
leaves a psychic stain. “So you were in
Belsen, huh?” reads the graffiti on the
freezing works walls. Viewed now, they
operate in his book as a symbol of all
that was wrong with that old, macho
New Zealand, the violence that ran be-
neath the puritan society. The bad old,
good old days, where toughness and
mateship left little room for difference
or sensitivity.
And yet, both my uncle and my grand-
father spoke of the works, if not fondly,
with nostalgia. It helped perhaps that
neither had been in the business of kill-
ing animals directly. My grandfather
The Horotiu Freezing Works, still operating today.
began in the carpenters’ shop, making
wooden chutes and the boards on which
men scraped out intestines for sausage
skins, as well as those barrows and even,
on occasion, wooden salad bowls gifted
to visiting executives. From there, he
moved to the bag room, where they made
and printed the cloth bags used to wrap
frozen meat. My uncle joined him there
later; he had done an apprenticeship, as
a mechanic. But with a young family, he
wanted something better paying, and for
a long time for a lot of men, nothing paid
better than the works.
Uncle Dale started in the yard driving
forklifts and doing odd jobs. He worked
as a butcher’s labourer in the beef house
for a while; sawed brisket with a hand-
saw; “Jesus, sweat!” he said of that job.
“Because of the heat of the beast.” Even-
tually he joined his father in the bag
room. Dale repaired sewing machines
and printing presses; he cut stencils and
type for printing bags, learning to cut it
backwards, a mirror image. It got so that
signing a cheque, he had to think which
way to write.
Hearing about these jobs and the oth-
ers they described left me with the im-
pression of the works as a city within a
city. Everything it needed to function
was on site. As well as the bag room and
killing floor, there were chemists, ship-
ping clerks, tinsmiths, plumbers, engi-
neers, vets and accountants. There was
a fire truck and a steam train. Online, I
found a couple of aerial pictures taken
in the 1920s. In them, Islington spilled
out onto the land around it, building
after building, rows of chimneys. Some-
thing out of an L.S. Lowry painting, a
satanic mill. “It was a big affair, a mon-
strous affair,” said Uncle Dale. “There
were tunnels and Christ knows what.”
But an industrial landscape is still a
landscape; as well as its killing sheds
and freezing rooms, this one even had a
man-made lake – the water used to cool
ammonia condensers.
It’s gone now, of course. Islington was
on that roll-call of closures. They’re
building a business park where it used
to be, uncovering pits of buried carcass-
es in the process. My grandfather re-
tired not long before it closed, but Mum
told me he’d been shocked by the news.
My uncle managed to stay working for
a while longer as the bag room remained
open, supplying those works that re-
mained. He would later go into business
himself, using some of the same skills.
He worked out of his garage, repairing
the chain-link gloves worn by butchers
in the freezing works that still operated.
Both men were lucky, escaping early
or finding a late-career lifeboat. For oth-
ers, the end of the local freezing works
meant the dole. Sometimes it meant
despair. In Pātea, the churches held
weekly prayer meetings after the works
closed. Jaq Dwyer told me the town
took a generation to recover. There are
still empty sections where houses were
jacked up and shifted away.
NORTH & SOUTH | APRIL 2019 | 65
New Zealand’s first freezing works were built at Burnside,
Dunedin, in 1882. The works (above and right) closed in 2008.
B
ut I needn’t look so far for my
examples. There was once a
freezing works down the road
from where I now live in the Wairarapa:
Waingawa. When it closed in 1989, it
had been the biggest employer in the
region, hiring 700 people during the
killing season.
Marshall Coley was the union presi-
dent at the time, and was part of a wel-
fare group that tried to soften the blow
of closure. They’d had a community,
he told me. They had sports teams. In
fact, there was a national games, a sort
of freezing workers’ Olympics that ran
from the early 70s to the late 80s.
After the closure, Coley helped relo-
cate people to places where they might
find work. Although not everyone had
somewhere to go. Five years after the
works closed, he learnt of one former
worker who had been leaving his house
at six o’clock every morning, driving out
into the country where he could sit in
his car and read a book. He didn’t want
his neighbours to know he’d been made
redundant, Coley said.
Their old workplace sat abandoned
for years. But by the time I moved here,
it had been demolished. A row of oaks
on a side road is all that remains. The
trees had been planted by the manag-
ers on what was once the road to the
works. I’d driven past them many times,
admiring the glade their sturdy frames
made. Now to see them is to think of a
car parked on a lonely road, the tick of a
dashboard clock, a man reading a book.
You might say we’re better off with
fewer freezing works. This was brutal,
66 | NORTH & SOUTH | APRIL 2019
unpleasant work. I know I’d last a solid
two minutes – I get woozy at the sight
of blood. But I’ve always been drawn
to the past, never been able to think
clearly about the future. My neck is
cricked, looking back. Almost 20 years
into a new century, and here I am still
wondering about that old New Zealand
of “full employment” and six-o’clock
swills. It was a place that was busily
being dismantled in the years I learnt
my times tables. Unknowable then for
me, except as the setting for my grand-
father’s stories. And yet in many ways,
he never belonged either. He didn’t so-
cialise at “The Swamp” – the pub where
freezing workers congregated, and I
know when he was conscripted into the
army (he missed combat due to an un-
treatable set of bunions), he preferred
to spend his evenings at needlepoint
by numbers rather than boozing with
his fellow soldiers. Mine is the defini-
tion of misplaced nostalgia. It was him
I missed.
All I really knew of the works was that
he’d been there. In the memories I hold,
he is spooling out his tape measure, lean-
ing toward a piece of wood with the stub
of a carpenter’s pencil, moving slowly but
without coming to a stop. When he did
finally wind up in a rest home, without
tools to hold or a garden beneath his feet,
it was clear from the start he wouldn’t be
there long. He sat in his room, like that
man in his car, waiting.
My grandfather was important to me.
“The works” was a place important to
him. Some part of me can’t help but feel
those words like a sunset still. +
NORTH & SOUTH | APRIL 2019 | 67
 HEALTH

A RIGHT
TO DIE?
Matt Vickers is a North & South contributing writer.

Zurich Central Station, Switzerland

GETTY

GETTY

68 | NORTH & SOUTH | APRIL 2019

AS PARLIAMENT’S JUSTICE SELECT COMMITTEE
PREPARES TO REPORT BACK ON DAVID SEYMOUR’S
CONTROVERSIAL END OF LIFE CHOICE BILL,
MATT VICKERS – THE WIDOWER OF ASSISTED
DYING ADVOCATE LECRETIA SEALES – MAKES
HIS CASE FOR DEATH WITH DIGNITY.

NORTH & SOUTH | APRIL 2019 | 69

 Above: The Swiss assisted-dying clinic Dignitas, in Pfaeffikon,
near Zurich. In Switzerland, providing the means for a person
to take their own life is legal if done from non-selfish motives.
Right: Dignitas founder Ludwig Minelli.
M
ost of us take few one-
way journeys in our
lives. No matter how
far we venture from
home, whether for a
day, a week, a month or for years, we
usually return. Leaving home for good
is generally paired with a major life
event: university, a new job, marriage. A
new start in a new place.
But not every one-way journey is
about starting a new life. Every year,
around 200 people make a journey to
end one. They travel from their homes
in Britain, Australia and New Zealand,
to go to Zurich, Switzerland to die.
An appointment in Zurich does not
have the same connotations as the fabled
meeting with “Death” in Samarra. It’s a
beautiful, scrupulously clean city stocked
with watchmakers, wine bars and choc-
olatiers. In September, its narrow cob-
bled streets smell faintly of candy-floss.
Bankers and tourists sit outdoors at the
restaurants and bars lining the Limmat
River, their minds more inclined toward
skiing than mortality.
It’s here that Dignitas does its work,
giving people suffering from dreadful
illnesses or terminal prognoses a way to
cut their lives short. Switzerland is not
the only country in the world to offer
assisted dying, but if you want assisted
GETTY
dying and you don’t live in a country
70 | NORTH & SOUTH | APRIL 2019
that offers it, Switzerland is the only
country in the world willing to help a
foreign citizen like you.
Silvan Luley, a tall, grey-haired Swiss
board member of Dignitas, is not happy
about that. “It’s an atrocity that some-
one from Australia, New Zealand, the
UK or anywhere on this planet has to
travel to Switzerland if the only thing
that he or she wants is to have a peace-
ful end to their suffering in life. How can
a state treat people, who pay taxes all
their lives, this way; to say, ‘If you want
to end your life self-determinedly, I
don’t care, go to Switzerland.’
“We shouldn’t be here. Dignitas
shouldn’t exist. And this is actually our
goal: to disappear. This is what we have
been working for, for 18 years. Because
when other countries allow sensible
choices for their people, then they don’t
need to travel here. And if we have im-
plemented that around the world, then
we can close down.”
New Zealand’s latest debate on assisted
dying was partly initiated by my late wife,
Lecretia Seales, who sought to have the
right to be assisted to die if she chose to.
She wanted to be able to access services
such as those offered by Dignitas, but not
to have to leave her country to get them.
Like almost everyone, she wanted to be
close to her home and her family when
she died. But she also wanted control
over how and when it happened.
My wife died in 2015 without winning
that choice, but New Zealanders may
end up with more options about how
they die very soon. The End of Life
Choice Bill, a members’ bill sponsored
by Act MP David Seymour, which aims
to offer assisted dying, is due to come
back to parliament for a second reading
sometime in the next few months.
Luley has no doubts about the impor-
tance of having assisted dying as an op-
tion. “It’s not about doing it or not doing
it. It’s a choice. There’s an emergency
exit door if the worst comes to the
worst. I don’t need to go through that
door, but it’s good that it’s there.”
The Dignitas office is about 30 min-
utes from the centre of Zurich by train,
in a nondescript building with no signs
on the door. Inside is a quietly efficient
workplace with around 10 staff. In one
room, there are four floor-to-ceiling file
carousels, each filled with coloured
folders. Each colour means something
different: a blue folder means a case is
under assessment; red, a person is no
longer a member of Dignitas; yellow, a
case has been approved but the individ-
ual has not yet chosen to come to Zurich
(and may never come; approval pro-
vides the option to travel to Zurich, but
not the obligation); and green, an indi-
vidual completed the vetting process
and was assisted to die at his or her
home, or at one of the homes provided
by Dignitas.
Swiss citizens strongly support the
existence of Dignitas and organisations
like it: in 2011, two religiously motivated
political parties initiated two referen-
dums, one to prohibit assisted dying and
the other to end what they called “sui-
cide tourism”. But 85% of Zurich citi-
zens voted to keep assisted dying legal,
and 78% voted to continue to allow for-
eign nationals to access it.
I ask Luley what the people who come
to Switzerland are like. “Very autono-
mous, self-determined people,” he says.
“In fact, that’s what most people write
in their requests. ‘Look, I’m now 80, I’ve
survived the war, I survived the Depres-

sion times after the war, I’ve worked all
my life and I’ve done what a man needs
to do and I’ve brought up my family and
so on. It’s my life, it’s my choice... I’m
going to [keep deciding] until the very
last moment, and it’s my decision to end
my suffering when I want.’”
This is consistent with findings in Or-
egon, the first US state to legalise assist-
ed dying, in 1997. Studies have shown
applicants tend to be disproportionately
well-educated, wealthy and white: the
very opposite of what society and critics
would consider vulnerable.
Does Luley worry about coercion, or
that a person’s motivations may be inau-
thentic? “I’ve never seen that. Maybe it
has to do with the procedure and how
the system works, especially with people
coming from abroad. They go through at
least a three- to four-month preparation
procedure, and repeatedly have to show
they want to go this way and that no one
is pushing them. Apply for membership,
fill out the advanced directive, write the
formal request, write the life report, the
CV, gather the medical reports, proof of
identity and documentation and send it
all to us. It’s a lot of paperwork they have
to do, and they have to take the initiative
themselves again and again.
“People who have thought about their
situation and consider the options and
then decide rationally to end their life…
it takes a lot of courage. I don’t know
whether I would be able to do that. I
think we humans are just like animals,
we cling on to life because that’s all we
have in this world. Our brain stem tells
us to live and to prosper and to have kids
and to live on and longer. Deciding
against that very basic driving force
After being diagnosed with a brain tumour, lawyer Lecretia Seales took a case to the
High Court challenging for her right to die with the assistance of her GP.
“NEW ZEALAND’S LATEST DEBATE ON ASSISTED
DYING WAS PARTLY INITIATED BY MY LATE WIFE,
LECRETIA SEALES, WHO SOUGHT TO HAVE THE
RIGHT TO BE ASSISTED TO DIE IF SHE CHOSE TO.”
within us, and to say ‘No, with my intel-
lect, I decide to overrule that, and end
everything’ – that’s very brave.”
In New Zealand, the Swiss example –
where doctors may only “assist” by pro-
viding the means to die – is rarely men-
tioned. Opponents focus on what they
perceive as the broad remit of the Dutch
and Belgian regimes, or the unsuper-
vised example of the Oregonian model.
“In Switzerland, the assisted dying
system has been working almost per-
fectly fine for 35 years, supported by
physicians and with the assistance of
non-profits like Dignitas,” says Luley.
“We are not a good example for oppo-
nents, because... they would have to ad-
mit the most progressive-liberal system
works fine, without abuse, without peo-
ple being pushed to commit suicide.
Without so-called vulnerable groups
being under threat, without the value of
life being eroded.”
In Oregon, a patient must be terminally
ill with a prognosis of less than six months
LI S TEN ER / H AG EN H O PK I N S
to live, but once that criterion is met and
the doctors satisfied through a series of
consultations that the patient is acting
rationally, they are prescribed a medica-
tion they take home with them, and that
they are free to take any time. However,
they must take it without assistance.
In the Netherlands, a patient must
have grievous suffering and be able to
satisfy doctors they genuinely wish to
be assisted to die. However, the drug is
administered by a doctor under medical
supervision; they are not permitted to
take the drug themselves. In Belgium,
doctors can help patients to end their
lives when they freely express a wish to
die because they are suffering intracta-
ble and unbearable pain.
Seymour’s bill, with the support of
parliament, may settle on criteria simi-
lar to Oregon’s, but with a more Dutch-
or Swiss-style system of supervision.
This greatly restricts the ability for peo-
ple to get assistance to die, but it also
ensures that complications with taking

NORTH & SOUTH | APRIL 2019 | 71

the life-ending drug – a criticism of the
unsupervised Oregonian system – are
minimised, as a professional is on hand
to ensure it is administered correctly.
For me, a terminal illness is what clear-
ly distinguishes an assisted death from
suicide. When death is imminent and
inevitable and there is no choice to live,
dying without suffering is inarguably
humane. In New Zealand, where suicide
statistics are a national tragedy, being
able to make a clear distinction between
assisted dying and suicide is important.
Opponents argue that six months is
very subjective, and a patient could live
for many months more. And that’s true.
But six months simply gate-keeps the
long, administrative process of winning
access to assistance – it is not the time-
frame in which the drug must be taken.
The data suggests patients who do end
their lives early do so by an average of
fewer than 10 days.
But Dignitas does not think a six-month
prognosis is a good place to draw a line. In
this, it agrees with groups such as New
Zealand’s End of Life Choice Society (un-
til recently the Voluntary Euthanasia So-
ciety), run by former Labour MP Maryan
Street. “Discrimination is not the way to
go, and a six-month terminally ill model
is definitely discrimination against peo-
ple with long-term ailments who suffer
badly but are not expected to die in a few
months,” says Luley.
However, he acknowledges the line
has to be drawn somewhere. “There is
probably always a certain category of
people who really suffer, but how do you
want to make it objective? One thing is
for sure: people wish for real freedom
of choice in end-of-life issues. A restric-
tive law, such as in Oregon, does not live
up to what all supporters want. It leaves
many suffering people in despair, having
to take to drastic measures, such as a
lonely, risky suicide attempt, with dire
effects on themselves, their loved ones
and society in general. Or they travel to
Dignitas, if they still can.”
Luley and I emphatically agree on one
point: “Giving access to assisted dying is,
in fact, suicide prevention and suicide-
attempt prevention.” In Seales v Attorney
General, this was upheld by Justice David
Collins, based on 100 years of evidence
from New Zealand’s coronial records.
About 5-8% of all suicides here are people
attempting to escape the worst of their
medical conditions, killing themselves in
awful, lonely and often violent ways.
72 | NORTH & SOUTH | APRIL 2019
These people might live longer if they
could talk freely to their doctor about
assisted dying, whether they go through
with it or not. Under the current law, a
huge part of the problem is people not
talking to medical professionals about a
wish to end their life early.
D
r Juan Mendoza-Vega was the
president of Fundación Pro
Derecho a Morir Dignamente
(DMD), a Colombian right-
to-die organisation, and until 2015 the
only substantial organisation of its type
in Latin America. Sadly, Mendoza-Vega
died in 2017 of natural causes, but I had
the opportunity to meet him in Bogotá
before he passed. There, he worked with
his team to facilitate assisted dying for
Colombians, supported by a constitution-
al ruling won two decades earlier.
Colombia is an anomaly in the short
but growing list of countries that allow
assisted dying. Generally such countries
are Western, democratic and secular.
Colombia is a Catholic-majority country
(73% of its citizens are Catholic), sur-
rounded by five other Catholic-majority
countries. Its population is primarily
made up of the soccer-playing sons and
daughters of Spaniards, indigenous
Americans, and Africans. In fact, the le-
gality of assisted dying in Colombia is
due only to a legal own goal.
Under the Colombian penal code (the
equivalent of our Crimes Act), murder
and assisted suicide are illegal. Unlike
our Crimes Act, the code explicitly spells
out that a murder or assisted suicide with
a motivation of pity, to end intense suf-
fering from bodily injury or disease, is
also a serious crime. However, this cate-
gory of crime – a crime of compassion –
has a slightly lesser sentence.
A crusading young Bogotá lawyer,
José Eurípides Parra Parra, believed
that having lesser penalties for murder
and assisted suicide based on motiva-
tion violated the right to equality in the
Colombian constitution. He believed
that no matter the motive of the crimi-
nal, a victim of murder or assisted sui-
cide deserves equal justice, and thus an
equal sentence for the offender.
However, his case had the opposite
outcome to the one he intended. The
Colombian Constitutional Court instead
ruled that if a terminally ill patient had
given authority to have their life ended,
then a physician helping them could not
be held criminally responsible. Not only
did this contradict the penal code: as
superior law, it overruled it. With one
decision, the court legalised assisted
dying for the entire country. Assisting a
suicide was still illegal, but voluntary
euthanasia performed by a physician on
a willing patient was no longer a crime.
In 2014, Ovidio Gonzalez, a 79-year-
old Colombian man suffering from
throat cancer, sought to be assisted to
die, but couldn’t find a physician who
would help him. Most doctors believed
it was still illegal despite the constitu-
tional ruling. Gonzalez petitioned the
court, and the court not only reaffirmed
the patient’s right but instructed the
Colombian Ministry of Health to pro-
vide norms and practices for assisted
dying. Since then, assisted dying has
been unambiguously legal.
Have the floodgates opened since
then? Mendoza-Vega told me they
hadn’t. In the most recent year he mon-
itored, there were no more than six as-
sisted deaths recorded in the whole
country. “It’s not very frequent,” he said.
But for him, the number wasn’t impor-
tant. He echoed Luley on the importance
of choice. “Dignity in dying is really re-
specting the person who is dying until
their last moment; respecting his or her
will and decisions... If that person de-
cides to suffer, that’s dying with dignity
also. If this person says, ‘I want pallia-
tive care,’ that’s dignity in dying. We
respect a person choosing euthanasia,
and we respect all other forms of dying
that he or she decides.”
Unlike the Dutch and Belgian models,
the Colombian model has not had a
great deal of public scrutiny in Western
media. A patient who wishes to be as-
sisted to die will contact DMD, which
will aid the person, but with the same
checks found in Western countries, in-
cluding a review by two doctors and a
psychological assessment. The person
has to have a terminal diagnosis, with
no corrective treatment available.
By working quietly, DMD aims to
avoid scandal and protect the privacy of
the family of the deceased. Colombia is
prone to having the public details of any
cases excoriated by an unsympathetic
media, despite both doctors and the
general public supporting the right of
patients to access assisted dying. With
his blessing, Gonzalez became a cause
célèbre, but others are less inclined to
go public with their plight. “Sensation-
alism is the worst for our work,” said

Dr Rob Jonquiere, a former GP and current executive director of the World Federation of Right to Die Societies.
Mendoza-Vega. “It tends to make what
we do a spectacle and a circus. That’s
the worst for objective discussions.”
I asked him for his views on the Dutch
and Belgian models.
“I think in Belgium and the Nether-
lands they are acting according to their
society’s beliefs and attitudes. Those at-
titudes are not the same as in the society
of Colombia or in Latin America. So we
must have our own ways and positions
about this. We must have in mind the
beliefs of our people and their attitudes.”
I often wonder what New Zealand’s
attitudes are in relation to assisted dy-
ing. To me, assisted dying appears com-
pletely consistent with the stereotypical
Kiwi values of rugged independence,
tolerance, fairness, personal responsi-
bility, and individual freedom and
choice. In fact, those values are not too
far from the ones listed in the manifes-
tos of our two major political parties.
After spending time reviewing Sey-
mour’s bill, I believe it is consistent with
those values, while being a sensible
Kiwi approach that learns from over-
seas experience. In particular, the pro-
posed legislation doesn’t favour one
method of assisted dying over another,
leaving that entirely up to the individu-
al, and what the doctor is willing to do.
There are five permitted methods in
Seymour’s bill: ingesting the medication
oneself, orally, via a tube or intravenous-
ly; or a doctor supplying the medication
via a tube or injection. By allowing all of
these approaches, the legislation avoids
hair-splitting about what is moral and
what is not, and leaves it up to the pa-
tient and the doctor as to what their
conscience will bear.
But no matter the method, the legis-
lation is in keeping with New Zealand’s
identity as caring and compassionate,
by requiring an individual to be under
medical supervision when any steps are
taken to have their life ended.
A
longside the End of Life
Choice Bill, New Zealand
has been tightening its laws
around assisted suicide.
The Harmful Digital Communications
AN D R E W WAR N ER / N E WS PIXNZ
Act was passed in 2015, amending parts
of the Crimes Act to make inciting, coun-
selling or procuring another person to
commit suicide illegal, even if that per-
son doesn’t end their life. The amend-
ment doesn’t distinguish whether this is
done electronically, as has been alleged
in the case of MP Sarah Dowie’s text
message to Jami-Lee Ross, or in person.
The conversation between doctor and
patient around end-of-life choice is a
tightrope. Under the previous law, a doc-
tor coercing a patient into assisted dying
would be unambiguously illegal. Now,
under the amended act, a patient doesn’t
even have to act on the suggestion for a
doctor to be liable. Opponents fear that
making assisted dying legal will have
doctors pushing it on vulnerable pa-
tients, but it stands to reason that if a
patient hasn’t asked, then it doesn’t fall
under the End of Life Choice Act and
may be a prosecutable crime under the
Crimes Act, particularly if the suggestion
is unwelcome and made persistently.
Even in a socially liberal country like
the Netherlands, the conversation is a
NORTH & SOUTH | APRIL 2019 | 73

The writer, Matt Vickers, holds a photograph of his late wife Lecretia Seales while making a submission to the Justice select
committee considering the End of Life Choice Bill in August 2018.
very careful one. Dr Rob Jonquiere is a
former GP and current executive direc-
tor of World Federation of Right to Die
Societies. I met him in Amsterdam in a
quiet cafe on the edge of the harbour.
He has had these conversations with
dying patients a few times.
“It is still, for most doctors, the most
difficult request they can get, the patient
asking the doctor for his help. Every doc-
tor will immediately get in a kind of fight-
ing stance and say, ‘Let’s see what we
can do to make things more bearable.’”
I mention the arguments from some
sectors of the disabled community: that
doctors may unilaterally decide that a life
is not worth living and may encourage
someone suffering a severe disability to
seek assisted dying. (Seymour has recent-
ly suggested amending his bill to state
explicitly that disability is not a sufficient
criterion on its own for assisted dying,
although this was always implied.)
“I cannot imagine a decent Dutch doc-
tor talking a disabled person into eutha-
nasia. There is, of course, a possibility
that in the communication between a
doctor and a disabled person, which
74 | N O R T H & S O U T H | A P R I L 2 0 1 9
many times is a very close relationship,
the doctor gets more and more the im-
pression that actually the disabled per-
son doesn’t accept his or her life any-
more, and wants to do something about
it but doesn’t want to talk about it. Then
I can imagine that somewhere in that
communication as a doctor, you careful-
ly bring up the subject – not as a fact of
‘I’m going to do it’, but as a possibility
they can think about.
“I would imagine that if you applied
euthanasia to a patient who was disabled
and reported it to the review committee,
you would be immediately picked out
and your case seriously scrutinised for
possible referral to a prosecutor.”
Opponents have pointed to a lack of
prosecutions in the Netherlands as sus-
picious: either the law is working per-
fectly with its system of oversight and
review, and doctors are working within
the law, or it isn’t, and doctors are quite
literally getting away with murder.
But despite a lack of court hearings,
cases have certainly been referred to
prosecutors and health inspectors. Jon-
quiere estimates between 10 and 15 cases
MA R K M ITC H ELL / N E WS PIXNZ
were referred every year for the past 10
years for violations of the carefully de-
tailed procedure. However, despite the
referrals, prosecutors have not elected to
bring a case against the doctors named,
usually because the infractions were bu-
reaucratic oversights, not because some-
thing had gone drastically wrong.
Just last year, however, a doctor was
prosecuted for not following the proce-
dure outlined by the law – the first
Dutch prosecution since assisted dying
became legal in 2002. It’s alleged an
elderly dementia patient had previous-
ly asked for assistance to die, but when
the time came, was unable to clearly
express her wish to the attending doc-
tor. According to the claim, the doctor
enlisted the help of the patient’s fami-
ly to gently restrain the patient, in or-
der for the life-ending medication to
be administered. Dutch procedure
states the patient must reaffirm their
wish clearly at the time they are being
assisted to die.
The case highlights the complexity of
allowing advanced directives: a written
document that specifies what you want
 GETTY
Dr Anne Turner is helped by her son Edward from the Dignitas clinic in Forch, Switzerland. The retired British doctor had been
diagnosed with progressive supranuclear palsy, a degenerative neurological disease for which there is no treatment. Her late
husband, Jack, died of a similar condition, multiple systems atrophy, in 2002. Turner travelled to Switzerland from the UK,
where assisted dying is illegal, and ended her life with medical assistance from Dignitas in March 2006.

from your end-of-life carers ahead of
time. Do you respect the wishes of the
previously competent individual, or the
non-competent individual suffering
from dementia, whose instinct to sur-
vive has set in?
“This is one of the big issues in the
Netherlands... The first thing is we put
in our law that an advanced directive is
legally equal to an oral request when
you are not able to put forward an oral
request. Which means at the moment of
euthanasia, you don’t need the patient
to say, ‘I want euthanasia’ if there is this
advanced directive saying, ‘I want eu-
thanasia.’ You can say things have been
completed in the proper way.
“[But] the doctor giving euthanasia
wants to look his patient in the eye and
say, ‘Is this really what you want, be-
cause if I push the needle, it’s over. No
return.’ And the big issue is, if you have
a demented person, is this what they
want? What is the value of the answer?
“We introduced in the Netherlands
the concept of five minutes to 12... As a
doctor and patient, you have to talk reg-
ularly, and you have to find out actually
the point where the dementia is far
enough but not yet too far, so that you
still can say, ‘I want euthanasia.’ And it is
so far that the doctor can still clearly
identify the situation as suffering, that is
the moment, at five to 12, one to 12, just
before 12. If you are after 12, it is too late.”
I tell Jonquiere that I think this is a
very fine line, and it is part of the reason
I don’t support advanced directives for
euthanasia. Seymour’s bill doesn’t, ei-
ther. For me, there can be no question
of competency, no question that there is
a real, genuine request.
“It is a balancing act,” he concedes.
Still, the recent prosecution supports
the case that there is sufficient over-
sight. Jonquiere agrees: “Things happen
which should not happen, but that hap-
pens everywhere. And I even dare to say
they happen more often in countries
that do not have a law.”
The evidence supports Jonquiere’s
claim, especially in New Zealand. In
2000, Dr Glynn Owens, a professor
(now emeritus) of psychology at Auck-
land University, conducted a survey of
1000 New Zealand GPs to determine
the prevalence of physician-assisted
dying in this country.
The research found that 3.5% had pro-
vided at least one physician-aided death
at some point in their career, a similar
percentage to the Netherlands, where
aid in dying is lawful. Also, in the New
Zealand survey, 2.7% of physicians ad-
mitted to having aided death without the
explicit request of the patient. This may
have been through palliative sedation,
withdrawal of life support, or possibly
something more ominous. Strictly speak-
ing, terminating life without consent is
involuntary or non-voluntary euthanasia,
i.e. murder. And that is not legal any-
where in the world – not in the Nether-
lands, not in Belgium, not in Switzerland
and certainly not in New Zealand.
Worse, the proportion of these types
of cases was higher in New Zealand
than reported in the Netherlands. The
survey also found the availability or
non-availability of palliative care had no
effect on the physicians’ decisions to act
with intent to hasten death.
The incidence of these involuntary
physician-assisted deaths has reduced

NORTH & SOUTH | APRIL 2019 | 75


“We are all afraid of dying,” writes Vickers, “and when faced with it,
we have wishes about how it might happen, and where it might
happen, and with whom.”
in the Netherlands and Belgium since
legalisation of assisted dying. Are
life-ending acts without patient request
still happening in New Zealand? We
don’t know. We don’t do any sort of re-
porting that would tell us. It’s the sort
of thing doctors will only admit to in an
anonymous survey.
Even opponents would have to con-
cede that the End of Life Choice Bill,
with its system of checks, balances and
reviews, would give us much more in-
formation about end-of-life practices in
New Zealand than we have now.
Trust in Dutch doctors is similar, if not
a little higher, relative to other countries.
An International Social Survey Pro-
gramme collected data between 2011 and
2013 and found public trust in doctors
was the highest in Switzerland, at 83%.
In the Netherlands, the figure was 78%,
while in Belgium it was 74%. In the Unit-
ed Kingdom and France, where assisted
dying is not permitted, the figures were
76% and 75% respectively.
Despite being the face of the right-to-
die movement, Jonquiere has only
helped a handful of people to die as part
of his role as a general practitioner.
“I have assisted only two. I know three
more I didn’t need to assist, because
they died before the final request came,
and I think about five or six did not even
go into that phase. They had a request,
GETTY
but I could make the suffering bearable,
76 | NORTH & SOUTH | APRIL 2019
or I had other reasons to say no. I had
discussions with those two patients for
three to six months before euthanasia
was complied with.”
Did anyone ever change their mind?
How did you feel about that?
“I feel okay. Because I act from the
principle that you are the one who
wants it, not me. I’ve had it happen only
once. I can’t remember that I was happy
about it or not. I know from that one
time, two days later I practised eutha-
nasia [on the patient]. It was just a mo-
ment where the patient said, ‘I’m not yet
ready.’ They needed a moment of con-
templation or realisation about what
was really happening. That is why I
want to know just before giving the in-
jection – is this what they want?”
I asked how it felt to help someone
to die.
“In none of the cases have I had any
feeling of regret. One of the moments, I
can even remember the smell of when it
happened. It makes a big impression. I’ve
always felt afterward, on the one side
sorrow, because I lost a dear friend. Be-
cause talking to a patient about this kind
of intimate, very personal issue, you get
a kind of relationship, and you lose that
relationship because the patient died. On
the other hand, [I felt] a kind of happi-
ness, that I could provide my friend with
the last intimate wish they had. I had a
couple of times where I dreamt about it.
But I didn’t have sleepless nights. I had
no second thoughts afterward.”
I wondered aloud whether some doc-
tors do. “Certainly there are doctors
who do and for that reason stop practis-
ing euthanasia. But they don’t say it’s a
bad thing, they just say they cannot cope
with that situation.
“You have to know someone. If you
come to me, I’ll say, let’s talk about it.
Come back tomorrow and we’ll sit
down and have a serious talk. In a harsh
way, you have to convince me that you
are really suffering and I’m going to try
and convince you that you’re not hope-
lessly suffering.”
I wonder whether those conversa-
tions are missing in New Zealand, and
whether people who are contemplating
a hastened death, for rational or irra-
tional reasons, are talking to their doc-
tors about it.
One of the reasons I’m in support of
this law is so these conversations might
happen more often. We are all afraid of
dying, and when faced with it, we have
wishes about how it might happen, and
where it might happen, and with whom.
But if your doctor isn’t going to listen to
your desires – all of them – and take
them seriously, why would you even
have the conversation?
It’s my hope that with assisted dying
as an option, the most desperate of us
will discuss those wishes with their
doctor, rather than doing something
drastic and impulsive, which can only
hurt our loved ones and our communi-
ties. Given 5-8% of suicides in New
Zealand are people with grievous
illnesses, perhaps with assisted dying
we can help them live a little longer.
Perhaps we can actually reduce the
incidence of suicide in New Zealand. I
believe it’s worth a try.
In a few months, we will find out
whether our elected representatives
will support that view. It is clear that
current efforts to address suicide in
New Zealand haven’t been working. It’s
our national shame. But anything that
encourages more people to talk to their
doctors about death has got to help. And
in my view, the End of Life Choice Bill
will encourage exactly that.
Let’s hope our MPs boldly walk to-
ward the light – and the bill passes. +
Matt Vickers is the author of Lecretia’s
Choice (Text Publishing). For more
information, visit lecretia.org.
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 W
e’ll get to Nicolas
Cage in a minute.
And Ralph Hotere.
And making

THE ONES award-winning wine. And cooking

for one of America’s best restaurants.
THAT GOT But first, US-based filmmaker Sam
Pillsbury needs to talk to another
AWAY journalist about his old foe Geoff
Murphy. The legendary director,
who Pillsbury knew for 47 years, has
just died after a long illness and the
Kiwi reporter wants a sound-bite.
“Geoff was a genius, but we ended
up falling out over the 1985 film The
Quiet Earth, which Geoff directed
and I produced,” Pillsbury tells
North & South, his words drifting
down the line from his 40-hectare
vineyard near Tombstone, Arizona.
“Despite our trials and tribulations,
I’m sorry to see Geoff go.”
Pillsbury’s voice is soft and lilting

SAM
– Walter Cronkite meets Hugh Grant
– with only the odd vowel betraying
the 30 years he spent in New
Zealand. The 72-year-old was born in

PILLSBURY
ARIZONA , USA
With talents and interests that span
film, food, winemaking and human
rights, Sam Pillsbury is a Renaissance
man with a footprint in two countries
he calls home. Sharon Stephenson
tracks him down in Arizona.
Sharon Stephenson is a North & South contributing writer.
Connecticut, but moved to Auckland
as a child with his father, who’d
previously visited as a marine. “Dad
was driven to live on islands, from St
Croix in the Caribbean to Hawaii and
New Zealand. Curiously, in the 50s
only two American families a year
were allowed to immigrate to New
Zealand, and we were one of them.”
The coin toss of birth landed him
in a family that introduced him to
sailing – “where my enduring love
of the New Zealand coastline comes
from” – and also to art, by a mother
who’d drag Pillsbury and his two
siblings through New York and
Boston galleries. “That eventually
led me to collect New Zealand art.”
Film came via a teacher at Auckland’s
Pakuranga College, who introduced
Pillsbury to the black-and-white works
of Fellini, Truffaut and Godard, as
well as the Auckland Film Society.
Five years followed at the National
Film Unit in Wellington, where work
included everything from government
tourist videos to a documentary
about the Wahine disaster.
The seeds of a lifelong passion
for human rights were also sown.
Pillsbury was part of the Peace
Squadron blockading US nuclear-
powered warships in Auckland
Harbour, and protested the Vietnam

78 | NORTH & SOUTH | APRIL 2019

Filmmaker Sam Pillsbury was involved in some of New Zealand’s most iconic films in the 70s
and 80s, before more lucrative directing opportunities lured him to Los Angeles.
War and the US invasion of Iraq.
Other documentary work dealt with
alcoholism, child abuse, the reality of
living on the benefit, and recidivism.
Then came a role as first assistant
director on Goodbye Pork Pie (1980),
and two years later Pillsbury made his
directorial feature-film debut with The
Scarecrow – the first New Zealand film
invited to the Cannes Film Festival.
After more than 20 years of
surviving in the slim profit margins of
Kiwi filmmaking, and with two sons
to support (Reuben, 46, is now an
artist/filmmaker in Auckland, while
Asher, 43, is a Hawke’s Bay artist),
Pillsbury opted for more lucrative
directing opportunities in LA.
He’d always been obsessed with
wine and the dusty, limestone hills of
Arizona, and in 1999 found a way to
combine them, planting eight hectares
of land south-east of Phoenix with
grapes. These days, he’s onto his
second vineyard: 14,000 vines, which
produce around 40,000 bottles a year
of shiraz and chardonnay, among
others. He and his partner of 25 years,
American Melanie Bermudez, have a
12 year-old son, Luc; there’s occasional
cooking at three local restaurants and
work on a screenplay he describes
as “a cross between No Country for
Old Men and Thelma and Louise”.
Was it a culture shock coming to
New Zealand as a 13-year-old?
The food was probably the biggest
issue. I was used to burgers and
shakes, but here it was all about
meat pies and lettuce salads with
sweet mayonnaise. However, I fell
in love with fish and chips, and
even spent one summer working
in a Paihia fish-and-chip shop.
They’re still my favourite fast food.
What did you want to do
when you grew up?
When I was 14, I told my mother
I wanted to become either a car dealer
or a rock’n’roll singer, because I loved
cars, music and women – and still do.
How did you transition from
writing film reviews for Auckland
University student magazine
Craccum to making films?
I began to think it was cowardly to
write about what other people did
instead of doing it myself, so I shot
a couple of 16mm short films for
the University Film Club. After my
MA in English literature, I applied
to the only three places in New
Zealand you could work in film back
then: Pacific Films, the National
Film Unit and the NZBC. The Film
Unit offered me a job on the spot.
One of the highlights of your time
there was making a documentary
about artist Ralph Hotere.
Ralph was another of the geniuses
I had the luck, and joy, to work with.
NORTH & SOUTH | APRIL 2019 | 79

Harvest time at Pillsbury’s award-winning vineyard in Arizona. The Pillsbury Wine
Company is organic and uses sustainable winemaking methods and packaging.
I truly loved the man, particularly his
support of other artists, which is rare
in the film and wine industries. He
told me I was free to film him, but he
wasn’t going to say a word about his
work. So I got all his colleagues and
fans to talk about that and instead shot
Ralph cooking mussels! He gave me a
bunch of his paintings, and years later
when I ran into him, he introduced
me to his friends as “the guy who
made the best film about me ever”.
You got hate mail for the 2001
film Crooked Earth. Why?
It got great reviews in the US and
in New Zealand, Māori loved it, but
80 | NORTH & SOUTH | APRIL 2019
Pāhekā told me they were sick of
“Māori whining about their rights”. It
didn’t do well, and people called me
a Ponsonby wanker and said I didn’t
know anything about the real world.
You also worked on a New
Zealand documentary about
childbirth that’s now used as
a teaching aid in the US?
It was made in 1976 with a tiny budget
and advocated for more humane
childbirth methods. It changed the
way mothers and babies were handled
in New Zealand, Australia and the UK,
and I believe it’s still used at Martin
Luther King Hospital in New York.
What did you do after returning
to the US in 1989?
I mainly worked on TV movies,
including Fifteen and Pregnant with
Kirsten Dunst and, believe it or not,
Free Willy 3, which, despite the silly
franchise, is a pretty good film!
You’ve worked with some of
Hollywood’s biggest names
over the years. Time to
shamelessly name-drop.
I’ve been lucky to work with everyone
from John Carradine, who was a
real sweetie, to Nicolas Cage in the
thriller Zandalee, which we shot
in New Orleans. Nic was a total
professional, but also a lot of fun.
Steve Buscemi was wonderful, as
were Marisa Tomei, Helen Hunt,
Kristen Bell, Neil Patrick Harris and
Kirsten Dunst. Unfortunately, Judge
Reinhold, Billy Zane and Michael
O’Keefe weren’t very pleasant.
How did you segue from
filmmaking into wine?
Back in the 80s, I was planning to
grow grapes on some land I owned
in Waiheke but that didn’t quite
happen, so when I tasted a fantastic
Phoenix [Arizona] chardonnay, I
tracked down the winemaker, bought
some land next to his vineyard and
went into partnership with him.
People thought I was mad, because
Arizona isn’t exactly a traditional
wine-growing region, but I’d tasted
brilliant wines from unlikely places
in New Zealand and knew it could
work. Our pinot gris was served
twice at White House state dinners.
So why sell?
After five years, I wanted to run my
own show. We sold the vineyard to a
group including the lead singer of Tool
[Maynard James Keenan] and, in 2008,
I bought 100 acres across the road and
started The Pillsbury Wine Company,
which is organic and uses sustainable
winemaking methods and packaging.
We’ve won some great awards and
I’ve never had so much fun in my life.
Has being a Kiwi helped
or hindered you?
There’s no question the number-8
wire ethos has served me well. Buying
land in what was considered a bizarre
location meant I got it cheap, and
Above: Nicolas Cage, Erika
Anderson and Pillsbury on the
set of the thriller Zandalee,
shot in New Orleans. “Nic was
a total professional but also a
lot of fun.” Others he’s worked
with “weren’t very pleasant”.

I built a million-dollar winery for

around $NZ250,000, using things we
found lying around. We repurposed
refrigerated truck trailers, which
we ran cheap cooling units through.
My mantra is, “If you ain’t rich, you
gotta be smart,” and growing up in
New Zealand taught me to be smart.
Do you still feel connected
to New Zealand?
I love New Zealand with every ounce
of my being, but work keeps me in the
US. My two older children and two
grandchildren are in NZ, as well as
many dear friends. I still have a bach
in Port Charles in the Coromandel
– probably the most beautiful place
on earth. It’s right on the beach,
has an orchard, water comes from a
stream and there are no shops. I have
a boat and we get our food from the
ocean every day. It’s heaven and I
try to get back once or twice a year.
What’s next for you?
Making better wine and continuing
to cook for guests with food 100%
sourced from my land. I’ve also been
guest-cheffing at a few Phoenix
restaurants, including Lon’s at the
Hermosa Inn, which was recently
named the eighth top hotel in the US.
How would you like to
be remembered?
As a passionate defender of human
rights, a gleeful sensualist and a fun
person with a genuine joy for life. +

NORTH & SOUTH | APRIL 2019 | 81

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We’ve shortlisted eight finalists for the Peugeot People’s Choice Award
in the 2019 Metro Peugeot Restaurant of the Year Awards.
Now it’s up to you to choose the winner.

THE PRIZE
Vote for your favourite
dish and you could win
dinner for two at the
winning restaurant,
chauffeured by a
Peugeot 508

Voting closes on March 31

Vote at www.metromag.co

TERMS AND CONDITIONS Entry is open only to New Zealan

are ineligible to enter. Entries are limited to one per person. This promotion commences on February 21, 2019 at 9am, and ends on March 31, 2019 at 11:59pm. The winner will be drawn and notified by
April 4, 2019, at 12pm. The prize is a private car transfer from your home/accommodation in a Peugeot 508 to the Peugeot People’s Choice Best Dish Restaurant and a $500 voucher for two people
for dinner at the Peugeot People’s Choice Best Dish Restaurant. Private car transfer only available within the Auckland region. The prize must be redeemed between April 1, 2019 and July 1, 2019.
The prize must be taken as offered, subject to availability at the time of booking with the venue, and is not exchangeable, transferrable or redeemable for cash. Except as expressly set out above,
the prize doesn’t include the cost of passports, visas and other travel incidentals (including spending money, medical expenses, transfers, insurance, meals, and hotel extras).
The promoter is Bauer Media Group (LP) NZ, Shed 12, City Works Depot, 90 Wellesley St West, Auckland.
 A DV E RT I S I N G PROMOT ION

1 2

3 4

THE FINALISTS
Which dish will win the 2019 Peugeot People’s
Choice Award? It’s your call.
1. Hummus, Gemmayze Street. 2. Tuna sashimi tostada, Azabu. 3. Classic steak tartare, O’Connell
Street Bistro. 4. Crispy soft shell crab, Saan. 5. Tandoori chicken, Cassia. 6. Pork hock, Depot.
7. Churros con chocolate, The Engine Room. 8. Tiramisu, Cotto.

5 6
ADVT2019 CS24975 03/19

7 8
 SOCI A L ST U DIE S • N ER D NATION • POLITIC S • GR A M M A R • M USIC • NZ BOOK S • IN T ER NATIONA L BOOK S
• F I L M • F O O D • T R AV E L • H I G H H E E L S & G U M B O O T S • P U Z Z L E S • L A S T W O R D S • L A S T P I C T U R E S H O W

Life & Culture

Of all the peculiar
books published
“The day after I in this country
finished reading FIRST WORDS – and we won’t
his book for name names as
review, news many of them
are by authors
came that Peter still regularly
Wells had died.” nominated for
awards – few are
Paul Little pays tribute to Peter as determinedly
Wells (pictured below) and his
idiosyncratic
swansong Hello Darkness.
NEW ZEALAND BOOKS ,
as this.
page 95 LAST WORDS,
page 122

The science is in, says Oxford University

geneticist Bryan Sykes. An extinct European
wolf is ancestral to every single dog alive
today, from schnauzers to St Bernards.
NERD NATION,, page 87

“Decaffeinated
coffee is like a
hairless cat. It exists,
but that doesn’t
make it right.”
UNKNOWN

FOOD, page 101

GETTY / ILLUSTRATION FOR THE SKIN OF SORROW, BALZAC, 1874.

GETTY

84 | NORTH & SOUTH | APRIL 2019

 OPI N ION

social studies by margo white

GETTY
Charles Kane (played by Orson Welles) writes a list of principles for his newspaper in the 1941 film Citizen Kane.

To-Do or Not-To-Do List

The enduring comforts of list-making.
LAST MONTH , I wrote about how my
local supermarket had changed where it
put everything, and also changed the
location of the signage, so you could no
longer stand at the end of the aisle and
see where everything was. I can’t prove
it, but I’m sure the supermarket did this
deliberately, so their customers will get
lost in the aisles and buy more of what
they don’t need.
My somewhat obvious recommendation
was to take a shopping list and stick to it,
but since writing that – galvanised by an
ongoing mobility issue and fury at the
supermarket – I’ve starting making a com-
plete meal of my shopping list. I write
them on fancy cards, so I’m less likely to
lose them. I list what I need and then write
another list in the order of the location of
the items, so that I can move from one
end of the supermarket to the other, with-
out needing to double back.
This is ridiculous, but it’s one of the
things I do to make life a little bit easier.
It has also got me thinking about lists,
why we make them, why we need them,
and what our lists reveal about us.
Most of us make lists of one kind or
another: shopping lists, to-do lists,
bucket lists, wish lists, lists of 10 books
you must read, etc. Arianna Huffington,
in her best-selling The Sleep Revolution,
recommends listing everything we’re
grateful for before getting into bed “to
make sure our blessings get the closing
scene of the night”. Maybe this works
for some.
Joan Didion said we need stories in
order to live, but you could also say
that about lists. This is the premise of
Elisabeth’s Lists: A Family Story, the
story of Elisabeth Young as told by her
granddaughter, Lulah Ellender. Ellender
never knew her grandmother, but when
her mother passed on her grandmother’s
journal, she found pages and pages of
lists, or as Ellender says, “a glimpse
of her life in fragments and scraps”.

NORTH & SOUTH | APRIL 2019 | 85


GETTY
Scottish actress Deborah Kerr writes a clothes shopping list in 1946.
Piecing together information from the
lists, she constructed a biography of
her grandmother’s short and mostly
privileged life, one in which list-making
provided a kind of emotional buttress
during unsettling and unhappy periods.
That included her register of eggs,
began in 1942, in which Elisabeth re-
corded the date, number and colour of
the eggs laid by her 12 hens, a list that
eventually included 897 eggs. Elisabeth
was, while recording her egg log, recov-
ering from post-natal depression, preg-
nant with her second child, and living
with her sister-in-law in Surrey to escape
the bombs being dropped in London.
Evidently counting her chickens after
they hatched was a solace. The list can
provide “purpose and structure”, Ellen-
der writes. “It can be a guide to how we
should use our time; at its most pro-
found, a means to lasso our grief, mad-
ness and dreams within neat lines.”
In his The Infinity of Lists: An Illus-
trated Essay, the philosopher and writer
Umberto Eco argues that an obsession
with list-making is a recurring theme
in Western culture, in everything from
music to literature to art. Interviewed by
Der Spiegel, he even claimed list-making
was the origin of culture. “Wherever you
look in cultural history, you will find lists.
In fact, there is a dizzying array: lists of
saints, armies and medicinal plants, or
of treasures and book titles. Think of the
86 | NORTH & SOUTH | APRIL 2019
nature collections of the 16th century.
My novels, by the way, are full of lists.”
He suggests we write lists because we
don’t want to die. “How does one at-
tempt to grasp the incomprehensible?
Through lists, through catalogues,
through collections in museums and
through encyclopedias and dictionaries.”
The list is an organisational tool that
has featured throughout history; God,
after all, gave Moses the code for Chris-
tian living in 10 bullet points. The inter-
net seems to have given the list particu-
lar prominence in recent years, notably
with the rise and rise of list-format arti-
cles, commonly known as the listicle.
If you Google “the rise of the listicle”
you’ll be directed to myriad listicles, such
as “Five tips for excellent listicles” or
“Seven examples of great listicle head-
ings” or, an article in Wired, “Five reasons
listicles are here to stay, and why that’s
okay”, which mounts a compelling ar-
gument for the listicle as a sensible hu-
man response to information overload.
Writing in The Guardian, in a listicle
entitled “Top nine things you need to
know about ‘listicles’”, Stephen Poole
was more sceptical. “Is the very fabric
of written culture coming apart? Is glob-
al prose dissolving into a choppy sea of
bite-sized jokey paragraphs? Is it be-
cause the listicle taps into some deep
pleasure centre of the mind? Are lists a
form of literary crack?”
Lists clearly have their place, but we don’t
want to get carried away. The to-do list of
course, is a time-honoured way to manage
our lives, and no doubt there are studies
that show list-makers are more productive
than people who don’t makes lists. But
there are also studies that point to the
damaging effect of over-reaching in our
to-do lists. This has been highlighted by
New York Times writer John Tierney and
psychologist Roy F. Baumeister, authors
of Willpower: Rediscovering the Greatest
Human Strength, in a chapter titled “A
brief history of the to-do list, from God
to Drew Carey”.
As they point out, the to-do list can
be more a tool of frustration and dis-
traction rather than fulfilment. They
recount an experiment in which a psy-
chologist was invited to give a talk at
the Pentagon on managing time and
resources, where they warmed up the
elite group of generals by asking them
to write a summary of their strategic
approach in no more than 25 words. The
exercise stumped most of them, but the
only woman in the room wrote: “First
I make a list of priorities: one, two, three,
and so on. Then I cross out everything
from three down.”
As Baumeister notes, one of the draw-
backs of to-do lists is they can lock peo-
ple into a list of tasks; life rarely proceeds
according to plan and those unfinished
tasks on the to-do lists can really muck
with your mind.
Blame it on what’s known as the
Zeigarnik effect, which describes the
way we remember things we need to do
better than things we’ve done. Think of
what happens when you play a song,
and shut it down before it’s through. If
you listen to a song through to the end,
you have a sense of completion and are
likely to forget it, but if you turn it off
before the song is finished, it’ll keep
running through your mind at unexpect-
ed moments – the ear-worm worrying
you about unfinished business.
As I understand it, this suggests we
should keep the to-do list simple, real-
istic, not too long. A friend of a friend
puts things on her to-do list that she’s
already done, for the pleasure that comes
with crossing things out, to remind her-
self of what she has managed to do.
Which strikes me as an excellent strat-
egy, so to cheer myself up I’m going to
do what she does, starting now.
Write column.
Press send. +
 OPI N ION
nerd nation by jenny nicholls
A Dog’s Tale
The strange evolution of our BFF.
DURING THE Ice Age, an eight-year- existed. Bryan Sykes, in his new book
old walked, apparently calmly, along a The Wolf Within (William Collins), asks:
narrow passage deep inside Chauvet “Was the wolf hunting the boy? Or were
Cave, in southern France, leaving bare they exploring the cave together, com-
footprints in what was once damp clay. panions in a great adventure? The foot-
Next to the child’s tracks are others, in prints hint at a very close relationship,
chilling parallel – those of an adult wolf. friendship even, between the boy and
We can’t be sure the prints were made the wolf. Or was the animal that trotted
at the same time, although the path is comfortably at the boy’s side no longer
narrow here, and the two sets don’t a wolf, but already on its way to becom-
cross. The cave, known for its spectac- ing a dog?”
ular prehistoric art, was sealed by rock- Sykes is emeritus professor of human
falls around 28,000 years ago. genetics at the University of Oxford, and
It is tantalising to think these faint famous for The Seven Daughters of Eve
traces date back to a time before dogs (2001), a romantic book about human
inheritance that helped to kickstart the
genealogical DNA-testing industry. De-
spite being terrified of dogs for most of
his life, he is well equipped to explain
canine genetic evolution, writing with
a clarity of style and enthusiasm that is
actually puppyish at times.
The genetic science is in, says Sykes.
An extinct European wolf is ancestral to
every single dog alive today, from
schnauzers to St Bernards. Coyotes and
jackals didn’t get a look in. This means
that all dogs are, believe it or not, the
same species – and this a mere subspecies
of wolf.
NORTH & SOUTH | APRIL 2019 | 87

Above: The cover of Pat Shipman’s book, The Invaders, visualises an
ancient relationship between humans and “wolf-dogs”. Above right: A New
Zealand farmer with his sheepdog. Oxford University professor Bryan Sykes
believes our working relationship with dogs pre-dates agriculture.
Although it sounds simple, genetic
tests show that even pedigree dogs have
a tangled ancestry. And some modern
wolves, in a surprising twist, have dog
genes. DNA has flowed both ways, it
seems – dogs will be dogs, after all. Or
wolves will be dogs will be wolves (Stop
right there – Ed).
There are many clues our relationship
with dogs is vanishingly ancient. Dogs
interred in pre-Columbian American
burial sites, for instance, are more close-
ly related to European wolves than
American ones. They appear to have
arrived in America from Asia, like (and,
no doubt, alongside) the indigenous
peoples of America.
Although it is difficult to know exactly
when we first began to live with wolves,
and why, we do know our inter-species
bond pre-dates agriculture, says Sykes.
As the first animal to be domesticated,
they represent a huge shift in our
fortunes, one as seismic as the taming
of fire or the first stone tools.
But what did tiny bands of hunter-
gatherers need wolves/dogs for? Sykes is
not the first to suggest they may have
helped us catch the lumbering, danger-
ous “megafauna” that our species, Homo
sapiens, faced when we first arrived in
Europe 42,000 years ago: huge cattle
called aurochs, bison, woolly rhino and
mammoth. It must have been a win-win
for both sets of intelligent, apex preda-
88 | NORTH & SOUTH | APRIL 2019
tors, already hunting in packs, to collab-
orate, even on lesser game such as horse
and elk. Wolves had the nose, the stami-
na and speed; we had the spear throwers.
Wolves may have corralled an animal,
Sykes speculates, until human hunters
arrived. Modern wolves still behave this
way, standing in a circle around a single,
large prey animal until it tires.
The general consensus that wolves
evolved into dogs after hanging around
human rubbish dumps is something
the excitable prof finds “dreary in the
extreme”. Anyway, he points out, the
dates don’t fit: the first uncontested dog
skeleton ever found is 14,200 years old,
thousands of years older than the first
village rubbish dumps. And dogs must
have begun to evolve earlier than this.
Many consider the oldest prehistoric
dog relic ever found to be a canine skull
from the Goyet Caves in Belgium that’s
34,000 years old. Sykes says the skull is
what you might expect to find in a large,
transitional dog with recent wolfish
ancestry – a “wolf-dog.”
IF SYKES WRITES like an unleashed
hound at the beach that sometimes los-
es its ball (a series of interviews with
dog owners doesn’t add much), the
great writer and anthropologist Pat
Shipman makes the same case with
more poise and detail (although less
about genetics). A great academic dane,
to Sykes’ clever poodle.
In her book The Invaders (Harvard
University Press, 2015), Shipman pre-
sents striking evidence that something
turbo-charged human hunting capabil-
ity in Palaeolithic Europe. A cascade of
extinctions followed the arrival of the
trickle of humans from Africa who rep-
resented, in her opinion, a classic invasive
species. Mammoth, woolly rhino, aurochs
and even carnivores including cave bear
and lion melted under our onslaught. The
only species, apart from yours truly, that
appeared to prosper during a millennia
of carnage were wolves.
The most poignant victims were our
relatives, the Neanderthals, who did not
survive our arrival for long. Although
the reasons for their disappearance are
still debated, their high metabolic needs
made them vulnerable to a dwindling
food supply. In fast-food terms, some-
one once figured out that a pregnant
Neanderthal living in frigid, Ice Age
conditions would need to eat 10 large
cheeseburgers per day. Shipman thinks
“wolf-dogs” expanded human hunting
capabilities so much that Neanderthals
were collateral damage in the resulting
European-wide faunal collapse.
“Some very strange things changed
between about 45,000 years ago and
35,000 years ago,” writes Shipman,
“and, in total, are so extraordinary they
indicate a huge shift.”
Humans, faced with their vast new
larder, became killing machines, she
says, leaving mountains of mammoth
bones in “mega-sites” where the den-
sity of skeletons could be “absurd”.
One site, containing 86 individual
mammoths, has up to one mammoth
per square metre. They couldn’t have
stood this close to one another when
they were alive. The hunters built huts
from their bones and wore necklaces of
wolves’ teeth.
Sykes, in his turn, unpicks what sci-
ence has learned of the process that
turned wolves into guard dogs, blood-
hounds, terriers and toy dogs, respon-
sive pets, and inbred pedigrees with
exorbitant risk of recessive genetic dis-
orders. He devotes an entire, approving
chapter to the New Zealand huntaway,
whose breeders value talent, energy and
guts over looks or pedigree.
These Kiwi working dogs epitomise,
in Shipman’s words, the “living tools”
we used to propel us, for good and ill,
into the modern age. +
 OPI N ION

politics by bevan rapson

Finance Minister Grant Robertson (right) at last year’s New Zealand International Business Awards. Should he
and his colleagues be showing greater mettle and intent over their mooted capital gains tax?

Slow Road to Nowhere?

Interminable debate over a new tax should
be a godsend for Simon Bridges.
FOR A TIN Y community of policy talk of a “new tax”. Their self-interested
wonks, bean counters and economics – but heartfelt – protests and warnings
geeks, this is their happy place: a world of unintended consequences generate
awash with talk about tax. Running plenty of noise, but also a wider uneas-
their models, crunching the numbers, iness, even among people unlikely to be
spying the likely loopholes – they’ve much affected.
been having a blast. A general reluctance to even contem-
The rest of us? Not so much. Death plate fundamental changes to the tax
and taxation are said to be the world’s system may be wrong-headed, even
only certainties, but like death, tax is a downright disadvantageous for some,
topic most of us don’t really want to but it’s real. That sentiment has helped
think about too often. preserve a broad policy consensus for
A NTH O N Y AU -Y EU N G/G E T T Y
Labour’s flipping and flopping on the
topic in Opposition was bad enough. In
power, the Prime Minister and her lieu-
tenants still haven’t been able to settle
on a coherent policy, instead consigning
the issue to a working group before fur-
ther wasteful weeks of dithering over
how to respond to its recommendations.
Throughout, they’ve failed to truly
engage in a battle of ideas and instead,
stuck in a quagmire of their own mak-
ing, offered month upon month of free

For one thing, it can be fiendishly
complicated. For another, it creates a
flashpoint for discord over who’s paying
what. And among those who believe
they pay enough to the government al-
ready, hackles rise in particular at any
the past 30-odd years, and can’t just be
wished away.
Which is why the Ardern Govern-
ment’s long, slow shuffle towards a pos-
sible capital gains tax has seemed such
terrible politics.
shots for their delighted opponents.
Whichever way they eventually flop – or
flip – they would seem to have consumed
unnecessary quantities of political cap-
ital to get there.
It’s easy to recall a time or two when

NORTH & SOUTH | APRIL 2019 | 89

 New Zealand’s policy status quo has
been overturned by deployment of a
more crash-bang-wallop approach to
political strategy.
That was certainly how we got the
major tax shift to GST, and the rest of
the 1980s Rogernomics revolution. You
might recall the odd round of “consul-
tation” offered as window-dressing over
those years, but the likes of Roger Doug-
las and Richard Prebble stood for few
delays in doing what they thought was
required, however loud the objections
to their programme.
A more current example of blunt-
force change is the way Lime scooters
suddenly landed in Auckland and
Christchurch last year, and in Dunedin
in January. In a country where all sorts
of public health-and-safety provisions
have in recent years loomed ever larger,
unhelmeted riders travelling at up to
27kmh – sometimes faster – were sud-
denly let loose on our footpaths.
It seemed scarcely believable that
something with so many ramifications
for public safety could arrive as a fait
accompli. Keen to embrace an apparent
brave new world of personal transport,
local politicians and commentators
tripped over themselves to laud the
Lime arrival, all but drowning out those
who questioned the wisdom of having
the machines mingling with pedestri-
ans, and found themselves derided as
“fun police” for their trouble.
As with any revolution – as opposed
to boring old evolution – drawbacks
have since revealed themselves, not
least with the scooters themselves, and
concerns about safety have had to be
faced more squarely. As with Roger-
nomics, the excitement of sudden
change has been followed by the unfold-
ing of less palatable consequences.
Between the poles of crash-bang-
wallop and interminable indecision, a
middle ground is usually preferable.
Talk of a capital gains tax hits a particu-
lar nerve, but changing the tax system
doesn’t always have to be like pulling
teeth. Former revenue Minister Peter
Dunne popped up in the recent debate
to criticise Ardern and co’s defensive-
ness, and remind us that he oversaw
changes related to student loan repay-
H AG EN H O PK I N S/G E T T Y
ments and the Child Support Scheme,
the introduction of KiwiSaver and Work-
ing for Families tax credits, along with
personal and corporate tax cuts.
Both the Clark and Key Governments
90 | NORTH & SOUTH | APRIL 2019
National leader Simon Bridges has
called the proposed capital gain tax
an “attack on the Kiwi way of life”.
Lambaster-in-chief
Simon Bridges greeted
the Cullen working
group report by
immediately turning the
hyperbole knob to 11.
in which Dunne served specialised in a
cautious incrementalism, underpinned
by a steely determination to remain in
office. But has their conservatism – and
the compromises demanded by MMP
– conspired to leave some policies set in
aspic, unsuited for tackling the chal-
lenges we face in 2019?
If so, it’s incumbent on Ardern,
Finance Minister Grant Robertson and
their colleagues to show greater mettle
and intent than they have so far. They
were meant to represent generational
change, remember?
If Winston Peters chooses to stymie a
meaningful capital gains tax, they might
just have to put that on the record and
move on to something achievable. But
for now, Labour is being lambasted for
something it may never do, which seems
the worst of both worlds.
L A M B A S T E R -I N - C H I E F S i m o n
Bridges greeted the Cullen working
group report by immediately turning
the hyperbole knob to 11, declaring the
proposed capital gains tax an “assault
on the Kiwi way of life”.
This gave the National Party leader’s
critics on the left the opportunity to
point out how the number of extra
houses owned by some National MPs
suggested a “way of life” far removed
from what most New Zealanders can
aspire to. And what about those whose
Kiwi lifestyle involves cold, damp rent-
al housing and sick kids as a result?
If Bridges’ claim came across as un-
duly melodramatic, the concept behind
it is actually pretty well-worn National
Party positioning, usually cast in terms
of Kiwi battlers who work a bit harder
to achieve their goals, whether that be
to send a kid to a private school, or put
some money towards a boat or a bach.
National’s remarkable record of elec-
tion successes since first taking office
in 1949 (47 years in power out of 70)
suggests it hasn’t just been people in
the bach-owning category who appre-
ciate that kind of sentiment, but also
others – two-bob capitalists, as a dis-
gruntled old Labour supporter once
described them to me after another
election defeat – who share the philos-
ophy, if not the prosperity, of their fel-
low blue-rosette wearers.
It is only to be expected that Bridges
will trot out the lines his base expects
to hear, even if it makes him sound a
little like a blast from the past. But his
real fear must be that his attacks will
prove ineffectual.
For the reasons above, not everyone
is tuned into the tax debate; Ardern’s
popularity has so far given her some
of Teflon John Key’s power to ride out
unfavourable issues, while Bridges’
personal polling has refused to achieve
lift-off.
But a Newshub-Reid Research poll in
mid-February found 54% of voters oppose
a capital gains tax, with only 32% in sup-
port. Even 42% of Labour voters are op-
posed, while 44% backed a new tax.
If Bridges can’t make progress with
numbers like that running in his favour
and the government suffering paralysis
by analysis, his caucus will wonder if
the voters’ phone is off the hook.
On the plus side, he could find himself
with more time to enjoy his own Kiwi
way of life. +

i’ve already eaten mummy by ray prebble
Abridge
Too Far?
Making sense of abbreviations.
W H E N T H E P ET T IGR E W S built
their fine new house, which we now
own, a young man signed his name with
bold curlicues on the wooden wall bat-
ten: “Claude Pettigrew Sep. 11. 1896.” He
knew it would be covered up, but he
could also be assured he had left his
mark on the world at a time when rural
life was still tenuous in this new coun-
try; when nature was not a fragile thing
to be conserved, but a dark, consuming
force. He drowned a few years later.
Whoever poured the concrete in the
milking yards was just as intent on leaving
their mark: there are dozens of diamond
shapes pressed into the cement, with
“JP” in each. The year, 1924, is carefully
etched. JP was possibly John Pettigrew,
who clearly decided quantity was pref-
erable to quality. The impulse was the
same, but there is no ambiguity about
Claude’s signature, which is now framed
by a square cut in the modern Gib board,
a reminder that all life is a palimpsest.
Claude knew that abbreviations are
context dependent. Linguists in 500 years
will wonder what asap means, just as they
now puzzle over ancient cuneiforms. Of
course, it’s tedious to keep spelling out a
familiar multi-word name, such as British
Broadcasting Corporation, so we tend to
use abbreviations, such as BBC. Or should
that be B.B.C.? It was once thought crucial
to include all the stops, but the famous
Fowler brothers nudged BBC-influenced
countries towards minimalism, advocat-
ing for PhD and MPI rather than Ph.D.
and M.P.I. Words that were chopped off
in the middle kept a full stop, for sense
(Rev., rev., Hon., Sep.), but words that
had been eviscerated, leaving only the
first and last letters, could be left stop-
less (Dr, Mr, Mt). Americans have always
GETTY
been more enamoured of stops, and US
OPI N ION
A vintage postcard pokes fun at the Anti-
Suffrage Society’s acronym ASS in 1900.
(U.S.) writing still favours Dr. and Mr.,
as well as Ph.D.
But if one is serious about abbreviat-
ing, why not leave out the punctuation?
Is “Dr. Marcus Welby” really any clear-
er than “Dr Marcus Welby”? Many ac-
ademic journals are extreme punctua-
tional minimalists and abbreviationists,
based on the argument for saving space.
But this can have its downside: it’s hard
to imagine that the founders of Analysis
Mathematica foresaw their publication
would end up being cited as Anal Math.
Once you drop the stops, there will
inevitably be abbreviations that look like,
and will be pronounced as, ordinary
words, such as AIDS, NASA and DOC,
as opposed to “initialisms” (to use their
formal name) such as EU. Abbreviations
pronounced as words are called acro-
nyms. The two terms are often used in-
terchangeably these days. Which is a pity.
The distinction is useful.
Some acronyms evolve so
they are indistinguishable
from ordinary words, as il-
lustrated by the move from
AIDS, to Aids, to aids. Many
people are now unaware
that radar and sonar are
acronyms (radio detection
and ranging; sound naviga-
tion and ranging). Not to
mention laser and scuba.
On the other hand, some
abbreviations have been
formally divorced from
their spelt-out form: KFC
clearly didn’t like the con-
notations of Kentucky Fried
Chicken, and in an era of
euphemistic positivity, CCS
is preferred over Crippled
Children’s Society.
When deciding whether
to use an abbreviation, it’s
hard to go past the advice
I spotted in the journal
Applied and Environmental
Microbiology: “Abbreviations
should be used as an aid to
the reader rather than a con-
venience to the author, and
therefore their use should
be limited.”
Here are a couple of tips to achieve this.
Try using pronouns or descriptions (it,
they, the survey, the working group).
Then, if this is unclear, make sure you’re
using the abbreviation at least three times:
carefully explaining an abbreviation and
then using it only once or twice defeats
the purpose. And make sure you explain
your abbreviation on first use, except for
very common terms that all your audience
will know. Pedantically spelling out the
meaning of USA is far more annoying
than helpful. +
NORTH & SOUTH | APRIL 2019 | 91
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 MUSIC, BOOKS, FILM, SCR EEN

Monthly Review
April 2019

MUSIC
GETTY

PHIL GIFFORD

Talent Questers
Stellar casts line up for bluesman John Mayall
and local hero Al Park.
IN 1954, a nervous teenaged Stones, dismissed as pimply blessing of Woody Guthrie
Top: John Mayall Elvis Presley had eccentric pretenders when they first when Guthrie, who had been
in 1970 and, above
Memphis producer Sam Phil- formed in 1962, were champi- writing political songs since
right, playing with
the Bluesbreakers lips assuring him his rocking oned by Alexis Korner, a blues the 1930s, was confined to a
in 1967 with future take on the bluegrass staple fanatic whose Jewish family New Jersey hospital with
Rolling Stone Mick “Blue Moon of Kentucky” had fled Paris for London in Huntington’s disease.
Taylor (at right).
was, “Fine. Fine. That’s a pop 1940 when Korner was 12. Sam Phillips, a man who
Above: American
singer-songwriter song now, little guy!” As a 19-year-old in 1961, Bob was so eccentric he used to
Mike Posner. The fledgling Rolling Dylan sought and received the deliberately give himself

NORTH & SOUTH | APRIL 2019 | 93


Lyttelton musician Al Park is wonderfully served by the
11 singers on Better Already: The Songs of Al Park.
severe electric shocks
because they made him
“feel alive”, was duly rec-
ognised in his lifetime as
the rock’n’roll pioneer he
was. No story on Dylan’s
early years fails to men-
tion Guthrie. But mentors
are not always so univer-
sally acknowledged. Korner
became a minor footnote to
the Stones’ story, with his
death in 1984 hardly raising
a ripple in the music press.
On a happier note, two new
albums — one by English
blues veteran John Mayall
and the other featuring the
songs of Christchurch music
icon Al Park — are fitting trib-
utes to the enthusiasm and
commitment of both men.
Mayall’s special talent has
been his ability to pick band
members. Forget Simon
Cowell. When it comes to
talent-spotting musically
credible players, you can’t
go past him. Guitarists? Start
with Eric Clapton in May-
all’s 1960s Bluesbreakers.
When Clapton left in 65 to
form supergroup Cream he
was replaced by Peter Green,
who in turn left in 67 to form
the original Fleetwood Mac.
Mayall then signed up Mick
Taylor, whose next job in 1969
would be replacing Brian
Jones in the Rolling Stones.
Also in the Mayall band at
94 | NORTH & SOUTH | APRIL 2019
different times? Drummer
Mick Fleetwood and bass
players John McVie and
Jack Bruce.
Mayall, who turned 85 last
November, first embraced
music as a post-World War
II teenager in Macclesfield,
30km south of Manchester,
by taking comedian George
Formby’s “Teach Yourself
Ukulele” correspondence
course. By the time he fin-
ished two years of national
service in the British Army in
the early 50s, which included
a stint in Korea, his attention
had turned to blues, playing
keyboards and harmonica.
Mayall’s new album, Nobody
Told Me (Forty Below), stays
very true to what he first
made his name with in the
late 60s: 12-bar, foot-to-the-
floor, stomping, guitar-driven
blues. To that end, he’s roped
in an eclectic group of guest
guitarists, ranging from E
Street Band founding mem-
ber Little Steven Van Zandt
(who’s playing at Auckland
Town Hall with the Disci-
ples of Soul on 27 April),
successful solo performer
Joe Bonamassa and one-time
wunderkind Todd Rundgren,
to Carolyn Wonderland – a
household name in the clubs
of Austin, Texas, but largely
unknown elsewhere.
What they all have in com-
mon is when they recorded
Nobody Told Me at the Foo
Fighters’ Studio 606 in Los
Angeles, they were clearly
encouraged to turn their amps
up and hold nothing back.
Mayall’s voice remains a
sturdy instrument. As well as
three originals, he’s chosen
covers of hard-edged, elec-
tric Chicago guitar slingers
from the past, including Mag-
ic Sam and Little Milton, late
Irish rocker Gary Moore and
blind Canadian Jeff Healey,
whose blistering style, play-
ing his guitar lying flat on his
lap, made him a hard-rock
star until his tragically early
death at 41 in 2008.
As a result, Nobody Told Me
is not an album for the faint-
hearted. Late in his career,
Mayall isn’t going gently into
that good night, but raging
against the dying of the light.
This is loud, fiercely played
blues for the inner self that
likes to wear a black T-shirt
and do a spot of head banging.
BETTER ALREADY: The Songs
of Al Park (ALP Records/
Southbound) is a great trib-
ute to a man who, as Adam
McGrath of The Eastern
says, is someone who, for
Christchurch musicians,
has been everything from
a brother to an anchor to
a lodestone to a bullshit
detector. (McGrath sings on
the collection.)
Delaney Davidson has tak-
en the producer’s chair for
Better Already and he’s gath-
ered a stellar cast, including
Marlon Williams, Barry
Saunders and Jordan Luck,
to sing and play on 10 songs,
all written by Park.
I first met Park in 1992 in
Christchurch’s late, lamented
Echo Records shop, where
he was then working. He was
an unusual salesperson. If he
didn’t like what you were
looking for, he told you so,
without a lot of sugar-coat-
ing. But it was impossible not
to instantly warm to a man
whose passion for music was
so intense and deep.
His own musical career
revolved around live gigs,
most notably leading the
wonderfully named Louie
and the Hotsticks in the 80s
and 90s. His songwriting
leans to the country side of
rock, and he’s well served by
the 11 singers on Better
Already. Saunders, Williams
and Helen Mulholland com-
bine beautifully on “Don’t
Call It Love”, and it’s riveting
to hear Williams trade beau-
ty for emotion on a raw,
throat-shredding take of “I
Want You Back”.
Fans of the music emanat-
ing from Lyttelton via
Davidson and Williams
should seek out this quirky
but highly relatable album.
FINALLY, it would be unfair
to suggest that Mike Posner,
an American singer and song-
writer, is the first pop star to
take himself seriously. I was
one of the journalists who
kept a straight face at a 1976
Auckland press conference
when Neil Diamond said
he didn’t compare himself
to current writers, but with
Beethoven and Brahms.
Posner’s third album, A
Real Good Kid (Island), dives
into deeper territory than his
breakthrough hit “I Took a
Pill in Ibiza”. A Real Good
Kid is actually a fine album,
filled with melodic songs and
well served by Posner’s light
but heartfelt voice.
Still, it’s hard to not laugh
out loud at an introduction
where Posner, in a velvety
speaking voice, says (and I
am not making this up):
“The album is 40 minutes
long and is meant to be lis-
tened to straight through,
without outside distractions
of any sort. If at this time you
are unable to devote 40 min-
utes of undivided attention,
I politely ask that you turn
this off, and return at a later
time.” Bless. +

Hello Darkness
Peter Wells
(Mighty Ajax, $40)
A little over a year and a half
ago, people who were first-
thing-in-the-morning social
media checkers and also Pe-
ter Wells’ Facebook friends
woke up to discover he had
posted overnight the dread-
ful news that he was in hos-
pital with a diagnosis of ter-
minal prostate cancer. The
day after I finished reading
this book for review, news
came that he had died.
In between, Wells had
done something quite re-
markable, posting regular-
ly about the progress of his
condition – the awful cancer
rollercoaster – in pieces that
were candid, inspiring and
honest, as his work had al-
ways been. In the process, he
took a form that hadn’t exist-
ed a few years earlier – Face-
book posts – and bent it to his
will. And that had been his
practice throughout his ca-
reer: whether in historical bi-
ography, film, family history
or memoir, he took existing
forms and reinvented them,
with wonderful results.
Writing about cancer is
a minefield – all too often
mawkish or effect-driven.
Wells’ posts were always
illuminating, no doubt
helped by the directness of
NEW ZEALAND BOOKS
edited by PAUL LITTLE
the medium, transmitted to
a wide audience immediate-
ly in a way no other form of
writing can be.
Others probably sensed
before he did that these
posts were destined to be a
book. He was preoccupied
in the meantime with the
publication last year of his
family history Dear Oliver.
Hello Darkness is a comple-
ment to that volume and
caps a unique legacy, not just
as a writer of the first rank,
but also as activist, cultural
critic, festival co-founder
(twice) and Civic Theatre
saver. I’m sure I’ve left some
things out.
In my notes for this re-
view, I had written that Hel-
lo Darkness wouldn’t end on
the last page of the book but
would continue with Wells’
posts. It’s just plain sad that
is no longer true.
Collected Poems
Fleur Adcock (Victoria
University Press, $50)
It’s not often one can de-
scribe a volume of poetry –
especially one of this heft –
as a page-turner, but that’s
what Fleur Adcock makes
you do in this riveting com-
pilation of her work, span-
ning more than 50 years.
Adcock is 85, and this book
of 500 or so pages is in part
an acknowledgment of that
landmark. It’s also an oppor-
tunity to note that her latest
collection Hoard was pub-
lished in 2017.
The book begins appropri-
ately with a nod to a Roman
poet in “Note on Propertius”
from 1964, an ironically dry
title for a very sensuous
piece. Who could fail to be
beguiled by the internal mu-
sic of “the canons of expres-
sion/gave grudging sanc-
tion” or the Byronic “Do we,
then, assume,/finding Prop-
ertius tear-sodden and jeal-
ous,/that Cynthia was inex-
orably callous?”
It’s appropriate because
Adcock is a classicist at heart,
hewing mostly to tightly
structured verse forms. But
she is also a poet of great di-
versity, giving us satire, lyrics,
elegies and epigrams among
other forms.
The poems are for the most
part anchored firmly in the
real world. She is a recording
angel, who looks out rather
than in and is not afraid to
pass judgment. Many are re-
sponses to people and places,
often satiric, as in a sonnet
skewering the town of
Helensville for the uncon-
vincing way in which it in-
sists on clinging to its past.
There’s no introduction,
NORTH & SOUTH | APRIL 2019 | 95
no welcoming essay to guide
the reader through the pro-
gress of the oeuvre or ease
one into the poet’s concerns
and quirks. It’s not neces-
sary. They really do speak
for themselves.
50 Years Young
Kate Taylor
(Massey University Press, $50)
The Young Farmer contest is
now well and truly middle-
aged. It’s even a little bit
cranky, especially since it
lost its secure place in the
prime-time TV schedule.
But it endures, streamed on-
line and elsewhere, having
survived all sorts of fashions
and pressures – most recent-
ly resisting attempts to be
turned into a Survivor-type
reality show, which would
have won it TV time but cost
it its dignity.
Not that its dignity has
never been in peril. Commu-
nicado and Belinda Todd
had their hands on it for a
couple of years, and it’s clear
that most of those involved
would rather have dipped
their first-born than taken
up her suggestion the ques-
tion buzzers make animal
noises.
Nevertheless, the event
has changed, just like farm-
ing itself: the amount of
 Unlike most good ideas, the
Young Farmer Award came from
the marketing department.
safety gear being worn on the
cover photo is evidence of
that; or the programme from
the first final, featuring not
one but two “Items” by Mr
Les Andrews.
Unlike most good ideas,
Architecture I the Young Farmer Award
came from the marketing
John Scott department, in the form
Works of Skellerup’s Jim Collins.
David Straight (Massey He gets the credit for such
University Press, $70) trademarks as the cloak of
knowledge worn by the
John Scott and his winner – all in the aid of
work were unique in adding a touch of class. The
many ways. The mere company’s connection was
fact that an architect maintained in the face of
backroom manoeuvres and
of Māori and Europe-
corporate ups and downs for
an ancestry was able
a remarkable 29 years.
to pursue his vision as
Kate Taylor’s history is
a “regional modernist nothing if not detailed, right
who practised mostly down to first runner-up
in Hawke’s Bay” is a Hamish Kynoch remember-
significant achieve- ing the question that gave
ment. I t ’s h a rd to Gary Frazer his close inaugu-
believe now that his ral win “was something
masterpiece, the Fu- about fodder radish”. And
tuna chapel in Welling- that 1970 winner John Jen-
ton, was nearly lost, nings can recall his favourite
question was “What is the
but there are many
significance of the Water and
other buildings equally
Soil Conservation Act of 1967
deserving of preser-
to New Zealand generally?”
vation recorded here. – on which he spoke for two
The emphasis is on the minutes without having a
images but there are clue what it was.
also excellent essays
by Gregory O’Brien, Waitangi: A Living
Douglas Lloyd Jen- Treaty
kins and others. Out- Matthew Wright (Bateman, $40)
side a relatively small
circle of architectural Year after year, inevitably on
6 February, but sometimes
enthusiasts, the name
for weeks before or weeks
of John Scott is not
after, the “relevance” of the
nearly as well-known
Treaty of Waitangi is ques-
as it should be. David tioned. As a rule, the ques-
Straight’s book should tioning takes the same form
help change that and for each party: they think the
possibly inspire inter- other is getting away with
est in other overlooked too much.
architects of the mid- How did we get here? Trea-
20th century. ty historian Matthew Wright
provides a richly detailed,
96 | NORTH & SOUTH | APRIL 2019
well thought out and clearly
told account. This is effec-
tively a biography of the
Treaty of Waitangi, “reveal-
ing”, as Paul Moon says in his
foreword, “how it has both
reflected and challenged atti-
tudes at different stages”.
Within a few decades of its
signing, its “relevance” was
not acknowledged by Euro-
peans or visible to Māori.
For a long time, the treaty
was sidelined.
To understand the Māori
view of the treaty, we must
know where they came
from, and Wright starts with
their arrival settlement. The
same story is told for Euro-
peans. All through the book,
Wright sets the treaty in the
context of period thinking
and beliefs, outlining the re-
ligious, economic and social
theories that formed its
background. He makes clear
it was conceived and execut-
ed in some haste to give le-
gitimacy to British authority,
in the face of threats from
the likes of both France and
the New Zealand Company
itself. The personalities, phi-
losophies and influence of
those who happened to be in
the position of having to put
the treaty together are also
described.
Henry Williams’ terrible
translation of the English
words into te reo Māori is
covered in detail. It is obvi-
ous that the differences be-
tween the Māori and Eng-
lish versions were noted at
the time but disregarded by
the British.
At the first signing, William
Hobson is reported to have
said to each chief individual-
ly: “He iwi tahi tātou.” (Now
we are one people.) It wasn’t
that simple then. It’s not that
simple when Don Brash says
the same thing now. +
Architecture II
Scarfie Flats
of Dunedin
Sarah Gallagher
with Ian Chapman
(Imagination Press, $50)
Do we really need a
large-format tribute to
named Dunedin stu-
dent flats? Of course
not, and this book is
all the more enjoya-
ble for that reason;
publishing would be
a dull enterprise if it
consisted only of nec-
essary books. This is a
substantial production,
lavishly illustrated from
a great diversity of
sources, energetically
designed and meticu-
lously researched and
indexed. And, in fact,
the contributors make
a good case for the
cultural importance of
the phenomenon. For
those of us who have
been lucky enough
never to encounter
scarfie society at first-
hand, this is probably
all we’ll ever need. But
should you want to
take things further and
track down the loca-
tion of legendary flats
such as The Cock and
Swallow – or, indeed,
the LegenDairy – there
are helpful maps. All
this and not a flaming
sofa to be seen.
 INTERNATIONAL BOOKS / the best of the month
Fiction
To Kill the Truth
Sam Bourne (Hachette, $30)
“Those who seek justice in-
sist we remember. But those
who seek peace insist we for-
get.” Someone is erasing his-
tory, memory by memory.
First, an archive storing mil-
lions of irreplaceable docu-
ments on the American Civil
War and slavery goes up in
flames, then the Holocaust
museum Yad Vashem in Je-
rusalem. Then the Bodleian
Library at Oxford University.
Key historians and genocide
survivors are assassinated;
even Google is fatally hacked.
Written under the pseudo-
nym Sam Bourne, Guardian
columnist Jonathan Free-
land’s sixth novel is a pacy
page-turner set in the Trump
era of fake news and “relative
truth”. In post-apartheid
South Africa, Nelson Mande-
la wiped the slate clean in the
name of peace, rather than be
a slave to the past – but if his-
tory is a blank canvas, whose
voice will fill the vacuum?
JOANNA WANE
The Binding
Bridget Collins
(HarperCollins, $35)
A gay love story for Gener-
ation Hogwarts. Emmett
Farmer is a magical book-
edited by VIRGINIA LARSON
binder who has the thera-
peutic ability to drain his
clients’ memories and lock
them away inside books. The
plot, told from differing points
of view, becomes a desperate,
bloody hunt for a book and its
stitched-up, sucked-out mem-
ory. Although the premise is
highly original, it unfurls
in the setting of boilerplate
bodice-ripper – a vaguely late
18th-century English land-
scape of fog and fens, where
women “keen”, lords drop
monogrammed “kerchiefs”
and there is anguish by the
horse-drawn carriage-load.
But Bridget Collins’ resume
as a teenage book writer has
left her with a satisfyingly ro-
mantic style that doesn’t take
itself too seriously. At its best,
it is delicious enough to lose
yourself in, as a teen might,
under a duvet at midnight
eating cake that’s tastier than
it is fancy.
JENNY NICHOLLS
An Orchestra of
Minorities
Chigozie Obioma
(Hachette, $35)
Drawing on the cosmology of
Nigeria’s Igbo people, this
unique novel is narrated by a
chi (guardian spirit) who in-
habits the body of his human
“host” Chinonso (they’re sep-
arate entities, not body and
soul). The chi pleads to
Chukwu (God of Creation) to
show mercy to Chinonso, a
poultry farmer who is bruis-
ingly rejected by his fiancee’s
family and eventually com-
mits a crime. An affecting
tale about class, prejudice
and financial scams, the nov-
el also has elements of Greek
tragedy (fate versus free will)
and Kafka’s The Castle (Chi-
nonso just can’t get any-
where). This slow pace is
buoyed by Chigozie Obioma’s
language: an almost musical
mixture of English, pidgin
and Igbo. The US-Nigerian
writer – a 2015 Man Booker
finalist for The Fisherman –
has written the “difficult sec-
ond novel” very well.
SARAH LANG
My Coney Island Baby
Billy O’Callaghan (Penguin
Random House, $37)
We’re used to reading about
young love, of firm-faced
20-somethings’ emotional en-
tanglements. But love affairs
between middle-aged folk
with life’s lumps and bumps
on show? Irish writer Billy
O’Callaghan believes their
stories are worth telling, too.
In his debut novel, he charts
the relationship of Michael
and Caitlin – in their late 40s
and unhappily married to oth-
er people – who’ve met every
month for 25 years in the sort
of by-the-hour motels that are
NORTH & SOUTH | APRIL 2019 | 97
as tragic as they sound. Not
much happens, but that’s kind
of the point. This is the slow,
painful unpicking of two or-
dinary lives: ageing, duty, the
pain of taking the wrong path
years ago. O’Callaghan tells it
so beautifully, you feel for the
couple, even as you disapprove
of their affair.
SHARON STEPHENSON
Two Girls Down
Louisa Luna (Text, $37)
Two sisters are missing – swal-
lowed up in a small town – and
their story hits you between
the eyes from page one, twist-
ing and turning with breath-
taking speed. The girls’ des-
perate family call Californian
bounty hunter Alice Vega,
who links up with local ex-cop
Max Caplan to chase down
leads before it’s too late, but
the town’s secrets aren’t given
up easily. The physical, emo-
tional and psychological action
comes at an insistent pace as
the author brings the tattered
town of Denville to vivid life,
with a fully rounded, engag-
ing cast of characters. This is
the first of a planned series
featuring Vega and Caplan,
and they’re great company; an
unexpected, appealing duo.
Both a compelling charac-
ter study and a smart action
thriller, Two Girls Down had
me hooked and impatient for
the next book. JULIE COOK
Memoir
Sick
Porochista Khakpour
(Allen & Unwin, $25)
Porochista Khakpour, 41, has
never felt well. Her brutally
honest, beautifully written
memoir recounts her battles
with chronic illnesses – par-
ticularly Lyme disease, the
tick-borne bacterial infection
whose symptoms include
joint pain, fevers, fatigue,
insomnia and psychiatric is-
sues. By the time her Lyme’s
disease was finally diagnosed,
treatment options were lim-
ited, with some doctors still
considering her a hypochon-
driac (one even laughed at
her). The US-Iranian writer
also recounts her “destruc-
tive, doomed” addiction to
prescription drugs. Admira-
bly, she refuses to “hero-ise”
illness or provide a neat res-
olution narrative. If you en-
joy good health, Sick is worth
reading to better understand
the misery caused by illnesses
that are often invisible and
minimised. Khakpour, who
found this book difficult to
write, has become a voice for
countless chronically ill peo-
ple who are seldom heard.
SARAH LANG
Hollywood Godfather
Gianni Russo with
Patrick Picciarelli
(Simon & Schuster, $38)
Gianni Russo: actor, singer,
mobster. Known for his role
as Carlo Rizzi in The Godfa-
ther, Russo grew up tough
and poor on the streets of
Manhattan’s Little Italy.
That all changed after a
chance encounter with Ma-
fia boss Frank Costello, who
trusted the “Kid” enough to
run “cash-stuffed envelopes
across town” because, as Rus-
so writes, “I knew when to
keep my mouth shut – which
was always.” Until now. In
this jaw-dropping tell-all,
98 | NORTH & SOUTH | APRIL 2019
Russo spills the beans on
the glamour, violence, Vati-
can Bank money laundering,
bent cops and dodgy politi-
cians , along with the star-
tling revelation that he had a
long-time fling with Marilyn
Monroe from the age of 15.
Nice work if you can get it,
kid! And it’s funny. Patrick
Picciarelli, Russo’s co-writer,
is a retired NYPD lieutenant.
JUDITH BARAGWANATH
Never Grow Up
Jackie Chan with Zhu Mo
(Simon & Schuster, $40)
Action-movie star Jackie
Chan, who was enrolled in
the China Drama Academy at
the age of six, was expected
to be “the next Bruce Lee”
when he first broke into
Hollywood in the early 80s.
A martial arts expert, he
brought something else to his
on-screen repertoire: comedy
and a willingness to send up
the artifice of cinema. That
didn’t stop him receiving a
lifetime achievement Oscar
in 2016. Considering he holds
a Guinness World Record for
“most stunts by a living actor”
– and suffered numerous bro-
ken bones in their execution
– it was much deserved. The
chapters and photos of this,
his second autobiography, are
randomly assembled, but fans
of Chan will find the content
just like his movies – light and
entertaining.
MATT ELLIOTT
Short stories
Night Train
Thom Jones
(Allen & Unwin, $33)
If you’re looking for wry,
fa ll-dow n f unny, t rag ic
and brilliant stories, go no
further than Thom Jones.
Illinois-born Jones came to
writing late after serving as
a Marine and then years as
a janitor – allowing him, it
is said, the leisure to read
10,000 books. In his down-
time, he boozed and boxed
and, after taking a nasty
knock to the head, wrote
“The Pugilist at Rest”. Here’s
a taste: “It felt like he was
hitting me in the face with a
ball-peen hammer. It felt like
he was busting lightbulbs in
my face.” Whoa! Jones spent
the rest of his life writing
about losers, boozers, under-
dogs, psych wards, Vietnam
and… Schopenhauer. There
are another 25 outrageously
good short stories in Night
Train. American fiction at
its finest.
JUDITH BARAGWANATH
Non-fiction
The Four Horsemen:
The Discussion
that Sparked an
Atheist Revolution
Dawkins, Dennett, Harris,
Hitchens (Penguin
Random House, $27)
Richard Dawkins? Daniel
C. Dennett? Sam Harris?
Christopher Hitchens? Their
names should ring many bells
as 21st-century intellectual
free-thinkers and writers.
They were dubbed “The Four
Horsemen” of New Atheism,
so it comes as a surprise to
learn they met each other
only once in 2007 – several
years before “Hitch” died.
With no prepared agenda,
these four inquiring minds
brainstormed on matters re-
lated to religion, faith, blind
faith, spirituality, atheism, ig-
norance, knowledge, science,
good old-fashioned common
sense and how we all got
here in the first place. So,
highbrow and scholarly? To
a degree, but made accessible
with wit, humour and a few
cocktails. The two-hour dis-
cussion was recorded and this
book is the transcript of that
meeting, along with riveting
essays from the surviving
three horsemen. Excellent.
JUDITH BARAGWANATH

Rave Review
The Heart Dances
Cinema release: 4 April
Documentary
Has there ever been a more
exquisite form of torture
than the pointe ballet shoe?
Dancers do talk about
plunging their feet into
buckets of ice to stop the
swelling in The Heart
Dances, which premiered
last year at the International
Film Festival. But director
Rebecca Tansley’s poised
documentary on the Royal
New Zealand Ballet’s ambi-
tious translation of the 1993
film The Piano from screen
to stage focuses less on the
agony and ecstasy of per-
forming, and more on the
tensions of “cultural story-
telling” through dance. It
takes a while for the mes-
sage to sink in when Māori
cultural adviser Moss Te
Ururangi Patterson tries to
explain to Czech choreog-
rapher Jiří Bubeníček that
painting tattoos on non-
Māori dancers is the Kiwi
equivalent of “blackface”
and just as offensive.
Tansley’s sure touch al-
lows the film to breathe
– she knows how to show,
not tell – as we follow cast
and crew through auditions,
rehearsals and glimpses of
the final glorious produc-
tion. Pianist and composer
Flavio Villani, the subject of
Tansley’s 2015 documentary
Crossing Rachmaninoff, con-
tributes to the score.
JOANNA WANE
f
FILM & TELEVISION
the best of the month
Journey’s End
DVD: Drama (M)
R.C. Sherriff knew the cramped,
foul, mind-bending horror of
trench warfare. He fought in
World War I and was wounded
at Passchendaele. His 1928
play, translated to film for the
centenary, is imbued with the
claustrophobic dread of the
soldier-playwright’s firsthand
ordeal. Fresh-faced young
officer Raleigh (Asa Butterfield)
asks to be sent to the front to
join a company led by Captain
Stanhope (Sam Claflin), his old
school senior and boyhood hero.
But Stanhope is now a broken
man who drowns his fear and
despair in whisky. His only
confidant is wise-head and heart
of the unit, Lt “Uncle” Osborne
(Paul Bettany). Humour – you’ll
laugh and cry – is served up by
Toby Jones as company cook.
It’s the spring of 1918 – so close
to armistice – but a German
offensive is imminent and a
daylight raid is ordered. You
just don’t want to believe it’s
Journey’s End for these men. A
profoundly anti-war statement
that feels as relevant as ever.
VIRGINIA LARSON
Wellington
Paranormal
DVD: Mockumentary comedy/
horror TV series (M)
Vampires. Werewolves. Reports
of Satanism on the rise in
Kilbirnie. The team at the
highly classified Wellington
Paranormal Unit are the last
people you’d want to call, in this
X Files parody dripping with
buckets of blood – yep, that’d be
the Cuba St Bucket Fountain –
and delivered with the deadpan
brilliance we’ve come to expect
from creators Jemaine Clement
and Taika Waititi. Officers
Minogue and O’Leary (loosely
fashioned as Fox and Mulder)
first appeared as a couple of
clueless coppers in Waititi’s
What We Do in the Shadows.
Minogue, in hot pursuit of a
woman possessed by a demon:
“You shouldn’t be running in a
playground in those ugg boots!”
JOANNA WANE
CLASSIC PICK
My Own Private Idaho
DVD: Drama (M)
Sitting pretty in Gus Van Sant’s
filmography as one of his very
best, My Own Private Idaho will
sear River Phoenix’s agonised,
campfire-lit face into your
memory. He plays narcoleptic
drifter Mike, who orbits the
same circles as fellow hustler
Scott (Keanu Reeves), though
they couldn’t come from more
different backgrounds (Mike
is poor, Scott is rich). Largely
plotless – though very loosely
based on Shakespeare’s Henry
IV – Idaho is bound in a stylised,
surrealist bubble-wrap that
mirrors the same lost, trance-
like inner world of its characters.
Scenes roll on pointlessly, but
they’re so achingly beautiful
you won’t care. J E AN TE NG
Line of Duty
Netflix: BBC police drama
Invariably included on lists of
“best cop shows of all time”, this
four-part series (two more are
in the works) is the brain-child
of the legendary UK TV writer
Jed Mercurio, who also wrote Gender and class warfare
Bodyguard. The action follows is part of the landscape,
the fictional police unit AC-12 as handled with almost sadistic
it unravels internal corruption subtlety. But what makes
– or, in the ever pithy words Line of Duty so addictive
of Hastings, its Irish senior is the dazzlingly written
investigating officer, “bent theatre of its interrogation
coppers”. The characters are scenes, which outdo the chase
layered and unpredictable; scenes in sustained agonies
and even the worst crimes of tension and revelation.
have mitigating circumstances. JENNY NICHOLLS
NORTH & SOUTH | APRIL 2019 | 99
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 T H E G O OD L I F E

FOOD

SMELLING THE COFFEE

When did a damn fine cup of coffee
get so complicated? Long-time latte
sipper Jean Teng embarks on a journey
through the world of soft brews.

M
y visit to coffee a series of ceremonial- based coffee roaster David
roasters Kōkako like motions to parse the Huang from Society Coffee
starts with coffee’s body, acidity, flavour tells me, after I vaguely
their weekly notes, aftertaste and other summarise my pitch:
Above: The team “cupping” session: a criteria, scored on a busy “Like, you know, coffee
Chemex coffee finicky ritual that’s calming form. The numbers are and the ways to brew it.”
maker, invented in its exactness. The first then added up to reveal the Three days earlier, my
in 1941, is
considered step is to stoop over dry coffee’s cupping score. typical cafe order was
such an iconic grinds of coffee to assess It’s all very serious almost exclusively double-
design it’s on their fragrance and aroma, business. “If you want me shot lattes. No surprise
display in New
sticking down your nose to talk about coffee, you’re to Sam McTavish, head
York’s Museum
of Modern Art like a bird pecking at its going to need a much roaster at Kōkako. “We’re
(MOMA). lunch. What follows is narrower field,” Auckland- a really espresso-based

NORTH & SOUTH | APRIL 2019 | 101

culture in New Zealand,”
he says, “and we don’t
necessarily have the
tradition of hand-brewing
and taking that extra time.”
“Espresso” isn’t just a
shot of black coffee, as
people often mistakenly
think; it’s what we call the
coffee extracted from those
hissing espresso machines.
Other “soft brew” (filter)
methods are often a
more time-consuming
process, producing a more
expensive cup many Kiwis
aren’t willing to pay for.
At the other end of the
market, will we ever get
past the concept that filter
coffee is cheap and icky,
and should only be served
by uniformed waitresses
in twee US dramas? Olivia
Coote, who handles
marketing at Kōkako, has a
tip for that: “I just told my
mum it’s a tea-like drink.
If you get them to think
of it as a different thing
from your flat white, it
makes it easier to accept.”
It is undoubtedly a
different drink – lighter
and bouncier than a long
black or Americano. You

know that feeling when
you walk past a cafe
and the smell of freshly
ground coffee hits you, and
somehow that smell alone
is 10 times better than the
flat white that winds up
in your hand two minutes
later? I always think of
filter coffee as the purest
form of that smell: when
done right, it’s a revelation.
Every brewing method
will produce a different
cup of coffee from the
same beans. Even using the
same method, the results
will vary depending on
the water, brewing time
and how much you agitate
(stir). It’s all very confusing.
Like wine, there are a
million different quirks,
and a million dissenting
opinions floating around
Kōkako roastery manager Chris Unkovich.
the industry. “Compared to
wine, the history of coffee
is short. People are bringing
different ideas in now,” says
Hannah Cho, barista trainer
at Kōkako, where each new
shipment of beans is trialled
using all the different
brewing methods to figure
out which one staff will
recommend to customers.
For all of the methods
described on the
following pages, Huang
and McTavish have the
same advice: use a set
of scales for accuracy
and well-roasted beans.
McTavish says using
beans three days to three
weeks after they’ve been
roasted delivers the best
results; and Huang notes
the importance of a good
grinder – preferably a burr
grinder, so you can adjust
the coarseness of the grind.
“Find a local roaster
and coffee shop; ask
them questions,” he says.
“That way, going to a cafe
becomes more of a journey
rather than just about
getting your caffeine fix.”
K EN D OWN I E
He likens it to going to a
neighbourhood specialist
wine bar and talking
about the bottle of red you
consumed with dinner the
night before: coffee, like
wine, has a narrative.
When I visit Huang at his
cafe/roastery A-Block, we
have a single-origin coffee,
harvested by a Costa Rican
farm, Hacienda Sonora,
praised for its commitment
to eco-practice. How do
you get that backstory, if
you’re rushing out the door
with your takeaway?

102 | NORTH & SOUTH | APRIL 2019

FILTER
BREWING
METHODS
Syphon
Syphon coffee makers are less
common (and less conven-
ient) than other methods, but
they look undeniably impres-
sive; it could make a fun ice
breaker at your next awkward
family gathering as you field
exclamations about your new
career as a scientist.
A vacuum method using
two chambers, it involves
heating the water to boiling
and then reducing the heat,
adding a measure of coffee
and waiting for the liquid to
draw down into the bulb to
serve. This method gives the
greatest control over water
temperature, and produces a
clean cup clear of sediment.
Fun to experiment with – if
you can afford all the gadgets.
Plunger
A method that requires very
little (if any) technique, this is
also the one most people are
familiar with; I use a plunger
at work every day. There’s a
misconception that it pro-
duces a sub-par cup (“Let’s
go get some real coffee,” my
co-worker declares, as we
trot out for our Friday cafe
espresso), but you really just
need good beans. The gen-
eral recipe is one-part coffee
to 16-parts water, or 35g to
500ml. Adjust to taste. Coffee
in, water in and leave to brew
for about five minutes, then
plunge. Alternatively, just
take the plunger out and pour
the coffee as is, after scooping Top left and top: Using a syphon coffeemaker
makes you looks a bit like a mad scientist let
off the sediment that’s risen
loose in the lab. Above: A pour-over coffee, in the
to the top. Most of the coffee form of a Hario V60 ceramic coffee dripper.
grinds will have settled at
the bottom, and this way the
grinds won’t be reintroduced
to the coffee (as they are
when they’re agitated during
plunging). Pouring straight measured grounds. There’s a hand shake as she furrows
away, without plunging, stops huge variety of drippers on her brow at the mug and
the brewing process for a less the market, made from all V60 dripper sitting on top of
bitter cup. types of materials (this affects a weighing scale (“I’m out of
the taste of the coffee, too). practice,” she later explains),
Pour-over However, two brands have trying to evenly wet the coffee
emerged victorious in the grounds with the gooseneck
Pour-over is a method involv- pour-over’s rise in popularity: kettle in slow spirals, filling
ing a paper filter, some kind the Hario V60 and Chemex. the water to a certain weight
of funnel device (dripper), a V60 refers to the conical on the scale and then waiting
mug or carafe, and a goose- v- shape and 60º angle of its for it to drip down. You can
neck kettle, so you can control dripper. Mastering the use of choose whether to stir it in
the flow of the pour over the one is a science. I watch Cho’s between, to make sure the
NORTH & SOUTH | APRIL 2019 | 103
 Cold Brew
Cho recommends cold brew
as the easiest method to use
if you like your coffee chilled.
Cold extraction brings out
sweeter, less acidic charac-
teristics, and has a refreshing
smoothness.
The standard recipe is one
part coffee to 14 parts cold fil-
tered water, refrigerated for
12 to 24 hours. If you don’t
have a special cold-brew kit,
just use a plunger – but don’t
plunge until your brew has
been in the fridge for at least
12 hours. +
K EN D OWN I E

Odes to Caffeine
The many and varied rituals of coffee-making (clockwise from top
left): The AeroPress; batch brewing with a Moccamaster; a French • Decaffeinated coffee
press; cold brew using a Hario pot. is like a hairless cat.
It exists, but that
doesn’t make it right.
Unknown

coffee is evenly saturated,
but it will give the final cup
a different taste. Make sure
to pre-wet the paper filter
before you slot it into the V60
dripper. Then it’s a matter of
trial and error – Google some
methods to try out.
A V60 brew will general-
ly have more body than the
Chemex and allows greater
control over the results with
its pour, but the Chemex
produces a cleaner, crisper
character due to the thicker
paper filter absorbing more
oil. Cho tells me the origin
of the beans plays a part, too:
Chemex tends to work well
for African coffee. Another
important consideration is
aesthetics: the Chemex –
in all its hour-glass shaped
glory – is on display in New
York’s Museum of Modern
Art (MOMA).
AeroPress
The AeroPress is currently the
coffee world’s darling. It’s an
immersion method, where the
coffee is extracted under high
pressure as it passes through a
special paper filter.
Generally, there are two
ways to brew: the normal way,
with the grinds sitting at the
bottom, or flipped (inverted),
which produces a plunger-
style brew in less than half
the time. Brewing takes just a
minute, retaining the body of
a plunger brew but with more
brightness. It’s also portable,
fitting neatly into a hiking bag
for a mid-trek caffeine hit.
McTavish thinks the Aero-
Press is one of the best options
for home brewing, based on
value and convenience (cur-
rently selling for $72.50 from
the Kōkako website).
Batch Brew
When Cho goes to a new
cafe, “I try their batch brew
first,” she says. "If their
batch brew is bad, I don’t
drink coffee there.”
If a cafe offers filter, it’s
likely to be batch brew, made
in an automatic machine
with adjustable settings that
can emulate the body and
flavour of a manual brew,
like a V60. It cancels out hu-
man error, especially in a
cafe setting with plenty of
distractions afoot. You may
lose a little love with an au-
tomated machine, but for the
cafe, it’s just basic maths.
There’s a batch-brew ma-
chine for every budget, so
having one at home is totally
do-able. But let’s be honest,
letting a machine do all the
work isn’t nearly as much fun.
• I don’t know what I’d
do without coffee. I’m
guessing 25 to life.
Unknown
• If it wasn’t for coffee,
I’d have no discernible
personality at all.
David Letterman
(above, in his youth).
• Coffee. Creative
lighter fluid.
Floyd Maxwell
• A morning without
coffee is like sleep.
Unknown
• Coffee! Is the planet
shaking or is just me?
Unknown
• I never drink coffee at
lunch. I find it keeps me
awake for the afternoon.
Ronald Reagan

104 | NORTH & SOUTH | APRIL 2019

Inside New Zealand’s best homes.

H O M E M AG A Z I N E .C O.N Z
@HOMENEWZEALAND
FAC E B O O K .C O M / H O M E N E W Z E A L A N D
H O M E M AG A Z I N E .C O.N Z /S I G N U P
T H E G O OD L I F E
TRAVEL
 The
Flyer
Jenny Nicholls
catches the train.
Jenny Nicholls is North & South’s art director.
Photography by Ken Downie.

KiwiRail drivers Grant Allen

(“Sparky”), left, and Stephen
Brabender (“Brabs”) keep a Ja class
steam locomotive flying though
the Manawatū countryside.

NORTH & SOUTH | APRIL 2019 | 107

The train steams in, volleying resplendent clouds
of sun-blown vapour…
The officials seem to awaken with a shout…
… a man with a hammer steals
Stooping from coach to coach; with clang and clack,
Touches and tests, and listens to the wheels.
Guard sounds a warning whistle, points to the clock
With brandished flag, and on his folded flock
Claps the last door: the monster grunts: “Enough!”
Tightening his load of links with pant and puff.
Under the arch, then forth into blue day.
Glide the processional windows on their way,
And glimpse the stately folk who sit at ease
To view the world like kings taking the seas…

From the poem “Morning Express”, 1915

SIEGFRIED SASSOON

S
iegfried Sassoon could be standing next to me, on the platform Between 1940 and 1956, New
at Paekākāriki station as the visitor from another time wheezes Zealand Rail boasted 91 of these huge
in majestically, belching plumes of black and white. And then a J and Ja class locomotives. Most came
wag shouts, “ELECTRIC’S BETTER!” and drags us back to the from Scotland, but 35 were built at
21st century. The wit is a Metlink guard on the suburban train the Hillside Railway Workshops in
that has crept into the opposite platform much more modestly, disgorging Dunedin. One of these was Ja1271,
a tweed-hatted throng with camera lenses as long as human femurs. our ride for the day. Built in 1956, this
He is right, of course. But the crowd pouring from the clean, efficient juggernaut was one of the last steam
FP/FT Matangi class electric multiple unit have come to worship its ancestor, locomotives made for NZR.
a soot-spewing Ja class 4-8-2 locomotive fuelled by tonnes of West Coast coal The numerals 4-8-2 refer to its wheel
and the labour of men whose sweat sparkles like diamonds in a coal seam. arrangement: four leading wheels,

108 | NORTH & SOUTH | APRIL 2019


eight powered and coupled driving
wheels, and two trailing wheels.
This powerhouse configuration is
known as a “Mountain” type, possibly
because the first version ever made
anywhere – the X class, in 1908 – was
built in the Addington Workshops in
Christchurch to haul freight through
the North Island’s Volcanic Plateau.
“Mountain” or “monster”… both
seem fair metaphors for a beast that
will consume around five tonnes of
coal and 25,000 litres of water just
getting us to Woodville and back. The
train leaves the historic station at
Paekākāriki at 9.10am for one of Steam
Incorporated’s popular excursions:
the “Heartland Flyer”. Our route takes
us through the Manawatū Gorge,
a spectacular, winding river gap in
the Ruahine and Tararua ranges.
From our carriage windows there
Opposite page: Like all stars,
Ja1271 gets frequent photo ops
on the excursion to Woodville.
Built at Hillside Railway
Workshops, Dunedin, in 1956,
the coal-fired steam locomotive
was one of the last made for
New Zealand Railways.
Above: Allen (left) and
Brabender swap engineer
and fireman roles
throughout the journey.
Left: Steam Incorporated
representative Jack Dolman
helps Brabender keep a watchful
eye on the track ahead.
will be a good view, across the river,
of nature vs tarmac – what remains
of the buttressed main road through
the gorge, irrevocably lost to traffic
after being closed by slips in 2017.
The train will pass through
Paraparaumu, Waikanae, Ōtaki,
Levin and Palmerston North. At
Shannon, there’s a longer stop, to
allow us to explore the country town,
check out the station museum and
NORTH & SOUTH | APRIL 2019 | 109
This page, top right: A view at the
Woodville end of the Manawatū
Gorge, now permanently closed to
road traffic. Steam Incorporated has
restored many vintage carriages,
most painted the “Midland Red”
shown here – a favourite NZR
carriage colour since the 1920s.
Centre: Liam Miller from Levin
with his father Matt.
Bottom: Teenage volunteers Theo
Tresidder (left) and Tommy Secker.
Opposite page, top: Passenger
Savannah Hooper (right)
looks out a carriage window
dating from the 1900s.
Opposite page, below: Guard
Graeme Clover checks tickets.

photograph the train. Photographing

the train is taken very seriously
by the excursion organisers, who
organise two staged photo-opps
during the day. This involves driving
the locomotive slowly toward
our flock of iPhones and camera
lenses, like a star advancing toward
paparazzi on the red carpet.
In the cab are the only paid staff
onboard, two drivers seconded from
KiwiRail: Grant Allen (“Sparky”) and
Stephen Brabender (“Brabs”). The rest
of the 20 or so staff it takes to run the
train are volunteers.
Sparky and Brabs are as happy as
boys in a sooty sandpit, despite having
to take turns being fireman – which
means keeping the firebox stoked
with coal in the hot, confined space of
a swaying cab swirling with cinders.
It’s Sparky’s turn first, and he barely
breaks a sweat. “It’s surprisingly
easy,” he says. “It makes a change
from the Northerner!”
Joining them in the cab is Jack
Dolman, the “owner’s rep” from
Steam Inc, who seems to know every
nut, pipe and piston in the 63-year-old
locomotive. The three are dressed in
period navy slouch caps and overalls,
and look absurdly photogenic.
Being press, I am honoured with a
brief visit to the cab after signing Form
B4 208 V3.1, a suitably old-school
document filled with a list of sensible
instructions. Look both ways before
getting on or off the “MPU” (Motive
Power Unit). High heels or jandals?
Don’t even think about it. And there
was that line in bold: “Do Not Distract
the Locomotive Engineer.”
An “engineer” is what we call drivers

110 | NORTH & SOUTH | APRIL 2019

NORTH & SOUTH | APRIL 2019 | 111
The Heartland Flyer’s squadron of volunteers from Steam Incorporated.
on modern trains, and like Sparky
and Brab’s KiwiRail jackets their
everyday title has been relegated to
the locker. Today, Brabs is a train
driver, and his speed limit is an
impressive 70kph. I watch him as
he leans out his window to see past
the endless boiler in front, his eyes
on railway lines rushing toward him,
his left hand lightly holding a long
lever or turning a hissing bronze tap.
With his right hand he tugs,
periodically, the long horizontal
chain above his head. This is the
warning whistle, that thrilling,
spine-tinglingly nostalgic, unearthly
hoot that paralyses rabbits and
sends cattle flying. Our snorting,
fizzing, speeding creature of
iron and steam has a voice.
The cab is steampunk heaven. The
polished copper and brass pipes
and taps and valves and chunky,
round flickering gauges and dials,
wreathed in steam are the guts of
the beast. The round firebox doors,
shaped like ladybird’s wings, open
wide for rhythmic feeds of coal
from Sparky’s shovel. Everything is
moving and sighing and clanking.
It seems amazing that such a huge
train can travel this fast, propelled
112 | NORTH & SOUTH | APRIL 2019
by one man and his shovel.
At Shannon I clamber back into
my carriage, barred by Form B4
208 from being in the cab during
the tunnels of the Manawatū
Gorge. Fat, sooty scarves of
smoke stream past my window.
Our carriages and the guard van
date from the 1900s and the 1930s,
and are painted in NZR’s favourite
carriage colour since the 20s, a
tint called “Midland Red”. Like
Ja1271, they have been restored
by Steam Incorporated, which
also owns the neat, corrugated-
iron-clad workshops behind the
Paekākāriki railway station.
This remarkably successful
society of train buffs dates back to
the official end of scheduled steam
services in New Zealand. After NZR
quit steam in 1971, a few far-sighted
enthusiasts clubbed together to
save what they could. Thanks to
decades of toil and dedication, steam
has returned to the “main line”
in the form of their sumptuously
restored locomotives. The group
also owns guard vans, rolling stock,
and enough vintage carriages to seat
500. Their locomotive collection
includes two oil-fired steam models
from the 30s, and three mid-century
diesel-electric locomotives.
One of the most poignant in
their collection is the Ab608
“Passchendaele”, built at Addington
the year Sassoon wrote his poem, in
1915. Minister of Railways Gordon
Coates gave this locomotive its
name in 1925, to commemorate
the battle in Belgium, when its
horror must have still been fresh
in the collective memory.
At Woodville, Dolman and the other
mechanical volunteers climb over
the locomotive, checking bearings
and lubrication and temperature.
What are they looking for?
“Well… comes down to instinct,”
says Dolman carefully. “It’s quite
hard to vocalise. It’s just what
you feel. It’s the sound of things,
the temperature of things.”
It is striking, not just how
intuitively skilled these boys are at
working among vintage pistons and
heritage boilers – but how young
they are. They and their fellow
volunteers still “touch and test,
and listen to the wheels”. +
• For upcoming excursions and
bookings, visit steaminc.org.nz.

Right now, the judges of the Metro
Peugeot Restaurant of the Year
Awards 2019 are eating their way
around Auckland, deciding which
restaurants will make this year’s Top
50. Some are also eating around the
country, picking New Zealand’s best
regional restaurants. And a mystery
international guest judge will soon
arrive to choose the Supreme Winner.
Winner
winner
Pick up the May/June issue of Metro,
on sale April 30, to find out which
restaurants cut the mustard. Every
magazine comes with a pocket-sized
Top 50 booklet.
—
Vote now for the 2019
Peugeot People’s Choice Award
at www.metromag.co.nz
Voting closes on March 31, 2019
 PROMOTION
POSTCARD FROM NEW PLYMOUTH
You’ll enjoy a warm, “western” welcome in Taranaki.
KEN DOWNIE
PART OF THE CHAR M of the
North Island’s westernmost city is it
is just a little “out of the way” – but
those who venture to New Plymouth
for a holiday are richly rewarded.
The city and surrounding region
teem with variety, so whether your
vacation inclination is for adventure
or relaxation, nature or urban outings,
you’ll have a host of must-do options.
The city’s compactness means it’s
easily navigated by foot. You can
explore Taranaki’s rich history and
culture at Puke Ariki, the world’s first
integrated visitors’ centre, museum
and library. Just a stroll away, get your
contemporary art – and architecture
– fix at the Len Lye Centre and
Govett-Brewster Art Gallery. Besides
housing some of Lye’s best-known
kinetic art and experimental film, the
centre is a work of art itself, wrapped
as it is in a striking, stainless steel
ripple. Lye’s legacy also looms over
the New Plymouth waterfront, where
a 45m wind wand – a red fibreglass
tube constructed from the artist’s
design – sways gently in the breeze.
The wind wand rises from the
award-winning, 13km coastal
walkway that sweeps from Hickford
Park to the Rewa Rewa reserve, with
its dramatic, “whale bone” bridge.
114 | NORTH & SOUTH | APRIL 2019
Even on a sunny weekend, the path’s
wide girth easily accommodates
walkers, cyclists and skaters.
On the other side of town, you
can wander through the lush
greenery of Pukekura Park, host
to the spectacular summertime
Festival of Lights and the popular
Womad (World of Music and
Dance) festival in March. If you
keep walking through the park,
you’ll reach the Brooklands Zoo,
a free, family-focused zoo that’s
home to a diverse variety of animals,
from reptiles and amphibians,
to monkeys and exotic birds.
New Plymouth now boasts a
plethora of top restaurants and
cafes, including Arborio, Gusto, the
hip bistro Social Kitchen, and the
Public Catering Co in the bustling
West End food precinct located in
the revamped White Hart Hotel.
Cafe culture is thriving in the town,
as is the local arts scene (check out
the Taranaki Arts Trail in June).
On a clear day, Mt Taranaki stands
sentinel and splendid over New
Plymouth, but even if it’s hiding in a
shroud of clouds, you can’t leave the
region without an excursion to the
national park; climb up to Dawson
Falls or hike some of the park’s
GETTY
Left: Social Kitchen.
Above: Hydrangeas
at Pukekura Park.
300km of trails. By car, the Taranaki
heritage trail around the mountain is
do-able in two hours, but it’s better
spread over a day, allowing time to
explore little towns like Stratford, or
stop at Hollard Gardens or Pukeiti,
which is internationally renowned for
its rhododendrons, about 23km from
New Plymouth. You can also detour
from the Surf Highway to admire
Cape Egmont Lighthouse or take a
side-trip to lovely Ōākura Beach.
And where else in New Zealand
can you ski and surf on the same day?
With the mountain just 30 minutes’
drive from a string of black-sand
beaches, the ability to “double dip” on
the same day has helped convert many
visitors to permanent residents. +
CHECK IT OUT!
TARANAKI REGIONAL COUNCIL
trc.govt.nz/gardens/
NEW PLYMOUTH DISTRICT COUNCIL
newplymouthnz.com
TARANAKI ARTS TRAIL TRUST
taranakiartstrail.co.nz
RINGCRAFT MOANA JEWELLERS
ringcraftmoana.com
CARRINGTON MOTEL
carringtonmotel.co.nz
THE DAWSON MOTEL
thedawsonmotel.co.nz
 POSTCARDS FROM NEW PLYMOUTH DIRECTORY

Carrington Motel offers a

peaceful and convenient place
to stay in New Plymouth.
We are a local, family-owned business
dedicated to making your stay

Taranaki’s
simple and enjoyable.
Located only a short walk from

truest colours
Pukekura Park and the centre of town,
Carrington Motel is the perfect place to
stay while visiting New Plymouth!
T: 06 757 9431 | M: 021 022 18333
E: stay@carringtonmotel.co.nz
www.carringtonmotel.co.nz The vivid delights
or, find us on Facebook @CarringtonMotel
of the rhodo gardens,
the calming air of
lush native forest …
Pukeiti rewards a short
walk or a long ramble.

Free entry to over 80 studios open 9.30 am – 4.30 pm

daily. You will be truly inspired by the artistic minds The Rhododendron Stroll 35min

which inhabit this region. Valley of the Giants walk 50min

Brochures providing maps
and artist details are Puke Te Whiti Trail 2hrs
available from iSites
throughout the North Island Open all day, every day, at 2290 Carrington Rd, New Plymouth. Entry is free.
and on our website.
www.taranakiartstrail.co.nz Taranaki Pukeiti taranakiregionalcouncil pukeiti.nz
Regional Council

A fantastic,
The green heart free, family
of New Plymouth. day out.
Winner of the international Green Flag Zoo hours: Open 9am to 5pm
award six years running and a Garden VHYHQ GD\V D ZHHN
of National Significance. H[FHSW &KULVWPDV 'D\

Park opening hours: The gates to the main entrance

DQGFDUSDUNR΍)LOOLV6WUHHWDUHRSHQ GDLO\ IURP
DPSPDQGXQWLOSPGXULQJGD\OLJKW VDYLQJ

To advertise here, contact Kim Chapman ph: (07) 578-3646 / mob: 021 673-133 / fax: (07) 578-3647 / email: classifieds@xtra.co.nz

H IG H H E E L S & G U M BOOTS / Rebecca Hayte r
Feeling Sheepish
Rebecca Hayter nurses her flock –
and trees – through a drought.
THE DROUGHT was hiding in
plain sight. It started later than the
drought of the previous summer,
so I had got complacent and it
caught me with my tanks down.
By late January, it was a crisis.
The sheep lay resolute in the
shadows of trees. I left the gates
open so they had free range for
food and shade. They came up the
driveway to chomp my dahlias.
They pruned trees in sheep topiary:
flat and straggly across the bottom.
They weeded between my herbs,
but adored the lemon verbena.
There was lush green grass in the
vegetable garden, but I couldn’t coax
them through the narrow gate. It
took me a week to persuade them
the permanently closed gate into my
dried-out swamp was now open to
hungry sheep. They picked at dry
grass, just metres away from the
swamp’s greenery but the gate was
irrevocably logged as closed in their
sheepy Google Earth. Sheep don’t
reprogramme well. If an electric fence
is no longer electric, they still avoid
it. Neither could I tempt them with
116 | NORTH & SOUTH | APRIL 2019
T H E G O OD L I F E
lucerne hay served with molasses.
They snubbed it like kids snub caviar.
My orchard, usually lush and
resplendent, was an intensive
care ward for trees. The figs were
shrivelling before they ripened.
The avocados dropped their leaves;
citrus dropped their fruit.
Treatment was simple: put all
patients on a drip.
I have four 25,000-litre tanks.
Two fill from the house roof; the
other two each fill from the tractor
shed and cottage. The house roof
has by far the biggest catchment
area so I topped up the other tanks
from the house tanks. When it did
rain, the house tanks would have
the most capacity to collect the
greatest flow of water. It didn’t rain.
By mid-February, I still had an
estimated 15,000 litres across all
four tanks, but I didn’t want to
finish the drought with 10,000 litres
of water and dead trees. I bought
400m of coiled, black hose that
immediately tried to strangle me.
Many hours later, I had connected
it to the tanks. Over three days,
Left: The writer at work beneath a
pear tree – “like a charge nurse on
her ward” – handy to the water hose
and her drought-stricken trees.
I directed water to the orchard’s most
serious cases of tree dehydration.
Then the water stopped.
I peered into the tanks’ vast
echo, blinked away the sweat and
decided I was tired of weather
presenters who gleefully promise
“another fine day tomorrow”.
I wasn’t the only one begging
for rain. Throughout Golden
Bay, the Tākaka Volunteer Fire
Brigade was supplying water to
desperate households but, thanks
to tricky access to my property,
that option didn’t apply to me.
I considered putting a 200-litre
tank on my ute and filling it, one
bucket at a time, from the river –
every day. It would fill the sheep
troughs but it would barely help
the trees. It would drive me crazy.
My other plans were equally
unrealistic. Finally, through the panic,
I found myself looking at a track on
my neighbour’s property that links
to a paddock behind my boundary.
Just 20m from that boundary are my
house tanks. That realisation was
like a sheep walking through a gate
that had been open all the time.
I think if I was a Toyota Corolla,
I’d want to marry a fire truck. It
chugged up the neighbour’s track
to my rescue in scarlet livery like
a guard at Buckingham Palace.
Who needs a martini, shaken not
stirred? It pumped 11,500 litres of
Tākaka’s multiple award-winning
bore water into my tanks.
I had water, but I also had
deadlines. I couldn’t spend all day in
the orchard moving the hose from
tree to tree, but it would be equally
inefficient to walk back and forth
between house and orchard all day.
I set up office beneath a pear tree so
I could dispense treatment between
paragraphs, like a charge nurse on her
ward. The weather presenters warned
of heavy rain. +
 POSTCARDS FROM NEW PLYMOUTH/TRAVEL DIRECTORY

Taranaki
Wave Designs

$660

06 7527772
ringcraftmoana.com

Modern, spacious, impeccably clean

and affordable, our 23 spacious, fully
furnished suites are just a stroll away
from Taranaki’s stunning coastline
and central to New Plymouth's best
events, sights and the CBD.
Phone 0800 581 177
16 Dawson Street, New Plymouth 4310
Email: info@thedawsonmotel.co.nz
www.thedawsonmotel.co.nz

ANTIQUE
LODGE MOTEL
YOUR ALL SEASONS HOLIDAY STAY!
Visiting Great Barrier Island 7 self-contained 1 & 2 bedroom units
• a short stroll to Clyde’s eateries •
Great Barrier Island Travel is able to assist you with your trip to Great Barrier Island continental breakfast buffet in schist
arranging everything from transport to and from, rental vehicles and accommodation stable (Oct-Apr) • bike storage • free wifi
packages. We have been helping people enjoy Great Barrier Island for over 20 years.
With our experience, local knowledge and tips, travelling to and enjoying the island
has never been easier.
CONVENIENTLY LOCATED
We can make the following arrangements for you: IN THE HEART OF CROMWELL,
1 &#'%$&( ($ # &$" &( &&& '!# Carrick Lodge Motel is your solution
1 $""$($# $# ( '!# to accommodation in Cromwell
1 ! & 0 & *# # '
1 &%$&( # &&- (&#'&' ($ ((&($#' # $""$($# A SHORT WALK TO golf course ·
1 ((# &$)# ( '!# - )' Lake Dunstan walks · local swimming
pool gym · beautiful countryside · bike
trails · fine foods · the mall · wineries
Ph 0800 99 22 66 • 03 449 2709




 56 Sunderland Street, Clyde Central Otago
Freephone Reservations: 0800 445 495
$





/
)'',(&$#.
WWW.CARRICKLODGE.CO.NZ ANTIQUELODGEMOTEL.CO.NZ

To advertise here, contact Kim Chapman ph: (07) 578-3646 / mob: 021 673-133 / fax: (07) 578-3647 / email: classifieds@xtra.co.nz
 DIRECTORY TRAVEL

Located 25mins north of Whanganui,

the Bushy Park Historical Homestead is a truly
unique bed and breakfast venue, set within
Lake Tekapo Cottages Bike It
beautifully cared-for grounds that
include manicured gardens.
Great place to come for your special function
1 $)) # $!. $"().! $""$)$#
1 %)*!' "$*#)# +,(
Now!
Wedding | Corporate Team Building
Any special occasion
1 $'! ')( ,) 0-! $%)$#( Clyde,Central Otago
1 #)'! !$)$# !$( )$ ($%( #    %$
1 !-# # )'#&*! #+'$#"#) BOOKING NOW 2019/2020 SEASON
1 -!!#) '()*'#) $%)$#( Otago Central ail rail | oxburgh Gorge
| Clutha Gold Trail Itinerary planning
1 ' '!(( #)'#)
| Bike hire | Transport
• One Day Wonder tours • Top-quality Scott,
Trek and Avanti bikes • Electric Bike retail + hire
specialists • Retail and workshop
791 RANGITATAU EAST ROAD, KAI IWI, WHANGANUI “Excellent!
PHONE 06 342 9879 Great people, great value”
~ Terry C
 

 Ph 0800 245 366 (NZ)
1 800 446 356 (Aus)
www.bushypark.co.nz
www.laketekapocottages.co.nz www.bikeitnow.co.nz | info@bikeitnow.co.nz

Highview Apartments

Offering uninterrupted views of Lake Wakatipu,

Queenstown Bay, Remarkables across to Walter and Cecil Peak.
Stay in the comfort of a self contained lake view apartment
and watch the Earnslaw steam past while preparing a meal
of local produce. Venture a short walk to the CBD and
enjoy the varied cafes, bars, restaurants and activities.
Highview Apartments includes One and Two bedroom lake
view apartments and Studios. We offer free off street parking
with Wifi, Fitness Room, Guest Laundry, Outdoor Spa Pool,
BBQ and Sports Locker for Ski/boards, golf clubs or bikes.
Our team is happy to help you book any adventures to make
your stay in Queenstown memorable whatever the season.

:KDW
V\RXUSDVVLRQ")RRGDQGZLQHDQHHGIRUVSHHGH[SORULQJWKH 66-70 Thompson Street, Queenstown
+64 3 450 2142
SDVWRUWDNLQJWLPHWRUHFRQQHFWZLWKQDWXUH"$VWKHXOWLPDWH&HQWUDO Email reservations@highviewapartments.co.nz
GHVWLQDWLRQ&URPZHOOSXWV\RXULJKWZKHUHWKHDFWLRQDQGUHOD[DWLRQDUH www.highviewapartments.co.nz

To advertise here, contact Kim Chapman ph: (07) 578-3646 / mob: 021 673-133 / fax: (07) 578-3647 / email: classifieds@xtra.co.nz
 GENERAL/TRAVEL DIRECTORY

Mt Vernon Lodge

Set on 6 hectares in the heart of Akaroa,

amazing views and great facilities
make Mt Vernon Lodge your only choice
for your stay in Akaroa. Mt Vernon Lodge –
specialists for all your wedding, conference
and accommodation requirements.
Contact: Amanda & David Kinnaird
P: (03) 304 7180 I E: info@mtvernon.co.nz
www.mtvernon.co.nz

· Dunstan House ·




 
7 *.3 *0/&,0"  *((*!/&*)
in an historic setting
7 ) /%" %"-/ *# /%" "-&/$"
Clyde precinct
7 & ")."! #" #"/0-&)$  /./"
of Central Otago
7 )! -#/"! ./&- ."  ' *)3
perfect for photo shoots Only minutes from all Kaikoura’s
7 -&!'+-/3  *((*!/&*) tourist attractions, with spectacular
– our speciality mountain and sea views, Awatea offers
7 *./&)$ "1")/. #0) /&*). .+" &' quiet country accommodation for the
* .&*).  *-+*-/" $"/23.
discerning traveller. Pet-friendly, dogs
and horses welcome.
29 Sunderland St, Clyde, Central Otago, NZ · Ph 03 449 2295 · info@dunstanhouse.co.nz
29 Skevingtons Rd, Kaikoura 7371
Phone 03 319 7075
WWW.DUNSTANHOUSE.CO.NZ www.awatea.co.nz

Bringing you the fresh

flavours of Central Otago
Dine in front of the fire within the
restaurant’s ancient stone walls, under
AUCKLAND | ROTORUA the maps in the Merchant Room, or
HAMILTON (opening soon) outside under the stars in summer.

~ 03 449 2805 ~
JETPARK.CO.NZ w w w.oliver s .co.nz

RESTAUR ANT, BAR & BREWE RY

CLYDE ~ CENTRAL OTAGO

BAY OF
ISLANDS

BOOK NOW 0800 TOPTRAIL (867 872)

Ph 027 453 5176 info@toptrail.co.nz TOPTRAIL.CO.NZ
To advertise here, contact Kim Chapman ph: (07) 578-3646 / mob: 021 673-133 / fax: (07) 578-3647 / email: classifieds@xtra.co.nz
 T H E G O OD L I F E

PUZZLES / G raeme Wilson

1 2 3 4 5 6 1 2 3 4 5 6

7 7

8 9 8 9

10 11 10 11

12 12

13 14 15 13 14 15

16 16

17 18 19 17 18 19

20 20

21 22 21 22

23 23

CRYPTIC ACROSS Q U IC K ACROSS Q U I CK D OW N

1. Candid address, though it hasn’t been reported (6,6) 1. Irrational belief 1. Sleep-walker
8. Five go back initially unveiling experimental fashion (5) 8. Demented 2. Benefit
9. Pasteur ruined grazing land (7) 9. Sale 3. Sway
10. Is buried for one’s inventions? (4) 10. Dry 4. Salutes
11. Guarded 501 little stones to begin with (8) 11. Shrill 5. Strategic
13. No particular person (6) 13. Outlaw 6. Fruit
14. Connect softly in this piece (6) 14. Cake 7. Conducive
17. Preach on turmoil in southern Chile … (4.4) 17. Songwriter 12. Devilment
19. … or somewhere in south Auckland? (4) 19. Wan 15. Joy
21. In that scam in Paris, I bled them dry. It’s laughable (7) 21. Be enough 16. Evaluate
22. Epic tale of every other hill wizard (5) 22. Expel 18. Allude
23. Trapped in the mudslide? That would put you out (6,2,4) 23. Proficient 20. Abominable snowman

CRYPTIC D OWN M A R CH SOLUTIONS

1. Cr. Dave may lie around, but it’s more likely he won’t! (5-3-4)
2. The sign of the crook? (7)
CRYPTIC Q U I CK
3. What the rooster did to the sailors? (4)
4. Infected, unruly pets running the place (6) R O B O T I C A L O O F D E V E L O P WH I R L
5. Escape at picnic north of Gisborne (4,4) A R R A U P E E A O E I N A
6. Told to take pictures of the channel (5) C R E D O P E R F O R M T U L I P A L C H E M Y
7. Told to finish talking to the camera, become apprehensive (3,3,4,2) E A L R A N U A U S C K R E
12. Virtually secured … (2,3,3) C A M E L L I A T O U R I T E M I S E D S T I R
15. … just one from the BBC (7) A E C A N N D O P I
M O L L Y C O D D L I N G S T A T E O F T H E A R T
16. Ripest ingredients for father (6)
I S R D A D D F Y R
18. Dad’s indication of gratitude for his dinner (5) B U C K E N G I N E E R D I V E S E N S I B L E
20. First class in hypnotism in the lecture theatre (4) R E U I T X G U E D R I R A
A M N E S I A I M P E L P O R C I N I C R A S S
S C E N V A E E S R N A V O
S H E A R S C E N T E D S I E V E G A L L E O N

WHI Z QU I Z AN SWERS
1. British Resident James Busby. 2. Gisborne. The current name dates from 1870. 3. She designed one of the first computer-driven word
processors, and assisted in the design of computer reservation systems. 4. Making classifications in various branches of knowledge, especially
biology. 5. American actor Jeff Bridges. 6. Iowa, Ohio and Utah. 7. Two. 8. It depends on the age of the car. A vehicle first registered before
1 January 2000 must have a six-monthly inspection; if first registered after 1 January 2000, and more than two years old, it needs an annual
check; and for new vehicles, and those less than two years old, it’s every three years. 9. The Latin “Senatus Populusque Romanus”: the senate
and people of Rome, or the government of ancient Rome. 10. Ethylene. 11. Joni Mitchell. 12. Colin McCahon, on the last of his “Northland Panels”.

120 | NORTH & SOUTH | APRIL 2019

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 T H E G O OD L I F E

LAST WORDS / Paul Little

collects openings that describe – as

“It was the best of times, it was the worst so many do – a physical location.
of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was
Combined, they build up a coherent
the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of
belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it description of a single landscape.
was the season of Light, it was the season of
The miracle is that there’s usually
Darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was
the winter of despair, we had everything some sort of sense from sentence
before us, we had nothing before us, we were
to sentence and even, occasionally,
all going direct to Heaven, we were all going
direct the other way.” a sort of strange poetry, or at least
diverting non sequiturs: “I write
this sitting in the kitchen sink”
(Dodie Smith), followed by “I
never really done much with my
life, I suppose.” (Louise Erdrich)
And an index of authors and their
books means you can easily check
to see whether your favourites
are here, and they mostly will be,
from those best of times and worst
of times observed by Dickens to
the long time Proust’s narrator
spent going to bed early.
As far as can be known, The Great
Opening Sentences did not inspire
imitators. No one has created a
novel by rearranging biblical verses

IN THE BEGINNING… or lines from Shakespeare.

An elusive author’s story of sorts.
OF ALL THE peculiar books published
in this country – and we won’t name
names, as many of them are by authors
still regularly nominated for awards –
few are as determinedly idiosyncratic
as The Great Opening Sentences:
A Story of Sorts by Steven Lazarus.
The editor, as he describes himself,
has combined the opening sentences
of hundreds of novels into a 150-page
work of fiction. Is there a plot? Not
really. The book sits most comfortably
in the “Oulipo” tradition, in which
writers give themselves a constraint,
such as not using the letter e.
The subtitle is a pun. Lazarus
has indeed sorted sentences into
some sort of order that might
qualify for the label of “story”.
The book opens with an appropriate
sentence from Somerset Maugham:
“I have never begun a novel with
more misgiving.” As you can imagine.
Inevitably, perhaps, it has a
Marjoribanks, Tom Brown, Mrs
Dalloway and Tiberius Claudius
Drusus Nero Germanicus all battle
for narrative supremacy with “I”.
Some sections cohere around a single
character. The number of opening
sentences concerning mothers in
fiction, for instance, allows a generic
mother to dominate a long passage.
Some juxtapositions are witty:
“I was 50 years old and hadn’t
been to bed with a woman for
four years.” (Bukowski) “The
machinery’s rusty, I acknowledge
to my half-expected guest, but it
hasn’t seized up altogether.” (Barth)
And some sections definitely work
better than others. Chapter two
WORD OF THE MONTH
E-scooter: we don’t really care whether people use them or
not, we just never want to hear about the things again.
In the spirit of playfulness, there
is a parlour-game quiz at the end
in which players have to guess
what novels lines come from. Clues
are given, but the fewer clues you
need, the more points you get.
According to an end page, Steven
Lazarus was born in South Africa
and now lives in New Zealand
– or at least did in 2006 when
The Great Opening Sentences was
published. Alan Duff, Witi Ihimaera,
Elizabeth Knox and Ngaio Marsh
represent his adopted home.
Attempts to raise the editor proved
fruitless. The email address in the
book is defunct and a website called
openingsentences.com seems to be
totally unrelated to The Great Opening
Sentences. As well as creating a
delightful literary curiosity, Lazarus
has left us with a mystery. +
GETTY

large cast of characters: Miss

122 | NORTH & SOUTH | APRIL 2019

 T H E G O OD L I F E

LAST PICTURE SHOW

D E TA I L S Jana Rangooni took this shot sitting on her paddle board off Mt Maunganui’s Motuotau (Rabbit Island): “The best
way to start a Saturday in February!” She used a Panasonic LUMIX DC Vario waterproof camera.

+ Readers’ contributions (with details of your photographs) are welcome. We pay $150 for published photographs. Send submissions to the Editor,
North & South, Private Bag 92512, Wellesley St, Auckland 1141 or email north&south@bauermedia.co.nz.

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