Pipe Band Saved By Daring Strategy

Ashburton has been rocked this week by the announcement of a last ditch effort to save the town’s pipe band. The band has been reduced by age and shifting musical tastes to just five members – four pipers and a solitary drummer.

Band chairman Dougal Claymore has called a meeting on May 7 to pull the band from the brink of oblivion. Mr Claymore, speaking with the obligatory Scots accent of his office, described the band’s plight. “We cannae go on. If the people will nae rally to us ye’ll no hear the skirl o’ th’ pipes in this wee toon nae more.”

Treasurer Agnes McFinger revealed that the club’s assets have been reduced to 2 sets of pipes, a puncture repair kit and one ear plug. “To think we used to send out 600 pipers first footing on New Year’s Eve and now it’s come to this,” wept Mrs McFinger.

In response to the crisis the Guardian has set up a McThinktank. This group, whose members are anonymous for reasons that will become obvious, has prepared a report, with the nifty title Bagging the Band, to restore the club to its former glory.

At the heart of the package is a marketing campaign to freshen the band’s look and to bolster a recruitment drive. The McThinktank will replace the “hairy knees and tartan” image with the Paul Kelly dancers. It recommends a series of street concerts featuring the girls in hot pants and halter tops working out to a pipe band routine. These will be supported by a billboard campaign featuring scantily clad young women with pipes and drums and the slogans “Come and Play with Me” and “Beat my Drum you Big Scots Laddie.”

The report aims to improve all aspects of the pipe band. Marching is out, replaced by line dancing and Latin routines. “There is no entertainment in simply walking down a street,” the report’s authors claim. “We want our pipe band to become the Riverdance of Scottish performance. Imagine 30 pipers hip-hopping at the ANZAC Day parade backed by a dozen disco dancing drummers.”

But it is the band’s music that attracts most criticism in the report. “Pipe bands have been restricted for years by a limited and lacklustre repertoire, which is dictated by the limited and lacklustre instrument.”

In a bold move the report’s authors recommend the replacement of the traditional bagpipe with a modern digital version. The ‘digipipe’ replaces bag and chanter with a small laptop computer worn on a harness around the piper’s neck (the laptops are produced in various clan tartans). Small speakers are mounted on the laptops.

“The sight and sound of these machines is awesome,” claims the McThinktank. “Imagine 30 big strapping lads dancing down East Street with laptops round their necks playing anything from a Brahms concerto to techno-funk. Throw in the Paul Kelly dancers and you’ve started a craze.”

The report acknowledges the difficulties of commercialising the pipe band. “The bagpipe has limited revenue-generating potential owing to the essentially anti-social nature of its sound. The alarming quality of pipe music could however hold the key to commercial success. As most people are compelled to flee from the sound of bagpipes the music may be recorded for use in smoke detectors and fire alarms, and pipers may be hired to clear public bars at closing time.”

Bagging the Band reveals that the first bagpipes were made as duck calls for 18th century Scottish duck shooters. Their musical qualities were only developed during long, slow mornings in highland maimais, fuelled by large amounts of Scotch whisky. The report’s authors suggest an immediate and practical way the band could revive its fortunes is to hire itself out to duck shooters this weekend.

If all these strategies fail there is still hope for the pipe band’s remaining members. After all, five is still one more than the average rock band and as a last resort Mr Claymore and his companions should throw away their pipes and take up the guitar.

New theatre should be a ‘house of story-telling’
5th April 2008


One of the things that makes us human is the desire to hear and tell stories. From the raconteur in the local pub to Hollywood movie moguls, story telling takes and holds our attention. “Tell me a story” was one of the first complete sentences my children learned to say. And, like all parents, we told them stories: about our childhood, about our family, about heroes and villains, about adventures real and imagined.

Stories populate the imagination. They help us make sense of our world. They teach language and the codes of behaviour of our community. They provide comfort in defeat and give us words to celebrate victories.

In our lifetime technology has allowed story telling to flourish in ways we could never have imagined. Television, movies, music and internet expand the story teller’s art in glorious, digital techno-wizardry. Story telling has become industrialised, with vast fortunes earned and spent to fuel this most simple and fundamental human need.

On Thursday evening I had the pleasure of being entertained by story tellers at Ashburton College’s Festival of the Spoken Word. For 15 years the Festival has showcased the talented, the eager and the just plain hopeful among our young poets and performers. Sly, shy or swashbuckling they step into the lights to make us laugh or cry, to make us sit up and take notice, to make us think.

I have attended the Festival of the Spoken Word many times in recent years. I have observed young performers grow from timid 13 year olds to highly accomplished and, occasionally, brilliant actors and orators. I am always entertained and often awed by the apparent ease with which they tackle the most daring subjects, from Shakespeare to The Flight of the Conchords.

As Ashburton’s new theatre nears completion it is exciting to think we may finally have a venue to match the talent in our district. Shakespeare told us “all the world’s a stage” but these days actors and singers can no longer expect to attract audiences to street corners or draughty church halls. Audiences expect to sit comfortably in a theatre that has a few bells and whistles.

But bells and whistles come at a price and I notice that sometime in the past few months the new theatre has become the Ashburton Trust Events Centre. I am sure the new name reflects the Trust’s financial commitment to the project, both in funding the construction of the building and supporting its future operations. I believe the Trust will be a major user of the facility.

All this is good. The Trust does an excellent job in Ashburton. It is probably the only organisation in the district with the management expertise and financial muscle to make the theatre commercially viable.

My concern, which is shared by others, is that the move from a theatre to an ‘events centre’ will place the new facility beyond the reach of many local performers. Will the venue’s programme be filled with ‘events’ (conferences, trade shows and promotions) to the exclusion of theatre?

Already some local groups have become concerned that even if they can find a slot in the centre’s timetable they may not be able to afford the charges. A subsidised rate for local groups has been discussed but, as far as I am aware, no assurances have been made that the centre will be affordable to local groups.

In my view the new theatre should remain, first and foremost, a theatre – a house of storytelling. Yes, we have many ways of feeding our human desire for stories, but books, movies, DVDs and the internet fall short on two counts: they generally tell other people’s stories and they are essentially private.

Nothing matches live theatre as a shared experience of story-telling and as an opportunity for our stories to be performed by our people. I hope the Ashburton Trust Events Centre will become a place that excites us, that we become fond of for the store of memories it builds over the years. I hope we can balance commerce with community.

New Slogan Excites Debate
23rd February 2008


Debate over a new slogan for Ashburton deepened this week with rumours that the District Council has committed millions of dollars of ratepayers’ funds to acquire the famous Tui catch-phrase.

Ashburton mare, Bede O’Malley, has refused to comment on the speculation, but in a terse press release Council spokesperson, Edgar ‘Tiny’ White (Parks & Gardens) has denied the rumours.

“There is absolutely no intention to use the Tui slogan in Mid-Canterbury,” he said. “It is Council’s view that Ashburton - Yeah Right would not capture the spirit of our community going forward.”

Mr White confirmed that a new slogan will be in place before Wheels Week in May.

“Over the years we’ve had a bit of grief about our slogan from the numerous petrol heads, sorry, ‘car enthusiasts’ who visit during Wheels Week. Whatever It Takes has tended to be seen by visitors as a licence for bad behaviour.”

Guardian readers agree. “Whatever It Takes was fine for the 90s,” writes Pickles from Hampstead. “It was a desperate slogan for desperate times but it led to some pretty poor decision-making about development in our district. Our new slogan will have to be a lot more self-respecting.”

“Whatever It Takes was rubbish,” blasts Miss Fortune from Chertsey. “It was the catch-cry of a superannuated call-girl.”

Many local residents are rising to the challenge of finding a new slogan that captures the spirit of our place. A vigorous debate has been raging through the Guardian’s website and editorial pages for weeks.

Predictably, many of the suggestions are inspired by local geography: Plain and Simple, Plain Magic and The Heart of the Plains are just a few.

These suggestions are vociferously rejected by others. N Spired of Allenton writes, “The slogan can be anything as long as it doesn’t mention ‘plains’ or ‘heartland.’ Do we want Ashburton to be linked to the word ‘plain’? And heartland has been done to death. Give us something more original!”

Others draw on Ashburton’s location at the centre of the South Island, or its close proximity to Christchurch. Ashburton – Just Down The Road is the choice of Mrs Ima Divot of Netherby. Which draws a response from Fred in Pleasant Point, who writes, “Mrs Divot should remember that from South Canterbury Ashburton is Just Up The Road.”

An undeterred Mrs Divot then suggests we could have two slogans: Just Down The Road for places north of the township and Just Up The Road for places south.

“What about, Ashburton – Middle of the Road?” offers Compromise from Tinwald. “I think that sums us up nicely.”

“Well, if we really want people to stop here why not The End of the Road?” retorts the feisty Mrs Divot.

“That would look just peachy on a sign at the northern end of town within sight of the cemetery,” observes Fruit Loop of Netherby.

Another tranche of slogans draw inspiration from the district’s major economic activities. Dairy enthusiasts have submitted Ashburton – Udderly Fabulous, Teats R Us and Land of Milk and Money. An inspired crop farmer suggests New Zealand’s Bread Basket or Serious Cereals.

A lively entry in the debate comes from The Lab Coat Girls from Talleys. “Dear Sir,” they write, “we work in the lab at Talley’s and we have a lot of fun. We tell our mates we work in a pea lab and, oh, how they laugh! Anyway, we thought what about a slogan that celebrates the vegetable industry? Some suggestions are: Ashburton – Have a Pea. Or what about Minted Peas, or Mixed Vegetables? We think these really are what Mid-Canterbury is all about.”

“Those girls need to get out more,” responds Grizz from Methven. “No, for a slogan you’ve gotta look at our resources, and that means water. I reckon Ashburton – Pour It On is a winner. You could paint it on big signs hung from centre pivots across highway one at each end of the town. You could even have the centre pivots working so visitors to the town would get a little shower on their way through. That’s a ripper idea, I reckon.”

“Actually, the whole point of a slogan is to give us an edge over our neighbours,” argues F. Lukes (Dr). “So what we should do is trump our neighbour’s slogans. Take Rolleston, for example. Their slogan, Town Of The Future, begs to be topped. I suggest we make ours Ashburton – The Future Starts Here.”

“Once again I point out the proximity of the cemetery,” pipes Fruit Loop of Netherby.

“And none of these ideas capture the vibrancy and energy of the district,” laments Speedy of Rosebank. “My suggestion is On The Move! or On The Run!”

“On the Run sounds great,” chime in the Lab Coat Girls. “It could go with Have a Pea.”

With quality debate such as this our new slogan is bound to be a winner. But whatever we decide to call ourselves one thing is certain. To the rest of the country we will always be, affectionately, Ashvegas.

One Good Tern Deserves a Plover

I have endured some good-natured teasing from friends and acquaintances this week over a photograph of myself and Sylvia that appeared in Tuesday’s Guardian. If you did not see it – and I hope you didn’t – it shows us ankle-deep in the Ashburton River, dressed in gaiters, tramping shorts and (in my case) my daughter’s wide-brimmed school sunhat. Sylvia is peering through binoculars at an imagined point of focus somewhere off to the right, while I gesture wildly with out-flung arm, like Michelangelo’s Adam straining towards God.

A nineteenth century portrait artist would have painted out the river and invested the pose with a heroic Byronesque quality. In reality it was more like one of those satirical greeting cards. I imagine the caption: “after being lost for weeks in the wilderness Sylvia and Peter were astonished to see the same costume-hire shop they’d started from.”

Let me say that the photograph had a more serious purpose than simply to display us as objects of ridicule. We were on the Ashburton river to help with the Royal Forest and Bird Protection Society’s annual bird count. I must also add that the photograph is completely fraudulent. At that time our involvement with Forest and Bird had been all of five minutes. We turned up to help with the bird count purely on a whim only to find ourselves hustled into the limelight by Ashburton’s merciless paparazzi.

Neither are we ornithological by nature. Any interest I had in birds was extinguished by a childhood in poultry. My father kept hundreds of hens, to whom I was enslaved as egg-collector, muck-raker and slaughterer; an experience that scarred me for life. Sylvia, growing up in the shadow of Liverpool’s docks, believed wildlife existed only in picture books until she came to New Zealand.

But we are fond of the outdoors and we joined the bird count mainly for the pleasure of spending a day strolling down the river. My expectations of actually counting birds were very low. Years of tramping have taught me that there are few birds in New Zealand’s great outdoors. There is a gulf between the iconic image of New Zealand as a country teeming with exotic bird life and the reality of bush and mountain landscapes where nothing moves or twitters except the occasional wood pigeon or fantail.

Like many who enjoy the mountains and bush my imagination has been captured at times by stories from early settlers in New Zealand describing vast flocks of wildfowl, forests shaking with birdlife and the deafening peal of the dawn chorus. A childhood hero was Richard Henry, New Zealand’s first genuine wildlife ranger, who fought the rising tide of rats and stoats in a doomed effort to save the kakapo of Dusky Sound.

For years I foolishly allowed myself to believe that the decimation of our native birdlife was firmly in the past. The publicity attached to heroic “snatched from the jaws of extinction” stories of the takahe, the kakapo and the Chatham Islands Robin suckered me into believing our wildlife’s darkest days were over.

Only recently, when I realised it has been years since I saw tui on Banks Peninsula, did I discover that life for our native bird populations is as bad as it has ever been – and often worse.

And we – humans – are the problem. We’re not always the immediate cause of birdlife decline - I believe the tuis of Banks Peninsula were devastated by the big snow of ’92 – but our activities, especially the destruction of habitat and food sources, are behind all the disasters.

Nowhere is this more true than in Canterbury where only tiny scraps of indigenous habitat remain and native birds eke out a poor existence on the fringes of highly modified environments. Efforts to revive and extend native ecosystems, creating ‘islands’ of bush and wetland that enable remnant populations of birds to connect, are taking shape and need urgent support.

With all this in mind we were delighted to find that the Ashburton River bed, while not exactly teeming with birdlife, is home to more varieties of birds than I imagined. By the end of the day I had recorded 19 species of birds, some in quite large numbers.

I enjoyed myself. I can now tell a tern from a plover, a stilt from an oystercatcher. I know that blue herons are really called white-faced herons and that a dotterel is not a thrush.

I discovered too that on a fine spring day, with wildflowers abundant and the sound of birdsong in the air, the Ashburton River bed possesses greater charm than I imagined. It will never become a tourist attraction but it’s a fine place to spend a little time, even in a silly hat and gaiters.

You Can’t Stop the Music


I am fond of amateur theatricals and, while there are many incidents in youth that determine the course of a life, I can chart my direction from the moment when, at the age of thirteen, I stepped onto a stage in a pair of white satin pantaloons and a powdered wig.

At a time in life when my peers were chasing a muddy ball around the Tuatapere domain I chased song lyrics and dance steps in the local Memorial Hall, under the measured baton of Mrs Phyllis McClymont, the chemist’s wife.

I was an accidental actor. I found my way into the Memorial Hall through neither audition nor an unquenchable desire to lift the coattails of fortune. No, I owed my lucky break to chicken manure.

I had been barrowing chicken manure on a bleak winter afternoon from our henhouse, across the back paddock, over the road and onto Mrs McClymont’s strawberry patch. Piano music tinkled as usual from the lounge. This was the most tastefully appointed room in Birch Street, perhaps in all Tuatapere. A warbling soprano voice rose above the notes of the piano.

As I slewed past the lounge, my face straining against the ammoniac reek of my barrow, the music stopped, a window opened and Mrs McClymont’s blue-rinse-haloed face appeared.
“I need you,” she commanded.

And that was that.

When I told my parents my father seemed completely unsurprised at my elevation to stardom. He had tremendous faith in chicken manure.

The show in rehearsal was The Gondoliers by Gilbert & Sullivan. I fell at once deeply, passionately and everlastingly in love with G&S.

The music that has profoundly influenced my life has always found me by accident: my sister’s boyfriend reaching blindly into a wardrobe stuffed with LPs and pulling out Van Morrison’s Astral Weeks; the father of a girl I was madly in love with at 21 playing a Mozart piano concerto on a blue harpsichord. Gilbert & Sullivan took me completely by surprise - courtesy of a barrowload of chicken manure.

A hundred and thirty years or so after their invention it is easy to deride Gilbert & Sullivan’s comic operas.

It’s not so much that they’re old-fashioned. The stories, littered with orphans, babies switched at birth and forced marriages are no different than most Hollywood romantic comedies. The language is stilted rather than archaic and the costumes wouldn’t look out of place at a high school lipsync.

It is the style that outs them as a throwback to an earlier age. They seem as ponderous and declamatory as a traction engine, their humour laboured and their pathos, well, pathetic.

That they are constantly reprised is due to just one thing – the music. The music is fabulous - sly as a courtesan, exhilarating as big surf. My family hates it, of course. To them it is all tiddly om pom and fa la la la. And, yes, it is those things, but allow yourself to sink beneath the frills and the music is deep and rich and full of surprises.

And it is fun to sing because, when stripped bare, it is simply a collection of great tunes. Gilbert & Sullivan were the Lennon & McCartney of their age, producing a catalogue of hits which wove themselves so deeply into our collective subconscious that even now their imprint remains. Few people would not raise at least a flicker of response to the Major-General’s patter or Three Little Maids From School.

Not that I understood all this when I set foot on the stage of the Tuatapere Memorial Hall. Back then it wasn’t the tunes that grabbed my attention.

It was the girls. Yes, there they were, real girls, tucked away among the dowagers, the pirates, the footmen and the minor nobility that populate the world of G&S.

My role in The Gondoliers was to be the Lord High Drummer Boy – this is why I had been summoned by Mrs McClymont. My hopes of impressing the girls soared as I dressed in satin bloomers and powdered wig, only to be dashed on the rocks of choreography.

The girls, you see, were the famous ballet troupe from Blackmount – a district so remote it barely figured on the map but nevertheless produced beautiful and talented ballerinas. My task was to dance a fiendishly complicated Spanish Cachuca with these maidens.

I worked strenuously but I couldn’t do it. The girls twirled effortlessely about me, clacking their castanets and flashing their eyes disdainfully while I plonked around with my half-roll of puppy fat and two left feet.

Mercifully the experience, although it put me off myself for a while, dampened my enthusiasm for neither girls nor G & S.

Next month I will once again sing Gilbert & Sullivan on stage, in the Mid-Canterbury Choir’s winter concert at the Tinwald Hall on Saturday 15th September. We will sing a selection of music from four operas: Pinafore, The Pirates of Penzance, The Mikado and, happily, The Gondoliers.

I am delighted to rediscover this music after 30 years. It is like meeting an old friend.

Argyle Park Will Dominate Local Election
11th August 2007

There are times when the credibility of local government hangs by a thread, when an issue appears from nowhere and cuts deeply into the tangled knot of factions, interests and overlapping constituencies of small town politics.

The question of whether Ashburton golfers should be allowed to club their way around Argyle Park has reared up with the unpredictable ferocity of a twister. Close to an election it is an issue that has local politicians looking carefully at how the pancake is going to fall – and whether they’ll end up wearing the sticky side.

Argyle Park’s connection with golf (or ‘golf links’) dates back to the early years of last century when local golfers regularly used the area. Many of today’s petitioners believe the park is named from the brand of knitwear that was the preferred attire of early Mid-Canterbury club swingers.

In those days the word ‘golf’ was rarely used. The game was still known by its original title, ‘flog’, and was a much more robust affair than the modern version. Early reports describe frenzied games of flog involving teams of up to 20 players attacking each other with heavy wooden clubs in the muddy paddocks behind Allenton. Matches frequently ended in bloodshed and ‘a good flogging.’

Suburban encroachment eventually severed Argyle Park’s connection with the game until its recent revival as a practise venue for local golfers.

The question now confronting the Council is whether golf can safely co-exist with other uses of Argyle Park. Reports of misdirected golf balls colliding with houses, dogs, garden ornaments and sundry other suburban icons have raised the ire of local residents.

One householder, who declined to be named, described the terror of life in the firing line. “I was hanging out the washing just the other week and I got a golf ball right up my back passage. What made it worse was the golfer went straight in there after it. By the time I got inside the carpet was just a mess of divots.”

Brent Wallop, a spokesperson for GAPS (“Golfers in Argyle Park, Stupid”) says the problems are confined to a small group of freestyle golfers. “These idiots are the petrol heads of the golfing world. In their game the player scores points for taking the least direct route to the pin. They delight in squirting the ball off in all directions. I’ve seen one of these turkeys drive off a tee shot that comes back and lands behind him.”

In a bid to outflank the issue Council is experimenting with bungee golf. In this version of the game the ball is tied to a long bungee cord. When struck, the ball travels the length of the cord then returns at speed toward the golfer, enabling the game to be played in confined spaces.

Speaking from his hospital bed the inventor of bungee golf, Brian Flaws, admits there are a few wrinkles in his idea. “The issue of protective clothing obviously needs thinking through a bit.”

Overshadowing the immediate question of golf is the potentially more damaging issue of allowing access to other sporting and recreational groups that have until now been kept out of local parks.

One of these is the Ashburton Smallbore Rifle Association, ASMAR. Association president, Roger Blasted, takes up the story.

“Since we lost our bid to relocate to Hakatere we’ve been panicking about where we’ll go. If the golfers get Argyle Park that sets a precedent for groups like ourselves.”

Mr Blasted agrees that allowing both golfers and shooters into Argyle Park would be a stretch.

“Some of the trap shooting boys are keen to talk to the golfers about working together. They reckon they could set up at the other end of the driving range and shoot the golf balls while they’re in the air. That would probably save a few windows and dogs. But we’d rather talk to the Council about getting access to another park; perhaps the Domain or Baring Square.”

Other groups with bids in the pipeline include Mid-Canterbury Stockcars, the archery association and the Tinwald Ceilidh Club.

Parks director, Dave Askin, fears for the future of our public spaces if groups such as these become regular users. “I’m particularly worried about the Ceilidh Club. All those Irish dancers will play havoc with our turf.”

Meanwhile the battle lines in the debate are being drawn. Local residents of Argyle Park plan an all-night vigil which will include burning effigies of local golfers.

Brent Wallop says golfers are undeterred. “We’re prepared to go all the way with this. I’ll put 20 guys with putters onto the Council table if necessary.”

With this issue set to dominate the election councillors are keeping their heads down - especially those close to Argyle Park.

Ashburton’s Black Heart
28th July 2007


The Waiau was a well-muscled river. Conceived in the diluvian depths of Fiordland, nurtured by the great reservoirs of TeAnau and Manapouri, sustained by a thousand streams and creeks, it was a wild beast, an express train and the All Blacks front row all rolled into one.

Even in a dry February it ran two hundred metres wide past my back fence in Tuatapere and deeper, much deeper, than the big kids’ end of the town pool.

In an August storm, when the mountains had vanished for a week behind a veil of nor’west rain, the river was terrifying. It boiled and raged. It conjured whirlpools and vast upwellings driven by forces so great they surged several inches higher than the level of the surrounding waters. Giant tree trunks spun helplessly in the river’s grip, crashed together, flailed at the banks and were swept on.

The Waiau bisected Tuatapere and was the town’s sole attraction; a source of wonder to the child and solace to the angler; a great gulp of water, air and light in the heart of our small lives. It was flanked by native bush, protected in reserves on each bank, the western side broadening to a genuine forest through which a narrow, winding road, umbrella’d by totara and rimu, led to the domain and sports ground.

The bridge across the Waiau bespoke the raw energy of the river. Massive timbers fastened with iron railway spikes tangled together in a fantastic superstructure that soared high above the stream. To us kids it seemed as ancient as the river itself, built by giants. It compressed the traffic into a single lane like a bear hug.

A narrow walkway had been appendixed to the bridge. As a young child I approached that walkway with the same trepidation I felt with my first escalator. The planks had been laid with gaps between so the rushing water was clearly visible. I was both repelled and mesmerised by the sight of the river rushing past a few metres beneath my feet.

The walkway was bounded on the outside by a chain link fence with a wooden rail on which I could rest my chin when I was eight. On the inside I don’t remember any sort of formal fence or rail, just the great pile of the bridge’s timbers. The bridge shook and trembled when log lorries, piled with trunks from the Rowallan forests, forced their way across.

The Waiau was too unruly to suffer a waterfront. Its banks were not lined with promenades and buildings. But although the town had withdrawn to the safety of higher ground the river and its bridge nevertheless formed the centre and fulcrum of the place. We were proud of the river - proud of its beauty and energy.

We called it ‘swift’ – ‘the swiftest river in New Zealand’ - and we honoured it by guarding the forest reserves and beautifying the approaches to the bridge.

The river shaped the town’s fortunes. While it flowed swift and strong the town prospered.

Later, when the waters were diverted through the Manapouri power station and the river dwindled so did Tuatapere. The old bridge was replaced with a functional concrete structure, sawmills closed, people moved away.

I often think of the Waiau and its place in my early life now that I find myself living once again in a town bisected by a river. The comparison isn’t flattering because, even allowing for romantic exaggerations, the Ashburton is a scungy little river compared to the Waiau, and our bridge and its surroundings are shameful.

It is unfortunate that the Ashburton river’s occasional ruptures sufficiently inconvenienced early travellers that Mr Turton was inspired to build his wayside hostelry on its bank. While the town grew around the river it has always defied our small attempts at beautification.

The character of a river can shape the character of a town: think of New York, London and Paris. Even in tiny Tuatapere the Waiau river’s sinuous energy lent us a bit of self-belief.

The Ashburton river has the opposite effect. It depresses, dulls and flattens the character of our town. Recognising this, we have turned our backs on it. Our denial is most evident in the bridge and its approaches which are the black heart of the town - dirty, ugly and bereft of civic pride.

And yet it remains the one part of our community that most of us see daily and which all who pass through Ashburton must endure.

We were ill-served by our founders, who should have built away from the river. They didn’t and we’re stuck with that. We can do little to change the character of the river but we must recognise that the bridge and its approaches are our centrepiece and shopfront. Are we happy to look like a dump?

Me and Tommy’s One-Night Stand


From where I stand the Celtic Rugby Clubrooms look like they are on fire. Thin grey smoke streams from under eaves and through a solitary vent in the roof. Bright light flickers yellow and orange through streaming windows, and a loose window frame vibrates to a steady bass thump.

The Celtic Rugby Club is not on fire. This is the Ashburton College after ball party, and I am at the scene as one might be at the scene of a good-natured football riot. The centre of the event is a heaving, pulsing mass of human energy but here, just a few metres away, a sort of objective calm holds the bystanders.

Not that we’re gathering to seek autographs or admire the outfits. We are a safety net discreetly wrapped around the event; a cordon of parents, youth workers and security men whose job is to mop up the drunks, calm down the hot-heads and make sure everybody gets home safely at the end of the night.

There’s not much to do. The kids have arrived, divested of their ball gowns and tuxedos and hauling a small distillery of alcohol (cans only – no glass). They have produced their tickets and disappeared into the now-pulsating club rooms. An orange quarter-moon has set demurely over Allenton, leaving the stars in command of the sky and us below, stamping our feet and hunching deeper into our jackets. As the frost settles on the footy pitch and around my ankles I resign myself to a long, dark, cold and uneventful night.

Then I meet Tommy.

Tommy is one of three large Pacific Island men assigned to our small group to earn us a little respect from erstwhile gate-crashers. We stand together in darkness at the entrance to the car park.

I ask Tommy where he’s from.
“Wellington,” he replies.
I am taken aback by this answer. “No,” I want to say, “I mean, where are you from? Which sun-washed outpost of the tropical Pacific does your brown skin hark to?”

Tommy senses my query and guides me to safety. His parents came from the Cook Islands and he was born here, in Wellington. It is a simple whakapapa and a generous one, forgiving my small-town ignorance.

Nevertheless, I am startled by my presumption. Tommy, the child of immigrants, is as much a New Zealander as me, except his parents came from the Cook Islands, which makes him a Pacific Islander, whereas my parents came from Holland, which makes me a kiwi.

As the long night passes Tommy tells me his story. He came to Mid-Canterbury five years ago with the first group of meat workers brought here by WINZ and CMP. I remember their arrival – the sudden influx of street-wise Maori and PI kids into our schools.

“They brought us down for a week’s trial. We all stayed in the motels across the bridge and it went pretty well. I said to them, ‘can you promise me two things: a job as a slaughterman and a house?’ They reckoned they could, so I signed up there and then. My wife was up in Wellington. She said, ‘if you think it’s a good thing, we’ll come down’.”

Tommy never looked back. “We couldn’t believe it down here. There was so much work – we were never out of a job. In my first off-season I worked for a farmer at Dromore, on the lambing beat. I didn’t know anything about farming but he showed me how to mother an orphan onto the ewe. I told him, ‘all my working life I’ve been killing lambs and now I’m keeping them alive!’ ”

We pace in the darkness at the back of the clubrooms. I notice a small movement against the iron fence and call Tommy over. He shines his flashlight over the fence. “Come on out of there,” he says softly. A young couple emerge from the shadows and, under the beam of Tommy’s torch, walk guiltily to the front of the building. Tommy talks quietly to them for a moment before one of the youth workers escorts them away.

Tommy rejoins me in the darkness. “Thought they’d try to get in, I suppose. I hope someone gives them a lift home.”

Moving to Mid-Canterbury was a culture shock. “We were living in Methven and when we walked down the street people would say hello to us. We’d turn around to see who they were talking to, or we’d look at them to see if they were having us on. Where we come from you just don’t say hello on the street.”

“Now we’ve moved to Ashburton to be closer to the works. We’ve got a lady in the bank who’s helping us save a deposit for a house. She says ‘don’t buy anything until you can afford it.’ You know, up in Wellington nobody would ever think like that. None of us would think about buying a house. The PIs up there, we all spend the money. But it’s different here.”

“A lot of my family are down here now; my brother, and my uncle and others. We’ve got a culture group and COGs is helping us set up an incorporated society. We’ve got a church. When I go back to Wellington I tell them they should come and visit me at home. ‘But you are home’ they say. ‘No I’m not,’ I tell them, ‘my home’s in Ashburton’.”

A group of partygoers spills out of the clubrooms and is shepherded towards the courtesy vans. I ask Tommy if his teenage daughter is here. “No. She’d like to be but I don’t want her near the drink.”

We get busy as the party closes, the courtesy vans fill and we tidy up the strays. I move inside to help with the cleanup. As I leave I notice Tommy and one of his mates supporting the last young drunk of the evening. I pause to watch this large man, an immigrant to our community, gently lift the partygoer into a van and fasten his seatbelt.

Old Mugs Chase Auld Mug
16th June 2007


Headline writers around the country have been celebrating Emirates Team New Zealand’s win in the Louis Vuitton cup. “Airline Snatches Handbag!” is our favourite.

But celebrations have quickly soured with the Auckland City Council’s declaration that it no longer has room to host the event should Team New Zealand return with the Auld Mug.

Since New Zealand lost the cup in 2003 the Viaduct Basin on Auckland’s waterfront has been turned into upmarket apartments. Boatsheds and bleachers have vanished and the display case that housed the trophy now holds a model of a proposed motorway.

Auckland mayor, Dick Hubbard (nicknamed ‘Cereal-Killer’ by Council staff), holds little hope of the event returning to Auckland. “Frankly, we at the Council can’t imagine how we’ll accommodate the America’s Cup back in Auckland. The waterfront’s full. The only place we could redevelop is the container wharf and you saw what happened last year when some bloke suggested building a rugby stadium there.”

Mr Hubbard admitted that the prospect of Team New Zealand regaining the America’s Cup had never occurred to him. “Personally, we at the Council thought they were crap last time and couldn’t see them getting within a bull’s roar of challenging the Swiss. We were quietly relieved. After that last regatta we’d had enough of America’s Cup sailors with their skinny arses and blond tips.”

But the story is about to get messier. In an exclusive interview with The Ashburton Guardian’s Valencia-based yachting reporter, a source close to Team New Zealand has revealed that Auckland City Council staff have suggested to Grant Dalton and Dean Barker that they deliberately lose the final to avoid embarrassing the City of Sails.

The source, who can’t be named because we invented him (should we strike that out? Ed.), describes emails from Council staff offering strategies for losing races.

“Basically, they just lifted our ideas from the last campaign: you know, like losing the mast or filling up with water or putting all the fat guys on the boat at the same time. Basically anything that will slow us down but look like an accident.”

Dalton’s response has been swift. In a circular to crew and supporters he condemned the actions of Auckland officials and threw an invitation to other New Zealand towns to host the next America’s Cup should Team New Zealand beat Alinghi.

“Auckland sucks,” seethed a bellicose Dalton. “They argue about raising water rates but can’t provide a decent bit of water to hold a boat race.”

The prospect of hosting the next America’s Cup has excited local politicians throughout New Zealand. Councillors from Coromandel to Cromwell, with one eye on the forthcoming local body elections, are launching sub-committees and feasibility studies in an effort to lure the glittering prize to their district. Even being land-locked is no deterrent. Ohakune, in the central North Island, has formed a yacht club while the Hanmer Springs Community Board, in what must be the most poorly researched America’s Cup bid in history, has offered to build a new golf course.

In a further exclusive the Guardian can reveal that Ashburton District Councillors are also keen to get in on the act. At a series of late night meetings in Mare O’Malley’s woodshed Councillors have been putting the finishing touches to an America’s Cup bid that will stun both local rate payers and the yachting world. Our reporter, embedded in the hard drive of the District Engineer’s laptop, reveals a startling self-confidence among our leaders that their bid will succeed.

“Mid-Canterbury has a fine sailing tradition,” mayor O’Malley is reported to have said. “I regularly play with boats in the bath.”

Planning has advanced to the stage of selecting a local venue. Early discussions centred on the domain duck pond until ‘Commodore’ Councillor Holmes scuppered that plan with a few photos of America’s Cup yachts and some technical advice.
“They’re quite big,” he asserted.

Other venues were discussed and discarded, including the Rangitata Diversion Race (“too narrow”), Lake Hood (“too flat”) and the Ashburton river (“too upmarket”).

Eventually Councillors decided to construct a purpose-built America’s Cup lake as part of the new swimming pool and sports stadium. That project will be fast-tracked to be completed by mid-2008 should Team New Zealand win in Valencia. With Councillors favouring a downtown waterfront the preferred location for the lake is the block of land between Burnett Street and Walnut Avenue, running from West Street to the top of Alford Forest Road.

Funding for the project will be a one-off special rate of $37,000 per household. Councillor Beaven complained that this would be hard for low income households. His objections were dismissed. “People can either get in behind this bid or start cheering for Alinghi,” growled Councillor Holmes.

The America’s Cup final has just got a lot more interesting.