Penny For The Guy

An English tradition that had cemented itself into Waitara's culture in the 1950's was the observance of Guy Fawkes Day.

Why we celebrated a pyromaniac/arsonist with great gusto many thousands of miles away from the fable origin remains somewhat of a mystery?  My best guess is that it was one of the vestiges of "Mother England" that remained in our psyche at the time.

As children we were not worried about origins.  November 5th was an excuse for buying skyrockets, catherine wheels, sparklers and crackers from the local stationers and Chinese grocers.

There was a also a competition run by the town to see who could produce the best 'Guy'.  This involved stuffing old and discarded trousers, shirts and jackets with hay or newspaper so that the effigy resembled a human.

We wheeled these around the neighbourhood in a wheel barrow shouting "penny for the guy", although in truth, very few pennies were forthcoming.

The local children then paraded heir Guy Fawke's creations down one of the main streets of Waitara where they were judged by a local panel and prizes awarded.  I have to report that my efforts never made it to the winner's dais but we had great fun nevertheless.  (An example of another town's celebration can be seen in the image below).

The fate of the 'guys' was preordained.  They were all incinerated as part of the big community fire down at the Waitara Beach domain. This was the time where we lit our fireworks and placed rocket sticks in an old beer bottle holder so they blazed upward.  Sparklers were the chosen fancy of the younger set who were closely supervised.

While fireworks are still sold in New Zealand to celebrate November 5th I suspect that the legend of Guy Fawkes is no longer understood by those who make such a purchase.  Times change, and our Asian community and civic authorities use fireworks to celebrate other major events on the calendar.

Guy Fawkes Day 1912 – History Geek

The Singapore & NZ Poems Finally Published

The White Bridge by Roger Smith | Make Your Own Book

Those Were The Days - My First Year Of Infant Schooling

How small we were in those days!

Yours truly is in the middle row, 6th from left. The school is Waitara Central in the town of Waitara, Taranaki, New Zealand.  Waitara Central celebrated its 125 Jubilee in the year 2000.

Five abiding memories from those times:

1. Compulsory and free school milk that was delivered in half pint glass bottles and which we consumed at 'playtime' (morning break)
2. My school leather satchel which was my pride and joy and carried a homemade sandwich lunch.
3. Home knitted jerseys of various patterns and hues which my mother created; she was a good seamstress, knitter and creator of various home crafts.
4. The crackle of winter frosts and iced-over puddles underfoot as we walked to school.
5. A robust and vigorous childhood full of outdoor games and adventures.

Caraway Cake and Catastrophes

I detested caraway seed cake. As a youngster I first tried this morning tea accompaniment when a former neighbour of my grandparents came to visit.

Mrs Dainty was aptly named as she was by stature and disposition a quiet and neat lady. She lived in Hackthorne Road at the foot of Christchurch Cashmere Hills. Her home was next to that of my father's earliest residence as a child, before the family moved higher up the hill to 118 Dyers Pass Road.

The weatherboard house is still there although its large garden section was subdivided and sold off for another house decades ago when my grandparents had passed away.  As was customary at the time my grandparents were largely self-sufficient when it came to fruit and vegetables.  Their apricot trees produced abundant crops and Grandma's bottle apricots were a real tweet.

Once a month the widow Dainty took the tram and later bus to have tea with my grandmother.  It was a quiet affair and she always brought her tea cake as a contribution.  A child's palate naturally favours sweet treats over highly aromatic spices and this why I never took a liking to the pungent caraway concoction.  Cumin tastes great in curries but can be overpowering in baking.

Trips to my grandparent's home were a much anticipated odyssey as the travel from Waitara in Taranaki, to the city of Christchurch required a lengthy car trip to Wellington and the overnight ferry to the port of Lyttelton.  Sleeping in a ship's bunk and being awakened by the steward delivering a morning cup of tea remain abiding memories. The Wahine, Rangatira and Maori were three of the Union Steam Ship Company vessels we travelled on.

This pilgrimage to my father's family did not occur that frequently; every couple of years was the usual space between visits and as my grandparents were both kindly people who doted on my father and his offspring. These rare visits remain full of very fond memories. The two things I remember most about my paternal grandmother was her pet canary and the range of scented soaps that surrounded her deep enamel bath.

As the Dyer's Pass home was built on a slope the underneath of their house had a large basement storage area which could be accessed from the garden below. The old wind-up gramophone and heavy 78 records had been stored there and I became adept at replacing the metal needles and listening to early tenors and orchestral music after vigorously winding the apparatus's handle.

A little further up the road was the Sign Of The Takahe whose construction was completed the year of my birth, 1948.  It was one of four road houses that on the Summit Road and was modelled on the manor houses and castles of Britain - all very baronial and a source of endless fascination for a young boy.

My grandparents were great walkers and my father remained so.  A Sunday walk from the Sign of the Takahe to Victoria Park and beyond was a family tradition.  Part of its allure was the large childrens' playground and old field artillery gun which kept active boys such as I, endlessly amused.

Sign of The Takahe - interior

Thankfully both the Sign of the Takahe and The Sign of Kiwi suffered only minor damage in the devastating Christchurch earthquakes that destroyed much of the city's heritage.  In a way I am thankful that my father never lived to see the destruction of the city that he loved so much.

Entry to Victoria Park- Port Hills, Christchurch

For me Christchurch is a city of childhood memories and will always remain so. My aversion to caraway seed cake also remains firmly rooted in my psyche.

Related articles

• Council votes to restore Sign of the Takahe building
• CARAWAY .... (Carum carvi)

"Back Through The Gates" - A Boarders Memoir Published

Back Through The Gates by Roger Smith

I have finally put pen to paper and recorded some of the hijinks I go up to at boarding school in New Plymouth!

A direct link to the book can be found here.

From Sweetness to Blinding Light

When I was at primary school in Waitara we went on a  field trip to visit a hexagonally-designed house belonging to a family of bee-keepers, the Brewsters.   To say they were fixated by by all things "aparian" would be an understatement, but is turned out to be one of the sweetest trips of my childhood.

Edgar & Nettie Brewster stand at the front door of 'Norian', 36b Sanders Avenue, New Plymouth

Honey tasting certainly has a lot to commend it. As a seven year old I learned for the first time that the tins of honey we got from our local bee-keeper were just one variety and that there were several more that could be enjoyed.  It just depended on what flowers the bees were visiting at the time.

In this age when the properties of New Zealand's manuka honey are known throughout the world this revelation might seem a little strange, but at the time the darker honeys such as manuka and rewarewa were regarded as second rate to the creamy white clover honey.

The facts that bees could starve in winter and were fed supplementary sugar syrups to see them through was another fact I learnt at the time.  But the information that resonated most and has stayed with me all these years, is that the drones (male bees) are kicked out of the hive in Winter and die.  As a young male of a different species I wasn't so sure that this idea was a good one; being surplus to requirements was not something I had ever contemplated before.

This then was my first exposure to the word "drone" and its deathly connotations. Regrettably in recent years the term has come to be associated with high tech weapons that reign down death on the unsuspecting.  Am I alone in thinking that there is something inherently immoral in this type of warfare.  That a technician in the USA, or a country neighbouring a trouble spot, can monitor and wipe out a target from afar might seem a clever solution.  After all, the attacking party faces no risk as the drones are unmanned.

The problem is of course that this is an indiscriminate act of war.  The targeting can be anything but, and prone to human error.  It might save a soldier's life who is delivering the payload but it has often ended the lives of innocent civilians in the process.

I came across this sobering visualisation which shows the proliferation of drone attacks from the first recorded on in 2004.

Out of Sight Out of Mind - web site

Drone manufacturers are now facing an increased challenge as the US Military scales back its operations.  Increasingly they are turning to the manufacture of industrial and civilian drones to boost their profits.

As the ABC reports some of these flying machines are as small as a humming bird and can steer water and pesticides to crops with precision, saving farmers money while reducing environmental risk. They can inspect distant bridges, pipelines and power lines and find hurricane victims stranded on rooftops.

And they are a boon for the would-be spy as the miniaturisation of technology means that they can be manufactured to actually look like insects and hummingbirds. One such device even made it to TIME's list of the top 50 inventions for 2011 (see video below).


Privacy (or the lack of it) from these civilian drones is a major issue. The US is moving to legislate their use  and if you thought the recent News of the World media spying saga put journalism in the gutter, just think what drones will do to our private lives.

According to another recent ABC News report, professors at the University of Missouri have started a “Drone Journalism Program” to teach their students how to use drones as reporting tools!

Students “learn to fly them, and also do what reporters do: brainstorm ideas, go out and do reporting, do drone based photography and video,” professor William Allen told the reporter. “We're trying to see if this is going to be useful for journalism.”

As I write the season of winter is approaching the southern hemisphere.  I can't help but thinking that maybe the bees have the right approach when they force their drones out; sending them to a seasonal and certain death.  Perhaps man can learn a thing or two to from nature after all.

Related articles

• Manuka Honey Might Rid Us of Superbugs, Researchers Say
• Manuka the bees' knees at fighting infection
• Al-Qaeda's 22 tips for dodging drone attacks: the list in full
• Obama's Drone War Meets Homeland Resistance by Paul Street
• Better honey harvest this year
• Domestic use of drones raises privacy questions

Today's Art - Waitara River Mouth Drawing

Waitara River Mouth Drawing
Roger Smith, 2013

Copies of this drawing (as a print) are available here. Prints on archival heavyweight matte paper are fade-resistant and have a 90+ year archival rating.

Be It 'Ever So 'Umble

90 Browne Street, Waitara
Click on the image to see the larger version

This seemingly forlorn property holds special memories for me.  Through the miracle that is Google Street View I rediscovered the house where I was born and raised for the first twelve years of my life; from 1948 until 1962 when I left the town to go to boarding school in New Plymouth.

I am surprised that the dwelling is still standing while others around it have ceased to exist and have been replaced by more modern homes.

The front block fence is how I remember it and the big shed at the front used to be clad with fibrolite. The smaller shed at the right, running parallel to the front fence did not exist in my day.  We had a rosemary hedge in its place and my mother used to use cutting from this to make a perfumed infusion when she washed her hair.

At right is the lounge's dormer window which I remember and the chimney also looks original; in my infancy we had a coal range in the kitchen and a roaring fire in the lounge during winter.  We used the embers of the latter to make toasted cheese.  At Xmas the lounge always smelt of the freshly cut pine tree which stood in a decorated bucket in the corner.

The big expanse of lawn out side our gate was where the boys in our street played our rugby games. Cricket was played inside the inner fence to stop the ball running on to the street.

My father was the town's solicitor and this was our first and only home in Taranaki.  When he later became a Judge of the Maori Land Court, my parents shifted down to Palmerston North but I remained at school in New Plymouth until the end of 1966.

At the back of our sections we kept chooks (hens) in a large pen so we had a ready supply of fresh eggs.  There was also a small path behind the hen house that took us through to the neighbours, the Lehndorfs.

Old Mr Lehndorf used to come and mow our lawns and do a bit of gardening when I was very young.  He had a large work shed in which he entertained me, with stories of the musket balls from the Maori Land Wars and other tales.  He also kept tropical fish in  a large ornamental pond that he found necessary to cover with chicken wire netting as the neighbourhood cats supplemented their diet from it when ever the opportunity arose.

Sybil Baker and her husband lived at number 87 Browne Street in a distinctive Art Deco styles house.  She was my sister's god mother and a very kindly woman who lived well in to her eighties in New Plymouth.  he house remains much as I remember it.  I stayed with her when I was three years old whole my mother gave birth to my sister.  It was my first brush with oil paints (literally) as I managed to completely ruin an oil painting that her husband had been working on for a Rotary Club auction.

Advert in the Christchurch Star 1963

I was great friends with the children next door at 83 Browne Street. First with Paul and his brother Dave Bullot and later with the Olliver children (Barry and Max in particular).  There father Jack Olliver was a Physical Education teacher and also a stage magician of some talent.  It was his performances who first fostered my own childhood interest in conjuring.  I used to get the De Larno's Magic catalogue each time I visited the store in Chancery Lane, Christchurch.  Much fun was had entertaining the local children with my box of tricks.  I wrote a little about this in an earlier post.

To Be Frank

There are people one meets who have a profound effect on the personal journey of life. For me, such a man was the late Frank Davis who recognised in me, a modicum of talent in the visual arts and acted as my mentor during Teacher's College years.

My childhood was a lucky one in a middle class New Zealand family in a small North island country town, where the principal industry was a freezing works. My father had been captured on Crete during the War and spent several years in Germany as a POW.

He became a partner in the small legal practice and eventually owned Smith and Brownlie as it was known during my formative years.

My mother who was English, married my father and came out to NZ after the war. Being an English Grammar school teacher by profession my formative years where spent reading the classics and Greek fables and I am sure that this sparked my love of reading, writing, music (the obligatory piano lessons!) and in those days, acting in school plays.

Mum was also very adept at sewing and crafts and would whip up a Punch glove puppet on her sewing machine; which gave me hours of fun in my improvised theatre made out of banana boxes.

My imagination developed as a result and this has stood me in good stead throughout my adult life. Photography was always something that fascinated me and I can recall discovering old folding Kodak cameras in my grandfather's utility shed at the bottom of their Christchurch garden. Dad took photos of seaside summer holidays and visits to grandparents and in his cycling adventures around New Zealand's South Island when he was a youth.

I was about nine or ten years old I got my first camera - a Box Brownie. I still had it until 2006 when we packed up an left for Singapore although it had not been used for decades. The first photograph I ever took was on a journey in our Morris Oxford from Taranaki to Wellington. It was of my father standing on a small bridge in an off-road nature reserve just north of Wanganui.

The visual arts did not figure large in the teaching I received and so my focus remained primarily on the written word. At high school I learnt to develop my own photographs; stripping films from their paper backing in total darkness and loading them into a light proof tank. The alchemy of a black and white image emerging in a print tray was and remains a fascination although digital photography allows so many more creative possibilities.

When I first go to Teachers College I majored in literature and music, wrote a lot of poetry and gazed in awe at work emerging from the art department which was under the stewardship of Frank Davis and Ray Thorburn.

Frank had the build of an ex rugby representative (which he was) - a man's man with a prodigious painting talent. His Te Kooti (Te Kooti Rikirangi te Turuki) paintings (pictured left) and those of the New Zealand bush(New Zealand Landscape Transformed ) still linger in my memory.

At one stage I owned two of Frank's paintings - "The Changing Room" and "Te Kooti Inspires His Warriors" but sold both at auction in 1999.

Noting my enthusiasm Frank gave me the opportunity to prove that I was serious in my desire to change courses from music to the visual arts. During the summer break of 1967 I laboured to a produce a portfolio for consideration and subsequently found that I had some talent as a sculptor - my major. He was one of those rare teachers who could change a students life and he became both a mentor and a close friend over the years, as did his wife Waana.

The upshot was that after a couple of years of general primary teaching (1969 - 1972) I too followed in his footsteps by becoming an art teacher - firstly at Tararua College in Pahiatua. This first appointment was facilitated by Frank who had been art teacher at the same school at one stage of his career and convinced the then principal that I would be a worthy replacement.

From the Wairarapa I took a more senior role as head of the Art department at Rotorua Lakes High School and in 1979 left to run Papua New Guinea's only regional art school in Goroka, in the Eastern Highlands. But that is another story. (Picture: Me on a photographic assignment in Madang, 1981)

My last and most enduring memory of Frank was hosting him in Papua New Guinea. It was a chance to repay some of the kindness and encouragement he had shown me over the years and little was I to know in 1980 that this would be the last time we would share experiences.

Within a year he developed a brain tumour which eventually caused his death. His mobility skills suffered in the last stages of the disease and lost the use of his right hand. He wrote to me shortly before he died using his left hand - the thought of the scrawling letter and the effort that went into this final communication still brings tears to my eyes.

Our friendship clearly had meant as much to him as it did to me.

There is a footnote to this memory.

Two years ago I received a surprise email from a former student of mine from Rotorua days. She wrote to say that my classes had changed her life and as a result she went on to major in photography at a NZ tertiary institution and was a creative photographer in her own right. It was an unsolicited thank you note that moved me greatly.

I like to think that this simple email repays some of the time and interest that my own mentor invested in me. To be able to share, teach and influence a life in a positive way is something to be treasured.

Arohanui Frank.