Let's hear it for a little Taranaki town that gives generously of its best.Brooding my way through the New Zealand Herald recently, my eye lighted on a profile of Wayne Gould – the man who has made a million out of sudoku. This infuriating game has been around in one form or another for at least 25 years, but Gould spun it into a worldwide craze. The guy's eye for a marketing opportunity is nothing less than impressive. Was I surprised, then, to learn that he is a "bank manager's son from Hawera"?My eyebrows barely flickered at this factoid. It only confirmed what I have known for some time, namely, that a disproportionate number of talented and successful New Zealanders were either born or spent formative years in Hawera. In particular, a remarkable number of writers have arisen from the creative crucible of this south Taranaki town (population at the last Census: 10,944 and falling).Ronald Hugh Morrieson, of course. He lived his whole life there and immortalised the place in novels like Came a Hot Friday. The townsfolk later paid tribute by tearing his house down and replacing it with a McDonald's. Novelists Fiona Kidman and Yvonne Kalman were born there. So was poet Dinah Hawken and short-story writer Phil Kawana, not to mention children's authors Gaelyn Gordon and Sherryl Jordan, and historian Frances Porter.Champion golfer Michael Campbell comes from Hawera. So does All Black ex-coach John Mitchell. Businessman Ron Trotter and his sister Judith, a top diplomat, started life there, as did former Fonterra chief Craig Norgate and long-time Concert Programme head Helen Young. Aunt Daisy got married there. Singer/songwriter Graeme Allwright – famous in France, anyway – grew up there.Last but not least (readers will undoubtedly come up with names of their own), Hawera gave the world Bryan Gould, former deputy leader of the British Labour Party and vice-chancellor of Waikato University. Wayne Gould's brother, in short.Believe me, I hold no particular brief for Hawera. I have spent very little time there and, like most New Zealanders, when I think of the place at all, what comes to mind is its water-tower, a colossal structure that rises above Hawera as the Eiffel Tower does above Paris, though possibly with less tourist throughput.I have to concede, however, that this humble borough outstrips all other small towns and most provincial cities when it comes to generating writerly talent. According to the Book Council's literary map, Tauranga (population 90,906) has produced not a single writer of note, while Whangarei (46,407), Masterton (19,497) and Levin (19,044) have managed only Jean Watson, Ian Cross and Joy Cowley between them. Even major cities such as Napier and Nelson cannot match Hawera for writers.Is it something, I wonder, in the water-tower?I asked Fiona Kidman, who replied: "I left there when I was nine months old, which makes me a little unable to answer that." She speculates, however, that support of the arts was historically strong, and that families like the Trotters were particularly supportive. On the other hand, the town's apparent love of music (musicologist Allan Thomas filled a whole book with the musical doings of Hawera in just one calendar year, 1946) does not seem to have translated into a diaspora of Haweratical virtuosi, unless you count Malvina Major, who lived in nearby Pihama for many years. I am not even going to canvas the ridiculous idea that Hawera is such an uninspiring place to live that anyone with any ability leaves it as soon as they can. I prefer Kidman's theory. When I point out that Wanganui and Opunake also stand out as birthplaces of renown, she comments: "It must be that bracing West Coast air. It gets too sultry on the other side."Though her life in the town was brief, and of necessity socially restricted, Kidman retains a soft spot for it. When she went back there to research her novel The Captive Wife – based on the real-life kidnapping of Betty Guard in the 1830s – she found that the hospital in which she'd been born was within walking distance of the place where Guard had been rescued from her captors.Could there be some Da Vinci Code-like explanation for the Hawera syndrome? I'd have liked to talk to other Haweravians, but no one returned my messages. They were probably all away on holiday. In Hawera.
Listener January 21-27 2006 Vol 202 No 3428 http://www.listener.co.nz/default,5321.sm
No comments:
Post a Comment