The truth about hokey-pokey   27 Nov 2009

Mary Fenwick

It occurs to me - column number six - that I haven’t introduced myself properly yet.

 

I grew up in Central Otago, on an orchard. Lovely and all that – rocks, thyme, frost, blossom, cricket on the short-wave radio – howzat-crackle-thwock - but I’m not naturally a small-town gal.

So at 18, I escaped to university in Wellington. It felt like the centre of the known universe. My degree in politics and history included shadowing a couple of MPs, Fran Wilde and Ann Hercus, both of whom went on to bigger things without me.

But most New Zealanders will remember 1981, my first year in the capital, for the Springbok rugby tour which split the country in two.

Up until then I’d believed certain truths to be self-evident: hokey pokey is the best ice cream in the world, nobody really needs colour television, a bit of sunburn never killed anyone.

To everyone’s shock, it turned out that while we might agree on the above, there was an overarching truth that was bigger than both of us. We couldn’t agree on the meaning of rugby.

One half said rugby was just what those poor South Africans needed to take their minds off politics. The other half said taking a stand against apartheid was more important.

The day which British people remember for the Charles and Diana marriage was marked in New Zealand by police officers in bloody, armed conflict with civilians.

I still think 1981 was a major turning point for anyone my age or a bit older. We started to notice that New Zealand at the time wasn’t all that friendly if you were brown or gay or didn’t like rugby.

Freeze frame. Cut to 28 years later and I’m writing this from the study in my garden in Surrey, with four British children and it looks unlikely that I’ll live in New Zealand until after they leave home. It isn’t as if I ever made a deliberate choice, but let’s say it got complicated.

My children find it hard to connect their school-run Mum with my stories about hitching a ride on a container ship across the Pacific, dancing with Argentinian polo players and Nigerian princes in London, learning French in Paris. …

I find it hard too, not least since my beloved, gorgeous husband died last year – randomly and unfairly at the age of 44.

But going back to New Zealand wouldn’t fix that.

So even though I’m writing about New Zealand and the UK, it’s fair to say that I have a Rhett Butler streak about it as well – (note for young players – “Frankly, my dear I don’t give a damn”).

Am I sacked now?

 

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