Signposts - a blog about Te Ara the Encyclopedia of New Zealand

NZ nurses who served in the Spanish Civil War (click to view on NZHistory.net)

Te Ara staff are always up to something. Not content with the interesting things we do in our day jobs, we’ve usually got some other kind of project or interest on the go.

Kiwi Compañeros: New Zealand and the Spanish Civil War (Canterbury University Press, 2009), edited by Te Ara writer Mark Derby, is one such project which has recently come to fruition.

New Zealand is as far away from Spain as you can get – well, without heading into space. In the 1930s New Zealanders generally knew virtually nothing about Spain, and there had only been a handful of Spanish migrants. Nevertheless, this book tells the stories of a number of New Zealanders who cared enough about the Spanish Civil War that they volunteered as soldiers, doctors, nurses or journalists.

Some of the New Zealanders who joined up were already based overseas, while others travelled all the way from here. Mark says they were generally motivated by anti-fascist beliefs and concern about the overthrow of a legitimately elected government.

Kiwi Compañeros has contributions from leading academics and historians, but also includes a chapter by the daughter of two people who fought in the war. It grew out of a seminar in 2006 looking at New Zealander’s involvement in and attitudes to the Spanish Civil War.

Mark is pretty sure he’s tracked down all of New Zealand’s participants. One of his odder leads had the ring of an urban legend. A friend told him of a friend who had said that his primary school teacher had said he’d been in the Spanish Civil War. Mark thought it was pretty unlikely, but followed it up anyway. He found that the teacher was still alive and indeed had actually fought in the war.

In tandem with this book coming out, and all the new research it contains, NZHistory.net has published a new feature on New Zealand and the Spanish Civil War. And if that whets your appetite, come along to next week’s History Group talk by Mark and fellow-contributor Peter Clayworth about New Zealanders in the Spanish Civil War, and how studying them can provide insights into the New Zealand of the 1930s.

The city: civilisation or cesspool?

I know that many of you, our dear readers, are literary types; and when I was asked earlier today about how cities are represented in New Zealand literature, I thought immediately of you.

Ben – one of our theme editors for the Economy and the City theme, which we’re working on at the moment – is writing an entry about how the city has been represented in New Zealand art. He’s got the visual art and movies sussed, but would like some help with literature.

I’ve been having a bit of a think, and have some ideas of my own, but this seems like a good job for the online community. So:

What are some New Zealand novels, poems or stories that feature cities?

How was the city represented? Positive or negative, freeing or caging, civilised or cesspool?

Also, if you know of any studies of cities in New Zealand literature, we’d love to know about them too.

Thanks!

Captain James Cook, who arrived in New Zealand after the mystery skull

Back in August last year, we asked ‘Was Captain Cook beaten by a girl?‘ when carbon dating indicated that the skull of a European woman, which had been found in a river in Wairarapa, was around 296 years old.

This challenged what we know about New Zealand history, as it would mean that a woman, or her skull at least, had made it to New Zealand at least 23 years before Captain Cook’s first voyage in 1769. And long before the first documented white women, Catherine Hagerty and Charlotte Badger (two escaped convicts from New South Wales), who are thought to have arrived in 1806.

This week forensic anthropologist Robin Watt has suggested an answer to the mystery. The 40–45 year old woman could have been a Dutch shipwreck victim.

Dr Watt says, ‘At this time there was a tremendous amount of movement by the Dutch. We know they were exploring the southern coast of Australia. Anything sailing this way has a chance of being stopped by New Zealand, so for my money there was either a visit here or a wreck. I’d say it was probably a wreck.’ Apparently the Dutch took their wives and families along for the trip.

Mystery solved? I doubt it.

Nearby Castlepoint was the main port for Wairarapa

Anzac Day once again saw tiny Tinui swell with people attending the service in the small Wairarapa town. However, it looks like like the air force’s recent proposal to turn Tinui into a place of pilgrimage may have hit a snag.

Tinui was the site of the first Anzac Day service in 1916, just one year after the Australian and New Zealand troops landed at Gallipoli. The service was held in the village church, and afterwards the villagers processed up Tinui Taipo (a rock outcrop also known as Mt Maunsell) and erected a cross – the first permanent Anzac memorial. The original cross was replaced with an aluminium cross in 1965.

So the air force’s idea has some justification, but it seems this plan wasn’t discussed with the owners of the Tinui station, on whose land the memorial stands. Tinui station is a working farm and, while the owners have allowed people access to the memorial on Anzac Day and by prior arrangement, they’re understandably reluctant to have people tramping across their fields willy nilly. Pilgrims could instead gather at the memorial in the town, but what a pilgrimage would be complete without a climb up a hill?

Tinui is a small town steeped in history. I experienced this first hand while staying in a holiday cottage at homestead of the very same Tinui station. The cottage itself was about 130 years old, and the station even older.

The village has a wee museum behind a craft shop, from which I learned that Tinui had once been a thriving village, servicing the enormous sheep stations of the region. At this stage nearby Castlepoint was Wairarapa’s main port, and it was much easier to transport goods by sea than by land – especially on the narrow windy roads around that area.

Photos of Tinui’s main street from the late 19th century showed it lined with shops, but in the 2000s most of the shops are gone, replaced by grassy fields. When I visited a few years ago, the Tinui hotel was still there, but apparently it has been moved to Greytown now. And I’m told that a church from Tinui has been moved out to Riversdale. It’s sad that the town should have to sell its historic family jewels, but, I guess – with a much-depleted population, and with wool prices not what they once were – what’s a small town to do.

Destination Invercargill

The Blondini gang arrived in Invercargill yesterday, driving 37 Minis. They were raising money for Starship Hospital by re-enacting the journey from Kaitāia to Invercargill taken by the characters in the 1981 movie Goodbye pork pie.

Like the Mini in Goodbye pork pie, some of these cars suffered from mechanical difficulties. One arrived a few hours after the others, due to having to get a new engine in Dunedin. It parked in the foyer of the venue where the rest of the participants were having a black-tie dinner. There’s something inherently funny about Minis, and few other cars are little enough to be driven through buildings and down railway platforms, as occurs in the movie.

Goodbye pork pie came out in 1981, a time when the New Zealand film industry was just starting to chug along. Apparently it was the first New Zealand film to recoup its costs from the local market. As NZ On Screen says, ‘With 600,000 tickets sold locally, it was in the same league as Star Wars or Jaws.’

It’s no wonder it appealed to New Zealanders – it was anarchic, funny, anti-authority and escapist. The year it came out was the same year as the Springbok tour and, as director/producer Geoff Murphy said, ‘Inflation was running at double figures, people were beginning to queue at the dole office, Maori people outraged to find themselves treated as second-class citizens were being dubbed as ‘radicals’, and the country was beginning to slip downhill economically, socially, and racially. Suddenly here was a film where the heroes didn’t buy any of this shit. And it was funny … It was the last laugh.’

Another reason New Zealanders loved it was that it was filmed on location, almost the entire length of the country. This meant that many communities knew about it when it was being filmed, and recognised their city or town in the finished movie.

I didn’t see it when it originally came out (was a bit too little for all that bad language); my first viewing was at an outdoor screening at the Wellington Botanic Gardens sound shell one summer. When the Mini raced around the streets of Wellington, the audience laughed and cheered and grinned with delight at seeing our familiar streets on screen, albeit a little changed by then.

Lots of people have a Goodbye pork pie story. I once met a woman who acted in the party scene. Someone else whispered to me a couple of months ago that the garage behind Aro Video was where the bit in the garage after the party was filmed. And I remembered something I once saw that added some kind of credence to that story. A few years ago I was having a cup of coffee at one of the fine cafés on Aro Street, and saw a yellow Mini racing up the road and into a driveway next to that very same garage. It did this several times, and was being filmed. I can only assume it had something to do with the movie, because otherwise it was a pretty odd thing to do.

Do you have a Goodbye pork pie story? When did you first see it? Do you agree that tiny cars are inherently funny?