Work in progress
Previous | Contents | Next We must have come down to Auckland by February 1969, because the University insisted that I start in Term 1 that year or not at all. It feels like we barely had time to move into our caravan and re-home the dog before Heather was taken to hospital by ... Read more
Previous | Contents | Next This photo shows the Hikurangi farm as it was in the 1960s, when Colleen and Keith were managing it. Cliff and Dorothy lived in the house that you can see top left. The original property extended up the hill to the fence line, just in shot, and to the ... Read more
Previous | Contents | Next § Clearing out the cupboards I discovered an old brown envelope stuffed with letters that Heather and I wrote to each other before we married. Here’s one from me, undated: TuesdayDear Heather, I took out an old pad to write to you and discovered an old, unfinished, unsent letter ... Read more
Previous | Contents | Next § Cliff wrote an obituary when his Dad died in 1980, which the Advocate printed in abbreviated form. John was born in 1897, Cliff wrote, and his father, who was also a miner, died when John was quite young. That meant he, his brothers and sisters were raised ... Read more
Previous | Contents | Next I’d been deep down the Vietnam rabbit hole back at Massey University — spending days in front of the heater in our student flat, reading up on it all. Now I was revisiting it at Auckland. I hadn’t been alone down the rabbit hole. By 1966 we all knew ... Read more
Contents But nobody said anything like that to me — not my parents, not my teachers, not anyone I can remember. And maybe they were right because I did really well until the wheels fell off. I think it’s interesting to ask why the wheels fell off a bright kid ... Read more
Previous | Contents | Next And it’s good old country comfort in my bonesJust the sweetest sound my ears have ever known… — Bernie Taupin and Elton John, on Tumbleweed Connection I still haven’t got over telling you that Mookie Johnson saw me crying, so for now I’ll skate quickly over the three years ... Read more