Wednesday 25 November 2015

The world mourns a gentle giant

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The international awe with which the late great Jonah Lomu was held may have come as a surprise to many New Zealanders; even Buckingham Palace chipped in with condolences as the world lamented the loss of this rugby colossus.

I had some inkling of his potential popularity back in 1995 while holidaying in Florida. We were on a mini-bus and I recognised the South African accent of a man sitting in the front seat of the vehicle next to the driver. To initiate a conversation I leaned over and said to him “Remind me again, who won the Rugby World Cup?” He swung round and in a friendly manner demanded to know where I came from. When I told him New Zealand he said “Sorry Kiwi, we did.”

To our amazement the bus driver, who was an African-American, said “No, the real winner was rugby.”

Naturally the South African and I wanted to know just how he could make such an utterance, both assuming that no one in America would have been the slightest bit interested in rugby, but he claimed that the contest was well-publicised and widely viewed.

The conversation almost instantly turned to Jonah Lomu and his role in the triumphant All Black win over England which must have been played and replayed on sports shows to a worldwide audience. The impact of the images of that one game would have set Jonah up for life.


It’s an absolute tragedy that his life was such a short one.

Jonah didn’t feature much in the final against South Africa in 1995. The Springboks managed him masterfully that day, herding him into the middle of the field where he could be lowered to the ground by the loose forwards rather then letting him skirt the outer fringes of the field where he might have wreaked havoc.

And always, when someone as instantly recognisable as Lomu dies, there is a great outpouring of acclamation and glorification. Unlike others however Jonah received much justifiable adoration when he was alive, yet he seemed to have kept his feet on the ground and his outward humility was admirable.

Of course he wasn’t perfect. Three marriages before he turned forty seemed excessive, but my disdain for his “boom-boxed” car is perhaps more of a reflection of my lack of tolerance due to ageing than a serious misdemeanour on Jonah’s part.

But as rugby correspondent Paul Lewis wrote “He was known for the ferocity of his running on the field and his gentleness off it, a dichotomy prized by rugby people and perhaps the natural state of a Pacific Islander.”

I couldn’t possibly comment on his prowess as a rugby player; I’m not really qualified to talk about sport.

I gave up cricket when I found facing a fast-bowler was like standing on the runway at Masterton’s Motorplex and when a car is 22 yards away, trying to get out of the way.

I stopped playing rugby because of illness and fatigue; the coach was sick and tired of me.

The last time I participated in any sport was when I went skiing and broke a leg.

Fortunately, it wasn’t one of mine.

“I always say to people that you have never seen the best of me, and that’s what I mean - I’ve never been fully fit.” - Jonah Lomu

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Wednesday 18 November 2015

Pleased to remember, the 5th of November

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At school we were taught that a fellow with the unlikely name of Guido Fawkes had once tried to blow up the British parliament. England was closer to us then than it is now and annually we were encouraged to recall this dastardly deed and in the process make ourselves a little pocket money which we were then encouraged to blow on fireworks.


This may have been a brilliant commercial conspiracy encouraged by Nobel and his gunpowder manufacturers, and might have even encompassed our history teachers, but I suspect that it was merely a customary practice maintained over the years and we were reasonably keen to keep it going.

On November the fifth in 1940’s Masterton the early morning streets were alive with the sound of music as receptive citizenry threw coinage towards the gaggle of kids who turned up in groups of four or five every few minutes on their front lawns and projected their voices at the main bedroom which was invariably at the front the of the house.

Provided you had a credible Guy and a chorus of friends with acceptable vocal skills, money literally flew out of those windows.

We lived in Lansdowne and for weeks before the big day we would shape our Guys using our dads’ old pants and shirts stuffed with straw with a flour sack for the head. We would set off, pulling the Guy in home-made carts at 6 in the morning and this gave us two hours before breakfast and school to hound the sleeping citizenry who almost always good naturedly opened their curtains to our intrusion and threw alms into our arms.

Although we would chant “penny for the Guy” inflation had decreed that threepences and sixpences were the least you would expect, and the odd florin and a very odd half-a-crown were sometimes proffered, usually from folk who had been so overwhelmed with Guys and their choristers that they had run out of the smaller coinage.

Four threepences made a shilling and there were twenty shillings in a pound and a pound would buy a huge amount of fireworks. That night, with darkness falling at a more respectable hour than it does today, our families would gather to watch our hard-earned money go up in flames.

The climax of the evening was supposed to be the throwing of the Guy on the bonfire, but this was more often than not discouraged because it seemed a little gruesome to a community that had just come out of a world war and anyway often the clothes you used for the Guy were the same ones your father used to don to work his vegetable garden.

This word picture is starting to sound like a Norman Rockwell illustration of the era, but it’s how I remember it.

Although fireworks featured on the fifth of November this year, scaring the living daylights out of the canine and equine population, the only street merchants were the trick and treat brigade who a few days earlier were knocking on your front door demanding candy while their protective parents hid covertly on the footpath.

Oh how I miss the good old days.

Except of course, they weren’t really that good.

“If you’ve never seen a real, fully developed look of disgust, tell your son how you conducted yourself when you were a boy.” - Elbert Hubbard

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