Sketching Again

I have now been sketching seriously, and trying to learn about it, for about six weeks.

Starting from a book written by a New Plymouth friend, Scott Wilson, entitled "A pen full of light", and published through Blurb, I have consulted several experts, most regularly, the large number of sketchers affiliated with Urban Sketchers. This is a world-wide organisation of people who sketch scenes from their city live (ie, not from photos). They have a network of websites linking work from every corner of the globe, and incidentally illustrating a host of different styles and techniques.

The address is: urbansketchers.org

The new Zealand branch is Urban Sketchers Aotearoa.

Then there is an online book by Russ Stutler, which was also helpful, and a hundred-year-old manual by Francis Hopkinson Smith, a series of lectures called "Outdoor Sketching", which explains several very simple techniques, among other principles of the craft.

I have posted a few examples for you to see, and to comment if you care to, and here are one or two recent ones.

This is a house which ninety years ago was a nursing home, where Margie's Dad was born. It is now a Bed and Breakfast.

Another time I popped down to the corner to catch the dairy.

Westland scene.

More academic issues

In talking about the need for more study of language as compared with literature for people who are planning to teach English in our secondary schools, I was not meaning to belittle the importance of literature for the education of teenagers. 

Reading and discussing the characters of fiction, or the techniques of poetry, or practising the arts of drama in a school production, can be great fun and very valuable in laying the foundations for such important skills as public speaking, discrimination, backing ones arguments, organising ideas, finding the most important points, summarising, and so on and on. 

I have written in an earlier post about the “use” of poetry. But the use of fiction is just as important. I used to wonder sometimes when I heard strict moralists complaining about the lack of religious or moral teaching in our state schools. What on earth do they think English teachers spend half their lives doing, but discussing the rights and wrongs of the behaviour of characters in fiction, or drama, or the themes of any literature? 

One interesting discrimination tool which I believe ought to be part of every English course at High School is the ability to trace the shape of the plot of a story. I used to use the story of “Goldilocks and the Three Bears” as my example. Almost any nursery tale that is widely known would do instead. We would note each minor climax of the story in succession, and the final major climax at the end, to trace a graph of the shape of the story, which looked like the skyline of the Southern Alps rising up to Mt Cook.

But teenagers did not forget the way a good story-line works up to a final climax and a short anti-climax, with various highs and lows along the way. 

I have just been reading Anthony Trollope’s autobiography, and he has some basic things to say about his craft. He was the most prolific novelist of his day. He recognised the importance of a plot, but he insisted that of even more importance were the credibility of the characters. Were the people in his novels real? Would real human beings act, change their behaviour or stick to the same habits of mind and life-style, and treat their fellow-men in the same way as the people in books? For Trollope, the ability to depict real people was more important than the ability to construct a great story-line. 

When teenagers have had to think about and discuss and write about these matters, they are on the way to learning at least the beginnings of discrimination between good and bad actions, and good and bad character. 

Learning about literature is learning about life. 

 

Family History 1.715

 
 
My great-grandfather Charles Gaze's shipboard diary

30th December 1859

Very fine and good winds S Latitude 9-16, Long. W30.

 

A large number of porpoises seen today, I should say without the least exaggeration from 20 to 30 seen at one time jumping in and out of the sea in a row as if racing, but none of them caught as we are sailing fast.

Ship lays very much one side, very difficult to walk about.

31st

Very fine and warm Latitude 12-19 South. Good winds still.

Sport in climbing up the ropes and trying one anothers strength amongst the sailors on the forecastle in the evening.

Rations served out again today I had mine apart from Mr W as I explained to our steward the reason. We find the benefit, as we have always equally divided our rations with them before, but we are entitled to 3 1/2 and they 3.

A sheep killed today

We were on deck till midnight when the National Anthem was sung and the New Year began with the Ringing of the ship's bells and shaking hands and complimenting one another, then 3 cheers for Captain and both Mates separately. A splendid night.

The moon went down soon after 11. Several persons very merry with drink but we contented ourselves with cold plum pudding; drink too expensive for us.

Sunday January 1st, 1860

Understand that a large number had been drunk after we want to bed ... several so this morning. Our steward also who quarrelled last Sunday with a 2nd Cabin Passenger

he also had a desperate fight (9 a.m.) with a Scotsman (single man in steerage) on deck. They were with great difficulty parted, the Captain and both mates ordering him, the Steward, to his berth. He then struck the 2nd mate, whereupon he was ordered to be put in irons: they happened to be out of order so no use. He was then locked up in the stores and was not seen all day.      So much for drinking influences. A sad beginning of the New Year       

Half past 10 a. m. Church Prayers on the poop. Several hymns
sung and a very appropriate address by Mr Arthur from the words, "The end of a thing is better than the beginning". Well attended by most persons.

Lat. 14S. Very fine and very calm. 

 

Half past 7 a dissenters' service in the evening on the Poop also well attended.  

 

A nice breeze increasing towards night.

A new church

In 1950, with the move to the inner suburb of Mount Eden came a shift to the Epsom Baptist Church. This had been founded in 1904 in what was then the Borough of Epsom, a long, thin strip on the western side of Manukau Road, in 1950 five minutes’ drive from our home in Grange Road. This meant we avoided or by-passed the church at Valley Road, on the corner of Mount Eden Road, and the one at the bottom of Grange Road as well. 

I later realised that my parents had chosen the most “liberal” (from a theological and social attitude point of view) of the churches in that part of Auckland. 

Epsom was in 1950 a smallish congregation, with few younger people. We entered enthusiastically into Sunday School and Bible Class activities and all the associated church life. 

I was asked to take a turn on the old but effective pedal organ at church, and for a time was the main organist. We always had a pianist as well, and sometimes I accompanied another organist on the piano. 

I also later was asked to lead a Bible Class for younger boys, and did so for a year or so before leaving for Hamilton. 

At the same time I attended Auckland District Young Men’s Bible Class Union meetings to represent our church, and soon found myself doing the work of secretary of the Union. My parents and aunt had all been involved in these committee roles  years before, so there were role-models and mentors close at hand. In 1954 I was the secretary for the Easter camp, the first time such camps had been held jointly with the young women.

In all these ways, the experience of church life was training me for leadership, under careful guidance, and I regard this as one of the very positive contributions that well-run churches make to our society: the training of good leaders. While the schools did a similar job, the experience and supervised on-the-job training I got from my church involvement was more practical. I imagine that an experience of Scouts or Guides or any other community or sporting organisation would be similar.

At Auckland University I attended the lunchtime meetings of the Evangelical Union, and from 1952 was a member of the Committee. I attended an IVF Conference one year as part of the Auckland University delegation (see photo). Some time in 1953 Prof Blakelock asked me to consider standing as President of the EU, but I decided my commitments to Bible Class Union and local church took precedence. 

However, this and the experience of working together with the Student Christan Movement committee on a mission to the University in or near 1952 (Canon Bryan Green), widened my blinkered vision to include other churches than Baptist ones. Not that I seriously looked at the other denominations; but I realised slowly that there was not much difference between the people I knew from the Baptist Church and those I worked with or socialised with whose church practices were unfamiliar to me.

 

 

 

On to University

At the beginning of 1951 I enrolled at Auckland University College as it was then called. Universities in New Zealand were only two then: The University of Otago and the University of New Zealand. 

The University was divided into several colleges: Auckland, Victoria and Canterbury. No-one had thought of Waikato, or of Lincoln or Massey as separate tertiary institutions. 

My official graduation photo 1954

It would be tedious to relate a lot of detail about my studies. It is enough to say that I spent three years gaining a Bachelor’s degree in Arts: three years of English and French, and a year each of Latin, German and History. 

In the fourth year I completed seven papers for a Master’s degree in English, four papers in language, two in literature and one in research methods. 

In 1955, while at Training College, I took the first three papers for Diploma in Education. By that stage I was pretty sick of studying; I was glad to get out into the real world by 1956. 

The main thrust of my tertiary studies was Language and Languages. Literature was incidental to that. I was fascinated by the way language works, and the differences between languages. And, of course, once I got into the subject, the similarities between them. 

I think it is a great pity that more students do not tackle this subject. Once many years ago I asked an inspector how many Heads of English Departments in Auckland High Schools had degrees in English. The reply was: “Two or three”. We would not expect our children to be taught by rank amateurs in other subjects, but there seems to be an attitude that “anyone can teach English”. Surely at last the HOD should have English qualifications. 

And more of them should have Language qualifications, not just Literature ones. The extreme version of this point was made by a friend of mine, also many years ago, when he said: “Literature is what I read for fun, for relaxation, and for entertainment. I do not regard it as adequate academic discipline. For that you need to study the language.” 

Fortunately now our curriculum includes a lot of language analysis in the senior years at school, but with such a dearth of language graduates it is hard to see that it is well taught. And it is possible to argue that to analyse English competently one needs to know something of French, and Latin, and probably German or another Germanic language as well. Even a North Indian or Celtic language, or Russian would help. Better still would be a language which had no similarity to English; the stark differences would throw English structures into high relief. 

So language was my specialism. I could have enjoyed post-grad study into modern systems of language analysis, such as those based on frequency of use of words or structures. I toyed with the idea of travelling to, say, Chicago University, where they had a Ph.D. linguistics programme. But the pull of India was too strong. 

However I have since continued to read books and articles about the various approaches to language. The best-known of these is by Noam Chomsky, but there are several different schools. 

One exercise I did for myself comparatively recently was to analyse the proportion of words of Old English origin in the writing of various authors, poets and dramatists: and they ranged from Lloyd Geering (around 35% non-English origin vocabulary) to Robert Frost (4%). This was only a small sample of each writer, and the study would have to be repeated using a greater variety of their styles, but along with other measures this could be used to build a profile of the language which could identify each writer as accurately as a fingerprint. 

But again, such work would require a wide knowledge of languages, or the researcher would have to spend so much time with an etymological dictionary the job would be interminable. 

Even in school days I had tried to pick up a smattering of Italian, and Esperanto. Maori was always around, at least common words from Maori vocabulary. And when I began theological study after I left Training College, I started to learn Greek and Hebrew. In India I learned Bengali pretty thoroughly, and to decipher the Sanskrit script. Later, when Audrey took Russian at University, I learned a bit of that, at least enough, again, to decipher the script.  

No-one ever succeeded in explaining to me any credible theory about how language developed. Someday the neurologists and anthropologists may work it out, but so far it is a mystery.

This week's sketch

This is La Scala Opera House in Milan, drawn from a photo we took on 24 October, 2008. We were on top of a tourist bus, sightseeing in Milan at the time. Here is the photo:

My Christmas Poem for Margie

Coming Home  

Ring the Christmas bells once more:

We hear she’s coming home!

String the lights around the door;

Is she coming home?

Christmas news we can’t ignore

Makes us joyful to the core,

That’s what Christmas cheer is for--

Sophie’s coming home. 

Ready for the donkey ride,

We hear she’s coming home.

Mum along and Dad beside;

Is she coming home?

Out to Heathrow let them glide

To Terminal 3 and straight inside;

The checkout desk is open wide –

Sophie’s coming home. 

Sheep are milling round each gate:

We hear she’s coming home.

Some are running minutes late;

Is she coming home?

They’ll miss the plane at this slow rate,

We hope they haven’t got to wait,

Let them come home fast and straight!

Sophie’s coming home.

At luggage check are three wise kings;

We hear she’s coming home.

Looking through her feeding things:

Is she coming home?

Bottles, tins and teething rings,

Parcels full of Christmas blings,

Cards with angels folding wings:

Sophie’s coming home! 

An angel in a captain’s cap

(We hear she’s coming home)

Checks each wheel and wing and flap;

Is she coming home?

Another angel marks a map,

A third’s adjusting Mummy’s strap

And puts the babe in Daddy’s lap:

Sophie’s coming home! 

Sing the Christmas carol loud!

We hear she’s coming home.

Shout the news and swell the crowd!

Is she coming home?

Angels lift her through the cloud,

Shepherds wait with shoulders bowed,

Mortals swell with feeling proud:

Sophie’s coming home! 

--Christmas 2013

 

Time for another poem

To my son

 

 

When I die

Don’t bury me beneath a mound of earth

Unless

You also plant strawberries on me.

 

When I die

Don’t burn me to ashes

Unless

You take me out on the deep ocean and

Scatter me to the winds and the swell.

 

When I die

Don’t cool the sausage rolls

With hymns

Unless you have composed the music yourself

And play it on your own trumpet

Loud enough to wake me.

 

When I die

Don’t say a lot of exaggerated platitudes

About the man I was,

Just read a couple of my best poems

To show how much I loved your mother.

 

When I die

Pause in your stride

And then go on being the man you are,

Show me your best photos

And email when you need me.

Family Hiatory 1.714

 
 

27th December 1859

Very fine, hot and more favourable winds S.E. Trades. Crossed the Line about last mid-night. Lat at noon 0-26South.

A large ship in sight all day a long distance W of us, sailing much faster than us, quite ahead of us towards dusk.

28th

 

Very fine; great preparations in putting up stays to masts expecting strong winds. A rope broke and let a block fall which cut one of the passengers face and hurt a sailors big toe putting it out of joint. Lat 3-63 Long 23W.

29th

Very fine and strong wind. Sailors still busy strengthening the masts all day. Lat 6-8 S.

Lost our beef overboard through the cord it was tied to breaking.

I was grossly insulted by Mrs Wilkes this afternoon, by her asserting I had paid the Carpenter (who fitted up the ship) to give more space in our cabin thereby depriving her of part of the space she was entitled to in her cabin. Her husband on deck at the time but persisted in the same opinion when spoken to about it of which I am totally innocent and which I endeavoured to prove to them but with no effect. They are reckoned by most persons to be the most disagreeable on board by always finding fault about something.

Sketching this week

Yesterday Carys and I did our sketching together. Here we are working away. My subject was this:

 

 

 

Here is what I came up with:

Fifth year at AGS

At the end of 1949 I sat eight papers for the University Scholarships Exam: two in English, two in Latin, two in French, one in History and one in Zoology. Along with half of my class, I ended up with what was called a Credit pass. The best of the second-year students gained scholarships, about four of them.

1950 was a repeat of 1949, expect for the English programme. Instead of starting with a Shakespeare play, Owen Lewis introduced us to Chaucer's Prologue to the Canterbury Tales. I was captivated by this guy so long ago who could write so well in verse about the people he met and their foibles. "Canterbury Tales" was destined to be a significant work in my life from then on.

The novel in 1950 was "The Great Gatsby", by Scott Fitzgerald, although I found it far too sophisticated for me at that age. I enjoyed much more the selection of poets we had to study that year. By the end of 1950 I knew that English and French were the subjects I wanted to concentrate on, although I left myself a second possibility by enrolling for Law as well as Arts when the time for University arrived.

I must have made progress in subjects like French and Latin that year as well, and very much enjoyed the classes in History. We had the pleasure of being taken for History by Tommy Lanigan, who actually worked through the text-book with us and discussed each topic as we came to it. This was a great improvement on what we had had the two previous years!  It was from this course that I laid the foundations of my later study of history: we had to know British history from 1485 to 1914, and European History from 1715 to 1914. History in those days ended with the Great War. Not a skerrick about New Zealand, or America!

Owen Ingram had taught me for Latin for four years, and now I was able to pick the brains of another Latin teacher: Ken Treacher. Again this was a pleasant change; not that Ken was any better as a teacher than Owen; they were both fine, but any change is as good as a rest.

As you can see, every teacher at AGS had a nick-name. For the ordinary mortals the given Christian name would do, but for special people, some chance event had pinned a different nick-name, and that stuck for generations of schoolboys: "Two-gun" Adams, "Pansy" Napier, "Screwy" Lewis, "Streak" Nicholls (he was tall and thin after all), "Mousy" Bishop, "Pongo" La Roche, and so on.

We were given a week to study before the exams, and my Uncle Jack (Bigelow), who was then Head of Ruawai District High School, invited me to stay with them for some peace and quiet for my revision. He and Auntie Josie showed me a bit of Northland at the same time, which was kind of them, and I enjoyed their family's company for those few days.

The exams went well for me; along with three others from my class, I made the scholarship list, though not as high up as the school would have wished I imagine, and we had the usual dozen or so credit passes. And that was my last Hurrah at what was then the leading secondary school in Auckland.

We were only the second class to come through the education system under the 1944 Education Act, designed by Peter Fraser and Dr Beeby to provide a more modern and egalitarian education than what had been common before.

Even more on AGS

Still on about Auckland Grammar

 

There were downsides to attending the most prestigious state school in Auckland, especially when one lived at Papatoetoe, and it involved a long journey every morning and afternoon.

 

It would be true to say I knew none of my fellow-pupils when I started at AGS. Many of them had attended Intermediate Schools together: Epsom Normal, and Remuera were the two most prominent. Living miles away meant I rarely saw any of them out of school hours. And it also meant one thought very carefully about how much one could do after school or in the weekend.

 

Coming from a school with very few male teachers because of the war meant I had virtually no skills in team sports, so no chance of making a junior sports team. I tried boxing and a couple of other minor sports; had I had the opportunities I think I would have been a mediocre participant, but I found others were way ahead of me; besides which I was small because of my age, compared with the others who were all a year older. Completely discouraged, I never felt able to join in; consequently I avoided leadership roles except in the minor activities I felt at home in, like Crusaders and Magazine Committee.

 

Attending a single-sex school deprives one of everyday mixing with girls; they come to be a distant and romanticised vision. I think this is still true, though there are now many more ways of overcoming the obstacles to a rounded emotional and social adolescence. So my church activities, especially Saturday evening Youth Group, provided a reasonable substitute in those days.

 

But it did mean that in a variety of ways I was very sheltered, and not very well prepared for the social challenges of university or starting work, except in the very protected environment of the church community at Papatoetoe. Fortunately I had good role-models in my family, among my teachers and in our limited social circle, and learned lessons of perseverance and affability, and skills like the ability to project the image of a leader when needed.

I was the third of my family to attend Auckland Grammar, after my father and grandfather Gaze. Since then my brother Stuart, his three sons Andrew, Phillip and Jonathan have been Grammar students, and my grandson Rowan. Next year the next Gaze member will attend: Phillip's son Benjamin.

First Photos of the Party

From the camera of Karen, my daughter-in-law:

The master of ceremonies was Terry, my elder son

Here he is with the front row of the audience: his mother, Audrey (centre), her husband, Will (left) and my sister, Olwyn (right).

Taking hundreds of photos was my younger son, Matthew:

Here he is with Rowan, Terry's son, and in the foreground my brother, Stuart.

Getting to know each other are Spencer and Gareth:

Gareth is with Nina, his partner, Terry's elder daughter. Spencer is Matthew's son. To Gareth's left is Christina, Margaret's niece, and her husband, Lito, with their daughter Aria, aged 6 months.

 



Here are Nina and Gareth, with Nina's younger sister, Penny.

Terry and Karen's family and all four grandparents and step-grandparents:

Will, Terry, Karen, Nina, Audrey, Rowan, Frank, Penny, Margaret.

And finally, at the after-party light meal, my sons and I relaxing:

Matthew, Frank, Terry at Engedi Beach Resort, Onaero, Taranaki, where Terry and Andrew (Stuart's eldest son) and their families were staying. My T-shirt was a gift from Margaret's brother, John, and his wife, Stella.

Family History 1.713

24th December 1859

5 a.m. Thunderstorm very heavy rain and loud Thunder. 7 a.m. spoke by colors to a Dutch vessel in full sail, a pretty sight. The weather clearing off and sea calm. Lat I-37N. Neptune's procession in the evening round the ship they showed I of the crew a (black) native of

St Vincent W.I.

25th    Lat. I-25N. Christmas Day, Sunday

Church Prayers on the poop. Fresh potatoes served out but nothing also extra. Several pretty merry over their bottles in the afternoon. I Passenger (2nd cabin) struck by the between dock steward (both been drinking together before l got drunk) a great disturbance in consequence. A dissenters service in the evening in the single men's cabin. Not at all like our previous Christmas days but still we had our plum pudding but no roast beef.

26th

Very fine and hot. A strong breeze driving us S.W.W. when we begun to go direct S. hat 0-37N. A cabin passenger fell down the ladder of their hatchway, much bruised. I threw our beef overboard, no one in our mess thought it worth the trouble of getting it cooked the beef is generally very inferior.

 



 

The Party

One of the features of my 80th Birthday party on Saturday was a new book which Matthew has produced called "To be Frank". It consists of memories recorded by a range of friends and family of earlier years in my life. Over the next few weeks we will post sections of it here for you to follow. There are also versions of several 0ther contributions which a few people made in the form of speeches on Saturday afternoon in person.

First is the poem which Margaret adapted from my poem for Julia and Andrew's wedding:

80

 

Yay! Yay! Yay! What a beautiful day!

Christopher Franklin is 80 today.

With poise and with style

With a wink and a smile

Christopher Franklin is 80 today. 

We’re all here together at Waiau Estate

To grant our good wishes and eat birthday cake

With this celebration we just want to say –

“Happy Birthday Franklin – it’s your special day”. 

Hey! Hey! Hey! What a marvellous day

Christopher Franklin is 80 today.

With friends and relations

From four generations

We’ve all come together

From near and from far;

By plane and by ferry, by bus and by car.

Some came from Sydney and Melbourne and Adelaide,

Some came from Noosa, Dunedin and Palmerston.

And lots came from Auckland with children in tow –

But we’re still missing three – who just couldn’t pass GO. 

Our precious wee Sophie, born three weeks ago

Decided New Zealand was too far to go

She kept us all waiting and time soon passed by

I think she was cosy all tucked up inside!

So passport and papers just couldn’t be finished

In time for the take-off -

And so we’re diminished. 

But Andrew and Julia send hugs and kisses

And promise to be here some time after Christmas.

We’ll all get to meet Sophie Rose very soon

So let’s hope the passport and papers get done! 

So Hip, Hip Hooray, What a fabulous day

Christopher Franklin is 80 today.

We’re all here together on this special day

To wish him the best and Godspeed on his way.

With work-mates and team-mates

And play-mates and soul-mates,

With Grandmas and Grandads and plenty of Grandkids,

With Uncles and Aunties and nieces and nephews

With Mothers and Fathers

Their sons and their daughters –

Plus in-laws and out-laws!

We’re all here to say:

HAPPY BIRTHDAY FRANKLIN – it’s your special day. 

We honour you Franklin as Husband and Father

As Uncle and Grandad,

As Brother and Cousin

As teacher and preacher and even as sketcher!

As poet and writer,

Philosopher and friend

Encourager and helper

The list never ends.

Musician, gardener and cook

And recently - Blogmaker – yes, writing a book! 

Yay! Yay! Yay! It’s a really grand day

Christopher Franklin is 80 today. 

So now that you’re 80

We’re looking your way

To teach us the secrets

And show us the way.

We’ve met for the weekend in this special way

To show you we love you and help make this day

A special event where we all want to say –

HAPPY BIRTHDAY FRANKLIN – it’s your special day.