The Minder

...or Parasite?

When I was at High School, and being introduced to serious English poetry by a forward-thinking teacher, Owen Lewis, my two favourite English poets were Gerard Manley Hopkins and John Keats.

John Keats

Especially Keats's "Ode to Autumn" which I set about learning by heart. When I am wandering about the garden at this time of the year, some of his lines come readily to mind:

"Thy hair soft-lifted by the winnowing wind"

or:

"Thou watchest the last oozings hours by hours".

Ben Whishaw plays John Keats

So I was interested the other evening that Maori TV showed "Bright Star" about Keats's love affair with his neighbour Fanny Brawne.

Paul Schneider who plays Brown

In the film there is a third major character: Keats's friend and mentor, Charles Brown. Brown is depicted in the film as a crochety, fussy substitute parent, trying to get Keats's butterfly mind focussed on his poetry, and worrying that the relationship with Fanny was distracting him.

Abby Cornish was Fanny

When, after nursing his brother Tom through his final TB illness, (Keats had completed his medical training), Keats himself contracted the same disease, the doctors recommended that he move to Italy to take advantage of a better climate. He went to Rome, leaving Brown behind, and died there in 1820.

Brown moved about a bit and eventually in the late thirties arrived at Plymouth where he settled for a while. He got involved in the Plymouth Institution, a kind of library cum adult education cum discussion society. He became friendly with Tom Woolcombe, the Institution's secretary, and joined in with a group of radical thinkers among the members.

Charles Brown Snr

Woolcombe was also secretary of the Plymouth Company, which was planning an emigration project to the New Zealand region. Eventually when the ships left for New Plymouth, Brown was on board the Oriental, arriving in late 1841, three months later than his son, Charles Jnr.

Arriving here, he acquired a parcel of land overlooking one of the rivers and the East End Beach and built a house there. One of the streets nearby is still called Brown Street after him. However after a few months he became ill and died.

He was buried on the hillside above the Taranaki Cathedral, but during the Land Wars his grave was covered over by the excavations made by the troops guarding the hill. It was not rediscovered until a century later and restored.

There is nothing spectacular about it as you can see from this sketch:

Shortly before his last illness, Charles began a campaign to have something done about the lack of a good port for New Plymouth and he called a public meeting  which was very critical of the surveyor, Carrington, who had chosen the site because of the good land available rather than chosing an alternative with a good port but no usable land nearby.

Charles Jnr later became the Superintendent, or CEO, of the Provincial Council, and together with Carrington continued to strive for the building of an artificial port. By the end of the century they had succeeded in having a solid breakwater built.

As an old man, Charles Junior was badly injured in a level-crossing accident when he was struck by a railway engine while crossing the railway lines in the main street. The outcry from the public was so great that the Government rebuilt the railway line in 1907 to avoid the level-crossing and it has been on its new route ever since.

History this week

Stop and Stare!

The huge room is full of conversation, rising and falling as a new excitement appears, or as we stand open-mouthed in front of a new picture.

Parts of the room are in darkness, others are flooded with light.

On the walls are photographs, displays, old postcards, maps, letters. Here and there are display cabinets with tattered uniforms and old weapons. There are several screens with photos, or databases of names to be searched.

We are at the exhibition which shows something of the connections Taranaki had with the Great War a century ago.

We have stood in the foyer of the museum for twenty minutes while a local singer entertained us with "Watchman, what of the night?" and a couple of speakers introduced the exhibition and thanked those who had contributed. Then we all sang "Hoki mai, e tama ma" (Come home, boys) and trooped down to the exhibition hall.

Two photographic displays stop us in our tracks. One is a series of big family photos in large, plain wooden frames, of four men in uniform. At first glance it looks like four copies of one photo. Then you read that it is four brothers from one family, all killed in France within a few months. One of our friends standing nearby wonders aloud: "How would you ever get over it?" Then we realise the family is distantly connected with Margaret's family, and we pause again.

On the opposite wall of the room, many metres away, is the other photo: a large reproduction of a scene from the French countryside, with a trench snaking away through the centre into the distance. Almost all the photos you see from the trenches are taken below ground level, but here the photographer has got up higher and you can see the trench in its surroundings. We stop and try to take it in.

We have been here an hour and there is lots more to see, but it is time to go home for a meal. We will certainly be back for several more looks. Margaret has found a reference on a database to a relative she cannot place, probably a great-uncle, and we already know of one of his brothers killed a few days before the armistice in 1918.

Then there is Margaret's grandfather who went to France as a farrier and came home "shell-shocked" and spent his afternoons from then on enjoying a liquid lunch until the late evening, to the near-ruin of some sections of his family, consequences which are still affecting the family to this day.

My own family had two great-uncles who served in the war, one coming home with a wooden leg, which used to fascinate us when we went for holidays to his farm. My parents had over 50 cousins between them and many of them went overseas in the Great War; one at least came home a basket case.

As a nation we are only just beginning to get our heads around the meaning of this war, and to deal with its downstream effects; in another twenty years we will have to start thinking about the Second War, a much tougher nut to crack!

Priorities for Education

An interesting visitor

Julia and Andrew have a visiting friend from London with them over the UK Easter break. She is a teacher, with a lively, interesting personality and lots of conversation. We entertained them to dinner last week.

Among other things we talked about her job, of course, and she described the school she teaches at.

I was horrified with her description - it sounded like something out of the 1940s, a view she agreed with.

It led me to start thinking about educational priorities as I have come to rank them after a lifetime of various forms of formal and informal educational involvement.

So here are my tentative conclusions for what they are worth.

1. Basic skills: reading, arithmetic, writing

The 3 Rs have always been the basis of education over the last 150 years, no matter how many other skills have been added to the curriculum. Nowadays as part of their writing curriculum it is important that our children have a grasp of rapid typing or other data input, most essential for efficient work in many modern occupations. And in language, listening and public speaking skills are hugely important. The 3 Rs are still the fundamental building blocks, not only for language, but also for handling money and starting to learn about technology.

2. Socialisation: playground, culture, sport, adventure, swimming

This is where an over-emphasis on the formal classroom studies of the curriculum, and relegating extra-curricular activities to an inferior status is counter-productive. Much of the socialisation of children growing up is learning to get along with their peers, to reach agreements, find win-win answers, and co-operate in team efforts.

 

Researchers know that the wider the diversity in our classrooms and schools, the better this happens; that's why I would discourage single-gender and exclusive schools, whether they are set up for cultural or socio-economic purposes.

 

Experienced teachers know that children learn more about becoming adults from sports, drama, music, outdoor education and so on than from their formal academic learning.

Education, like many other activities, is a co-operative effort. When you send your children to school, what they contribute to the socialisation and education of the other pupils is as important as what they learn from the classroom or the playground. If we keep our children at home, for example to home-school them, in my opinion we are not teaching them to be morally responsible citizens in a democratic society.

3. Essential stories: New Zealand life, history, issues, democracy

In a democratic society, it is essential that everyone grows up understanding how democracy works, how the nation got to be like it is, how to strengthen the good and change the not-so-good. They don't learn much of this from textbooks about history or civics. Largely it is matter of hearing the stories often, as books, TV programmes, movies, and community celebrations, plus getting the chance to discuss them with others.

 

Everyone in New Zealand should grow up with a picture in  their memory of stories such as those about the Treaty, Anzac and similar war episodes, the Maori and European explorations and migrations, the growth of major industries and our famous people. Even knowing about Polynesian navigation skills long before Europeans had learned similar ones is fascinating, for instance.

4. Vocabulary: English, Maori, Mother tongue

As their mastery of language develops, children need plenty of practice in getting clearer and sharper understanding of words and their meanings. And everyone should also have a basic grounding in Maori, and the option of going on to study it more thoroughly. Bi-lingualism is an advantage in academic studies, rather than a hindrance.

 

If they have immigrant family backgrounds, their Mother tongue should also be available to them.
 

 5. Science and technology: principles and processes.

And in the modern age we all need to understand some basic science, including research methods and an introduction to the ethics of such work. Subjects like Design are important here to provide ideas about how to plan, how to set goals, how to implement programmes and so on.

U3A thrives

Two in a row

We had two U3A events that were interesting within 24 hours this week.

Thursday afternoon our monthly general meeting met as usual in the Sportfishing Club rooms at the Port. There were about 100 there; total membership is 230 and growing all the time.

Speaker this month was our friend Roger Hanson, who writes a weekly column in the Daily News on Science. He was talking about the evolutionary connection between fishes and humans.

We watched, among other interesting things, a video from a BBC TV programme of a baby's face developing in its mother's womb. At one stage, as the three parts of the face came together, it looked just like a fish, and then it gradually moved together to become a perfect baby.

From my point of view it was fascinating, because you could see exactly how a cleft palate and lip condition is caused by the failure to reach quite the final stage of this process.

Among other videos was one showing the way the continents had shifted through plate tectonics through the geological record back as far as 500 million years.

Roger's key points were that the breakdown of proteins in our bodies occurs so quickly that the repair process has to move rapidly to keep up, and that ultimately our systems fail to keep pace - a process we know as ageing.

He explained that in order to repair the worn proteins quickly enough, we need to have a clear set of instructions (DNA), and an efficient method of obtaining energy and raw materials for the repairs, through our food intake and digestive systems.

Given the slight variations in proteins caused by mutations in the DNA, some individuals have slight advantages over others in this repair process, and so have a better chance of survival and reproduction.

This is what drives the evolutionary process. I don't think I have ever had such a clear explanation presented to me - it was great; the audience was fascinated.

 

 

Sketching

Then, the next morning, we had the first real meeting of our Sketching Group for the year. The weather was bad, with intermittent rain, so we had to be inside. We met here in our lounge, seven of us, and  had a look at a book about Pencil Sketching by a former professor of Architecture at universities in the US, Thomas Wang, originally published in 1973.

The book is presented very simply and clearly, with copious pencil illustrations of what he is saying. It has lots of helpful hints and pointers towards starting to grasp some basic techniques. I had had several copies run off.

We looked at a page about how to create a line-drawing that depicted a building or a landscape so that the basic shape is clear, the foreground is distinguished from the background (and the middle ground too), and different planes are distinguished from each other.

I had selected a photo of a roadside pub in a village in Cornwall which, unlike lots of travel shots, shows the building from an angle and gives quite a sharply contrasted perspective. It had the advantage of having highly contrasting colours of white and nearly black, which meant it was relatively easy to ignore the problem of colour.

We all had a shot at sketching it. Everybody produced a creditable representation. It was a successful session and there was much enthusiasm for the next meeting in a fortnight; we are getting together at the Pukekura Park Kiosk. And they all wanted to buy their copy of the book!

Europe 2008 Part 61 and Final

Heathrow and home

In the evening we drove to a pub we had spotted on our way to town, where we enjoyed a counter meal.

 

Next morning we returned to the motorway and drove south towards London, pausing for morning tea at Woodstock, near Blenheim Castle, and driving in to Oxford and round the town.  The traffic was so heavy and slow-moving we did not loiter, but looked at the great buildings as we went past and carried on south.

 

At one stage we had had plans to visit Kew Gardens in the afternoon, but the distance from the airport, and the cost, persuaded us there was not enough time to make it worthwhile, so we dropped our rental car near Heathrow, and they drove us to Terminal 3.

 

Our plane took off in the evening and arrived at the massive Dubai Airport early the next morning.

Here is a scene from the concourse: 

 

 

 

  

And another to show you the size and style of the building.

 

After four hours' rest, we boarded the bus for another

15-minute trip to our plane, and the final legs to Bangkok, and Auckland.

 

We were very happy with the efficiency and service of the Emirates airline.

 

Some day we will share our general conclusions about the whole experience of our visit to the UK and Europe.

 

  

Europe 2008 Part 60

 Stratford-on-Avon

 Once settled in our accommodation we returned to the town and strolled around exploring the main street (above).

Most famous of the tourist attractions in this town which was home to Shakespeare in his childhood is "Shakespeare's Birthplace:

 

We joined a conducted tour of the house and its garden. I had a special interest because I had had an invitation to apply for a research job there at the end of my University studies. (I didn't apply, as you know!)

Here is the view of the garden and back of the house:

 

 

 One of the interesting parts of the tour was the upstairs room known as the "Birth room".

We learned that in those days the beds were very short, as people slept sitting up.

This sketch is from a book of sketches originally published in 1913.

Drawn by Gordon Home they were originally printed just as sketches, but my copy is the 1950 edition with historical notes by Katherine M Press.

Publishers were Adam and Charles Black, London.

 

 

 

 

 

  

A favourite artist

L S Lowry

Recently we have become interested in the work of a British artist of the first half of the twentieth century: L S Lowry. His most typical paintings are of the industrial parts of Manchester at that time, peopled by human figures commonly referred to as "stick figures".

 

There is a special gallery in Manchester devoted to Lowry's work, and you will find its website on the web easily.

 

Our friend, Gwen Herbert, has for many years created embroidery versions of these paintings and usually has around 20 of her pictures on the walls of her home near here.

 

Last month the Taranaki Cathedral borrowed most of her Lowry ones to exhibit in the hall where they serve breakfast on Tuesdays, and last week we took Gwen to breakfast there to see them hanging, and to introduce her to the regular customers.

 

A year or so back Gwen gave Margaret one that she had specially made for her at 91 years of age (they are distant cousins). Margaret has just finished a similar embroidery version of another one.

 

So I have tried my hand at sketching a couple in watercolour and pencils and here they are:

 

 

 This is "An Organ Grinder".

 

I have not managed to get the colours accurately, but it gives the general idea.

 

Below is "Waiting for the shop to open", which is the painting Margaret has embroidered.

 

 

Wednesday afternoons I walk to town and back and often stop for a while to do a quick sketch of streets or buildings. Here are a couple of recent efforts:

 

This is the building on the corner of Gover and Devon Streets, diagonally opposite what was known traditionally as the State Hotel.

 

 

And this is the half-finished Len Lye Building on the corner of Devon and Queen Streets, with the historic White Hart Hotel to the right and the Town Clock across the street to the left.

 

The left-hand end of the building has its polished stainless steel panels in place, reflecting the Atkinson Building opposite. It's going to be a spectacular sight when it is finished in a few months' time.

 

It will house the complete collection of Len Lye's work, kinetic sculptures, experimental movie film, and all.

 

 

Europe 2008 Part 59

 Shrewsbury

 

Here is a view of the Castle from the grounds the next morning: 

 

 

Then we walked across the street to the Public Library, where we caught up on our emails.

This is an historic building. For years it was the school for the city of Shrewsbury.

Most famous of all the pupils is Charles Darwin, who lived in Shrewsbury for many years.

So the city has erected a statue of him out side the front entrance.

Margaret thought there was a faint resemblance:

 

 

Then we explored the market area, which was not very active that day, and we went on our way past Birmingham to Stratford-on-Avon.

We very soon found a Bed and Breakfast place which suited us (below) in a rural area a kilometre or two out of the town.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Europe 2008 Part 58

 Pontcysyllte

Just down the valley from Llangollen is this historic aqueduct. As you can see it is still in frequent use. Imagine being on a barge, on this canal, looking down!!

Built at the time of the canal boom in the late eighteenth century, it is an important part of the barging network in that part of the country.

Tourists come from everywhere to spend a week on a canal barge, travelling slowly through beautiful countryside, and stopping at rural villages. 

Below you can see general shot of one of these stops, right next to the end of the aqueduct.

 

 

 

 

Travelling away towards the English border, we caught a glimpse of the aqueduct from the valley floor.

Then we carried on eastwards as far as Shrewsbury (below).

Shrewsbury is situated on what is almost an island in a great loop of the Severn River. Consequently the traffic is heavily concentrated in the city centre.

We arrived just on rush hour, and wound our way slowly around the choked streets looking for accommodation.

We eventually found an adequate hotel.

 

 

This view of the suburbs is taken from the grounds of the castle. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Europe 2008 Part 57

Llangollen 

 On our way eastwards across Wales, we saw many farmhouses similar to this one:

 

 

 

 

 And lots of countryside as beautiful as the scene below:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 We reached the village of Llangollen and stopped to explore it.

 

 

A tourist railway runs a few kilometres up the valley from this station.

But Lllangollen is famous not only for beautiful Welsh scenery and tourism.

It is the meeting-place for an annual Eistedfodd, or traditional Welsh celebration of song and poetry.

Choirs from around the world regularly compete at this event, and the New Zealand National Male Choir was  planning to attend in 2010. Several friends from New Plymouth were keen singers in the choir and were heavily involved.

We walked around the village and found the Eistedfodd venue on the railway station side of the river. Here it is in its off-season format.  But when the festivals are happening, the huge tent is extended to accommodate the choirs and the audiences.

 

 Our New Plymouth friends, Ian and Jocelyn Gabites, were in the UK reconnoitering for the choir's tour, and we had caught up with them in London and shared a cruise on the Thames.

Here we are on the Embankment that day, before we boarded our launch for the trip.  

 

 

 

 

  

 

Europe 2008 Part 56

More of Portmeirion

This is another shot of the central plaza:

 

 

 

 And here are some of the accommodation buildings in the village:

 

 

 Another general shot of buildings and open space:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Below is one of the cafes, this one is in a higher part of Portmeirion.

 

 

 

 

We also looked at some of the famous Portmeirion china on sale, but had no room to carry it home.

 

So we reluctantly drove on towards the east, across the green hills of Central Wales.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Europe 2008 Part 55

Portmeirion

 From Llanfair................goch we turned back across the Menai Bridge and carried on round the coastal highway until we found the tourist attraction of Portmeirion.

This village was built in Italian style, vaguely inspired by Portofino, by Clough Williams-Ellis in the middle of the Twentieth Century. It formed the setting for the TV series "The Prisoner" starring Patrick McGoohan, and also for episodes of Danger Man, and Doctor Who.

We found a café, and sampled their eccles cakes for morning tea; we enjoyed them so much we have since baked eccles cakes ourselves several times at home.

 

 

 The village runs down the slope of the hill to the estuary, as can be seen from this general shot.

 

At the bottom of the hill, right on the shore, is a hotel:

 

 

And here is a view of the main central open space of the village halfway down the hillside.

 

 

 

 

Red Puppy Appeal 3

One of the most successful sites was the City Warehouse store. Here is

Margaret getting ready to do the 9 am shift outside the doors.

   And nearby is volunteer Karalyn, with her dog Jinx, sorting out her shift for the same time

   on Saturday.

Meanwhile the crowds were coming and going at Bell Block Warehouse, where customers flock from all over North Taranaki. Bev Hall is here greeting donors at that site on Saturday morning.

Another popular shopping place is Countdown at the Valley Shopping Centre at Waiwhakaiho. Here are Sopihe and Julia doing their shift at the end of a busy two days helping Grandad.

And last but not least of our ten sites, PacknSave in the city, with Dina waiting for her friend Kath, who is in her mid nineties and still helping. They did the first two hours Friday morning.

In a few weeks we will post a final blog, giving you the final results, and our comments for future teams.

 

Thanks especially to all those who helped, by working shifts at the sites, or lending furniture, or transporting other volunteers, or assisting our folk at the sites, or filling in gaps at the last minute.

You are all amazing!

 

Red Puppy Appeal 2

Peter O'Donnell at Spotswood Countdown needed a break during the day on Friday and the Lioness Club provided folk to fill the gaps for him.

At Cantre City Shopping Centre our desk was looked after most of Friday by teams from the Pakeke Lions Club. Here Les is getting everything ready there at the start of the day.

Meanwhile at Countdown City the Egmont Lions Club provided cover for all shifts both days -- a massive effort!

The contributions of all three clubs was greatly appreciated.

It would be great if more clubs, community organisations and business staff groups could get involved; if you have an idea who could help please contact me!

There were two sites we operated only on Friday: at the Centre Branch of the TSB Bank, in the foyer of its Head Office Building in Devon Street, and at Huatoki Plaza as we have already shown.

Here at TSB Bank are Minna and Nancy ready to start, with Julia and Sophie who helped them get set up.