Books and People

This time last year I reviewed two books. One was a book about Italian War brides lent to us by friend Nigel Hayton, whose father, Stuart, features in the book: In Love and War.

The other was a biography of Norman Kirk: the Mighty Totara.

At present I am reading French's memoir of the first stages of World War I. John French was the British Commander-in-Chief during those early days in 1914. He supervised the deployment of the troops in France alongside the French armies, led the retreat as the Germans penetrated nearly to Paris, and then directed the counterattack towards Belgium again.

I am at present reading the chapters about the first battle of Ypres, when the British line stretched from near Bruges in the north to Lille in the south. When we visited that part of the world a few years ago we travelled from Bruges to Passendale, roughly the same line, and saw endless flat countryside.

Those early weeks in 1914 sound from the perspective of the 21st century like very old-fashioned warfare: lots of cavalry action, dashing attacks and fast-moving manoeuvres. But before long the development of much heavier artillery slowed things down and caused such slaughter of attacking forces that French soon reached the conclusion that these new weapons gave the defence so much advantage that new methods of attack were needed.

And so for years war became prolonged periods of entrenched forces facing each other across a barren wasteland which could not be crossed without almost certainly fatal results.

In fact it was the development of aerial bombing during the Spanish Civil War (1936-9) that enabled the Second World War to move more fluidly, and only massed bombing raids (Dresden, Hiroshima) which could bring about a decisive result.

This week we watched a programme (Waka Huia) about an old acquaintance and hero of mine, Jim Henare, the last Colonel of the Maori Battalion in World War II, and later member of the Bay of Islands County Council, and one of the founders of the Kohanga Reo movement and of the Maatua Whaangai programme which I worked on in the eighties.

It featured his two grandsons, one of whom is a Member of Parliament, who were with our children at the New Plymouth Kohanga Reo at that time, when their father, Erima Henare, who died earlier this month, was the local Director of Te Puni Kokiri.

Jim Henare was the kaumatua of the school Margaret and I taught at at Kawakawa. He was always a very fine-looking gentleman, who carried himself in military style, and when called upon to speak in public could provide impressive oratory in either English or Maori. He was one of the leaders who persuaded Robert Muldoon to back the movements for the Maori pre-schools and the Maori family fostering arrangements that I was involved with when I worked for the Department of Social Welfare.

As chair of the Paihia Community Council in the seventies, I attended County Council meetings and had lunch with the members: Jim was often there and we enjoyed conversations over the meal on several occasions. His contribution to New Zealand life was a major one.