Another memory story, Max, & they seem to get more precise as you enter into this series...
I enjoy it for the local references, the sense of NZ then. But it feels a bit like youre trying to get every little detail in, & perhaps dont need them all...?
Doug
On Jun 4, 2014, at 5:07 AM, Max Richards <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
> Card Table, Breakfast Table
>
> When up, the folding card table
> with spindly legs - don’t sit on it,
>
> don’t even lean! - dominated
> the living room. Sometimes, Dad,
>
> rather than trek to the office,
> wrote reports on it. It was that
>
> or the kitchen table. He’d finished
> being head of primary schools
>
> from the north of the island
> to the south, and proudly joined
>
> the Primary Inspectorate.
> This meant a desk I never saw
>
> in Newmarket, a Government car
> sometimes, brought to the door
>
> late on Sunday, impressing the whole
> street, a dark suit and satchel,
>
> trips Monday to Friday off
> to the outer reaches
>
> of the Board, staying at pubs,
> or easier weeks round Auckland.
>
> Even Catholic schools the State
> inspected, always stimulating:
>
> ah, the nuns are so welcoming -
> they seldom see a man unless a priest.
>
> The lunch they put on for us!
> Just don’t go in Lent.
>
> As for the suspicious polish
> on the children’s work - those nuns!
>
> (Maori Schools had a separate -
> pakeha - Inspectorate,
>
> extra tasks, longer journeys,
> rougher pubs overnight.)
>
> I’d look over Dad’s shoulder
> as he drafted and wrote fair copies
>
> of the week’s reports.
> Never more than a page long.
>
> The handwriting was steady,
> regular, just like I’d seen
>
> chalked up on blackboards
> at Randwick and Epuni Schools.
>
> Fourth form, my ‘grammar school’ report
> said: English good. Dad would ask me:
>
> 'Is this sentence clear?' Simplicity
> we both admired, tact also.
>
> Some reports had warnings in them.
> Encouragement was better.
>
> Good advice he loved - when young
> he’d feared Inspectors too,
>
> and - they got on with him.
> They knew his father was
>
> in Parliament, front bench.
> It made for respect.
>
> Reports went to the office
> where typists admired his hand.
>
> Now fold away the card table,
> or was I up for more gin rummy?
>
> I pleaded homework - grammars
> he knew nothing of, Latin and French.
>
> I was moving beyond him,
> trying out words too long for him.
>
> Tact! - at breakfast I was denouncing
> politicians over the marmalade
>
> and The New Zealand Herald,
> in terms like ‘stupid idiots!’ -
>
> adolescent arrogance,
> infuriating Dad,
>
> upsetting peace-loving Mum.
> She made two breakfast times -
>
> an early start for the Inspector
> driving north to Omapere;
>
> a later for his son pedalling
> pushbike through hot sun
>
> and often pelting rain
> round Mount Albert’s steep roads,
>
> in his satchel a cut lunch
> and 'The Golden Treasury',
>
> to school - secondary,
> so one Dad never inspected;
>
> nor visited, despite respect
> for their reports (‘good progress’).
>
> Mum turned up to watch me run -
> third in the Open Mile -
>
> generous handicap - which Dad
> had never needed when he won
>
> the Teachers’ College
> long distance events.
>
> I cycled home while
> Mum went home by bus.
>
> Around the dinner table
> there’d be no politics.
>
Douglas Barbour
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would you
care to be more
precise about whatever
it is you are
saying, I said
Bill Manhire
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