Q1: When you got on the train and headed south to art school in 1960 you probably thought that it was goodbye forever to Hastings. How has it stayed in your mind over the years?
I guess, in a funny way, it was a perfect fit for my unambitious ambitions. As I say in the book, I felt that I had the town covered: our Parkvale kingdom, Uncle George’s market gardens, Aunty Molly’s frock shop, Dad’s freezing works, my high school . . . the town was pretty much ring fenced by Frizzells! And I was there growing up with it. Rock ’n’ roll came along, the town became a city, Fantasyland was built, hoodlums trashed the Blossom festival, I learnt the Twist in the Labour and Trades Hall . . . everything I took within me towards adulthood came from Hastings. I even ‘represented’ Hastings Boys’ High School at some daft College House dinner in my first year at art school. Of course I was the only one there from Hastings. While all the toffs were from rah-rahing private school colleges in the South Island I just crashed in with a rowdy Hastings rah-rah — and I was only a junior. I also taught them all the Twist at half a crown a pop. Did quite well. Boy, did those lads lack rhythm. And now I’m on the Hastings Boys’ wall of fame! How’s that for identification? Hell, I’m not allowed to forget the place!
Q2: The book is full of fabulous short stories — 30 of them! How did they spring into your mind?
All (!) I had to do was recall some tiny hook and it just seemed to build. This was a revelation to me too!
Q3: And then they just kept coming?
Oh yes . . . once I figured out the trick outlined above. Not sitting round waiting for some sort of authentication was a release too!
Q4: Is it true that you got off a plane in Australia while the book was in production and knocked another one off?
Ah, yes. Plane travel . . . doesn’t it open the mind? The release from the usual cares. The brain starts working in the departure lounge. I wrote that piece at my daughter’s kitchen table in Brunswick, chortling away to myself. I’m still recalling sharp little details, like Mum getting me to trap blowflies with my bare hands against the sash windows and releasing them back into the garden.
Q5: Your parents are such richly drawn characters. Did it feel satisfying to stand back and make your assessment of them?
Indeed. Like all kids we talked about Mum and Dad all the time, taking them apart, and when I sat down to write about them I could circle round those discussions looking for fresh insights — which are insights into your own character of course.
Q6: And to show your love for them?
Yes, of course. I was very lucky and got both of them relatively ‘fresh’. Knowing how we all have to make it up as we go along I reckon they did a pretty good job! Mum was a simple soul but incredibly creative and resourceful and Dad was a well-read, intelligent — and wilfully creatively — illiterate.
Q7: And what of that little town and its quirky ways and oddball characters . . . is this book a bit of a love letter to them too?
Yes, it’s interesting how the book morphed into a ‘love song to a small New Zealand town’. Entirely by default of course. I was part of it and not part of it, subjective and objective. The innocent bystander, happy to stand there and watch. Isn’t that what artists do?
Q8: Hastings sort of made you?
Well, I’m not sure. Maybe Pahiatua would’ve made me too. I never felt as if I was ‘making the best of things’ or that things were making the best of me. I kind of knew I was different but rather took pride in it. In fact I worked on it. In a quiet way.
Q9: Guns, old cars, digging tunnels, motorbikes, wandering unsupervised around a freezing works . . . it was a boy’s own adventure that most town kids don’t have anymore. A pity?
Well, what you don’t know you don’t miss. But I do know that my own kids had a bigg(ish) city at their feet. There were quite a few ‘boy’s own’ adventures there! But urban, not rural. Not many guns.
Q10: Proud of this book?
Oh God, I can’t tell you!
