Reflecting on sombre times
CAN anyone remember the last time we saw the sun? I’m sure some of you lucky readers in Central Otago might be able to say ‘‘just the other day’’ or something similar. But along the coast here, I reckon it must be getting on for a week ago.
I’ve just been looking through a stack of poignant blackandwhite photographs of Norman Kirk’s burial at Waimate late on Thursday September 5, 1974. It seems a rather gloomy task but, as a passing workmate pointed out, the weather today is pretty similar to that on that sombre afternoon getting on for 44 years ago.
Thank you for sharing your memories of Big Norm and what you were doing when you heard he had died.
Peter Turnbull, assistant principal of Central Southland College, has stronger memories of Mr Kirk’s interment service than of news of his passing.
‘‘I was a prefect in the sixth form at Waimate High School at the time. His funeral and burial were during our August school holidays.
‘‘We were requested (expected?) as prefects to represent the school at his interment at the cemetery. We had a long wait, as the plane with the casket was delayed into Timaru due to low claggy cloud and rain.
‘‘Local Maori believed the heavens were weeping for the fallen rangatira.
‘‘I clearly remember the casket — very big, shiny and rectangular — being carried by key Cabinet members. The look of utter devastation on their faces is with me still, particularly on Hugh Watt, the deputy prime minister, who was as white as a ghost.
‘‘After the service, we all got to sprinkle some soil in the grave and that was it.
‘‘It was the first funeral I had ever attended. A man of vision and humanity whose death I think contributed to the short tenure of the third Labour government. Then we got Muldoon!’’
Yes, we did indeed, Peter. Thanks for that. Although I’m a little confused about whether the Fokker Friendship carrying Mr Kirk and the official party actually flew into Timaru or was diverted to Christchurch that afternoon. Does anyone know for sure?
Cathryn Morton, of Dunedin, has a vivid recollection of where she was when the prime minister’s death was announced.
‘‘We were on an Otago Tramping and Mountaineering Club trip at the Lake Ohau skifield. Word was passed around as we met others on the mountain. It was a shock.
‘‘I remember watching his funeral, the aircraft and the burial at Waimate.
‘‘The hymn Eternal Father, Strong to Save (‘For Those in Peril on the Sea’) was sung, and any time I hear that now I think of our dear Norm.’’
Keith Aitken, of Dunedin, recalls the state funeral in Wellington on September 4.
‘‘I was working at Arthur Barnett Ltd at the time. The management kindly arranged for a number of TV sets from the home appliance department to be distributed around the shop for the staff and public to watch this solemn event.
‘‘There was an unexpected spinoff from this occasion. On October 30, 1974, there was a live telecast of the epic fight between Muhammad Ali and George Foreman in Zaire — the ‘Rumble in the Jungle’. Thanks to the management turning a blind eye, TV sets once again appeared around the shop to enable us to watch this encounter.
‘‘Subsequently, we watched many other sporting events live. Those were the days!’’
An ODT colleague recalls covering the burial for the Waimate Advertiser. He was 21 and it was his first job out of polytechnic.
‘‘I got pneumonia waiting for the delayed funeral cortege, standing in the wet Waimate cemetery with my pen poised.’’
He says the journalists got soaked waiting, decamped to the Waimate pub, sat by the fire and dried out, and then went back out into the rainy cemetery.