Patearoa’s Writers’ Walk can be a work in progress
IHAD a great trip to town recently to hear one of the speakers at the Dunedin Writers and Readers Festival. The audience absolutely oozed literature and were so busy signing each other’s books I felt positively provincial. Add to that a stroll around the Octagon following the Writers’ Walk. These 24 geniuses are people I have always looked up to but on the walk you need to look down on them.
Confusing, eh? I was half hoping to see that my own name had been added but no luck. It prompted me to call on Felicity Furbrush, who administers the scheme. I told her I wasn’t seriously upset about being omitted, as I am far too modest to expect such accolades.
‘‘Well, Jim, I’ve seen some of your writing and, to be honest, you have a great deal to be modest about. You see, you are not a real writer, are you. No novels. No poetry.’’
‘‘I have done a poem. Don’t you know it? It goes ‘There was a young lady from Sowburn/Who would give all the boys a turn/ When she took off —’’’
‘‘That’s enough, I think. Hardly James K. Baxter, is it? If you are serious, you might start in a small way. What about a Patearoa Writers’ Walk? How many writers do you have there?’’
‘‘Well now, let’s see. Umm, there’s me.’’
‘‘Hmm. What about writers from the past?’’
‘‘Good idea. Elizabeth Smither lived in Patearoa for a year.’’
‘‘Wonderful. I love her poetry. The Sarah Train is my favourite collection. Have you read it?’’
‘‘I’m afraid not. In fact, we may have rather too many railway books, I often think.’’
‘‘She probably wasn’t there long enough for a plaque. Any others?’’
‘‘There’s David McKee
Wright. He lived near Patearoa in the 1890s and wrote some great stuff. I love his poem about the local clergyman who won a cricket match for Patearoa. It should be in those cricket anthologies they keep putting out.’’
‘‘Oh, I know him. Definitely a plaque.’’
‘‘There was a gold miner/ poet, too. Jim Crerar. He wrote a great poem called The Sowburn Salutation. Here’s how it goes: ‘If you happen to be sluicing in your claim in early spring/When the thawing winds dissolve the snow and thrushes sweetly sing/You are sure to be accosted by some redcheeked little thing: ‘‘Hard at it?’ ’’ There’s plenty more if you like.’’
‘‘Perhaps some other time. Anyone else?’’
‘‘And then there’s Don Clipporth.’’
‘‘Don’t think I know him.’’ ‘‘Really? I thought you were paid to know these things. He wrote the 1934 classic, Foot Rot and Fungus for the Merino Breeder. Everyone I know up there swears by it.’’
‘‘I’m sure they do. But it’s still not much of a list, is it?’’
‘‘Well, we could start and then add to it, just like you’ve done in Dunedin.’’
‘‘I suppose so. Where should it go? Where’s the heaviest foot traffic in Patearoa?’’
‘‘The bit between the pub car park and the bar door would be, I think.’’
‘‘And the footpath is wide enough for the plaques?’’
‘‘Well, I’m afraid we don’t have any footpaths in Patearoa. Could pester the council to make one just for the Writers’ Walk, perhaps? But it took us three years to get them to paint the bridge, so it may take a while.’’
‘‘That would be a good first step, if you will excuse the pun. Mind you, with all due respect to the pub, the Writers’ Walk should really lead to somewhere literary. Any ideas?’’
‘‘You’re right! What about from the pub to the Patearoa Library? That would be a real literary pilgrimage.’’
‘‘I suppose if you have no footpaths, the plaques could be set into the road asphalt?’’
‘‘Wee problem there, Felicity. That bit of road is not actually sealed. Got left off the 10year plan, I’m told.’’
‘‘Perhaps there’s another busy spot you could pick?’’
‘‘OK. Around the hall is busy for funerals a couple of times a year and, of course, the bowling club area is busy in summer, but a lot of the bowlers are the sort of blokes who keep tripping over things. Plaques in the ground could have a string of compensation claims around our neck.’’
‘‘I’ll have to be brutally frank with you, Jim. I just don’t think Patearoa is ready for a Writers’ Walk just yet. Perhaps if you were to work on a novel instead of that flaky stuff you write for the ODT we might get somewhere.’’
Chastened, I drove home in a pensive mood. But, you know, by the time I reached Hyde, I’d decided Patearoa already has a Writer’s Walk.
There’s a plaque outside the hall with a McKee Wright poem on it and we could call it ‘‘The World’s Shortest Writer’s Walk’’. Brilliant.