Call to give writer KFC spot
South Taranaki novelist Ronald Hugh Morrieson once remarked: ‘‘I hope I’m not another one of these poor buggers who get discovered when they’re dead’’.
Sadly, that’s exactly what happened to the Hãwera-born author of Came A Hot Friday, The Scarecrow, Predicament, and Pallet on the Floor – all of which were turned into feature films after his early demise.
Now a call has been made to honour the writer with a statue outside his former family home – but the trouble is, that house was pulled down many years ago and the site is now a branch of KFC.
‘‘Ron himself would be cynically amused and secretly delighted to know that the town which failed to preserve the Morrieson home is now, 45 years after his death at age 50, ready to honour his name in a tangible way,’’ his biographer, Wellington writer Julia Millen, said.
New Zealand did not have many statues of cultural figures, she added.
‘‘It would be nice to have an unknown man like that being honoured by a statue, and I think it would be significant for cultural tourism, if Hãwera is interested in that.’’
Taranaki broadcaster Bryan Vickery wants the South Taranaki District Council to support a fundraising campaign for a statue of Morrieson, and mooted the idea in a letter to the Taranaki Daily News.
Millen read the letter and wrote her own in support of the idea.
Vickery said he was keen to see a statue on South Rd, beside the site of Morrieson’s former house.
He said Hawera should follow the lead of Whanganui, where a group was raising $90,000 for a statue of poet James K Baxter.
‘‘I think it would be really natural to have the statue outside KFC, I think it’s a little bit bogan and some people regard Morrieson as a literary bogan,’’ he said.
A KFC spokesperson said the company acknowledged the significance of the author to the Taranaki community and would be happy to hear from any groups working on a commemorative project outside KFC Hawera.
‘‘He was a bit of a larrikin. He was a great raconteur, he could make a funny story out of eating fish and chips,’’ Millen said.
Morrieson taught music and played in a dance band. He was known as a heavy drinker and womaniser and his name was frequently in the court reports of the Hawera Star newspaper, for drinking after hours and driving under the influence.
‘‘People would cross the street when they saw him coming so they didn’t have to talk to him, and he was seen to sit on the verandah drinking beer while his mother mowed the lawns. There was a lot of negativity. The wonder is he had the self discipline to sit down and write these four novels,’’ Millen said.
His aunt typed the stories out for him, said Millen, ‘‘but not the rude bits; he didn’t think Aunty Doris would like those’’.
‘‘He was an extraordinary character... a prophet is not without honour except in his own town.’’
Millen said she interviewed friends and contemporaries of the author, and heard many stories about him.
‘‘He famously once persuaded a girlfriend to relieve herself into the radiator of his car, I was able to run this story to earth when I interviewed someone [not the girlfriend] who was there at the time. She even described the dress the girlfriend, Joyce, was wearing.’’
South Taranaki Mayor Ross Dunlop said if a statue of Morrieson was erected, he would like it to go near the site of his former home.
‘‘We do need to celebrate significant people in our community. He wrote four novels and all of them have been made into movies. I don’t know of any other New Zealand authors who have achieved that.’’
Dunlop was part of a group who tried to save Morrieson’s house in 1992.
‘‘A group of us tried to save his house before KFC purchased it but at the time there wasn’t a lot of interest in the community.’’
Hãwera High School teacher Tim Chadwick collected 60 signatures against the sale, but a committee in favour of the sale collected 1300, according to an article on Pukeariki.com.
Some parts of the house were saved by the builder and are on display in a RHM tribute at Nigel Ogle’s Tawhiti Museum and part of a staircase is in Morriesons Bar.
The author is also celebrated each year in the Ronald Hugh Morrieson Literary Awards.
Dunlop said the district council was currently working with the South Taranaki RSA on a different project to erect statues of the town’s two WW1 Victoria Cross recipients, John Grant and John Laurent.