Weekend History in the here-and-now
She’s a cold morning and no mistake, so Lloyd Esler is wearing his warmer shorts.
He strides into The Southland Times carrying in his big mitts an axe, a hottie, and a priest.
Any questions so far? Of course you do. Esler delights in inviting questions.
The axe – he wouldn’t be the first to consider bringing one of those through our doors – isn’t for brandishing. It’s a hatchet he swishes only sparingly as he explains the blacksmith craft that went into its creation.
The hottie is not performing any thermal duties today. Again it’s a storytelling aid.
A ceramic version but likely no older than World War 2 vintage, produced in response to wartime shortage of rubber from places like Indonesia or Malaysia, where Japanese occupation did rather take the bounce out of export ambitions.
And the priest? Yes it’s a tool. A weighted cudgel called a priest because ... anybody?
‘‘It’s for administering last rites to a trout,’’ Esler beams.
‘‘Got it on Trade Me. Cost me $1, I think. Nobody else bid on it.’’
For youngsters and adults alike, Lloyd Esler is a guy who makes history happen hereabouts, oftentimes in tangible ways.
A weekly columnist in The Southland Times he regards the remnants of the past as touchstones that are better to hold than merely behold.
So untold children he meets on school visits have had personal encounters with any number of his substantial collection oddities, even space junk.
There’s a 30kg titanium sphere picked up from the south coast in 2003.
It’s a tank from an American rocket, dented where it smacked bit of putty. Five minutes on a step ladder and he’s got a new nose.’’
It’s hardly as if the Jellicoe statue, and its partner on the Cenotaph site, of Lord Kitchener, invite comparisons with Michelangelo’s David.
‘‘Well, I couldn’t do any better. But they’re amateur. They were done by a Captain Feldon in 1928 and they’re not very good. He also did (Prime Minister) Joseph Ward at Bluff which is better. He’d had a bit of practice by then.’’
Ah, we tell him, what of the merry whispers that the reason Ward’s statue has one hand behind his back was a reference to him receiving backhanders?
Esler is exactly the sort of man to which you’d turn to test such yarns but he hasn’t heard that one.
‘‘Must have a look at him next time I’m there – see if he’s got a wee bit of a smile in his face.’’
The Lithgow statue, he promises, will be much better.
‘‘We’ve had all these failed attempts to get some recognition for Lithgow – talked about it for 60 years, proposing a sculpture or scholarships, and all that happened was the plaque at the bandrooms and a tile outside the Civic Theatre.’’
The plan is for the new statue to be something of a performance piece too. Push a button and you’ll get that oh-so-familiar tune.
Esler’s Southland Times column is notable for several reasons, not the least of which is that as befits the man who wrote The Southland Book of Records it is fearless in its use of superlatives. ‘‘I’m absolutely open to being corrected,’’ he says. And people will correct me.’’
Sometimes, in truth, he’s deliberately provocative, making a ringing declaration with the intent of unearthing a hidden fact.
‘‘Like the oldest horse. No one was going to tell me the oldest horse so I found a fairly old one, 36 or something, put its picture in the paper and said this is the oldest horse. Then the phone starts ringing. By the end of the day I had a 42 year old one.’’
And the record was duly updated. Not that the community is always susceptible to his wee provocations.
Consider the time he baptised the Catholic Church in Gore the ugliest building in Southland.
‘‘Actually it’s probably the ugliest building in the solar system. It’s worth making a special excursion to have a look at it because it’s just so bad.’’
He awaited the backlash, but either he wasn’t alone in his view or the Catholic community determined this was a splendid chance to turn the other cheek. The phone didn’t ring once.
Speaking of backlashes, one of the gems in his record book is the Least Successful Treatment of Alcoholic Poisoning:
In 1866 Dr Monckton resorted to an old naval treatment for alcoholic poisoning by getting a policeman to walk the semi-comatose man up and down while the doctor applied a horsewhip. Regrettably, the patient died.
Least Pleasant Behaviour By a Governor?
Sir James Fergusson visited Riverton in 1874.
He refused to join a procession in his honour, ignored cheering crowds, threw an address of loyalty and welcome into the fireplace, and declined lunch before riding off to Invercargill.
And under the heading First Lightning Fatalities?
One Arthur Crisp.