They never intended to leave. The job with an old-established Dunedin firm was going well. Then came the takeover and the operation was shifted to Auckland. You had a young family and moving north with the job provided security. But later the company was bought by some outfit in Chicago and everything was moved to Australia. You stayed in Auckland but thought of getting back to Dunedin. By then, though, your children and grandchildren were Aucklanders and your move back south never happened.
Now, in retirement, your sense of place has drawn you to visit those places which are more part of you than any northern city can ever be.
I, too, moved away as various jobs beckoned and did my time in Christchurch, Palmerston North, Wellington and Amsterdam, but like General MacArthur my cry was, "I shall return!"
Life in Holland was a fine interlude but the other New Zealand towns I was sent to gave me the feeling of the old lag, counting off the days in his prison cell. Indeed, about 30 years ago, the Otago Daily Times ran a series about people who had returned to Dunedin and I claimed some sort of record, having returned five times.
Perhaps the only place overseas which gave that special feeling was a small Essex village called Finchingfield. It’s a regular on chocolate box pictures and I stayed there more than once. It fulfilled all the expectations of a New Zealander brought up on all things English. Four real pubs, village store, a church from ancient times, a duck pond and on the outskirts a manor house called Spains Hall which gets a mention in the Doomsday Book.
A bus from the 16th century Fox pub gets you to Braintree and then a short train journey has you in London. My Finchingfield host was originally a Southlander and had found his special place in the English countryside, but my thoughts were still of Otago.
Of course, there’s a fondness for the old home town of Timaru, but when I arrived in Dunedin as a student almost 60 years ago I knew it was the place for me.
As students, our horizons never went south of the Royal Albert or east of the Oriental, but then came something of a love affair with the peninsula. Watching the sun sink behind the Dunedin hills but still warming the slopes on the peninsula reminded me of Thomas Bracken’s effusive tribute:
"Go, trav’ler, unto others boast
Of Venice and of Rome;
Of saintly Mark’s majestic pile,
And Peter’s lofty dome;
Of Naples and her trellised bowers;
Of Rhineland far away:
These may be grand, but give to me
Dunedin from the Bay."
No estate agent’s blurb could match old Tom Bracken and his words had me determined to buy a house down the bay and Broad Bay became home.
In the 1970s at Broad Bay your water was provided from the tank storing the rain, and sewage was something you dug a hole for. But it was cheap seaside living just half an hour from town. My children went to school there and loved it and I even had a boat shed which provided a pleasant pondering place.
When retirement came the choice was not easy. Both Broad Bay and the Patearoa holiday home were beckoning. The small country town, perhaps with no boat shed but with its magic sense of place, won the race but only by a very short head.
The history of Maniototo absorbed my interest and still does, but I thought often of Broad Bay and hoped that someday its history would be told.
Now, Broad Bay is set to celebrate its heritage in style. It’s 175 years since the official European settlement of the area, 100 years since the boat club was founded and 75 years since the Polish church was moved there.
From Friday onwards, the bay will be booming with historic displays, a talk about Maori connections, a gala day and more. Locals have produced a booklet with their stories of living down the bay and I’ve had a preview. It seems I’m not the only one with a special sense of place about Broad Bay.
Bracken may have had Macandrew Bay in mind when scribbling his poem, but this weekend I’ll think of him as I sit by the old boat shed and mull over memories of my Broad Bay days:
"I watched the golden shower
Of yellow beams, that darted
From the sinking king of day,
And bathed in a mellow flood
Dunedin from the Bay."
■Jim Sullivan is a Patearoa writer.
