Another year and thoughts turn to those we’ve lost along the way

Looking for a bone? Beck the 2-year-old Border collie takes digging to the extreme. Joe Sherriff,...
Looking for a bone? Beck the 2-year-old Border collie takes digging to the extreme. Joe Sherriff, of Alexandra, sent in this shot of Beck working on the new mountain bike track between the Roxburgh Gorge and Flat Top Hill.
Have you noticed how as Christmas creeps closer you start reflecting on the year just about gone? If I’m honest, I’d have to say it hasn’t been the best for me.

On the positive side of the ledger there’s been some family highlights and I’m enjoying being in Dunedin and working at the ODT again after all these years. My book on reporting on the Canterbury earthquakes has also just been released after nearly two years of work (excuse the free plug, it’s called Portacom City and it’s published by Bridget Williams Books).

But I’ve lost a lot this year too. My three months with whooping cough — just about gone now, I think — showed me I won’t always enjoy such robust good health as I’ve been fortunate to have so far. It’s made me lose confidence in my ability to shrug off most bugs and carry on regardless.

Without a doubt, though, the most painful part of 2017 has been having to say farewell to three of my best mates, who all died within a couple of months of each other.

Derek Holland was a longtime MetService forecaster and a highly talented flautist and musician. We’d trained together on the forecasters’ course in 1986 — he used to tell me the maths wasn’t too difficult and encourage me to carry on, when it was well beyond my ken. I remember buzzing around the Wellington hills on the back of his 125cc motorbike, clinging grimly on for dear life.

Derek died in March but because we only used to catch up once or twice a year, I didn’t know for a couple of months. I still feel sick about that.

We got to know Aubrey and Joan Fitzpatrick when our boys were at the same school. Ex-Dunedinite Aubrey loved all things Dunedin and Otago, especially the Highlanders, and I have fond memories of him marching around his Christchurch lounge beating his chest and yelling ‘‘High-lan-ders!!’’ at the top of his voice after they scored a try. A bus driver for many years and the owner of a coach company, he had many stories to tell and handed on several great story tips. He would have made a wonderful journalist.

I wish he had known of my return to the ODT. He was a faithful supporter of this paper and the last time I saw him, two days before he died in April, we took a Saturday edition into the Nurse Maude hospice in Merivale and read him the front page. Aubrey, I miss your amazing perspectives and having a beer with you.

Dave Moore. I don’t know where to start. Over many years, Dave — New Zealand’s top motoring writer, of The Press and Fairfax

Richard and Moyra Fraser, of Opoho, treasure his honeycombed-paper bell Christmas decoration. ‘...
Richard and Moyra Fraser, of Opoho, treasure his honeycombed-paper bell Christmas decoration. ‘‘This belonged to my wife’s family in the 1950s,’’ Richard says. ‘‘One of our children or grandchildren will no doubt inherit it, as did we.’’
New Zealand — and former Press arts editor Chris Moore and I shared hundreds of coffees together. We laughed through the earthquakes.

When Dave died suddenly at a car event in Wanaka at the end of May, I didn’t know what to do with myself. It was like losing a brother.

He had given me lifts home from The Press in Bentleys, Lamborghinis and Aston Martins. His jokes still echo inside my head. When I recall a text from my wife the day after he died, it still sets me off: ‘‘I’m sitting here at the dining table looking out the window and thinking of all the times Dave dropped you home in his latest flashy car.’’

Whenever I wear the Mercedes windjacket Dave gave me, it feels like he’s giving me a big hug. Dave, what I’d really like for Christmas is another latte with you.

Hot weather

Do you remember when the weather was still summery and I asked for remembrances of your hottest days?

John Barham, of Cromwell, recalls working as an extra on a Mainland cheese advertisement in Clyde in late November 2007.

‘‘Our exterior set was on Sunderland St, depicting a ‘cheese-day’ market. Three of us were featured as traders, each with a stall piled high with cheese.

‘‘As the sun rose into a cloudless sky, the day rapidly warmed up and so did our cheese. And it soon became apparent that the director treated the schedule with disdain, shooting various scenes in the middle distance, with never a glance in our direction. Despite constant and increasingly frantic application of wet cloths, our impressive towers of Gouda soon developed Pisa-like leans. By 10.30am they resembled fanciable candidates for the Turner Prize, and by midday sizeable volcanic lava flows.

‘‘It was at this point that the director and his entourage approached. ‘Right, we’ll take the market, guys’ he began confidently, stopping abruptly as he perceived the devastation. ‘What the hell?’ he exploded, turning to his assistant as if the poor chap was in some way responsible. ‘I’m afraid we’ve run out of cheese,’ I said apologetically.

‘‘‘Get this sorted out,’ he snarled at his assistant. Whereupon the group disappeared into the unoccupied Oliver’s building for a gourmet seafood buffet, while we lesser mortals queued for our sausage sizzle.

‘‘We spent the afternoon imprisoned at our stalls, fruitlessly waiting for cheese reinforcements. I idly noticed a cameraman filming the scene for whatever reason. Then at home in the evening, I took a phone call from a friend: ‘We saw you on national news!’ We tuned in at 10pm — sure enough, I was recognisable, as a voiceover imparted that the temperature had touched 40degC at Clyde.

‘‘We finally got our scene shot the following day. Five seconds on the finished commercial — but never mind, I could tick ‘To appear on National News’ off my to-do list.’’

Thanks John, what a great story.

Comments

Of course, The Press. Beck Eleven (Onze), Mike Crean and Jane Bowron must have been your colleagues, Paul.