A mere 50-odd years ago historian Keith Sinclair declared that, although New Zealand was "not a classless society, it must be more nearly classless than any advanced society in the world".
Even earlier, writers described our egalitarian society, including British socialists Sidney and Beatrice Webb who reported in 1898 "the working population seem to enjoy themselves as much as do the well-to-do and have agreeable independent manners; assuming equality of treatment by all of all".
My own in-depth research, based on being imbedded in the small Central Otago township of Patearoa, indicate we are indeed a country of class distinctions, and once I’ve tidied up my thesis, I’m sure there’ll be a PhD in it, but also some outraged reaction, particularly in Patearoa.
My starting point was to examine the ways in which different groups are affected by the seasons. From this data came confirmation Patearoa has three distinct classes.
The aristocracy: informally called "true locals". They are members of families who came at the time of the gold rush of the 1860s or who took up sheep farming in the several decades after the gold petered out.
The newcomers: the "middle class" who settled here during the last 50 years. Many are retired or semi-retired people seeking an escape from city life who potter about doing odd jobs or simply being more or less useless, perhaps writing newspaper columns.
The part-timers: often called "cribbies", they own a small house, sometimes an old miner’s cottage, and make Patearoa their weekend base during the summer months when they actually outnumber the other two groups and add much to the vibrancy of the place.
My focus on seasonal attitudes is no doubt a novel one, but with winter only a week or so away, it becomes at least topical.
Winter for the aristocracy is just another part of the annual cycle. For five generations they have farmed through the welcome growth of crops in spring, the heat and sometimes the droughts of summer and the hunkering down of winter, occasional having a heavy snowfall to contend with. Farming in frost is no fun but the cockies say they’re used to it even if, for a few, winter is the time for a short and well-deserved break in Queensland.
For the cribbies, winter is a time of discontent. They see their summer paradise threatened as the days get shorter and cooler.
Some simply desert Patearoa from Easter until Labour weekend. They mow the lawns for a final time, make a last trip to the green waste dump, drain their hot water cylinder (thus avoiding bursting of frozen water pipes) and disappear.
Fuller frosts follow, but the sparkling gleam that covers your car will have melted by morning tea and a day of clear blue skies awaits. Curlers hope for a week of frosts and the delights of a bonspiel. There will be three or four snowfalls during winter and some days it will lie around long enough for the kids to make a decent-sized snowman.
That pond over the river might just be ready to support a few skaters. The good men who supply firewood have delivered and the fire is cranked up from early morning to provide a womb of warmth indoors.
It’s warm, too, at the Waipiata pub where the fire’s being going since opening time and the regular bunch of entertaining characters will be there, just to save on having to use their own firewood, you understand.
Some Saturdays there’s football at Ranfurly and no game is better than that watched as the sun goes down during the last minutes of honest country rugby with the Maggots five points ahead and pressing on the line of those big guns from Wanaka or Queenstown.
Winter has denuded the trees but then, with the leaves gone, the vista of the snow-cloaked Hawkduns emerges and when a hoar frost descends those trees are postcard-picture perfect.
Surely, Shakespeare should have written "now is the winter of our content?" Ah, yes. Winter is a winner which brings all classes closer.
Maybe there’s a cribbie reading this. Come up next month, and the next, turn your water back on and join the middle class. We’d love to see you.
— Jim Sullivan is a Patearoa writer.
