New book coming up

Home Base

If you have been visiting this now revamped site in the hope of a new post, then you have struck it lucky. For the last two years or more I have been putting together a new book - Home Base. It is a memoir of the three years I spent as a New Zealand Army Regular Force Cadet, living  in barracks at Waiōuru military camp. The work is a sequel to the highly rated No One Home (Mākaro Press, 2018), which records my early and somewhat chaotic boyhood, and ends at the point I board the Auckland to Wellington overnight express in early January 1964 on the way to my boy-soldier life. I was 15, which at the time, was the youngest age one could join the Army. 140 other recruits of a similar age entered camp at the same time.

The work provides a personal snap-shot of the years 1964 - 1966 and distils the essence of what life was generally like for each annual intake of teenage boys who flowed through the Regular Force Cadet School from 1948 - 1991. Like No One Home, Home Base uses more than text to portray memories of time, people and place. Employing a bricolage approach, the work tells its story through short prose, poems, photos, sketches, maps, diary excerpts, and images of contemporary artefacts, memorabilia, and documents.

Home Base chronologically unfolds my Cadet years, but is more thematically structured than No One Home. Themes include arrival, learning the ropes, kit and caboodle, daily routine, marching and parading, minders and carers, leave and time-out, and aspects of barrack life. Vivid and sometimes humorous vignettes are used to gradually lay bare my army home and its harsh physical and social environment. Ever present are the volcanoes that form Waiōuru’s backyard, with Ruapehu in particular writ large in the lives of the cadets. Also woven through the memoir’s narrative is the story of how my individual post-cadet future came to be shaped and secured through the interest and actions of an Army benefactor.

Home Base will appeal to those who read life-stories to learn about and be reminded of times before and to an audience who enjoys reading about the New Zealand Army's past. It will also interest those who have served (or who are still serving) in the military in some capacity. Rather than being solely an account of one person’s memories of a particular life-period, Home Base will pique the reader’s curiosity and attention through the variety of literary and graphic forms that it employs and by revealing the uniqueness of a place in New Zealand most people only experience while passing through it. 

The book is due for publication by The Cuba Press (Mary McCallum) in October 2021. Before then, I'll advise when and where book launches will be and post some more extracts.

 

Here is a taster from Home Base:

 

Parade states

 

We were marched on and marched off

We were marched in and marched out

We were dressed up and dressed down

We picked up our dressing and lost it again

We marched paces forward or paces back

We stood at ease and stood easy 

We stood to attention and stood around

We braced ourselves and paced ourselves

We numbered from the right but not the left

We were wheeled in and wheeled around

We marched in quick-time

We marched in slow-time

We double-marched

We halted

We formed up in columns of three

We moved to the right or left in threes

We got on parade and got off it

We changed step and marked time

We fell out and fell in

We gave eyes right and eyes left

We advanced in review order

We presented arms

We hurried up and waited

Photo: Aerial view overlooking Waiouru Military Camp and Mount Ruapehu. Burt, Gordon Onslow Hilbury, 1893-1968 : F. Alexander Turnbull Library, Wellington

Town Hall Dance

I only went the once –
          an expat's visit,
claiming a rite of passage
          I thought was owed.

Nineteen sixty four, sixteen
          kitted out
in all the right gear –
          stove-pipe trou,

winkle pickers, car coat
          (collar up), white shirt,
thin black tie, Brylcreem
          Old Spice.

Hoping a girl from my past
          remembered me,
liked me enough to dance –
          no such luck.

So I joined the bunch
          of wallflower boys,
caught up on goings-on –
          who was seeing whom,

watched the rock'n roll
          extroverts perform,
realised my chances
          of emulating them

were hostage to Peter Posa,
          'She's a Mod',
and a faded avatar of
          my Papatoetoe past.


While I was sourcing images for ‘No One Home’, I reconnected with Jenny Clark – we were classmates at primary and intermediate school. Jenny is now a mainstay of the Papatoetoe Historical Society, who provided me with images of the old St Georges Anglican church and the Wyliie Road orphanage, which I converted to sketches for my book:

At the same time, the Historical Society was putting together a display of memorabilia relevant to the Papatoetoe Town Hall, which is celebrating its centenary. I wrote the 'Town Hall Dance' poem for inclusion in the display, which the Society then photographed and produced a set of four postcards from – see the post card with the poem in it below. if you would like to order a pack (or more) of the postcards at $5 a pack, contact Jenny at jennya.clark@xtra.co.nz

Learning to ride

Not long after my complaints
about the long walk to school

how everyone had one
so why couldn't I

you came home one night
with a two-wheeler bike -

a Monarch (boy's, second-hand)
front handbrake, rear pedal -

no bell, chain-guard or gears.
You bought it, no doubt

off a 'for sale' ad in the local rag
painted it fire-engine red

showed me how to use the pump
oil the chain, crank and hubs

told me to level the pedals
before I stood on one

straddled the cross bar
sat on the black saddle seat

while you palmed my back
steadied the handle bars

said to push with my feet -
one then the other - coaxed me

to steer straight, keep upright
as we practised setting off.

When I came a cropper
skinned my arms or knees

you painted them orange
set me up for another go

until I was able to wobble solo
up and down life's street.

If only that were so.


This is another boyhood memoir poem from No One Home (which went to the printers late last week, so birth is imminent). I will keep you up to date with when the book is available and when and where it will be launched.

I previously posted on this blog versions of two other poems which are in the collection. They are Three Memoir Haiku and Sticks, trees.

Beaches

What do you seek?

asks Waipū Cove.

What's not in this

beach-outing snap –

rock pools

a plastic ship

wind in our hair.

What brought you here?

asks Martins Bay.

The picnics we had

on your shore –

races in sacks

egg-and-spoon

three legs made from four.

What do you recall?

asks Mangawhai.

A badjelly sand dune

that ate kids alive –

the pipis we dug at low tide

a Tilley lamp, Primus

and tent.

Why do you still dig?

they all inquire.

To find what I lost

when I had –

     a mother and father,

a bucket

and spade.

This poem forms part of my next collection, No One Home (Mākaro Press), a boyhood memoir in poems and letters. 

Three Memoir Haiku

Living with addiction

Waiting for ever
outside a pub -
Dad is booking his bets




Masons Avenue, Hamilton

Green enamel gas oven
tick-tocking Grandfather clock -
our grandparents' house




Out of the blue

A new home
with Aunty Jo -
State House, Papatoetoe.

The title says it all. Visit Tuesday Poem for more great poetry.

Tuesday Poem: Sticks, trees

rocks, stones
old stumps
birds’ bones
slimy stuff
and mud
to squish
and squash
with our toes
a track
to slide down
on our bums
ponga fronds
to build a hut
(bracken for
a floor) then
make a dam
or boats of twigs
and folded leaves
walk the plank
fly our flag
bury treasure
in that cave
(not too far in)
sail a raft of logs
lay a bridge
across the creek
tickle eels
catch tadpoles
pan for gold
have a swim
before we
dawdle home

I wrote this several years ago and thought it would fit my poetry memoir project.

Visit Tuesday Poem for more great poetry.

Tuesday Poem: Turning over stones

The dream with the dark halo
has returned -

it is dusk     in a foreign country
a small boy     is asleep on a bus
he wakes     looks out a window
sees a tall building     in shadow
atop a hill     it is not a house
nor a church     nor a shop
it has wires     coming in    and
out of it

The dream dissolves
but re-appears unbidden
over the years -
          always the boy
          always the bus
          always the building

At some point
the man who was
once the boy
drove north
searching for
traces of his mother
          under stones
          on the shores
          of his memory

He is drawn
to places
where the boy
had beach holidays -
          with his mother
          with his father
          with his brother -
                    Waipu Cove
                    Martins Bay
                    Mangawhai

On the way to Mangawhai
he sees an electrical substation
perched on a hill by the road

The dream never returns

A memoir poem - one of many to come.

Visit Tuesday Poem for more great poetry.