Launch high, media low

Beattie's Book Blog is a wonderful pipe opener for my recent books, and his promo for my launch of 'The G'Day Country Redux' enjoyed my favourite headline: 'NZ's Most Irrepressible Author/Publisher Strikes Again'. The day of the launch was wet, windy and freezing, enough to strike me down with dread on two counts: firstly, nobody would come to the notoriously draughty old Paekakariki Railway Station Museum; secondly, what the weather might inflict on my nethers under the McGill tartan. I need not have worried on either score, with a grand crowd jammed into the old tearooms end of the station museum. As I wobbled on to a curved and spindly chair to speak, I realised Mayor Jenny Rowan was sitting on the floor next to the wind-whistling door. I struggled upright and donated a railway cup and saucer, the genuine old thick articles, to the museum, my thanks for the venue, liberating me from having souvenired the cup and saucer at the first launch in 1985. My co-author Michael O'Leary read some of the witty poems that head each chapter of the revamped book, Mr Rails Bob Stott talked about the boot hill of old engines and riding the last ever guard's van, Wayne Mason sang his song about retired engine driver Fred Hamer from atop the same wobbly chair, which he reckoned was the smallest stage he had ever been on. I reminded folk that Bob Stott's wonderful model railway recreation of 1950s central North Island timber towns was now on display at Taupo Museum. Mayor Jenny, by which time I had secured another wobbly chair for, stood to launch the book and tea and ham sandwiches and wine were served.

That is the good news. Then came the increasingly difficult task of attracting the media's attention. Thank goodness Bryan Crump loves trains and gave me a good stint on his National Programme night slot. The ends of the country are responding with the Greymouth Star and Southland Times reviews and Northern Advocate promising, but the big print media guns double yawned at another McGill begging book bowl and dreary old trains. Funny that Time magazine has recently had enthusiastic spreads on the $200 billion Europe is spending on train challenges to airlines and Obama's $8 billion on rapid rail initiatives. NZ meantime is planning more rail closures and not using our resources -- the public's resources, like allowing more holiday and weekend excursions. Michael O'Leary and myself have been lobbying the politicians to get those mothballed railcars back for The Southerner Christchurch to Invercargill, the best train trip in the country if it was restored, the Wellington to Gisborne and New Plymouth lines, the Stratford to Taumarunui. All are featured in my revived book, by guard's van, and also a comparison of the 1985 Silver Fern with The Overlander. And for good measure, there are over 100 pictures of rail then and now.

To me rail is the most agreeable way to travel, and the journey in this new edition with Michael on the Overlander to Auckland and back I hope proves my case made in the 1985 chapters is still so. I have travelled by train across America and Europe between the two editions, and some of Australia, but nowhere has more to look at than our own fair land. The proof I assure you is in the reading of this book. If only I could get more media attention, I am sure many would want to check out my claim. But, these gatekeepers of public information are indifferent to anything on the slow side, they want P stories and boy racer stories, they are as hyped up as their subjects, thrill junkies once removed, voyeurs of others' misfortunes. May they be stuck in their souped-up cars in eternal traffic jams that we wave to as we pass on the railcars. Remember that a few central North Island folk won a reprieve for the Overlander, and now it rocks. Check it out. Stress-free travel watching the world go by -- in the case of cars, often the reverse, they watch you go by. Rail on!

Full steam ahead

The G'Day Country Redux Launch as it appeared on Beattie's Magnificent Book Blog

Author offers advice to Minister of Tourism
by our reporter at the launch



On a freezing southerly last Saturday 50 brave souls came from the south, which was probably a respite, and as far north as Auckland for the launch at Paekakariki Railway Station Musuem of the revamped book of a rail journey around New Zealand, 'The G'Day Country Redux'.
Block cake, ham sandwiches and asparagus rolls were washed down with wine and cafe drinks in the original railway tearooms.
The author dressed up in his McGill tartan is seen striding down the museum and presenting an NZR cup and saucer to the museum secretary Christine Johnson. The cup is from NZR's last-ever crate of these Crown Lynn collectables, which was made available at the launch of the original 1985 publication in the Wellington Railway Station.

The crowd was warmed up by New Zealand's top singer/songwriter Wayne Mason of 'Nature' fame. Wayne sang his recent composition 'What Fred Said' in honour of Fred Hamer, who marked the end of 53 years on the railways by driving the train featured on the cover of the new edition, the Parliamentary Special steam train centenary North Island Main Trunk Line trip from Wellington to Auckland last year.

McGill noted that none of the half-dozen politicians who got photo opportunities on that trip whom he invited to the launch were able to attend. He said this was no surprise, given they have maintained the swingeing and totally unncessary charge of $30,000 for passenger train excursions. The result of this he said was that there was a threat this month to close and rip up the rails from Napier to Gisborne, when Mainline Steam says it would do regular trips without this tax on a journey that rivals Tranz Alpine for scenic splendour. McGill advised the Minister of Tourism John Key to check out the numbers of overseas visitors who come here expecting train journeys through our magnificent country, and find there is a partial and truncated Main Trunk Line, missing the best passenger train journey in the country, if not the Southern Hemisphere, namely the old Southerner from Christchurch to Invercargill. You'll have to read my book, he said, to be reminded what that trip was like, the incredible vistas coming in to Dunedin as opposed to the dire concrete motorway canyon.

The revived Overlander trip from Wellington to Auckland was made by the author and his colleague Michael O'Leary as an introduction to the new edition, to prove how pleasant and stress-free train journeys can be as an alternative to traffic-clogged roads. In his speech he suggests the Minister of Tourism might also in his other job note that one of President Obama's first initiatives was to direct $8 billion to rapid rail transit to be built along mortorways, while the French, Italians, Germans and Spanish are spending $200 billion over the next 10 years to treble their rail capacity for high-speed trains. Australia is also expanding rail. Only New Zealand's 'doliticians', he said, are irresponsibly letting a major rail resource and alternative transport system slip away.

He concluded by reading out a letter he received from ex-guard and present Auckland train driver Isaace Broome after sighting the announcement of the launch in Beattie's Book Blog. Mr Broome provides a comprehensive time table for reintroducing passenger trains from Britomart to the tourist and holiday spots of Rotorua, Tauranga, Taupo, Bay of Islands and Napier, Wellington to Gisborne and Christchurch to Dunedin, particularly at the weekends when our Kiwi Rail capacity lies idle. This would utilise our publicly funded rail network and undoubtedly save casualties on our congested roads. People would get back to work refreshed. The old Silver Fern railcars could be brought back at little cost.
Surely this is a no-brainer! Yet the Ministers of Tourism and Transport press on with incredibly expensive cycle ways, whilst ignoring the likes of the Taieri Gorge railway that gets the cyclists to the ways. Hence doliticians.

McGill suggests if you want to know what is so pleasant about rail you could do worse than invest in his book, which in the new edition has more than 100 images of the wonderful sights you never see from a car. You could even lend a hand by sending the book to your local MP, who flies above all this and takes a car from the airport and is plain unaware of our magnificent and comprehensive rail network. Those pollies, he reckons, need a shunt!
Check the book out at your bookstore. If they don't have it, get them to order it, or get it direct from the publisher on his website.
Posted by Bookman Beattie at 2:00 PM 0 comments Links to this post

Train Ride -- Enter Me

Remember Wayne Mason's wonderful Nature, enter Me? Of course you do. Voted New Zealand's greatest ever song. What this has to do with me? Well, Wayne has graciously agreed to perform at the launch of my new book 'The G'Day Country Redux' his composition 'What Fred Said'. Fred Hamer retired from 53 years on the railways. My book is a celebration of a rail journey round New Zealand in the company of folk like Fred, the guards and engine drivers in 1985, and today with fellow Railways devotee and Paekakariki resident Michael O'Leary, who worked on the railways with likes of his old mate Hone Tuwhare, and has written railway poems for each chapter from Okaihau to Invercargill. The preface to the book is Michael and I taking the Overlander to hometown Auckland and comparing it with my 1985 Silver Fern trip. On the cover is engine 1271, which was Fred's last ride as engine driver last year.So come along to the launch and hear Wayne sing of Fred and 'Rails' magazine editor Bob Stott talk about 'The Boot Hill of Old Train Engines'. It is 3pm Saturday June 20 at Paekakariki Railway Station museum. Traditional refreshments. Toot, toot.

The Bun Launch

Beattie's Book Blog has done me proud, not only generously reviewing the book but running an extensive blog on the launch at Turnbull House, including three images of people eating and talking and enduring me talking. Guest speaker the food writer David Burton was amusing on the way we used to eat, at the Jolly Frog in Wellington and Hi Diddle Griddle in Auckland. If you want to know what he said, what I said, who was there, what food was on offer, check out Beattie's Blog or email me for the full blog.

The Communion of the Easter Bun-Rabbit

Several already cannot come to the launch at Turnbull House, Saturday, 22 November, 3pm. Fiona Kidman is in Vietnam, Kathie Webber is trying to save the Buckinghamshire Library, Roger Hall is climbing the Pyramids, Galya and Bob Brockie are in Oz, Euan McQueen is in the Wairarapa, Katherine Lissienko is hosting her lad’s birthday in Auckland, Chris Finlayson is in Kaikoura, my dear brother John is in Fiji. Others may be recuperating from a new virus -- Kiwi culinary history exhaustion. I didn’t know when I started this book that I was to be the sixth cab off the Kiwi culinary heritage rank this year. Tony Simpson has reprinted his awesome A Distant Feast, Alexa Johnston Ladies, A Plate, Kate Fraser’s Cooking Times, Helen Leach The Pavlova Story, and David Veart First Catch Your Weka. I do offer a point of difference a friend identified – I offer a lot more recipes than most of the others. There is also sometimes an advantage in being last cab off the rank. Look at the Maori Party! Sorry, Helen, I miss you too.

Anyway, the other point of difference is that my book is primarily a celebration of food and loved ones, most notably my brother Michael, my oldest and dearest friend, who cannot be with us because he is not well. My formative bread making years were shared with him, and of course our Mum’s overwhelming provisioning, the subject of the first chapter, The Mum of Plenty Baking. Later Mike and I shared poker and peanuts, golf and beer barns, a Cab Sav McGill 76, even the kava he got a taste for in Fiji, where no doubt my youngest brother John is developing that taste right now.

Other celebrated folk are

Graham Kerr, whose leftovers I had access to courtesy of some lasses who lived in the same complex in the 60s

Fellow student flatters such as Win McLean and Roger Hall and Helen Faville

That wonderful Aussie actor Kenneth J Warren, who introduced me to Tom Ugly’s Rice and Kangaroo Tail consommé

English cookery editor Kathie Webber, who educated me, to the degree I could manage, new experiences like snail and quail and suchlike

A wonderful Armenian nun in Bethlehem who taught me about food and love

Graham Cooper, who taught me about food and love too

Railway guards, who taught me where the best spots were for paua, rock oysters and figs, and inspired my professional dedication to Kiwiana (I claim first use of the word, in my first slang book, along with leather ladies and underground mutton – Harry Orsman loved those two)

Harry Seresin, godfather to my daughter and café culture godfather to the nation

The haggis and malt whisky guests, including the dear cover lady Dinah Priestley who revealed my Protestant relations and that bread-making was in her family, and also

Ikar Lissienko, who claimed he was asked to deliver the address to my hagii (thanks, Jeanie Douche for the plural of haggis) because he was Russian, whose family provide a slew of authentic Russian recipes

David Burton, whom I knew when he was the guy at the Evening Post who assisted the continuous overseas press reports off the wire and into the bin, who is now our leading food writer/historian, if Tony will allow me to say that based on David’s astonishing output, several columns a week (I know how hard that is) and books and his continued practising of his preaching.

Finally, my dear sister and other cousin Audrey on the other paternal side and also on the cover with Dinah and moi, who provided me with the critical books and attendant info that prove we are bakers on both sides of the family. Oh, yes, my daughter Kate took the cover photo. All in the family.

Mock Funeral Memorial

Paul Madgwick is more than the handout kind of journalist so familiar these days. Not only has he handsomely reviewed my new novel The Mock Funeral, he has researched the life after the sedition trial of the priest Father Larkin and in the Hokitika Guardian newspaper for 20 October last has noted that the 'Manchester martyrs' that initiate my story have not only been remembered ever since in Ireland, but in the last few months the Irish parliament has had the long-held desire to bring their remains back from Manchester raised and the government has committed to 'bring home the patriots'. This is engaged journalism. Take note those metropolitans who tell me they have their Christmas books for review, like my story was of no consequence. Maybe I am paranoid, but I cannot help noticing that certain academic writers attract pages of plugs. Oh well, I cannot change my journalistic spots, nor would I wish to. I am proud to be in the company of the likes of Mark Twain, Ernest Hemingway, Charles Dickens, Norman Mailer and Paul Madgwick.

Mock launch with song and drum

The Mock Funeral was launched 25 October at the National Irish Feis at Kapiti College with song and drum. Guest speaker, Paekakariki poet Michael O'Leary, enjoyed impromptu accompaniment from Phil O'Connell on bodhran, the amazing Irish finger drum, but not before the launch was held up while a hair dryer warmed the drum skin to finger tapping elasticity. Michael sang 'Skibbereen' and Phil then demonstrated the bodhran's range, his wooden knuckles employed on the skin as he sang an Irish song, then turning the drum on its side and beating the wooden skittle against the wooden surface, making the instrument its own orchestral accompaniment for his traditional singing. This was folk music at its most potent and primeval, foot-tapping good. I asked Phil what they did in the days before hair dryers. The obvious answer, an open fire warmed the skin. No peat fires available, so you adapt, eh? It looks like one of those crossed wooden trays you sift dirt in, and apparently that is what the instrument was adapted from, whatever was to hand in the 'dirt'poor Irish bogs. Phil of course has played his drum in the H Block and Armagh protest Irish band Ourselves Alone (Sinn Fein in Gaelic)for 30 years.He has even, he told me, played with the fellow from the Chieftains, whose DVD is an incredible bargain for $10 at the Warehouse. Slainthe!