Donovan’s World

Opposite the local school, in broad green pastures and a not-very-crowded graveyard, you can smell the polish in St Barnabas, Peria.

It is clearly a much loved and carefully groomed church and wears its age well. It was dedicated by the Bishop of Auckland, O.T.L. Crossley, on Tuesday 26 March 1912.

© DON DONOVAN   
donovan@ihug.co.nz

Modesty characterises the 1884 Methodist Church at Omanaia. Sharing a hill with a school, which is superbly maintained for just thirty pupils, the church is sadly neglected: paint flaking, timbers distressed. But it is obviously well used, especially so in December 2000 when I visited. The lobby and nave were full of floral tributes, posters, texts, and wreaths for a local person who had recently died. In the cemetery one grave stood out: that of a boy of 14. It was a love-adorned toy land of mementos, bordered by the cut-out shapes of red Ferraris.

Quite a few Methodist churches were built around the Hokianga at the end of the nineteenth century. At this one a spiritual dimension was apparently added which took it beyond Methodism. The whys and wherefores of that defeat me but I am sure they would have had little effect upon the simple charm of the church itself, comfortably shabby in its golden summer grasses.

Doing a bit of research, after I had visited, I learned that the church and burial ground were ‘out of bounds for visitors’. I was brought up to believe that churches are open to all and may even be sanctuaries for souls of any denomination; to me that makes more sense than exclusion!

© DON DONOVAN   
donovan@ihug.co.nz

Of all the many churches of the northern Hokianga district the Roman Catholic Church of Our Lady of the Assumption, Motukaraka is the most prominent. From the busier southern side of the harbour you see it beckoning across the water like a gleaming spire of many-towered Camelot.

Built in 1910 by H. A. Williams of nearby Kohukohu, it is thought to have been designed by Thomas Mahoney, architect of so many Catholic churches, convents and schools in the Auckland diocese. Its grandness speaks of the spirited! competition for souls that took place among different Christian denominations in the north. It even has a copy of a 1678 Bartolomé Murillo painting of the Immaculate Conception above the altar (the original hangs in the Louvre, Paris).

A caretaker told me that a man who once fell from the spire and bounced off a shoulder of the tower, hit the ground but was unharmed. Of such miracles are legends made.

© DON DONOVAN   
donovan@ihug.co.nz

Holy Trinity, Mehopa, on western Northland’s Whangape Harbour must be the most remote of North Island churches. I tried twice to find it until the driver of a road metal truck told me where it was.

Beyond a private gate at the end of the shingle road a faintly discernible 4WD track ran through scrub past a run down farm littered with rusting wrecks of cars and machinery, and other discarded items. The surrounding paddocks were mostly unfenced, the remains of old posts sticking up like abandoned wharf piles. Young manuka, about 60cm high, scraped the underside of the car and I feared I might be bogged down forever. The Anglican church eventually revealed itself in well kept grounds, where many graves had fresh flowers.

The main gate leads down to mud flats on the side of Whangape Harbour and I’ve since been told that the best access is by boat. Built for £120 by Paul Lingaard, a Scandinavian, who is said to have ‘jumped ship’ at Whangape, it was opened in March 1922. It is the third church on this site.

© DON DONOVAN   
donovan@ihug.co.nz

The Roman Catholic church of St Gabriel’s, Pawarenga, was built in 1899 on Makora pa, the home of the Te Aupouri tribe. It was constructed by Robert Shannon, a flax miller from Kaitaia, with timber said to have been sawn by the local people, who raised funds for its construction by gum digging.

When I visited it in December 2000 I found it locked and lonely, high on its windy hill overlooking Whangape Harbour. I sat on the even higher hill opposite where, wishing for a third hand to hold my paper steady, I did my watercolour sketch, noting the odd contrast between well-tended graves on the south side and the litter of tombstones among the dead puriri trees on the north.

© DON DONOVAN   
donovan@ihug.co.nz

RATANA CHURCH AHIPARA

The charming and distinctive Ratana Church at Ahipara was something of a surprise when, as I was about to head south, I came across it by the roadside. It is spick and span and, like all Ratana churches, is a consistently patterned reminder of the principal temple at Ratana in the Rangitikei.

The powerful Christianity based Maori Ratana faith started with a vision received by Tahupotiki Wiremu Ratana on 18 November 1918.

© DON DONOVAN   
donovan@ihug.co.nz

Lych Gate, All Saints’ Church, Kawhia

Where does one start on an odyssey such as this? Roughly from north to south, but, like life’s journey, indirectly. I started in Northland and went through Auckland to the Waikato, then to the Coromandel Peninsula and the Bay of Plenty before running all down the east coast to southern Wairarapa. From there I made a huge leap to Lake Taupo so that I could explore down the west side of the island, eventually to reach Wellington.

In Northland, where European proselytisers first came ashore, lie scores of little churches - some thriving, some not. Built in 1883, St Paul’s Anglican Church, Whangaroa, teeters impossibly on the side of a steep hill overlooking the harbour. Inside, a timbered silence breathes an old peace but, like its diminishing congregation, it shows its age. Its cemetery, although not yet full, was closed in 1966 ‘because of the unstable nature of the country’. I liked the detail of its apsidal sanctuary.

© DON DONOVAN   
donovan@ihug.co.nz

IN THE BEGINNING I had a list of over 500 historic churches from around New Zealand. I spent the following three years travelling the country illustrating, observing and collecting snippets of history. It wasn’t possible to include so many churches in a book of this sort so, as my main interest was in the uncomplicated structures more likely to be found in the country, I eliminated almost all city and major provincial churches. That led to the title Country Churches of New Zealand  which just about sums it up. The odd city church has crept in because it was probably built when the city was no more than a small town and has that simple charm that so much takes my fancy.

I wrote and illustrated a book titled The Good Old Kiwi Pub a year or two ago and have been intrigued at how much old churches and pubs have in common. They were at the heart of new colonial communities, being practically the first public buildings to be erected. They were focal points, the church offerings being spiritual; the pub’s more likely spirituous. They both would have offered not only comfort but also entertainment: comfort at the pub in a sympathetic barmaid’s ear; entertainment in church through the sheer joy of a lustily sung Sunday hymn or Christmas carol. They were almost invariably built of the same materials - whatever came to hand, mostly timber. There the resemblances end. Churches, being used with sobriety and civic responsibilty, had a good chance of survival whereas pubs more often than not burned down, not unusually through a glowing cigarette butt falling from drunken fingers onto a straw-packed palliasse on a Saturday night thus to deny their victims the opportunity of repentance the following morning.

The oldest surviving church in New Zealand was built in 1835. Since then, due to fast, cheap transport, good roads, and the urbanization of population, small rural settlements have shrunk, many to the point where congregations have virtually disappeared. No church is a more poignant example than St Paul’s, Whangaroa, where a plaintive note inside apologises that the cemetery is overgrown because there remain only twelve active parishioners all of whom are over 60. Now New Zealand is left with two sorts of country church: the first is a collection of decaying hulks bereft of support; the second survives with the financial help of the Historic Places Trust or earnest local communities of particular affluence and spiritual substance.

External architectural forms are my sphere of illustrative interest. That’s why I have, over the years, drawn and painted old stores, houses and cottages, pubs and churches. I like variety of colour, texture and shape. This allows me to pick and choose which churches to illustrate without regard to denomination or creed. Country Churches of New Zealand contains Anglican, Roman Catholic, Methodist, Presbyterian and Ratana houses of worship. (I would have relished an historic synagogue or mosque but never found one.) I’m drawn to them all, not only for their graphic possibilities, but also because, not being a religious man, I am fascinated by the spiritual energy that went into their construction. It seems that with few resources beyond their physical strength, newly arrived settlers were able to erect their churches as quickly as possible as if their spiritual survival were as important as the need to dig wells, build houses, plant crops and husband stock. And the additional miracle is that they carried the incumbent polytheistic Maori with them with such speed and to such effect that now, in the twenty-first century, they are some of the most devout of worshippers. An infidel such as I can only be astonished.

In gathering information, I have mostly encountered enthusiastic and generous contributors whom I have acknowledged elsewhere. But it wasn’t all plain sailing; some guardians have been distant, unhelpful and secretive perhaps simply because their churches’ histories have been forgotten, or for shame at their neglect, or maybe because they haven’t trusted my motives. I was actually ejected from one churchyard with most unchristian-like hostility but the less said about that the better…

Here and there I have mentioned building costs in pounds (£).When New Zealand went metric in 1967 the pound was divided into two dollars thus £100 equals $200. I have not attempted to convert old values to current.

© DON DONOVAN   
donovan@ihug.co.nz

I watch Silver Ferns netball because it is the game played at the top level, particularly significant when New Zealand plays against England or Australia. It is the game played at its best.

But the more I watch it the more I realize what a dysfunctional game it really is. It grew out of a time when young ladies did not trade body blows as their menfolk did in contact sports like rugby and league. If a game were being devised for women in the 21st century I suspect it would more resemble traditional male types.

Dysfunctional? Why?

Firstly because it cannot flow, the rules don’t allow it to. The ball holder may not run, neither take multiple steps, nor range over the full length of the court. It must therefore be a jerky, staccato, disjointed game. (What it does to the long term health of knee and ankle joints hardly bears thinking about).

Secondly while netball is legislated as a non-contact sport, today’s game is the very opposite. It is nothing to hear of eighty to a hundred stoppages in a test match most caused by body contacts resulting in penalties. Penalties are brought about by cheating, i.e. the deliberate breaking of the rules. It has become expected and commonplace. (In fact, commentators seem to highlight aggressiveness with the same delight as Roman crowds might have enjoyed a lion devouring a Christian!) Further but less frequent penalties are, of course, handed out for offside and obstruction offences both of which are mostly caused by deliberate cheating.

Netball has become a silly game of rules contravention. To my mind its structure needs a complete overhaul. If the rules are repeatedly going to be broken then change the rules (as did rugby when it changed the lifting in the line-out rule). The aim should be to increase the fluidity of the game by reviewing running and stepping, and reducing stoppages brought about by penalties.

© DON DONOVAN  donovan@ihug.co.nz

Empty, lifeless and encrusted with peeling paint, the Te Pohue Store seems to exemplify the rural decline of the 1980s. When I called at the local hotel to find out something about the store, I was told that the people of Te Pohue drive to Napier for their groceries these days. That’s a distance of nearly fifty kilometres, but short enough to kill off one general store!

I was fortunate to make contact with Peter King, formerly of nearby Rock Station, who told me a little of the shop’s history.

The building has been on its site for about a hundred years. It started life as a billiards saloon but became the store in 1910 when Grant and Howell’s store, opposite, burned down and they moved across the road. Percy Howell married Grant’s sister, Leana, and between them they ran the Te Pohue Store. Their three children, born between 1916 and 1920, worked in the store after leaving the village school.

Peter King tells of an occasion when the mare had a foal while still harnessed in the shafts of the delivery cart when Percy had popped inside the store to have his lunch! Later he did his deliveries to the local farming community and five timber mills in a less capricious ‘International’ truck.

The store was brightly lighted with rock gas in the early days, and in addition to the usual stock, all of which was served from shelves behind the counter, Peter King particularly remembers a speciality - ‘bachelor buttons’ a device made in two parts that could be clipped onto trousers, thus obviating the need for sewing on buttons.

Westal Tucker took over the store in 1948 but, sadly, it closed down in 1967.

© DON DONOVAN donovan@ihug.co.nz