I went to the Temple this weekend, which necessitated me driving via the stretch of road between Broadwood and Mangamuka Bridge Settlement. There is a specific corner on that road, in the small gorge just before the Settlement, where uncle Laurie died in 1959. I always turn the sounds off at that point and give my uncle a thought. He was only 28 when he died.
I really have very few unfiltered memories of uncle, other than those of crying over his coffin and of seeing my father cry for the first time – one of the few times I saw it. He and Laurie were close. I have two photos of uncle, and he looks a lot like Dad with the big gap in his teeth, but (even given Dad's hellraising reputation as a young man) uncle's photos give the impression of a man with an additional edge to him. And everything I grew up hearing about him kind of confirms that he was what Dougie would call "a shit disturber." A charming one. I think he and Dougie would have recognised each other.
Uncle Laurie was the sixth child born to Nanna Alma and Grandpa Ray Herbert. Being a twin (the other baby died during their birthing) and premature he was small, so his nickname was Skin. Actually nanna Alma had three sets of twins. Uncle Don was the sole survivor of the first, uncle Laurie of the second, and neither of the third set made it. Growing up, uncle was haututu to the max. He'd start trouble then laugh gleefully to see his three older brothers wade in to save his hide. But he could handle himself in a scrap and was always willing to wade in himself on behalf of family and friends.
Although he never married, uncle may or may not have had children. He certainly never had any shortage of willing lady friends. I always harbour the secret hope, for single men who die in their prime, that there may be a child somewhere. Not the way the Church would have it I know, but to me it would be sad if they'd lived and died without issue.
Anyway, Mum was pregnant at the time Laurie died which is why Bo's first name is actually Laurence. His second name, Andrew, is in honour of Mum's father and he does have the ahua of the Rollo's, but his nature follows more after uncle Laurie than grandpa Andrew.
Now, how did Laurence Andrew become Bo? Although not actually black, he has always been the darkest of us all – so his first nickname, given by our younger aunts and older cousins when he was barely a year old, was Nigger. But he was still a pre-schooler when Mum put her foot down. Deeply moved by the race riots and rights news coming out of the US, she was not happy to have her son known by the "N" word. Being inveterate nick-namers, Dad’s family then saw a link between Laurence (as Mum still called him) and a cartoon character called Bobo the Monkey. So he became Bobo, which, over time, was shortened to Bo.
Most of my childhood memories of Bo are associated with fighting and / or blood, and it’s odd what can trigger those memories. On the way to church this morning we were talking about putting in the spring garden and Dougie asked me to look out for a genuine good quality rake. "Not a grass rake," he said, which I already knew but didn't stop him enlarging on - "A solid metal rake with a fine comb." And immediately I remembered the time exactly such a rake fell off the palm of my hand and landed right in the crown of Bo's head.
No – for once we weren’t fighting, quite the contrary. We were playing very happily, although separately – Bo running around and around the house and I balancing the rake on my hand. At some point the rake left my hand (whether by design or by accident, I can’t say now) and went into Bo’s head, eliciting a fountain of blood and blood-curdling screams from him. It must have hurt like blazes, but he was a tough little nut and not given to getting others in trouble. So I’m sure it was as much fright at the blood as the pain that made him cry. It sure gave me a fright so, of course, I scarpered. It seemed the wisest thing to do. Especially when Dad noticed the hullabaloo and started running towards us. Hunger eventually drove me home where I got the kick up the backside I knew was waiting for me. I felt I’d gotten off lightly.
But by far the two bloodiest incidents in his childhood resulted from Bo’s own actions. The first was when, aged 2 years, he cut 8 month old John’s neck open with the butcher knife while he was sleeping in his cot. Luckily he was sleeping face down because the cuts were deep and the scars remain to this day. I have no idea why Bo did it. The second event was when, aged 3 years, he crashed the tractor. Dad had worked on it earlier in the day putting the mower blade on, and had left it on a hillside with just the handbrake to hold it. He was going down to get the mail when he heard the distinctive squeal of the tractor wheels turning. He turned in time to see it hurtling down the road and Bo leaping off before it flew over the bank and crumpled on the ground 10 feet below. There was the slightest of scrapes on Bo’s back where the mower blade had touched. That was all. I don’t think anyone knows why he did it. Just haututu I suppose.
Both these events were so big that no punishment was awardable. They were the kind of thing that leaves parents weak with gratitude that their children have survived. But often as not Bo found himself on the receiving end of Dad’s swift boot, and it seemed he was always in some kind of trouble. In fact he and I were both the main recipients of Dad’s punishments, as well as the chief rivals for his approval. I didn’t like him much back then, and the evidence is that he felt the same way about me. But we developed the closeness of outlaws, which meant we would sometimes hang together rather than hang separately. Also, our childish dislike of each other was tempered by the fact that we did have some things in common. Like - neither of us would ever nark, we believed vengeance was ours to take, and violence was OK with us both.
There is no doubt in my mind that all us kids loved each other. But, for Bo and I, even love could tip over into dangerous places if either of us felt challenged by the other. Hence we both jumped off the roof one day in the half-belief / half-hope that we could fly further than the other. Another time we climbed to and dropped from ever higher and higher branches of a tree onto our knees to see who would stop first. And whenever Mum and Dad went to town or to a meeting, leaving me in charge, then our rivalry reached new lows. One time I locked him out of the house (there were no keys, so the lockout was achieved with a stout knife in the doorjamb) and Bo spent all day hurling everything he could find at that door – gumboots, dirt, rocks off the road, even the pumpkins Dad had drying on the tankstand. Every now and then I’d lose all patience, open the door and rush through the hail of objects he was throwing to thrash him, then leave him bruised and crying on the ground. As the day wore on he got in some good shots, but it was always going to end one way. I was stronger than he and, whatever Dad had done to me in my last hiding, well – I did that to Bo.
It sounds brutal, and it was. But we never ever told on each other. Nor did we ever seek to get each other in trouble. I respected that even while I kept a close eye on him.
On a more wholesome note we both loved playing and meeting challenges head on. For example, when Dad went through his fitness routines (jogging, push-ups, etc) it was a matter of pride to us both to either keep up with him or at least to complete everything he did. And when we were playing as a family, if there was a goal we’d set that needed someone game enough to risk life and limb – well, Bo was always game. Like the time we decided, against Dad’s strict instructions, to cross the slip - an eroding hillside which had been moving for years at erratic rates. The winter before this incident we’d heard the crack and snap of fully mature kauri and totara trees splitting as the hill shifted out from under them and turned into wet slurry. So Dad was very clear in his warnings to us – “Don’t play in the slip or you’ll get it.” On the day that we went into the slip we had no collective intention of doing so, and I’m not sure, even now, that we were actually playing in it. It seems to me that we were just skirting its edges on our way home because it was quicker than going round that whole hillside. Katarina and I were at the front keeping a rough eye on the little ones. Bo was at the back, closest to the actual slip, and I think that’s how and why he went into it. He must have struggled silently for a bit because, by the time he called out to us, we were quite a way away and when we got to him the mud was over his knees. No one has ever pointed something out to me and announced, “That’s quicksand.” But I know what it is. On that day as the five of us struggled to get Bo out of the sucking ground, with his tear and fear-stained face looking at us, and our own terror turning our muscles and bones as weak as water, I knew that was quicksand and I have never been so frightened in my life. When Bo came free (minus his boots and jeans) we all lay crying and panting on the ground. I looked up at the huge sky and I have never loved him so strongly. When our crying was spent we all went up to the dam between our and the Kohe Rd farms, cleaned ourselves, put together a story about the loss of his boots and jeans, then went home. I don’t recall if there was any punishment for the lost clothing, but I do know none of us ever told Dad where we’d been that day.
So, you see, not all our time was taken up fighting. In fact much of our childhood was about parallel experiences and events but, this being my memoir, I can only give my view of these.
No memoir of Bo’s childhood and youth is complete without talking about his sporting prowess and how he overcame (temporarily) it to achieve academically. By the time he was 8, I was away to Boarding School and we were never under the same roof as children again. Still I was aware as he grew that he was cleaning up older youth and even adults in swimming, athletics, rugby and chopping. Later he also got into judo, tennis and basketball. But these all paled into insignificance when, in his 7th form year, he gave away all sports to concentrate on getting his Bursary. He got it too, the only one of us to do so. And that brings me to the earlier change that came into his life when he discovered “The Lord of The Rings.” Before that book, school was a place to play sport and eat lunch for him. After it, school became a multi-dimensional place where reading was a magic carpet between dimensions. In fact he introduced Tolkien into the family because even Mum had not read him before Bo.
Another important change happened in my and Katarina’s last year at school. We were living in Jay and Elaine Matthews home, which had a high porch with no rails on it. One morning before the school bus came, he and I were arguing. By that stage in our life (I was 17 he was 13) it was unusual for us to fight. Anyway in mid-argument he turned his back on me and I took the chance to put my foot in his back and push him off the porch. He was still eating his porridge so he fell awkwardly, but when he sprang to his feet and came flying up the steps shouting that I was going to get it, I knew – I was going to get it. Then I figured, Oh well, I’m on top of these stairs and I may as well get in one good kick or punch before I get it. Then he stopped. “Come on!” I taunted, “What are you waiting for?” I remember how thoughtfully Bo looked at me before he said, “I don’t hit girls.” Then turned and walked away. I felt yay small – and very, very grateful. Bo’s relationship with all us sisters changed from that day on.
And that brings me to his relationship with John. I have always supposed that the story of Bo’s young years must be very intertwined with that of John because they were “The Boys” of our family, even though they were so different from each other. John was small and squeaky and not at all into physical confrontation if it could be avoided, while Bo was muscular and gruff and may as well have had a sign on his head saying "Punch me before I punch you." Maybe that's a bit extreme, but it's a fact that John would talk his way out of a paper bag, while Bo would punch. So it seemed to me that, more often than not, they hung together out of gender loyalty as much as brotherly love. But given that I was very self-centred at the time, I didn’t really register much about their relationship back then. What I do remember is that they argued a lot and, every now and then, Dad would have a gutsful and give them both a hiding over the top of their "He did it / No, he did it" objections. And when that happened I'd just laugh nastily. Like the time one of them accidentally filled Dad's boots with fresh cowshit, thinking it was the other's boots. (I must ask them at our next get-together which one it was who did it. Wonder if they'll tell?) I thought it was a big laugh when Dad put his feet in the boots. He was wild but controlled enough to take the time to go up the shed and cut a piece of polythene hose to give them a hiding with. I had no sympathy for them. In fact I felt they had no idea what a "real" hiding was. Cruel eh?
Anyway, in 1977 they both went to boarding school at Hato Petera while I was still nursing at the North Shore Hospital, just down the road from them. Their world was vastly removed from mine in many ways, but I kept an older sisterly eye on them both. If they needed money, I was generally good for it and if I needed an escort, they were useful substitutes for my boyfriend. But neither of them were hamu. They never asked for anything. Sure, if they needed money they took what I offered, but if they didn’t – then they didn’t take it. Their boarding school experience was a lot more liberal than mine had been. E.g. I went to the Poenamo (a local pub) one night, to find them already there and well on the way.
While the boys were in their first year at Hato Petera Mum got pregnant with Aaron. When they came home for their next holidays Mum, in her usual roundabout way broke the news to them by saying, “This time next year we’ll hear the pitter-patter of little feet around this house.” They both looked up from their comics and Bo asked if Katarina was pregnant. I happened to be home on that day as well and, when Mum said no, they both turned and looked at me calculatingly. When Mum finally spelt it out that it was her who was pregnant they both just stared at her then ducked back into their comics without another word. I’m sure they weren’t taking in a word of what they were reading. Regardless of how gobsmacked the boys may have been at his conception, I know Aaron's birth left them as bowled over as the rest of us with awe and delight. I wonder if Bo had any inkling then that within 5 short years he would be a father himself? In fact Conan’s birthday is just two weeks before Aaron’s.
It’s hard now to recognise the elemental creature that Bo was as a kid. His competitiveness is undiminished but he's no longer the wildly elemental entity that would rage all day over some slight - real or imagined, and we no longer compete for Dad's attention. Maybe any competition was only ever in my own mind. Anyway, Dad has lived long enough for us all to grow up and get over any urge to compete over him - and that is a gift for which we can all be grateful.
Yes, Bo’s life definitely sped towards fatherhood after he left school at 18. He was married at 21 and became a father at 22 - that was Conan. Two and a half years later came Chase, and two and a half years after that came Sean. Being a Dad was great for him. In fact he seemed made for it. But of course it was only made possible by his sweetheart, Chriss.
I don't really recall much about the day Katarina and I first met Chriss in 1980. It was the annual Tuatua Netball Competition in Kaitaia and she was playing in one of the visiting Auckland teams - I think it was Reckitt & Colmans where she and Bo both worked. Anyway, I was in the heyday of my vanity (no glasses), poverty (no contacts) and delinquency (frequently tipsy), so you could say I was blind drunk. Whatever - I don't remember meeting her, but Katarina does. She reckons that Bo introduced Chriss to her as the woman he was going to marry, and he did just that on 26th Septmber 1981. By then we'd all come to know and love the short, pretty and fiery Cook Island, town-girl very much and I was honoured to be one of their bridesmaids.
Bo and Chriss were married for just under 20 years and then she died, leaving us all in total shock and grief. In the Temple we do work related to the eternal family and this weekend I’ve been reminded that death can’t break a family. It’s an eternal thing and what we call death is only a temporary separation, not a permanent break. We all have faith that this is true, but I tell you - as a family we've never experienced anything like the wound of her death. We don't fear death - we just miss Chriss. Hers was the first death in our generation of the family and with it, as happened with the birth of the first of our children, so we began to move into another life era - that of dying. Bo said to us all not long after Chriss died, "Treasure every moment of your life together." I add to that my own advice - live life to make you worthy of being reunited forever with the ones you love and take nothing for granted. Love can come again, with all its baggage - both gory and glorious, but it should never ever be taken for granted.
Uncle Laurie was the first death-separation I remember and Bo never knew him in this life. Will they recognise each other when they meet? I’m sure they will. Our Chriss left us on July 7th 2001 and joined uncle Laurie. I wonder if he and she talk about his namesake? I’m sure they do. In the meantime it falls to Bo to live the life he has as best he can. Does he have what it takes to live it well until it is done? I know he does.
Elton John once wrote a song that has the lines,
"Who lived here?
He must have been a gardener that cared a lot,
Who weeded out the tares and grew a good crop,
And we are so amazed,
We're crippled and we're dazed,
A gardener like that one,
No-one can replace."
The fruit of Bo and Chriss "garden" is in their three sons. It's a good fruit brother. And that reminds me - I must remember to get that metal rake for Dougie.
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