Open Writing

It is that period after Christmas and my tooth aches. The answering service at the dentists tells me that the surgery is closed until the end of the month. So I wait.

For about six weeks over the Christmas period, which coincides with the school summer holidays in this hemisphere, all essential services close down. It is impossible to get a plumber or an electrician, the doctors run a roster system while hospitals only carry out emergency surgery. Places of work close. Newspapers don’t have their customary bulk, with only minimum coverage of events. The radio blares out pop music instead of its usual nine to noon and two till five informative programmes and TV runs endless old films. Only the all important retail trade, with its sales starting on Boxing Day, continue to function at breakneck speed. Why do we close down? It doesn’t happen anywhere else.

As I sat sucking cloves and downing Panadeine, I thought about the many phrases which are associated with New Zealand and New Zealanders. Announce that you are from New Zealand in any other part of the world, particularly Australia, and you are greeted by loud baa-ing. We are not all associated with sheep but sheep and New Zealanders seem to be synonymous, so baa-ing and “more sheep than people” follow us around and we cash in by selling woolly jumpers and sheepskin rugs to tourists.

Then there is the kiwi. We are all classified as kiwis. That private little bird, flightless, almost wingless and with short feathers which resemble fur. It burrows deeply into hollows in the forest and emerges secretly at night to seek out grubs and worms with its long sensitive beak, calling out plaintively to its fellows with its “kiwi” call. It is a lovely little thing and a name we kiwis can be proud of.

You all know the All Blacks and have seen the look of terror which crosses a Welsh rugby player’s face when the Haka begins. How impressive it is when they face opposing teams, greeting them with the Maori war cry and challenge. It is unique to New Zealand. But then not many of them know all the words to the National Anthem, they can’t quite bring to mind “Guard Pacific’s triple star,” so, shamefully they mouth them, only joining in with “God defend New Zealand''.

But two other phrases exist. “The six o-clock swill” and “Will the last person to leave the country please turn out the lights''. The first is extinct. It is a long time since all the pubs closed at 6 pm with workers rushing into them to down as much beer as possible before staggering home to warmed up meals and angry wives. No going out for a meal at the local hotel and licensed restaurants were almost non-existent.

Those days are long gone. New Zealand now produces some of the world’s finest wines. Vineyards stretch from the north of North Island to almost the south of South Island. To travel through Central Otago is not just to pass through orchards and deserts but to see miles and miles of vines and to be able to sit under shady umbrellas in courtyard restaurants and to enjoy fabulous food and even more fabulous wine. Street cafes, coffee bars and great places to linger over dinner, not to mention the good old pub, are now open until all hours. “The six o-clock swill” is definitely a thing of the past as we have become continentalised.

But this last phrase, “Will the last person to leave the country please turn out the lights,” really does drive me and many others mad. It first applied not to this long period between Christmas and schools reopening but to every weekend. Friday was late night shopping, everything opened until 9 pm and, with transport and roads being poor, the small towns did a roaring trade when the farmers brought their wives and families into town to stock up, catch up with the local gossip and generally have a night out. Now the shops are open all weekend, some until midnight, and folk head for the big towns and shopping malls. The little country towns are reduced to basic milk bars, garages and essential services, as one after another business closes. New Zealand is alive and kicking all weekend and no-one needs to “turn out the lights,” in fact we need more.

But this dratted six weeks in the summer. Do we really need to shut up shop? Actually the last thing we do is shut up shop, all the shops are open, wide open, it is just the rest of New Zealand which closes down. Our five saw mills don’t throw out steam and create noise, the freezing works doesn’t operate and the woollen mill doesn’t wake the whole town with its archaic Victorian hooter, one of our town’s idiosyncrasies. The custom persists even though folk have alarms and the mill runs round the clock.

Where did it all come from? In the old days families built cribs by the sea or lakes and there they would all head, mum, dad, the kids, grandma and the rest of the extended family, for the duration of the school holidays. The cribs were unique, built from this and that, and little communities developed as people got to know each other around New Year bonfires and picnics on the beach. If dad had to go home to see to things, mum stayed on with the kids, who could run wild and enjoy themselves. Yes, those were the days when whether things were open or not was unimportant and the local doctor probably had his own crib by the sea and didn’t live out of town as GP’s do today. It was a good way to live.

But things have moved on. No one goes away for the entire school holidays. People take staggered holidays. In winter they head for the islands or the coast of Queensland, they ski, make for far flung places or cruise around the Pacific. The little family cribs are still there but most are now “up-market” and used for weekends or lent to friends. Chaos exists on the campsites over Christmas and the New Year but we still function and the tourists pour in, so why shut the place down? So please will my dentist switch on the lights when he gets back - and I need a plumber too.