THE VIVACIOUS STORY OF A YOUNGER GODLEY

Press, Volume XCIII, Issue 27896, 18 February 1956, Page 5

THE VIVACIOUS STORY OF A YOUNGER GODLEY

[Reviewed by H.A.H.I.] firinc Like a Lord. By John Godley, M Lord Kilbracken. Gollancz. 253 PPDaily the thousands who glance at (he thoughtful statue of the Founder o f Canterbury in Cathedral square carry with them the impression ol John Robert Godley’s serious-minded-ness. This impression of his character taS been reinforced by the publication of his wife Charlotte's “Letters from Early New Zealand.” and of Carrington's well-known biography, compiled as the latter was, mainly from contemporary manuscript sources—the papers and reports of the Canterbury Association, and so on. It pay come as something of a shock to New Zealand readers and particularly to Canterbury folk to find that hi S heir, John Godley, Lord Kilbracken, is gay, vivacious and amusing, and writes in just this manner, yet the Godleys are Irish, and if cerious-mindedness was indeed the predominant characteristic of the Founder of Canterbury, it is surely a fallacy to imagine that all his familymust necessarily be like-minded, much jess his great-grandson. Indeed, this refreshing difference of outlook underlines the contrast between the past and the present, between Victorian and Elizabethan times. This book is not an autobiography por a history of the Godley family. It is an account of a series of twelve episodes in the author’s life, some auite startling and each a complete story in itself. The whole is a sparkling miscellany of anecdote, comment and autobiography, and through it shines the happy, gay and carefree personality of the author himself. Undoubtedly the most interesting section of the book to New Zealanders is the account of the author’s visit to Christchurch at the time of the Canterbury Centennial celebrations. This section forms but a small part of one chapter, but it is the culminating part of his exciting adventures in an overland journey by car from England via France, Greece, Turkey, Iraq, Persia and India to New Zealand. His descriptions are vivid, and just as graphic is the account of his arrival in the Square, remembered still by so many. After landing at Wellington, John Godley crossed to Picton, and after motoring through Westport and Greymouth, entered Canterbury through the back-door, as it were- The Mayor’s representatives, Mr Langford and Councillor Tait met him at Springfield, and escorted him to the home of his host, where they arrived at about three o’clock. During afternoon tea his host

“then told me that the Mayor wanted to show me the Godley statue, and had suggested that we meet on its steps at four-thirty .... At four twenty-one I started up the engine and followed the two motor-cyclists who had come to show me the way; sedately at a steady twenty, we entered Hagley Park, drove down the edge of it. crossed the Avon, turned right and followed the river. The cops then swung into one of the long straight streets; at its end, looking like all the photographs I had been of it, stood the grey mass of the Cathedral with its acute spire—a miniature Salisbury. And then I had the most frightening experience of the trip: for the Square was full of faces, waiting for us, white dots in the sunshine; in the centre of the square stands John Robert, on his pedestal, on an irregular plot of ground, set about with benches on which the pensioners of Christchurch take their ease But now it was packed" with people. Ail traffic had been stopped: I was aware only of the great sea of faces, on the sidewalks and in the streets, as we approached ineluctably. I pulled up the car. and shook hands with the Mayor m a dream. Resolute above me stood my great-grandfather; but I was trembling. Then came the microphones and tne speeches.”

The author adds: “I had never before (nor have I since) been a public figure,” but despite the author’s trepidation our memory is that he acquitted himself most creditably. His summary of the history of the founding of Canterbury, too long to quote here, is masterly. Godley has had experience as a journalist and the lively yet concise and accurate synopsis of the earliest years is a good illustration of how history may be enlivened when recorded by some-one who has had experience other than as a mere student. Of his great-grandfather he writes (p. 66): “I do not suppose that he regarded himself as Founder of Canterbury. His task was to prepare in New Zealand for the arrival of the new immigrants sent out by the Canterbury Association; and then, as its agent, to execute the board’s directives from London. . . . And at the end of his appointed term, he and his family returned home ” If Godley was not the Founder of Canterbury, who was? Is Edward Gibbon Wakefield more justly entitled to this memorial? The statue in Cathedral square was unveiled by Mr C. C. Bowen (who had been Godley’s private secretary) in 1866 at a time when reaction against Wakefield’s personality was still fierce, at a time when Wakefield’s memory was as unpopular in Canterbury as it was in Wellington, and when his mana particularly in political circles was still at its lowest ebb. Yet if the founding of Canterbury was primarily due to Wakefield, the fact remains that it was Godley who directed the actual settlement. Wakefield’s jealous biographer, Irma O’Connor, concedes without quibble the title of Founder of Canterbury to Godley, and with true understanding refers to Wakefield as *The Man Behind the Founder.” If Godley was the Founder of Canterbury, Wakefield was the Founder of New Zealand. Of Canterbury Godley writes:

I spent two months in the Dominion, end, despite a fantastic round of social engagements, explored both islands well. £ I could choose the Province of New Zealand which I should most like my great-grandfather to have founded. I should choose Canterbury; if the city, I should choose Christchurch. It is beautiful: green and well ordered, and tranquil, with friendly, hospitable people. The right-angled street plan is broken by a slow, cool river, the Avon, which wanders its tree-lined way transversely across it. On the green banks of the Avon, the clerks and office girls sit in Xhe sunshine to eat their lunch-time sandwiches out of paper bags, and make love in the evenings. Beyond the city, between Christchurch and the not-distant Sea » runs a long line of hills; from them Jou can look down eastward to the blue harbour of Lyttelton, or westward across Christchurch *to the Canterbury Plains, atretching level and green to the snowcovered Alps.”

Although “Killegar,” the Godley estate in the County of Leitrim, has belonged to the family for over 300 years. Lord Kilbracken's title is less than 50 years old. “In 1909 my grandfather, who had been Gladstone’s private secretary and had afterwards Pursued a long and successful career the India Office, was created a Baron by King Edward VII on the advice of Mr Asquith. My grandfather <ued in 1932, and my father succeeded Jun. In turn I inherited the peerage at the instant of my father’s death on October 13. 1950, four days before thy thirtieth birthday”—(this news reached Godley at Perth, on his way to New Zealand).

It used to be customary for a newly created Peer to choose as his title the name of the town or village near his home, but since the beginning of this century it has gradually become more hsual, especially for a Liberal or Labour feer, t o take simply his own surname; L hat is, for Mr Snooks to become Lord «nooks. My grandfather was a Liberal, but his name was Arthur Godley and he

.th® l76 would be something alT rS-rtr? m essianic about the title of r. So he chose instead KilHt hlc h 2 s the name of a hamlet j lsts two white-washed, strawthatched cottages) near Killegar. On my niVhV tr d eath therefore, I became the Right Honourable John Raymond Godley, th ird baron Kilbracken of Killegar—or Lord Kilbracken for short.” • account of how he took his seat in the House of Lords is most entertaining—at his first visit he walked twice past the entrance without daring to go in. For the Coronation he was P eer s who were lucky in the ballot. He hired his robes from Moss Bros, for thirty-three guineas, and found himself seated among the lesser and newly created peerages. From his back seat he saw nothing of the crowning and anointing: and as, during the homage, only the premier peer of each degree kisses the Sovereign’s hand, he reflects sadly that he was “not within 600 years of a kiss!”

Love of horses and of horse-racir lies deep in Godley’s Irish blood. Of h boyhood days he tells of those fe glorious weeks at Eton when he s himself up as a bookie: by Ascot Wee he had over 130 clients—about one be in eight—and his daily turnover w;

between £3O and £4O, but then alas retribution descended upon him, and the headmaster’s cane. A month later he was awarded the Hervey Verse Prize of 16gns for a poem on a set subject of any length and metre. The subject in 1937 was ‘Storm,” and when the headmaster handed him the prize, “he made no reference to our previous meeting, which had taken place in the same room; but a certain look in his eyes assured me that he had not forgotten it.” During the war he served in the Fleet Air Arm —breathtaking is his account of a crash into the sea of the Swordfish he was piloting when on submarine patrol over the Atlantic, of how the aircraft’s rubber dinghies failed to open, and of an hour in the icy water before, by a miracle, he was picked up by a fishing vessel. After the war Godley found himself at Oxford as an undergraduate with an exserviceman’s bursary. Whilst there his racing instincts again asserted themselves, and he tells an extraordinary tale about the years in which he successfully dreamed winners. This led to a few weeks’ experience as racing correspondent of the “Daily Mirror,” and though his dreams failed to oblige with any dead certs for “Mirror” readers, he did discover that he was very much at home in popular journalism. And so he abandoned his prospects of a career in business or in the diplomatic service for the life of a rolling stone. He might have become a special correspondent or a free-lance, but for the fact that he inherited Killegar and the Barony. When his father died, the family home was on the market, and his father had reluctantly been on the point of selling Killegar to a timber merchant. This, of course, would have been the end of it, but Godley, on hearing of his inheritence, immediately cabled withdrawing the estate from sale. There is something very gallant about his fight to preserve the rambling old Georgian mansion with nearly 500 acres in the backwoods of Ireland, which are all that the Land Acts have left of the estates. At present, he is having to subsidise the place out of his earnings as a writer, to the tune of well over £ 1000 a year—getting the land into condition again, restocking, introducing modern machinery and methods. He hopes that he may be breaking even by 1958, if he can support it until then. In the meantime, he has written, three books, this now under review being his latest.

In search of material for his writing, Godley tells of his hunt in the Mediterranean for the loot of Rommel’s Africa Corps (still not found and estimated to be worth about £3,000,000); of his interviews with Liaquat Ali of Pakistan and the Shah of Persia; and of how he became curiously involved in the film of “Moby Dick” (at first being given screen tests for the role of Ishmael, and, when this fell through, working with John Huston on last-minute alterations to the script). The author possesses a keen sense of humour as well as sincerity and earnestness of purpose. On page 149, he confides that ‘of the 16s paid for this book, Is 5d will come to Killegar, enough to keep it going for 54 minutes.” Canterbury folk will hope for Killegar’s sake that the book will indeed be a “best seller.” It can in any case be recommended as well worth the money for its intrinsic interest alone, quite apart from its real entertainment value.