Humour from Hawes

Press, 4 December 1979, Page 1 (Supplement)

Humour from Hawes

At 32, Peter Hawes still views the world very much through the eyes of a child. It is a characteristic he shares with many other humourists, from Spike Milligan to Bill Cosby — the ability to find wonder in a grown-up world. Peter Hawes’ finely tuned sense of humour is never more apparent than in his book Animals For The Asking, due for release on the New Zealand market in the next few days. Designed primarily as a children’s book, Animals For The Asking is a collection of poems about animals and features the every-day as well as the exotic. Like many good children's books, Animals For The Asking has been written on many different levels of understanding. There are references and images which will appeal to an adult sense of humour as well as that element of the ridiculous which appeals to the very young. A delightful example of this is provided by the final verse of ‘'Bees”: “But the thing that I find funny Is that if the bees make honey Who makes the peanut butter and the jam? Is the source of our supply From the peanut butterfly Or are there mannalady birds inside the can? This is the sort of wit w'hich has made Peter Hawes popular both as a

television personality and as a writer. He is well known to New Zealand television viewers as the front-man of Yours For The Asking. Much less is known of his writing ability, seen in forms as diverse as short stories published in Landfall and television scripts for A Week Of It. Peter Hawes is a West Coaster by birth, (“I was born in Westport. . . I don’t live there now. End of story.”), and came to Christchurch to study for his Bachelor of Arts degree. Armed with a B.A. in English and history, he set off to see the world, intent on becoming a writer.

Expanding upon an idea formed during his university history studies, Peter wrote a novel about the Spanish Inquisition which was accepted by a Spanish publisher, translated into Spanish and released on the Spanish market. “It was exciting stuff over there. The Inquisition had been kept under the Official Secrets Act for 400 years and very little was known about it.” Although never published in any other language, the Spanish novel was immensely popular with the locals and, Peter recalls with a gleam in his eye, in November 1974 topped the best-seller list ahead of Frederick Forsyth’s Dogs of War. Forsyth went on to become rich and famous. Peter came home and joined the ranks of Television Two. He was part of the writing team which prod -.ced

the ill-fated satirical programme Something To Look Forward To, (in which Derek Payne and David McPhail made their first inroads into the humourless interior of the New Zealand living room), before becoming a news researcher. He was, he admits, “a very bad news researcher. Every single day I was nearly fired!” but the job provided a staging-point for his own series, Yours For The Asking.

As well as his involvement in this programme, Peter is one of the writers who have contributed to the enormous success of A Week Of It. His writing for children came about largely through having a son of his own, Barnaby, who features prominently in many of the poems. Poems for the children’s television series, Jigsaw, brought the realisation of his talent in this direction, and the idea of a book sprang from his work in this programme. The poems for Animals For The Asking were all written in March and April of this year, Barnaby providing the inspiration and the quality control. All 14 poems have been approved by young Barnaby, a severe critic and connoisseur of rhyming verse.

The excellent illustrations which complement the verses are the work of a South Pacific Television associate, David Johnstone, who clearly possesses the same whimsical sense of humour as Peter.

A young artist with obvious talent, David is a graphic designer, most of whose work to date has been for children’s television. He also has the distinction of having designed the infamous Humphrey, A Week Of It’s mascot camel. Animals For The Asking, appearing just in time for Christmas gift hunters, is bound to be a popular addition to the Christmas stockings of New Zealand children. Its appearance on coffee tables across the country is equally likely as adults find themselves as entranced as their children by the procession of beasts contained within its pages.