Bob Jones 'at home' – like prising hermit crab out of its shell

Press, 10 May 1980, Page 16

Bob Jones 'at home' - like prising hermit crab out of its shell

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HELEN BROWN

''Hello? Could you tell me how I go about, getting an interview with Mr Jones?” “Mr Jones usually writes his own interviews,” the homely voice of his secretary said. I envisaged Bob Jones twisted in a impossible position while he interviewed himself. “But I’ll put you through to him anyway.” I stifled astonishment at how easy it was to get hold of the rich and famous. “Hello.” He sounded approachable, not flustered. “I’d like to write a profile about you. Could I interview you some time?” “Not really; I don’t like that sort of thing. It’s embarrassing.” "Why?” "How would you feel if someone rang you and wanted to interview you for a paper?" I was about to suggest he could promote his latest venture, the New Zealand Ballet Company. He got in first. “You could write about my writing,” he said. "Not. stuff about the colour of my furnishings. Have you read my books?” I gulped back shame. “No.” , “I’ll lend you copies. Read them, then come and talk to me. I want them returned, mind you” — a new, threatening tone came in here — “unscratched and unmarked.” I’d learned several things already. He was more reclusive than I’d imagined. It felt as if I was prising a hermit crab out of its shell. Also, he suspected everyone — particularly women, as I was to learn later — of being fools. And to my horror I found the more he treated me as a fool the more I behaved as one. ■ I collected his books .from his impressive, multi-storey cube known in the phone book as “Robt Jones House” “Mr Jones wants these back?’ his secretary repeated clearly, “unscratched and unmarked.” I was beginning to feel intimidated. As soon as I got home. I placed "New Zealand the Way I Want it” and “Property Guide” in a plastic bag. I carried them around like that for two weeks, terrified a car would run over me and saturate them in blood. I imagined myself coming out of the anaesthetic mumbling, “Unscratched Unmarked.” I couldn’t believe he really meant those shocking things he said about women — how they were best treated the same way as dogs. Interesting humour, I thought. In fact, a lot of it seemed tongue-in-cheek. I began to think again when in our next telephone conversation he offered

excessively clear instructions on how t.o get to his mansion. “Are you sure you know where the Melling lights are?” My confidence drained to my ankles when I encountered a huge sign half wav up his drive. “WARNING. YOU ARE TRESPASSING. This is private

property. All trespassers will be prosecuted.” I pretended to ignore it and drove on past watersprinkled marigolds, half expecting to be attacked by a security man any minute. At last, the house. Impressive, but not quite as awe-inspiring as I’d expected. The circular lawn he mows in that advertisement was much smaller than it looks on television. A mere handkerchief. At this point I struck another problem. Where are you supposed to park on a circular drive? It seemed presumptuous to sweep up and stop under the extended Georgian porch that looked like something out of “Gone with the Wind.” I settled for the shade of a ponga tree about 10 o’clock from the front door. I scrunched over his drive to the front door and pressed the bell. The wait seemed endless. The door glided open and a very small Bob Jones, minus legendary beard and moustache, stood there. Not that he was really small. He was in fact taller than me. Perhaps he seemed small because the door was so big. Or maybe it was a shock to find a man of mammoth reputation actually built on a human scale. He greeted me into his cavernous hallway with civility you’d get in any suburban home. “Like some coffee?” I followed his vivid red jprsey into the kitchen, my eyes continually caught by stunning original — mostly New Zealand — paintings. I tried not to notice the colour of his furnishings. He prepared coffee expertly and wiped the bench efficiently. “You’re very domesticated,” I said. He stopped wiping. For the first time, his blue eyes darted me an appraising “Milk? Sugar? Saccharin?” “Milk, please.” He laced his mug with saccharin. “You don’t smoke, do you?” he said. “No. How can you tell?” “Clear skin. I’ve just given up smoking. Feel

much better for it. Excuse the smell. It’s the pipe. It doesn’t have the same effect on me as cigarettes.” I hadn’t noticed the smell. But with concentration I could detect a hint of pipe smoke. “I was a bit put off by your sign out the front,” I said. “We get a' lot of trespassers.” he sighed. “Particularly w o m e n. Middle-aged women at week-ends. It used to say: ‘Trespassers will be shot.’ “I shot one of them once. Left a couple of bullet holes' in the side of his car. They sent out the Armed Offenders Squad, but they didn’t prosecute. That was abdut eight years ago. It fixed the problem.” His luscious friend Anne arrived from a day’s teaching- Long blonde hair curled over a white muslim blouse. Her perfect figure was neatly encased in a pair of jeans. She was one of the respectable pages of “Playboy” come to life. We left her in the kitchen and moved to the

huge living room which stares through , small panes over Lower Hutt and Cook Strait. “Lovely house,” I said. “How old is it?” It wasn’-t what he wanted to talk about. “Ten years. The rooms are a bit small. Not this one — the others.” "How many bedrooms?” "Not many,” he replied sharply, as if I should mind my own business. Bob Jones is not a man to let events carry him in a direction other than the one he has planned. He led me to his book-lined study. “I love books,” he said, as he sat behind his large desk. “I can’t go past a book shop. I buy aboqe six books a week. You don’t mind if we sit here do you?” ■ This meant I had to sit on a couch about 15 feet from him. A good move on his part. I had to speak loudly and clearly as if I was applying for a job. 1 noticed a stack of English “Guardian Weeklies” and expressed surprise he read such a liberal paper. “It’s improved a lot since the change of government over there,” he said. “Not so much rubbish about the state of humanity. I’m a newspaper addict. Writing’s just a logical extension of my love for reading.” He swung his soft leather slippers on the desk. I asked him when he shaved his beard off. “Christmas, it was getting embarrassing. I kept being recognised.” Struggling freelancers would grind their teeth to learn Bob Jones is one of New Zealand’s highest-paid writers. He has made about $50,000 from his two books. “People keep sending me cheques,” he said in the same tone most people say: “People keep sending me bills.” He writes by hand, with a fountain pen. at night. “It would offend me to use a ballpoint. A fountain pen is ‘Part of the ritual — like fiddling about with flies in trout fishing.” He sits alone in his study and writes most nights from 9 p.m. to midnight. “I find L can sit down then and it just flows.”

I suggested writing was a lonely occupation. "I cherish my time alone,” he said. He writes for trout fishing magazines and has a fortnightly column in “Sports Digest.” He was a columnist for the "NewZealand Economist,” but is no longer interested. “A column is a marvellous outlet,” he said.' “I can pick up the paper and read something that makes me hitter and angry, then lash back in a column.’t He aims to produce fiction eventually. <; ‘But I want to exhaust all my interests first.” 4 He has nearly completed a book on travel. “It’s an outrageous, scurrilous, racist sort of thing,” he .said, casually. “I’m really delighted w’ith it.” He also has a partlyfinished biography of the early twentieth century New Zealand painter, Margaret Stoddard, on his desk. He has a large collection of her work. “There are so many books I’d like to do.” he said. “One on prize fighting will be next.” His eyes often focused mid-distance or out of the window when he spoke to me. At times I thought I irritated him — particularly when I asked questions which I’d hoped, would set him • soul-searchihg. His voice was friendly, however, and the computer-like capacity of his mind is enough to keep.anyone on edge. “Were you serious when you said women should be treated like dogs?” 1 asked. “The same basic principle applies,” he replied, without the slightest glint of humour. “They should both be treated with firmness and kindness.” “Do you think women are born inferior to men?” “Yes, I do. Young women don’t have a sense of humour. Once they’re over 40 they develop one which men have from an early age. I equate intellect with humour, I’m afraid. “Women are a different species. They have no respect for logic. I can conceive a situation where the sexes live apart. It’s happening already. You’re a statistical freak if you don’t get divorced.” Were women sexuallv attracted to millionaires? “I’m continually accosted by middle-aged women who write to me and pester me. It probably relates tomoney. They finally wake up to the fact they should’ve married dull Charlie the lawyer, not handsome Harry the carpenter. “I get younger ones as well, but mostly in Auckland.” Even so, Auckland holds no attraction for Bob Jones. “Aucklanders are so thick and shallow. You can talk to them but you can’t have a conversation. They invite you to spend the afternoon on their yacht. It sounds nice, but imagine what it’s like being trapped on the thing all afternoon when the conversation has run out after half an hour?” He had a taste of opening nights with the ballet in Auckland last year. “An opening night in Wellington has politicians, diplomats, and prominent people at it. But Auckland — what a difference! One after the other I’m introduced to these bores and their appalling wives. Christchurch is just as dull. I think they’re all city councillors.” There are few people Bob Jones admires wholeheartedly. One of them, naturally, is Mr Muldoon. “iNot because of his

politics — what a great Labour leader he’d make! I have tremendous admiration for his pluck. He really doesn’t give a damn what people think.” The test cricketers, Richard Hadlee and Jeremy Coney, also are high on his list. 'He regards Enoch Powell as the greatest politician of the century. “He’s so bloody-minded.

People always associate him with the racist thing, but he’s right on most things. Like my favourite novelist, Evelyn Waugh, he’s a mean spirited man with a strong belief in religion.” Does he approve of the National Front movement? “I probably agree with a lot of what they say, but that television documentary showed them as a lot of' idiots.” For him, honesty and courage are the most admirable aspects of human nature. He grew up in Lower Hutt, where his father was an activist in the Labour Party. “My father’s background was different from mine,” he said. “He was an orphan who left school at 12 to work in the railway workshops. When the Depression came he was booted out, given a spade, and sent down to work on the West Coast.” I asked him at what point

he reacted against his father’s politics. “In my heart I’ve always been a Right-winger. I never set out to make money: I just hated working for people., I think it’s the most degrading thing.” Financial responsibilities don’t take up much .of his his time these days. He is highly organised and has his workload down to three

hours a week. He does menial clerical jobs, which keep him well informed. He finds business talk boring and mildly distasteful. “We have 150 commercial tenancies so there’s always some rubbish like looking at properties. We’re considering some in Auckland, Wellington, Lower Hutt, and Sydney soon, but I’m not really interested in that any' more.” He may become interested in building for fun when this inflation cycle finishes — “in about 10 years,” he reckons. “I’d like to construct some really grand buildings. We don’t have many of them in New Zealand.” Money-making is a piece of cake here, he says. All you need is common sense and the ability to work hard. Part of me wanted to envy Bob Jones — this man with an intelligent

hold on life and success. ' A millionaire who still' s used the word “fun.” Yet. • the restlessness which has;: helped make him remark-t----able also seems to dog- r him. As soon as he achieves a goal, it turns to dust. “I’m a natural malcontent,” he said. "People say, ‘lsn’t your garden pretty?’ All I can see are the weeds.” , , - y Bob Jones escorted me to the door. We admired his garden, much of which is still in the process of development, in the evening sun. He employs two gardeners to tend his 14 acres. I said that I enjoyed’ ‘ gardens, but didn’t' like 1 doing the work. . . . “Typi- ; cal female. No wonder" women never get any-'- 1 where. They expect to sit ' back while men do all the' - work.” *’ - ~ He runs down to his - ' gate every morning, enjoys swimming in his pool, and ; ’’ practises weightlifting in his. upstairs gymnasium. Five or six hours sleep is all he needs, but he “takes” more if he’s feeling lethargic. He gets up when he likes and generally reads for half an hour., before getting out of bed. ’ ' I told hfm with sincerity I’d enjoyed meeting him. He replied with silence . . . just as he had earlier when I asked him w'hat he admired in women. He muttered that he r i must get back to his writ- _• ing and strode past the circular lawn back to his mansion. Here, I thought,-.-' was one Jones nobody was going to keep up with..

‘Money-making is a piece of cake in N.Z.’