Snippets from a prolific output

Press, 31 August 1984, Page 12

Snippets from a prolific output

Hodder and Stoughton set Terry McLean a difficult task in asking him to select 71 articles for a round-up of his most notable work, published as “The Best of McLean” (255 pp; $19.95). For a start, the man has been writing for publication

for 54 years, principally for the “New Zealand Herald” and the now defunct “Weekly News,” as well as many overseas journals. His appetite for producing paragraphs remains unfulfilled at 71 years, and he explains that simply by saying that he has been told he is a

compulsive writer. What is the best of McLean? No-one will ever answer that with certainty, but the man himself has done a tolerably good job with his selection for this book. In some ways it is reminiscent of Red Smith’s memorable “To Absent

Friends,” because,so many of the stories are about people, and that according to McLean, is what sports writing is all about.

But McLean admitted in Christchurch recently that no man can be judge of what is his best work. He is correct. A person who has written 25 books and; more than 50,000 articles cannot hope to put the stamp of approval on specific items. Anyone who has read McLean will have their personal nervous twitches over the omissions. There is, for instance, nothing from his excellent book, “Great Days in New Zealand Rugby,” from which the chapter on the Auckland-North Auckland game of 1950 is a classic.

Some of his rugby and golf articles from the “Weekly News” were skilfully shaped, but have passed into limbo, and Welshmen will always remember the powerful piece he hammered out for the Cardiff rugby test programme of 1972 — “A Somewhat Synthetic Hwyl, I Am Sad To Say.” However, the contents of this book will satisfy most readers of sport in New Zealand, and elsewhere. McLean writes with authority of top performers such as Earl McCready, Ben Jipcho, Evonne Goolagong, Jack Newton, Graham Mourie and Glenn Turner,

and his orbit reaches from Bob Deans, of the 1905 All Blacks, to Mark Todd, a recent Olympic gold medallist.

That is not to say, of course, that McLean actually knew Deans, although some mischievous critics vow that he has been around for that length of time.

Equally of interest to Christchurch readers, in particular, is an illuminating piece on Valerie Young — in McLean’s opinion, “no ordinary champ, just THE champ.”

McLean does not confine himself to sport. There are two strong stories about Charles Upham, Graeme Dingle comes in for a searching look, so does a polo-playing Prince Charles, and there is a moving tribute to Dean Martin Sullivan.

Some of the best writing is contained in a story on the Napier earthquake, which McLean covered as a young reporter for the “Hawke’s Bay Herald Tribune.” This particular piece was written in the "New Zealand Herald” three years ago, and is a graphic and poignant account of the grim event. Nothing is surer than that McLean will go on writing. Hodder and Stoughton might have started a literary avalanche with this volume.— J.K.B.