In the Smallest Clubhouse of New Zealand

Te Ao Hou, October 1956, Page 32

An evening at the club (Photo: J. Fun) In the Smallest Clubhouse of New Zealand By E. SCHWMMER A misty cold gripped the deserted streets and casual temporary houses of Mangakino; it was early evening and only the central block of shops was still alight, with a few well-wrapped customers doing late shopping while a warm buzzing cackle welled up from the largest building. This must be the hotel, we thought, and we started walking round the building, but there was no trace of a lounge, or a dining room or a bathroom. By the bar entrance stood a little Maori boy with bare feet on the cold pavement. He watched us with intense interest; we and he had something in common, he must have sensed the lack of a warm home, somewhere to go inside. I asked him: —Where is the hotel? and he said, There is no hotel here, only a pub. —Where can we have a meal? —At the piecart. You turn to the right until you get at the back of the shopping block and then you turn to the left again and then to the right and then it is in front of you. Nothing could have been more precise than his description, but I can never understand directions the first time. When he saw me looking puzzled, he offered at once to take us there; he seemed very happy to be able to take three strangers to the piecart. He opened the door —Look, there it is. We were in a small temporary building with some forms and trestles, and the boy stood by the doorway, eyeing us full of expectation. A tip perhaps? No, it did not look like that; he was wondering what one does

with three homeless ones after one has brought them to the piecart. But he could think of nothing and before we could say anything except thank you he had gone. —You have to wait until after six, we were told by the lady behind the piecart counter, because the cook is still in the hotel (meaning the pub). —Do you know that boy? —Oh yes, I know him well; he is always in here. He comes to keep out of the cold. I give him a cup of tea sometimes and a hot dog. He gave me the most horrible shock one day; I still shudder when I think of it. I asked him, Has your mother got no fire going for you at home? and he looked at me, not sadly, but just a little puzzled and said I have no mother. He has now gone back to the pub door to wait for his father. His father cannot have been very interested in him for after six, when we were at our steaming plate of steak and eggs, the boy came back alone, and sat down on a chair against the wall, away from the trestles where we ate, just by himself, looking at all the men having their meal. He liked being with people, and he particularly liked sitting with his bare feet right next to the radiator. He was chewing a hot dog. So that was the first thing we saw in Mangakino, the beer and the loneliness. As we clin into the car the boy eyed us with something that was almost love. Wori Ward reaches a song with a baton used for stick games. (Photo: J. Fun) That evening, as we were being entertained by the Tuhoe Social and Welfare Club, I could not forget the child. I met the leaders of the club, Wari Ward, Mac Moses and Bill Waiwai, all of them men who have given up almost their entire lives, to social work, organising clubs helping people who are in difficulties, teaching music and Maori culture, to bring light and life into the community around them. Such people exist in most communities, although these men had more original minds than many, and when they come to a place like Mangakino, the atmosphere of beer and loneliness pains them particularly and they cannot help themselves, they must do something about it. Why does this misery of the others worry them so much? Why do they not happily stay with their families or amuse themselves in a small enlightened clique? That is a deep question which it is baffling to answer. Something was written about the Tuhoe club in issue 13 of Te Ao Hou. That story was

Darts is one of the social activities at Mangakino in which Tuhoe club members take full part. Here are Mac Moses (left) and Bill Waiwai (right) taking their turn. (Photo: J. Fun) written when the club had just started on its programme of practising action songs and hakas, making piupiu, and community singing; and with the experiment of allowing beer to be drunk on certain club evenings under adequate control. After a year when we visited the club, none of the original enthusiasm had gone; tribal committee and wardens were very confident about the success of allowing moderate drinking during some of their club nights. They had managed to cope with the very few who had broken the club rules. Te Wiremu Waiwai, the warden, and a foreman rigger by trade, explained that in his view people have to be educated in proper drinking habits. In matters of drink, education is as necessary as in other things. When people see civilised drinking and a good standard of social life at the club, it inspires them to live up to that standard always.