Brief Notices

Te Ao Hou, March 1962, Page 22

Brief Notices The first Maori orthopedic surgeon, Mr Peter Tapsell, M.B. Ch.B., F.R.C.S. (Ed.), F.R.C.S. (Eng.), has returned with his wife to New Zealand after three years study overseas. Mr Tapsell spent his boyhood at Maketu, Bay of Plenty, where his family has lived for generations. From there he went to high school at Rotorua, to medical school at Dunedin, to qualification—and to the front row of the Maori All Black scrum in 1956. Then to Britain for three years to study under a Ngarimu scholarship—“I'll always be grateful for the wonderful help the scholarship board has given me.” He returns with the conviction that the salvation of the Maori people is in education and hard work. In many ways the Maori people have something to offer their fellow men, he said, but they could not do it unless they were fully equipped. “We can't, we must not be the hewers of wood and drawers of water for New Zealand, and I'm convinced that the most important single factor in preventing this is education,” he said. Mr Tapsell will practise in Rotorua. The drawings on pages 5, 7 and 14 of this issue are the work of Mr Raukura Hotere, who comes from Hokianga and is at present studying art in London. Mr Hotere was recently awarded the valuable National Art Fellowship. ⋆ ⋆ ⋆ The Wellington Teachers' Training College Maori Club recently put on a most successful play, ‘The Legend of Wiremu’. This came as the second half of an evening's programme, the first half being devoted to action songs and hakas. ‘The Legend of Wiremu’ is concerned with the emotional crisis that so often faces the average Maori boy from the average Maori country home when, relieved of parental control and free from communal discipline, he enters city life. The play covers six months in Wiremu's life. First we see him in his home circle. Then he is shown homesick and lonely in his Wellington bedroom, succumbing at last to the temptation of a beer party. Later he becomes involved with a Pakeha girl, and has to take her home to meet a family who are by no means enthusiastic. The play was very well written, presenting an attitude which was neither sentimental nor bitter. The production was excellent and so was the acting, especially that of James McGuire as the boy, and Betty Nohotima as his grandmother. The audience, and also the newspaper critics, were most impressed by the play's sincerity and realism. Howard Morrison Introduces New Quartet The Meta Amos Quartet, which has returned to Rotorua after a successful tour with the Howard Morrison Quartet. Mr Morrison was most impressed with this young group. Left to right: Manu Meta (aged 15), Brian Amos (aged 15), Howard Morrison, Terry Amos (aged 13), Kevin Amos (aged 16).