Last Sunday I went to church. It’s what I usually do on a Sunday. I was in Auckland and I went to an Anglican Church which is known for being inclusive. It was so inclusive that I felt totally excluded. I am sure the regulars felt included but I was not a regular I was a visiting Anglican and not in Auckland long enough to become a regular.

Perhaps I must simply accept that the inclusiveness is meant to include someone other than me. I am old, and a bit ‘fuddy duddy’. I say that because an architect who was doing some work on my house wanted me to have blinds on the windows and I wanted c6urtains. When I asked what he had against curtains he said,
‘I suppose it’s because they’re a bit ‘fuddy duddy.’
To which I replied, ‘But I am a bit ‘fuddy duddy.’
And I now have curtains not blinds – well, curtains on some windows not all.

Anyway none of that is really important except that I suspect it is partly the familiar that helps me feel at home or included. I felt excluded at this inclusive Auckland Anglican Church because nothing other than the building and some of the music was familiar. I felt at home in the building until the ‘act of worship’ began. If there’s a fault it may be mine for expecting to encounter the familiar. But I am an Anglican after all. I thought I was ‘family’.

All the hymns or songs, were recently written and the music recently composed apart from one where the tune was familiar but the words I couldn’t manage. They were in Te Reo Maori with which I am not familiar enough to sing or say. I’m sure I should be and, given time, could be, but now I’m not.

None of the responses were familiar even from going to other Anglican Churches in New Zealand. I’m used to, ‘The Lord be with you’, being followed by, ‘And with your spirit’, (Anglican St Agnes Kennington Park) or, ‘And also with you’, (Anglican England generally) or ‘The Lord Bless you’, (Anglican New Zealand) but here the responses were all tweaked, in order to be inclusive I guess, and unfamiliar.

I had to keep my eyes glued to the page if I was to take part. And the trouble with focussing on the page is that it doesn’t allow my heart or mind to do much worshipping. The Lord’s Prayer was in Te Reo Maori so although I couldn’t join in with the words I did know the meaning. And I’m not convinced that worship is really about the inclusive correctness of the words anyway.

There were some moments when I was included. The choir sang, as an anthem, Handel’s, ‘Spread Thy Voice Around’, from Solomon, and for the music during communion they sang Mendelssohn’s ‘Hear My Prayer O For the Wings of a Dove’. I was included in the listening. Perhaps others who are not moved by this sort of music felt excluded.

And after the service there was tea or coffee and a great spread. The small mince pies were especially good. And one of the clergy said ‘Good morning,’ and I went up to another and introduced myself, and I told some of the choir members how much I’d appreciated their singing and I asked someone else the best way, coming out of the church, to walk towards the harbour which I knew to be rather attractive. I was told that the way to go was simply to head down hill, which I should have been able to work out for myself. And so I did walk downhill, feeling a bit out of things and a bit out of sorts.

But I went to a restaurant with family that evening, I’d never been there before, the food was quite different and included minced paua on toast, the waiters were friendly and welcoming and it was great, and I was back ‘in sorts’.

REFLECTION

This experience has opened a window for me. It has given me the faintest glimpse of what it might be like to be under colonial rule. I now know a little of what if feels like to be in what I thought was my own place, my spiritual Whānau, and to have language and songs and rituals imposed on me other than those to which I am accustomed. It is an uncomfortable learning experience and one which I know must continue – this very small identification, that is, with those who have lived under colonial rule. And, at the same time, I hope the neo-colonialists have some recognition that many of their colonial forbears were at least as sure as they are that what they were doing was for the best. The best as they perceive it, that is.

Among the most interesting discussions I’ve had on world politics since being in New Zealand have been those I’ve had with taxi drivers. The man driving the taxi which brought me into Christchurch when I arrived by air from Nelson on Sunday was originally from Biafra. He told me that he had been in New Zealand for forty years, though it could have been fourteen, my hearing isn’t great even with hearing aids. He had passionate views about the Biafran war, which I could just remember reading about from over fifty years ago, and about British colonialism in Nigeria-Biafra . He did not see many positives.

Many of the Uber drivers here in Christchurch originally came from the Punjab. It gives me some credibility that I visited Amritsar three years ago. Four of these Punjabi drivers were from Amritsar and I knew I’d be on fairly safe ground with them when I declared my lack of enthusiasm for the policies of the current Prime Minister of India. But another Uber driver was from Gujarat, the home state of Prime Minister Modi, and he wasn’t all that enthusiastic about his policies either. None of them blamed the British for anything, it seemed.

But it’s not only been politics. Another Uber driver was an older man formerly from Singapore and we talked food. We reminisced about the wonderful chilli crab you could get from a restaurant at Pongoll Point and the stall in the Serangoon Garden Estate where they did the best Hainanese chicken rice in the whole of Singapore. With one of those who came from Amritsar we talked about the best place for puri and chick peas.

I had a good talk with another, originally from Sri Lanka, about the evolution of politics since Mrs Bandaranaike was prime minister there, and another told me about Moscow where he had been born and knew well and where I’ve never been and I told him about St Petersburg where I have been and he hadn’t.

With a young Chinese woman we talked about life in Christchurch as I did with a man originally from Iran. Each of them had started out their New Zealand lives in Auckland and had moved to Christchurch which, they said, they preferred. Today I was driven to the airport by a woman from Chennai with a daughter at High School in Christchurch and who had started her education in India. We talked education systems about which I know very little.

I’m taking Ubers when I don’t get the half hourly 29 bus into the centre of town because I was stupid enough not to notice that my driving licence expired last August. But talking to these drivers, all New Zealanders, reminded me once again that we New Zealanders are all immigrants or descended from immigrants. I imagine most of these immigrants came here by air in a day or two at the most. I know some had had time in Australia before coming on here.

It took my great grandfather 87 days, nearly three months to get to New Zealand from England by sailing ship in 1854. The forebears of my Maori cousins came here much earlier by canoe probably over a shorter distance and in less time, depending, of course, on where you take as their starting point. My English grandmother came here by steam ship in just seven weeks.

Whatever the time scale I certainly see immigration, controlled in recent years, as a great positive. The wealth of ideas and cultures and attitudes let alone food, which some of us would consider the most important, immigrants bring to New Zealand, seems to me to be huge. I suspect it may also bring a certain genetic restlessness and courage, ambition, determination and looking ahead which surely exist in the immigrant and which I see also as positive forces.

There are dangers in New Zealand’s geographical isolation as well as benefits. It’s great living with few restrictions at the moment. And whatever the deeper significance of immigration for New Zealand as a country and for society here, it’s wonderful, when travelling by taxi, to be able to talk about more than the weather.

There seems to be a custom here in New Zealand that when a group of people of a certain age (about my age) get together and someone mentions their health, someone else will say, ‘The Organ Recital will last for no more than two minutes’. I’m not sure if the eye is an organ but this recital may take a little longer.

There was a problem with my eye, my right eye. It was sore. I can’t have knocked it other than in my sleep or I would have known. It was still there a fortnight on so I made an appointment with a local optician. A friend recommended the optician. He did all the usual stuff which these days seems only to involve me resting my chin on a ledge on a machine and him doing all the work. He scanned each eye.

The upshot was that I had had, I gathered, a slight bleed behind the right eye and, he suggested, it should be attended to. He sent the scan three ways – to the Christchurch Public Hospital, to a private Eye Clinic in Christchurch and to the Ophthalmologist in London who had done my cataracts a couple of years ago. I worked out that I had three options. The first was to get something done here and now; the second to return immediately to the U.K. to get something done there or, thirdly, to wait until I am due to return to London in early March.

The consensus was, option one, here and now. I had no expectation of an early response from the Public Hospital and I was able to get an appointment, squeezed into a lunch hour, privately. I made that appointment. The private clinic, 12.30pm on Wednesday. On Monday I had a phone call offering me an appointment at the Public Hospital at 3.00pm on Wednesday. I accepted. I phoned the Clinic.

‘You’ve done exactly the right thing,’ I was told. ‘You could well get one of our doctors- they work private and public – you may have to wait a bit.’ I have time. Waiting is not a problem.

I turned up in good time at Out Patients. I gave my details. A very pleasant woman gave me an eye test. It was very conventional. I sat in a chair. No machinery at all. She covered my left eye and said,
‘Please read the letters on the chart’.
I said, ‘ I can’t see the chart.’
She said, ‘What can you see?’
And I replied, ‘I think I can see the wall.’
She then covered my right eye and I was able to see the wall, the chart, and the letters on the chart, almost down to the bottom line. That was a relief.

I was put on the acute list and over the next two hours my eyes had drops put in and were then extensively scanned and photographed. In due course I was seen by the registrar who appeared to be about fourteen years old but assured me he had finished his medical training at the University of Otago – my grandfather had trained there so it must be good – and by a Visiting Fellow from Singapore. The Visiting Fellow was on his way to do an operation and he told me, charmingly, that he would explain what was to be done to the registrar who would then explain things to me in layman’s terms. I was grateful for that. Certainly I understood nothing of what he said to the registrar.

I’ve never really understood what goes on under the bonnet of a car. As long as the car starts, moves and responds to my moving of levers, pedals and steering wheel that is all that matters to me. How that happens I’m happy to leave to the experts. I feel a bit the same way over my body and matters medical. I’m happy to leave it to the experts and to do what I’m told. So the registrar explained and I didn’t understand – I did try, and, I hope, looked as if I was listening intelligently. I happily signed the paper consenting to whatever.

Over the next two hours I was lasered and injected. Well, my right eye was. The lasering was rather as if the registrar was playing some sort of computer game while I had my chin on the ledge of the lasering machine. It didn’t take more than ten minutes. Then I was taken to a different room and lay down on one of those examination room beds for the injection. When I was told that the local anaesthetic was about to be applied I said, ‘Yes please, lots.’ I claim to have a low pain threshold. Maybe I’m a bit of a coward. I certainly am when it comes to injections. When all was done I went home in an Uber.

Now, five days later, when I close my left eye I can see as before all of this and the eye is no longer sore. I will be given another appointment for about four weeks time. All this has cost me nothing other than the modest payment for my appointment with the optician. I’ve given him a bottle of wine to say thank you for getting the ball rolling. The U.K and N.Z. have a reciprocal agreement for free care in cases of emergency or acute conditions. And anyway I am a Zealander as well as being British. The Christchurch Public Hospital certainly fulfilled that agreement as far as I’m concerned and did so with great efficiency, kindness, charm and expertise. Phew! This car is running again and the Organ Recital has concluded with a triumphant chord in a Major Key.

In response to ‘January 8th Sunshine’ it was suggested to me that there is a third school of thought ‘Gloat’ and that I was gloating at my situation here. I very much hope not. Certainly as I was growing up that was not considered an option. And I’ve not met it anywhere in this covid free New Zealand.

There is certainly a recognition of how fortunate we are here and a real concern for the rest of the world which, I think, New Zealanders, isolated as we are, have always felt – you only have to think of the New Zealand commitment in two world wars – but gloat, no.

I have felt a sense of guilt at being here when others are there. But I’m sure that sense of guilt needs to be examined critically. Feelings of guilt are so unproductive. I know some Christchurch people who were away from Christchurch when the earthquake hit felt bad about not sharing in the fear and destruction the earthquake brought.

Some of those who left Europe and Britain for the safety of the U.S. and Canada during the war felt the same. I suspect that was more about not being part of a shared experience rather than guilt.

A bit of social guilt on the part of those of us who have clean water, weather proof houses and all the rest, in the face of those who don’t, might not go amiss if it leads to action. But generally feelings of guilt? No.

Perhaps the ‘gloat’ response contains an element of the first school of thought – ‘If I cant have it no one should have it!’

And I have had another response – from the United Kingdom. ‘Please don’t give up on food parcels! Send New Zealand marmite and Fix and Fogg peanut butter. They’re far superior to any British product.’

There’s a school of thought which suggests that if everyone can’t have something no one should. There’s another which suggests that if only one can have it the others should rejoice at their good fortune. I was brought up in the latter school – perhaps because there were six of us.

Today the sun is shining and I’m in Christchurch. Just two weeks ago it was Christmas Day. After church in Havelock North, Hawkes Bay, we went to the beach at Waimarama for Christmas dinner – legs of lamb cooked on a barbecue, ham, Christmas pudding with holly stuck in and burning brandy poured over, all of that. The weather wasn’t great but there were lots of family, more than twenty of us, and the beach houses are very comfortable. When we drove back to Havelock, two days later, we made a detour and called in on some cousins for coffee. They had been fishing in the morning and checking the lobster pots. They gave us two crayfish (lobsters) to take home for lunch.

Once home I prepared the crayfish, made some mayonnaise (the egg from my nephew’s hens) and asked my sister if she had any lemons. She said that she had, and pointed, I thought to a basket where there were avocados but no lemons. She was pointing to a tree outside the kitchen door. The lemons were on the tree. The avocados were from another tree in the garden. The stewed apricots I’d had for breakfast were from another.

Life in New Zealand, seems quite ‘other worldly’ to me at the moment. I think that many of my friends and relations here have, and cannot have, any idea of what life is in London. I, who am closer to it, am finding it difficult to imagine.

When I was very small, three and four years old, I would go with my mother to meetings of the Peel Forest Red Cross. My mother was president of this local branch in South Canterbury, New Zealand. I remember seeing the women knitting socks, scarves, and ‘Peggy squares‘ to be sown into blankets. These were for men in Prisoner of War Camps overseas. Fruitcakes that had been wrapped in grease proof paper were put in cake tins and soldered airtight before being sewn into hessian bags with a square of cotton, cut from an old bed sheet, sewn on. On the cotton patch, written with indelible pencil, an address in England. These memories are of New Zealanders doing their bit for family and friends in wartime Europe and Britain. They had something tangible, something useful, to do.

We here have nothing useful to offer. Food parcels are not what is needed. We can telephone and Zoom and all of that, to try to keep spirits up. And, like our wartime forbears, hope and pray that it will be over soon.