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NZ Herald
24-05-2025
- Entertainment
- NZ Herald
The Start of The Golden Weather: Andrew Dickens remembers a special theatre performance
Takapuna Beach on Auckland's North Shore, rumoured to be the setting of The End of the Golden Weather. Canterbury's Court Theatre has just opened its spiffing new building with a production of Bruce Mason's The End of the Golden Weather. It's an iconic New Zealand performance piece. Witten as a novella, The End of the Golden Weather is set at a mythical Kiwi beach in Auckland during the Depression of the 1930s. It's the story of a boy growing up and coming of age and witnessing his community and family cope with hard times in an idyllic place. It's also the story of a loner called Firpo, who dreams of success by running in the Olympic Games – a delusion, but for a moment he becomes a hero in the boy's eyes. Mason wrote the piece in the 1950s and then toured the country performing it solo. The first time he did that was in 1959. He went on to perform it more than a 1000 times in community halls the length and breadth of the country. It was made into a film in 1991 by Ian Mune. The recently deceased Raymond Hawthorne fashioned it into a piece for a theatre company in the '80s. But that was not the first time a company performed it. That honour belongs to a school production by Auckland Grammar and Epsom Girls Grammar in 1980. I know because I was in it. I was Firpo. I was 17. Freda Mitchinson from EGGS was the architect, with help from John Heyes at Grammar. Their ambition was spurred on by the success of the previous year's production of Death of a Salesman, which featured knock-out performances from kids who went on to make names for themselves. Simon Prast was Willie Loman, Rima Te Wiata the scarlet lady (aka The Woman) and Finlay MacDonald, later Listener editor, played Happy. We had a narrator, a boy called Tim, but that's all I remember. He was very good. He was our Bruce Mason. The boy at the heart of it was played by Andrew Laxon, a fourth former at the time. He's now a senior member of staff at the Herald. His character was an allegory of New Zealand coming of age. He was sweet and confused at the growing comprehension of adult life that was coming at him like a train. Miss Effie Brent was played by Liz Mullane, who became the New Zealand casting director for The Lord of the Rings. And me. The scripts were the books that we were all issued with. Our lines underscored with pencils, and our annotations in the margins. A lot of the stage direction was verbal, and we just had to remember it. The real genius of the production was the design in the Centennial Theatre. Much of the tale is recalled as memory. Later productions handle the shift from the present to past with lighting colour changes – golden yellowy lighting for memories. In 1980 we masked half the stage with a wall of muslin. When the lights were in front of it, it was a wall. When the lights were brought up behind it, the scenes became visible through a gauzy haze. No one has tried that since. It was magic. Our production was dark. We included the 1932 Auckland riots, something the film omitted. Firpo was deeply challenged mentally. The picture here is my only photographic evidence of the role, taken from the audience with a Kodak Instamatic. Alone in a spotlight screaming the 'Made Man' monologue at the heart of the character; I was shocked by my own intensity and the flying spittle. I had never wailed like that in real life, I was subsumed. A young Andrew Dickens as Firpo in Auckland Grammar's The End of the Golden Weather. Photo / supplied Bruce Mason himself came to see the final dress rehearsal, only two years from his death and ravaged by a stroke. He died before the Raymond Hawthorne production, so this was the only time Mason saw his creation as a play with a full company. I remember him watching silently with his half-collapsed face. He said nothing because he could not say anything, but we were told he enjoyed it. I am immensely proud of the production, its ambition and how it formed me. It was then I realised I had a performance gene, which later came out in my radio career. A girl called Helen Wild played the psychologist who committed Firpo to an asylum. She became my girlfriend and later the mother of my children. We're still together 45 years on, and we still joke that she committed me, once upon a time. I don't know whether schools take production risks the way the two grammars did back in the day. We would do a Gilbert and Sullivan for mass participation and general snogging but then put a serious drama on later in the year. It was the serious drama that forged and inspired the actors like Simon Prast and Rima Te Wiata to embark upon their journeys in drama. It's a reminder that kids don't need to be cosseted. Kids grow when challenged. Pressure makes diamonds. We can all become a Made Man.
NZ Herald
16-05-2025
- Sport
- NZ Herald
NZ Secondary Schools team restored as top under-18 rugby side
NZSS has agreed to amend its eligibility criteria to enable selection for anyone still at a school but unable to play for it due to the absence of a First XV programme. Both the schools and NZR have also agreed that they will continue to discuss ways in which they can amend their current governance arrangements so they can work more collaboratively and effectively together. NZR's main argument for wanting an age-grade team was inclusivity. It argued that such a team would open the door to players who were under 18 but not in education to play for a national team and be part of the high-performance system. NZR's general manager of professional rugby and performance, Chris Lendrum, said that, on last year's figures, 30 per cent of players eligible for a national U-18 team were registered at clubs and either not attending or not playing for a school. A consortium of 40-plus heavyweight schools, including Auckland Grammar, St Kentigern College, King's College, St Peter's College and Kelston Boys, as well as Hamilton Boys, Hastings Boys, Otago Boys, Christchurch Boys and Wellington College, pushed back, saying they believed a national U-18 team would see their elite pupils move into the national body's high-performance system and potentially compromise their education. They also argued that it would inevitably lead to the collapse of the volunteer support on which school rugby is built. Of equal concern was the belief that NZR, having failed to communicate its intentions to the schools before putting out a media release, was trying to fulfil a long-held ambition of controlling the development of elite schoolboy players. While the restoration of NZSS to premium status may seem like a compromise deal, the schools believe they have won a significant victory, as they considered the surprise proposal to be, effectively, a hostile takeover bid for school rugby by the national union. Richard Hall, rector of Otago Boys' High School, who is serving as spokesman for the secondary school principals, said the decision was a commonsense victory that recognised schools were the best places to provide young people with all their needs. He said the NZSS team remained the best pathway for coaches who were heavily invested in the First XV circuit. He also acknowledged that, while the circumstances bringing the schools to negotiate with NZR were not ideal, the agreement to rebuild the relationship and establish a partnership with the national body was being viewed as a major positive. 'We are hoping that the principals will now have a strong voice at NZR, and we don't want a repeat of what happened in March when we read about changes in a press release. 'It's a good win for us, and we will continue to have these conversations to see what unfolds.' Lendrum, who was the public face of the move to create a national U-18 team, said he still felt that widening the net to capture those players not at school remained a sound proposition, but that the execution of the strategy was 'sub-optimal'. He admitted that the lack of communication with schools before the March announcement 'was not our best work'. But like Hall, he was positive about the chance to build a stronger relationship with secondary schools.
RNZ News
13-05-2025
- General
- RNZ News
Book Critic: new (ish) books for children
This month's theme does what it says on the tin! All these books have been published in the last year and are definitely worth talking about according to Catherine Ross, the Director of Library at Auckland Grammar School. More details can be found on Catherine's blog. Tags: To embed this content on your own webpage, cut and paste the following: See terms of use.
1News
25-04-2025
- General
- 1News
Gallipoli soldier added to Devonport war memorial 110 years later
More than a century after his death at Gallipoli, the name of a young sergeant has finally been added to the war memorial in Auckland's Devonport. Sergeant Alan Wallace's name had been left off until now because he enlisted overseas. He has now been formally honoured following a decades-long push by his family, just in time for Anzac Day. Around 2770 New Zealanders died during the eight-month campaign on the Gallipoli Peninsula in Türkiye, about a fifth of those who fought there. Thousands of Kiwi soldiers were honoured on memorials across New Zealand for their sacrifices in the Dardanelles, but some who enlisted from overseas were overlooked. One of them was Sergeant Wallace. Wallace was a prominent name on the Auckland Grammar's honours board. His great-nephew Alistair Dray also went to the school and he says: "I used to see his name on the wall every day at school for five years, and I didn't know much about him at all." A top scholar and sportsman, Wallace then excelled at Auckland University College before becoming New Zealand's youngest Rhodes Scholar at age 20. He had just completed a mathematics degree at Oxford University when war broke out in 1914, and like many Kiwis overseas he volunteered to join the war effort. Experience in mathematics and physics made Wallace a prime candidate to join the newly formed 1st Field Company of the New Zealand Engineers, and he was promoted to Sergeant on Christmas Day 1914. Wallace's 21-year-old brother Bert Wallace had also enlisted in the effort, and the pair both trained in Egypt prior to the campaign in the Dardanelles. "I like to think Bert and Alan were reunited after two years and had a beer in Cairo," Dray said. Alan landed at Anzac Cove on April 25, 1915, spending two harrowing weeks holding the line in the steep hills above the Turkish beach. For rescuing wounded soldiers during fierce fighting on May 2 and 3, he was recommended for the Distinguished Conduct Medal. A week later, while speaking with an Australian officer in the trenches, Wallace was shot in the head by an Ottoman sniper, dying the next day aboard a hospital ship. He was 24. 'He'd have been an amazing New Zealander if he'd had a chance to grow old,' Dray said. A visit to Gallipoli 30 years ago deepened Dray's connection to his ancestor. He went in search of his great-granduncle's grave, but discovered there wasn't one — Wallace had been buried at sea. "They put some New Zealanders who were buried at sea on the side of the Australian Lone Pine Memorial," he said. When Dray returned to Devonport in 1996, he visited the war memorial to find only one Wallace: Wallace's brother Bert, who survived Gallipoli only to be killed in 1916 at the Battle of the Somme. He rang the RSA, only to be told that because Wallace had enlisted from London, he didn't qualify for inclusion on the Devonport memorial. "I thought it was really unfair, 80 years later," Dray said. "I wasn't happy with it, but I let it slide for a while." In 2023, during another trip to Devonport, he decided to renew his request. "I figured I'd give it another crack." Devonport RSA president Muzz Kennett began to investigate Dray's request, thinking it deserved a "closer look". He consulted with senior RSA members, including past presidents, and came to the consensus that Wallace should be on the memorial. 'He was born in Devonport, he was raised in Devonport, his brother's on the memorial, and the fact that he joined from the UK was irrelevant because he actually joined the New Zealand engineers," Kennett said. Based on that, an application was made to Auckland Council's heritage and culture department, which took around two years to process. "The council didn't charge us anything to process that application, it just took time." Dray said the news Wallace's name would be engraved on the Devonport War Memorial was "emotional" and "like a loop had been closed". "I feel like it's only a minor thing, but it brings completeness to the fact that he wasn't on his hometown memorial, so it made me feel pleased." Kennett said it had been "very satisfying" to see Wallace's name finally added. "I was very pleased to be able to ring [Dray] and tell him we'd got approval." Uncovering the story of his great-granduncle had brought Dray a sense of connection as well as gratitude for Wallace's sacrifice. "I started off knowing nothing about my great-grandfather's little brother. We went to the same school and the same university. In some ways, I followed in his footsteps, but I've had the opportunity to live life more fully." Wallace's name was due to be formally unveiled on the Devonport war memorial at the Anzac dawn service this morning, with around 19 of his descendants in attendance. Dray had never met most of the people coming. "It's brought us all together, and they're all quite interested [in Wallace] as well." During the service, the family would unveil the name together, accompanied by the performance of a song titled Poppies and Pohutukawas by Lieutenant Rebecca Nelson. Anzac Day was a time to reflect on the sacrifice and the loss of all those who have served for our country, Dray said. "There's no one living who remembers World War I, and World War II is getting pretty remote as well. We owe them a lot really." Kennett said the case showed how important it was to keep memorials accurate and open to review. 'If someone came to me tomorrow and said, 'Hey, my great-grandfather was born and lived in Devonport and isn't on there,' we'd have a look. I think it's important.' This Anzac Day, when the names of Devonport's fallen sons are read aloud, Wallace's is finally among them.
