Raised
in the UK and West Germany in an insular family of airmen and service people,
my world was small. Not just childishly small, but a mini version of the real
thing. When we emigrated to New Zealand after the sprawling population of
Britain, I was struck again by how small the world can seem.
With
only four million people, give or take a few hundred, it stands to reason that
the country will function like a large city. I never knew all the people in
Market Harborough, the town in England where we emigrated from, but I couldn’t
leave the house without greeting a fair few. We couldn’t quite list the colour
of everyone’s underwear from observing their washing line, but it was close on
occasion.
Sometimes
when I write, it feels as though my characters link and swirl in a bizarre
dance, knowing each other and things about someone else that can be used to
vary the pace of the plot. Someone always knows someone who knows someone.
Perhaps on other continents, that can seem a little convenient, but once you’ve
lived here a while, you realise that it’s how things are.
It’s
called 2 degrees of separation and yes, there’s a name for it. It’s even the trademark of a mobile phone provider.
In
the UK, if you go to a party and know almost nobody, conversation will invariably
focus on two main topics.
“What
was the weather like when you left home? It was raining where we were.”
“How
did you get here today? Did you get stuck on the M25? It was like a car park
this morning.”
In
New Zealand, the conversation goes very differently. Occasionally it might be
drawn towards the weather in a particularly dry lull in the chatter but we live
on an island that is only a few kilometres across in some places. Auckland for
instance, gets battered by tides and weather fronts driven by the Tasman Sea to
the west and the Pacific to the east. The city can experience four complete
seasons in a single day. It’s the same for the rest of us too. I have been
rained on from a cloudless sky before now. There's no point mentioning it - it will be different in a minute!
The
roads are largely dreadful, so we don’t mention those. When we first arrived,
parts of State Highway One weren’t even sealed and Hamilton only just got a
decent bypass after 150 years of existence. If we start talking about roading,
we might not stop and anyway, it’s boring.
This
is how the conversation in New Zealand with strangers will definitely go.
“Oh,
you’re from Hamilton? Good old Tron hey. You might know my cousin; he lives in Pukete
and works in a jewellers in Te Awa.”
Now
if you did that in the UK - which unwitting New Zealanders will do when
visiting with their, ‘Oh do you know John Smith from London?’ - you would get
looked at as though you were mad. Not so here.
“Lives
in Pukete and works at Te Awa? What’s his name?”
“Hone
Ropata. He’s the manager.”
“Tall
chap, nice teeth, got everything pierced?”
“Yeah,
that’s him.”
“Ah
yep, I know him. He goes out with my daughter’s best friend’s sister. Nice guy.”
See,
I can hear you sniggering already but I’m telling you - that’s New Zealand! And
yes, it took us by surprise too.
My
husband once travelled an hour and a half to Rotorua with a colleague on
business. They decided to go into a cafe for lunch which they had never been in
before. Whilst there, my husband recognised a man sat at a table in the corner
and approached him after they had eaten. And yes, it was his old boss from the
bank in England that he worked in before we came. The man was on holiday in New
Zealand.
If
that’s not enough for you, then how about this?
We
arrived on a one-way ticket with our four small children and used a camper van
to tour the North Island. We camped in the far north at Russell and attended Sunday
service at the oldest church in New Zealand which still has the musket holes in
the walls from the Maori wars. A lovely ex-pat couple offered us to go back to
their beautiful house on the beach for lunch and guess what?
Yes,
our kind host turned out to be the obstetrician who delivered my husband in
Bradford Royal Infirmary maternity unit over three decades previously.
 |
| My very beautiful daughter in Palmerston North. This was on the cover of About Hana for a while. |
If
you are still doubting, then try this.
Whilst
also in Russell, we parked next to a couple with a pop-top caravan. We chatted
a few times and they gave us their address in Hamilton.
“That
was nice,” I said to my husband afterwards. “Where’s Hamilton?”
“No
idea,” he replied. “But isn’t that the place that everyone in Auckland told us
to avoid. I seem to remember them saying, ‘take the 1B and go round it’ I’m
sure that’s the place.”
 |
| Memorial to Captain Hamilton who is the namesake of the city of Hamilton |
So
south we went, avoiding Hamilton and hit the east coast and a place called Te
Puke. We were a good nine hours away from Russell and at least two from
Hamilton - where obviously we had never been. In the camp site spa at 9 o’clock
at night, we met a lovely lady and her granddaughter. Our four children and her
one played around together and we got chatting.
“Ah
Russell,” she said. “My friends just went for a holiday up there. You might
have met them.”
Husband
and I roll our eyes at each other. As if.
“Yes
they’ve got a pop-top caravan and he limps slightly...”
Oh
my goodness! Further chatter confirmed that it was definitely them.
A
few weeks later heading north again, I glance up to see the welcome board
for...
“Why
are we in Hamilton?”
“I
just wanted a look,” my husband says and I groan a bit. The town is beautiful;
the sun is shining and the family consensus is to stay for a few days. “I’m
going to ring that couple we met in Russell,” husband says and I’m gripped with
misgivings. You just can’t do that! They won't have been serious! How embarrassing is this going to be?
They
invited us for tea and we stayed the night. A week later we rented a house from
them and have been in this area for nine years. On the Sunday, we went to their
church and who should we see there but the woman from the spa - with clothes on
this time.
 |
| My eldest daughter posing for the cover of Free From the Tracks on the railway line in Ngaruawahia |
There
are massive cultural differences between New Zealand and other countries and
this is definitely one of them. The whole nation is one big community. Nobody
is a stranger because there’s always this connection. I have given up fighting
it. I will always know someone that they know and vice versa.
As a Christian, I
know that God had a hand in our journey over here because he slung so many good
people across our path to help us out. But he used a cultural factor that was
already here to do it.
If
novels by New Zealand authors seem a little unrealistic from the point of view
that everyone’s lives are bound up in each other’s then it’s because that’s truly
how it is. If you’re reading our work from the safety of another continent, don’t
make the mistake of thinking we played out some complicated plot sequence just
for convenience. It’s highly probable that the murderer will be the hero’s
brother’s-dog’s-cat’s-Uncle Tom-once removed from the budgie’s aunty.
So
don’t scoff at us.
And
whatever you do - never criticise one New Zealander to another. It is an
absolute certainty that they will know them and you will end up sorry you ever
mentioned it.
2
degrees of separation has no escape.
#travel #amwriting #NewZealand #tourism #2degrees #2degreesofseparation #novelines
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