How I Learned to Play Rugby

I suppose it started with games of bullrush at primary school in Hastings. It was quite serious stuff at the time - and we learned to tackle. When my parents shifted to Taranaki bullrush was still the order of the day. On my first day at school in Kaponga we played bullrush at lunchtime. I tackled another kid and he cried. After school his big brother intercepted me on my way home from school. "You made my brother cry" he snarled as he grabbed me by my shirt collar. He then proceeded to beat me up. He was a big cow cockie's son from up near the mountain and had big milkers' fists. My parents couldn't understand why I chose the long way home from school for days after that encounter.

We had a school rugby (what else) team and used to travel to the local schools to play them. I think I played on the wing then - not that I was fast. After being fatherless for most of WW2 I was always keen to impress my father. One day when we were playing another local team at a field across from our home I happened to spy my father watching the game from a hole in the nearby hedge. I inserted myself into the inner backline and screamed for the ball. It duly arrived and I ran through the opposition fending them off right, left and centre. I ran over the goal line and raced around to ground the ball between the posts to the tune of the refs whistle - feeling very pleased with myself. The opposition swarmed over to the ref. "Sir," they clamoured, "he ran over the dead ball line before he scored the try." The ref looked at where I'd run - sure enough the field had the dead ball line very close to the try line. "Sorry son," he said, "I think they are right" and disallowed the try. I looked to where my father had been standing and he'd gone. It was the first and last time, as far as I knew, that he ever watched me play rugby. Neither that night at home nor ever afterwards was the incident ever mentioned.

Taranaki and the Hedge - Across the Road.

When we moved to Christchurch the bullrush continued and eventually I attended Secondary School at Xavier College. It was a tough school and we were expected to play rugby. We trained on cinders from the gas works across the road. We were coached by Marist Brothers who were also tough. I have a few memories of games and of training. I remember Brother Maurice, our first 15 coach and school head master teaching us how to control the ball at our feet during the days of the great forward dribbling rushes. Maurie would roll the ball forward to our feet and we would try to dribble the ball past him. My turn came and I succeeded admirably. I dribbled he ball past (and over) him and in the process managed to knock him to the ground and stomp all over him. He picked himself up from the gasworks cinders , and started to dust himself off. I'm for it I thought. All he said was, "Good grief, you're a bony bastard Smith." and left it at that.

One of my school mates, Sig Houston, was somewhat clumsy - elbows and knees and heels all over the place. You had to get into the rucks in front of him if you didn't want to be maimed. On one occasion on the West Coast we had to play on a flooded rugby field. Sig and half the scrum collapsed on top of my head burying it in about six inches of water. I remember waiting anxiously for the ref to blow his whistle - not easy when you've been gasping for air. I thought I was going to drown.

And at one stage I was selected for a Canterbury under-age representative team. We played another team further south with me at fullback. On one occasion someone kicked the ball towards me. I took it on the run, sidestepped some of the opposition, and with only one person between me and the goal line - kicked it for touch ! ! Our captain wandered over to me later to remind me that I should have linked up with some of my team mates for which would have been a certain try. I was never picked as a rep again.

In a Queensland Uni inter-faculty game I once distinguished myself by riling Jules Guerassimoff (Australian International and, soon after, chosen as one of the top five rugby players in the world) in the front row (my, and possibly Jules' first and only time as a prop) by demonstrating how not to go down in a scrum. The other players had to tear him away from me. "Don't you know who that is" they said. I was terrified!

Big Jules - "I was terrified"

And then there was my last game of rugby - two days before I married Catherine. It was the final of the University of Queensland inter-faculty rugby competition.  A little later the ball ended up in my hands and thinking I'd demonstrate to the Aussies what I understood was a 'Maori sidestep' (think of Jona Lomu and an English fullback) I ran full tilt into an opposition player. The result was an unconscious opposition player and me with a broken collar bone. Not a good way to start married life. That was my last game of rugby. But I still enjoy watching it.

Youthful beginnings - mountains - influences

Looking through an old NZ Geographic magazine recently I came across a short article called "Alpine Start" - someone's musings about the beginnings of his mountain climbing. I'd been thinking along similar lines myself of recent years so his article has prodded me into writing some of my own musings.

My main question seemed to be the eternal one about which was more important - nature or nurture - or some combination of the two - of course. After my father was away for almost four years during WW2 he returned to a well-mothered boy who was eager to break out. To his eternal credit he insisted that my mother "let him run free" - I was given a dog and together Chum and I roamed the paddocks, hunting and murdering rabbits about Hastings. When we moved to Kaponga, Taranaki, the prey became possums in the bush about the local mountain, then Egmont.

Mt Egmont (now Taranaki) from our house, Kaponga

One day when I was about 12 I biked from Kaponga up to Dawson Falls and started up the track towards the top of the mountain. Of course I didn't get to the top (about as far as the snow line in the photo above) but was amazed to discover that just by planting one foot after another you could get  above the bush and scrub line and into the tussock. I loved the changes in vegetation and in retrospect I think this was where it all started.

First Mountain Top 1952 - Torlesse (my father, centre)

When we shifted to Christchurch in 1950 the adventuring continued about Banks Peninsula. My father included me in his trips into the hills with some of his work mates. There were hunting trips after deer in the Canterbury foothills - mainly about Lake Sumner and Mt Thomas and several tramping and climbing trips up Mts Torlesse, Hutt, Cloudsley and Enys. Torlesse was an epic with us descending into the wrong valley (Staircase Gully) and having to climb up and out in rain.

I became quite driven about  my climbing ambitions and was soon under the wing of the CMC; going to their Easter Climbing camps up the Waimakariri.  Soon the peaks about Arthur's Pass were being climbed. From there it was just a matter of progression on longer and longer trips towards the peaks about Mt Cook and southwards. I also joined the New Zealand Alpine Club. My mother just kept herself back and worried about me until she heard my footsteps on the drive most Sunday nights. She always managed to find a train fare for me from the stressed family budget she operated.

Tasman Arete

Happy Climber - early 1950s

Along the way there were sprains and cuts and bruises but they all healed and from them and experience the skills of climbing developed. The mind seems to have a propensity for eliminating the unpleasant experiences of life and so my main memories are of glorious dawns and dusks, mists clearing to reveal snow and ice covered ridges and faces, moonlit valleys and mountains and happy laughing companions. Short or long doesn't matter; the important thing is the quality of your life. Life is so much better for having loved the mountains.  

Upper Waimakariri River - Mt Carrington

Old Mates Resting and Reminiscing

There were sacrifices of course. One was getting kicked out of the school choir for chosing to go climbing rather than attend the final rehearsal for the combined Christchurch schools' performance of Handel's Hallelujah Chorus arranged in many parts by Vernon Griffiths. My mother insisted that I went to the performance with her and, regretfully, I wished I was part of it.

Now, at 80, I'm still planning trips with the 'old climbing mates'. The peaks are lower. The jury is still out on how much nature and how much nurture was involved in those early alpine beginnings. Other views?

Adventures With A Dog - Part Four

In 1950 we moved from Kaponga to Hornby, on the southern edge of Christchurch and of course Chum came too.  I was now about twelve and the adventures were bigger for me.  Once with Chum I headed off over to Banks Peninsula beyond Gebbies Pass.  There were more battles with possums.  But my interests in mountain climbing and sport on weekends often meant that my hunting mate stayed at home. But he did accompany us on several picnic ventures into the foothills and other places such as Hanmer. 

Dad and Chum at Hanmer

Back in Hornby he would wander off each morning to attend to his toiletries.  Sometimes he would not come home for several days.  We started by worrying about his absences but once we found out that someone's bitch was on heat we relaxed.  He'd come home filthy and exhausted. He'd sleep for days after such activities. I was about to reach the age where I empathised with his instincts.

John and Chum at Hornby

My sister, Karen, recalls a time when Chum went missing on a family holiday (I wasn't there) to Queenstown. After much searching he was found stuck in a stormwater drain.  Maybe a rabbit had preceded him up the drain! After some hours my father found a way to get him out amid great family celebration.  Poor Chum was happily wagging his tail to show his appreciation of his rescue from the dark when a great big Samoyed dog ran up and started savaging him.  It had not been his day.

Finally I left home to study in Australia.  It was while I was in Australia that my mother wrote to say that Chum had died.  He'd been hit by a car one wet night.  He recovered from the accident but developed pneumonia from the wet night lying in the rain. Reading my mothers letter thousands of miles from home a flood of memories returned – it was hard not to let a tear roll. I conducted a private wake of my own.

Adventures With A Dog - Part Three

In 1948 we migrated as a family to Kaponga in South Taranaki where my father had obtained a job as local electrical serviceman with the local power authority.  So, on weekends, in groups of four or five we local kids would visit various haunts within cycling distance.  Chum came too. Favourites were a few dams on farmers’ properties or on the many streams about the mountain.  We would fish for koura and some of them from the deeper dams were big and black.  The bigger boys could pick them up behind their nippers but one boy was not quick enough and there was blood everywhere.  They would also terrify the younger of us by chasing us with their koura with nippers outreaching.  We learned to run. And there were other dubious activities.

John in Chum's Kennel - Kaponga

One adventurous undertaking was to make outrigger canoes out of sheets of corrugated iron.  The front of the canoe was made out of the sheet of iron bent up over a short plank and nailed to it and the back section was the other end of the sheet bent and nailed about a rectangular piece of wood (about 400 x 250mm).  The whole thing was waterproofed by melting tar off the road over a fire and pouring it into the seams of the 'boat'.  The 'outrigger' part was a plank nailed across the canoe and extended out to a kerosene tin on one side.  These canoes worked well on a dam just up from Kaponga on the Kaupokunui Stream.  This dam was of historical significance although few knew it at the time.  It marked the site of the first hydroelectric generation in New Zealand in 1916.   The dam has since been destroyed in an attempt at flood control.  It’s a miracle that we didn't drown in that dam as I had only just learned to take my first few swimming strokes and we were always out of our depth, having 'naval engagements on the high seas'.  I doubt that any of the others could swim.  Chum stood on the bank and barked warnings.

Possums were a pest up towards Mount Taranaki.  On weekends and school holidays I’d visit school friends on their farms and I would hike off to the nearest patch of bush looking for possums –with Chum.  I remember being part of some death struggles between Chum and possums that had been caught on the ground.  There was fur everywhere as the possum would loose its fur and the dog would nearly gag on the mouthfuls of possum hair.  I would grab a big stick to try and help dispatch the possum but, on one occasion in a swamp, couldn't tell the difference between the possum and the dog, they were both so covered in mud.  The dog and I were great mates.

From our front window you could see Mt Taranaki.  Not surprisingly I took to wandering again and on a few occasions would take Chum, and bike up onto Mt Egmont.  On one trip Chum became lost in the bush and I had to find him – by using his yelps as a beacon.  It took me quite a while. He was caught by his paw in a possum 'gin' trap at the base of a big Rimu tree and I had to work out how to release him from the trap.  I had to use my foot to open the strong spring holding the jaws of the trap shut on his paws. I gathered him up and carried him to the road.  I biked him home, carrying him under one arm.  Fortunately it was all down hill.  I was quite pleased with my 'rescue' as I’d never been alone in the NZ bush before and had been quite scared.

My father had cured some rabbit skins from Chum's kills in Hastings and these were inverted and used as gloves over the handlebars of our bikes in winter.  No more chilblains on frosty mornings.

Adventures With A Dog - Part Two

One weekend my friend Donald Beere, Chum (my dog) and I took off on our bikes for a day rabbiting up the Ngarororo River, just north of Hastings.  It was one of those very hot summery days and we didn’t have much luck with the rabbits.  In the early afternoon we decided it was time to head back down the river to our bikes at the bridge.  By now it was stifling-hot and we were tired from carrying our gear, which included Mr Beere’s heavy shovel, essential for digging rabbits from their burrows.  So we decided to make a raft for our gear and soon we were busy collecting sticks, logs and flax for the binding.  Finally we added all our clothes to the heap and launched the raft.  It was great prancing naked down the river flats in the sun with the dog.  Our spell in Eden ended when the raft swept under a weeping willow and emerged upside down.  Our predicament was quickly realised.  At the next rapid we waded out trying to recover our lost gear.  All I recovered of mine was a singlet.  Donald found his pants and nothing more.  I suspect that Chum was smiling.  So in the dusk we reached our bikes at the Pakowhai bridge and, with the singlet draped about my middle, biked home to what I was sure would be a good hiding.  Luckily my uncle was visiting and I was somewhat spared.  The next night Donald’s father accompanied us back to the fateful willow tree and we were made to scour the river for his lost spade.  We never found it but we suffered mightily from sunburn on parts of our anatomy not normally exposed to the Hawkes Bay summer sunshine.

I also remember a great camping holiday at Waipatiki Beach – there was no development in the area in those days and we spent lots of time catching rabbits.  Uncle Ron and his son, Gavin, came out from Hastings at one stage with a sack full of wood off-cuts.  The rabbits were so plentiful that you could get heaps by just throwing sticks and rocks at them and we spent a fruitful afternoon killing rabbits.  The funny part was that Chum could not catch any because every time he chased one rabbit several other new ones would cut across his path and he would keep changing course and soon becoming exhausted.

One Saturday morning I was bird nesting with my cousin Jimmy and our dogs. Jimmy asked if I knew about the baby my mother was going to have.  I didn't - nor did I know how come she was going to have a baby.  So Jimmy moulded a woman in the river sand and, with a stick, showed me how women became impregnated!  I was astounded! My mother was horrified to hear what I'd learned and how I'd found out.  That morning Jimmy and I found our first quail's nest.  John was born a few months later. 

Adventures With A Dog - Part One

On my ninth birthday my parents gave me a dog.  There was some discussion about what we would call him.  My cousin, Jimmy, had a terrier called Pal. We liked the idea that the name should indicate comradeship so we named him "Chum".  Chum was a bitser.  He was black and white and predominantly fox terrier but seemed to have some spaniel in his mysterious ancestry.

My father was a disciplinarian and dogs were meant to know their place and be obedient.  So from quite a young age Chum was taught to sit on one spot until called and to come from anywhere when called.  Dad was his trainer, Mum was Chum's provider and I was his mate in adventure and trouble.  It seemed natural for Mum to feed him and I would help when necessary.  One of the things my mother seemed to think was necessary was to wash Chum now and then.  Chum hated this.  Whenever he heard a tap running for his bath he would try to escape or hide and when we'd lift him into the tub he'd go rigid and stay rigid for the whole procedure.  He certainly used to look clean and white after his wash and drying but that didn't last long.  As soon as we released him from his torment he'd race off to find the nearest cow or sheep dung and roll in it.  On one occasion I remember him coming back positively green and stinking.

Chum's Kennel and Dad

My father was good with tools and he constructed Chum a good weatherproof kennel.  It had a removable top so the interior could be easily cleaned and his name was painstakingly painted on the front.  He had a blanket to sleep on.

It didn't seem long before we both found a common interest in rabbits.

BLS and Chum out Rabbiting

We lived on the edge of the town in Hastings.  Over our back fence were paddocks and the further away from home you went the more plentiful the rabbits.   So it wasn't long before I'd come racing home from school and together Chum and I would run rabid after rabbits over the paddocks.  I don’t remember very many rabbits being caught.  Most rabbits never strayed far from their warrens so much of our time was spent digging furiously into warrens.  More often that not we came home empty handed and dog-tired.  Often we'd get home almost on dark and we'd be in serious trouble – sometimes getting a hiding or being sent to bed without any tea.  Mum and my sister, Karen, usually managed to smuggle some food to us.  But within a couple of days we'd be off rabbitting again.  This phase was not good for my academic  advancement.  I don’t think my school homework was done and I slid towards the bottom of the class.