Extracts from an Unpublished Autobiography
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'FROM ISLAND TO ISLAND' Extracts from an unpublished autobiography ALISTAIR TE ARIKI CAMPBELL Alistair Te Ariki Camp bell was a leading figure in the post-war Literary Society of Victoria Univer sity College which after several 'Broadsheets', published a new literary journal Hilltop in 1949. In these extracts from his unpublished autobiography we approach some of the sources of his poems, especially that of'The Return', his most celebrated single work, first published in Hilltop 2 under the title 'Landscape with Figures'. He also gives us a student's view of life at Victoria, but before coming to Wellington he had 'reluctantly and resentfully' enrolled as a student at Otago University for the 1944 academic year ... HERE'S AN AIR of unreality The Baxter myth had taken root. man's heroic spirit. Baxter was T about this year I find difficult 'Convoys', not surprisingly, is an spoken of in a wed tones as a to explain. Of course the University immature and uneven poem, prodigy, and all heads would turn itself, the old part in particular to watch him as he shuffled into with the clock tower, is a little view, revolving resonant lines in unreal- pure Disneyland gothic his head. Or so we supposed. in scale and conception. But the More probably he was nursing a unreality I experienced came hang-over, for he was already more from my refusal to come drinking heavily. to terms with university life. He could be found in the Part of my mind was bent on Bowling Green Hotel in the academic life, part rejected it company of two or three because the study required hangers-on, spou ling obscene would be an obstacle to my verses of his own making or writing verse. The result was an relishing the orotundities of impasse which brought me close Yeats or some new discovery to a breakdown later in the year. such as George Barker, rolling But meanwhile James K. the words in his mouth as if he Baxter, who had attended liked the taste. Occasionally I King's High School, arrived on ran into him, with the same the scene. Even then, at the age cronies, in the Silver Grill in the of 18, he had captured the Octagon, his favourite student imagination, and after Alistair Te Ariki Campbe/1, 1953· chophouse. the appearance of his long war time poem 'Convoys' in the Otago showing the influence of C Day By November tensions had become Daily Times he had become famous. Lewis's 'The Nabara', a long intolerable. Alistair decided to quit: Everyone was talking about him. winded tub-thumping tribute to 'I wasn't in a funk. It was more than that. Vol 9 No 1 March 1999 N E \VI Z.E A L A N D S T U D I E S Jt was more like a paralysis of the will, a11 d for some time before stumbling on in a 1924 Chevrolet convertible for the might have been a foretaste of my mwtal Penrhyn Island. South Island. breakdown 16 years later'. He resig11ed from the Health Department The Mackenzie country itself was And so in November 1944 I arrived b11t ma11aged to get into the Wellingt011 windswept and strewn with strag in Wellington. I had passed through Teachers Training College and at the same gly trees, and mile after mile of the city before, on my way to stay time enrolled as a studen t at Victoria. He tussock. The road was stony and with Aunt Peg at Onehunga, but I was admitted to th e student hostel Weir awash in places with shallow had never stopped there. Welling- House where he shared a room witl1 Bob wandering streams. There wasn't a ton then was still under the shadow Barraclough who was traiuing to be a town sign of a sheep anywhere, so the of war and crowded with American planner. purposes of the wire fences might servicemen who would soon be almost have been to define the road, shipped out to halt the advance of Our room was on the first floor, to distinguish it from its surround the Japanese in the south-west with a superb view of the city, ings. No sign of a rabbit either, Pacific. Numbers of New Zealand harbour, and the snow-topped although the whole area was troops were also present, and in the Rimutaka Range beyond Lower riddled by their workmanship. nervous climate scuffles broke out, Hutt. On fine still mornings, when Oddly enough, faced by this one of which became a nasty brawl sunlight flooded our rooms, you felt desolation, I felt exhilarated. involving hundreds of men from as if you were suspended in space, Tekapo was enchanting. Against both sides, and later known as the high above the earth. Two of my a backdrop of towering peaks, 'Battle of Manners Street'. closest friends shared rooms on the brown hills plunged softly into a Walking along the narrow same floor, Harry Orsman opposite lake of opal, where, close to shore, a unfamiliar streets, knowing nobody us and Ro y Dickson at the end of fe w tiny islands, tufted with willow, and with little money, I wondered if the corridor, above the common floated in sunlight. A small pub I had made the right decision in room. Next door, in a single room, invited us in to slake our thirst, and shifting here. I began to have my was John Oakley, an older student beyond it the road rose as it passed doubts. During the last three who studied law. I was to see a lot a small clump of pines aromatic in months between dropping out of of him in the coming months. the afternoon sun. After Tekapo university and leaving for Welling Academically, 1945 was a good came the real mountain country. ton, I had begun to take writing year for m e. As a part-time student, The plain narrowed and was deeply verse seriously, and now in the tiny I passed English I and Latin I quite scored by rocky creek beds alive room in the old Boys Institute comfortably. My Latin teacher was with bustling, milky, glacier-fed building which I shared with two Professor Rankine Brown, a noted water The spell of the mountains others, and between the dusty racks but ancient classicist. You would was now pervasive, the air dry, of the Records Office of the Depart have thought he was gaga, but now sharp, and heady. ment of Health, writing was to and then he'd come out with a fl ash Perhaps the most beautiful place rescue me from loneliness and of wit that made you sit up and take we went through was the Lindis boredom. I was then reading notice. His body might have been Pass, which marked the end of the Byron's Don Juan, but I was still failing, but there wasn' t too much Mackenzie Country. I had always w riting verse that owed much to wrong with his mind. My English thought of tussock as pretty unin Keats. It was puerile stuff. Unlike teacher was Professor Ian Cordon, a teresting, but here it was a deep Baxter whose early development first-rate lecturer. golden colour gleaming in the hot showed extraordinary precocity, it sunlight like well-brushed hair. The took me a long time to get my At the end of the year, four Weir Hou se rocks too, the grass, the lichen, the bearings. I was like the skipper who boarders (Bob Barraclough, John Oakley, moss, with their rich texture of had to sail backwards and forwards Ray Dickson and Alistair Campbell) set out greens and browns, and greys 6 Vol 9 No 1 March 1999 NEW Z_EALAND STUDIES Frie11ds n11d fellow Weir House boarders, 1945, clockwise from above, Geoff Dntso11, Cordon Orr, Roll Trotter, Bill 0/iver, Harry Orsmnn, and Pat Wilson. completed the effect that was little Te Anau, the Eglinton Valley, Camp others wanted to go on, even short of magical. Marian at the head of the Hollyford though it was raining and close to Next day I climbed the moun Valley, and beyond to Milford nightfall. We were ill-prepared for tain again, and this time alone, Sound. Freezing cold air can have a such an expedition, and I can recall pausing halfway for a breather. It strange effect on the mind. our amusement at the incongruous was another beautiful day. The lake Camp Marian under Mt sight of John in a suit, hopping was placid, the mountains stood Christina was a collection of Public along a road as rough as a creek tall, competing with their reflec Works huts, unoccupied at the time bed, cursing the sole of one of his tions, then round the corner came of our visit. The mist was low, and shoes, which had become unstuck, the Enmslnw no bigger than a child's only the lower flanks of the moun and flapped when he raised his foot. toy. When she berthed at the wharf tain were visible, its granite surface The approach to the Homer below, I felt I could reach down and smooth and gleaming in the half Tunnel was awe-inspiring. Sheer pick her up. A little later I stood at light. From every side came differ mountains hung above us on both the summit. It was Christmas Eve. I ent sounds of water, splashing, sides. On our left a forest had been was looking across at the murmuring, singing- and the light laid waste by avalanches, leaving Remarkables, thinking about seemed to be dancing too, as it fell jagged stumps, while on our right poetry, when I had the feeling I had on rocks, tree trunks, and flowing the infant Hollyford River tumbled it in me to write good poems, water.