One a Pecker, Two a Pecker, Bright Fine Gold

In the sixties and early seventies my parents started buying Readers Digest Condensed Books. They were great readers, and I expect this was a cheap way of getting books. Us kids read them too, of course, but even back then I used to wonder what they edited out in order to condense the stories. What was I missing?

Well as time went on, I would find some of the novels in libraries or second-hand bookshops. I don't think I ever came across even one that had benefited from such wholesale editing. The novel pictured here was one of the condensed stories in those books which I read as a teenager, but this is the first time I have come across the full novel at a sensible price ($4). It's a vintage New Zealand novel and even in the first few pages, it is clear that heaps was missed out from the condensed story. I am very pleased with my find from the St Christopher's Bookshop at New Brighton (NZ).

This copy appears to be a first edition, published in 1957, original price on the flyleaf of 17s.6d. 

The story is centred on Currency MacQueen, left alone and penniless at eighteen when her guardian known as Mother Jerusalem, suddenly dies on the streets of Dunedin. She makes her way to Calico Town  with Billy Figg and his crazed wife Adeline and their cargo of cats. The other main characters are the sober-minded Law family, Uncle Alick, his sister, Margaret Law, daughter Tatty, the Italian Pigallo, and the mysterious Shannadore. Also the well-drawn, often desperate miners drawn from around the globe, all seeking their fortunes in amongst the snow-capped peaks and mountain streams flowing from Lake Wakatipu.   

Ruth Park was born in Auckland, New Zealand on the 24th of August, 1917. She worked as a journalist for the Auckland Star but found the job disappointing. In 1942, she moved to Sydney, Australia in search of more challenging work, and she married Australian author Darcy Niland. She and Darcy had 5 children including twins (I am feeling a bit bonded now, I also have 5 children including twins). She wrote several novels including this one, One-a-Pecker, Two-a-Pecker which was published in 1957 (an auspicious year, I feel), set in the Otago Gold Rush of the 1860s, New Zealand's biggest gold rush. Later the novel title was changed to The Frost and The Fire, under which title it was published by the Readers Digest Condensed Books.

One-a-pecker, two-a-pecker, bright fine gold,

Spend it in the summer and you die in the cold.

It cannot light a lantern, or ever ease a pain,

And yet we go on searching, tho' we search in vain.

NZ Folk Song

My Bus Submission on the Chopping of Routes, and The Raising of Fares.

Six Bus Routes Face the Chop

This really gets up my nose! Yet again, Environment Canterbury (ECAN) (you) are doing your level best to annoy and frustrate people, not only by canning six bus routes, but by raising fares as well, especially hitting low income people and disabled people in the pocket.

ECAN annoyed people in previous years by changing the routes as far as I can tell, so less buses can get around more areas . That might sound good to accountants but it now takes over 50 minutes or more for my Southshore bus to get to the City Bus Exchange, as it ambles along to QE2, through Burwood, wandering along Lake Terrace Rd to Shirley and past the Palms and schools, taking in North Avon Rd, Stanmore Rd, and finally points its nose to town. This is a journey 60 yr old me can do in 25 minutes on a good day on my bicycle, taking a simpler more direct route. Meantime, I require two buses in order to get to the closer Eastgate Mall? Is this making sense to anyone. Not to me.

I note that the Westmoreland bus route is going for the chop. This is a route my sister would use daily IF the flaming bus would actually go to the Central Bus Exchange near to her work, but it doesn't. So she would have to use two buses also which is ridiculous. Why any route would not go to the Central Bus Exchange built at great expense by the Christchurch City Council, therefore ratepayers, I cannot understand. Instead my sister ignores her close-by bus stop and drives to outside Princess Margaret Hospital where she then picks up a bus taking her into town where she wants to go. In case you haven't noticed the Central City is now opening up and more people are working there. All buses should arrive at the Central City Bus Exchange in a timely manner.

I am quite sure that people all over Christchurch can tell many similar stories. It is ridiculous, firstly, that the Christchurch City Council (CCC) is expected to provide all the infrastructure while ECAN decides the routes and fares. ECAN would be better named ECAN'T I think.

So what I want to say here is that public buses exist to provide a Service, first and foremost. They should provide that Service by giving people what they want and need, instead of making their customers struggle to find ways to make it somehow work for them, or else just give up and use their cars. ECAN is tasked with looking after our Environment, aren't you? Isn't that why it is called ENVIRONMENT CANTERBURY? Isn't that your kaupapa? ECAN is failing in its duty if it cannot find ways to help people to not use their car, thereby saving fossil fuels and congestion on our roads. In this day and age, as we see Global Climate Change wreaking havoc on our day to day temperatures with hotter summers, hotter seas, and more frequent and devastating storms, surely a first step is to get people using the public bus system. More people will do so if they are indeed offered a better service on their buses, not cutbacks and rising fares.