REPORT 28    JUNE 2005

We adjourned to a Belgo-bar in the old Ponsonby post office . . .

The Kernewek Lowender was as eccentric and wonderful as we'd hoped - a week of echt-Cornishness on the other side of the world with pasties, Trelawney, a Furry Dance and the opportunity to judge the best-dressed baby in Moonta and to address the President's lunch in a seaside restaurant in down-town Wallaroo. Life doesn't get much odder than this - or much more fun.

I was able to write my 1500 word piece about it for the Daily Mail though, for reasons I'll explain later, I haven't been able to deliver it. Never mind, I hope it will appear before too long and that it will reach a large audience. The Lowender is the biggest Cornish Festival in the world, despite taking place in South Australia, and I very much hope I'll be back for the next one in two years time.

The other huge plus of the last month was being able to make a trip to New Zealand to see Lucy, the second daughter, who is living there with Simon, who is doing a degree in Marine Biology. Qantas have just reinstated direct flights between Adelaide and Auckland and though these are at incredibly anti-social hours (dep Ad 10.15 arr Au 05.15; dep Au 0615 arr Ad 08.30) they are least direct and obviate the expense and inconvenience of having to go via Sydney.

Lucy was on fine form and enjoying her job with an "events" company for whom she seems to organize everything from visits from the Young Presidents' Company of the USA to the local jewellers' fair presided over by the improbably named Roland Hank (Shank, Lank?).

Lucy and Simon met me at this horribly early hour and after catch-up tea Simon drove me down to the bus station where I caught the early bus to Kaiwaka, an hour or so north of the city where I was to stay with old friends Graham and Pip - Pip used to be Penny's New Zealand oppo for the Hong Kong Tourist Association. They have a wonderful "cottage" overlooking an inlet in the fertile hilly country just outside Kaiwaka. Pip's parents Barb and Alec were also staying. Both in their different ways great characters - poor Alec was recovering, indomitably, from quadruple bye-pass surgery and Barb was as sharp as ever and made sharp and fascinating conversation on everything from Shakespeare to Fiji, Princess Margaret to Formula One motor racing!

After a thoroughly enjoyable and invigorating 48 hours they drove me back to Auckland where we met up with Lucy and Simon and the six of us had an Indian meal together. This was fun as Penny and I had been trying to get the others together for the best part of two years.

The next day - Friday - I stayed at Lucy and Simon's place in Ponsonby and did some work as well as nipping up to buzzy Ponsonby Road for a risotto at a gay brasserie called SPQR and an abortive visit to an internet-café. More about the internet later. In the evening we went to the pub to watch the semi final of the Super Twelves between Wellington and Canterbury - at least I think it was except that all the clubs now have silly names such as Chiefs and Hurricanes which means that you have no idea who they actually are or where they came from. Anyway the Canterbury lot thrashed the others but it all looked pretty scrappy to me and augured well for the impending Lions visit - though we didn't know that the said Lions were about to scramble a weedy draw against a decidedly under-strength Argentine side at Twickenham.

On Saturday Lucy and I took the ferry to Waiheke Island where our cousin Jertemy Edbrooke has a vineyard. We'd phoned the day before but unfortunately he was just off to the US so we missed him. We did an enormous amount of walking both on the Auckland side and on the island stopping off for a glass of rosé in the little village overlooking a pretty beach and then having a very good and rather grand lunch at the Mudbrick Vineyard a mile or so away. Fantastic views and smart function rooms which would be perfect for some of Lucy's events. On our way back we met Simon who had been helping out with his brother's auction company and, at a spectacular new fish market, bought loads of prawns, mussels, smoked tuna, lemon fish, gurnard and rock fish which Simon later cooked (or not as required). Delicious though far too much.

The following day it was pouring with rain so after a Simon-cooked breakfast we adjourned to a Belgo-bar in the old Ponsonby post office where, I'm afraid we spent most of the day drinking Jim Barry "Cover Drive" Shiraz and chatting away. Finally crashed out on the floor to be woken at 3.15 and taken to the airport by an enormous, smiley Samoan taxi driver - female.

That was fun but back in Adelaide not such fun. Penny had stayed at home, ostensibly to start work on sorting through her parents' effects and will with her two brothers. Peter, the surgeon, still lives in Adelaide and John, a town planner, had come down specially from Brisbane. It's not my business and really I think it's best to draw a veil over the whole thing but if you want an object lesson in how NOT to divide up an inheritance then this is it. Text-book.

Meanwhile I was being incredibly frustrated by the so-called improvements in modern communications. Sir Eric Penn's widow had called Cornwall when we were in Singapore and I picked up the message and called her back, giving her rather a surprise in Scotland, but demonstrating - thanks to Orange, the Mobile and BT answering services - that things can and do sometimes work. However my efforts to pick up e-mail at internet cafes and elsewhere using the hitherto effective "webmail" site simply didn't work. I was told, basically, that it didn't exist. Whereas my previous laptops had always been able to plug into the local phone systems in places such as Hong Kong, Australia and New Zealand via Compuserve my new, expensive all-dancing and singing Samsung couldn't do the business and, worse, when I consulted so-called professionals in Adelaide and elsewhere they looked at me as if I was mad even to contemplate the idea. I didn't even have a printer as the perfectly good one I was using is apparently incompatible and obsolete.

So for a month or more I have been effectively cut off from all internet-communication. A nightmare. No doubt I will be able to work some things out when I get back but the whole internet revolution does seem to be a variant on the Kingsley Amis "more means worse" dictum. There are various problems but the most obvious seem to be that most people use computers for entertainment and certainly not the sort of work I do, so all the emphasis is on what sort of games the machines can play or how many full length movies you can watch without re-charging the batteries. Also, of course, the only way the businesses can remain solvent is by building in obsolescence and fallibility so that computers are out-of-date almost as soon as you acquire them and break down irreparably the second the guarantee expires.

Ah well. Grumpy old man!

Against this backdrop of e-frustration and dysfunctional in-laws Adelaide was less than completely wonderful even though it was lovely to catch up with old friends and places: Claire Woods and Nigel Starck from the University of South Australia; Penny's former in-laws, the Frasers; her old games teacher Marg Jude; Rick and Judy Lee, who came over from Sydney for her birthday weekend; Ros and Neil Paterson who looked after us in the Cornish Triangle; Graham and Aaron from the Barossa; Joan and Jock Hughes; David Evans once of Lyon House, Sherborne; Jack Maclean and Jill Thomas, on whose hospitality we imposed in Norwood. It was great to see these as well as Simon Martin, Eric Ellis and Mary ? in Singapore. I sound a bit like the late Betty Kenward who wrote Jennifer's Diary in the Tatler all those years and used to name-drop in a similarly breathless fashion.

Yes, seeing all these people was fun but I had a nasty fidgety sense that there was work I should be doing and people with whom I should be communicating so after the initial euphoria of the Kernewek Lowender and my time in New Zealand I found myself itching to re-engage properly with at least two novels, Denis Compton, Princess Margaret and much else besides. Penny says that I would still be involved with lots of different projects even if there were no commercial imperatives involved. However there ARE commercial imperatives involved and it was, incidentally, terrific to find that Meg's bookshop in Port Pirie in South Africa and Bookends of Fowey in Cornwall were both stocking and selling dozens of my books. If they can do it, why can't others?

So grumble, grumble…I don't mean it to sound like a consistent whinge because I am only too well aware of how privileged and lucky I am. On the other hand constructive complaint is another matter, isn't it? And surely part of the fun of life is expressing a dissenting point of view, whether it is about the composition of the England cricket team, the inadequacies of e-mail improvements, or the horrors of having to get out of the aircraft at Darwin just as you are nodding off to sleep. I'd hate to appear smug!

PS Since writing this I have found a computer genius friend of Marg Jude who sorted out the computer problems in less than an hour so I've been in contact with the world at large and David Taylor in particular, as well as Ion Trewin at Weidenfeld. Greatly reassuring. Canterbury won the Super Twelves and six of us had lunch at the Star of Greece at Port Willunga. Alas we missed Rob and Pam at Rockford Wines but I managed to get Penny a birthday cake and have a photo of her as Head Prefect at Methodist Ladies' College miraculously and electronically baked into the icing. Very apt as we are to address the school assembly on Wednesday morning. I shall tell them about the cake. 

Tim Heald

Report Number 28  JUNE 2005                                                                               Return to Homepage