H0495: INTERVIEW WITH HELEN MARGARET MCKAY

DATE: 7 OCTOBER 2008

INTERVIEWER: PAM SMITH

[NOTE: THIS IS A TRANSCRIPT NOT AN ABSTRACT WITH TIMINGS]

My early life until I was fifteen was spent in TIMARU in the South part of TIMARU in the poorer class of TIMARU, right next door to the tip and right next door to the cemetery, the little airport that was there and the lovely TIMARU GARDENS. We had heaps of playing field and right beside what we called the back beach. The beach at TIMARU is CAROLINE BAY but we lived at the EAST COAST. My father fished there and if he didn't fish we wouldn't have had much to eat. I went to school at TIMARU SOUTH SCHOOL which was quite a big school and still is a big school and I didn't realise it but it was a very good school in spite of it being in the SOUTH END of TIMARU because it produced a lot of clever people who went on to do lots of bigger things. When I was fifteen my father got a job as foreman of the CASINGS DEPARTMENT at the FREEZING WORKS at OCEAN BEACH and we shifted to BLUFF. My mother thought that we had come to the end of the world and us kids we didn't mind it so much. I had one year at GIRLS HIGH SCHOOL and I was really going to be a COMMERCIAL TEACHER. That's what everybody else had decided that I would be. That I'd go to WELLINGTON and become a COMMERCIAL TEACHER at HIGH SCHOOL or the PHYS ED TEACHER wanted me to become a PHYS ED TEACHER but I worked at the SOUTHLAND HARBOUR BOARD in the holidays and I liked it that much that I stayed there. I stayed there until I went overseas and when I came back from overseas I got married and I came to TUATAPERE to live properly. I was in TUATAPERE in 1955; I came here teaching HIGHLAND DANCING. "The country children were without culture," that's what MRS GUNTHER of the WOMENS DIVISON rang my mother up and said, that "the country children had no culture and little way of getting it and would your daughter come and teach". Without asking me she said yes I would. Without knowing who I was coming to or how I was getting here, she sent me on an H & H BUS and I was met by GEORDIE MCKAY in an old black dodge covered in dust and I was driven up the HAPPY VALLEY where I met his wife AMY and they later became my mother and father-in-law. I began teaching here on SATURDAY afternoons. There is one thing that sticks in my mind really about it, after I used to come out from teaching there would two or three teenage kids walking around the streets with KEROSENE TINS full of WHITEBAIT and they were practically giving it away. The WHITEBAIT seemed to run a lot better in those days and they were selling off whitebait around the streets. A Friday night was really, really busy. Everyone came to town on a FRIDAY night. All the shops that were here were all open and did lots of trade on a FRIDAY night because people came in from where they were living at the mill sites in the bush and they did their shopping then and everybody got a haircut at the MEN'S BARBER SHOP. The PICTURE THEATRE was going then. Every FRIDAY night and every SATURDAY night there was a welcome to the district party a farewell from the district, somebody's twenty first birthday party or on a SATURDAY somebody got married and had a wedding dance. It was a very busy place and a very social place.

HOW DID YOU GET TO BE A DANCER THAT YOU COULD TEACH? WHERE DID THAT COME FROM?

Strange you should say that. I did have all my exams for dancing from the NEW ZEALAND ACADEMY FOR DANCE but nobody actually taught me how to teach. I just had to figure that out for myself. I think in the early days I was too tough. I wanted everybody to be perfect. I was lucky I was a good dancer and a successful dancer and I thought everybody should have been and I just taught everybody and I was hoping that they would be as good as I was or better. Now I realise of course that they can't be like that and I'm probably a much better teacher now. I understand teaching a lot better now than I did then but I did produce good results, exam wise and on the stage. But now I've opted more for performance and we go for numbers and more like RIVER DANCE type dancing. That doesn't require the same degree of technique you can get away with it but you don't go to competitions and you don't do so well in the exams.

HELEN YOU TALKED ABOUT AT TIMARU AND YOU WEREN'T FINANCIALLY WELL OFF. HOW DID YOU LEARN DANCING THEN?

I think that we were one of the fortunate families in TIMARU. There were seven of us but we all learnt something outside of school. One brother learnt BAGPIPES, one brother learnt CORNET, my sisters all learnt to DANCE. My dancing lessons, the very early ones, were about a shilling a time and I went twice a week and they ended up in the early 1950s. My lesson was two and sixpence and I had to bike from one end of TIMARU to the other and I came home in the dark. It terrified the hell out of me as I had to go past the park and I had to go past the cemetery and I was always blimen relieved when I got to 24 COLLINS STREET!

WERE YOUR PARENTS FROM SCOTLAND?

My mother came to NEW ZEALAND as a six year old from NORTHERN IRELAND. My father's people came from SCOTLAND so we were half SCOTS and half IRISH but the IRISH connection was from NORTHERN ISLAND and they came from SCOTLAND anyway.

WHERE DID YOUR FATHER'S PARENTS COME FROM?

GLASGOW. They waded in off their boat over the sea and he was carried in the arms of his mother over the waves into CAROLINE BAY. They never had the break water then. He was a PLUMBER by trade and he didn't earn very much doing that so he went to the FREEZING WORKS in the season and he got a lot more money and he got cheap meat and then he had a stand down period as he earned too much money before he could go plumbing in the off season.

WHAT ARE THE INFLUENCES IN YOUR EARLY LIFE THAT IMPACT ON WHO YOU ARE TODAY?

My two DANCING TEACHERS. They were MENTORS. They didn't drive me but they goaded me in the right direction.

SO YOU THINK THAT DANCING HAS BEEN RIGHT THROUGH YOUR LIFE AND IT HAS BEEN AND YOUR TEACHERS WERE THE ONES THAT HAVE BEEN YOUR MENTORS?

Yes. I had a TEACHER in standard four and standard six at PRIMARY SCHOOL. He was at school with my father and went to TIMARU BOYS HIGH with my father and he was probably the best teacher that I had as far as school teachers go. In those classes I was the teacher’s pet. Actually to be quite honest I was the teacher’s pet in every class which wasn't always very good as the other kids didn't like it very much.

WHY DO YOU THINK THAT WAS? BECAUSE YOU LIKED TO LEARN?

Yes because I sat there quietly and soaked it all up and didn't give them any bother and then I produced it. I wouldn't say that I was very clever. I just learnt. But Mum was very good at ENGLISH, HISTORY and Dad very good at MATHS and GEOGRAPHY so that covered them all. Pretty lucky really. Every time I went past my father he said seven nines, or nine nines, eleven elevens and Mum could spell anything and really good at writing stories so the essay bit was really good.

SO IN SEVEN OF A FAMILY YOU HAD SCHOOL TEACHERS AND...?

Exactly, a brother a CHEMIST, one a SPECIALISED ELECTRICIAN, one HIGH SCHOOL TEACHER, one a CHEMIST ASSISTANT, one worked in the bank and one a NURSE. We got good jobs out of that and then when we married our kids have done even better. We were very lucky that we had parents that probably went without for that shilling lesson.

WHEN YOU MARRIED AND HAD YOUR CHILDREN IN TUATAPERE IN THE SIXTIES WHAT WAS IT LIKE THEN?

It was still like the fifties in the township. We didn't have a car when we first got married and I used to have to walk out with the pram to PLUNKET.

YOU DIDN'T DID YOU?

Yes I did.

BUT IT’S MILES!

It's not that many miles about five miles I think. I used to have to push the pram out to go to PLUNKETT but after I had about two babies I think we managed to get a car. My brother gave us a car. His second car that he wasn't using and we eventually paid him off. That was a WOLSELEY not just a HONDA. We lived in a little mill house that had just two bedrooms six hundred and fifty square feet all up including the bathroom and back porch. It was like a dolls house. On the farm at HAPPY VALLEY. We were there eleven and a half years until we really outgrew it when we had our five children. We moved out to TUATAPERE to a really nice house but we knew we were moving back to THE VALLEY to take over the farm at some stage. All the time that we were in TUATAPERE AMY and GEORDIE were still on the farm.

WHEN YOU TALKED ABOUT THE LITTLE MILL HOUSE ON THE FARM?

It was shifted there from the POURAKINO VALLEY. It was about twelve years old. THE MILL must have closed and these little houses had sat there and hunters had used them. They had never been connected to the power and they had candles burns where I think they had been burning mosquitoes or something like that. HUNTERS had camped in them as there was fat all up the walls where they had been having fry ups.

THAT WAS MOVED TO THE FARM WHEN YOU GOT MARRIED?

Yes we bought that for TWO HUNDRED and FIFTY POUNDS. It cost a HUNDRED POUNDS to move it there.

SO YOU WERE IN TUATAPERE WHEN YOU HAD THE FIVE CHILDREN? WHAT WERE THE SERVICES LIKE?

There was everything that you could wish for. We had a POST OFFICE, we had a BANK, we had a SERVICE STATION, we had DOCTORS that were wonderful, and we had MATERNITY CARE that you got staying in for fourteen days with your first, for the second baby a bit less. For my fifth baby I was in there for fifteen days. Wonderful care, we had AMBULANCE, we had FIRE BRIGADE, LIBRARY, PLUNKETT, great school.

PRIMARY AND SECONDARY?

When my kids first went to school there was only the WAIAU DISTRICT HIGH SCHOOL. Later a primary school was built and the HIGH SCHOOL became WAIAU DISTRICT HIGH SCHOOL but it was TUATAPERE PRIMARY. The talk then was on GOVERNMENT figures TUATAPERE was going to grow because of the FORESTRY. The FORESTRY CAMP that was there then we had seventy five young FORESTRY CADETS down there and that was supposed to grow. What happened then was that TUATAPERE had the only managed NATIVE LOGGING sites in NEW ZEALAND and they were to take seventy years to grow. They were going to be felled in rows, managed in rows. Then in 1987 at the same time as the GOVERNMENT crash, the GOVERNMENT drew a line through NATIVE LOGGING and that was the demise of TUATAPERE. What's really annoying is that we always knew they were going to be logged and they are starting to be logged now by LINDSAY and DIXONS and the original logger who was ALAN JOHNSTON has been tipped out. You might say. They are not taking the lot they are sustainably managing them. It ruined the town and then all our young people up and left and either went further afield in NEW ZEALAND or most of them went to AUSTRALIA and they haven't come back. It's left a town of elderly people and now a town where we don't even know hardly our neighbours because they are coming and going at a great rate into cheap housing and rented housing. The houses are being bought up like half a dozen at a time from like AN AMERICAN that owns half a dozen houses, rented out and nobody cares for a house like somebody who owns their own house. The towns not as nice looking as it used to be.

WHAT SORT OF CULTURE EXISTS IN THE TOWN AT THE MOMENT?

We have a core of elderly people who are SENIOR CITIZENS who are wonderful and who you should be listening to. Then we've got a group behind them who are probably the people who do anything voluntarily, and then we've got a core of young people who are working and both them have to work and can't do anything voluntarily, either can't or don't want to, and then we have a raft of teenagers who drive us insane, they haven't got anything to do, and then lots of nice little kids. That's about the picture of the town.

THE ELDERLY, WHAT IS IT LIKE FOR THE ELDERLY LIVING IN TUATAPERE? DO THEY HAVE ACCESS TO SERVICES?

There is the little PENSIONER FLATS along there. We do have a DAYCARE CENTRE that operates twice a week. Started through the MEDICAL TRUST. They are pretty well looked after except when they can't drive a car or need to go into town to see a SPECIALIST but I think they manage quite well socially. They have the FRIDAY afternoons where they go to SENIOR CITIZENS and they have quite a lot of outings where the different clubs and things are pretty good to the elderly.

DO THEY HAVE MEALS ON WHEELS?

Yes they do. Cooked at the 99 Café on a contract.

WHAT ABOUT PUBLIC HEALTH SERVICES?

We have a PUBLIC HEALTH NURSE who works three days a week. More if necessary.

YOU COULD STAY IN YOUR OWN HOME IN RIGHT TO THE END IF YOU NEEDED TO?

Yes but not if you were bedridden you would have to have someone living in the house with you. Lately a few of our elderly have been going into the likes of ROWENA JACKSON or whatever but they try not to. But more and more they haven't got family here with them. We haven't got too many old identities left.

What do you see ahead for TUATAPERE?

Well we have had this DAIRY boom around us and apart from the FARM WORKERS that have come in it hasn't actually done very much for the town. It seems that the DAIRY WORKERS have such committed hours that they don't actually contribute too much around the town. There is not a lot of interaction and their FARM WORKERS are the same. We've got a lot more crime than we've ever had, such as PETTY THEFT and DRUG MARIJUANA and stuff like that and youths drinking and driving. Like anywhere else but we've probably been the last to get it but its here.

WHAT ABOUT THE TOURISTY THING ABOUT TUATAPERE?

Well its, after the 1987 crash and the demise of the FORESTRY we had we called the TUATAPERE RESOURCE CENTRE. It had a permanent worker for finding jobs and looking at industry and looking at things we could do. I was the PRESIDENT of that and we literally left no stone unturned. We looked at ABALONE, we looked at KITSET HOUSING you name it either wasn't feasible because of our position or things we had to bring here to do that, the LOGISTICS just weren't there. The worst thing that happened to TUATAPERE was that then HOUSING DEPARTMENT bought up the housing for people who wanted to exit. People who worked for the FORESTRY weren't so bad as they didn't own their houses so they had nothing to lose they could just go. Anybody who owned their own house was trapped here or they sold it for a pittance. The HOUSING CORPORATION bought them up and sold them to solo mothers from INVERCARGILL at a song and there never was any hope of them finding a nice young man out here and after their lawnmower broke down they didn't mow their lawn it was a disaster.

HOW MANY CAME OUT? QUITE A LOT?

Yes about thirty like that. It was a horrible mistake. Most of them all gone now. The RESOURCE CENTRE tried to find jobs and we set up things like GREEN DOLLAR EXCHANGES, set up that CRAFT SHOP, got people here to teach craft, all that sort of thing and it wasn't too bad for a while but it’s gone right off the boil right now. We thought up the HUMP TRACK thing, we had a PROMOTIONS GROUP that was very, very good. The HUMP TRACK took ten years of BUREAUCRATIC wrangling and it was supposed to bring quite a few jobs and it hasn't done that. I think we are too far away from the market. If anyone comes into AUCKLAND WELLINGTON CHRISTCHURCH they have spent the money before they get down here they don't get down this far. There is a new track coming on every year up North. We are left out of that loop. We used to have buses, several buses a week running past here, like the big tourist buses, but they pulled out as things got dearer and they cut two days off their schedule and cut the SOUTHERN MARKET and cut us out and the CRAFT SHOP lost its business. Really we have been hard done by but if you look at the map where TUATAPERE is we haven't got any through traffic coming from the South Pole.

BUT ISN'T THE WORLD WANTING THAT ISOLATION? ISN'T THIS IT?

Yes this is it but developers have come and FRENTZ'S POINT have got sections that are unsold. The developers develop the sections. We have got one round here at the end of the road at the ROWALLAN but he hasn't sold a section yet. They don't want to live in SOUTHLAND as it is perceived as having bad weather. They want to go NORTH where it is warm and have the café scene.

BUT SURELY NOT EVERYBODY IS LIKE THAT?

I often ask myself why am I living here? Am I running away, am I hiding? Then I go to CHRISTCHURCH and then I know why I live here. When I come back I know why I live here. Last week there was a couple from DEVON our age and the lady she said to me that she had been in NEW ZEALAND two weeks and already she doesn't want to go home. She said to me "l don't want to go back." She didn't want to go back to the masses. What is stopping people from living here is the lack of jobs. Our two kids are in AUSTRALIA. Two sons are in AUSTRALIA they won't come back. The opportunities are there whereas they are not here. They would be back tomorrow if there was a job because they know this is the place to live. Our daughter in law from WALES said she couldn't live in NEW ZEALAND if it wasn't for the family. She wants her kids brought up where their Dad was grew up. She loves it up there. She comes from WALES where there are the hills and she has the hills. The two boys go to school here. The eldest plays the BAGPIPES and the wee one is on the CHANTER.

DO YOU THINK THE GOVERNMENT SHOULD DO MORE?

Yes it owes TUATAPERE. It owes us a treetop walkway. It owes us something to give us something. We have the ideal place for it. I have been trying for eighteen years to get it done. I can't get anyone to run with it. I nailed two DOC people at dinner time today and one of them is keen on it- He used to live out here. The other one it is new to him and he is going away to think about it. He believes that we should be supporting the existing track. They need twice the number going through. They had three thousand the first year and they have never come up to that. They got a lot of advertising in the first year and the PRIME MINISTER came down and she opened it and she walked it. Even though they advertised it, it has never been the same. The wrong market has been targeted. They need to get the masses. The ordinary NEW ZEALANDERS, or the OVERSEAS BACKPACKERS. The same eighty dollars only they need more of them.

WHERE DO YOU WANT YOUR TREETOP WALKWAY?

In the DOMAIN BUSH; we want to bring them to TUATAPERE. We want them to stay the night in THE DOMAIN and hear the birdsong in the evening and wake up to it in the morning and go away and spout about it and get the next lot in. I know it can work. If it can work in AUSTRALIA. There is one in the southwest corner of AUSTRALIA there is one built by a town that is half the size of TUATAPERE. In its first year it had two million visitors and they couldn't cope as the INFRASTRUCTURE wasn't there. They never had enough toilets, they never had enough MOTELS, they never had enough food outlets and my son visited it and sent me pictures. It is totally gum trees so how much better would ours be. There is much more BIRDLIFE there but we could encourage ours back.

SO IT IS A BIG ISSUE FOR YOU THAT THE GOVERNMENT SHOULD BE PUTTING MORE MONEY IN BECAUSE OF WHAT THEY DID FOR THE FORESTRY?

Yes and they have just forced a SEWERAGE SCHEME on us that none of us can pay for and it has taken all the available money out of the town. I think most of them have put it over twenty five years and over that period it is going to cost a lot more or they are going to die. The little old people who have five thousand dollars to bury themselves are having to put it into sewerage. Three thousand to lock on, six thousand three hundred to get it made and then the rates are going to go up by three hundred a year as well every year. So that was pretty criminal. I could gripe about our services as we just don't have any. We are supposed to have our streets swept once a week, the gutters, but they don't get done. If you look out my front there I'll have six inches of grass growing there and it takes a while for six inches of grass to grow from seed. The footpaths are a disgrace. We are third world compared to what I saw in RUSSIA, MOSCOW. We are just forgotten about conveniently. We did make lots of noises but we are just paid lip service. That's all

DO YOU THINK PEOPLE ARE FEELING BURDENED ABOUT TRYING TO THINK UP NEW IDEAS?

We have worn ourselves out. We are actually at the point of exhaustion and our people with time to give. The VOLUNTEERS have dried up. The same ones all the time. Before all this happened we had one hundred and forty four clubs and societies with their own secretaries and treasurers and what not and now we wouldn't even have forty four I don't think and the same people are on several committees. The VOLUNTEERS are overworked. I did fifteen years on that RESOURCE CENTRE as a VOLUNTEER.

IS IT STILL GOING?

No it closed the same time as the HUMP TRACK... our unemployment levels didn't improve. Everyone moved away so that it went down (RESOURCE CENTRE not required) and it wasn't any point in keeping us on so we sold to the HUMP TRACK for a dollar. We just did the town thing. The GOVERNMENT did give us twenty five thousand dollars to buy that building and set it up and get it going that's all they did and then provided a salary of twenty five thousand for fifteen years. The mistake that was made was that they tried to go corporate in a place like TUATAPERE. THE RESOURCE CENTRE was running it as an INFORMATION CENTRE. It was in the words of anybody that came there, the nicest and most welcoming VISITORS CENTRE in NEW ZEALAND that they had ever been too. It turned into this corporate thing that they wouldn't even get off their seat to go and meet them halfway at the door. It was awful and they didn't give out information and then gradually

HOW DID IT COME TO BE LIKE THAT? CORPORATE LIKE?

When we sold the business to the HUMP TRACK the HUMP TRACK went corporate. They leased the business of the HUMP TRACK out to a private business. The person wasn't in this town. He should have been in this town instead of carting the money back to QUEENSTOWN. While that building was there as a RESOURCE CENTRE, WORK AND INCOME came there, we built a MUSEUM there, we put the CRAFT SHOP in there, and we did the INFORMATION CENTRE in there. They were all very successful. All nice places to be in. We run this green dollar thing on FRIDAYS where we had a BARTERING SYSTEM.

SO WHEN I TALK ABOUT THE PROVISION OR LACK OF PROVISION OF SERVICES ON YOUR FAMILY'S LIVES THAT HAS CAUSED YOUR CHILDREN TO GO AWAY?

Yes so that I don't see my GRANDCHILDREN and I can't be part of their lives apart from E Mailing or ringing up and sending them birthday presents.

SO YOU FEEL QUITE STRONGLY THAT THE GOVERNMENT DOES HAVE A RESPONSIBILITY TO COME BACK HERE?

Not only here. There is OHAI and NIGHTCAPS. There are lots of places. At the same time that they ruined us they ruined everything with a "Tap" in it; TAPAWERA, TUATAPERE, and TAPANUI. TAPANUI moved over into other lumber and they survived and they are on a better tourist route than we are. TAPAWERA is also up around NELSON and on a better tourist route. We were the most disadvantaged down here because of our geography and nothing else to do. If we were closer to INVERCARGILL it would have been better and if we were closer to QUEENSTOWN.

WHAT IS IT LIKE BEING A WOMAN IN TUATAPERE? DOES IT MAKE ANY DIFFERENCE BEING A WOMAN OR A MAN LIVING IN TUATAPERE?

Definitely. TUATAPERE was always a man's town. A FRONTIER TOWN; A WILD WEST TOWN. There were very few jobs for women. Very few jobs for school leavers if you were a girl. The very few jobs that there were, were held by married woman. It was always a sore point for young people. But there has been a turnaround lately in the last ten years. Any new businesses that have started up have been by women. They have taken the lead. The men seemed to have got lost somehow along the way. They have got discouraged or disillusioned they are not into new things. The women have taken up the cudgels. If you look there are women in the HUNGRY HIPPO, JANETTE in the old LANGMUIR'S STORES, lady at the WESTERN FOODMARKET, me, ladies next door here, for a time there were two women butchers who took the butchers shop on, the hairdresser.

(GENERAL DISCUSSION HELD AND THEN A CAKE TAKEN OUT OF THE OVEN "THIS IS A LIGHT FRUIT CAKE AND AN ELDERLY LADY OVER THERE HAS ASKED ME TO MAKE IT AND SHE IS GOING TO GIVE IT AWAY TO SOMEBODY WHO HAS BEEN GOOD TO HER").

DO YOU SEE YOURSELVES CONTINUING ON HERE?

Yes. One of the reasons being is I haven't found anywhere better and the other reason is the two boys until they get a bit older. Another reason is that my mother said "Never consider your children when you are thinking about where you want to live as they can up and move tomorrow." I keep that in the back of my mind.

WHAT SORT OF A CULTURE EXISTS IN TUATAPERE? IS THERE A FLOW OVER FROM THE SCOTTISH SETTLERS?

Its's KIWI and its horrible. The only reason that there is any dancing here is because I'm still here and the only reason there are any BAGPIPES going on is that VAL has a little school of twelve pipers and I've got twenty seven dancers. It's the only thing you can learn here. The piping has just come back. I've always been teaching. The piping thing has mushroomed this last year. I think the pendulum has swung with the parents- Suddenly discovering that their kids can't all be ALL BLACKS or SILVER FERNS and they have got to have something of their own for their self-esteem. I'm certain that is what it is. This just happens to be here. But it isn't only here. It is in SOUTHLAND in general. The piping has come back. They have a YOUTH BAND in INVERCARGILL now. They have fifty kids from WINTON, MATAURA, TUATAPERE and there is going to be more because every couple of weeks someone else wants to learn. I think the swing is back. It needed to come back as there is nothing but RUGBY RACING AND BEER. Like that guy said. That guy 'CHILDREN OF OUR TIME.' You know he made the comment that NEW ZEALANDERS were too much into RUGBY and I couldn't agree more. It has become a cult here and even not a nice one. It is not even sport. I just hope that people started to search themselves after that comment and get back into it. Certainly there is other things kids do but if you've been in the PIPE BAND you're in it for life. Look at VAL. Going to RUSSIA at sixty eight.

We've had MĀORI living here but they didn't do their own culture. In fact that building over there was a lodge and it was built for a MARAE and they have all gone to AUSTRALIA and the ORANGE LODGE ended up as a TE KOHANGA REO and its fizzled out as hardly any MĀORI kids and no-one to run it. So we are cultureless. In a vacuum. We don't go out very much unless it's something of our own making. Like a night at THE CLUB where we have piping and dancing going on there. There is still BOWLS, GOLF, TENNIS and SQUASH. While we were in MOSCOW we were taken to a NIGHT CLUB run by MOTORBIKE OWNERS and it occupied a complete block and everything in it was made out of RECYCLED MOTORBIKE and CAR PARTS and we went there at their invitation and the PIPEBAND played and ROCK BANDS played. They played half gallon drums with water in them with lights and it was fantastic and it was so well behaved. You wouldn't be able to do that here as they would be liquored before they got in the gate.

DO YOU PEOPLE WOULD PULL TOGETHER IF THEY HAD ANOTHER FLOOD?

Yes I do because we've got RSA and we've got LIONS. Yes the core is still there we might be a bit short on VOLUNTEERS but I think we could press them to come forward if we had to.