It was a city in transition, a new city about to be brought to you by the letter h, but it would always be the river city, clinging to the banks of all that amazing water, that central reason for its existence. In bright sunshine, with the river running high and wide, Wanganui is one of the most obviously beautiful cities in New Zealand, sitting prettily on the edge of a fertile emerald plain. There is the smooth white dome of the neo-classical Sarjeant Art Gallery shining on a soft green hill. There is the long empty coast, car tyres carving spirals into the hard black sand. There are all the attractive Spanish-style stucco houses low to the ground. Higher, and even more Mediterranean, there is the good cheer of hundreds of palm trees. And, always, there is the river with mud on its boots, running in a kind of ring around the city, disappearing into the mysteries and silences of native bush.
‘I can’t wait to leave,’ said Ollie Shand.
‘Yeah, I second that motion,’ said his friend and fellow student at Wanganui High School, Sam Hicks.
Wanganui or Whanganui, the city will always be boring. Boredom is the New Zealand condition. Teenagers are most at risk. A front-page story in the Wanganui Chronicle itemised the evidence of lout rampage in Victoria Avenue on Friday and Saturday nights: ‘Scuffles, fights, abusive language, vandalism, urinating in shop doorways, broken bottles, piles of vomit…’
Sitting around doing nothing on Saturday morning in Majestic Square, three 16-year-olds shrugged at the newspaper report and said, ‘That’s ’cos Wanganui’s a shit-hole.’ They looked away when asked their names. They preferred to go by nicknames, but it was hard to interpret their grunts – one sounded like Egg, the other like Nog.
Egg said, ‘You always get two or three drunken dickheads come up to you and try to start something.’ Where? ‘On the street,’ Nog said. ‘Anywhere. It used to be outside the Red but that got shut down ’cos this girl there got killed. She got killed by this guy. My mum used to teach her.’ Egg said, ‘My brother chucked someone out the window there once.’
Were they planning on staying in Wanganui when they left school? Small freckled Nog, sitting on his hands, said, ‘Fuckin’ hope not.’ Muscular mullet-haired Egg, who had folded his arms high against his chest, said, ‘I go to Wellington sometimes.’
There were other ways to depart. ‘Farming with the angels,’ read the obituary for a man whose name really was Ray Death. But there were also interesting arrivals, and returns. Spencer Hall, the man spat at by chumps, had fled Wanganui after leaving school. Now and then he’d come back to visit, and always cringed. ‘Sleepy little place. Almost lazy.’ When he returned eighteen months ago, though, it felt different. ‘I didn’t cringe. Wanganui’s getting there. It’s finding its voice. I’d say it was stirring.’ He gave a lot of credit to Stink Magnetic Tapes, the independent record company that had moved from Wellington in 2008, and was devoted to recording ‘dirty rock ’n’ roll’ – local bands include The Death Rays, which consists of two sisters dating two cousins.
Music had also helped bring back Orrin Reynolds, 30, Sacha Te Utupoto Keating, 31, and Nigel Scanlon, 30, of Katipo Productions, devoted to recording Wanganui hip-hop. ‘Wanganui’s pretty sweet. It’s a nurturing environment,’ Reynolds said. Asked about the bylaw that made it a criminal offence to wear gang insignia in the city, he said, ‘The perception is that we’re under siege, but it’s totally the opposite, bro. I’ve never felt unsafe here. I live opposite a gang house, got me a big-assed plasma TV, and always leave my front door open.’
They were about to drive to Wellington for a benefit gig at La Bodega for the widow and children of Tony Costa, 33, who had died in a surfing accident at Lyall Bay. Spencer Hall was about to drive to Pātea for the annual Yee-Haw Spring Hoedown. (‘Pātea has an ATM now,’ advised the party invite.)
Traffic was also headed towards Wanganui that weekend. The city was hosting two cultural events – a glass festival and a literary festival. The latter featured appearances by novelist Fiona Kidman, poets Kevin Ireland and Glenn Colquhoun, baking guru Alexa Johnston, and others. You could see the writers around town happily slurping on flat whites at sidewalk cafes, gazing contentedly at the river, admiring the hundreds of flower baskets along Victoria Avenue. ‘Wonderful,’ they said. ‘Lovely.’ The festival broke even on its $23,000 budget, attracting an audience of pensioners and that one age-group to show a significant population increase since the last census – 50 to 59 year olds, up 16.8 percent.
‘North of here,’ said the organiser Joan Rosier-Jones, novelist and political firebrand – she once stood for the Socialist Party against Marilyn Waring – ‘north of here it’s a different culture. Rural, basic. Wanganui’s more sophisticated. I belong to a book club. At the moment we’re reading about Jews and the Holocaust and all that sort of thing. I’m not that interested. I’d like to move on. One of our ladies was a POW of the Japanese in the Philippines. She had to knit white cotton socks for the kamikaze pilots. They wore them so they’d go the right place, like heaven, or wherever you go when you’re Japanese.’
She said, ‘I went to Iona College in Havelock North. I’m true blue.’ It seemed reasonable to expect she hadn’t much enjoyed the long years of Helen Clark’s Labour government. ‘No. They made it all warm and fuzzy. In real life there are winners and losers.’
Who were the losers? Joan lived on St John’s Hill, also known as Snob’s Rock, where Wanganui’s money was tucked away. The bottom of the heap
