Saturday night’s patrol had begun at Allister’s house in a new sub-division of faux mansions on the foothills of Saddle Hill. All of Mosgiel rests beneath the sensual hump of Saddle Hill, named by Captain Cook from on board the Endeavour on November 26, 1770: ‘In the country was an elevated saddle hill, whose summit appeared above the clouds. From this hill, the land fell in a gentle slope…’ Empty then and emptied now – the theme of Mosgiel’s modern economic history is collapse, with the closures of Fortex freezing works (900 jobs), the famous Mosgiel woollen mill (140 jobs), and in 2008 the Fisher & Paykel dishwasher assembly plant (400 jobs).
But the town soldiers on, very 1950s with Andy’s Milk Bar, Knox’s Milk Bar and Monte Carlo Milk Bar, very 21st century with Perreaux Industries, which makes and exports amplifiers to 30 countries. Paper Plus and The Warehouse set up premises in 2009; McDonald’s wants in.
The streets are full of horse floats. Baghdad Note, the grey gelding that won the 1970 Melbourne Cup, was trained at Mosgiel’s charming Wingatui racetrack. There are a lot of oak trees and peeling gum trees. Poverty always finds somewhere to go; the wrong side of the tracks is a kind of slum hidden away on Sinclair Road, where converted air force barracks have gone to rack and ruin, windows are smashed or boarded up, and car wrecks rust in front yards.
The Mosgiel–Taieri Community Patrol doesn’t go there. It doesn’t go any place where its patrol car might get boxed in. ‘And they don’t confront,’ said Bill Feather, who serves on the local community board that gave $9,000 to start the patrol. ‘They report anything suspicious to the police and get in a safe position.’
Bill was born and bred in Mosgiel, like his parents before him. He said, ‘My grandmother came here from Rangiora. I lost my grandfather in the first war, in… Linda?’ Linda, his wife, sat in the kitchen with a cup of tea and a really good-looking ham and tomato sandwich. She called out, ‘1915.’ She was about to dress up and drive to Dunedin for a meeting of the Methodist Women’s Fellowship.
There was a photograph in the hallway of the couple smiling in the gleaming sunshine of Hamilton Island on Great Barrier Reef. Bill worked at Fisher & Paykel all his working life; the Hamilton Island trip was a present from the firm, to commemorate 40 years’ service. He was enjoying his retirement. ‘We’re blessed living in this street,’ he said. ‘The council mows the grass once a week.’
But he was aware of the danger beyond his driveway. It came as close as the driveway itself. ‘Civil disobedience is the main thing, the nuisance value of people walking the streets late at night and knocking over letterboxes.’
He talked about the patrol’s formation, inspired by a public meeting held by Tubby Hopkins, vicar’s warden at Saint Peters Anglican church in Caversham, Dunedin, and national deputy chairman of Community Patrols of New Zealand. ‘People said it was a good idea but nothing ever got done. I was always waiting,’ Bill said, ‘for someone to take charge.’
Allister Green took charge. He said, ‘Bill promoted the idea that I was the new champion. I had a lot of drive. I wanted a safer community. I was always reading about needless petty crimes by school kids.’ What kind of needless petty crimes? He said, ‘Gangs of kids kicking in letterboxes.’
But there was also the arrival in Mosgiel of the barbarian hordes known throughout New Zealand as boy racers. They came on Friday nights, Allister said. They’d leave Dunedin at midnight and do a circuit across the Taieri Plain to Allenton and Outram, and thence to Mosgiel – to Dukes Road, right in front of the deserted Fisher & Paykel factory. There were a hundred, maybe two hundred, of them. ‘They didn’t know what to make of us at first. Then they got peeved and more intimidating. I’ve heard that next time they see us they’ll try and tip the car over.’
The patrol has 43 members drawn from the citizenry. Malcolm arrived at Allister’s house. Malcolm liked to talk. He talked about his sleep apnoea business and his unlikely sideline, hiring out exercycles. ‘I’ve got a hundred thousand dollars’ worth in stock.’
Then he gave a kind of resumé. ‘I was the first male student in New Zealand to do homecraft. I’m a chef by trade. I knocked off school the day I turned sixteen and began an apprenticeship at a bakehouse in Dunedin the next day. … I opened my own restaurant. … I worked for DB as a hitman. If one of their pubs needed sorting out I’d go in and do it. I started getting quite a few threats. I couldn’t go into certain pubs for a drink.
‘I worked at a lodge in Blenheim. My flair was doing buffet sculptures… I went to Australia and worked for Ansett; I jumped into a can there. The trouble with me is I give it a big nudge and then burn out.’
It was getting on to ten. Malcolm and Allister drove to the police station. They entered through the back door, pulled up chairs in the kitchen, and looked at the report from the previous night’s patrol. Alistair said, ‘They did 93 ks. We can get up to 120.’ Nothing had happened. Malcolm said, ‘It’s not all beer and skittles. We do a lot of stuff in the background.’ Mosgiel constable Nayland Smith was in the control room, sighing as he shuffled through boring paperwork. He’d worked in Auckland once. ‘It’s great being home,’ he said, ‘but I miss the action.’
The community patrol was ready for the night’s rounds. Malcolm opened up the boot of the patrol car. It contained traffic cones, a First Aid kit,
