Out the front of Joe’s house a smaller sign read NO HIGH VIZ CLOTHING PAST THIS POINT. Why did he object to high-visibility clothing? Anger roused him, brought him out of his agony. He said, ‘A meter man came the other day dressed in high-vis. Who the hell did he think he was? A bloody meter man! It’s gone too far.’
Hurt, eccentric, intense Greymouth, pop. 9,000, with its rich, tingling scent of coal. A freight train gave a tender hoot as it trundled into town on Friday afternoon, pulling six carriages of timber from the sawmill at Stillwater. I made my way to Grey District Council to interview the mayor, Tony Kokshoorn.
A frisky sort of rooster, chatty and bright-eyed, Kokshoorn gave interview after interview during the crisis at Pike. He said, ‘This place is never far from a news bulletin. It’s normally a struggle type of story – a flood, a mining disaster. I’m writing a book at the moment. Here’s half of it.’ He handed over a fat lump of manuscript, The Golden Grey: Westland’s 150th Anniversary. ‘It’s going to be 400 pages!’ He flipped to sad pictures of the 1967 Strongman mining disaster and said, ‘It’s going to be up to date. It’ll have Pike in it.’
He had been at his weekend bach putting in a lounge suite when he heard ambulances whirr past. Then the phone rang: the police. ‘I said to the wife, “It’s blown its top.” She said, “What has?” I said, “The bloody mine – it’s blown its fucking top!”
‘I was one of the first to get up there. It was still light, about six or seven o’clock. The search and rescue guys were ready to go in. “Koko” – that’s what they call me – “Koko,” they said, “we’re ready.” I said, “Yeah, I hope you’re going in shortly.” But there was a terrible air of inevitability about it. We all knew in some way.’
He sat behind his desk wearing black dress pants and a purple shirt. There was a selection of ties on a yellow plastic coat hanger in the corner. He laced his fingers together and said, ‘Greymouth is a town that’s weighted down by this huge disaster.’
Then he leapt up from his chair. ‘All the media who came – it was like a city. It was incredible. For weeks! Just this huge attention.’ He hefted a giant scrapbook on to his desk. It was stuffed with press clippings about Pike. ‘Just look at this – goes on forever. There’s bloody more of them over on the shelf,’ he said, his eyes shining. He pointed at a stack of scrapbooks. ‘Eight of them, all chocka. I’m never far away from the news media, don’t you worry about that! I reckon I’d go unchallenged in New Zealand for press coverage. What d’ya reckon? Hey, look at this one.’
He had flipped to a story about an opinion poll that listed him as the tenth most trusted man in New Zealand. He laughed and said, ‘Bloody old Koko, eh. Not bad for a kid from Ruru. I’ll tell you what, I’d rather be a big fish in a small pond. I’ve no interest in looking beyond the Coast. I fight for the Coast.
‘I lobbied hard for Pike to open. We know it will open again. We’re on the cusp of a mineral boom, and that will be led by coal and then gold. China and India are screaming for what we’ve got. The Paparoas – they’re chocka with coke and coal. There’s six to ten billion dollars’ worth in there. This is Greymouth,’ said the mayor. ‘This is a coal town, and we’re proud of it.’
This is Notown. Fred Nyberg, 76, warmed the teapot on the coal range in his one-room hut. He cut open a tin of condensed milk. His hut in this ghost town in beech forest half an hour inland from Greymouth was off the power grid. He ran his seven-inch black and white Rhapsody TV from a twelve-volt car battery.
Serene, gentle, wise, Fred was living a West Coast pastoral. Outside his window there was one fantail, one hawk. Further along the road, there was a historic cemetery and the end of the road. ‘I get Māori hens wanting to come in here,’ he said. ‘wekas. I’ll see them once in a while, always on a morning of little dew.’
Fred’s immaculate hair was combed into a kind of quiff. He was elegant in a cardigan and brown nylon pants. Notown – so-called because a surveyor viewed the tents hurriedly pegged out during the 1860s’ gold rush and commented, ‘It looks like no town at all’ – thrived until the turn of the century, and was deserted by about 1920.
‘I had it to myself when I first came here,’ Fred said. He’d lived in Notown for 25 years. He bought the hut for a hundred dollars. The shower was next to the food cupboards; the bed, coal range, and a Formica table and two chairs were in the other room. He laid a cloth over the television. There was an umbrella in the outhouse.
He poured the tea and said, ‘I’m an avid reader; if the weather kicks up, I can read six bloody books in a week. I cook well. I eat good tucker. I make sure I eat my vegies every night, and always do me a good meat stew every Sunday. One day I’ll have to surrender to old age. But I love doing what I’m doing. I love panning.’
On the wall of the hut: a calendar from Morris and Watson Precious Metal Refiners. Outside the front door: gold. Had he made any money? ‘Let’s say I’m comfortable,’ he said. ‘Nothing can hurt me. But I’m not greedy. It’s a hobby, you could say. I just love the sheer joy of
