That made sense. There’s a better chance he’d be talking to more people than the congregation inside the beautiful, empty clubhouse of St Matthew. And he deserves a wider audience. He had such a wonderful innocence about him. I suppose it’s called God’s love. He was as harmless as a baby. He was the kind of person you wanted to reach out and touch because his presence made you feel good. Instead of shaking his hand when I left, I reached out and touched his arm, and said, ‘Merry Christmas, vicar.’
[December 23]
Acknowledgements
Every thanks to the help and professional excellence of Sunday Star-Times sub-editors James Belfield, Mike Alexander and Arthur Whelan, archive librarians Jill McCarthy, Lesley Longstaff and Serena Balston, and commissioning editors Melanie Jones, Donna Chisholm and Cate Brett.
ALSO BY STEVE BRAUNIAS
Fool’s Paradise
How to Watch a Bird
Copyright
First eBook edition published in 2012 by
Awa Press, Level 1, 85 Victoria Street
Wellington, New Zealand
eISBN: 978–1–577551–25–3.
First print edition published in 2008, ISBN 978–0–9582750–5–7.
Copyright © Steve Braunias 2008.
The right of Steve Braunias to be identified as the author of this work in terms of Section 96 of the Copyright Act 1994 is hereby asserted.
The profiles in this book originally appeared in The Sunday Star-Times.
Copyright in this book is held by the author. You have been granted the right to read this e-book on screen but no part may be copied, transmitted, reproduced, downloaded or stored or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system in any form and by any means now known or subsequently invented without the written consent of Awa Press Limited, acting as the author’s authorised agent.
Cataloguing-in-Publication Data for this book is available from the National Library of New Zealand.
Front cover: Red One, Mark Braunias
Cover design by Liane McGee.
www.awapress.com
