The Tale of two Williams
William the Second
(Kiwi Bill)
Hurroo! The voice rang down towards
me where I worked on the flat. Down the hill he strode with that mile eating
stride and this into his 80's. for I recall that he was born in 1903. Sigh !
how time flies. In his prime I estimated that he must have been fully 6 foot
8 in his bare feet a giant of a man. He only had one arm .. one sliced
cleanly off at the shoulder joint.
When I asked � he told me that he lost it in a shotgun accident. I asked again and he said " nothing sinister, I had called into a Pakeha homestead with my rabbit this is tradition he said .. always carry the gift of food ". The child of the homestead curious about the shotgun as it stood held between Bills legs, pulled the trigger .. bye bye arm !
That did not stop Bill .. he could load a empty shotgun cartridge between his toes as quick as I could blink. Not just any old store bought cartridge .. but a special in which the black powder was made with nitrites from his own urine evaporated in the sun and charcoal prepared from Manuka. The cartridges were always someone else's spent cartridge. Not a thing was wasted.
Cartridge between his toes and with his good arm. ramming in his home made powder wadding and lead shot. Nothing was allowed to go to waste and no job left undone. The cartridge gave a powerful kick .. "sorry", said Bill .. "adjust the amount of powder to your height".
For me Bill was a throwback to another age in New Zealand History .. A bridge not only from that time, to now but also a cultural bridge for he spoke fluent Maori and often taught Maori students. Being one armed ,he used a trumpet or mouth organ to express the movements in his soul. Many a rabbit he bought to my home, and in the while, we feasted on rabbit stew and whole meal bread and fresh fruit from the orchard.
My children loved him, there was always a story or a rhyme. His knowledge of the seasons and the rising and setting of the stars was only eclipsed by his knowledge of the bush. Those Bushmen of the pioneering part of history were hard drinking, hard cussing men, and scattered amongst them would be the poets, artists and bards. Bill was one of those .. a gentleman amongst men. Also a bush cook of no mean achievement his fresh baked bread was a treat .. and award winning fruitcake too.
His home had become an untidy warren of what most folk would call junk but for Bill everything had a use .. if not now .. then later. He cultivated passing moggies with a daily plate of food .. he said that he received a daily rodent inspection in return, and he thought that to be a fair arrangement, to which I agreed.
In winter he kept warm with his kitchen range and a pot belly in the living room. There was always plenty of wood to burn for he was beach comber and bush scavenger and daily he would transport wood and other odd objects in his hand pulled high sided cart. His frugality was not of the miserly deprived kind but rather of one of contented thanks for he ate very well.
His garden, unkempt but manageable .. well stocked with fruit trees of various kinds. He said he had never married. I never asked why, but had secretly thought � in those days a one armed man would be a liability to a woman. May be it was lack of opportunity, but then he was so self sufficient, he may have disdained his loss of privacy and autonomy, but he was never less than respectful of the opposite sex. So I will settle for his autonomy as an explanation.
Dear Bill you taught me so much and for which I am grateful .. when I contrast your life circumstances with that of William the First, then you had the best of it in spite of loss of arm, but you both have much in common, I am sure you would have been firm friends. Because he also had the sensitivities of the artist, and like you, the power of endurance.
Ivor Hughes
March 2006.
Auckland. New Zealand.
