ANZAC Day, 2011 - Postcards

 

ANZAC - Australia New Zealand Army Corps, formed World War I. 

ANZAC Day - In remembrance of all those who fell and all those who served...

 click on image for larger view

 

By the late 19th century, pakeha New Zealanders saw themselves as establishing a "Better Britain" in the South Pacific, people of British stock who saw themselves as building something better than back "Home" but who were but a generation or two at most away from "Home". It's no surprise then that in the patriotic war imagery above the English Bulldog, the symbol of the Britain, has become the War Dog of New Zealand standing astride the New Zealand ensign overlapping the Union Jack of Britain. Maori taonga have been appropriated in the form of the full face moko, tiki, and huia feathers of the Maori chief.

 

To my grandfather and brothers who served in the "war to end all wars" - or so they were told, and to their sons and son-in-laws - to my father and uncles, who served in the next one: we have not forgotten. May we never have to send our sons and daughters to another one.

Full Steam Ahead - The New Zealand Railways Gang At Oamaru circa 1905

Then there are rppc trains...

The New Zealand Railways Gang At Oamaru circa 1905. Produced as a Christmas Greeting postcard as was the custom at train stations at the time. 

(click on image for larger view) 

 

A Q Class locomotive of New Zealand Railways at Oamaru, South Island circa 1905. RPPC was sent as a Christmas greeting to family members from the gang at the Oamaru station. Sender remarks that the loco's lamp is one of the latest electric lamps from a workshop in Chicago.

Many decades later I rode the freight trains at Oamaru with my uncle who was a guard (conductor - yeah, I know no passengers so no tickets to punch; a guard "guarded" the train, not for "security" but "(rail)road" safety). By those times, diesels had taken over. Good times - toasting sandwiches on the pot belly stove in the caboose (guard's van). In the steam era, got to ride up front in the cab, shoveling some coal, blowing the whistle, hand on the throttle or whatever they call it, head out the window, cinders in the eye...

Sadly, kids can't do that anymore thanks to occupational safety and health. Go play a video game, kid. Wouldn't trade those memories for anything (sniff). God bless you Uncle Norman, up there in the big roundhouse in the sky.

My Life in Postcards

Main Street, Eketahuna, New Zealand, circa 1909, Muir & Moodie. 

click on any of the images for a larger view

Welcome to My Life in Postcards: an account of parts of my life expressed through postcards or how I'm living the postcard life.

Being the shy, retiring type, I've selected the image above as my first postcard to share with readers of this blog. From the very first moment I viewed it, I was struck by its existentialism. Who is he? Why does he keep his back to us? What is he walking away from? Or walking towards? Why is that horse in the left middle distance apparently crossing the street unaccompanied?

You'll have your own answers, no doubt. By all means, suggest a few in the comments below.

What I can tell you about the picture is that it is of the Main Street in Eketahuna, Wairarapa, in the North Island of New Zealand. Taken in 1909, the view was published by Muir & Moodie, a company that produced high quality postcards during the Golden Age of postcard collecting in the early 1900s. George Moodie was dispatched during these years to photograph town views throughout New Zealand.

There is a very good chance that the figure pictured is indeed George Moodie, perhaps using a time-release shutter or having an assistant take the shot. Alternatively, Moodie may have had an assistant.or a ringer pose as "The Man".

Eketahuna has long been referred to, unkindly perhaps, as a one horse town. It is the "Podunk", the mythical town name used in the U.S. to express the same idea, of New Zealand. One of my brothers once wrote on a postcard sent from Kurow in the South Island of New Zealand, that it was a "half-horse" town that barely had one street, the state highway running through it. But Kurow will have to wait for another day for its turn on this blog.

George was busy with his camera in Eketahuna back in 1909. Here are a couple more examples of his craft, one with that chap walking away from us or pacing the train to the left.

For now, please sit back and enjoy the view. If you like what you see of New Zealand, you might step over to the sister blog, The New Zealand Journal, for a look.

Railway Station - and that Man!, Eketahuna, circa 1909, Muir & Moodie.

 Panorama of Eketahuna, circa 1909, Muir & Moodie.