Te Awamutu News | April 4, 2024

Waipā’s own home show

Waipā will host its first Home and Leisure Show next month.

Good Local Media – publisher of a trio of community newspapers – Cambridge News, King Country News and Te Awamutu News - has organised the show to be staged at the Sir Don Rowlands Centre at Karāpiro from May 10 to 12.

The event is being billed as a first for Waipā, but will

also give King Country, South Waikato, Waikato and Matamata-Piako residents a first opportunity of attending such an event without taking on the Hamilton traffic.

It completes a hat trick of developments for Good Local Media.

At the start of this year the publishing company released two new Apps – in Cambridge and Te Awamutu - and on Easter Monday it

added the King Country News - and its app and King Country Farmer - to its stable.

Good Local also publishes Waikato Business News, having purchased the masthead late last year. The April edition came out on Tuesday.

“Good Local Media Ltd is always looking at ways

to innovate and create more ways for our customers to talk to more customers. The launch of a Waipā Home and Leisure Show does this,” publishers David Mackenzie said. “The Waipā Home and Leisure Show provides locals more ways to shop local.”

The inaugural show is already a sellout – all 80 stands available have been taken and most will be filled by Waikato based businesses.

Home shows are promoted as highly beneficial sales and marketings tools and are regular fixtures on calendars in New Zealand cities.

“Good Local Media Ltd is staunchly local in everything it does, and all its products reflect this in how they serve the communities they operate in,” Mackenzie said.

David Mackenzie

Shunned Hoyle keeps asking questions

By Mary Anne Gill

After Craig Hoyle was excommunicated from the Exclusive Brethren, he was lost as he had been taught not to challenge authority nor ask any questions.

“We were told if you don’t understand it, don’t question it,” said Hoyle who went on to graduate from university and become a journalist. He was helped by 60 Minutes reporter Sarah Hall of Tamahere who became his parent figure outside of the church.

“I couldn’t have come further from the brethren,” the chief news director for Stuff’s Sunday Star Times told The News.

Hoyle, 34, describes journalism as a really rewarding profession; one that makes a difference every day.

His newsroom, like many around the country, has the threat of redundancies and cost savings hanging over it.

But without journalists, mistreatment and corruption would flourish in the darkness, said Hoyle.

“You need people challenging the official narrative.

“Anyone can challenge people in power, but you need people with training and the skills to ask the right questions and when people in power are not exactly being truthful, you need people who have the ability to go through all those documents and have the ability to question decisions and then explain to people why things maybe aren’t what they seem to be.”

Hoyle, who was born in Hamilton and spent most of his holidays in Waipā after the family moved to Invercargill, contacted The News following the publication of his book Excommunicated.

Four generations of his family lived and worked in Waipā and many are buried in district cemeteries.

• See: Mary Anne Gill’s exclusive interview, page 9.

Craig Hoyle looks across Hautapu Cemetery where the bodies of dozens of his family members are buried, including his great great grandfather Robert Hoyle. Photo: Mary Anne Gill.

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What they read online

Our profile of Pieta Bouma who comes from a big Dutch, Catholic, farming immigrant family and who grew up on a lifestyle block in Ngāhinapōuri was the best-read online story after News in brief last month.

Steph Bell-Jenkins’ piece ran in the February 29 edition but was still getting hits well into the month as was her article about the health struggles of Fionnlagh Adams’proving readers love people stories.

But bubbling away is the burning issue of the planned incinerator in Te Awamutu and our column by Fencourt farmer Andrew Johnstone certainly got people talking.

Sometimes the statistics surprise us and the appearance of a story from September last year on Te Awamutu Tennis Club’s John Robinson being named Administrator of the Year at the Waikato Tennis Trust’s 2022/23 awards did just that.

Another Bell-Jenkins special, Kicking the money to touch, about touch rugby coach Matiu Paraone, which appeared last week, showed readers go online for the latest

Pieta

stories as well.

Rounding out our top 10 was Cracking idea creates new hen-ergy - Central Kids Hazelmere Kindergarten’s chicken story.

The top five news stories for the month were: News in brief, I was outraged …. And still am, Fionnlagh’s cancer journey, Examining the burning issue and Kicking the money to touch.

Wānanga’s new scholarships

Two new Te Wānanga o Aotearoa scholarships honour men who were crucial to its establishment.

The wānanga relaunched scholarships last year and is adding three news ones in 2024.

Te Tumuaki Rongo H Wetere Scholarship recognises a tauira Māori who is the first in their whānau to study at a tertiary level.

Boy Mangu Mātauranga Māori Waharoa Scholarship recognises a tauira who

demonstrates their commitment to the advancement of mātauranga Māori by studying a mātauranga programme.

The third new scholarship is the Te Pou Postgraduate Diploma Kaitiakitanga L8 Scholarship which is awarded to a registered health professional who is enrolled in the Postgraduate Diploma in Kaitiakitanga L8 programme.

Applications for scholarships run to June 30.

Debt levels

A reduction in development contributions and significant increases in the size and cost of Waipā’s planned capital work programme has resulted in the district’s debt increasing from a projected $318.5 million on June 30 next year to $398.5 million. The figure is perilously close to the council’s borrowing limit.

Art awards

An exhibition of all Enrich Plus artists’ entries in the IHC Art Awards will be held in the organisation’s Te Awamutu gallery in Teasdale Street on April 12. Enrich artists have always done well in the awards which provide artists with an intellectual disability the opportunity to have their talent recognised, their voices hear and to sell their work. Entries for the awards opened on Monday and close at the end of the month.

National champs

The New Zealand Dragon Boat nationals will be staged at Lake Karāpiro tomorrow (Friday) and Saturday. It’s busy weekend for the domain, which also hosts water skiers for the third round of the Karāpiro masters on Saturday and Sunday.

Housing progress

The first stage of a Housing for Humanity development on the former Zion Church site – clearing the site – has been completed. Habitat chief Nic Green said there is no time frame to complete the next stage and funding is being sought now.

I hope everyone enjoyed the long Easter weekend and managed to get a break. Unfortunately, opportunist criminals sometimes see holiday weekends as a great time to commit more crime.

Ford Courier utes seem to be a target currently. If you own one, please ensure you take all prudent measures to secure and alarm it and ensure keys are kept in a separate location and that your homes are also secure. CCTV is great. In good news, last Tuesday, two female offenders stole items totalling over $2000 value from Briscoes Cambridge. They were quickly identified and a coordinated police effort saw both women arrested in Te Awamutu. The stolen items were recovered and both women are now before the courts.

Today I’d also like to touch on the issue of family harm. In the last month, we received 38 family harm call outs - the vast majority of which related to separate incidents.

Family harm offending doesn’t begin at

physical assault, rather it is something that escalates over time. A cycle usually starts with a power imbalance manifested through verbal and psychological abuse and controlling behaviour. It is intervention at this stage that can prevent escalation to property or physical harm.

So, what does that early behaviour look like? It could be emotional abuse (put downs, making the partner think they are crazy, blaming them for everything, humiliating them or making them feel guilty), economic abuse (total control of the household income, making the partner ask for money), exclusion (isolating them from friends and family, deciding who the partner sees , where they go) or psychological abuse (using threats of violence, threatening to leave the partner or hurt themselves if they are left, threatening to expose the partner’s private information). If these behaviours are familiar in your own relationship or that of someone you know, reach out for a chat.

Bouma’s story was hugely popular with readers.

Taking shape

The new roundabout at the intersection of State Highways 1 and 29 at Piarere, is taking shape with much of the main foundation work now complete. Traffic south of the roundabout will move onto a newly constructed section of road adjacent to SH1 from April 15.

Tractor crashes

Police are concerned three serious crashes involving tractors over the long weekend put road users at risk and are warning people to be patient. The first was near Te Kuiti where two people were seriously injured after a car and tractor collided.

Missing woman

The search for a 79-yearold woman missing in the Pureora Forest was continuing as this edition went to press. The woman became separated from a group which were laying bait on March 23.

Daffodil call

People can pay $5 to buy a daffodil bulb for Te Awamutu’s Sculpture Park on Albert Drive later this month to ultimately create a “Memory Meadow” to remember cancer victims. The event will help raise funds for the Cancer Society.

Farm finals

The Waikato Bay of Plenty regional final of the young farmer of the year series will be staged in the Hauraki district at Kerepehi Domain tomorrow and Saturday. The present Young Farmer of the Year is Pirongia’s Emma Poole.

Minor changes

Waipā District Council’s Strategic Planning and Policy committee decided this week consultation would not be needed over changes made to development contributions in the 2024-2025 financial year starting July 1.

Memorial Park détente

By Mary Anne Gill

Te Awamutu and Kihikihi

Community Board has accepted Waipā staff’s olive branch to resolve the standoff over changes in the War Memorial Park.

Board chair Ange Holt said while members had asked for work to be stopped and a full review undertaken, they now realised it would add costs to the project and take valuable time and resources.

It was time to “move forward in a conciliatory manner,” she said in her report to the board last week.

Meetings with council staff, the board and interested parties will take place over the coming weeks.

Community Services manager Brad Ward told the council’s Strategic Planning and Policy committee last month he was unsure what the board’s key concerns were and wanted to resolve them.

“It is considered a robust process was exercised during the development including obtaining the relevant endorsement and approvals,” he said in a report to the committee. Ward stopped short of

supporting a full review – costing between $30,000$60,000 - saying the Concept Plan had already been through a robust consultation process.

The potential to resolve some outstanding issues and improve the Concept Plan by meeting the board and other opponents was appealing as an opportunity to foster positive relationships between staff, the board and the community, he said.

Opposition to the proposals has been a constant thorn in the council’s side since March 2020 when the first draft proposed removing heritage features including the pond, the gateways and the Peace Fountain.

The board back then asked about bicycle parking, a fenced playground and the importance of making it a significant park through a nod to history.

In a revised concept the following year, staff kept the majority of the park’s heritage features – providing further text to reflect it as a place for reflection and remembrance – and retained a third of the pond.

But opposition ramped up the following year when a Concept Plan was adopted following community

consultation with key stakeholders including mana whenua partners, Ngāti Apakura, Ngāti Ngāwaero, Maniapoto Trust Board and Waikato-Tainui.

Opponents argued the first plan for the memorial park – developed in 1948 - was for a memorial park with a tree for every fallen soldier, a scenic driveway, a playground, picnic areas, an artificial lake, paths and rustic footbridges commemorating the services.

A 1955 agreement only gave council permission to maintain the park, not rip it out and change it, they say.

Community Board chair

Ange Holt last year called for the project to stop and go through a review which was ratified by the board.

Ward said despite social media comments, there were no plans to destroy the existing memorial stonework nor remove the duck pond.

Water quality issues would be resolved by reducing the size of the pond, not removing it.

Ward said staff regularly met with a consortium of local residents called the Te Awamutu War Memorial Park Maintenance Group but other people were operating outside this group.

The various iterations to the Concept Plan show staff have listened to feedback.

“The changes incorporated in the Concept Plan have been done in a manner that considers the interests of the wider community, partners and key stakeholders, whilst still respecting and retaining the park’s heritage and important purpose as a war memorial,” said Shaw.

The plan would create a wetland environment to filter water before it enters the Mangaohoi Stream creating a bigger area for picnicking and events and restoring the natural springs.

Tamahere rep to quit

By Roy Pilott

As Waipā grapples with a disillusioned electorate and hotly contested arguments over a new bridge and museum, a councillor in a neighbouring authority has cited his own frustrations and blown the whistle on his political career.

First time Waikato District councillor Mike Keir has announced he’s had enough and says he won’t stand at the next election.

Keir, one of two councillors representing Tamahere on the council, has cited a culture of fear.

“If you do something it could go wrong, better to play it safe and do

nothing, that way we can’t get in trouble,” he writes.

But he acknowledged there is good reason for the fear.

“Local councils have often ended up as the fall guy for all sorts of issues.

“Leaky buildings comes to mind and the failed Bella Vista subdivision in Tauranga whose city council wore millions of dollars in costs. That council has just been hit with another massive leaky building fine that it should not have been held responsible for, but it is the easy target.

“Councils are supposed to both enable and be regulatory. Sadly

the enabling component of councils is almost non-existent due to this culture of fear and we are left as regulators who err on the side of a very conservative caution.”

He says many in the community are happy with that approach, but argues it leads “at best” to second rate governance.

His comments come as The News has criticised elected councillors for not speaking up and expressing opinions at meetings. One of the biggest issues facing themrecommendations for the placement third bridge for Cambridge – was delegated to staff.

In the ultimate irony, councillors

are not permitted to express an opinion in public before debating an issue – so on the only occasion in the council’s current term that one has broken ranks, it will probably have fatal consequences for him.

Philip Coles has openly opposed the bridge route proposal which has outraged Cambridge residents, and under the rules of council, he has effectively disqualified himself from taking part in the debate on the issue or voting on it.

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There have been calls to put a stop to the plans for the War Memorial Park, but Ange Holt wants conciliation.

Mike Keir

Diminutive Dee jumps the ditch

By Viv Posselt

The departure to Australia of Waipā District Libraries’ outreach librarian Dee Atkinson leaves a pint-sized hole and big running shoes to fill.

The diminutive Dee has earned the moniker ‘energiser bunny’ because of her high-energy hosting of events and activities for all community users, from babies through to seniors.

Her return to Australia will start initially in Tasmania, then onto Queensland where she will join husband Chris.

In her time in Waipā she added book and poetry readings, art sessions, children’s programmes such as ‘Wiggle and Rhyme’ and ‘Make a Space’ for older kids, and ‘pecha kucha’ presentations which now involve Cambridge High School students.

Fuelled by a notion that considers libraries as more than book repositories, she also arranged numerous public talks on a range of topics.

“I’ve always said there is no subject you can’t turn into a talk or an event.”

Outside work, she’s enjoyed social and competitive running as a member of the Cambridge Athletic and Harrier Club. It’s a hobby she shares with husband Chris and son Casey, and one she has woven into community events she initiated such as her ‘Get Active’ series. What locals know about Dee

is the tip of an iceberg. She was born in the United Kingdom and raised in Hobart where she earned an honours degree in economics from the University of Tasmania and a postgraduate qualification in public relations from the University of Southern Queensland.

She worked in independent economic research at the Australian Productivity Commission for several years.

She also worked in the winery industry – both in Australia and Christchurch – and spent time in the comms section of the Christchurch Netball Centre. The move to New Zealand was to facilitate her Kiwi-born husband’s career move into a deanship at St Andrew’s College in the city.

When the family moved to Opotiki she became a library assistant, and when they came to Cambridge in late 2017, she did the same thing.

The role quickly changed and in mid-2019 she took over from her predecessor Hannah May as outreach librarian for Waipā District Libraries.

“I had all sorts of plans, but then Covid hit which means we had to tweak the ‘outreach’ part of it,” she said. “I took some of the activities outdoors, but really the only way to reach our customers was through the digital world so I started doing things like online quizzes. ‘Make a Space’ moved online and then we started the ‘Let’s Cook’ series of homecooking from my kitchen. That’s still going.”

Her efforts paid off big time and many library users still connect via the digital platform.

Pondering life across the ditch, she said: “This has been

an absolutely super role… it completely filled my enjoyment of helping people and getting involved in the community. I grew into it and have been lucky enough to be pretty much allowed to do what I wanted with it. I’m really going to miss it.”

Speaking at Dee’s farewell, Cambridge Library supervisor Rachel Newnes described her as ‘exceptional’.

“You just have to look at our event numbers – they’ve been up every year since Dee has been in the role.”

Dee Atkinson, centre, pictured at her farewell with some of the Te Awamutu library team. They are, from left, Hilary Collinge, Te Awamutu library supervisor Donna Wilson, and Mel Sullivan.

Our geothermal wonderland

By Janine Krippner

I was recently fortunate enough to spend a day in and around Rotorua with GNS Science volcanologist Brad Scott and two visitors from the Tonga Geological Sciences.

Brad has an incredible knowledge of the area. He walked us through the interactions between the large volcanic systems, the many faults within the rift zone, and the geothermal systems that give us our beautiful and fragrant features. Rotorua is an excellent example of how interconnected our Earth’s systems can be.

Walking through the Rotorua and Ōkataina calderas we discussed some of the misconceptions that pop up, like how some believe that tapping into geothermal systems releases pressure, making eruptions less likely. This is not true. The heat from magmatic systems can provide heat for geothermal systems, but they often behave independently. I heard this a lot when I lived in the United States. People would become concerned when there was an increase in geothermal activity at Yellowstone, but those changes in activity have nothing to do with volcanic activity.

Yes, we do monitor them in case they begin to give us signs associated with magma on the move, but they have their own fluctuations in activity that can have more to do with things like how much steam is being produced. So no, we cannot just drill a hole and release the pressure in volcanic systems.

While we mostly happily live with the activity in and around Rotorua, geothermal areas do produce their own hazards. Firstly, and perhaps most obviously, they are hot.

There is hot water and steam that can result in injury and life-threatening burns. Gases can become a danger if they manage to accumulate in low areas, like a hole in the ground, and if people happen to end up in that hole. Ground can subside and collapse, and there can also be hydrothermal or steam eruptions. Like the phreatic/steam eruptions at volcanoes, these can be very difficult to forecast with little to no warning. These geothermal explosions are usually much smaller than volcanic phreatic eruptions, commonly affecting around 10-15m from the vent (although there is a large variation in size). Geysers are a good example of the smaller end of these.

We damaged our geothermal systems through over-exploitation in the 193070s, when we lost many geysers and springs. Since then, some recovery has been successful.

Thankfully, we most often get to enjoy the benefits of geothermal activity and we can mitigate the hazard by keeping people out of the higher risk areas with simple tools like fences and signs. We are fortunate in New Zealand to use geothermal activity for power generation, we have gorgeous areas to attract tourists for our economy.

Nothing beats a tour of a volcanic area with someone who knows it well. It is a rich experience having a guide who can point out and explain the fault lines, the old lake terraces that formed when Lake Rotorua was much higher, the deposits from large and small volcanic eruptions, and the human stories that go with the landscape. It changes how you think and feel about the world around you.

Questions to be answered

By Peter Carr

I do not know whether to shake my head, send a stern letter or just go with the flow. Yes – I am talking about Waipā District Council.

Firstly, let me be fair and clear. Councils are here to stay and technically have a very worthwhile role to play.

However, the antics of recent weeks beggars belief. Remember that, in a previous article, I mentioned that WDC had already taken the King’s coin from the aftermath of the Three Waters debacle. And possibly spent it.

So firstly financial problems. There are several issues, the major one for me being that WDC is rapidly approaching its sensible debt level. Link that too with the ‘return’ of water moving accountability and the responding ‘back burner’ move for Cambridge Library, the new Te Awamutu-based museum and the cleanup of Cambridge’s beloved lake. Take this news with a couple of Mea Culpa statements from both the mayor and the finance manager.

Recent revelations of allegedly secret meetings were followed by a disaster by the organisation’s communications team linked with the secretive overlay by the roading section. Broad blue bridge-indicative arrows plonked haphazardly onto three comparative maps do not make either common sense or clarity. Especially for those who feel that their homes may be threatened.

And no wonder that the crowd at the supposedly clarification meeting became grumpy. Clearly poor manners and lack of respect for the mayor were far from necessary nor desirable. And I read that councillor Philip Coles may be barred from any future part of bridging

matters due (allegedly) to impartiality. This is the same councillor who, shamefacedly, during the last triennial election, was forced to mumble and stumble his way through an apology for making statements about St Peters School which were not his to make.

So, we need to ask ourselves a clear question. Two in fact. The first being is the council being well governed? And, secondly, is it being well managed?

The former is for the mayor to answer in a manner that does not attract the possibility of replacement of the elected team by a commissioner. Remember Tauranga?

The second is just as serious. With a chief executive in the dying months of a lifetime of honest employment just what succession plans are in place?

With mixed views by many regarding the council’s planning department and a clear whoopsie in communications, one must ask the question as to whether the whole being is fit for purpose.

To quote finance manager Ken Morris – ‘timely communication and engagement are vital now, more than ever’.

Clearly at both board table and in a myriad walledin offices his treatise is not being adhered to.

If this muddle of perceived ineptitude is apparent to ratepayers (and homeowners) small wonder that they were upset at the recent aborted meeting.

And just to put the third bridge matter into perspective – what is being talked about is a second bridge - with the current high facility being demoted to a walkway and cycleway.

Celebrating whānau

By Christine Bryant, Lay Minister, St John’s

In March 2023 my brother died suddenly and completely alone in Canada.

He was fit, a regular tennis player, aged in his early seventies, but he also had some health issues. Nevertheless, his death came as a profound shock to his children and to us, his brothers and sisters.

Two weeks ago, my remaining siblings and I gathered with some cousins to commemorate his life, to remember all the good times and to reconnect with our niece and younger cousins.

It was a good time to introduce them to each other and to help them learn what it means to be whanau, to belong to a wider family.

Thirty years ago, when my father died, we made the decision that we would not be a family who met up only at funerals.

Since then, every three to four years, we have gathered, mostly in New Zealand, but also in Australia, to enjoy a weekend in each other’s company, centred around a long Saturday lunch. This year, there were 30 of us, ranging in age from three to nearly eighty.

Jesus also recognised, 2000 years ago, the importance of family gatherings.

The first miracle we read of took place at a wedding in Cana.

It must have been a convivial occasion because the host ran out of wine! Jesus, prompted by his mother, turned the water stored in amphora into wine, thus saving the host from embarrassment and delighting all the guests.

Within our families, we

are known by name, we are loved and accepted for who we are, despite our foibles and our differences.

This is important when we contrast this with social media.

On these networks, we are no more than an algorithm, only useful for recording likes and dislikes and as a target for advertising.

Jesus, also, knows the importance of a name.

On that first Easter morning, when the stone had been rolled away, the two Marys, who had come to anoint his body for burial, were distraught to find the tomb empty.

They thought they had come across a gardener. Mary Magdalene asked him where Jesus’s body had been taken. Jesus only had to say her name, “Mary!”, and she knew she had encountered Jesus alive, raised from the dead.

He has not ceased to call us by name.

Pope Francis, speaking to 500,000 young people at the Catholic World Youth Day in Lisbon emphasised this: “You are not here by accident... [Jesus] has called each of you by name”.

Our families may range from the very close to the dysfunctional, but for most of us it is the place where we can have a sense of belonging.

The importance of gathering as a family cannot be overstated.

Family reunions are more than just a social event; they are also a way in which the cycle of life is experienced and the bonds between generations are reinforced. In essence, they embody and affirm the core messages of Easter: love, renewal and hope.

Meghan Hawkes looks back to 1930 and reviews the stories making headlines in Waipā.

Rabbits, rumbling …and water rates

Rabbits had spread extensively in the Waipā region and property owners were expected to exterminate them to the best of their ability.

Rabbiters working with ferrets and large teams of dogs to flush out warrens were also employed by Rabbit Boards. These were so successful that now there was a call for the amalgamation of the Rabbit Boards from Mangapiko, Hairini and Kihikihi.

The rabbit pest in the three districts had been so reduced that one board could administer the combined area. Rabbits were believed to be very plentiful in all the back districts round Te Awamutu, but they were becoming few and far between, especially near the bush. In the cleared lands there was evidence of a great horde of rabbits, but trappers operating there had considerably lowered the numbers.

Loud rumblings which sounded like distant thunder heard at Ōhaupō were accompanied by vibrations and assumed to be a rather severe earthquake. But there appeared to have been no earthquake and the subterranean noises were difficult to explain. Some residents heard the noises as a series of explosions a long way off which were sufficiently heavy to rattle windows.

They were inclined to associate the noises with Arapuni Hydroelectric Station although this was a considerable distance from the Ōhaupō area. Arapuni itself experienced the strange noises and sensations the next day. While sitting at lunch about 1pm various Government officials thought they felt a slight earth tremor.

Professor Bartrum, Professor of Geology at the Auckland University College, eventually conceded “The rumblings seem almost definitely to be connected with an earthquake disturbance, apparently of local origin”. There were no known earth faults near Ōhaupō, the professor explained,

but much of the district was covered by an alluvium – loose clay, silt, sand or gravelwhich, in some places, was of considerable depth.

A bombshell fell in Pirongia when they received word from the Te Awamutu Borough Council that the rates for water from the borough main, which passed through Pirongia on its way from Pirongia Mountain, were to be increased. Requests for the council to reconsider resulted in confirming the belief of consumers that they were not wanted, having served a useful purpose by assisting the borough scheme during the early years when water was running to waste.

Now, by eliminating the low-level consumer in Pirongia, in Mangapiko, and along the Frontier Road, the pressure to the new, and presumably more profitable, consumer elsewhere would be increased. Some of the consumers were faced with a water cost amounting to 10 shillings per acre per annum under the new charge. Wells, windmills, and tanks had been dispensed with and a return to this method of procuring water would be expensive and unsatisfactory. Fortunately, however, the Pirongia district had been endowed by nature with a pure and plentiful water supply.

A Te Rore ratepayer wanted a ranger to be kept permanently near the bridge to prevent stock straying on the roads. Recently a motorist thought he saw a rut filled with water and went straight on, to find he had struck a large black pig. Around the same district quite a fair number of cattle were grazed all winter, and the authorities seemed to be quite indifferent to the danger. The Raglan County Council had put a pound keeper on the job after a horse, on a dark night, jumped on to the radiator of the car which a member of the council was driving near Te Pahu.

Orakau remembered

A commemoration

the 160th anniversary of the battle of O-Rākau where

numbers of Māori defended the site from British soldiers. The commemorations are all the more significant this year following a deed of settlement for the site being signed recently. Raukawa, Ngāti Maniapoto and Waikato-Tainui have been working with the Crown to achieve the return of the battle site since the Crown bought the land in 2015. Photo: Susan O’Regan.

A rabbiter at a warren near Kihikihi

on Tuesday marked

huge

Communication breakdown

By Mary Anne Gill

Type the surname ‘Hoyle’ into the Waipā cemetery online database and several dozen names pop up.

When we meet, Craig Hoyle is standing in front of one of them at Hautapu Cemetery in Cambridge – his great, great grandfather Robert Hoyle, 92 when he died in 1963.

Robert, who emigrated to New Zealand as a teenager from Rochdale in Lancashire, England, had never “officially” joined the Exclusive Brethren but did so reluctantly when he was 90 so he could live in Cambridge with his sons William and Norman who were members of the church and farmed in the district.

He and wife Katherine “Kate” – who died in 1948 - had lived in Arapohue near Dargaville, another strong Exclusive Brethren community.

Craig spins around and points to the grave of his great grandparents William and Rhoda Hoyle, buried together and across to William’s brother Norman, excommunicated from the Exclusive Brethren because he refused to drink alcohol.

“Loving husband of Josie”, his tombstone says. If Craig were not there you would be hard pressed to know Eleanor Josephine Hoyle, buried in the next row, is the wife who walked out on him after 35 years’ marriage because he was no longer in the church.

Church rules forbade them being in the same plot, so Norman did the next best thing. He bought a plot as close as he could to her one, they are now only centimetres apart. Her stone does not reference her husband or the three children they had; his does.

Craig, 34, now a journalist in Auckland, was excommunicated from the Exclusive Brethren in 2009 because despite interrogations and conversion therapy for his sexuality, he remained gay.

He went on to make a television documentary with 60 Minutes. Reporter Sarah Hall, originally from Tamahere, and husband Grant became parent figures outside the brethren. They encouraged him to go to university and then to become a journalist.

He is ostracised by family members who are still in the church. They include his parents who, still reeling from the fact their son is gay, had to contend with him becoming a journalist as well.

“I grew up in a brethren where we weren’t allowed to challenge authority, we weren’t allowed to ask questions. We were told if you don’t understand it, don’t question it. We’ll do the thinking, you do the doing.

“Journalism is the opposite of that – journalism is about chasing the truth and asking the questions

and exposing things that need to be exposed,” he says.

Any chance he had of reconciliation went out the window last year when Harper Collins published Craig’s story: Excommunicated – A multigenerational story of leaving the Exclusive Brethren.

The book details four generations of the church’s presence in Cambridge and recalls a physical altercation with members at Rhoda Hoyle’s funeral in 1982 when her excommunicated eldest son Hubert “Snow” Hoyle tried to reach his mother’s graveside. There are other Cambridge stories.

The first edition sold out. Copies in Waikato bookshops, including Cambridge where there is a waiting list, went within days. There was a protest in Raglan – someone turned all the books upside down and turned all the covers in. The bookseller there reacted as only true book lovers do – they mounted a display of controversial books and planted Excommunicated in the middle.

Craig was born in Hamilton and moved to Invercargill when he was five. He spent many of his earlier years holidaying in Cambridge where he still has relatives.

“(My memories are) recent enough to still remember a lot of people but long ago enough now

Craig Hoyle at his great uncle Norman’s grave at Hautapu Cemetery with his estranged wife Josie buried the row in front of her husband, the closest they could get in death.

Photo: Mary Anne Gill.

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Last week

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Down

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Last week

The cult Japanese bestseller about a female gourmet cook and serial killer and the journalist intent on cracking her case, inspired by a true story.

Butter

by Asako Yuzuki

Gourmet cook Manako Kajii sits in Tokyo Detention Centre convicted of the serial murders of lonely businessmen, who she is said to have seduced with her delicious home cooking. The case has captured the nation’s imagination but Kajii refuses to speak with the press, entertaining no visitors. That is, until journalist Rika Machida writes a letter asking for her recipe for beef stew and Kajii can’t resist writing back. Rika, the only woman in her news office, works late each night, rarely cooking more than ramen. As the visits unfold between her and the steely Kajii, they are closer to a masterclass in food than journalistic research. Rika hopes this gastronomic exchange will help her soften Kajii but it seems that she might be the one changing. With each meal she eats, something is awakening in her body, might she and Kaji have more in common than she once thought?

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ABOUT THE AUTHOR

ASAKO YUZUKI was born in Tokyo in 1981. She won the All Yomimono Award for New Writers for her story, ‘Forget Me, Not Blue’, which appeared in her debut, Shuuten No Anoko, published in 2010. She won the Yamamoto Shugoro Award in 2015 for Nile Perch No Joshikai. She has been nominated multiple times for the Naoko Prize, and her novels have been adapted for television, radio and film.

Communication breakdown

Continued from page 9

that I see people in the (Cambridge) street and I know they’re brethren and I know they are probably cousins of mine, but I don’t recognise who they are.”

For him there is an immense sadness.

“Look at my great, great grandpa who was forced to join the church.”

Robert’s headstone is remarkably clean – others of the same vintage nearby are unkempt – leading Craig to assume there are mysterious church members who look after the outcasts or those separated from their loved ones.

William and Rhoda’s grave while not unkempt could still do with some attention. Craig feels guilty he did not bring flowers but then noted it is not something Exclusive Brethren encourage anyway.

“I see (their) grave, they had 10 kids, they lost four of them, four of them were excommunicated,” says Craig.

“The trauma everyone went through, even the ones who stayed in the church.

“The ones who leave are free to build a new life and come to terms with the way things are.

“The ones in the church I don’t think get a chance to grieve what happened because they believe they are doing the right thing. And they shouldn’t be sad about doing the right thing, but they are sad.”

In a brief meeting with his parents a few years ago, they asked Craig whether he still believed in God.

“I said I wouldn’t necessarily say that I believe in God as they understand God to be.

“But I believe in love and their Bible says God is love, so what’s the difference?”

Asked whether he thinks his great great grandparents Robert and Kate are somewhere together now, Craig has mixed views.

“I would hope that if they are anywhere, they are together and free of all the restrictions they lived with. There was so

He hopes the same for all the Hoyles and their extended families whose names are littered throughout Hautapu Cemetery.

“There are Hoyles here who were in the brethren, there were Hoyles who were excommunicated from the brethren.

“I hope if they are somewhere that they are back together as one family. Not the them and us that they all suffered with when they were alive.”

When Harper Collins contacted Craig to write the book, he felt it was important to put the book out there for the record.

“One person’s story doesn’t capture the impact of a group like the brethren, because I’m just the result of what happened to my parents, their parents and their parents and (what) you can see walking around Hautapu Cemetery is that all these generations, after generations have been impacted by these restrictive religious rules. I just happen to be the latest chapter.”

Craig is in a relationship and has become a sperm donor.

“There are genetic progeny out there,” he says confirming there is at least one girl, born last year through the donor pool.

“It’s really meaningful to be able to go out and create new concepts of family, to contribute to new generations.”

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William and Rhoda Hoyle buried together at Hautapu Cemetery.

Murray Robert –Unexpectedly but peacefully passed away at home on Friday, 29th March 2024, aged 80 years. Dearly loved and best friend of Sheryl. Loved and adored father and father in-law to Mark & Jess, Andy & Ange, and Glenn & Adele. Loved Poppa to Connor, Izzy, Jamie, Blake, Lachie, and Reid. A celebration

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