Of rugby dreams and realities

The farmer kicked off my recent book launch by blowing a whistle as if he was a Rugby World Cup referee.

He still dreams of being an All Black and in the preceding weeks had rehearsed a mock phone call. As he welcomed everyone, his cell phone would ring.

“Graham,” he’d say. “Oh, Sonny Bill Williams is out. Oh, Conrad Smith’s out as well. And you want me?”

That this was a fantasy is underscored by the fact that the farmer refuses to own a cell phone. When he co-ordinated a stage of the Rally of Whangarei I lent him mine so he could contact his team. He accidentally phoned his sister three times.

Rex also considered buying an All Black jersey for the occasion, despite that black isn’t his colour. My offer to buy an Argentine rugby shirt instead was ignored.

On the day, however, he said something that drew a bigger reaction than any replica rugby shirt or fake phone call would have done.

Waving a NZ Herald, he drew everyone’s attention to a story about grass roots rugby and the accompanying black and white photograph.

“Who would have imagined,” he said, “that in 2011 the NZ Herald would publish a photograph of the Batley rugby team from the1920s. My grandfather was in that team.” They played home games at Tanoa, about a kilometre up the Otamatea River from Batley. 

“Rugby’s been played for about 130 years in New Zealand, so it’s amazing that of all the photos available this one was published. And what’s more,” he said, drawing another gasp from our guests, “descendants of five people in this photo are with us today.”

Their names are Bull, Hargreaves, Linnell, Linton, and Roadley, but what Rex didn’t realise was that shortly before festivities began, two put in apologies.

One had to keep watch on his sheep after eight lambs had been savaged by roaming dogs, while the other’s plans to whip across the Otamatea River by boat then return home in time to drive to an RWC match, had been thwarted by wild weather.  

As far as I’m aware, the only other gasp of the day came from an Auckland friend who’d been about to hand around a platter of vol au vents filled with mullet, caught and smoked by the farmer himself.

“You can’t take it out like that,” admonished the caterer’s off-sider, “it’s got no nasturtiums on it. We do things properly here, you know.”

This is not strictly true, but we make a bit of an effort when we’ve got 150 visitors.