I first visited Christchurch in 1995 and fell in love with the City straight away. I arrived on a Sunday night, four days into a six-month trip around the world that was supposed to exhaust my travel bug. Unfortunately, when I saw how fantastic the other side of the world was, I couldn’t help coming back.
I’d been through Hong Kong and the steamy suburbs of Auckland, so the cool air and cleanliness of the place was the first thing I noticed. The other thing that surprised me was that every suburb and street seemed to be named after an area of London. Imagination was obviously not a strong point among the original settlers. I stayed in Beckenham, which was also the last suburb in London that I had lived in and settled onto a mate’s couch for the duration of my stay.
On my first full day, I took a walk into town. The Cathedral was the first thing I noticed. We Northern Hemisphere people think we have a monopoly on beautiful old buildings, but Christchurch could challenge that. The Cathedral was magnificent and stood as a centre point for the City. When I saw the ruins of it on TV after last week’s earthquake, I cried. What would Milan do without the Duomo, what would London do without St Paul’s and ironically given the subject of this blog, what would Dublin do without Christchurch?
Christchurch was a beautiful city. It seems strange and cruel to talk about it in the past tense. I have so many fond memories of the place that this is the hardest thing I’ve ever written. It’s the first place I ever spent Christmas away from home, it’s the first place I ever used the Internet, the first place I ever got a number one crew cut and the first place I ever watched a cricket match (which sparked an interest that led to me jumping around the living room this week when Ireland beat England in the cricket world cup).
And now, the City is ruined, a victim of the world and nature, which at least lets humans off the hook, because we’re the blame for everything else.
On my second day I headed to Lyttelton Harbour in a vain attempt to find a fishing boat that a sea captain had told me about the night before. He promised a mate and I a free trip to the West Coast of New Zealand in return for some unspecified duties. When we turned up at the harbour next day we found out that the fishing boat we sought had sunk five years previously and we were either talking to a ghost or a prankster. For our own ego, we decided it was a ghost and the legend of the Mary Jane will be made into a movie one day, with Johnny Depp playing me.
The cricket match came later when I made one of my many visits to New Zealand. I was there with my mate Jez and we headed to Jade Stadium to see the Kiwis take on South Africa in a one-day match that kicked off at 11am. We found out that the bar only sold beer in units of six and given the time of day we figured that one six pack between us would be sufficient before lunch. When New Zealand was bowled out for 220, we hightailed into town for lunch at the Loaded Hog, a venue that served the best Nachos south of Mexico City.
We had a couple of pints there before heading back to the stadium for the South African innings. It was a long walk to our seats from the beer tent and we wanted to minimise our travel back and forth and so Jez asked when did they stop selling beer.
“The 35th Over” answered the young bar tender.
“Is that the start of the 35th over or the end?” replied Jez. The bar tender stared at him for a second before saying, “you know I’ve been working here for seven years and nobody has ever asked that question, but now that you mention it, it’s the start.”
As we were both Accountants, we calculated that 18 beers between us would see us to the end of the match. Unfortunately, South Africa only took 43 overs to win and we soon found ourselves in an empty stadium with 12 warm cans of beer under our seats. Didn’t stop us drinking them, mind you and we spent the last hour staring at the rising moon and noting how beautiful the stars were. That’s what drinking outdoors does to you.
On my last trip, I spent a lot of time in the old university, which is now an arts centre and marvelled at how cosmopolitan it was for a small city so far from the rest of the world. It had reinvented itself from being an outpost supporting the farming industry to a city of culture where art galleries nestled beside flower-strewn parks and the Avon River added an air of calmness.
Christchurch now will have to reinvent itself again, to rise phoenix like from the ashes. I’m sure it will, we just have to realise it will never be the same as it was before and hope that it can be better. I met my first kiwi in 1987 and I’ve been drawn to them ever since. They have an attitude to life that I admire and seem to have a bond with the Irish that goes beyond a love of beer. One of my best friends lives in Christchurch and he sums up that kiwi spirit. Whenever I was feeling sorry for myself, he’d pat me on the back and tell me to “harden up”.
Him and his family are safe at least and I’m sure he’s doing his best to harden up in circumstances that would try the patience of a saint. For his sake and for all the people of Christchurch, I’ll say a prayer tonight. Towards tomorrow and a better day.
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