August 30, 2013 A Tinker's Cuss – Brother Colin.

My brother Colin died at the age of fourteen in a tractor accident on a ridge near Ranfurly. He was driving the tractor. My dad was a tractor driver and farm labourer. My mum cooked for the single men who worked on Shag Valley Station near Ranfurly, Middlemarch and Dunback.

My Uncle Les was shell-shocked from his service in World War Two – El Alamein, Mount Olympus in Greece. He had been in the merchant navy and had been in every prison in the world for drunkenness. After the war he worked as a boilerman at Kempthorne Prosser. He bought us our first television set. He drove Ford V8s and Morris 8s.

Colin drove fast. He was like Jerry Lee Lewis. My dad liked Hank Williams and William Faulkner and Erskine Caldwell.

Today is Janet Frame's birthday. The international date line always causes confusion about the exact date. Janet Frame healed more than any drug I ever took. She healed me more than the Interferon I took for Hepatitis C.

I think of the Palmerston train station, Carroll Street in Dunedin, Seacliff, the Occidental Hotel in Christchurch, Cherry Farm and Sunnyside mental hospitals. The 1970s and a junk habit.

Bridgette Bardot, Jerry Salinger, Thomas Pynchon – they were all shy and couldn't stand the palaver. I once drove up Salinger's driveway in Cornish, New Hampshire. His wife scowled at me.

Putting up posters is like shaking your fist at the sky. It's not El Alamein. As my Uncle Les used to say: worse things happen at sea.

Keep the Faith,
Jim Wilson