Ernest Clifford Irons… Uncle

I remember thinking when I was old enough to do so, that I was so lucky to have a mother with a twin sister who had the good sense to marry uncle Ern.

They lived on the banks of the Aorere river at Rockville in Golden Bay. 

I remember picnics and thermette, up the river or at the beach. Snapper fishing off Collingwood, Pākawau or out at the Inlet, at the Clay Islands, Muddy Creek or Oyster point. I watched him build surf casters from bamboo blanks,  carefully tying on guides and gluing ferrules.  He taught me how to tie the trace, bait the hook & cast for distance. 

We looked for the channel at low tide and he showed me the sign where snapper had been feeding and we carried the sugar bags of fish that were the product of his knowledge, patience, and skill. As a kid I knew I was just where I wanted to be.

The Aorere is fed by a catchment that takes in most of the west of Golden Bay and when the depressions move in over the Tasman and the ranges above the Heaphy echo to the sound of thunder, the boulders run down to the sea like sand and the trout and eels move up into the creeks to take refuge. Four feet of rain in 24hours strips away all and anything that is not bedrock and the cows that give milk and cream to the dairy factories are washed out to the spit 18 miles across the bay. Food for the sharks and seagulls.

At its best it runs clear and unswerving to its mouth at Collingwood through a sliver of bush that stubbornly clings to its banks and the land too steep for cows, home to Kereru, Tui, Weka and Fantail.

After tea and the dishes on ripe summer evenings, with the smell of freshly cut hay in the air, we would walk to the river and look down into the gin clear water from the iron bridge high above. From here, conscious of my quest he would pass on helpful suggestions.

Huge trout congregated at the mouth of a pipe from the factory where as a cheese maker he won prizes for the taste and texture of his cheddar. 

I stood below, rod in hand frozen with excitement, transfixed by the lunkers gliding by not a rods length from my boots. I was totally oblivious to the guidance from above and to the fact that anything I was about to present them with would have no effect at all on their focus. The finger sized globules of waste flushed from the vats of the Rockville Dairy Co op. 

The protein that gave them shoulders greater than the span of my biggest boy sized grip and bellies the size of rugby balls that propelled my heart close to bursting… monsters.

But now he’s gone to be with the love of his life and Rockville on the banks of the Aorere, has changed forever for me. 

We gathered at the Collingwood hall. Old, distant, yet familiar faces that trigger memories of another time brought together by one small moment of grief.

We said all we could say when words are not enough and the tears don’t do his life justice. After a cup of tea and refreshments, (not as good as his) we moved up to the pakihi terrace and the cemetery that once overlooked the bay but is now rimmed by manuka, to stand in the cold, beside a freshly dug hole. At the grave one of his two daughters read a few more lines and another poem hoping to bring some comfort to those gathered who will not find peace until some time in the distant future. We placed thyme and rose petals on the casket that now contained both his and Aunty’s ashes and dragged dirt onto its lid. Stood for too long waiting for the miracle that was never going to happen then walked with little purpose off to the side to gather again, not inclined to leave.

Up the valley to the west, a rainbow appeared and hovered over that pot of gold that they called home and In a flurry of wings and feathers two Kereru that were sitting silently in the Kowhai above the mourners, observing all, took flight and headed for Rockville.

We all turned startled by the movement to look at the scene in silence and disbelief. Kereru were always in the plum tree at the back door of their home for as long as they had lived there. We turned back to one another with a look of wonder and amazement.

They are together again and going home? 

Yeah-nah, just coincidence?… we thought not.

Uncle Ern & myself at Pakawa circa 1958