David Lindsay Mills
I’m Francis – I’m 30 months younger than Lindsay – in other words – he’s my older brother.
They christened him David Lindsay – but they always called him Lindsay – named after our dads brother Lindsay – who got himself blown up in a tank – in the desert - during the 2nd world war.
They christened me Francis Craighead – the Craighead bit came from Grandma Mills’s maiden name – so I grew up as Craig – because there were too many Franks on both sides of the family – I reverted to Francis on my 40th birthday.
For me, it always felt like Lindsay belonged on the tail end of one generation – while I belonged to the beginning of the next – kind of – it’s not black and white. The Smedley and the Tindall families feature strong in my memory. Their parents – friends of our family. The children, some of them are no doubt here today.
The sensation of getting out of bed in the middle of the night – to go up the road - to the Smedley’s – to listen to the All Blacks play South Africa – in South Africa – on the radio. Rugby. Test Matches. Don Clarke. Me, Lindsay and dad – mum didn’t come. I may be wrong about that.
Lindsay and I never really shared friends as such – but the neighbouring families – all with kids – we just all mixed in – I guess there was a pecking order with Lindsay naturally at the top. Like dogs and children - though we often wound up on the opposing sides of the childhood gang culture of Stokes Valley.
Which I’m pretty sure bears little resemblance to the current gang culture in Stokes Valley.
The Valley of the 1950’s was nothing like what you see today.
Lotta farm land and a lotta bush – not too many houses.
You can see Wellington Harbour from the hill tops at the far end of the valley.
You could spend all day at the Hutt river – you could bike down to the Nae Nae pool – or to the movies in Lower Hutt.
You could stay out all day, in the bush, with the hunting knives and the tomahawks and the bows and arrows that dad made us.
You could light a fire – cook some grub – and sleep under the trees – on the ground in a sleeping bag. You could trap Possums. Skin them and sell the hides. Shoot guns that were stored in the army hut up the back – black powder – muzzle loading. 303’s – 22’s – make your own sky rockets with the gun powder. Might be frowned upon by today’s standards.
Live to tell the story.
We found a tunnel one time - dug deep into the hill by some old prospector – a few rusty implements laying around – deep in the bush up the top end of the valley – the remnants of a wide path.
For some reason we never told any adults about it. But we’d dare each other to go all the way in – and bring something out that the last person had left behind – foolhardy behaviour – because it had no timber bracing – so could easily have collapsed. Then we just forgot about it and moved to the next adventure – the next tree to climb.
We grew up in a four room farmhouse – where the front door opened into our bedroom. Bucket toilet outside – I never once saw it emptied – meaning dad must have waited till we were asleep.
Washhouse across the gravel yard – an old bath and a copper to heat the water.
Coal range in the kitchen – no fridge – nothing fancy.
Lindsay and I shared that bedroom all the way thru till he was a teenager – when dad started building on to the house.
We grew up on a decent sized piece of land that got sold off bit by bit as the time passed. That sort of thing just happened. Never discussed in front of the kids.
Mum often said – she never knew how much money dad actually earned – he’d just give her an allowance – her housekeeping. Stretch it out – make ends meet.
We now live in comparative luxury.
We had a creek up the back – and a daffodil paddock and originally – at least half a dozen families – with kids - as our immediate, over the fence neighbours.
Big communal bonfires up the back of the Mills’s - every year.
RepertoryTheatre in the Hall across the road – Melodramas were my favourites. Lindsay got involved – but I guess I was too young. Him and dad would help build the sets.
We had movies every Saturday afternoon at the same Hall – one shilling.
Mum ran the Library – out of one room at the front of the Hall. Everybody in Stokes Valley knew Mrs Mills – Moira Mills – she stuck with it and they recently named a part of the new Community Centre after her.
Dad came from a big family – maybe 11 kids – so we had a lotta uncles and aunties – and a lotta cousins – but we never had a car the whole time growing up – so we didn’t really see too much of anyone - outside the Valley – as a family – now and again they’d come to us – now and again we’d venture out on the train and the bus.
Dad never drove a car.
We had an uncle high up in the Police. We had a couple of uncles who were headmasters. Uncle Frank went off to Fiji – head man at the Training College.
Dad had spent time in Fiji during the war - in the army – where he’d made some long term Fijian friendships - so mum, dad and Lindsay went back there a few times to visit.
Dad was a Blacksmith on the Wellington wharves and Lindsay and I would often take the train into town and fish off the wharf – or from under the wharf – there were planks you could walk along. Dad made us an incredibly lethal many pronged spear – with a rope tied to the end.
Dad became a blacksmith during the depression – the 1930’s - where you took what job you could get. He smoked unfiltered cigarettes and died young from lung cancer - way too early on.
Our Granddad, dad’s dad, was often away from his family - working hard to provide – doing the best he could - under the circumstances.
By the time Lindsay and I came along, Granddad and Grandma were retired in Upper Hutt.
I remember their Golden Wedding Anniversary and Granddad making chocolate Blancmange – it’s a milk pudding.
He’d fought in the Boer war at the turn of the last century – in South Africa – where they chose to kill each other over diamonds and gold.
Then - when he himself was old and dying in hospital, we sat by his bed and watched him revert back to those times – with an imaginary rifle in his hands – and fear in his eyes.
Grandma was a small woman and always seemed happy – our mum was very fond of her – by all accounts – she’d often tell the story of the pair of them sharing a bed and searching for fleas in the middle of the night.
After dad died we found out that he’d been married once before – the marriage was annulled – so there was something weird going on – which no doubt - in my mind anyway – had some profound effect on our father.
He wasn’t the most demonstrative guy.
And maybe – a little of that rubs off on his kids. Me and Lindsay.
Then there’s mums side of the family – mum - Moira Mulligan - grew up way down south and her mum died from giving birth – as I understand it. Not something that was talked about much.
Mum left school early and became a live-in domestic servant – for a while anyway.
Luckily - there was an older brother – Frank Mulligan.
He ran the St George picture theatre in Lower Hutt the whole time we were growing up in Stokes Valley – lotsa perks.
Moira and Frank's dad – Lindsay’s and my Grandfather – had married again – so there was a step mother – and Lindsay and I were put on the train a couple times to go stay with them in Gisborne – where they’d retired. The four of us would play cribbage at night and 500 – card games.
They had a Maori family living next door – with kids – so that helped a whole lot.
One time in Gisborne Lindsay and I were bailed up, down by the river, by a gang of local kids who threatened all manner of horrendous torture – which I took very seriously and consequently I was totally terrified – and I'm not kidding
Somehow Lindsay stayed staunch and stood up to them and we survived – thankfully.
Another time – and why - I have no idea – we were sent off to attend primary school in Khandallah – presumably staying with uncle Frank and his wife and kids.
Trouble was - we were fair game for all the local bullies.
I remember dusty fields and fear – and my brother defending me – again - against the odds.
Then when mum died – tragically - in a car accident in Lower Hutt – a few years after dad – another story comes out – that mum had gotten pregnant as a teenager and been turfed out of home by her father and stepmother.
Her brother Frank looked after her and the child for 3 or 4 years then along comes the 2nd world war and Frank has to join the army.
Mum has to become a nurse and had to give the child away to the family down the road who’d been helping her with childcare. No DPB in those days.
Then she marries dad after the war - and she chose to take that story to her grave.
We got the story from Uncle Frank’s wife after both Frank and Moira were gone.
Then – to cap it all – the long lost half brother – rings Lindsay a few years back and announces he’s looking for his mum. He left it a bit late – but no judgement there.
His name is now Derham – and he’s now living in Christchurch – he’s got a wife Daphne and some kids – and we’ve all met up a few times and it’s all good.
Tho’ when I rang him on Monday to tell him how things were developing up here around Lindsay – his wife tells me he’d had a stroke just prior to lockdown and can’t talk so good anymore.
Well – one thing at a time I guess.
But lets talk a bit more about Lindsay – I guess the months between us must have become two years in terms of schooling.
We were at Stokes Valley Primary both at the same time – but I'm so self centred – I don’t remember too much of him being around. Tho’ I do have strong memories of him - psychologically tormenting me when we were left at home alone at night – I'm pretty sure food was involved – but nothing physical.
And probably not too out of the ordinary.
I would try to yell the house down – but it didn’t seem to faze him.
He did shape my life dramatically in one other way – as I see it – due to the fact he caused so much mayhem – if that’s the right word – at Taita College – that my parents decided it would be best if I went elsewhere. Consequently I wound up at Hutt Valley High School – with new frontiers.
Which brings up another big memory – 5th Form parties in Lower Hutt – and we’re getting hassled by the slightly older, slightly uncool rugby crowd – so I invite my big brother to the parties – basically as security – and Lindsay seemed to take it in his stride - banged a few heads together and all was well.
He was a strong bugger – more your shot putt – discuss throwing – weight lifter type – I more your runner and jumper.
After leaving School – he’d moved on to Petone Tech for a bit – he got himself locked up for a while - and then got himself badly knocked about in a car accident – metal plate now holding his spine together - might have been that MG sports car I can vaguely remember – I may be mixing up the sequence of events here – coz Lindsay's not around anymore to check the facts - but what the heck – it’s a good story – of a life well lived – and Lindsay dearly loves a good story.
The story of a guy who stuck by his mum when it was required – and from what I observed – managed to make the best - of himself – with the hand he’d been dealt.
He came to me one time – not feeling too flash about the whole parent husband thing – seems he was getting in the way - and putting two and two together again – it seems to me that everybody, the immediate family that is - put some work in – and it all worked out.
And you can’t really do better than that.
We didn’t see all that much of each other – mainly down to some selfish quirk in me – but the last time that he and Sandy called in to our place – and we sat around yacking – he seemed delightfully mellow – introspective – cheerful and real.
I particularly remember him at the many family reunions – over the years – where he seemed in his element - he seemed to know everyone – and everyone knew him.
He talked more than anyone – and they all loved him for it.
I wish he’d had more time.
I wish I wasn’t so selfish.
I wish human beings could work it out.
But here we are today – all of us – and Lindsay – and this is the way it is – right now.
And in the words of the late – great – John Clarke
“we don’t know how lucky we are”
Take care…