I was perusing the emailed copy of a publication called AlumniLinc and was extremely impressed to see one of my old classmates Richard Riddell had risen to the heights of being the Chair of the Lincoln University Foundation.
I flicked through the rest of the publication until I came to a section which was a request for information from the Canterbury Museum.
The museum it seems has come into possession of many photos and are wanting to identify them as they have no labels. They posted a couple as examples.
The first was known to be a 1938 snap of Lincoln’s students’ tennis and cricket teams walking confidently across the grass, dressed very nattily in their blazers and long white pants.
I peered at their faces and wondered how many of them went on to go to war and maybe not return.
The other was a more recent colour photo of a rugby team. On closer inspection, some of these guys were rather familiar and the rugby ball had ‘Lincoln College Thirsts’ written on it. This was indeed my own rugby team.
You know how most Kiwi blokes will retell stories of their rugby prowess and abilities for hours on end leaving you wondering how come they never became an All Black?
This is not one of those stories.
This team was made up of the discards, the unwanted but mainly the fellows who didn’t turn up for registration or trials because they forgot or had other stuff to do.
This was in an era when several hundred students were playing rugby.
We were probably the bottom team but didn’t greatly trouble ourselves with the onerous business of training or strategy.
Probably, my greatest playing feat was watching an exceptionally large Pacific Islander being passed a tap penalty at speed and thundering at us standing on the try line. The two of us in his way stepped deftly aside without conferring and he bewilderingly passed us by at such momentum that he crossed the dead ball line without placing the ball. Who says cowardness doesn’t have its rewards?
The cups I borrowed from the refectory were to be the only symbol of our success.
We dreamt up the name thinking that when asked at the pub by some pretty young lady which Lincoln team we played for, she may have hopefully misheard and enthusiastically chummed up with a fellow playing for the Lincoln First Fifteen which at the time were mightily successful, treated like gods and went on to produce several All Blacks.
As far as I know, the plan never worked.
It looks like we had just the 15 rugby jerseys. And a shortage of socks.
I’m not sure if it’s a coincidence or that the two most hippy-looking of us – without a jersey but wearing the team one – were two of the three guys in that whole rugby club of 500 who didn’t think the Springbok tour of that winter was such a great idea.
I don’t know about Dave and Hamish, but that stance was the bravest thing I’ve ever done.
We would have a long line of large blokes lining up at Bob’s and the Carlton after Saturday games to tell us just why we were on the wrong side. But not of history it turned out.
So that’s the reminiscence and now we come to memory.
Several faces were familiar, but I could only put names to about five of us. These were guys I played rugby with. Prepared to lay my body on the line for. Well, maybe not that far as we’ve seen above but still, you’d think I’d have the decency to remember.
I emailed the museum’s request for information to my mate, fellow farmer and trustee John (front row, second on the left). He’s got a much better memory and confirmed those five, and added another five. So, I then rang Grant (middle row, second right) and a valuer from Otago.
This is where order comes in.
I told him about the photo and he says: “hang on, I’ve got it right here,” then opens his filing cabinet and starts rattling all the names off from the back of a photo he has kept for 40 years and knew where to find it within seconds.
I haven’t even gotten around to getting our wedding photos in an album yet.
This is the sort of order that I want in my life and Grant’s feat has encouraged me to lift my game. It’s not too late.
He was even able to tell me news about several of our old teammates and went on to supply the Canterbury Museum with all the names they required for their records and for posterity.
