beautiful rimu â all woods in great demand for weatherboard and joinery and flooring and fencing â and the blond kahikatea useful only for boxes or burning. Once the timber was cut and milled and loaded onto railway wagons, the trash was burned off and the rich volcanic soil laid bare for farming. Oh yes, in those early days Manawa was an energetic, rowdy kind of a place, known for its Saturday dances and its fierce rivalry with Ohakune.
Disastrous fires were not uncommon in the district, butDonnyâs granddad reckoned that Manawaâs proud spirit was also consumed in the fire of 1926 that burned down his fatherâs workplace and then spread to several shops and houses.
âThe drift started then, boy; not in a rush, but family by family, drifting away to larger towns, surer work.â
Since Donny arrived, the drift has continued. Manawa is no longer really a town. The school still staggers along with two teachers; the one last shop on Matai Street has dwindled from store and post office to store and, finally, to a sad, half-empty âEmporiumâ containing examples of Notsoâs many failed money-making projects and one or two racks of old clothes. More than half the houses are empty, ownership reverting to the Ministry of Works. Houses owned by ski-happy townies outnumber locally owned homes. Manawa, which sprang into life as the railway came through, has sunk again, the forests felled, business and jobs moved elsewhere.
Manny Mac would walk down with Donny to the rugby ground and show him where the mill had been â all ploughed field now, behind Kingisâ farm. âSee, a mill would employ maybe twenty-six or thirty men, let alone those in the bush bringing down the timber. How many people are needed to plough a field or milk a herd? Two? Three? No need for a town any more, eh Donny? No need for us buggers unless we can earn a crust in Ohakune or Raetihi. Fact of life, boy.â
Then he would grin his gap-toothed grin and slap Donny on the back. âBut we still beat them all at rugby, eh?â
And young Donny would let loose his great hooting laugh and punch the air for the sheer joy of walking down the road to the rugby ground with his granddad Manny Mac.
The seven years that Donny Mac lived with his granddad were the best of his life so far. When his parents dumped their large embarrassing son in Manawa and shot through, Donny was eleven. At school up north he had been ridiculed and taunted for his size and his slow speech; at home his parents either shouted at or ignored him. Beatings were routine. Living with Manny Mac was different in every way that Donny could imagine. First, his granddad was pleased to have him around. Manny Mac was a small wiry man, his legs a little bowed, his hair and his teeth mostly gone.
âI got the Munroe name,â he joked to the boy, âbut thatâs about where it stopped. My dad, also Munroe, was tall but, you know, a broken man. The war broke him once and then his family broke him a second time. His stooped shoulders, his limp from the war wound, his need to hide because of deserting â all them things made of my dad a silent sort of a fellow, when most around that time were loud and brash, liking their beer and their dances and their girls and the odd rowdy fight down at the club. He didnât fit, no more than my mum did. She was a quiet one too, worked in the post office, like my missus after her.â
âThat would be my gran then?â Young Donny loved stories about family, couldnât get enough of them, starved as he was in his early years.
âIt would, lad, it would. If she could, she would come back from the dead to hear she had a grandson living in the family home. A lovely pearler of a lady, your gran. Smallish like me and a sweet way about her. Everyone loved Mavis. Arelative of Mona Kingi.â Manny Mac went silent for a while, thinking about his Mavis. âLooking back, I reckon she had a
Disastrous fires were not uncommon in the district, butDonnyâs granddad reckoned that Manawaâs proud spirit was also consumed in the fire of 1926 that burned down his fatherâs workplace and then spread to several shops and houses.
âThe drift started then, boy; not in a rush, but family by family, drifting away to larger towns, surer work.â
Since Donny arrived, the drift has continued. Manawa is no longer really a town. The school still staggers along with two teachers; the one last shop on Matai Street has dwindled from store and post office to store and, finally, to a sad, half-empty âEmporiumâ containing examples of Notsoâs many failed money-making projects and one or two racks of old clothes. More than half the houses are empty, ownership reverting to the Ministry of Works. Houses owned by ski-happy townies outnumber locally owned homes. Manawa, which sprang into life as the railway came through, has sunk again, the forests felled, business and jobs moved elsewhere.
Manny Mac would walk down with Donny to the rugby ground and show him where the mill had been â all ploughed field now, behind Kingisâ farm. âSee, a mill would employ maybe twenty-six or thirty men, let alone those in the bush bringing down the timber. How many people are needed to plough a field or milk a herd? Two? Three? No need for a town any more, eh Donny? No need for us buggers unless we can earn a crust in Ohakune or Raetihi. Fact of life, boy.â
Then he would grin his gap-toothed grin and slap Donny on the back. âBut we still beat them all at rugby, eh?â
And young Donny would let loose his great hooting laugh and punch the air for the sheer joy of walking down the road to the rugby ground with his granddad Manny Mac.
The seven years that Donny Mac lived with his granddad were the best of his life so far. When his parents dumped their large embarrassing son in Manawa and shot through, Donny was eleven. At school up north he had been ridiculed and taunted for his size and his slow speech; at home his parents either shouted at or ignored him. Beatings were routine. Living with Manny Mac was different in every way that Donny could imagine. First, his granddad was pleased to have him around. Manny Mac was a small wiry man, his legs a little bowed, his hair and his teeth mostly gone.
âI got the Munroe name,â he joked to the boy, âbut thatâs about where it stopped. My dad, also Munroe, was tall but, you know, a broken man. The war broke him once and then his family broke him a second time. His stooped shoulders, his limp from the war wound, his need to hide because of deserting â all them things made of my dad a silent sort of a fellow, when most around that time were loud and brash, liking their beer and their dances and their girls and the odd rowdy fight down at the club. He didnât fit, no more than my mum did. She was a quiet one too, worked in the post office, like my missus after her.â
âThat would be my gran then?â Young Donny loved stories about family, couldnât get enough of them, starved as he was in his early years.
âIt would, lad, it would. If she could, she would come back from the dead to hear she had a grandson living in the family home. A lovely pearler of a lady, your gran. Smallish like me and a sweet way about her. Everyone loved Mavis. Arelative of Mona Kingi.â Manny Mac went silent for a while, thinking about his Mavis. âLooking back, I reckon she had a
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