opened on part of his township; his parents and their parents, and the Trambert before even them, great-grandfather Arthur who’d started the process of breaking in the land bought from the Maoris last century in the 1870s. Yet of the Maori they knew nothing. The compounding ironies there, of the land returning to them, even if in tiny pockets of individually owned land with those dreadful working-class houses put on them. But the circumstances of money being a leveller were not lost to him. The Trambert generational money was dwindling.
Six years ago Gordon Trambert had observed this wretched Maori kid expressing his grief like a dog howling to the moon. Or, in this case, the sun just peeped out from cloud and putting a shaft down on the cemetery but not on the youth. (Now that would have been just too much.) The sextons, one of them with sandwich still halfway to his mouth, suspended in this boy’s time, what he’d made of this moment at this freshly dug grave ready to be filled. Same kid who now dominated the rugby fields he played on.
His love of rugby and the fact he regretted son Alistair hated the game (he hates everything, including himself) had him going most Saturday mornings to watch a younger grade game then a senior match in the afternoon. He supported no particular club, a fact he prided himself on (he just loved the game), and nor thus socialised at any clubroom after a game; though there was the odd time he would have liked to, just to talk rugby with like minds, and yes, to enjoy a beer in the company of men with less social constraint than the company he kept tended to be.
A couple of years ago at a morning match of young men in their late teens at the main rugby park he happened to recognise a face but couldn’t figure from where until well into the match, so dazzled was he by the youth’s play and anyway with shaven head and not that wild mop of warlock’s hair when Gordon Trambert had first observed him. He was big and fast, a devastating tackler, a tearaway flanker in the true New Zealand tradition. He’d drive into a tackle and as often as not emerge with the ball ripped from the opposition player’s hands. More than anything, he played as if with some inner flow.
Rather than trust his own not very illustrious schoolboy player judgement, Gordon Trambert made comment to some of the more knowing looking rugby heads on the sideline and they confirmed that this boy was an exceptional player. Every Saturday from thereon he watched T. Nahona, as he was listed in his St Johns Under 21s teamsheet, heard the comments that the young man was ready for senior rugby and the wiser heads suggesting it should begin with lower grade senior, not straight in at the deep end. Whatever, Gordon was just another convinced this could be an All Black in the making, that this Two Lakes boy now with shaved head, who had already imprinted himself on Gordon Trambert’s mind from that graveside scene, might one day join the country’s rugby elite. If only he’d turn up for every game, which he didn’t. If only he’d get himself fitter instead of relying on raw talent. If only Gordon Trambert had more rugby mana so he could approach the young man and perhaps help him find his potential.
B ACK IN ’89 he’d been (easily) persuaded to become a Lloyds Insurance Name. Like some of his better-off farming friends. Amongst them it had a certain prestige, one didn’t deny that, it was part of the attraction. For three hundred years the venerable Lloyds of London had made its investors money, some would say its own printing press making the stuff. And all that was required was a small deposit of $50,000 — which was a bank borrowing against another housing development parcel of land on which Lloyds paid interest — and the signing over of an unencumbered asset with a realisable worth of $600,000, which was a couple of hundred less than what the debt-free farm was worth; and once had been close to double that (if one
Six years ago Gordon Trambert had observed this wretched Maori kid expressing his grief like a dog howling to the moon. Or, in this case, the sun just peeped out from cloud and putting a shaft down on the cemetery but not on the youth. (Now that would have been just too much.) The sextons, one of them with sandwich still halfway to his mouth, suspended in this boy’s time, what he’d made of this moment at this freshly dug grave ready to be filled. Same kid who now dominated the rugby fields he played on.
His love of rugby and the fact he regretted son Alistair hated the game (he hates everything, including himself) had him going most Saturday mornings to watch a younger grade game then a senior match in the afternoon. He supported no particular club, a fact he prided himself on (he just loved the game), and nor thus socialised at any clubroom after a game; though there was the odd time he would have liked to, just to talk rugby with like minds, and yes, to enjoy a beer in the company of men with less social constraint than the company he kept tended to be.
A couple of years ago at a morning match of young men in their late teens at the main rugby park he happened to recognise a face but couldn’t figure from where until well into the match, so dazzled was he by the youth’s play and anyway with shaven head and not that wild mop of warlock’s hair when Gordon Trambert had first observed him. He was big and fast, a devastating tackler, a tearaway flanker in the true New Zealand tradition. He’d drive into a tackle and as often as not emerge with the ball ripped from the opposition player’s hands. More than anything, he played as if with some inner flow.
Rather than trust his own not very illustrious schoolboy player judgement, Gordon Trambert made comment to some of the more knowing looking rugby heads on the sideline and they confirmed that this boy was an exceptional player. Every Saturday from thereon he watched T. Nahona, as he was listed in his St Johns Under 21s teamsheet, heard the comments that the young man was ready for senior rugby and the wiser heads suggesting it should begin with lower grade senior, not straight in at the deep end. Whatever, Gordon was just another convinced this could be an All Black in the making, that this Two Lakes boy now with shaved head, who had already imprinted himself on Gordon Trambert’s mind from that graveside scene, might one day join the country’s rugby elite. If only he’d turn up for every game, which he didn’t. If only he’d get himself fitter instead of relying on raw talent. If only Gordon Trambert had more rugby mana so he could approach the young man and perhaps help him find his potential.
B ACK IN ’89 he’d been (easily) persuaded to become a Lloyds Insurance Name. Like some of his better-off farming friends. Amongst them it had a certain prestige, one didn’t deny that, it was part of the attraction. For three hundred years the venerable Lloyds of London had made its investors money, some would say its own printing press making the stuff. And all that was required was a small deposit of $50,000 — which was a bank borrowing against another housing development parcel of land on which Lloyds paid interest — and the signing over of an unencumbered asset with a realisable worth of $600,000, which was a couple of hundred less than what the debt-free farm was worth; and once had been close to double that (if one
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