A novelist backgrounds her book on the '81 Springbok Tour
I was 15 when the Springboks came to New Zealand in 1981. Like other teenagers, I was navigating friendships, family relationships, homework and teachers.
For some years now, I’ve felt drawn to write a novel about the Springbok Tour from a 15-year-old girl’s perspective. Like me, the girl would witness women pushing back against sexism. Like me, the girl would have close friendships that opened her eyes to the racism Pasifika and Māori families experienced. Also like me, the girl would become involved in the anti-tour movement and, years later, under Alert Level 4 Lockdown, she’d remember the violence, the batons, the chanting, the placards waving in the crowds. She’d begin to write about that time because she’d been changed forever by 1981 and New Zealand would never be the same again either. And so I wrote In Our Own Back Yard.
I researched the build-up to the tour, using library books, the internet and Merata Mita’s documentary, Patu. At a session with my writing group, I explained that I’d begun a novel set during the 1981 Tour. One of our members, Helen McNeil, said, "My husband can tell you lots about the protests." It turned out that Helen’s husband, David Williams, had been an activist in CARE (Citizens’ Association for Racial Equality).
David had been one of the movers and shakers of the protest movement and he told me stories, lots of them. One was about Sunday, July 19, 1981, the day the Springboks arrived in Auckland. At the airport, David was part of a group of protesters who pulled down a wire fence and ran onto the tarmac, where they were tackled by police. Protesters waited in the arrivals section of the airport, but the Springboks were diverted onto a smaller plane for Gisborne, for their first game. They managed to avoid the airport protest altogether.
At the Hamilton game, he was part of a group of protesters who had bought tickets and lined up alongside rugby fans to get into Rugby Park. The plan was to sprint down the terraces to the field to disrupt the game. When protesters from outside the ground pulled down the wire fence and ran onto the field David and the other ‘inside protesters' ran to join them.
I asked him, "Were you ever seriously hurt?" He has a scar on his forehead, still there today.
I tapped away during lockdown, one chapter growing out of another, but there were books I needed to revisit, facts and stories I needed to check. The two books I most desperately wanted to dip back into were Geoff Chapple’s The Tour and Tom Newnham’s By Batons and Barbed Wire, but libraries were closed.
I put out a call on the Mt Albert Community Facebook page. People responded quickly and generously. One woman worked for Auckland Public Libraries. She had the books at home and would leave them in her letterbox for me, a contactless transaction. Another woman suggested I contact her dad who had reported on the protests for the Auckland Star. An old neighbour suggested I contact John Minto.
I decided I’d give it a go but didn’t think it likely I’d hear back from him. A few hours later though, I did.
John also read the manuscript to check for inaccuracies. He read the whole thing over one weekend and corrected me on a few things. For example, I’d read that he was hit by a bottle outside Hamilton’s Rugby Park, but he explained that he’d been hit by a full beer can thrown onto the field from the stands.
As I continued my research, I came across an article about how, in the 1970s, an Auckland Star court reporter, Donna Chisholm, had returned to the office with a story about the police stopping a 17-year-old Niuean boy as he walked home from work in the early hours of the morning. They’d charged him for the theft of two plastic combs he had in his pocket. The combs were from the reject bin at the plastics company where he worked, and employees were allowed to take them home. Pat Booth, editor of the Star, put the story on the front page. The following day, an Auckland University law lecturer turned himself in at the police station for the theft of a university pen. The police refused to charge the lecturer. Pat Booth put this story on the front page too. The case against the Niuean teenager was dropped. I stared at the photo of the lecturer holding up his university pen. It was a young, bearded David Williams.
In Our Own Back Yard by Anna Kayes (Bateman, $22) is available in bookstores nationwide.
