NEWSLETTER 56 | DECEMBER 2012
Bully boys, snake charmers and strike breakers
BOB KERR (ABOVE, LEFT) AND MARK DERBY AT THE WAIHI ART CENTRE, DURING THE OPENING OF THE EXHIBITION ‘GOLD STRIKE’ AND THE LAUNCH OF WAIHEATHENS. BOB RICHARDS
Waiheathens – voices from a mining town, by Mark Derby with paintings by Bob Kerr. Atuanui Press, 2012. ISBN-978-0-9922453-1-3. Reviewed by Matthew O’Driscoll. Reprinted by permission from Working Life, the magazine of the NZ Public Service Association. Produced to coincide with the centenary of the 1912 miners’ strike, Mark Derby’s Waiheathens is a small yet thoroughly entertaining book that brings together stories and paintings to retell an infamous chapter of New Zealand’s darkest days. Over the years there have been varying accounts of the bitter and violent events that occurred in Waihi in 1912 and in this book Mark, a PSA member at the Ministry of Culture and Heritage, chooses not to revisit these viewpoints but instead to focus on little-known or unpublished stories from locals and direct participants. For those not acquainted with the events, Mark does a good job weaving a series of 15 short stories to tell the events that turned Waihi into a battleground and resulted in the death of one striker. We start with a cautionary tale for Maori over land ownership and rights. We track the efforts of the Ohinemuri and Ngati Tamatera people as they face surveyors, prospectors, and all manner of under-hand schemes that came with white-men’s gold. If the book starts with a cautionary tale it finishes with one too. We follow Collette Spalding, the granddaughter of a Waihi miner and concerned resident, who goes from being branded the town trouble-maker to a champion and advocate for people affected by the re-opening of mine activities in the town. Between these wonderful bookends are tales of people seeking fame and fortune, fraud, technological advances in mining, lawlessness, death, and the uprising of a labour movement. Along the way we meet bully boys, snake charmers, and pistol-wielding strike breakers but it’s the softer side of the struggles that
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