A story for our time

William Guy (Guy) Macpherson was a complicated man. He was a product of his upbringing, a little out of the ordinary perhaps, his parents, who were extraordinary characters, and the huge pressures faced by his generation.

Poverty, general deprivation, war and bureaucracy all helped forge the man who, at the end of the day, was 'just' a Far North dairy and beef farmer, an often unfulfilled visionary, a radical conservative. Or perhaps a conservative radical.

However he might be described, his story has now been recorded in minute, loving but unsparing detail by his second son, Reynold Macpherson. The aptly titled 'Confidence in Adversity' will be launched at Te Ahu in Kaitaia on Thursday, to sit alongside Macpherson's earlier biography of his paternal grandmother, Margaret ('Lovers and Husbands and What-not').

His father's story will perhaps be of greatest interest to the family (although the author concedes that not all are enamoured of some of the content) and those who knew Guy and will identify with him, his experiences and his causes, but it is also an important story for our time. It gives the lie to the often-heard assertion that life in New Zealand after WWII was probably as good as it got; certainly the prosperity that was enjoyed thanks to Britain's insatiable demand for everything New Zealand farmers could produce did not trickle down to Mangatoetoe.

And it exposes many of the darker sides of a rural society that was getting to grips, not always with alacrity, with many of the social niceties that we now take for granted.

Guy and his generation generally worked hard to make their collective living. For returned servicemen that often meant coping with what only decades later, if ever, would be recognised as post traumatic stress disorder. In more recent times old soldiers who continued to suffer long after they returned home, even if physically unscathed, have perhaps been forgiven for and by the 'secondary casualties' they produced within their families, but for decades that was not well understood, if at all.

Flawed he might have been, but WG Macpherson was also a visionary who devoted much of his post-war life to working for the benefit of others, not least via Federated Farmers, the Mangonui County Council (where he served one term), Social Credit (which very nearly saw him elected to Parliament - Reynold perceptively observes that his father would likely have made a poor caucus member given his reluctance to shift from what he believed to be right - an innovative dairy (Jersey) and beef (Belted Galloway) farmer, a typically enthusiastic apiarist, and above a passionate advocate of education.

Like many of his generation Guy Macpherson was robbed of any meaningful formal education by the Depression, which begs the question as to what he might have achieved in more benign times. The great benefit of his lack of educational fulfilment (in terms of his schooling) was that he contributed so much, principally via Far North REAP and adult literacy (ARLA) to give opportunities to so many others.

Anyone who is not familiar with what this man and his generation have given their descendants should read this book. It will undoubtedly open their eyes to the struggles that their forebears endured to make the world a better place for their children and grandchildren. And to the fact that, perhaps better than their successors, how that selfless generation learned from experience and reacted to it, positively and with vigour.

Guy Macpherson was by some measures no ordinary man but his story is fundamentally far from unique. His second son has done his memory, his family and succeeding generations a huge favour with this highly readable biography, if for no other reason that it might make today's generations look back upon their own parents and grandparents with a kinder eye and a much greater degree of understanding.