Pongaroa - aah the memories

Pongaroa - aah the memories

Funny how a single line in a news story can send the mind whirling back years to an experience in life that has hibernated in the grey-matter reservoir for years.

Such was the case this week when I read a news feature by Christine McKay about the recently completed, major army exercise carried out in Tararua.

The line which imprinted on my mind was nothing to do with the stealth displayed by camouflaged soldiers but was one attributed to Mauriceville farmer David Cameron.

Mr Cameron had helped hide "insurgents" during the exercise and made the comment "we even had rebels holed up in the Pongaroa Hotel".

That kick-started my memory and whisked me back to my teenage years when I too was "holed up in the Pongaroa Hotel".

Holed up for days and days, probably weeks, as I worked as a surveyor's chainman, helping to construct a road to Akitio.

It was at the height of summer and in the middle of a prolonged drought. Water was at a premium but, thank God, beer wasn't.

We were booked in to the Pongaroa pub and washed in the river to save precious water supplies. Once we had dried off, it was into the bar to get wet inside.

For a young "townie", there seemed to be absolutely nothing else to do in Pongaroa, although I am sure I could have been put to good use drenching or docking; skills I was later to learn.

But in those far-off days, I was much more interested in cleaner pursuits like sinking ale and chasing young girls.

The former I accomplished with honours at the Pongaroa pub, the latter I must have failed miserably at as I now can't recall a single female form that loomed before me during that protracted stay in what we then called the wop-wops.

I can recall coming back into town and seeing Masterton through entirely different eyes - it was like being rescued from a desert island and thrust into mainstream New York.

Girls became much more plentiful but the beer - to an underage drinker who could no longer claim "in-the-house" status - dried up.

Probably a good thing, although inventive young guys of my era could never be denied forever.

We had other haunts we could frequent almost with impunity, including that grand old lady the Morison's Bush pub.

Being naive, we thought we had bluffed the publicans into believing we were of drinking age but that was clearly not the case.

After a couple of beers, it wasn't unusual to find you could no longer attract the barman's attention.

In other words you had consumed your quota and it was time to leave.

They were different days of course.

Booze, at least in quantity, was nowhere near as available as it is today - the very thought of being able to buy it in supermarkets would have been regarded as fantasy.

The legal drinking age was 21 and cars were not as plentiful, or as fast.

Must go back and take a look at the Pongaroa pub one day soon.

I haven't been back in 50-odd years - might even hole up there for a few days.