Fish Pie & a Cuppa Tea (A Golden Bay Story)
In many ways, this is the most important story I have to tell.
The influence on me in my early teens, that initially was the Beatles and later more particularly George Harrison, could never be truly underestimated.
In 1998, while working as a journalist for a weekly community newspaper in Takaka, a friend called to inform me that the ex-Beatle, George Harrison was in Golden Bay.
Naturally, I was lost for words, struggling to comprehend that what the caller was suggesting was even remotely possible. I think I managed to eventually say something back, something along the lines of ‘verification please’.
Grant Knowles knew that I was Beatle/George fan and naturally, one would expect such an event to be nothing more than a hoax call, but his reply was to nominate possibly the most credible source he could have come up with, so I started to get my head around the fact that maybe this was no hoax after all. He informed me that Wayne Green, founder and owner/operator at the time of the Wholemeal Cafe had told him.
Now, although I do not see him often (as within a year of this ‘happening’, I had moved to Christchurch, then Wellington), I have known Wayne since 1991. The cafe he began is an ‘institution’, not only within the small township of Takaka, but throughout New Zealand and holds international acclaim through reference in the famous ‘Lonely Planet’ guide, which is maybe even where George found it. Who knows?
I have always known Wayne to be a gentle soul with great vision who just happened to grow a tremendous and successful business. He is also a big Beatle fan. If Wayne Green had told Grant Knowles that George Harrison had been seen in Takaka, unless it was some form of crude joke, then Harrison was indeed in the Bay.
There is no evidence online that I can find to support Harrison having visited New Zealand in 1998, but there is that he was certainly in Fiji that very year.
“We went to Fiji in 1998. George said to the guy; “Take us to the island where there isn’t anybody and then take us in a boat and drop us off in a cove where there isn’t anyone” - and then he'd disappear. It’s like, he’s only with me and then he would go off on his own. But he’d come out dressed in banana leaves or heliconias. For him I think that was just like building a fort out of bracken, exploring nature. His name is George, GEO, 'of the earth’ and he really was of the earth.”
OLIVIA HARRISON
So, as if from a scene from a 1970’s movie, I slugged down the remainder of my coffee, grabbed my coat and camera and headed off in search of the roaming Beatle. I paused barely long enough to tell Annette what was going down, leaving her alone with little Verity, just shy of six months old.
I raced into town to see Wayne first, with the intention of seeing what sort of leads I could pick up, if any. In the back of my mind, the whole situation still seemed so surreal/absurd and I couldn’t help feeling that there was something fishy about the whole situation.
I sort of got that bit right.
When I had received clarification from Wayne that George Harrison, the former Beatle, had that very afternoon been in his establishment for lunch, all I could think to ask on the spot was; ‘What did he have?’
“A slice of fish pie and a cup of tea,” Wayne replied.
There are other diners from that afternoon who are further able to validate this story. But whether by good fortune or astute planning, George had chosen the perfect season to wander anonymously around the wider region of Golden Bay, where tourists were few and locals had the place largely to themselves.
“Don’t be looking for what you think is in your head,” said Wayne, in a very philosophical and George-like manner (I thought to myself). “He has grey hair, not short, but shorter than you’d expect. He is in his mid-fifties after all.”
I thanked him for the clarification that the story was correct and for the information he had provided and said that I was off to see if I could find the Beatle.
“He was wearing a long, grey overcoat,” Wayne offered as a parting gift.
Ironically, this photograph is now available online of George Harrison in 1998, wearing a grey overcoat.
I walked up and down Commercial Street, asking everyone I personally knew if they had heard the rumour or seen George Harrison about town. Some people thought I was plain mad. Most knew that I was a local journalist and were intrigued by the question, but nonetheless, they had not seen George or indeed, heard the talk.
I was equally reliably informed that earlier that morning, a music store owner in Motueka (the closest town on ‘the other side’ of the Takaka Hill) had confirmed that George Harrison, the ex-Beatle, had been in his shop and had purchased some cassette tapes for his road trip.
I rang the guy, his name long forgotten and had that confirmed.
In all my inquiries, these were the only two pieces of concrete evidence I could gather. There was other hearsay and much speculation, as a small branch of the grapevine extended it’s runners, but nothing more to go on than that, apart from that I was also informed that he had been seen driving a white Motorhome, or Campervan (as we call them in New Zealand).
The major trouble for me was the fact that Golden Bay is such a vastly geographical area with a very small population. As Wayne had eluded to, George Harrison was a very private person who most likely preferred to travel around alone, anonymously and to be with nothing but nature and his consciousness.
If he was in a Motorhome, he could be anywhere! Where would I even begin to look?
The region is chocked full of incredible, picture-postcard beaches, serene and almost untouched by human intervention. It would be Utopian for George, the perfect hide-away, should that be his intention.
I scouted around the region for another few hours, trying to guess where he may have gone. I went out to Pohara, gateway to the stunning Abel Tasman National Park, talking to folk and looking for any sign of a white Motorhome.
While I tried to be philosophical myself and accept that in reality I was looking for a needle in a haystack, disappointment was unavoidably natural. We are also talking about a time where cell phones were not commonplace at all and instantaneous communication devices were largely still futuristic.
Eventually, I reluctantly decided that enough time had been fraught on the case and it was probably time to be back home with wife and child. I drove home to Paton’s Rock, a small seaside settlement about 12km’s west of Takaka, just off the Takaka-Collingwood highway.
Paton’s Rock is very quiet and peaceful. My home was right on the beach front and adjacent to a grassed reserve, about 100m in length and housing a concrete toilet block. Under a canopy of tall gum trees, with direct access to a 10km stretch of white, sandy beach, the piece of council owned ground was a popular spot in summer, if not all that well known or signposted.
Occasionally, the occupants of a Campervan or similar would camp there overnight. But generally speaking, having presumably made that decision largely because of the desire for isolation, they’d have to be considered unlucky if a second vehicle pulled up.
As I pulled into the driveway, I had a clear view of the reserve and there was no Motorhome parked there. It was sort of like my last resolve, last chance saloon as it were. I was naturally disappointed, but tried to keep everything in relative perspective, after all, I had gone to some considerable length to locate the former Beatle, even thinking outside the square as I was often known to do.
Annette - who was pregnant with the next instalment (twin sons) - was in need of a break, so I put Verity in her buggy and set off along the beach as I often did. There wasn’t a whole lot of daylight left, so I thought I wouldn’t go as far as I normally would have.
I was walking along the beach, thinking of how my father had the jammiest luck of anyone I knew. I say that, but I really mean, he was always such a positive, happy-go-lucky person, that he quite rightly attracted an air of positivism and always exuded supreme confidence. I just needed a thin slice of all that now...short of a miracle.
At that stage, I was unaware that Verity was cut from the very same cloth.
When we returned, approximately 20 minutes later, there was a lone white Motorhome parked in the reserve.
In 2013, when playing a gig at the Mussel Inn with the California Dreamers, I took the band back to the exact spot where the Motorhome had been parked.
The California Dreamers in Patons Rock, 2013.