Turns out the trees at the back of our place weren't inside our property line after all (although one was on the line, and shouldn't have been touched). Our normal dawn chorus of birdsong has been replaced this week by chainsaws. I liked having the trees there. By ring counting I reckon the oldest were at least thirty years old. However, I am looking on the bright side. The backyard is now dramatically improved for stargazing purposes, and our view to the south has been widened.
Even though they were non native firs, and thus ideologically unsound, I don't like seeing trees fall. I would like to plant a garden of native podocarps to fill the gap.
What defines the Hutt Spirit
(Lower Hutt colours: green and gold)
This is the first of the suggested topics I'll have a go at. I have been actively pondering it since it was suggested. I think I am too close to the subject to be objective though.
I have lived in Lower Hutt for 25 of my 30 years. Wellington is my city, but Lower Hutt is my hometown. I'm not sure I can identify a particular archetype that can't be associated also with the rest of New Zealand.
The first European settlers lasted only a few months on the Petone foreshore before upping sticks and relocating to Thorndon on the other side of the harbour. Lower Hutt I think exists perpetually in the shadow of Wellington, although it could be argued that Wellington could not have prospered without the Hutt Valley to provide space for workers and industry, as well as food production.
The Hutt Valley appears to have something of a poor reputation nationally, promulgated mostly in my experience by those who have never lived there. It is said to be a tough neighbourhood, full of criminality and promiscuity, of hard men and harder women, a place of low class and white trash. Some areas may be like that it is true, but most of it isn't, which pretty much goes for any decent sized urban area in the country.
Where this comes from I have never figured out (although the Juvenile Delinquency/Milkbar cowboys scandals of the 1950's may have something to do with it), and it riles me a little. If ignorant people think I am harder and tougher than I am simply because of where I grew up, thats OK. When my hometown becomes the butt of jokes for no reason I can see it gets annoying. The Hutt Valley of joke emails and stand-up comedy is not the one I know.
I disagree entirely with the assessment of the Hutt spirit as being essentially bogan. The Hutt is no more bogan than any other urbanised area of New Zealand, no more than Levin is full of market gardening Chinese, or Seattle full of flannel wearing, coffee drinking alternative muso's. It has its fair share of slappers and mullets, but no more than many, and a good deal less than some other places in NZ. We don't have a speedway track in the suburbs like Palmy or Auckland.
The Hutt is a fairly unsophisticated place admittedly, although I think having the capital city only ten miles away doesn't help this. Wellington will always be the dominant partner in the relationship. While it is unsophisticated, at the same time it is not backward.
I think any Hutt attitude will be influenced by the topography. In my teens I often looked at the hills in the same way I would regard a prison fence; a boundary set too close, ever present and visible, and needing to be overcome. It is fairly rugged terrain in which we live.
An important part of the Hutt spirit is a willingness to travel when required. A lot of people who live in the valley don't work there. Hutt people seldom think about making a car or train journey of half an hour or more to get to say, Wellington. A lot of resident Wellingtonians (not all mind) display a marked reluctance to move beyond the city.
I still haven't done much defining. Any features of a particular Hutt attitude (hardnosed, willing to speak up, insular and outward looking at the same time, wary of change but embracing of good ideas) could be assigned to New Zealanders as a whole. I don't think New Zealand is old enough or big enough for properly discernable regional attitudes and identities to have formed, but I'm not a sociologist, so I don't quote me on that.
So in answer to the question, I don't rightly know.
8 comments:
I think the milkbar scandals concerned Upper Hutt, but part of any analysis would have to take account of two facts, that Upper Hutt isn't Lower Hutt, and that a lot of people are too lazy to give a shit about that.
For what it's worth, I'd've said that "don't rightly know" is the best answer you could come up with while accepting the initial premise that there is a Hutt identity - the crucial word there being "a". The data is in excess of the premise.
i love the hutt. my geographically closest cousins grew up in the hutt and for me it is a city of freedom, where you can spend all day swimming and then going to toy world and maybe the mall to buy singlets. it is a place that has fairs (church, school, beach etc...) and lots of trees. oh and duck ponds.
with regards mullets... i blame the hairdressers. because my aunt once took me to a hairdresser in lower hutt and guess what? freakin' mullet. my mother had to cut it out when i got home.
Dude, here are your questions:
1. Have you ever forgotten to put underpants on? What happened?
2. What's the best thing about you?
3. Have you ever done something you're not proud of? What was it and why did you do it?
4. What's the biggest let down you've ever had?
5. Have you ever had a "penny drop" moment. What happened?
I am half Huttite. I think Hutt folk are unpretentious.
While you may not see a fashion thing going on.... I notice it when I go to Westfield. The girls are wearing SIMILAR things to what the girls at my school wear... but they somehow don't pull it off quite as well. I little too much eyeliner and hairspray..... something.
Did a Haka gig in Paris on Wednesday. Two Maori boys arrived and looked at me a little sceptically. One asked where I was from, I said Wellington. He said he was to. I asked where about particularly. He answered Wianui. I said Taita. Instant respect!!! Not cause we were "hard" just cause we came from the same demographic, people just getting on with living. Nice guys. The Hutt makes people equals, as we are in the shadow of the capital, its little cousins so we stick together. Lets just not talk about Eastbourne though.
Actually the whole “were you from?” thing happens a lot here. I have met a few people who ask where I am from. I say Wellington to generalise it. Most ask for more info only if they are from Wellington, to see if we are in the same circles. When I get to the Tiata bit I have had some good reactions. One was “once from the Bronx, always from the Bronx”, this from a guy who came from Naenae. Never have I thought Taita or Pomare were Bronx like, these people should go to Brixton or Dalston.
Marked reluctance to move beyond the city = having to commute to the city every darn morning to get to work along a clogged up SH2, unless you live by the railway station.
At one point I commuted from Paraparaumu every day to University, and I have to say it wasn't that much fun. Although to be fair, the Hutt is closer than Paraparaumu, and only really an issue getting anywhere during peak hour.
Other than that, I think any reluctance would be overcome as soon as I take a look at property prices in any part of Wellington other than (maybe) Tawa.
Concerning a 'Hutt identity' I have to say I grew up in the progressive suburb, which had about the same (maybe slightly better?) reputation as the Hutt at the time, and I didn't rightly understand that either.
Janet I wasn't meaning in a residential house buying sense, I was meaning more in a social event sense. A lot of people in the city just won't go to things that aren't in the city or its immediate locale.
At risk of a gross generalisation, but this is based on several years experience of hosting attending things in the Hutt and noting an absence of townies.
Well, in that case, I suspect the blame could be laid at the feet of the crap evening public transport system, given there's also a marked tendency for Wellingtonians to not learn to drive.
It is sooo much easier for me to attend events in the Hutt now I have a car, relative to the whole catching the train/leaving the party early thing.
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