Sargeson Fellowship reception

I begin by greeting everyone in the languages of the realm of New Zealand, in English, Māori, Cook Island Māori, Niuean, Tokelauan and New Zealand Sign Language. Greetings, Kia Ora, Kia Orana, Fakalofa Lahi Atu, Taloha Ni and as it is the evening (Sign)

I then specifically greet you: Peter Chemis, National Chairman of Buddle Findlay; Christine Cole-Catley, Chair of the Frank Sargeson Trust and your fellow trustees, notably Elizabeth Aitken-Rose and Graeme Lay; Sonja Yelich and Sarah Laing, 2010 Buddle Findlay Sargeson Fellows; Distinguished Guests otherwise; Ladies and Gentlemen.

Thank you for inviting my wife Susan and I to this reception to honour the 2010 recipients of the Buddle Findlay Sargeson Fellowships.  I would like to say a little about the significance of these awards.

At the outset, I would like to say how good it is to again be within the chemistry of the Buddle Findlay Sargeson Fellowship awards.  Susan and I had the honour of hosting this reception at Government House in Wellington in May 2008, when Brigit Lowry and Paula Morris, were the fellows. 

I should also note that work on Government House, which celebrates its centenary in a couple of weeks, is progressing at pace and we are looking forward to returning to it next year.

The Buddle Findlay Sargeson Fellowship is one of New Zealand's premier national literary fellowships.  Now in its 23rd year, the Fellowship has helped advance the careers of many of New Zealand’s finest writers.

In particular, there is obvious and continuing honour of novelist and short-story writer, Frank Sargeson, who did so much to establish New Zealand literature and to introduce the New Zealand vernacular to fiction.

This point (about New Zealandness) was well made by Sargeson’s biographer, the late Dr Michael King, also a Sargeson Fellow.  Writing in The Penguin History of New Zealand, King pinpointed a key waypoint in Sargeson’s changing view of the world in the following words by quoting Sargeson saying as follows: “When he left Auckland in 1927, he said, he felt like a European in New Zealand; he left London a year later feeling like a New Zealander in Europe.  An intensive spell of reading and study at the British Museum in Bloomsbury had served to remind him of ‘the intolerable weight of so much civilisation … I knew that I was only indirectly part of it all … [For] better or worse, and for life, I belonged to the new world.’"

Sargeson also did much to nurture the next generation of New Zealand writers who were dubbed “the children of Sargeson.”  Writers such as A.P. Gaskell, Greville Texidor, Maurice Duggan, John Reece Cole, David Ballantyne, C.K. Stead, Kevin Ireland, Maurice Gee and Janet Frame were all mentored by Frank Sargeson.

Creative writing, in whatever artistic form the author chooses, is hard work.  Sargeson is described as living the life of a monk, writing in the morning and tending his garden in the afternoon.  He also recognised the need for budding writers to be able to work their craft, away from distractions and interruptions of daily life.  Several writers, including Janet Frame, Duggan and Ireland, lived and worked from the backyard army hut at his Takapuna property.

The Buddle Findlay Sargeson Fellowships are in keeping with that legacy, by providing outstanding published New Zealand writers the creative space to develop their ideas.  I therefore congratulate the two co-winners of this year's Fellowship, Sonja Yelich and Sarah Laing, and wish you all the best in your writing.

I understand that Sonja found her five months at Sargeson Centre so productive and enjoyable that she was most reluctant to leave when her half of the fellowship ended in July.  She was quoted as saying that when she told author Kevin Ireland of her reluctance to leave, that Ireland directed her to the top of the stairs to look at the finger nail marks of former Fellows who had had to be dragged away!

I also acknowledge Buddle Findlay for its continuing support of the Fellowship since 1997 and the trustees of the Sargeson Trust for their ongoing commitment to Frank Sargeson’s legacy.

And on that note I will close in New Zealand’s first language Māori, offering everyone greetings and wishing everyone all good health and fortitude in your endeavours. No reira, tēnā koutou, tēnā koutou, kia ora, kia kaha, tēnā ko