Rosemary McLeod: magic left in small towns

There is a scene in The Lord of the Rings that, with the best will in the world, is plain silly.

It's when the bad wizard Saruman and the good wizard Gandalf, on top of some tower somewhere, face off against each other in a magic contest.

It - and I'm serious here - made the laser sword fights in Star Wars suddenly seem documentary real. Up and down the wizards swooped, frocks fluttering, while I struggled to stifle my laughter - and that brings me to Woodville.

There was a time when Woodville seemed to me to be an exotic destination on a par with Paris, perhaps, or Dar-es-Salaam. That was in the days when I caught the railcar regularly to Masterton, then a clean and tidy town where vicious child abuse was either unknown or unreported.

In those days, a Lane's Emulsion poster featuring a golden, angelic male figure, obviously made glorious by gulping the horrible stuff, was always up on the Featherston Railway Station wall. I wondered, back then, if it might one day magically make me golden too.

I got off in Masterton, but the end of the line was Woodville; I was always conscious of that. I knew that if I stayed in my seat I'd end up at a destination shrouded in mystery, especially by night, a place I'd never seen, but wondered about, with shining shop windows, tall, rustling trees and glamorous two-storied houses like pictures in an American book.

Reality came later.

Much has happened in the Wairarapa since and much of it nasty. At one end of the social divide, middle-class retirees and dreamers hope that if they really try hard enough Greytown will magically become Tuscany or Provence.

At the other end, people slop about in gumboots because they're the nearest things to shoes they own, people who will never own an armoire for their boudoir, still less hold down a job.

It is pretty much New Zealand today.

The real Woodville looks a bit sad. Second-hand shops come and go, but pickings are lean.

Half the locals, all 1398 of them, live on less than $20,000 a year, and the real estate ads mostly call for offers, as if the low prices they'll reach will embarrass the agents.

A quarter of locals have no post-school qualifications.

Gloom hovers like a miasma - and yet - and yet - behind the scenes there are shamans, wizards if you will, facing off against each other, psychic powers drawn.

There is Laughing Bear in particular. Laughing Bear, shortly to become L Bear by deed poll, he says, is a part-time actor raised in England, but claiming Crow Indian heritage, which he says entitles him to be a shaman.

He has been in Woodville for three years now, happily offering locals "medicine readings" and your common-or-garden ghost-busting.

However, Joseph O'Connor, 81, laid first claim to the title of "the magic man" in town. He claims to be a third-generation psychic and shaman.

As such, and this is the crux of his gripe, he does not charge for his services.

"Renting out rooms to unregistered psychics must be stamped out," he insisted indignantly this week.

"There are so many so-called psychics robbing the public. He - [L Bear] is doing great injustice to the unsung heroes and healers that have made this country."

I note that he drew back from saying "made this country great". He is a modest man.

L Bear charges $60 to $70 an hour. Channelling Crow Indian wisdom, via the UK, is surely cheap at the price, though his buckskin jacket complete with beads would have set him back a few bob at the outset.

Myself, I have a photograph of my great-grandfather in full Scottish regalia, with bagpipes.

This surely entitles me to scare the wits out of all comers with bagpipe shamanism - and here is an excellent lurk - pay me a lot of money to stop that racket immediately.

It's a modest plan, I admit, but one to ponder for my dotage.