Editorial: Charm of the great leveller

CHARM: Rain was beautifully evoked in the poetry of the late Hone Tuwhare. PHOTO/FILE

In sporting circles, the advent of match day rain is unwaveringly referred to as "the great leveller". It's used in codes from rugby through to Formula One motor racing.

Yet, I'm inclined to think it's not as simple as that, given it's contingent on the sport being played.

For example, duckshooters love the wet stuff as it forces their quarry to fly lower. It makes for lousy golf and, for racing fans, it makes it much tougher to place an educated punt.

The expression was also used in the Great War. Specifically it referred to the horrid spectre of those in Western Front trenches who spent an age battling incessant mud, which was, without doubt, a great leveller. In that context, rain changed the course of history.

While those of us with office jobs can't begin to empathise with people on the land whose top soil slips away, or the market gardeners whose seedlings drowned this week, there's definitely something levelling about rain's appeal.

And for everything marvellous it does to the five senses, its nighttime soundtrack is surely its signature act.

In fact my infatuation with that sound has led to the point where an iron roof is a prerequisite for buying a house. Tiled roofs don't cut it. Every time the rain makes a midnight visit I think of the sensual opening line in the poem Rain by the late Hone Tuwhare: "I can hear you making small holes in the silence ... rain ... if I were deaf the pores of my skin would open to you and shut".

Tuwhare, in a reading of the poem in full, seems to suggest we have a universal perception of rain. So, maybe the sporting pundits are right. Maybe it does close the gap.