Walker recount fascinates fans

Former Auckland mayor Sir Dove Myer-Robinson once described Ranginui Walker as "the most dangerous man in Auckland". How times and perceptions, have changed.

The most dangerous man in Auckland looked quite relaxed in his hour-long session at yesterday's Auckland Writers & Readers Festival. The hour, chaired by Penguin publisher Geoff Walker, centred around a conversation between the more senior Walker and his biographer, Paul Spoonley.

Spoonley, who has known Walker since the 1970s, said when he first approached the teacher-writer-iwi consultant-activist about the biography, the answer was no. Walker related how he lamented to his wife, "I'm not even dead yet".

His wife replied: "Wouldn't you have liked to have been able to talk to Apirana Ngata when you wrote his biography?" Spoonley was given the nod, not so much concerned he was a Pakeha writing about a Maori but that he would do a good job.

It was fascinating to hear how Walker, who said he came from a conservative, rural, Catholic background, was determined that his life would be upwardly mobile, via education.

When he became involved with the Auckland District Maori Council, he came under attack by "angry young urban activists ... using Black Muslim terminology" for being a "limousine liberal", and he found himself between two cultures, attacked by both sides.

"People used to phone me and say nasty things," he said. "I would tell them where to get off in no uncertain terms."

An earlier session titled Frank, featuring Mark Casey's film on Auckland writer Frank Sargeson, was a charming (and, yes, frank) 56-minute showcase of interviews with writers Kevin Ireland, Karl and Kaye Stead, Graeme Lay, Chris Cole Catley and Gordon McLauchlan. They paid tribute to a strong individual who encouraged others to write, and gave the most practical forms of support.

He was also a man with a sometimes childish sense of humour who was capable of being bitchy. Kaye Stead told how, when she learned he was gay, she said at the time, "No! He was far too nice". But sometimes he reduced her to tears.

Carl Stead laughed as he recalled that Sargeson had advised him not to marry and focus on his work. "But Frank, I'm already married."

German writer and film-maker Stefan Aust, a contemporary of the ultra-violent Baader-Meinhof Gang, which later became the Red Army Faction, was a popular guest in a session chaired by Mark Sainsbury. Aust explained why the group moved from protest to violence for a decade from the late 1960s, why these "intelligent, charismatic people did stupid things" like kill at least 34 people and and what their aims were: "A global revolution ... communication through violence."

The RAF, he explained, made people in power in Germany "afraid ... the government was threatened, it was a major political crisis".

It was a riveting, if too short, session.