A week ago the Weekend Herald profiled Gisborne, the town caught up in cancer scares. Today JOHN GILLIES, editor of the Gisborne Herald, tells how it feels to be caught in the spotlight.
It is like teasing the kid who stammers. It makes you laugh. It makes you feel better about yourself because you speak well. And even when you say, "Well, you stammer but you're okay," the kid steams inside.
Right now, Gisborne people feel the rest of New Zealand pointing and sniggering.
They feel like they are stuttering and, even when trying to be nice, the big-city kids can't help giving a wink and a grin at their expense.
An article written with, undoubtedly, the best intentions - to find hope in a city under pressure - managed to annoy, no, infuriate many of those who live there.
"Looking for light," a Weekend Herald profile of Gisborne after the millennium celebrations and during its health ructions, featured a striking picture of Gisborne at dusk. The caption started, "DARK DAYS: As the sun sets over the main street, those in jobs head home ... "
A description of the Poverty Bay Club as having "gracious balconies and sagging roof" and "an aura of decaying grandeur and an aroma of boiled meat" angered the club's first woman member, Odeon Multiplex owner Raey Wheeler.
"The food there is lovely, and for them to write something like that ... "
Her comments on Gisborne's potential as a retirement spot for Aucklanders were reported, but she feels the article's tone was negative.
"Just because we are small and beautiful, they want to destroy us," she says.
"This article also mentions the concert that didn't happen. Everything that happened was so positive because Gisborne people did it in the end, not somebody from out of town."
Cancer Society health promotion worker Nona Gaskin says Gisborne has its problems but it has a huge heart, most evident in the way volunteer groups work together to reach all those in need.
And she feels Maori people are short-changed by outsiders looking in.
"It really makes me angry that Maori are always portrayed as unemployed, yet we have health authorities - Turanga Health and Ngati Porou Hauora - led by the Maori people themselves. They are lawyers, teachers ... "
The Gisborne District Council's economic development officer, Rick Mansell, is an outsider drawn to the district by his wife's family ties.
He grew up in the mountains near Vancouver, Canada. He and his wife, educator Dr Helen Papuni, came to Gisborne with their two children to be closer to family.
He chaired the Tuia 2000 Trust that organised the community entertainment spread over 10 stages around Gisborne throughout the millennium celebrations.
Tuia was the "sleeper" of the celebrations, starting quietly but winning wide praise for giving local flavour to the festivities.
At the time, Rick Mansell summed up Gisborne's challenge: "We have to figure out how to keep the culture, environment, rural nature and friendliness of Gisborne intact if tourists come in ... so they complement it and become part of it."
He now expands the picture to take in business.
"The way advances are taking place in technology, people will look to locate to places like Gisborne to restore their quality of life.
"It is the fact that we don't have traffic jams and we don't have big-city aggro.
"It's just that many people in the city have become so blinded by their own big-city problems that they haven't discovered the attractions and benefits of the Gisbornes of the world.
"Our problems will start when they do."
Peter and Sylvia Jex-Blake run Eastland Discoveries, putting together itineraries for small groups of American tourists.
They live at Whangara, 25km north of Gisborne, and tailor their tours to the interests of the group.
Marae visits are supervised by kaumatua, who explain the history and protocol. Farms, museums, Maori art, adventure experiences and gardens give tourists a dirt-on-your-hands feel for the district.
"They are blown away by the experience," says Peter Jex-Blake.
"For a lot of our people, Gisborne is their last destination in New Zealand. Often they will say later that it has been the highlight of their whole tour.
"They write about the friendliness of the people and the warmth of the place."
Peter Dunn is an Englishman with a penchant for New Zealand history. He was chief bailiff at the Takapuna District Court, Auckland, and had a sideline repairing vintage cars.
But the stress of Auckland life convinced him to seek a quieter lifestyle.
He studied property values around the country, compared the climates and plumped for Gisborne.
He has invested in real estate, developing several properties and using local labour in the process.
His coming to Gisborne was the spur for two friends to make the same move. They are all on the mature side of 50, and all have money to spend.
These are the people that Mr Dunn feels Gisborne should court.
Aucklanders in their 40s, 50s and 60s are likely to own their own home but have little in the bank, he says. They could sell up, buy a better house in Gisborne and have $250,000 to spare.
And often they will not be content to live off the interest. They will bring Auckland ideas and initiative, set up businesses, employ people and fill some of the empty shops in Gisborne's main street.
To some extent, it is already happening - and not just among the 40-plus brigade.
A diverse group of young business people who came to Gisborne for the quality of life are so passionate about what the district offers that they contacted the Gisborne Herald to speak out about it.
An architect, an account manager, store-owners, hospitality managers, a human resources manager, a marketing consultant and a cut-flower exporter - they decided to leave the rat-race but could also see opportunities.
Lateral thinking, use of internet and communication technologies, and a positive outlook can take care of business.
And Gisborne can ensure they have a life outside work hours.
Gisborne MP puts the (muddy) boot in
By JANET MACKEY*
After reading Michele Hewitson's article in the Weekend Herald, I can understand why most Gisborne people prefer to get their news from the local paper. The article was shallow, inaccurate and patronising.
Gisborne Airport does have a sign requesting that people remove muddy boots before entering the terminal. And Gisborne people oblige. This is a farming community where four-wheel-drives are driven in paddocks, not on motorways, and boots are for work, not show.
Hewitson says we are a "small city of 45,000." If that was accurate, the East Coast electorate would not stretch from Ohope to Hawkes Bay. We are, in fact, a small city of 32,653 at the last census.
The suggestion that there has been no focus on Gisborne's association with Captain Cook, because his statue is really that of an Italian admiral, is, like most of Hewitson's article, banal. Gisborne people have seen more re-enactments of Cook's landing than they care to remember. And the statue was that of an Italian wine baron.
Your journalist states with surprise that "almost 50 per cent" of Gisborne's unemployed are Maori. She failed to observe that Maori also represent nearly 50 per cent of the population.
Perhaps the most telling part of the article was Hewitson's amazement at her meal of "lamb fillets with pumpkin and feta mash feature at a big-city price of $24." Does she expect us to provide our excellent local produce to Auckland journalists for less than they would expect to pay at home? Or perhaps she thinks our chefs and waitresses should be paid less.
Hewitson arrived from Auckland to find fault. No mention of our new, world-leading industries, no mention of our internationally acclaimed wines.
Your article ignored the fact that many people, like me, came to Gisborne to escape the shallowness of a society that is so intent on finding fault, it loses sight of that which is beautiful, unique and wholesome. And nothing will make us go back.
* Janet Mackey,
MP for East Coast.
Sun still shines upon Gisborne
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