S is for ship. She had never seen a ship before they arrived at the Gravesend docks, and now, after five months spent in one reaching New Zealand, ships were such a big part of her life, as they were to all of the immigrants. What ships had arrived was the big news of any day; which ships were leaving, and where they were bound was the subject of many a conversation, not to mention letters hastily scrawled in hopes of catching the mail. Which ships were long expected and still not heard of, what fate might have befallen them and their hopeful passengers were frequently discussed, and all the useful and important things in their holds, like letters from home, and marmalade and linen were the cause of much speculation. Where once she had looked out the window of her house onto the bricks of an Ilford street, she now looked out on a vast harbour forested with masts. The flags and sailors’ washing fluttering from the rigging gave the town a festive look, as if every day was market day. The comings and goings of the ships’ boats and the native canoes provided endless entertainment for her and for Ovid, who liked to call himself a sailor-man and pretend to be rowing in his bath.
I’m sure that if Sarah really did have a close encounter of the Te Rauparaha kind, we’d know all about it. But it’s certainly likely that in the early 1840s, prior to the Wairau incident, the Norgroves did seem him in street, especially since they lived just below the pub which was reputedly the old chief’s favourite watering hole. He would have been in his 70s by this time, and although his reputation makes him seem 8 foot tall, it was a great surprise to me to find out that he was actually less than 5 feet in height. So this little piece is pure fiction from Sarah’s point of view.
T is for Te Rauparaha. The old chief was a fearsome sight with his heavily tattooed face and body. Everyone knew when he had come to Wellington because his canoe would be drawn up on the beach just below the corner of Lambton Quay and Mulgrave St – Te Rauparaha liked to do his drinking at the Thistle Inn, the pub just behind and above their house. She had managed to avoid encountering him until this afternoon, when she and Ovid were walking back up the beach from visiting Eliza Plimmer. Ovid took one look at the terrifying old man and his entourage, shrieked and buried himself in her skirts. Te Rauparaha had laughed, and walked over to her. She pushed Ovid behind her, and raised her parasol defensively, wishing with all her hammering heart that she had someone’s skirts to hide in herself. Te Rauparaha pushed her parasol gently aside with his carved wooden staff. “I don’t eat little English boys,” he said, baring surprisingly white teeth at her. “Or their mothers.” He didn’t wait for an answer, just stomped on down the beach to his canoe. She stood still with complete shock, not just because he had spoken to her, or even because of what he had said, but because he had stood eye to eye with her. From all the stories about the mighty warrior, she had assumed he would be a giant of a man, but the truth was, he was no taller than her.
Everywhere in Wellington seems to be uphill from where you are, and when you occasionally go downhill, it’s often just as hard as going up, especially in the wind. The extreme hilliness of the town came as a bit of a shock to the early settlers, but they adapted, figured out construction techniques to make houses cling to the hillsides, and got around as nimbly as mountain goats.
U is for uphill. The whole town was surrounded by hills, and everywhere she walked, she always seemed to be going uphill. At first she had to keep stopping to catch her breath; now she must be more used to it, because she could get all the way up Wellington Terrace without stopping to lean and gasp on someone’s fence. If only their fortunes would strengthen in the same way, so that they didn’t always seem to be struggling uphill, and gasping, when it came to money.
I was quite struck to find that Sarah and Victoria were fairly close in age. Funny thing, because it runs in the family – Mum and her sister are of similar ages to the present Queen; Princess Elizabeth and Princess Margaret Rose were a kind of gold standard for them when they were young. And the late Diana, Princess of Wales was only a month or two older than me – and our lives couldn’t have been more different. So I wondered if Sarah followed the news about Victoria in the same way as we did about our respective royals…
V is for Victoria. Queen Victoria was born just one day short of a year after her own birth. The closeness in age meant that Sarah had always felt a connection to her, a sisterly concern, despite the vast difference in their social circumstances. The parallels were heightened when Victoria married Prince Albert not long after Sarah married William. Ovid was born, and then a few months later, Princess Victoria. Fond mother though she was, Sarah had no great hopes of a match between the two. And there was little point wondering if the Queen ever thought of her like she often thought about the Queen – Victoria had no idea of her existence. But did the Queen ever think about New Zealand, and her subjects trying to make their fortunes, or at least a competence, in this far away country?
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