Book launched at Paekakariki Railway Museum Tearooms - Writer closes chapter on life

David McGill’s comic novel Stamp in the Creek was launched at Paekakariki Railway Museum Tearooms yesterday by musician Francis Mills (drinking beer) and his band singing Michael O’Leary’s poem Matata, a tribute to the village which is the setting for this yarn about the mayhem caused by the theft of a valuable stamp. 

Among those celebrating the occasionwere cartoonists Tom Scott  and Dr Bob Brockie, both cartoonists cover illustrators of McGill’s collections of Kiwi slang which feature prominently in the novel. 

Classic Kiwi fare included scones with the author’s plum jam, asparagus and sausage rolls, ginger crunch and chocolate squares all made by Robyn White and lamingtons provided by her sister Rowena Hales to theme this nostalgic recreation of life in 1949, when Kiwis did it for themselves. 

Hit songs from that year were played, including Ghost Riders in the Sky and Mule Train. This evening the Paekakariki FM station plays Matata sung by Francis Mills and the author reads an excerpt from the novel in which the postmaster is trying to cope with his superiors learning via radio and newspapers that he has provoked another scandal a week after the April Fool’s Day broadcast on 1ZB alarming listeners that a mile-wide swarm of wasps was descending on Auckland.

 Much hilarity and full bellies were had by all in this 51st and (probably) final book launch by the author.

Michael O’Leary poem:

Matatä

Open up! Open up!

The magic rock of refuge

The charm, the charm

The incantation

Opens up, opens up

The flood of memory

And the flood of water

Down to the sea

Down to the sea

See the rail lines

Washed away, washed away

Like those games we played

In Matatä, in Matatä

And we have gone

But the lines live on

In Matatä, in Matatä 

http://www.stuff.co.nz/dominion-post/capital-life/9936843/Writer-closes-chapter-on-life

16 April Footnote:
A message from David:

"The video of the launch is up on my website www.davidmcgill.co.nz and you have to scroll through me rabbiting on to get to Francis Mills singing Michael O’Leary’s magnificent poem ‘Matata’, with Gary delivering a haunting flute accompaniment, with the Mills grandchild doing a star turn ".