1870s: Sundowner
July 16, 2019
By AHNZ
The homeless elderly of New Zealand’s Long Depression.
For most of our history Kiwis geared their resources toward our children, our women, our families. If anyone was going to go poor then the elderly were first in line, and men at that.¹ During the Long Depression you might just find one creepin’ ’round your back stairs…
Molly Vallance: ”A tiny, elderly man, clean and warmly clad, so bright and perky. ‘Could you give me some boiling water missus?’ He handed me a billy, well smoke-blackened on the outside, but scoured to shining brightness on the inside. ‘Can you throw in a handful of tea, missus?’ Then, ‘I wouldn’t mind a drop of milk and a bit of sugar, missus. ‘Okay,’ I answered. The water was almost boiling when he called out, ’Hey, missus! Could you spare a slice of bread, and a bit of butter, and a bit of meat too, missus?’ I chuckled as I scouted round for a small bottle of milk, and a jar of sugar. I popped a loaf of bread and half a pound of butter into a bag. ‘No meat,’ I apologised, adding a good size lump of cheese to his parcel. He beamed as he accepted his lunch: ‘Thanks, missus. Bless you, missus”.- Swagger Country, Hodder and Stoughton (1976)
Always impressive to me how history repeats. This old man can’t just ask for what he wants but timidly, manipulative, begs an inch at a time for his charity. Mr Sundowner even has this 1870s version of the boundary-less Jerry Seinfeld (Vallance) apologising for not having having more private property on hand for him to beg for.
So little assertion backing his own desires: “could you..can you..I wouldn’t mind..could you spare..”
It could be the script from a 1990s Slave Culture Sitcom, instead it’s the 1870s though. But what’s common is that there is a viable ecological niche in the human world to be had in exploiting boundary-less people. Every episode of Seinfeld ever made.
Kramer to Seinfeld: Hey, Jerry, got any cantaloupe? Wear this Puffy Shirt. Give away your baseball tickets and go to dinner with people because you don’t know how to say ‘no’
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1 This logical, natural, equation was neatly reversed in about 1974. See posts about Baby Boomers
Image ref. Five Mile Avenue, Forty Mile Bush, (near present day Carterton) c1875, showing a possible swagman on the road; Museum of New Zealand; NZH&H; Facebook
Image ref. An old swagger of the Golden Coast of New Zealand; Auckland Weekly News (1902); Auckland Libraries Heritage Collections
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