Gods and Little Fishes : A boy and a beach
Bruce Ansley
Format: Paperback with Photo Section
Longacre - NZ$39.99

‘I’m a Brighton boy, and no expatriate is neutral. We have it branded on our psyches. The place turns on like a refrigerator light when we open the door on our memory. …’ Bruce Ansley

When you walk along the pier under the huge blue sky and with clean surf on either side, you can easily think that New Brighton is the loveliest place in the world. This was once New Zealand’s most bustling township,(saturday trading no less!), however it became a parable of New Zealand when the revolution of the eighties and nineties derailed it.

New Brighton’s youth grew up in happy anarchy beside its great, glorious beach. In Gods and Little Fishes, former journalist and skilled writer Bruce Ansley (pic right) gives us entry into one such rich, well-lived boyhood and family life. He both captures the freedoms of a childhood many would envy now, and offers a perceptive adult sensibility charged with a partisan view.

This is a gently humorous, personal memoir, an impressive portrait of a seaside town set in the second half of last century. New Brighton’s playing fields, the pier, the Cubs and Scouts, the main street shops, even the easterly, are given as much character as the township’s old identities. The nuances of family life, the complexities of a marriage, the entanglements of small town relationships, and the very culture of the place are all conveyed with love and humour, as well as a sharp sense of what has been lost.

I finally got around to reading Bruce Ansley's book over the weekend - it was published last October and had got buried in a small mountain of books in my office and when I accidentally knocked the mountain over last week all sorts of titles, including this one, that I had forgotten about resurfaced.
My growing up in Gisborne, another seaside, surfing town that also "basked in its very own sun", largely coincided with the period the author writes about and I related stronly to much of what he has to say about those years. A pleasntly nostalgic read.

Ansley's earlier book, A Long Slow Affair of the Heart: An Adventure on the French Canals, (also published by Longacre), was also an excellent read, he is an incredibly honest writer, and if you have such a journey in mind then it should be read before you set off.