Lodge was an English novelist who wrote the first book I ever bought.
It was called Ginger, You’re Barmy and in 1962 it was in the Whitcombe and Tombs sale for six shillings, about $12 today, so you can see that I was a book nerd even then.
The novel was based on Lodge’s experiences during National Service. A recent graduate with first-class honours, he was given a mundane clerical job for two years. Plenty of time to observe silliness and work out plots.
His book came at just the right time for me as in 1961 I’d been sent to Burnham on a course for budding NCOs in the school cadet corps from which I emerged as a lance-corporal.
The army’s faith in my leadership potential was badly misplaced as, from then until now, I’ve shown no semblance of leadership whatsoever.
The army paid for the trip to Burnham, and I scored my first ride in a steam train.
Burnham had once been an industrial school for young law breakers and the shades of John A. Lee still hung about the few buildings which had survived from that time.
They probably kicked off my enthusiasm for New Zealand history.
Never having been a boy scout or sent to borstal, this was my first experience of communal living. The blokes from Hokitika were by far the most interesting with no regard for authority and already dab hands at lifting morsels from the kitchens.
The heavies from the big schools were a painfully superior lot. Luckily, we had only 10 days to put up with them.
In later years many were rich and famous, but for those who shared their barracks in 1961 they were still creeps.
There were whispers of a possible war looming in Vietnam and with that in mind we were taught to strip and assemble Bren guns. When war did come, only the Viet Cong used Bren guns, so perhaps we had been pencilled in to join them.
As I always had bits left over when I’d re-assembled my Bren, I earned a pleasant afternoon with the awkward squad supervised by an NCO who told us a stream of filthy stories which were great icebreakers back at school.
Sunday brought the compulsory church parade and for many of those youths it was their first appearance in a church. Maybe there were atheists among us and perhaps they were assigned to spud peeling but I suspect they would have preferred going through a sermon instead.
The order, "RCs and Jews, fall out," led to the rest marching off to the Anglican church hut and left me among a motley crew of "left footers" being organised into a squad.
In charge was an ancient Regular Force corporal, no doubt almost ashamed to find that his dreams of military glory had been reduced to shepherding a bunch of school children to church.
But he passed the buck by calling on one of the cadets, a fair-haired, angel-faced lad, to take over.
"And a little child shall lead them," intoned the corporal and I laughed out loud.
"Stop laughing, that man!" the corporal barked.
To be called "that man" as a 15-year-old gave me a warm glow and a lingering respect for the NCO.
The "little child" gag had biblical echoes and I later looked it up. As you probably know it’s from Isaiah 11:6: "The wolf also shall dwell with the lamb/The leopard shall lie down with the young goat/The calf and the young lion and the fatling together/And a little child shall lead them."
I had to look up "fatling" as well — "An animal fattened for slaughter".
The army wasn't all work. One night we were sent to the camp cinema to see a film.
It was a western called Flaming Star in which Elvis Presley played a mixed-race young man seemingly torn between his American Indian and white settler roots. At least it was a night out and began my life-long lack of interest in Elvis Presley.
Back to Ginger, You're Barmy. For a 15-year-old eager for titillation it offered nothing more salacious than a hand up a girl's blouse, but, at that age, it was probably enough to be going on with.
Ginger, You're Barmy wasn't David Lodge's only book, of course, and his later works are lauded as milestones in the genre of comic writing. One local critic saw Ginger, You're Barmy as a serious novel, citing the suicide of one of the characters, but I think I could see the underlying humour, especially given my recent army experience.
Five years later, being lucky enough to be called up for National Service, I went through it all again, this time with absurdity writ much larger. It was Ginger, You're Barmy only barmier.
— Jim Sullivan is a Patearoa writer.
