A Town on the Edge

Christchurch is a town that lives in the edge of a precipice. I know this because I am in it and I have observed this. It is a town—not a city—that for all its self-perpetuating superiority and self-aggrandisement lacks confidence. It is like Muhammad Ali, should he float like a butterfly and sting like a butterfly. Christchurch is on the edge. They have their purple patches; but they are terrified of the sodden, brown muddy mess they most easily can fall in to. They find safety in numbers. They have their much vaunted team successes: The Crusaders, Canterbury cricket, The Pulse. But are they yet to find one individual successful sportsperson? No. Safety in numbers. Christchurch, if it cannot hide behind strength of numbers and a team ethos, would rather just…hide. It does so in its gardens. I love its gardens, but one gets the feeling that they are created by aficionados who would rather hide from the real world, particularly Auckland, and not come out from behind the daffodils unless wrenched. One gets the feeling that rather paradoxically they would enjoy being wrenched. Christchurch is like that—a veneer. Like Hamilton. Christchurch presents itself to the world as one thing and a contented complacent world accepts that. I cannot. What I see is a superficial smugness hiding a deep malady of frustration and vexation that for all its protestations of culture, history and class Christchurch is not, after all and in the final reckoning, Auckland.

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