What I did when my father died
Niels Gedge shares the story behind the song he wrote for his father’s 90th birthday called “My Father’s People”. The video, complete with historic family photos, is a nostalgic trip down memory lane for any over-60s, especially if you come from a farming background.
I wrote My Father's People in February 2008, when I was living in London, UK. It was the month before I was due to fly home to New Zealand for my father's 90th birthday, in the dairying country of the South Waikato, New Zealand.
Our childhood farm was near the pine forests of the South Waikato, not many miles from dad's uncles, aunts and first cousins, many of whom also farmed in the wider South Waikato.
The old farming community was bound together by a web of family, church and community ties and there were still original pioneers, or one generation down. Much of rural New Zealand still operate like this today and it contributes to the national character. Many of my cousins' children are now farming, a direct line from the ancestors.
At the time, the song was about my immediate family but it’s since grown. I had been visiting places in the UK and Europe where the pioneers had come from and I was also communicating with a cousin I had not met, named Christina Baldwin, who had interviewed the old great uncles and great aunts during International Women's Year 1975 for a project about our great grandmother, Inga. She was born of Danish migrants and married a Swedish sailor who had jumped ship in New Zealand in the 1880s. She was the mid wife for her district early in the 20th century.
Christina had gone on to compile a family history that by now affected hundreds of direct descendants, and had obtained many historical photos both of the villages they came from in the 19th century and of the pioneering life here, when they broke in the farms with saws, sweat, fire and bullock teams.
The more I thought on it, the story grew – it wasn't just about my nuclear family and its direct community after all, it was for my nephews, first cousins, uncles, aunts, their communities, their first cousins and their descendants. Then I realised I had written a fragment of the New Zealand story.
Fast forward another several years, dad had passed on and my brother and I were going through his photos and I realised I could make a video out of the song, but didn't have enough to illustrate all of the ideas. So back to Christina, who fossicked through the trove and found many of the photos. It became clear to me the song was also a metaphor for inter-generational farming through to today.
I got in touch with my cousin Christina to share a few of her thoughts:
On a journey into family history one soon discovers that narratives of one’s people can be told in so many ways. Old family photos become “memory books” that tell of personal stories, of social relationships, reminders of snippets of old gossip, recollections of whispered secrets or symbols of happy family gatherings. They give us a sense of place that we already subconsciously knew but now becomes newly significant. Above all they give us a sense of rootedness, identity and belonging – to be shared. I think Niels “memory song” communicates a delightful sense of identity and continuity with our ancestors, with home, and homeland. Photos that have been silent for decades now have a new voice imparting a fresh fascination with our family legacies. Yes, this is what it is to belong.
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