Julia Millen: Ronald Hugh Morrieson: A Biography (1996)

In her biography of the New Zealand writer Ronald Hugh Morrieson (1922–72), Julia Millen mentions that his crime was 'being different', and this comes across strongly in the book. Born in the small, conservative Taranaki town of Hawera to a musical family in a house where he lived all his relatively short life, Morrieson rarely ventured further afield, and even his intended life as a student in Auckland only lasted a day or so before he felt forced to return homesick.

The house he lived in was built by his maternal grandfather Charles Bartley Johnson, who, when Ron was born, lived there with his wife Lucy, Ron's parents Hugh Morrieson and Eunice (née Johnson), and Charles and Lucy's other offspring, his unmarried uncle Roy and aunt Doris Johnson. Ron's father died when Ron was only eight, and in time there were just three in the house: Ron, and his mother and aunt, both of whom spoiled him to an enormous degree, and seemed largely in denial of his many demeanours.

At the age of ten Ron made parsnip wine and got a schoolfriend drunk in the lunch hour, and this was really just a foretaste of a lifelong love affair with drink. At eighteen he drove to a dance with some friends in Stratford, a nearby town, did some drinking, and on the way back knocked a girl over: he failed to stop, she was hospitalised, and he later gave himself up to the police, claiming that he hadn't noticed her: he was put on probation for two years, lost his licence, and was forbidden to be out at night after 8pm.

Morrieson played in bands locally until he was 37 and loved the camaraderie, the drinking lifestyle that was inevitably attached to it, and enjoyed the company of a number of female sexual partners. Horseplay is a drama by Ken Duncum that was first shown in 1994 and imagines James K. Baxter visiting Morrieson in Hawera near the end of their lives. In it, Wilma is Morrieson's girlfriend and complains about having to constantly get in and out of the window: before reading the biography I thought this must be some kind of symbol but it's real: Morrieson actually had a ladder leading up to his bedroom window so that his mother and aunt wouldn't have to see his girlfriends going upstairs with him. It's the kind of bizarre – almost unbelievable – detail that could have come from one of his books.

Maurice Shadbolt said that some of Morrieson's characters might well have come from his drinking friends in Hawera, and Millen greatly extends this observation by pointing out a large number of similarities between people or things in Morrieson's books, and those in his life: for instance, the tower in Predicament (a book that Morrieson once wanted to call 'The Tower') that leans (giving Cedric one of his nicknames – Pisa) recalls the leaning (and useless) water tower in Hawera; Cedric's father's eccentric behaviour is not unlike that of Morrieson's grandfather Charles Johnson's; there is obsessive and reckless gambling in illegal, out-of-town crown and anchor games in Comes a Hot Friday, such as Morrieson used to regularly attend in south Taranaki; Salter the Sensational (aka 'The Scarecrow') initially excited the drunks in the lock-in pub, as the magician Carter the Great excited Hawera schoolchildren; Pallet on the Floor involves events in and around a freezing plant: Morrieson worked in one in nearby Patea; and so on and so on.

At 37, Morrieson decided to devote himself to the world of letters, but kept himself afloat (mainly alcoholically) by giving private music lessons at home. The lessons weren't a great success, but they'd have been far less so (in fact, probably non-existent) if Morrieson's short story 'Cross My Heart and Cut My Throat' – with its hungover music teacher lusting after a thirteen-year-old pupil and (unbidden) sneaking a kiss on her lips and briefly touching her inner thigh – had been published while he was alive.

But then, after two novels Morrieson couldn't get anything published, he continued to drink to wild excess, his mother's death came in 1968 and left him a wreck, and four years later continued drinking led to the death he seemed resigned to. Like Morrieson's novels, this is a humorous book as well as a (quietly) violent one, but of course the protagonist brought the violence on himself. Unlike the novels, though, it is also intensely sad.

My other blog posts on Morrieson's work:

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Ronald Hugh Morrieson: Came a Hot Friday (1964)
Ronald Hugh Morrieson: The Scarecrow (1963)
Ronald Hugh Morrieson: Predicament (1974)
Ronald Hugh Morrieson in Hawera, Taranaki, New Zealand

Ronald Hugh Morrieson in Hawera, Taranaki, New Zealand

Outside New Zealand and Australia, I doubt that many people have heard of the writer Ronald Hugh Morrieson (1922–72), and doubt even that he's very well known in New Zealand, the country of his birth. My title is obvious: the small town of Hawera is where Morrieson was born, where he lived and where he died. He hardly ever left the town: when he started university in Auckland he couldn't stand it and returned permanently to Hawera in a week.

It's customary to quote Morrieson's friend, the author Maurice Shadbolt, on what Morrieson said to him: 'I hope I’m not another one of these poor buggers who get discovered when they’re dead'. On Morrieson's death only two novels – The Scarecrow (1962) and Came a Hot Friday (1964) – were published, although these were followed after his death by Predicament (1975) and Pallet on the Floor (1976), which I believe is more of a draft than a finished novel. Subsequently all of the books were turned into films. But only the novel The Scarecrow seems to be widely available: I only found his second novel in one outlet, and his others are out of print. Even in death, he's still somewhat obscure.

Morrieson had a reputation in Hawera as a drunk and a waster, although he was better known locally as a musician than as a writer – earlier, he played in dance bands, and gave music lessons later.

He lived with his mother Eunice and his aunt Doris at 1 Regent Street, where he was born, and was devastated by the death of his mother (who had also been a music teacher) in 1968. The house was built by his maternal grandfather Charles Bartley Johnson, a cabinet maker. In 1993 there were plans to knock down the house and replace it with a Kentucky Fried Chicken outlet, but despite the setting up of a Scarecrow Committee to attempt to prevent this the house was demolished in April 1973.

However, the house was far from completely destroyed: Morrieson's room or attic, where his family say he wrote all his work, was bought by local builder Robert Surgenor to be used as a 'sleep-out' by his daughter. The attic was moved in December 2011 to Tawhiti Museum a few miles outside central Hawera, where it was renovated and now forms the upper floor of a display dedicated to Morrieson.

A poster of the movie The Scarecrow (1982).

Came a Hot Friday (1984).

Predicament (2010).

Morrieson's attic is not all that was preserved from the house: in Morrieson's Café Bar, wood from the house is used in the bar front, table tops, doors, fireplaces and staircase. Express an interest in Morrieson, and you will be shown a large laminated sheet giving a potted biography of the writer.

I'd parked next door to the café, in Countdown supermarket car park, and was intrigued to see Morriesons's van there: 'Let us solve your "Predicament" with a free ride to Morrieson's Café & Bar'.

I asked the very helpful girl at the i-site if she could could tell me where Morrieson's grave is in Hawera Cemetery. She jumped behind the computer and asked:

'What's the first name?'

'Ronald'.

'Oh, that Morrieson!'

I found a copy of The Scarecrow the following day in Whitcoull's in Wanganui ($5 off, making it just $9) and the assistant asked me if I'd read any of his books, and when I replied 'Not yet' she told me they are very odd.* So, I suppose the 'poor bugger' has been discovered by some people.

'In

Loving Memory Of

RONALD HUGH

BELOVED SON OF THE LATE

HUGH F. AND EUNICE H.

MORRIESON.

DIED 26TH DECEMBER 1972

AGED 50 YEARS.'

His aunt survived him:

'ALSO DORIS H. E. JOHNSON

DIED 28TH FEBRUARY 1974

AGED 81 YEARS.'

*She's right too. I've only read The Scarecrow so far, but for a book about a necrophilic serial killer this is a highly amusing work: the key, I think, is that all the sex and violence is understated, often in the form of suggestion.

My other blog posts on Morrieson's work:

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Ronald Hugh Morrieson: Came a Hot Friday (1964)
Ronald Hugh Morrieson: The Scarecrow (1963)
Ronald Hugh Morrieson: Predicament (1974)
Julia Millen: Ronald Hugh Morrieson: A Biography (1996)