Having spent much of his life feeling like “the odd one out”, Michael Brown has turned to writing to pin down exactly why.
Mike is a self-described “10-pound Pom,” whose family travelled first to Australia and then New Zealand during his childhood in search of opportunities and a better life.
In his newly-published memoir, A Boy’s Journey, he recounts his early years across all three countries, from pinching sweets from a dairy to hunting red-belly snakes and taking on a string of diverse jobs in a bid to forge his own path.
After all, what 17-year-old wouldn’t leap at the chance to join a circus, Michael laughs.
Now 75, and having lived in Motueka for more than 20 years, Michael is firmly part of the community. He has retired from his work as a renovator and carpenter and now pours his energy into his role as Lions Club president, as well as advocating on Motueka’s aquatic centre committee.
Putting his story to paper was a way to understand himself better.
“I wanted to solve a few problems,” he muses.
Mike believes he has been searching for something his whole life.
He describes the ease he felt at age eight when his world was made up of climbing trees and wandering with his dog at his side.
“It’s contentment,” he supposes. “It’s being with nature. It’s not trying to prove myself.”
Does he recapture that elusive feeling along the way? Well, this is only the first of three memoirs, taking him to age 18 – but readers are invited to walk alongside him as he searches.
Mike wrote the 200-page yarn with another purpose in mind, too. Motivated by a desire to ensure his lineage is not “reduced to dates on a page”, he reflects on how little he knows about his parents’ wartime experiences.
His folks never liked to talk about their past, and Mike feels keenly that a piece of his own history was lost with them.
Mike’s memories of his own childhood remain vivid and nuanced. With the book cracked open to the chapter describing the family’s flight into New Zealand, every detail is clear in his mind.
“I can smell it,” he says with a grin, recalling the scent of freshly-cut grass and the nor’wester that blustered the runway. Vivid, too, is the indignity of being doused with insect repellent as some sort of outmoded quarantine measure.
Winner of Motueka’s inaugural Writing Festival short story competition late last year, Mike hopes readers will “step into my shoes and come with me and enjoy my journey”, he says.
“And also let them know that, like them, I made a lot of mistakes – because we all do.”
A Boy’s Journey will be launched at Te Noninga Kumu-Motueka District Library on Wednesday, 11 February, at 6pm. Books will be available for $25 on the night.
