BROTHER NUMBER 4.
ALAN.
Alan was another Chun destined to be educated in the glorious halls of Wellington Tech.
Prior to this though he was as a kid afflicted with some kind of ailment that had Mavis filling him up with daily doses of Lanes Emulsion.
It must have worked because Alan grew into a short but stocky lad and had bones as hard as iron.
He was also a dead shot with the bow and arrow..a length of bamboo with a string tied to both ends …and a momentary glimpse of Jimmy Joe sticking his head out behind freshly made crates at Comptons Box Factory and he impaled his eye with one shot.
A Chinese Hawkeye he was…!!
Speaking of Comptons Alan also told me the story of how he had to carry stacks of cut pine wood down this length of wooden steps to be stacked below.
Being as inventive as he was he put a pile of the slats on the steps then carried on stacking others.
The next thing he heard was the swearing and cursing of our future carrier George Hopkins or as we called him ‘Hoppy’.
He was also carrying a load of slats down the steps but did not see the pile Al had left there and over he went amongst his pile of flying wood.
Alan said he was cursing something awful so decided a silent departure from Compton’s for the day would be the best thing before Hoppy found out who left their slats on the bloody steps.
Alan had a great inventive streak in him.
Most of the guys had trolleys in those days using wheels of the simple iron type and pinned to an axle.
They were noisy and rough.
Alan made a better model using swish ball bearing wheels . He cut thin tin sheets and lined the wood body of his trolley giving it a more flasher appearance.
Certainly he was the King of Russell Terrace with his marque.
He was also a very good artist.
2.
I wrote somewhere before of his ability using coloured chalks on the tin walls of the interior of Sang Lee in Kilbirnie.
His stay at Tech was as others in the family short and sweet and then he was seconded to Sang Lee where he would do all the initial work on the cabbages, caulis etc so by the time Dave and I got there there was a huge pile of green leaf waste to shovel up.
After we sold the shop to Young Chan we still helped to deliver the weekly orders in the old 1938 Chev truck.
It was pretty dilapidated and while Al had the job of driving I had the responsibility of leaping out of the cab on the inclines and to shove a rock behind the wheel to stop us from rolling backwards.
We could be doing the deliveries until the street lights went out at 3.00am.For this Alan was paid15shillings and I 5.{Equivalent to $1.50 and 50 cents}
In his adolescent years Alan would love the voice of Joni James. His bedroom wall at Karori was lined with her records which he had a friend,Alma Krushaw in the United States send him.
He still has the records and I still have the vinyl discs of this wonderful singer.
You do not get anyone singing Danny Boy better than Joni.
And Alan has an original authentic autograph of Joni sent to him by Alma. Alma worked at Doubleday and Joni happened to frequent there. She took the opportunity to get her autograph and this she sent on to Alan.
He was also another member to join the milkbar cowboys of the day with his beautiful Triumph 3T in deep maroon.
This would have been the shiniest motorcycle in Wellington with each chrome spoke glistening in the sunshine.
It could only have been beaten later on with a two tone blue Ford Zephyr convertible car.
His reading was mainly of documentaries and the Knights of the Bushido was at one time on his list detailing all the atrocities of the Japanese during WW2.
3.
He would tell us all about the gory deeds stopping only when he went to Japan and discovered how wonderful the Japanese people were as a whole and nothing like the soldiers in the book.
In fact he loved the Japanese so much that he simply had to marry one and bring her back to New Zealand kimonos and all.
Alan later worked his stint at the Zenith Fruit in Manners Street then went off with younger brother Raymond to start Zenith No. 2 in Titahi Bay.
He drove an old green Commer truck and sometimes to save on the petrol motor cycled out with Raymond on the latter’s Silver Triumph Twenty One Motor cycle.
He later came back to work at the Zenith in Manners Street and was a tireless and perpetual worker.
How he managed to work the hours on a bowl of noodle soup I do not know but that Lanes Emulsion must have been pretty good stuff.
I mean the guy hardly ever caught a cold.
Could be because he always wore a shirt and tie and the tie was retaining his body heat.
Then to supplement his income he began to sprout the Chinese Mung Beans and this he did for years with a sprouting machine in his garage. He got up at all ungodly hours to tend to his crop and for years took them to the early markets for sale.
It was really hard yakka but this did not deter him.
The only thing to stop Algie as we called him was a heart bypass about 8-9 years ago that resulted in a successful operation.
Directly after the op he was up and about changing the battery in his van. Then tragedy struck in the form of a stroke which took away part of his vision.
Not one to be deterred Alan still pushed on with the household chores and with his friend Jack Ngan still carries on despite his inadequacies.
I characterize brother Alan as a hard working driven man.
Pretty conservative and set in his own ways and one lucky with Bonus Bonds.
He appeared in his younger days somewhat indifferent but I really think he has a sensitivity about him that he seldoms displays.
He spent many months if not years in trying to adopt his daughter Junko from Tokyo but he did not give up.
4.
He was also years in really hard work maintaining his wife Fumiko’s city properties until he could do no more.
He spends a lot of time now with his grandchildren at Lower Hutt.
I think he should deservedly slow down…but then again this is not his Nature.
Draft 1
25th December, 2007.
