BROTHER NUMBER 5.
DAVID.
Out of all the brothers David was really different.
‘D’ was for David and ‘D’ was for daredevil.
David was daring and he was also like the Devil.
I was a couple of years behind Dave and logically followed behind him.
We spent a lot of time together and boy if there was anyone to lead you off the straight and narrow path it was him.
Going back to our Carterton days we were supposed to attend the primary school there but I cannot recall anything about the school except for the fact that I hardly attended as Dave always wanted to wag it.
So off we would meander and we would end up in the sales yard of a sheep selling agency.
It seems they had their sales documentation sitting on the maze of wooden pens and of course Dave has to pick several up and disappear with them.
He would tear out page after page as we wandered our way home later in the day.
A short time later mom would be approached by some concerned auctioneers from the agency looking for the books.
When asked how did they find us they said it was easy “ We simply followed the trail of torn pages..”.
Dave would always find some kind of excuse for not attending school and when we went home early he would tell me to go inside first and approach mum as me being her spoilt one would greet me with a smile and listen to the reason why we did not go to study.
There was a time we spent hiding under a bridge on the main road to Carterton. A stream ran through and we discovered these shellfish there which we took to be oysters. They were probably a fresh water mussel but nevertheless it was more fun eating these than having to go study.
Then by chance I saw a pound note float by and I grabbed it.
There was a saddler shop very close to the bridge so we went there and asked the owner to dry it out for us which he did.
But it was back in Newtown that Dave was in his element.
He was not very popular with Norman Gee who had a fruit shop a couple of doors away from us. I think Norman used to shout at him and tell him off.
2.
Unperturbed Dave would get a carrot and shove it up the exhaust pipe of his truck park outside the shop.
In those days people left their cars unlocked so Dave shoveled up some of the horse poop from the milk deliverers and plonked it on the seat of the vehicle.
And to add another gift he presented Mr Gee also with a dead rat so there was an awful surprise when he leapt into the cab.
Norman was quite portly and had a very red faced complexion as if he was going to have a heart attack and it is no wonder he didn’t with Dave living virtually next door.
Then later he possessed an air rifle.
One of the heavies of the day was Brian Moffett a solidly built guy that looked like Michael Douglas with red hair.
Brian was walking down the street and about 100 yards away Dave took a shot at him and hit him in the thigh.
To this day I don’t know how Dave got away from being torn apart but he was incredibly lucky with what crazy things he did.
We used to deliver newspapers for the then Evening Post and there were some flats I think was called Mayfair down by the Terrace. We used the lifts to access the flats and Dave found it great fun to partly open the lift door and see the sparks arcing across.
The lift would halt and we would be stuck between floors.
When help arrived we had to clamber up to the upper open elevator door and hope the lift did not start again or we would be cut in two.
The people would get their newspapers albeit a little late.
Every so often we would collect the money for the papers and make a tick in a small book denoting payment.
However, Dave would get a rubber and wipe out the tick and the next week would go back and ask for payment again.
I think we were fired from the Evening Post job.
Running over the Crawford Hills to work at the Kilbirnie fruit shop was a regular thing. Outside the shop was our truck that sat next to the tramcar rails.
Dave had great fun putting copper pennies on the steel lines and having them flattened by the trams.
3.
Then one night he pulled a big ball bearing about an inch in diameter from his pocket and decided to put that on the track too.
A tram comes along and us two were in the cab of the truck waiting to see it get flattened. Instead the tram made an awesome grinding noise and rumbled to a halt with the driver wondering what stopped him.
This was departure time for us as he did not look too happy so we melted into the darkness leaving the tram driver with the ball bearing.
I think Mavis was Dave’s disciplinarian and boy did she have a job.
Constant whacks and duties did not seem to tame him.
As he grew up it was off to Tech like the brothers before him.
He befriended Jack Leitch who lived in Horner Street and incidentally is the brother of the Mad Butcher of today.
God…just think of the bloody disaster if these two got together…Dave Chun and a madman..!!
Jack was quite a friendly and relatively sensible guy and if they got into any mischief I cannot recall it.
Later on his sidekick was a Don Tripp who I believe became addicted to liquor and I just wonder if it was Dave who drove him to it.
I remember an event at Technical College where every Thursday was PT day.
On one of those days it was designated for cross country running.
Wellington Tech was situated high in Mt Cook and it was a stiff run down Rugby Street and through the Basin Reserve then on up to the Mt Victoria hills and back.
It was really a long hard run.
Dave was decked out in his shorts and white sand shoes and singlet and with great gusto followed his class through the college grounds and out to the back entrance of the college.
It was a cadenced run down Rugby Street and then all the runners turned left to go through the Basin.
Dave on the other hand turned right and ran straight into the dairy at the bottom of the street.
He stayed there sipping on his milk shake until all the runners returned then out he went as fresh as a daisy bringing up the rear.
4.
I guess he thought that only mad dogs and Englishmen ran out in the midday sun where it was more sensible to down a milkshake in the coolness of the dairy.
On his bicycle he pedaled like crazy and later as he drove he was also going too fast and carelessly but he always seemed to avoid getting hurt or killed.
Then at 18 the Military Training Act beckoned.
He enlisted in the air force and was accepted and it was off to Taeri Air Force Base near Dunedin for 14 weeks.
He came home after this stint and looked very smart in the blue uniform.
He was to say to me “Things are very different in the Air Force. Everything you do there is for a reason and makes sense..everything on the outside now seems strange..!!”
I could not understand this for a while until I was in that armed service myself but I believe it had a very strong effect on David.
He appeared later to be more responsible and far neater than I had ever seen him before.
He married the beautiful Loretta Kwok and Bill seconded him to Christchurch where he would work with Ben Ching in a Zenith Plant Shop .
Later Dave would run 5 garden centres in this city.
Loretta suffered from asthma and unfortunately passed away leaving Dave with their child Janice Ann.
We did not see much of Dave and his later new wife Gaye as it appeared it was all go in the south and the Zenith there was in a constant mode of expansion.
Then we heard that Dave had a recurring ailment that was put down to Tapanui Flu.
The next thing was that he had sold the garden centres and decided to move to where the sun was in Brisbane.
I visited him there with Helen and Linc and he was living in this fantastic double storied house that was a neat as a pin.
5.
We saw him first in his garden that was surrounded by sub tropical plants. The pool was started and Linc was plonked into it on a built in ledge.
Dave’s lifestyle had changed completely and he had found his place in the sun.
Several years later though bad luck finally caught up with him and he was diagnosed with cancer.
Bill, Alan and I flew over to see him in the hospital.
He welcomed us with strong hugs and did not look at all unwell.
He was his laughing cheerful self and was so pleased to see us.
That was the last time we saw him until his service a few months later.
He was only 60 years old.
Draft 1
26th December, 2007.
Amended 10/1/08
