NZ Folk Song * Fitzherbert Bridge

Tune - London Bridge Is Falling Down

1. Fitzherbert Bridge is falling down
    Falling down, falling down
    Fitzherbert Bridge is falling down
    Watch out Staunchy !

2. Staunchy slept beneath the bridge
    Beneath the bridge, beneath the bridge
    Staunchy slept beneath the bridge
    Cold and hungry.

3. The big man drove across the bridge
    To his big house on Massey Hill
     The big man drove across the bridge
    In his Mercedes

4. Staunchy took the big man's food
   a T-bone steak, a loaf of bread
    Staunchy took the big man's beer
    To warm his belly.

5. The police put Staunchy in their van
    Into court and out again
    Now Linton prison is his home
    "He's just a criminal."

6. Fitzherbert Bridge came tumbling down
    tumbling down, tumbling down
    And Christ went walking through our town
    He walked with Staunchy.

Community Care

In 1986 I was asked to take in a homeless 16-year-old who was awaiting sentencing for stealing food and beer. When he was just a toddler, his father, who thought his son had been conceived by another man, would come home drunk at the end of the week, grab a garden fork and try to kill him, so little Terry spent many Friday nights sleeping under a sack in the neighbour's shed, and later under Palmerston North's iconic arched Fitzherbert Bridge.

While Terry was with me, the bridge was dynamited and replaced by a four-lane bridge that gave residents quicker access to their big houses up on the affluent new hillside suburb of Aokoutere.

Living with God

I was expecting problems when Terry came, but it was a blissful time for both of us. He enjoyed sharing my plentiful food, quiet home and tramping trips. I enjoyed his glass-painting skills, suddenly being greeted with "G'day John" by scruffly young lads I passed by on Palmy's street corners, and by his reassurance that there was nothing worth stealing in my house.

Thus I felt wonderfully safe when the window in the bedroom next to me rattled and popped open at 2am and a voice asked "You there Terry?" "He's away tonight," I answered. "Oh, sorry John," and the window was carefully closed again.

Only recently have I realized I spent those months living with God.

I was hungry and you gave me something to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you invited me in. (Matthew 25:35)

And lately I've also been thinking about Christ's message to the members of today's consumer society.

"Away with you, you destructive ones, and consider the nightmare world you have created for your grandchildren.

I was hungry, and every week air pollution from your cows, concrete, cars, constant air travel and careless consumption has turned another 100,000 hectares of food-producing land into desert, while in the same week you have increased the world population by another million hungry mouths.

I was thirsty, and you have destroyed most of my spongy rain forests that prevented drought, flood, erosion and overheating, you have melted most of my glaciers that kept my rivers flowing in summer, and you have filled my remaining waters with poisons and plastic particles."

Compare this song with Te Piriti, about the Manakau Bridge connecting and uniting middle-class Hillcrest with working-class Mangere.

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Put onto folksong.org.nz website October 2022