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(JA) Peter Cape is best known for his songs 'Taumaranui On The Main Trunk Line' and 'She'll Be Right Mate.' He was the voice of those rural New Zealand men who had been transplanted to the big city suburbs. He expressed their yearning for that lost way of life with its physical and emotional simplicity, where men may have been socially inept, but were proud of being physically self reliant.Anglican PriestHow much of Peter's own life was in these songs? He was born in1926, at Helensville in the isolated Northland province of New Zealand. From 1931 to 1943 Peter was educated by Correspondence School while his father Irwin Cape travelled all over Northland selling cloth door to door.
In the mid 1940s Peter obtained a BA in english, philosophy and psychology at Auckland University, then worked as a freelance journalist. He married Barbara Henderson in 1952, did theological studies at Selwyn College, and was ordained as an Anglican priest (by the bishop of Kalgoorlie, Western Australia). He and Barbara then moved to the Hutt Valley where he was talks producer for the New Zealand Broadcasting Service.
Peter Cape was a priest in our church St John's Anglican Church in Trentham. He was actually an English gypsy, who came to NZ to set up the installation of television here! I think he wrote the Auckland/Wgtn Express and heaps of other songs, and used to keep us in hysterics with them!
When I was confirmed he was the assisting Priest to Canon Smallfield - and well ahead of his time with his shoulder length curly locks, and wearing his pink hood edged with white fur during the ceremony! He spoke with a slight speech impediment, which actually enhanced his appearance, and we really enjoyed having him at our church!
In 1958 his first songs were recorded.
By 1963, he had been promoted to the post of director of religious and arts programs on the newly started TV station of the NZBC. As a result of this he got an arts scholarship to Europe to study pottery. After his return, he started spending a large amount of time touring the hinterland visiting craftspeople "The upshot of this" an aquaintance noted, "was that TVNZ fired Peter, and so did his wife Barbara."
Peter then worked for a while as Director of Volunteer Service Abroad (New Zealand' s Peace Corps), before shifting to Nelson in the late 1960s.
In his Northland childhood, Peter's family had been constantly on the move and so he had experienced no sense of community. In his Hutt Valley radio and TV period, he was a priest in the English Church with a degree in English and with English migrant friends, and none of these things gave him a sense of identity as a New Zealander.So it seems that he left his wife, his children, his job and his church to go to rural Nelson. Here he could be part of the community of crafts people he had been making programs about. These craftspeople were intelligent, gifted, hard-working New Zealanders, who were in touch with the land they lived in. Here, with Gladwyn McIntyre and two cats, Yin and Yang, Peter produced a series of books about these people.
In one of these books, 'Artists and Craftsmen in NZ' (1968), he wrote that
"As we grow from the simplicities of post-pioneer living into a more complex society, and as we grow more aware of our national identity, we will become more willing to accept the expression of these things in the arts."Peter was writing about potters and painters, but I think his words apply to us song-writers as well.
For more about Peter and his search for a national identity, read Gordon Spittle's book, 'Counting The Beat'
In 1979? Peter died before he could complete his writings on the religious values which come from our unique relationship with our local environment.
| 1. Taumarunui On The Main Trunk Line
1960 Pat Rogers, Young Kiwi 45 1975 Peter Cape's Kiwi Ballads LP 1987 Bushfire, with Mike Moore LP 1990s When the Cat's Been Spayed CD 1995 Mike Harding, From the Tracks cass
2. Bullocky
3. Down the Hall on a Saturday Night
4. Bullocky
5. Taumata . . .
6. Inter-Island steamer Express
7. Okaihau Express
8. Coffee-Bar Blues
9. Spell-Oh!
10. She'll Be Right
11. Fetch 'Em On
12. Rainbird
13.Talking Dog
14. You Can't Win
15. Black Matai 16. The Stable Lad
17.Charlie's Bash
18. Poor Unfortunate Boy
19. All Black Jersies,
20. Gumdigger
21. Nativity (New Zealand Christmas)
22-31 Cape's Songs Not On Record
May, The Drover's Daughter
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