United Sports Clubs Centennial Dinner

Saturday 5 March 2005

There's nothing quite like a flutter of hundredth birthday do's to remind you that Christchurch is no longer an infant city. Opinions on just where we are on the maturity stakes as a city will vary. My own take is that the day we became a really grown up city on most levels was the day we finally opened our new Art Gallery. That gave us the cultural bit of the jigsaw puzzle of maturity that prior to that, had held us back from laying claim to full maturity as a city.

When you start looking at some of the big issues over the years, you soon find that in our evolution as a city, in some ways, the more things change, the more they stay the same. After a hundred seasons on the same spot I dare say there will still be some constants for the United Sports Clubs that have managed to outlive, outwit and outflank the best efforts of reformers.

As you totter down the highway of life you do learn eventually that human nature is not at all prone to change. I was reminded of that a week or two ago when suddenly we had to put together a breakfast speech for the Rotary International Centennial here in Christchurch.

I hope not too many of you were there because what we found when we had to line up 1905 against 2005 was that many of the issues they had then have a fairly familiar ring to them now.

When we went looking, we realised that religious tolerance at least had moved forward. Then a Papist Mayor such as myself would have been a big deal, now I'm not sure it causes even a ripple. But what was happening locally then was the Catholic Basilica was finally opened, naturally at a suitable remove from the Anglican headquarters in the Square.

It is a nice change that a century on, the spotlight of controversy is on the Basilica and the unclothed Christ carvings of Lew Summers rather than on Cathedral Square. In fact, the Square was having one of its settled phases, given that the Anglican Cathedral had just been finished off in stone in 1904.

It had been repaired again after the Cheviot earthquake of 1901 which had shifted the top five feet of stonework a couple of inches south-east. It was at that stage they took off the stone top and replaced it with metal.

In the book "Old Christchurch" published in 1949, they note that the total cost of the stone finish was 65,000 pounds. It also optimistically notes that, and I quote :" Christchurch has had a few shakes and quakes since then, but no further damage has been done to the spire." We are all more than happy for it to stay that way.

One of the constants we found was that in 1905 there had also been something of a building boom on. The Royal Exchange Building, soon to turn into the Regent Theatre once moving pictures got invented and got here had just opened. Work was underway on the King Edward Barracks building, in time for eventually playing a role in shipping some of our best and brightest off for what tragically turned into a series of wars to end wars. We were a prosperous peacetime city.

Technology was also starting to upturn the settled way of doing things. The first electric trams had just started service. A world fit for petrol heads like myself was just starting to take shape.

There were reports in the "Christchurch Chronicle" of how the newfangled Automobile Association had just held New Zealand's first car race.

When we went looking at short notice for evidence that Edwardian Christchurch had been more modest and retiring than now, we could not find anything from 1905.

What we did find in the "Guide to Christchurch and Picturesque Canterbury" of 1913, priced at one shilling was this:- It is worth quoting some of it:

"In no part of this beautiful country is found a more congenial, delightful and health giving succession of weather conditions than obtains in the City of the Plains. Sunshine and rain in due proportion make summer and winter alike enjoyable, and the sky of Italy at its best can hardly surpass that of Canterbury, whilst the dry air of the more inland districts cannot be surpassed by any country in the world. Christchurch is 43 and 1/2 degrees south of the Equator. The city therefore, is in the same temperate latitude in the Southern Hemisphere as is the Riviera in the Northern Hemisphere." Welcome to the Riviera, folks.

It's kind of nice to know that even as the world's top garden City we have still become more modest over the years. Happily, in 1905 Christchurch had no idea of the tumult and turmoil that lay ahead.

The technology and cast may have changed but many of the concerns have not. A lease in North Hagley Park has of course, become a blue, blue chip thing to have. Outside of Hagley Park, Christchurch is poised on the edge of a cauldron of debate about how big we should become, if we want to do it, and how we should be trying to shape our future.

We face massive quality of life issues. With these we also face major ecological issues. Do we let our prime soil vanish into subdivisions? Do we let our priceless water quality erode to meet soaring urban and rural demand? Can we ever stop fighting long enough to get affordable clean air for Christchurch? Will we let the thoroughly unleashed horseless carriage throttle our city streets of all other life? Can we afford to become as fragmented socially as the media has become?

Where we do differ from the folk of 1905 is that our very world has shrunk. It is both a smaller world and one in which the pace of change is faster. Christchurch has two trump cards to play in meeting these challenges. Our sense of continuity and history, which we are celebrating here tonight. And also, our sense of social cohesion which here in Christchurch is still quite strong.

We are still like a large, sometimes fractious family. These are valuable cards to have. Events like this tonight help keep them match fit.

Happy centennial United Sports Clubs.