Join Jessica, a two part programme in which Jessica Weddell interviews New Zealand author James McNeish about several of his past and present projects.
Jessica Weddell introduces James McNeish and interviews him about working and living in Sicily where he collected folk music. He talks about meeting Italian social activist Danny Dolci, who first to use fasting as a protest to fight against the Mafia. He describes the Mafia, their connection with the Catholic Church, their displays of power, history in Sicily and methods of extortion. Recalls teaching English to Sicilian man who worked with the police to spy on McNeish. He talks about Dolci organising some people to repairing a road which government wouldn’t fix and was arrested by the Police. He talks about the sheltered and chaperoned life of women in Sicily and collecting music with a Jews Harp. An excerpt of Visconti on the Jews Harp is played.
McNeish is asked about his time recording in Poland in the 1960s for a BBC documentary on the icon of the Black Madonna. He talks about the conflict between church and state in Poland. He describes how people would flock to Częstochowa to hear Cardinal Stefan Wyszyński talk once a year when the Icon of the Black Madonna was revealed on the feast of Assumption. He made a recording of this event for a BBC programme and describes becoming very moved and emotional. He played his recording to Cardinal Wyszyński at his request before it was first broadcast in London. An excerpt of his programme is played.
Jessica finally asks McNeish about recording the native Pidgin English in Papua New Guinea where he had visited to record native music. Features an recording of a teacher, Margaret, talking about the creative origins of certain pidgin words. McNeish gives some of his favourite pidgin expressions.
Part 2: Jessica Weddell introduces James McNeish. He talks about his work “Conversation with my Aunt”, a radio programme in which he talked with his Aunt Jean Gibbons before her death and discovered his Māori heritage. He describes how she came to live in Kawhia and became the postmistress. Excerpt from the programme as she talks about the way her Mother treated her. Describes settling in that area three years after the recording and her Aunt running the post office where he wrote ‘As For the Godwits’. He then describes proposing to his wife Helen in London over a telephone he found on the beach and getting married in Kawhia post office. He describes Helen’s adjustment to life in New Zealand, living together and giving each other space at home. They have collaborated on a biography about the poet A.R.D. Fairburn and he talks about wanting honest criticism. He talks about Fairburn’s poetry and his stint in broadcasting. McNeish talks with James K. Baxter, and his schoolboy poems. He compares the work of Fairburn, Baxter and Dennis Glover.
McNeish talks about his new novel ‘Joy’ which revolves around the lunacy, eccentricity and the ‘gentle anarchy’ of small New Zealand towns. He then talks about his apoliticism and his future plans and gives some advice for writers, especially those living on a modest income.