The main street in Amberley, North Canterbury, is a big wide straight and flat affair with...I dunno, tractor dealerships and general stores either side of it. And, a big bronze statue of WW2 hero Charles Upham- which I always spare a glance on my way by.
Many miles away, in Auckland, is a totally different main street. Parnell road is sometimes straight, sometimes very steep and always of regular narrow width. It's filled up with bars, restarants, and several exclusive fancy expensive shops that sell things like designer wool garments, rare books, or dresses. Of all the top Auckland bars along the leading one is George- which I also always spare a glance into on my way by.
Amanda Upham, daughter to Charles himself, comes from the former and now dwells in the latter surroundings, Stuff reported yesterday. What a contrast it is between these two places. Don't get me wrong about Parnell, which I haunted for over a year. It's a beautiful village thick with history and fun backstreets to explore and secret little short-cut allys and pathways to parks. Love it, and love the glamour too. But fine places like this also lend themselves to snobs, and that's what this aloof chain-smoking interior decorator old woman bloodywell is!
And so she might remain, and little would I care except that the fate of a national treasure is in her hands. Charles Upham is a New Zealand war hero, a unique double recipient of the Victoria Cross, an ass-kicking Cantabrian, a fighter, a real winner. Between battles he used to sneek off on his own to kill Germans, he was committed to battle like a true warrior should be. If I were on campaign I'd like to think his courage and extra projects are the sorts of things I'd get up to. Upham refused to sell his medals in his time because, to him, that transaction would represent turning in for mere money the higher value of what he and his mates suffered to achieve. But he's dead now, and the medals go to his three daughters- including the dispicable up-herself Upham.
It is grossly unfair, she says, that the Government refuses to shell out for them. She wants pay back! She says she has had to live with her Father's fame but never got paied for it!? I hate this woman. But what should happen to the medals?
Most libertarians, in answering this moral question, would answer politically. They would say "I don't care, as long as she's not hurting anybody else" and smugly retire as if that were the answer to all questions of moral judgement. Not me. The medals are private property, this business is up to the Uphams, but I'll be damned if I don't have a strong stake in this too as a greatful inheritor of their Father's handywork!
The Uphams should not sell them, it's the wrong thing to do. The right thing to do is to appreciate what they represent and accept the honor of being entrusted with their keeping (with a little help from Waiouru military museum.) If these ageing harpies can't see that then they should snap out of it. Wake up! Don't care? Start to care. They should.
They wont. They don't give a toss, Dad is dead and they see dollar signs they can appreciate in exchange for something they simply cannot. So I say give it to them, whoever wants to. I'd be glad to see the treasures out of their wrinkly old crone hands. They don't deserve them.
I'd be happiest for the State to look after them, but not at taxpayer expense. I'd also be happy for the medals to be in play in the marketplace where their symbolic value to New Zealand and the World, beyond the base materials of their construction, has a real and ongoing meaning to people.