Run for Your Life

By Peter Blakeborough

The demons of war and drink are destroying Clarrie Asker’s health and marriage. He is one of New Zealand’s most experienced pilots, but as the war ends, he struggles to survive in the new world of peace and regular employment.
There is a post-war surplus of pilots, and he no longer has the stamina for manual labor. Eventually, an opportunity arises with the national airline, but his demons take control on a flight to the capital.
Clarrie’s son Bob is the next to try to break the generations-long curse of the Askers, but first, he must confront the rivalry and bitterness between the Askers and the Glengyles.
Run for Your Life is a family saga, crime thriller, and courtroom drama with more lethal hazards and twists and turns than a tropical jungle trail.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Peter Blakeborough
• Release date: Mar 15, 2023
• ISBN: 9798215638729

Peter Blakeborough

About Peter BlakeboroughAuthor Peter Blakeborough was born in New Zealand in 1937, the eighth of eleven children.In 1954 he learned to fly with the Auckland Aero Club in de Havilland Tiger Moth open-cockpit biplanes and had completed several flying tours around New Zealand by the age of twenty-one.In 1958 he became a foundation member of the Piako Gliding Club, a volunteer glider tow-pilot, instructor, and chief flying instructor. He managed a fund-raising project that enabled the club to double its fleet size.Next, the author worked as an agricultural aviation loader driver in many parts of New Zealand before going to Australia, where he became a door-to-door encyclopedia salesman and sales manager.Back in Auckland in 1964, he drove buses, trucks, and taxis and started a business dealing in coins and stamps.His first non-fiction book, The Coinage of New Zealand, 1840-1967, was published in 1966 by Minerva. He was the founding editor of The New Zealand Coin Journal from 1966-1967, distributed nationally and internationally.The author joined the New Zealand National Party in 1970 and was a candidate in the 1972 general election. Later, he formed the New Zealand Liberal Party and was its leader in the 1975 general election. He joined the New Zealand Party and was a candidate again in 1984.Meanwhile, never afraid to rock the boat, the author operated a taxi business in South Auckland where, despite opposition, he is remembered as the person responsible for launching the first eight-passenger taxi-van service in New Zealand, a concept that changed passenger transport in New Zealand.Next, the author established Panorama Tours, a unique three-hour city tour with hourly departures throughout the day. He also escorted tours to Australia, Malaysia, and along the Silk Road from China to Pakistan.In 2001 and again in 2003, he went to America and drove long-haul trucks through forty states. From that experience, he published Highway America - the adventures of a Kiwi truck driver.Peter Blakeborough has flown more than fifty types of aircraft and, as a flight simulator enthusiast, has added another fifty virtual types. He has been an international yachtsman and has completed numerous walks in remote mountain areas of New Zealand.In 2009, he published the Asker Trilogy of Australian and New Zealand historical fiction. His most recent book is The New Zealand Tour Commentary – a handbook for tour drivers and guides. It has been revised and reprinted many times.The author has also had a long record of serving on committees, including being the founding chairman of Waikato Writers (a branch of the New Zealand Society of Authors) and recently the first president of the Thames Community Club. As a speaker, he frequently talks about writing and publishing, flying, travel and tourism, and climate change.

Book preview

Run for Your Life

Peter Blakeborough

Copyright Statement

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Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

Other books by Peter Blakeborough include:

The Coinage of New Zealand, 1840-1967

The Life and Times of Freddie Fuddpucker

Highway America – the Adventures of a Kiwi Truck Driver

The New Zealand Tour Commentary

Beyond the Seas

Caraher’s Lane

Another Penny

Chapter 1

World War Two was over. Ships that had taken thousands of eager, loyal, young New Zealanders to war returned with men, older and wiser and often broken in body and spirit. Around the world, the allied forces immediately began scaling back their offensive operations and replacing them with smaller peacekeeping forces.

The flying instructors and aircraft that had been impressed into the Royal New Zealand Air Force at the beginning of the war were returned to the aero clubs and airlines from which they had been commandeered. But during the war, Captain Clarrie Asker’s position with Cook Strait Airways disappeared when the airline merged with Union Airways while he was training pilots for the Air Force.

He wrote to Union Airways and waited for a reply, confident of being accepted. After several weeks and no word from the airline, he applied to numerous aero clubs for an instructing position. Reluctantly, he realized that the war had created a surplus of pilots despite casualties. It seemed that aviation had run its course for Flying Officer Clarence Asker.

Meanwhile, his air force pay had stopped, and the family was asked to vacate their air force house. With the slowdown in construction during the war and thousands of servicemen and women returning home, there was a desperate housing shortage. Eventually, they found a rental house in the Auckland suburb of Ellerslie. He went looking for work in a nearby industrial suburb and came to a glass factory with a sign outside advertising for workers.

They offered him a position operating a bottle-making machine at four shillings an hour, and he accepted. The work was heavy and hot. At the end of the first day, he wondered how long he could continue. He had a good reason for dropping in for a jug or two each night on the way home. He wished he could find something better than the glass factory, but he had a family to feed and knew he had to stay on. At the end of the first week, he was exhausted and demoralized. He would have to find something else. What else could he do? His life seemed to be falling apart. He felt he was a failure.

He felt a little better after the weekend at home, but on Monday morning, the reality of the glass factory struck him with a vengeance. He was unfit for hard physical work in the extreme heat of the glass factory. Numerous times he sat down for a rest from shoveling coal into the machine to avoid passing out. Another new man started one morning on another machine and quit at lunchtime. He had never imagined that men had to work in such conditions. Like a robot, he soldiered on through the week.

When he had almost given up hope, he received a letter from Union Airways. They had positions available for three pilots. They had received hundreds of letters from applicants, and they apologized for the delay in answering. They wanted him to attend an interview. It was a lucky break and had come when he was almost at the end of his tether. He reread the letter and thought about the odds with hundreds of applicants for three positions. He already had a job, which he couldn’t afford to lose. If he took time off, they would fire him. That was the way it was at the glass factory. He talked it over with Joyce.

‘Go for the interview,’ she said without hesitation. ‘It’s what you’ve always done. It’s what you’re good at. Go for it.’

‘Three jobs, hundreds of applicants?’

‘Go for it, Clarrie. How many have been flying for thirteen years, flown eight thousand hours, and have airline experience?’

‘I could miss out and then be unemployed.’

‘You won’t be unemployed. I heard today that hundreds of state houses are being built in Panmure, and they need workers. You could do that.’

‘Alright, I’ll go for the interview.’

At the glass factory, he asked the foreman for time off to go to his dentist, hoping that would be a good enough reason.

‘No one gets time off here,’ the foreman replied bluntly. ‘If you take time off, don’t bother coming in again.’

Despite the warning, he decided to risk all and go for the flying job. At the Union Airways office, a long queue of men was waiting to be interviewed for the three positions as Lockheed Electra co-pilots. He recognized many of the faces. Some were pilots he had not seen since training them, and some were now high-ranking officers wearing uniforms liberally adorned with decorations for service and bravery. Clarrie had taken a punt and dusted off his seven-year-old, tighter-fitting Cook Strait Airways uniform, but he felt out of place sitting among the newer air force uniforms and civilian suits. He waited nervously for his turn and wondered if he had done the right thing. He worried about all kinds of things these days. He was getting older and seemed to be losing his touch and confidence.

Eventually, his turn came for an interview with the three recruiting officers. One of them greeted him like an old friend as soon as he entered the door. They had flown together at Clarrie’s first flying job with Air Travel Limited. They talked briefly about old times and then got down to the formal business of the job interview. A few minutes later, the interview was finished, and he felt he had not done well. He had expected to leave with a job if there was going to be one, but he had left only with a promise of a letter in due course.

With his flying days over, he felt depressed and visited several pubs on the way home.

‘I should have stayed on at the factory,’ he complained to Joyce as he swayed on his feet.

‘No, you shouldn’t have. You’ll get that job. Wait and see,’ she responded confidently.

She eyed him silently for a moment.

‘Well, provided you weren’t sloshed for the interview,’ she added.

‘I’m not sloshed, my lovely. I’ve just had a couple to steady my nerves.’

‘You must be sloshed. You haven’t called me that for years, except when you’re sloshed.’

‘Haven’t I? Well, I’d better make it up to you, hadn’t I? Let’s go to the bedroom, my lovely.’

‘In the middle of the afternoon, with the kids coming in from school and Gavin about to wake up from his afternoon sleep? You couldn’t do anything in your condition anyhow.’

She chuckled as she pushed him gently away.

‘Now, here’s what to do,’ she said thoughtfully. ‘Go back to the glass factory at the usual time, ready to start work….’

‘I can’t! I’ve been fired,’ he protested.

‘Yes, you can!’ she insisted. ‘They haven’t paid you off yet. That means you still work there, and you’re entitled to a week’s notice or a week’s pay, and don’t let them talk you out of it.’

‘They won’t listen to me.’

She smiled slyly.

‘Tell them about your uncle.’

‘I don’t have an uncle,’ he said, surprised that she had forgotten that his parents had been raised without siblings.

‘Well, we’ll have to create one for you,’ she countered, still smiling impishly.

The following day Clarrie reported for work as usual.

‘What are you doing here? I thought I fired you,’ the foreman said sarcastically.

‘I’m here to work. I want my job.’

‘There is no job here for you. You’re finished.’

‘Then I want a week’s notice or a week’s pay. I’m entitled to it.’

‘You’re not. Get out!’

Clarrie looked the man straight in the eye in brazen defiance.

‘Do you know who Peter Fraser is?’

The foreman seemed puzzled.

‘Fraser is the Prime Minister. Everyone knows that. What’s that got to do with this? Are you trying to tell me he’s a mate of yours?’

‘Not quite, no. But one of his best mates is my uncle.’

‘Oh, yeah. And who might that be?

Clarrie slowly stared the man down while he uttered the dreaded name.

‘Fintan Patrick Walsh.’

‘You’re bull-shitting!’

‘I’m fair dinkum.’

‘I don’t believe that. Prove it. How is he connected to your lot?’

‘Through my mother. She was a Tuohy, the sister of Pat Tuohy. That name probably doesn’t mean anything to most people. But Tuohy has other names like the Black Prince, Jack Walsh, and Fintan Patrick Walsh. Surely, I don’t have to tell you that FP Walsh is the iron man of the Federation of Labour and the country's most influential, behind-the-scenes politician.’

‘You really do know him, don’t you?’

‘I do. And unless you get my week’s pay for me, I’m going to arrange for you to get to know him too, and that’s not something I’d recommend. Uncle Pat is a busy man. He often saves time by negotiating with his fists. If you know anything about him, you’ll know about that. Would you like to meet him?’

The foreman studied Clarrie for a moment as he wondered if he was telling the truth.

‘You’re bullshitting.’

Clarrie, with his old confidence returned, leaned forward and looked right into the foreman’s wide-eyed face.

‘You wouldn’t want to piss him off.’

The foreman tried to hold Clarrie’s stare, but a moment later, his lip trembled, and he looked away.

‘Wait here for a minute. I’ll see what I can do.’

Like a scalded cat, he scurried off toward the pay office and returned a few minutes later to say that a pay envelope would be ready at three o’clock.

Meanwhile, he caught a bus to the Harp of Erin, waited a few minutes, took another bus to Panmure, and walked to the state housing construction site on Pilkington Road. When he mentioned his experience building houses in Napier after the earthquake, he was immediately offered a job starting the next day.

When he returned to the factory, an envelope bearing his name was waiting at the pay office. To his surprise, it included the time he had worked, the extra week, and a portion of his annual holiday pay. He thanked the pay clerk and headed for the door.

‘Hold on a moment. How did you do that?’

‘Do what?’

‘Get a week’s pay instead of notice. That’s never happened here before.’

‘Oh, that. Oh, I just told them I was entitled to it.’

‘Yeah, sure. Everyone says that, and then they all leave empty-handed. How come they treated you differently?’

Clarrie leaned across the counter and spoke in a hushed voice.

‘You’ve heard the old saying, haven’t you? It’s not what you know, but who you know, that counts.’

So, who do you know?’

‘F. P. Walsh. He’s my uncle.’

‘Really? That would scare the shit out of them. They wouldn’t want him coming around here, opening a can of worms.’

Clarrie’s eye caught the profile of the general manager spying on him from a doorway.

‘Well, I’d better be off now,’ he said in a normal voice without looking directly at the manager. ‘Thanks for the envelope. Goodbye and good luck.’

On the way home, he took one of the notes from the envelope and stopped at the local pub for a jug of beer in honor of the Black Prince, F. P. Walsh. He had cause to celebrate, and a jug was more economical than a bottle or a glass for a hard-up working man like himself. With a jug, he could get more for less, and a man was entitled to have a drink from time to time. He wasn’t addicted, as Joyce claimed. He only drank when he wanted to forget something, when he had something to celebrate (like getting an extra week’s pay), when he was with his friends, when he was lonely, and when he was thirsty. He didn’t drink at any other time. If he really wanted to, he could give up drinking after the next drink.

A little man with a funny face sidled up to him in the bar.

‘Can you tell me how to find Alcoholics Anonymous, mate?’

‘I wouldn’t have any idea, mate. Are you going to join?’

‘No, mate, this drop o’ piss is so good, I want to resign.’

Another man holding a spirit glass edged closer to them.

‘I like to drink in moderation. I never drink whiskey without water, and I never drink water without whiskey.’

They had a good laugh. Then another man joined in.

‘My brother is a light drinker. He drinks from first light to last light.’

The one-liners continued until Clarrie was well into his second jug and feeling in top form.

‘I have to go for a piss,’ he declared.

‘Yeah. Me too,’ another man said.

The man swayed back on his heels as they relieved themselves into the giant porcelain urinal.

‘The missus tells me that drinking is going to be the urination of me.’

‘I know the feeling, mate,’ Clarrie agreed.

Another hour passed before Carrie finally left his new drinking friends and walked home. The rest of the family had finished their dinner, and the two oldest boys, Jim and Bob, were playing in the yard.

‘Hello, boys. Had a good day at school?’

‘Yes, Dad. You’re late for dinner again,’ Jim said.

‘Well, son, I’ve had a busy day, and I’ve got a lot to tell you and your mother. So, let’s go inside, and I’ll tell you all about it.’

‘Okay, Dad. Mum says you probably stopped at the pub again,’ Bob said innocently. ‘Does that mean you’re sloshed again?’

‘If I was sloshed, I wouldn’t be able to walk home, would I?’

Joyce called from the veranda.

‘I’ll bet you couldn’t walk a straight line.’

‘You want a bet?’ Clarrie challenged as he tried to walk toward her with deliberate straightness.

‘Look at you. You’re swaying like a cork on an ocean.’

Ignoring her good-natured chiding, he put his arms around her and kissed her.

‘Oh, my goodness! You’re well-oiled tonight, aren’t you?’

Then he lifted seven-year-old Joy-Doris off her feet and hugged and kissed her.

‘Oh, Daddy!’ she shrieked. ‘You’ve got that smell in your mouth again. Is that your beer?’

‘Yes, my little one, but I didn’t have as much as your mother thinks I had.’

Then he lifted Gavin from his high-chair and threw him up to the ceiling, catching him again on the way down. The two-year-old chuckled and squealed with delight while Joyce held her breath. Clarrie sat down to his dinner with his family around him, and between mouthfuls, he told them about the day’s events. Then he turned to the two oldest.

‘Now, remember this, boys. Never give up without a fight. Even when you have a loss, there will always be new opportunities. As they say, when one door closes, another opens.’

Jim and Bob looked at each other in silence. It was the kind of thing their mother typically said, and she was usually the voice of wisdom and determination. They knew that their mother, with all her love and tenderness, was becoming the family's steady and reliable driving force.

Clarrie started work the next day at the Panmure building site, where a private construction company was building low-cost houses for the government. It was sometimes heavy work for a thirty-year-old who had spent most of the previous decade sitting at the controls of airplanes, but it was much better than the glass factory. He longed to get back into the air again. At the building site, he met two other former pilots who could not get flying jobs. It seemed that, like him, time had passed them by.

Three weeks later, he arrived home one night, after the usual pub stop, to find Joyce waiting for him at the gate with a telegram.

‘Quick! Open it!’ she said with great excitement.

He tore it open, and together, they read the brief message. Union Airways had accepted him for training as a co-pilot on Lockheed Electras. In two weeks, he was to report for training at Milson airfield near Palmerston North. It was a great moment for the whole family. The co-pilot’s pay would be pretty low, but eventually, when he became a captain, they would be able to afford their first car and a deposit for their first house.

Chapter 2

After an overnight journey to Palmerston North on the train, Clarrie got his first look at a Lockheed Electra 10A, an all-metal aircraft with a shiny metal skin and a bright red flash along the side of the fuselage and engine cowlings. The two big radial engines, small twin rudders, and retractable undercarriage gave an impression of power and speed. It was the most modern airliner to be seen in New Zealand skies. The Electra could carry two pilots, ten passengers, baggage, and mail. It could fly between Auckland and Wellington in the record time of one hour and forty-five minutes.

Clarrie Asker quickly completed the Electra conversion course, obtained a type rating, and underwent an instrument flying refresher course. He was a changed man when he returned to Ellerslie to bring the family to Palmerston North, where he had rented another house, their sixth in twelve years.

On his first day as a line pilot, he caught the airways bus at sixth-thirty in the morning and traveled the short distance to the airfield. With Captain Warren Tiplady watching every detail, he went through the flight planning procedures, did a pre-flight inspection of the Electra, and departed with eight passengers for New Plymouth, where heavy rain had been forecast.

It was an ultimate test of his newly acquired and updated skills. Tiplady sat quietly in the left side seat, watching every move and procedure while First Officer Asker did all the flying. Twenty minutes from New Plymouth, they descended into a wall of cumulonimbus cloud and torrential rain. Overhead the New Plymouth beacon, he started the procedural turns and headings that would bring the Electra onto its final approach to the runway. Then with Tiplady hanging on every word, he called the pre-landing checks and continued the landing approach in heavy rain and turbulence. They broke out of the cloud at six hundred feet and sighted the grass airfield directly ahead. After the Electra had slowed down and turned toward the terminal, the captain spoke for the first time since leaving Palmerston North.

‘I didn’t see any mistakes, Asker. You’ll get a good report,’ he said, deliberately playing down a superb first performance despite the difficult conditions.

‘Thank you, sir.’

Thirty minutes later, they were airborne again, climbing on a heading for Wellington. They passed through several massive clouds with heavy rain, turbulence, and ice south of the Mount Egmont volcanic cone. The approach and landing at Wellington were made in clear air and were straightforward for Clarrie, and Rongotai airfield had changed little since his last visit.

From Wellington to Christchurch, Tiplady did the flying, which gave Clarrie a much-needed rest. Most of the sector was over the sea, a short distance from the spectacular Seaward Kaikoura Range. As Clarrie admired the view, his thoughts returned to the Southern Cross and their narrow escape because of his inexperience. He was lucky to be alive. But then, Smithy’s luck eventually