And I need you more than want you

A solo trip from New Zealand to Holland at the age of 11 in 1968

I had a tough time in 1968. My parents had separated and I had toggled between being at home helping my mother look after my brother and two sisters, some weekends with my father and respite with families I didn’t know.

So on Boxing Day 1968, I found myself at Auckland Airport, dressed in my summer shorts, with a small suitcase and 10/- in pounds sterling that my foster sister Nga had given me. She was no longer a foster child and had come specially to see me off. I would never see her again other than her bust in my father’s sculptures.

On the radio Glenn Campbell had arrived on the hit parade with Jimmy Webb’s Wichita Lineman, which was as Glen says in this video was wistful, but I wasn’t homesick at this stage. In fact, I couldn’t wait to leave.

I am sharing this video because I have so much admiration for Jimmy Webb, who I met at a Sydney Song Summit. I didn’t realise until then how much The Tunesmith influenced my songwriting. I didn’t realise what a master he was until I heard him speak and bought his new book.

His chord sequences had a major influence on my songwriting. The chord sequences in songs like this one appeared on the hit parade in NZ in December 1968 at number 20 featured. I remember Webb saying that when he wrote By the time I get to Pheonix, he had never even been to Phoenix.

Here’s an example of one of my songs, which was a Berklee Music assignment I wrote on the subject of airports. I took the liberty of writing about sushi in Tulsa, based on Webb’s story. I had found a story from someone saying it was ‘the best’. I have never been to Tulsa.

Hugs at the airport and I was boarding an Air NZ DC 8 to Sydney. As I got on the plane, one of the first to get on, being an unaccompanied minor, the air hostess said she would look after my passport for me, to keep it safe. I didn’t know what she was going to keep it safe from, but I gave it to her.

She kept it safe alright! When I changed airlines at Sydney Airport, and the person at the KLM check-in counter asked for my passport, I looked in my bag and it wasn’t there. I was starting to get pretty anxious as they said I couldn’t go without my passport. But my luggage was already on the plane.

I remembered the hostess’ name and they even called her on the PA, but she had already gone home. A supervisor turned up and they rang New Zealand and rang the Netherlands, and it was decided that as I was a Dutch citizen, I couldn’t go back to New Zealand, but I could be repatriated to the Netherlands. Phew!

The KLM plane was also a DC8 and onboarding, I got a row to myself, which was cool. They gave me a kit containing headphones, toothbrush and paste and various other items. I plugged the headphones in and on came The Turtles.

Happy Together had been one of my favourite songs the year before in primary school. I remember singing it to the girls in my last year of primary school the year before. Don’t ask me why, I guess it was just joi de vivre. The song made me feel happy and it did as my flight transported me to Singapore Airport. It was a small airport at that time, Paya Lebar Airport only had one runway! Not like the bustling Changi that I would visit later in life.

It had a fairly small transit lounge and I was thirsty. I went to the food store, there was only one, and bought a small glass of pineapple juice. I had the money that Nga had given me. I was shocked when I handed over the 10 shilling note and only got 7 shillings back. That was highway robbery, but I had the drink and noted to self, to check prices in future. I sipped it slowly! Back home I could buy a lot with 3 shillings!

Back on the plane and off to the next stop, which was Bankok. I wasn’t going to buy anything there. I had learned my lesson.

Boarding again and there was an Italian family who made themselves comfortable in the row in front of me. A couple with a pretty girl about the same age as me. “What’s your name?” Her Dad asked me. “Luigi, that is Italian for Louis he said. I’m going to call you Louis.” I didn’t like the sound of that and after takeoff, I ordered a lemonade.

The girl got bored with the flight (there were no video screens back then) and came and sat with me. She was a prankster and while I went to the toilet she emptied the little blue salt shaker into my drink, bursting with laughter when I took a swallow and it almost came back up.

The entertainment on the sound system included Words by the Bee Gees, a Dutch kid called Heintje who made so much money singing songs I never liked, whose parents moved him to Germany where he was just as popular as he was in Holland, but didn’t have to pay so much tax, and Lazy Sunday Afternoon.

I asked a hostess about my passport and she said they had radioed to follow up and they had not been able to get hold of the air hostess, but not to worry.

My flight was about to get interesting. Unbeknown to me, 2 days earlier 2 PLFP terrorists rushed out of the transit lounge and started shooting and throwing grenades at an El Al flight in Athens, headed for Tel Aviv, killing an Israeli marine engineer. I mean I hadn’t even heard of Beirut and had no idea where I was.

The Middle East was on alert when our plane landed in Beirut, they knew Israel forces were going to retaliate. We sat on the ground for ages and were told that we would refuel, but would not get off the plane.

Half an hour later, we hadn’t moved and we hadn’t refuelled. Next, they said we were going to go to a transit lounge, but we were not allowed to take any bags off the plane and explicitly, no cameras. That was a bit weird and I thought to myself that the only thing I was concerned about was my passport and I didn’t have that anymore.

Next thing the plane is full of soldiers with machine guns. There was no shouting or anything, but they looked pretty scary. As we disembarked, each of us on the plane, maybe 20 or so people had a soldier with a machine gun behind us. The atmosphere was intense and when I tried to say something, I was told to shut up and stay in line.

They escorted us across the hot tarmac into a building and we ended up in a small room, which looked like it had been hurriedly set up. There was water, coffee and tea, served by more soldiers. There were chairs and a solitary carousel with a selection of paperbacks for sale.

After about 2 hours in this little room, responses to what was happening and when we could leave were responded to with “No English”. I couldn’t find anything interesting, but I had nothing to do and asked how much for a book of Jewish short stories. The guy looked at me like I was an idiot. He called over to the other soldiers, still holding their machine guns, holding the book and speaking to his fellow guards. They laughed their heads off. He turned back to me and told me a price, similar to what I had paid for the juice in Singapore. I bought the book as they laughed again. I think they thought I was brave or stupid.

Eventually, we were escorted back to the plane, them with their firearms and me with my book of Jewish short stories (which I barely read). We were on our way to Schiphol. It was now December 28 and not long after we took off, things took a turn for the worst.

If I had been there a couple of hours longer, I would have experienced a nightmare. Israel retaliated and IDF special forces from the elite, top-secret commando unit dubbed Sayeret Matkal bombed and destroyed several Arab planes. One of many times over the years that I have missed being caught in a dangerous situation by fortuitous timing.

There were more stops, Rome airport was cool. They had escalators that went flat along the ground. First time I had seen those, but this was only my second air trip. I would use these dozens of times later in life, but for this kid at the end of 1968, it was a memorable experience.

I had to wait behind all the other passengers at Schiphol, but through a window in customs, I briefly caught sight of one of my uncles who waved at me, so I figured everything was fine.

After another hour or so, they let me through and there was my family.

My grandfather with the pipe in his mouth explained to me that Oma couldn’t be there as she was in the hospital. We would go to see her the next day. First thing was to buy me some winter clothes on the way home, it was below freezing temperature, the ground was covered in snow and I was in my shirt and shorts.