The world got smaller.
I got the news on Monday night, my Mother called and in that precise tone she uses when she has to deliver awful news told me she had to let me know that Andrew had died that morning.
We all, if we are lucky, have a small group of people in our lives that mean everything to us and are part of who we are. Parents, perhaps a spouse, a best friend – Andrew has been one of those people to me throughout my life.
My hometown is Rotorua, I grew up there, spent my whole childhood there and a few years of adulthood. My heart aches for the place sometimes the memories the people – almost all gone now, I know barely anyone there and it is not the place I remember. But in the 30 odd years since I lived there there has remained one constant – the Hoskins.
Our dearest family friends growing up, Maureen and Andrew, like second parents to me through my childhood still in the same house they have been in since longer than I can remember. A constant, and a doorway back into the world I grew up in.
I dream of that house often, of the adventures we had as kids on the public reserve out the back. Mucking about in homemade boats in the little creek, which surely was much larger when I was small. Making whirl pools in the Para pool, the pool that Andrew would sometimes launch himself into off the front step first thing in the morning. Taking my wife, who I had not known long at the time, to stay with them because it was really important to me to do so.
In bed in the evening there would be Enid Blyton books, and it certainly felt like the trees beyond the garden were our own Enchanted Woods. Sometimes Andrew would make stories up to tell us as we went to sleep, as my Father did, and as I have done with my own children.
Andrew loved to say inappropriate funny things. I remember being mortified as a child when he asked if I wanted another piece of toast and when I said I would he called through to Maureen in the kitchen “Maureen, Nick says you’re ugly”, it was such a bizarre thing - it didn’t even occur to me that she would know it was a joke.
Or the time he asked “Nick, would you like some ice cream?”, when I indicated that I would he said “Me too, but we haven’t got any” – I can hear him saying it now and then roaring with laughter. I say it to my kids too, they are not amused.
I got a bit lost as a teenager during the fourth form, in trouble with the police. My parents quite naturally had to play the role of, well, parents and disapprove of what I had done and set me on the straight and narrow. Meanwhile I found solace in the Hoskins’ home, Sue was an incredibly dear friend to me at this time, as Angela would be some years later at a different low point.
Andrew declared that the Mongrel Mob had named me “Most Improved” for my criminal exploits and had a great laugh. Not a laugh of thinking the actions were funny, but more a “I can see you’re pretty miserable there Nick – you could probably use a laugh” way.
Andrew loved painting and drawing – the house was full of his art from water colour scenes to life drawings, he also loved gliding. I remember going to the aerodrome as a kid and watching the gliders, with his freedom of spirit of course it was something he loved. It was lovely to talk to Maureen this morning and hear that Andrew’s grandson Max also has a passion for it.
If you’re as old as I am you might remember the original spacies parlour in Rotorua and the great murals he did in his profession as a sign writer that were on the walls.
Memories of playing with son Peter and trying to use a table hokey game but we didn’t have the equipment. Andrew made us paddles and when Pete kept watching him shape the wood, as I was keen for us to leave and play, he said that Pete wanted to learn the technique, which would hold him in good stead.
My father has many wonderful attributes but being a handy man is certainly not one of them – Andrew could make anything, he even built a camper-van that we loved playing in.
My head and my heart are overflowing with memories - walks in the redwoods, swimming in the hot streams in Rotorua. Andrew making a sailboat out of things he found washed up on the beach at a picnic on Lake Rotorua to give to my young son.
My favourite Christmas day was spent at the Hoskins house – white wine in the sun indeed. I remember Andrew game me a hammer for my 21st, which was a pretty good gift, and he also gave me a painting he had done that he knew I particularly liked. A drawing he did of the bedroom my sisters and I shared more than forty years ago is still in my parent’s lounge today.
The last time I visited their house he was out the back building a flying fox for the grandchildren, he said to me as we stood on the reserve afterwards that he didn’t have much time left, I don’t think he meant anything in particular, just the reality of life’s counter getting to a large number that becomes inevitable for us all.
In the years since I left Rotorua Andrew would often come to family events, always the same – jandals, a pair of trousers – never jeans always trousers, often a woolly sweater depending on the season. He would sleep in his van and bring his much loved dog, much to the amusement of my parent’s cats no doubt.
Maketū was the nearest beach to Rotorua so both families would go there often. Andrew really loved the place my perception was that it was like a spiritual home. Maureen and Andrew would still go across to Maketu on an evening, have fish and chips, and watch the sunset all these years later. They even went on Sunday.
Sometimes, when he was still alive, they would take their Uncle Cecil to Maketū. Cecil was in a home, I never knew exactly what the family relationship was or what the nature of Cecil’s disabilities were but Andrew would always try and include him.
Be it a picnic at Hannah’s bay or perhaps by the banks of one of the rivers out the back of Ngongotaha he would bring Cecil and if the going was impractical for him he would transport him around in a wheelbarrow. Andrew was a very kindhearted man, as my eldest son Alex described him when I told him the news “a wonderful human being”.
Once when I was young I wanted to travel back to Rotorua from Maketū in their camper-van with my girlfriend of the time but Mum and Dad said no I had a friend with me I couldn’t just abandon him. I was quite upset, Andrew said - No I couldn’t go, but I could call him up some time at 3am and tell him he was a bastard for not letting me and that would be fair enough.
I never did make that phone call, I kind of wish I had – it would have made him laugh. I can hear his loud booming laugh as I’m typing and the tears are falling.
RIP Andrew James Hoskins (18/9/1941 – 1/8/2022) the world is so much greater for you having been in it, as is my life and the lives of many others, and it won’t be the same again.
Much love to Maureen, Rikki (Ann), Sue, Peter, and Angela (Cheryl) at this heart breaking time, see you soon my dear friends.
I loved reading this Nick - I loved these reminiscences and your memory. He cared so generously for us all; when Dad fell through a hole in the toilet floor, Andrew came and mended it. When my Dad died he was in Christchurch and Andrew went to my old family home and painted it for me. An amazing life, he had, to have touched us all like this; as you have reminded us, of the preciousness of friendship and families.
An amazing tribute to a very loved man.