Tom Murphy
A novel set in a North Island town in 1934 sargon press
The accompanying text contains the memoir of my late brother Tom Murphy. My brother was among the six fatalities in the Grand Hotel fire in Petrie. His asphyxiated body was found in a hallway. Tom, who never married, was a generous person, always mindful of the needy.
I am publishing this memoir as it may throw
light for readers upon a past era.
That era – so vivid to Tom and myself – is indeed now another
country.
Readers may be shocked at some of what they read. It has been a voyage for me too, into the inner character and youthful story of my beloved brother.
I myself figure briefly. My supper invitation with the Rosenblums is recorded. I have no recollection of any expression of enthusiasm for the Hitler regime at the supper. My memory is that Maria became hysterical with laughter and then distress after her cerebral palsy condition caused her to upset a container of black pepper that ruined her supper. This divergence in my recollection and my brother's record causes me not to take the text entirely literally. My brother may sometimes have stretched the truth. But the innate honesty of Tom convinces me these written down events are exactly as his memory served him.
Tom was an ill man at the time of his writing of his memoir. I pray
that readers make allowance for an old disillusioned man's bitterness
at the present generation. After the war, Tom worked as a surveyor's
chain man for the Ministry of Works until his retirement. In his last
years, he was overheard several times to make the facetious comment –
“ They will be selling the Ministry of
Works next.”
This memoir and an enclosed appendix of literary fragments of the Rosenblum children were discovered in a burnt suitcase in Tom's bed-sitter. They are the only mementos of my brother's life. I have also enclosed in the appendix two newspaper cuttings. The first throws further light upon the life of Tom and our father, Tom Murphy senior. The second cutting I leave to the reader to appraise.
Social workers and commentators may find a professional interest in Tom's story. He exemplifies the cruel fate of citizens who are neither sub-intelligent nor of employable mental alertness. Tom was fortunate that post-war rehabilitation secured him life-long employment. The world today has even less time for the Tom Murphys than even during the depression. The news reports tell us every day of their private tragedies and the consequences.
Patrick Murphy
Bishop of Petrie
1998
