Jonny Wilkinson - Jonny on the Spot

Jonny on the Spot

Selected articles by NZ columnist Jonny Wilkinson

Legal and Copyright

Jonny on the Spot:

Selected articles by NZ columnist Jonny Wilkinson

A BigWords-Books Publication

Northland & Otago, New Zealand

www.bigwords-books.com

First Published by BigWords-Books in 2018

Copyright Jonny Wilkinson 2018

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, including photocopying, recording or otherwise without prior written permission from the author.

The author asserts his moral right to be identified as the author of this work.

National Library of New Zealand Cataloguing-in-Publication Data:

WIlkinson, Jonny, 1965

Jonny on the Spot / Jonny Wilkinson

ISBN: 978-0-9941162-4-6 (Mobi/Kindle)

978-0-9941162-5-3 (EPUB)

978-0-9941162-6-0 (iBOOK)

A catalogue record for this book is available from the National Library of New Zealand.

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Disclaimer

T HIS BOOK IS A COLLECTION of articles submitted individually for publication for Jonny Wilkinsons fortnightly column A Different Light in the Northern Advocate, appearing often in the NZ Herald Online, between 2014 and 2018. They are published in this collection in their original form, prior to editing by the Northern Advocate, with minor editing variations applied by the publisher.

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Acknowledgements

I WOULD LIKE TO THANK the following people for helping make this work, my first foray into self-publishing, possible. The board and staff at Tiaho Trust and The Northern Advocate (in particular Lindy Laird).

I would especially like to thank my wife Sally, not only for her editing skills in transforming my fortnightly rants into something publishable, but for putting up with my wry humour the longest.

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Foreword

J ONNY WILKINSON IS the founder and CEO of Disability Advocacy organisation Tiaho Trust, established in 2005 in New Zealands Northland region. Since 2013 he has been regularly published as a columnist in the regional newspaper, the Northern Advocate.

His work in the disability sector earned Jonny the prestigious title of Member of the New Zealand Order in the 2018 Queens Birthday Honours List.

Born with Cerebral Palsy, Jonny has a unique combination of disability sector knowledge, business skills and first-hand experience on disability issues.

Prior to becoming CEO of Tiaho Trust he spent three years in management positions with two key organisations within the Northland disability sector. He has also served on a number of boards, both on a National and Regional level.

Jonny is married and lives at the beach South of Whangarei, New Zealand with his wife, with whom he has raised two (now adult) daughters. He loves spending time with his extended family and friends and hitting the beach in his beach truck.

Jonny plans to continue writing articles for his column, A Different Light and to pursue future avenues of writing from his own peculiar vantage point.

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Likely Lads on a Road Trip

H E MET ME JUST INSIDE Nelson Airports only arrival gate. All 6ft 4in,120kg of him, with that spiky hair at the back you get from hours of driving.

He was his wearing his favourite Tower of Terror T-shirt. He looked like a giant Sonic the Hedgehog. My best mate Robbie and I could not have been more different.

Do you want me to push him to the baggage claim, the flight attendant asked.

Nah, were right, he replied, grabbing the Jetstar wheelchair.

How are ya he repeated as he strode off with me down the tarmac.

Pissed off, I replied, adding for elucidation; When you order wheelchair service on a flight its like you instantly have a frontal lobotomy.

He threw his head back and laughed all 10kg of it.

Soon we were driving west out of Nelson on State Highway 6, heading for the West Coast. Two hours later, after filling up Robbies motorhome with diesel, we arrived at Owens River. We parked up by a Tasman District Council camping ground alongside the raging river and watched a group of nerdy but adventurous looking kayakers happily embarking on what seemed to me a reckless recreation, while we drank Gimlets and ate chicken croissants.

Most of the next day was spent in the Moho, climbing and winding up gorges and creeping down them.

Its a long way down, I observed, stating the bleeding obvious.

We came across a car and trailer which had gone over the side, held up by young trees from careering at least 100 feet onto rocky rapids below.

You have to pay attention in these conditions, Robbie confirmed.

Two minutes later his big head was inches away from the floor as he snuffled around for something under the dash. Suddenly he sat upright and said; Oops! as he corrected his steering and I tried to get my heart rate back to normal.

The day before, on National Radio, I heard that the only things for tourists and visitors to do in Greymouth was either go to The Warehouse or stand in the rain like a shag. We chose the latter.