Come in Spinner
The day I met Jim we were both trying to make ourselves scarce, though looking back now I realise it must have been much more problematic for him than it was for me. We were standing in the kitchen at Bill and Norma Dumbrell’s place on King Street, Newtown in Sydney. We made ourselves scarce by washing the dishes! I washed, he dried.
He wasn’t, as I also recall that fast a dryer-upperer though I still remember with great embarassment these days that the first question Jim had asked me was, what was I reading. My immediate reply was ‘Hot Tub Religion’ Christian Living in a Materialistic World’ by J.I. Packer, ‘Bliss & Other Stories’ by Katherine Mansfield chiefly because it was short stories and I had young children at the time, Bulibasha: King of the Gypsies by Witi Ihimaera which I was rereading for the second time because it made me laugh and finally thumbing through my much loved hardcover book ‘Petticoat Pioneers: North Island Women of the Colonial Era’ by Miriam McGregor when looking at the pictures just seemed like a much wiser thing to do after a long day!
So yes, you can all count, I was reading 4 books at once, it’s a mood thing. I never feel there’s much point sitting down to read a book unless you can be right in there boots and all and that’s why I read so many at once. I can choose. The more taxing (with small children) the day, the less rigorous the story line. I found this way nutured my love of reading rather than made me stop doing it because it got to be just one more thing on a list in a day to do. Reading should never be reduced to that, ever.
Aside from the book reading Jim and I found an in-common-keenness for fly fishing. Me because we’d spent so many weekends out with my father who was a particularly enthusiastic fly fisherman and Jim because he found it encouraged patience and an opportunity for reflection. I’d heard that, though it never actually materialised as ‘my’ raison d’etre for doing it. It simply reminded me of a time in my childhood that I enjoyed.
Jim
My embarassment stemmed from a moment when Bill came along side of me later and asked what had kept Jim and me engaged in such a lengthy discourse. I promptly told him fly fishing. I also said Jim had kindly gone to great lengths to explain some of the finer theological points made in Packer’s book that my sleep-deprived brain at the time had failed to take in. “Of course he would” said Bill, “it’s not everyday you’d get it straight from the horse’s mouth either!”
I don’t know whether it was too many soap suds, bubbles up my nose or what it was but I thought I’d better clarify just in case I was reading wrongly between the lines. So in my best Gary Coleman, “what you talk’in ’bout Willis” voice I asked Bill if what he was suggesting was that Jim WAS J.I. Packer. Bill fish mouthed a lot of indistinguishable words to me for the next few minutes and I became mortified! Jim on the other hand was extremely gracious, he’d liked discovering I hadn’t known who he was though I shall probably NEVER forget now!
For the records, Dr. James I. Packer MA, DPhil (Oxford) is one of the pre-eminent evangelical theologians today, who in addition to his work at Regent College writes books, serves as a Senior Editor and Visiting Scholar of Christianity Today and contributes to a variety of theological journals. In 1979, after teaching and preaching for 27 years in England, he became Professor of Systematic and Historical Theology at Regent College. In 1989 he was installed as the first Sangwoo Young Chee Professor of Theology and in 1996 he became Board of Governors’ Professor of Theology. His pedigree is stellar to say the least!
Bill
The Rev. Dr Bill Dumbrell’s isn’t too shabby either, he’s currently an Anglican Minister and a sessional lecturer at Macquarie Christian Studies Institute (MCSI) in Sydney, Australia. He previously completed his ThD at Harvard University and earned a Travelling Fellowship from Harvard for study at Heidelberg, Germany.
He was formerly a lecturer in OT and Vice-Principal of Moore Theological College, Sydney (he and Norma were our neighbours. Josh fell out of a tree in their backyard and today still has a scar that looks like a tyre slash on his head. It stubbornly refuses to allow hair to grow back over it. We rushed him to Camperdown Children’s Hospital, two minutes away in the car when it was down the end of Missenden Road and where they simply ‘glued’ him together again! Norma had a quietly undisturbing knack of enquiring quite kindly about things like, whether Dan and his friend Jackson ought to be eating that WHOLE 2kg block of cheese out in the enclosed playground between our homes before lunch! They were always up to mischief together those two!)
But back to Bill, he was Academic Dean and Professor of Biblical Studies at Regent College, Vancouver, and recently spent a 5-year period as a lecturer at Trinity Theological College, Singapore. He’s the author of numerous books and articles including; Covenant and Creation: An Old Testament Covenantal Theology, The End of the Beginning: Revelation 21-22 and the Old Testament, The New Covenant: The Synoptics in Context: Matthew, Mark and Luke and Faith of Israel: Its Expression in the Books of the Old Testament. For the records too, I found them both to be incredibly humble men though by academic reputation they are rigorously incisive thinkers.
It’s going back a few years now but what Jim and me were really doing at the sink bench was having a good humoured game of one-upsmanship. I was talking up the Tuki Tuki river like there was no tomorrow. It’s the river that flows through my home town of Waipukurau. “Its tributaries provide a wide variety of fishing experiences for a large population of wild rainbow and brown trout. The catchment has mostly rainbow trout though some brown are also present. Fish average around 1.5 kg, with some fish up to 4 kg caught, especially in the lower reaches.
The Tuki Tuki
The Tuki Tuki River and its tributaries drain a huge area of land in the Hawke’s Bay. The river rises in the Ruahine Ranges and flows for approximately 80 km to enter the Pacific just south of Napier. There are some 33 access points to both the Upper and Lower parts of the river.
Whether fishing independently or with a guide, you must have a license to fish for trout, salmon and coarse fish in New Zealand and carry it with you when fishing. A Fish & Game license covers all of New Zealand except the Taupo fishery area (and an additional back-country license is required for a few specified rivers). A license permits you to fish according to the current regulations for the region. The regional regulations define where, when and how you can fish specific waters. They also specify the maximum number of fish you can take and the minimum size of fish.
The general rules relating to the Tuki tuki River upstream from the SH50 road bridge, excluding tributaries is that the season runs from 1 Oct-30 June, there’s no size limit though the bag limit is 4 and the only methods of fishing allowed are by artificial fly and spinner. Downstream from the SH50 road bridge, excluding tributaries the season runs all year round, again there is no size limit, a bag limit of 4 and again the only methods of catch permitted are by artificial fly or spinner.”
I’m hoping the summer will reel me in a big fish story to end all big fish stories but I’m pretty realistic. I happen to know that the fish in the Tuki Tuki river have absolutely NOTHING to worry about from me. In fact the closest I may come to bagging anything resembling a fish will only happen if it comes wrapped between the pages of last weeks newspaper! Take it from me, there’ll be nothing fishy go’in on here!
UPDATE: Bill Dumbrell
As at 5 November 2010, Bill was presented with a copy of a Festschrift, An Everlasting Covenant: Biblical and Theological Essays in Honour of William J. Dumbrell, edited by John A. Davies and Allan M. Harman, and published by the Reformed Theological Review at a dinner at the Presbyterian Theological Centre.
Bill is the author of Covenant and Creation: A Theology of the Old Testament Covenants and The Faith of Israel: A Theological Survey of the Old Testament, and many other books and articles. John Davies wrote this about Bill in the Introduction to the book: “Bill has a fertile and creative mind, able from his vast reading to evaluate and take on board the best of traditional and contemporary scholarship, while being prepared to rock the boat somewhat with ideas that go against the grain of some cherished notions.”
John Davies perfectly describes the Bill I knew as my neighbour and whose scholarship while immense, was overshadowed by his terrific humility and who never once failed to put a person at one’s ease through his genuine interest in them.
FURTHER UPDATE: William ‘Bill’ J. Dumbrell passed away on 1 October 2016 aged 90 years old.
