There Is No Depression: Protect and Survive New Zealand

[BooNZ]

Farming though is going to collapse with tight rationing of fuel. Almost no one has the infrastructure or capacity to work properly without regular use of their vehicles. There are few horses about, almost none that would be working horses. There are no bullocks either. Donkeys? Ha. It'll take a decade or so to rebuild that support infrastructure and by which time we'd expect to have largely resolved the fuel situation. IIRC we had exactly one horse and it certainly was not standard for people to have horses on farms, pets or otherwise. Further up in the hill lands it was slightly more common and certainly in the High Country, but I would suspect by 1984 they were largely converted to bikes and helicopters. Most of the farmers in my area were literally one man operations too, getting in labour as needed, whether paid or otherwise.

Yeah-nah. I don't see a huge impact on low intensity pastoral farming (i.e. sheep and beef). On the East coast the effective use of horses among farmers/ shepherds was expected - and frequently still is. At the time both of my grandfathers were using horses on their farms and neither owned a bike. Generally more fuel was used was to drive to town on Fridays than on the farm during the week - and no, they were not the freaks of the district

Mechanised machinery and transportation definitely can definitely provide increased efficiencies and time saving, especially on flatter land, but in most cases an additional FTE would more than meet the shortfall. In respect of pastoral farming, areas where fuel shortages would be felt include: aerial top dressing; transportation of lambs and bloodstock. In most other cases there are likely workarounds (e.g. droving stock) or increases in manpower.

Obviously other area of agriculture like dairy and horticulture are likely to be more mechanised, but rest assured, steak and a Sunday roast would remain on the menu.

 

[BooNZ]

I remember there being a lot more CNG and LPG powered vehicles on the road in the 80s, could we see more of them?

Coal and wood aren't exactly in short supply, perhaps we'll see a return of steam trains to some lines. Maybe vehicles powered by wood gas might make a temporary comeback?

Delve earlier into the thread and post 429 will blow your mind!

 

[Julius Vogel]

I grew up on a sheep and beef farm in the 1980s and I don't quite agree. Most of my family are still farmers too as are most of their friends.

Our farm and our neighbours were of two types, mixed sheep, beef and crop, usually between about 500 and 1000 acres, then up-land they started getting quite a bit bigger, up to 5-10 thousand acres. People were running up to 3-4 thousand sheep but I forget the number of cattle. Almost all of these farms were run by a single man, even the uplands ones. This was partially due to the economic situation to be fair. Some of the farmers were part of family units and so there might be several men, but they would in effect be running several farms, one each, even if run as a wider unit. The farm size seems to have increased a lot in the post war era, so most of the farms listed above usually were two or more farms merged into one, there were loads of unoccupied houses. They all got in men on a regular basis to assist in busy times.

By the time I was a child, there were little in the way of agricultural labourers living around the farms. Labourers called upon by these farmers and my father usually lived in the nearby towns and drove out, although some might stay over in huts. As a point of comparison, in contemporary rural Otago, due to the dairy boom, farmers have had to build masses of new housing to house the new workers needed to run intensive dairy farms. To the foreign readers, much of rural NZ, the South Island in particular, is really lightly populated. There are very few rural villages like you might see in Europe. The norm around Otago would be a farming community built around a school, community hall and maybe one or two churches. Quite often they would be the only buildings in that settlement. There might be a few houses but certainly around my area, that was not normal, everyone lived on a farm. Closer to the coast there might be larger rural settlements. The North Island is a little different, especially in rural areas where Maori are in large numbers.

There is literally no way they could have run these farms without vehicles. The usual farmer here had 2 or more motorbikes, one or two utility vehicles (pickups) and you would expect both of those to be in near constant use during an ordinary day, assuming they didn't have to work around the sheds or the like. They would usually have several tractors of varying sizes and a lorry or two, along with the associated machines for cropping. No one had work horses in this area and we were right on the edge of the hill country.

I’ve spoken to my father about the wider issue of mechanisation in the past and he just remembers the pre mechanisation age, as he was a child in the 40s-50s. His father and grandfather ran a much bigger farm (the Depression, WW2 and some bad luck intervened) prior to dad taking over and they had literally dozens of staff helping run the unit. Most of these went during the War and the rest left after mechanisation really kicked in. The horses and draught animals finished up in the 1940s and the horses for mustering largely went away in the 1970s. About the time helicopters and motorbikes really came into their own. Now my father and his generation all were familiar with horses and their uses for mustering and could have resumed that, assuming the small number of pet horses would be of any use but they would have been singularly useless in terms of using horses to do real work like pulling harvesters or the like. That requires specialist skills, horses and equipment. That being said, there were be a lot of retired men living nearby in the town who had worked for my grandfather in such a capacity in the early 80s and I’m sure there would be a lot of their contemporaries still about to retrain people.

Growing up in rural Otago, I don’t think I can think of more than a couple of farmers that I knew who used horses regularly for work in the 1980s or 90s. They did exist, but that was as much because these men were traditionalists and ran hill country farms. They were a very small minority. We lived out on the edges of the hill/High Country and spent a lot of time in land, up the Valley and in Central Otago/Mackenzie Country and no one there used horses in large numbers either. I would suspect that by this point some still existed in the really large high country stations but these would be the same stations that sat on very marginal land in the middle of no where. Everyone else swapped out as soon as they could. I was in Iceland recently for a holiday and was shocked by how many horses there were in the country compared to say rural NZ.

A single man cannot easily maintain a herd of 3000 sheep without a motorised vehicle. Maybe in 12 -24 months he and his new labour force can, but that will take a crap load of effort. The children will need to be pulled out of school in the interim. Everyone is going to have to learn how to use animals to help with work, not just to exploit for meat and wool.

Although I'd note that you could still see the legacy of horses - the local primary schools all had what we called a 'glebe' paddock next to the school grounds, which in our day was just a paddock used for sports days, general play, or leased to a local farmer. However when Dad was a boy, this is where they left their horses to graze whilst at school.

Edit - a source - http://www.teara.govt.nz/en/horses/page-4

TEARA also says:
By 1900 there were more than 260,000 horses in New Zealand. At its peak in 1911 the horse population reached 404,284 – about one horse for every three people. By 2004, horse numbers had reduced to 76,918.

They also noted elsewhere that the government stopped recording horse numbers on farms in the early 70s so unimportant had they become. By comparison and in reference to my earlier point, Iceland has about 80,000, for a smaller island and 1/12th of the population.

 

[Julius Vogel]

Oddly enough, NZ in 21st century might be slightly better set up in some ways, as there now seems to be a widespread movement of people who own and train horses for use in competitive/social carriage/draughting. My aunts and their friends are into this (they're all ex farm girls), they now, in their retirement spend much of their time on this hobby.

It's a bit odd, but they'd be really useful if you had to rebuild a largely animal driven transport and farming sector.

 

[BooNZ]

I grew up on a sheep and beef farm in the 1980s and I don't quite agree. Most of my family are still farmers too as are most of their friends.

I was raised in the 1980s in close proximity to my grandparents, both of whom owned and operated pastoral farms (sheep and beef). Neither farm possessed a motorbike and while the tractor was extremely handy, its use was sporadic. Cropping was not a part of their normal farm operations, which probably contributed to their relatively limited fuel use.

My parents worked in animal health for around 40 years, so I will make enquires as to horsemanship for the wider district.

 

[Tsar of New Zealand]

Some interesting thoughts on the feasibility of strict rationing; looking back over the update I feel I should ask whether people think it's plausible. It's only been a month ITTL, so I'd expect wrinkles remain to be ironed out, but for the sake of believability I'd rather not handwave this too much.

I'm assuming, as Julius said, that the majority of farms don't have horses. Certainly my family farm (500 acres of marginal broken hills on the Otago coast, sheep and dairy) hadn't since WWII, and they got on fine with only a tractor and a quad.

I'm hesitant to say "the farms got a heap of city labourers in so it's all fine" for several reasons. First, the learning curve. It's not terribly steep (particularly re: sheep; if a wally like me can herd sheep, anyone can), but it's there. Second, the logistics. Where will the labourers be housed? How will they be selected in the first place? Will people be assigned at random to farms, or will there be provision made for men with families (1984 being just sexist enough to discount the idea of women doing hard yakka) to remain close to where they live?

I'm pretty happy to go back and edit that section as necessary, add in a little more exposition from Chch's POV. It's reasonably peripheral to the character parts of the story, but I'd rather deal with this sort of thing now than throwing it on the rewrites pile for when I get round to the definitive version.

 

[Julius Vogel]

I was raised in the 1980s in close proximity to my grandparents, both of whom owned and operated pastoral farms (sheep and beef). Neither farm possessed a motorbike and while the tractor was extremely handy, its use was sporadic. Cropping was not a part of their normal farm operations, which probably contributed to their relatively limited fuel use.

My parents worked in animal health for around 40 years, so I will make enquires as to horsemanship for the wider district.

The type and size of farm will make a huge difference I guess. For each type of farm, land there is probably an optimum size for low intensity, low fuel use. Perhaps we look to the UK, where there still seems to be a tradition of small farms all over.

If the unit is small and compact, it is conceivable that someone could do much of the herd monitoring work on foot. The problem to deal with being of course that it takes time to get out to the paddocks, walk around them and then go back and do other work. So in lambing season, when the farmer needs to be out and about all the time, he is going to be spending a huge amount of his time just getting about, which he currently doesn't need to. So on say our farm, to get from the home base to the farther-est away paddock, up in the hills could easily take 40 minutes walk.

With little fuel you are going to need a dedicated shepherd or two, who just monitors the herd, whilst the heavy lifting elsewhere is done by someone else.

Shepherding is actually pretty skilled work too and usually requires one's own dogs. This is the reason why late colonial farmers used to spend so much money encouraging shepherds to immigrate from northern England (the uplands) and of course, Scotland, with their dogs.

That being said, there is a lot of work on the farm that just needs unskilled labour thrown at it. I've been the boy many times and I deem myself unskilled labour so far as farming is concerned.

 

[Das_Colonel]

Wal, Dog, Horse or Major better show up in some kickass form or other. Mccragge is gone so the P&S universe doesn't always have to be Mcragge level grimdark.

 

[Mumby]

Julius asked me to stick my oar in as I am currently an agricultural labourer, though on a comparatively small dairy farm in Britain.

Our machines are vital. There are only two permanent staff on the farm, while I am one of a number of part time or itinerant workers. We have two JCBs, at least two tractors, and a couple of specialist machines. That doesn't take into account the high energy consumption of a farm. Now, we have our diesel stored on site, and it comes by the lorry load. So for a time, there may exist a form of self-enforced rationing as it becomes clear that these lorries won't be turning up any time soon. But it would be extremely difficult to switch over to a muscle as a replacement for machines. Our JCBs are vital for things like silaging or bale carting. Quite how a modern farm would operate without knowing someone with a working combine harvester is beyond me. I don't think simply getting people to use sickles again is sustainable.

However, and I would say this, if these farms were to operate in the long term, supply needs to be maintained. And with limited supplies, and domestic food production more vital than ever, fuel rationing would probably be necessary. Like I say, we need those machines functioning, and just letting people use fuel willy-nilly will just see small farms fall by the wayside which is no good for production. Now, Britain has had fuel rationing at least twice in the past, in both cases fuel was prioritised for farmers over other civilian usage. I see something similar happening here.

 

[Julius Vogel]

Thank you sir, the Horse's Mouth speaks

 

[Tsar of New Zealand]

First off, my heartiest thanks to both of you for the input; my experience with farming was not one involving cropping, so I'd forgotten the need for harvesters and such. I'd also completely forgotten about the precedent for rationing during the wars (ah, the perils of growing up in a time of neoliberalism and the unbridled rule of supply-and-demand) which would definitely come into play here, so I've taken that into account.

Again, I don't want to be accused of graceless info-dumping so I'll settle for shameless editing; I've decided to edit the portion of Cabinet discussion to give a better depiction of the decisions being imposed from above, which I think makes it clear but not too dully specific. I think it seems about right; competing interests are still being beaten into submission and the extent to which the farming sector is teetering is only slowly becoming apparent, so government response hasn't been instantaneous. What I'm aiming to convey is the formation of policy, without handwaving the issue too much - there's debate and discussion precisely because nobody is sure what to do.

If there are any significant issues do raise them; if not, I'll edit this segment in over the weekend.

Cheers.

“If I might have a chance to speak?” asked Palmer, regarding the whole table as one with a sharp look. The three separate arguments which had erupted within the space of fifteen seconds sputtered to their respective halts as his thumbs pressed grooves into the ballpoint pen. “I believe we already covered a majority of these points in the other Other Business. To wit: Colin, the farms take precedence over the fisheries for now. Heavy fuel oil’s harder to come by than diesel, and the fuel needed to process the fish caught is just another expense which’d be better spent on trains or tractors or, or, ah, fertiliser. He raised a hand as Moyle began to object. “The farms produce more food per gallon of diesel than the fisheries, and we’re stretched beyond breaking point. We simply cannot afford wastage; I will not have the farms coming to a halt and people starving to death. Not in this country. Those machines are vital to the running of the farms; as much as sending refugees to work the land sounds good in principle, we can’t have people wandering about with sickles and scythes and expect a decent harvest; this isn’t eighteen-fifty. We prioritised farmers with fuel rationing during the War and the Poms did it as well. It behoves us to do so here as well.


“Secondly – Roger, the nationalisation and rationalisation plans will continue as discussed. The Reserve Bank and half of its staff were wiped out in Wellington; aside from what was trucked out of Wellington and Auckland to Palmerston before the attacks our assets depend on the goodwill of the private sector and the strength of state-owned assets until we can set up a new haitch-queue, as Anthony mentioned. The big banks will do as they’re told. We do not want to have to enforce policy at gunpoint, but they must be made to realise that there is no way the stability and reconstruction of this country can be jeopardised because their portfolios are no longer secure. The Justice Minister has given me his take on the applicability of the Emergency Powers Act, and I’d like to table some thoughts in next week’s meetings on how to apply it in this case. I’d prefer to avoid complete nationalisation of all financial assets, but…” he spread his hands. The survival of a nation took precedence.

“Third, and I know we’re out of time so we’ll make this the last point of order before we adjourn, but I would like to support the proposal to end the use of diesel generators where we can. We’ve got an optimistic forecast of forty percent of usual supply from Marsden Point, and that’s assuming we don’t have any tremendous blowouts. Yes,” he said, raising a hand “winter is on its way, but we have coal at Huntly and while the two percent total usage mightn’t seem much, that’s several thousand gallons of heavy oil we can put to freighter use – which, need I remind the Minister of Energy just as much as I already reminded the Minister of Fisheries, is still vital for getting things from island to island until we have some sort of rail terminus built at New Plymouth or Napier or wherever, and to Australia, too. The shortage of jet fuel, to address your point, Helen, is why we will not be sending anything to the Islands, either. We’ve got an Orion up at Whenuapai which we could send in case of emergency, but the Telex to Suva will suffice just fine until then.””

 

[BooNZ]

The type and size of farm will make a huge difference I guess. For each type of farm, land there is probably an optimum size for low intensity, low fuel use. Perhaps we look to the UK, where there still seems to be a tradition of small farms all over.

If the unit is small and compact, it is conceivable that someone could do much of the herd monitoring work on foot. The problem to deal with being of course that it takes time to get out to the paddocks, walk around them and then go back and do other work. So in lambing season, when the farmer needs to be out and about all the time, he is going to be spending a huge amount of his time just getting about, which he currently doesn't need to. So on say our farm, to get from the home base to the farther-est away paddock, up in the hills could easily take 40 minutes walk.

With little fuel you are going to need a dedicated shepherd or two, who just monitors the herd, whilst the heavy lifting elsewhere is done by someone else.

Shepherding is actually pretty skilled work too and usually requires one's own dogs. This is the reason why late colonial farmers used to spend so much money encouraging shepherds to immigrate from northern England (the uplands) and of course, Scotland, with their dogs.

That being said, there is a lot of work on the farm that just needs unskilled labour thrown at it. I've been the boy many times and I deem myself unskilled labour so far as farming is concerned.

I suspect we may be comparing apples to oranges with very similar communities, but fundamentally different farming practises (at the time).

I had a beer quick beer with the old man last night and he indicated in the early 1980s motorbikes were not uncommon [in our district], but their use was ordinarily limited to transportation/recreation. Almost a mirror image of your wider community. Point of fact, the largest landowner in our district (at least six stations, each with at least half a dozen farm workers) did not even allow motor bikes to be used on his properties until after Cyclone Bola - i.e. 1986-87. Even then, he only allowed them to be used for transportation, rather than farm work. For tasks like lambing beats, horse affords significant advantages in that (1) do not tend to disturb stock, (2) high vantage point enhances visibility and (3) the rider can focus on inspecting the stock and trust the horse not on going over a bank. A bike is excellent transport for getting from A to B, but nothing is achieved in between.

My grandfather who farmed sheep, had about 700 acres of what could best be described as goat country. He carried about 2300 sheep, which most of us considered to be over-stocked. His garage included a 2-3 town cars, a HT truck, a SAME tractor and a bull dozer. He had two horses in the house paddock and at least a dozen or so roaming around the hills. He would often use the tractor to carry loads, but certainly not everyday.

My memories of him are when he was in his 60s, so he was probably getting soft... ...based on this thread, those Speights promos should have been filmed on a grassy knoll down Queen Street .

In contrast, my parents are on a "retirement block" of 400 acres of flat land, two sets of yards, two tractors, a four wheeler, an HT truck, two utes, one car, horse float and three trailers + plus two useless horse. They opened Pandora's box [bought their first four wheeler] in the early 2000s when they had to manage the grandfathers estate (i.e. farm) while holding down two full time jobs.

I hear what you are saying regarding working dogs - a good team of dogs would be far more useful than a team of townies - especially on hilly terrain. I would also qualify as unskilled labour, I could once shear a sheep and ride a horse, but would probably just embarrass myself now!

 

[Julius Vogel]

I do remember talking with my sister in a London pub some years ago, about the film Whale Rider, which had come out not long before. She had said that a lot of British people had seen it and wanted to talk to her about it, which was about the time she realised that our upbringing in rural South Island was pretty different from large parts of rural North Island. This is one of those moments!

Also, Tsar, do remember that as this is the early 1980s you will still have the vast majority of adults being familiar with the 1970s fuel shortages. There will also be significant amounts of people, retired usually, who were about during the War time rationing regime. At least for the fuel shortages, I would imagine a lot of the organisation could have been quickly revived.

 

[Tsar of New Zealand]

I do remember talking with my sister in a London pub some years ago, about the film Whale Rider, which had come out not long before. She had said that a lot of British people had seen it and wanted to talk to her about it, which was about the time she realised that our upbringing in rural South Island was pretty different from large parts of rural North Island.

The complete absence of non-white people being the tip of the iceberg

Also, Tsar, do remember that as this is the early 1980s you will still have the vast majority of adults being familiar with the 1970s fuel shortages. There will also be significant amounts of people, retired usually, who were about during the War time rationing regime. At least for the fuel shortages, I would imagine a lot of the organisation could have been quickly revived.

I had thought of the 70s shortages, but also of the total failure of carless days. Exemption stickers aren't gonna be a going concern here; the government's learned from that one enough to just take complete control of the process of doling out diesel.

I do tend to forget that people were alive during previous rationing; I suppose, as you point out, that rationing may be a smoother process than I anticipated. It's only been a month ITTL, though; it's not too out there to think things are still a little unsettled. Consider this the government pulling the organisation together once and for all.

 

[Errolwi]

I do remember talking with my sister in a London pub some years ago, about the film Whale Rider, which had come out not long before. She had said that a lot of British people had seen it and wanted to talk to her about it, which was about the time she realised that our upbringing in rural South Island was pretty different from large parts of rural North Island. This is one of those moments!

...

I worked in Kaikohe (rural Northland) in the early Nineties, which was noticeably different from even the nicer parts of West Auckland (and holiday visits to my Uncle's Town Supply diary farm). Whale Rider (and Boy, set in 1984) later provided a view of a world that you occasionally slid past.

PS Please keep up the good work, as Real Life allows.

 

[Tsar of New Zealand]

The character of Ross Bailey is adapted from PimpLenin's TL The Lucky Country: Protect and Survive Australia. I have only made use of the name; the rest is a different interpretation/continuity of the events in the P&S universe than his. No plagiarism is intended. With that covered, here's an update. Look who's learned how to stick to a schedule



Interlude I – London Calling

It was an April morning
When they told us we should go…

- .... . .-. . / .-- .. .-.. .-.. / -... . / -. --- / -- --- .-. . / -.. . .- - .... / --- .-. / -- --- ..- .-. -. .. -. --. / --- .-. / -.-. .-. -.-- .. -. --. / --- .-. / .--. .- .. -.​

Portsmouth, Hampshire
April 4, 1984

To his credit, Commander Ross Bailey of the Royal Australian Navy didn’t react to the news he’d just heard with anything more dramatic than a widening of the eyes and catch of the breath. It was, however, audible enough for Whitelaw to give a sad little grimace.

“Captain,” he continued softly but firmly in that plummy Pommie accent which sounded like his back teeth were catching on the inside of his deflated-balloon cheeks, “Britain may be down, but we are not out.” He punctuated every word of that sentence by jabbing a finger on the oak table before moving on. “The world needs to know that if we are attacked by the Soviet Union, by the Argies, or by, or ah, or Tuvalu, we will strike back. Hard.”

Bailey closed his eyes and nodded, the ticking of the clock the only other sound in the room as he processed what had been said. “I see.” You’re all mad you’re all mad you crazy sonsabitches whywouldyouwishmoreofthisshitonanyonewhywouldwha-

The Prime Minister – leader of this shell of what was (of what had been?) Australia’s mother country and one of its greatest allies – kept talking, the words echoing in Bailey’s mind for hours afterward. The gleam in his eyes, though, would stay with Ross for much longer. It was the gleam of desperation without compare, of a man who has run out of all options and all alternatives and is thinking of the unthinkable as nothing more than a means to an end. The bags under his eyes and greying hairs retreating from the temples only added to the image.

“Captain, it is a…terrible thing, I know. However, our remaining nuclear weapons – and there are precious few of those, I assure you – are the only defence left to us.”

The Australian emissary nodded blankly as the Prime Minister kept talking. He’d never felt as glad as he was for the fact that they were sailing back home tomorrow.

And as I turned to you, you smiled at me
How could we say no?

Somewhere in the South Atlantic, WNW of the Cape of Good Hope
April 15, 1984

Before setting out from Albany they’d stripped the Perth of everything even faintly unnecessary to extend her range beyond the standard six thousand nautical miles. It had been made much easier – which was to say remotely logistically possible in the first place – with the presence of a civilian oiler, though that had made port in Cape Verde before they made for Britain – you never knew, after all – and Bailey had decided tell a little white lie to the Poms aboard in claiming that it just happened to be an Australian vessel they just happened to stumble across off West Africa on the way to Portsmouth. It probably hadn’t fooled anyone, but it was good enough for diplomacy.
More importantly, the extra fuel had meant that they could really thrash the ring out of the Perth and keep their speed above the 15-knot line; they’d made a steady 25 or so since Praia and should be home by Anzac Day.
Bailey glanced uneasily at the Royal Navy man the Poms had stuffed aboard in place of his second mate (his exec, who had been with him since basic, had not taken that well at all) as he looked idly towards the coast of South Africa.

“Shame it’s all gone, isn’t it?”

“Ah, yeah, suppose so. Still, not like we were playing rugby against them anymore.”

“No,” replied the Brit – who was a commander himself, but as an ADC on secondment from the RN was very kindly permitting Bailey to treat him as a subordinate – leaving an uncomfortable silence in the space between the two men on the otherwise busy ship. “Still, I was always more of a cricketer, myself.”

“Well, a shame we’ll be on different sides when the next Ashes comes up.”
A faint smile. If it ever comes. The words went unsaid, and didn’t join the other hollow words caught by the wind whistling towards a land which probably no longer had much use for sport. He recalled snippets of frantic transmissions they’d picked up on the way to Portsmouth, and the vague narrative they’d managed to sew together from the disparate facts they’d gotten on their close pass to the southern coast of the continent.

Cape Town was out for six, they knew that much. Same with the Pretoria to Johannesburg belt, if the ‘Effricans they’d had a brief talk on the blower with in Durban were to be believed. Port Elizabeth was still in, but nobody seemed to know what was happening. Neither the Admiralty nor Melbourne were keen to check for sure. A chill ran down Bailey’s spine, one that had nothing to do with the westerly wind. According to the intelligence officer, the government had dropped what he described as “an absolute shitload of mustard gas on the darkies” while beating a retreat from Pretoria to – where? Some sort of white man’s redoubt, they’d figured. If they were salting the earth after them…

The Commander hoped they never had to play rugby there again.

..-. --- .-. / - .... . / --- .-.. -.. / --- .-. -.. . .-. / --- ..-. / - .... .. -. --. ... / .... .- ... / .--. .- ... ... . -.. / .- .-- .- -.-​

Oh, to sail away
To sandy lands and other days…

.-.. . - / - .... . / --- -. . / .-- .... --- / -.. . ... .. .-. . ... / - .- -.- . / - .... . / .-- .- - . .-. / --- ..-. / .-.. .. ..-. . / .-- .. - .... --- ..- - / .--. .-. .. -.-. .​

“I believe that when Australians are confronted with the facts of crisis, that they have sufficient commitment to this country to respond positively…in 1941 and ’42…in the more dramatically obvious crisis of war, then they responded to the need to adapt and to change.
Now I believe that in the crisis confronting us now – when we openly bring Australians together and confront them with the facts – that they will respond.”
- Bob Hawke, 1983 press conference

Melbourne, Victoria
April 10, 1984

Government House, which had been dusted off for Emergency Government use soon after the dust from Canberra and Sydney had settled (all of a sudden Bob Hawke realised how much he wished he hadn’t thought of it in those specific terms), was an immense, beautiful structure. The Governor had been all too eager to see the State Government more or less evicted as the Federal Government made itself at home, and he might well be – for was it not that, after fifty-seven long years, Melbourne had retaken its position as capital and primus inter pares of the great Australian cities?

Not that that was much of a statement, with Sydney and Perth shells of their former selves, Canberra and Darwin smoking craters, and everything north of Brisbane effectively ungoverned.

As Mister Palmer pointed out with a smile at the corner of his mouth, though, had it really been governed besides on the suffrage of Mister Bjelke-Petersen before the bombs fell, anyway?

And Hawke had laughed, deciding that this was a man he could do business with.

“So what do we make of it then, Geoff?” Bob said as he looked out at the gardens, where an elderly gardener was still pottering about tending to the flowers.

“Well, Britain’s still in, which I don’t think we’d honestly even thought about on our side of the ditch. So I’d say a lot of people are going to get very happy, then very worried, then…” he spread his hands, and Bob nodded. Most of Australia and New Zealand either had friends and family in or were themselves from the UK. The prospect of some of those friends and family still being alive was a dizzying one, even for the two Prime Ministers, closely followed by the possibility that they were dead for sure. Hope was frightening like that.

“According to the skipper of the Perth,” Hawke said, glancing towards the telex from Réunion “the Poms have suffered an almighty knock.”

“Well, quite.”

“London, Birmingham, Glasgow…anywhere worth a bomb and a few places that weren’t.”

“So the capital’s in…”

“Portsmouth.”

“You would have thought they’d hit that, surely?”

“A miss, they reckon. I believe there’s a diplomatic bag being sent; reckon we’ll learn more when the Perth gives us a better report.”

“I did get a quick rundown on the flight from Christchurch to that effect. So they want food, and lots of it, then? Well, Federated Farmers should love this. I think we can manage enough shipping for it; there ought to be a freighter or two about that nobody will notice go missing.”

“Ah, praise be to eminent domain. Well, we’ve got a little time to plan for that, at least. No, I ah, that’s not all, though, yer see. Our fella had other news.” The look that darkened Hawke’s suncreased face said enough.

“…shit.”

“Ye-es,” said Hawke at length. “Seems our man had a meeting with Whitelaw before he left. They tried sending a little boat to the Falklands –”

“Oh, God.”

“– and it came back shot fulla holes an’ down three men. Sea burials, full honours, all that jazz. So Whitelaw made sure to tell him that they’d bombed Buenos Aires.” He exaggerated the words: Bway-nuss Airys. Palmer’s brow creased as a thought came to him.

“I would’ve assumed all their long-range bombers were recalled to Europe for the air war. Suppose they had a trick up their sleeve.”

Hawke opened his mouth to speak, then closed it again as he tried to grasp the magnitude of what he was about to say.

“They did. It wasn’t planes.”

“…oh, shit.”

.... . / .-- .... --- / - . ... - .. ..-. .. . ... / - --- / - .... . ... . / - .... .. -. --. ... / ... .- -.-- ... / -....- ... ..- .-. . .-.. -.-- / .. / .- -- / -.-. --- -- .. -. --. / ... --- --- -. -....-

To seek the man whose pointing hand
The giant step unfolds…

Across the South Island
April 11, 1984

Transcript taken from the National Archives; radio broadcast on the morning of April 11, 1984.

Presenter: …aaand we’re back here on ZM Christchurch; that was one which I’m sure’ll be a classic before too long, it was of course the Dance Exponents bringing you all Victoria. We’ve got another great lineup for you before the news, and we’ll start with…

There is a pause in the recording as someone speaks to the Presenter.

Presenter: Sorry, what?

The Interrupter speaks again, in an excited tone.

Presenter: Alright, alright. Ah, we, we’ll start with one from Split Enz; here’s History Never Repeats.

Background chatter is faintly audible for the next minute and eight seconds, before the song is abruptly cut off.

Presenter: Jesus, uh, folks we, we have some breaking news here; bear with us for a second.

More chatter, with occasional interjections from the Presenter. From this point on the Presenter’s speech is interrupted periodically, as represented beneath with ellipses.

Presenter: We, we do have coming in confirmed reports that an Australian Navy ship has made contact with the Government of England [sic]…my God…yes, yeah, I know, there’s actually someone else EXPLETIVE DELETED well left alive out there…yes, um, we’ll be handing you all over to Radio New Zealand shortly where the Prime Minister is going to make a statement on the situation. Uh, stand, stand by please.

The next two minutes are largely dead air, with excited chatter between the Presenter and Interrupter clearly audible at points.

Presenter: INDISTINCT can’t believe it either, mate; I thought there was nothing left past Aussie INDISTINCT someone alive out there! We’re not alone, thank Christ…

Interrupter: What do you reckon Palmer’s gonna say about it?

Presenter: Who knows, he’s probably only just found out himself; we’ll probably know less than the audience after INDISTINCT said and done.

Interrupter: INDISTINCT hell out of the weather forecast, doesn’t it.
Presenter: Too EXPLETIVE DELETED right it does mate, too EXPLETIVE DELETED right. Oh…wonder what’s left up there? INDISTINCT Poms came through alright, there’s every chance the Yanks did, yeah? And what about the mother EXPLETIVES DELETED Russians?

Interrupter: INDISTINCT… (think your (?)) mike’s on.

Presenter: Oh, EXPLETIVE DELETED me.

Into the sun, the south, the north
At last the birds have flown…

From Shearer, Dave, ‘History Repeats: First Contact, First Fleet’ in New Zealand and the Third World War (Christchurch: University of Canterbury Press, 2004). [1]

…likewise, the first communication from the CHANTICLEER headquarters under the Wiltshire Plain which comprised the vestigial government of the United Kingdom was at first received with disbelief in New Zealand, and soon afterwards with excitement. If full-fledged nuclear war had failed to wipe Britain out, surely that said something for New Zealand’s chances…

…[A]s it was, the Whitelaw regime (for what else can one call a government operating at the end of a gun barrel, except perhaps ‘junta’?) was rather blunt, upon its assessment of the damage in the Antipodes, in regard to its desires for any bilateral relations which might yet be possible. To put it simply, the British wanted food. Lots of it. So much so that, when HMAS Perth returned to Melbourne, it was with a complement of Royal Navy in place of half the Australian crew, with a token shipment of two radiation suits and an Engineer (who had been so keen on his homeland that he had practically swum across Portsmouth Harbour to get aboard) as a sort of down payment, a sop to diplomacy. The message was clear, and although the governments of Australia and New Zealand were suspicious – and to some extent afraid – of the methods CHANTICLEER was willing to exploit to get what it wanted, loyalty to the Mother Country won through with no opposition from the Emergency Cabinet…

…Palmer subscribed quickly to the strategy Hawke suggested during their first meeting behind closed doors in Melbourne, with the tentatively titled Operation Transit of Venus to be launched later that month with the Perth as flagship in what would make a nice gesture of solidarity with the Royal Navy…

…so it was decided. Transit of Venus would commence on the twenty-fifth of the month, in an immense logistical effort (by the standards of mid-1984) which would see tens, hundreds, thousands of tonnes of food collected from across New Zealand and Australia, distributed across damaged roads and through shattered towns to the rail hubs and ports from which they could be loaded onto the task force and its support vessels and from there shipped to the other side of the world. They were to be assisted in this venture by elements of the Army, with the logistics company of the…

It would be a long voyage, nearly four weeks in all, for those aboard, not only the sailors but also detachments of the Army regiment, a company-sized unit under the command of…

[1] The New Zealand version of the book. Copies eventually sent to the UK of 2011’s third edition were heavily edited with any of Shearer’s extensive criticisms of the post-Exchange Government excised on the recommendations of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade. This reduced the length of his chapter from 39 pages to scarcely 20.

Oh, the sweet refrain
Soothes the soul and calms the pain…

.- / -.-. .- -.. .- / -.-. .... .- -. -.-. .... --- / .-.. . / .-.. .-.. . --. .- / ... ..- / ... .- -. / -- .- .-. - .. -.​

Buenos Aires, Argentina
April 4, 1984

“My brother, you know, the one in the Navy,” said Juan's friend Camilo as they walked, “told me that the British were harassing our supply ships off the Malvinas. Apparently they told us tomarlo por culo sobre el horizonte, y fired on the Comodoro Py to make their point – so we fired back in their direction, they tried to sink the Comodoro, we nearly sank them, and then they left.”

Juan found his eyebrow quirking upwards at that one; the Navy had been sore about being put on a leash ever since ’82, and putting Massera under house arrest hadn’t calmed the flames at all. He could have cared more about the godforsaken rocks; a few thousand Englishmen were probably all that were left anyway; best to leave them in peace. Sadly, the people who got to make those decisions had decided to traipse over there anyway with what the news media persisted in calling a “humanitarian aid mission.” If Inglaterra had survived and come calling, though, and the Navy had been fool enough to piss them off…

“Son boludos si esto es así,” he replied “and the Navy as well, if they want to fuck with the people with nukes.” His brow furrowed again. “A moment – would does that mean that there’d still be anything left of England? I thought the Russians had them bombed back to the Stone Age.”

A shrug was all he got in response.

“I haven’t found out anything about that; all I know is what I hear from the radio and see on the TV.”

That got an only half-sardonic smile from Juan; the government was treading an unbelievably fine line at the moment as they balanced the tenuous democracy with one the one side a military which had seen the outbreak of another World War as a justification for the Reorganisation, and on the other the many hundreds of thousands of very angry, surprisingly well-armed individuals who would rather like to see Videla thrown out of a helicopter into the South Atlantic himself. As a result, official reports on the global situation had tended to be…carefully worded.

“Well, so long as we don’t end up like Brazil, we should be fine, or at least further from civil war.”

“In fairness,” ventured Camilo, “they’re down a capital city, which tends to take the wind out of the sails a little.”

“Can’t disagree with you. Well, geopolitical bullshit aside, shall we head to the café?”


The café in San Telmo was like most of the other buildings in the area, full of crumbling grandeur and the faint aroma of history being dimly forgotten. It was an imposing 19th century building which, from the stone façade, the wrought-iron railings, and the fact the windows all faced south, had been erected in the days before architects had finally clicked to the fact that the north was the sunny side. Still, it did at least make for a pleasant enough view of the Parque Lezama on the other side of Avenue Brasil.

So it was in the shade that Juan and Camilo sat just as noon passed, and there they talked and took coffee with some of their more bohemian friends who’d come out of the woodwork since the Reorganisation ended. He quite liked one of them, a young woman with a pierced eyebrow and an expression from behind which she seemed to calmly survey the world. Rosario, he thought her name was. Juan had been working an angle there for a couple of weeks now, and he might be able to arrange something soon, if he was smart about it.

“I don’t see what one priest more or less is going to do in the mountains,” she was saying. “Pinochet’s as much of a bastard as the ones we threw out here, and likelier to do something stupid.”

Some Jesuit had been west recently, to try and minister to the feuding brothers in the Andes. With the somewhat jaundiced eye of someone who’d lived through the Dirty War, Juan couldn’t help but agree that his words would sound sweet and do little. Pinochet was a bastard, after all, and since he’d closed off the Strait of Magellan the two brothers had started unsheathing their fraternal daggers.

“Ah, but aren’t we all God’s beloved children?” retorted another man (Ignacio or something like that, possibly?) in a voice saturated with sarcasm. “The Pope probably found out anyway; all the prayers in the world didn’t save Rome, did they?”

That one may have been a bit too on-the-nose. He’d been to the huge public Mass they’d held along the Avenue 9 de Julio in honour of those who’d died, heard the speech of the Brazilian ambassador, seen the abject depression of the peninsulares who lived amongst them at the news of the destruction of their homeland, and of all the devout at the news that the Eternal City’s votive had been snuffed out forever. Like everyone else, Juan preferred not to think about that.

After a while he shifted uncomfortably in his seat and stood to excuse himself, Rosario’s eyes following him rather deliberately as he did so. «Ho-la, I know what that look means. Well, Juanito, we just have to give it some time, get her home, and then…»

As he performed his ablutions Juan continued to think quite vividly about his nocturnal plans, and it was in the middle of one of the more diverting fantasies (while washing his hands, incidentally) that he heard the shouts of shock from the café. He spun on his heel, hands still dripping, to face the door, and blinked in confusion when he saw the bright light glaring through the gaps above and beneath. Forgetting his amorous intent for a moment Juan strode to the door and flung it open, just as another flash from the north illuminated the streets in a marginally dimmer but still blinding light. Casting an arm over his eyes he had just enough time to add to the confusion with his own “¿Qué coño?” before a third light flashed into existence, a fourth sun in the Platine sky. As the unearthly glow slowly dimmed enough to let one see without squinting, the clamour died down somewhat as people sat in stunned silence.

“So,” began Camilo, “what happened th–”

Then the windows blew in and the sound of a thousand speeding trains the wail of a million damned souls assaulted the ears filled the head shook the soul what the fuck what the fuck, as the blast waves of the nuclear weapons which had hit Buenos Aires swept past.


The three two hundred-kiloton warheads of the Polaris missile had hit in a roughly equilateral triangle about ten kilometres a side. The first and farthest explosion from the group in the café had been about twenty kilometres away, over the Campo de Mayo in San Miguel. The second was much closer, detonating a mile above the Aeroparque de Jorge Newbury and immolating most of central Buenos Aires and the majority of the Argentinian civilian government. The third and final blast occurred in (ironically enough) La Matanza, not too far from the intersection of the Avenue Camino de Cintura and the Calle Brigadier General Juan Manuel de Rosas, destroying a vast residential and commercial area.

As three towering mushroom clouds punched their way through the wispy clouds hanging over the city, sucking up the atomised remains of more than half a million unwitting porteños and casting an unearthly shadow over two million more writhing, dying casualties, Juan peered out from under the table he’d ducked under to see what was left.

He thought the earth was still trembling until he saw his hands clutching at the table-leg, shaking like a case of delirium tremens. He couldn’t hear am I able to hear am I able to see am I dead anything except a high-pitched whine as his ears tried to figure out as much as he had just what had happened.
Someone was on the floor, their face pulped by some of the broken glass which elsewhere littered the floor like a thousand diamonds. As his breathing slowed – as he felt able to breathe again – Juan heard someone crying. It took him a while to realise it was him. He didn’t waste the time on shame; a quick glance showed everyone else doing the same except for those too deeply in shock, unconsciousness or death to do so.

“¿Quién? ¿Por qué?” someone asked of the heavens. Shakily rising to his feet as if for the first time, Juan couldn’t think of any good reason. There probably wasn’t one. As he murmured Dios, nos ayuda over and over he shook his head in shock and fear and denial and panic. No, there definitely wasn’t one.

«…Este país ha sido atacado con armas nucleares…»

.- / -- .- .-.. / - .. . -- .--. --- --..-- / -... ..- . -. .- / -.-. .- .-. .-​

‘Oh, Albion remains
Sleeping now to rise again…’

Trentham Military Camp, Upper Hutt
April 14, 1984

“Alright, stand at ease,” said the Captain. “Now, no doubt you’ve all heard by now the Prime Minister’s speech, and I’m sure you’re all excited at the news. Britain’s still standing, a bit bloody ‘round the brow but still there.”

The Lance Corporal blinked and opened his mouth to ask a question, before a private from another section did it for him.

“Is the war still on?”

A sad smile from the Captain. “Certainly is, Stevens. As far as I’ve been told, yes. There was a rumour that someone in the Urals surrendered –” a brief murmur in the crowd “– though God knows if there’s enough left of Russia to surrender to anyone.”

“Sir?” The Captain turned to face Private Scott. “Has the Brass said anything about the Americans?”

A sterner look. “Nothing that I’ve heard. The Aussies picked up two of their ships in the Indian Ocean, but that’s about it.”

“S-Sir?” A benignly tolerant look directed at the Lance Corporal this time.

“Why…are we being told all this?”

Another faint smile. “I did wonder when someone was going to ask me that. The Regiment’s been volunteered to help with the logistics of an aid convoy they’re sending over to Britain. And we’re all getting on the boat with them.”

I know the way, know the way, know the way, know the way
I know the way, know the way, know the way, know the way…

 

[guinazacity]

and the poor argies got nuked.

the nuclear powers always gotta spread the joy, huh?

 

[Dan]

The taboo about using nuclear weapons has been broken, so in a world where so many have been thrown around like confetti, what's one more missile matter?
It's actually quite depressing that the British government could react that way over a few rocks and a bunch of sheep when they have so much more to worry about ITL.
And actually plausible too.

 

[Salamander]

Re: the phosphate situation, there are some deposits around Milton (Otago), not large and not currently economically viable, but they were mined up until the 1950's. ITTL they could come in handy. Also, a lot of the smaller "town supply" dairy factories were still operational in the more remote areas.

 

[Bernard Woolley]

Interesting to see that hindsight by historians has survived The Exchange.

It's actually quite depressing that the British government could react that way over a few rocks and a bunch of sheep when they have so much more to worry about ITL.
And actually plausible too.

Not to mention about 1,500 British subjects and a very good source of food. With Britain fighting not simply for the continuence of her way of life (as in previous wars) but for her very survival of course the government was going to react in pretty much the only way it could.

The British government also just sent a very powerful message to anyone looking to try to take advantage of the UK's perilous situation - 'we may be down, but we can still hurt you. So don't f*ck with us'.