When I was a young boy, probably 8 or 9 years of age, I was rather free to roam with my friends. We would often go down to the Wairau Creek, near my house and play on and in the stream. Fishing for eels and building tinnies (canoes made from corrugated iron, patched with tar). We also roamed on both banks of the stream; playing in the native bush on one side of the stream building huts and having wars while on the other side we had Mr Vaughan’s orchard. Do I need to say more? I am sure you get the picture. It was rather an idyllic life. Lying on the forest floor eating a peach while the fantails were flitting around us.
One day I snuck into Trevor Vaughan’s orchard to steal fruit but he caught me and gave me a right telling off. He knew full well what we did; that the local kids took fruit from his orchard. He explained to me that day the difference between stealing and gleaning. He asked if I knew what windfall fruit was and explained that he didn’t mind if we came into the orchard and picked up the ripe fruit on the ground which the wind had blown off. That was fair game, that was gleaning. But to climb the tree to pick the big ripe peach at the end of the bough or to shake it off by jumping on the bough was not on. That was not only stealing but it also ruined the other fruit which prematurely fell off as well and then lay there to rot on the ground. He didn’t like that practice of ours. I got the message and told the others. Some years later when I was older, he hired me to pick fruit in his orchard. Mr Vaughan was my rugby coach for one year until I changed to real football and he also taught me boxing for a brief period of time. Although he scared us all at first, I came to learn that he was a very fair-minded man and treated people with dignity. I didn’t realise it back then, but before I knew anything about the Bible he was teaching me Bible principles.