20 April, 1993
On Saturday 17th April the band was booked for a double appearance gig at the Autumn Festival in Arrowtown. Both trucks left independently around 8:30 with an arrangement to meet in Roxburgh for a cuppa and a "Jimmy's pie". Our first appearance was to be on a stage in the main street at the opening ceremony around 1pm. Kathryn had teaching commitments that morning and so arranged to miss this performance and arrive for the dance that evening in her own car, bringing with her John Clark (National Radio producer and recording engineer) who was by now our regular soundman.
Pushing a slight headwind all the way with a tired engine put the Pogmobile behind schedule, arriving at Arrowtown nearly an hour later than the new truck. However, the slow trip gave us plenty of time to take in the breathtaking Central Otago autumn spectacle; golden poplars and willows, Californian poppies and red rosehips. We arrived on the dot of 1pm and as it happened, were not required to play till around 2:30. After the opening ceremony we played for 20 minutes to several hundred appreciative townsfolk, then moved the gear up the street into the community hall to set up for the dance that evening. Meanwhile festival activities continued in the street.
At one point we heard a siren and wondered if the Volunteer Fire Brigade was putting on a street display.
After setting up in the hall we checked into our accommodation in the New Orleans Hotel then went up the street to a restaurant for dinner, ordered our meals and sat down. A man wearing an AVFB tie came in, came over to our table and asked for John Steel, Bruce Cull and Mark Laws by name, reading from a piece of paper. He said that he just been in attendance at a road accident and that Kathryn West was in the Frankton Hospital.
The man with the AVFB tie also told us that John Clark was dead.
The waitress served our meals.
As we ate in shocked silence, hollow taste and dry mouths, a phone call from the organisers to the restaurant asked if we would still play. We decided to play. The way we saw it, we could either play or sit around feeling helpless. Mark, wisely, took it upon himself to move the sound desk from down on the floor to the stage; the thought of staring at the unmanned desk at the back of the hall all night was a bit much.
John (Steel) downed his meal and took off to Frankton Hospital where he stayed with Kathryn until she was put in an ambulance and transferred to Invercargill Hospital. He then went to the Police and identified John's body. We all have unspoken roles in the Pog Band and there seemed to be no question that this was Steel's.
It was a tortuous wait until the dance started. We knew that now the body had been identified the Police would proceed to inform his family and their shock was foremost in my mind. I phoned home to allay any fears that may have been caused by any news item that may have vaguely mentioned the band. Once the dance started we were on a roll, although very much on auto-pilot. Everybody in the community and at the dance knew what had happened and were wonderfully supportive, giving us plenty of space and offering sympathy when appropriate. At the end of the night we recieved a standing ovation.
The next day Bruce, Mark, Ben and Richard headed home in the Pogmobile while John and I went to the local garage to retrieve Kathryn and John's belongings from what was left of her car. I was dreading this. Until now I had only had to face the tragedy through other people's accounts; pulling their bags and gear out of the wreck was confronting the reality head on. The car, an old Honda Civic, was a write-off. It was clear that the wheels on the left side had dug right under and all the forward inertia of the car had been transferred to side on motion as the car had rolled several times along the road coming to rest up the right way. With the low autumn sun in her eyes Kathryn had driven into the gravel verge and lost control as the car had flicked out to the right. The passenger cavity was less than two-thirds its former capacity, the whole left hand side (where John had been sitting) was crushed from the door to the middle of the roof. Every window was completely smashed. There was a small amount of blood on the right-hand door pillar. We removed the luggage, glove-box contents and Kathryn's violin, all of which had escaped any damage.
This done we drove to Queenstown to give a radio interview that had been arranged earlier in the week. Again sympathies were extended to us from all quarters including the Mayor of that town. We headed south to Invercargill to see how Kathryn was faring.
She was doped up to the eyeballs with morphine but very glad to see us that afternoon. Her father had arrived earlier and was with her when we arrived. She had sustained a broken collar-bone (from the seat belt) and a severe laceration to her elbow, both on her right side. The elbow injury was of some concern; the nerve to her little and ring fingers had been partially severed and she had no sensation in those fingers. She was under observation as she was expected to go into delayed shock.
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