JAK-73

The first story lines written for JAK-73 chasing freedom go back to October 1998 … 

 

   I attended a public talk on genetic engineering with my husband Bob, a physicist.  It was a ‘hot’ topic.  At the end of two hours of mind sizzling stuff we decided it could affect us all.  A demanding commitment to the issue followed.  Bob died in December 2008, but his legacy remains:  11 books; scores of articles in publications like Organic New Zealand; and many dozens of public talks throughout New Zealand.  See www.connected.gen.nz.

 

   A fact in my stories always has a base in an actual issue, even though the story is fiction.  During the two-plus decades from that 1998 talk, a massive amount of information crossed my desk. 

   Ideas can come from things I read, see, hear, experience, am told.  It is often three separate bits of information that ‘click’ into place which I then work into a script and that script is worked on a lot! 

   This is how JAK-73 chasing freedom got underway. 

 

First click – In October 1998, there was the talk.  There was also an article about a bee-like drone in the New Zealand Herald.  Kek eats an insect in flight that turns out to be a bee-like drone. 

Second click – UK nightclub patrons whisk an ID chip implanted in an arm in front of a gizmo that reads their details and extracts payments due.  In a separate issue, an unsolicited email said Canada was going to insert IDCs in new-born babies.  That was a hoax, but my imagination took hold of it.  

Third click – I visited the Wingspan Bird of Prey Centre in Ngongotahā and met New Zealand Falcons.  Ruby landed on my head!  I wrote a short story about a falcon for my Writers Group.  Members insisted it was a bigger story and it grew into JAK-73 chasing freedom.    

Three clicks. 

 

   Much of the background material for JAK-73 chasing freedom came when I worked in a voluntary capacity as a Coordinator for Physicians and Scientists for Global Responsibility New Zealand, a Charitable Trust, from 1998 to 2019 (www.psgr.org.nz).  This exposed me to a constant flow of material.  Although in the public domain, some of it was not widely circulated.  Sadly, acceptance of ‘things new’ takes time.  If there is ‘big money’ to be made that is often the deciding factor.  Here’s an example of how influences can shape outcomes.

   In olden days, scurvy affected sailors on long voyages.  Without treatment they could die.  Today we know scurvy is caused by a chronic deficiency of Vitamin C brought about by a lack of fresh fruit and vegetables.  Captain James Cook solved the problem on his ships when he gave his crew lemon juice, vinegar and sauerkraut.  In NZ waters in 1769 he harvested a cress Māori call ‘nau’. 

   In 1867, a ship’s chandler named Lauchlin Rose patented a method to preserve citrus juice as a concentrated drink known as Rose's Lime Juice.  It is still marketed under that name today.

   In the 1920s and 1930s the Hungarian Albert von Szent-Györgyi Nagyrápolt, a professor of medicinal chemistry, gave Vitamin C its name, also known as ascorbic acid, and Vitamin P a.k.a. rutin.  He demonstrated to science and medicine the healing effects of these vitamins and how important Vitamin C is for our immune system to function effectively.  In 1937 he was awarded the Nobel Prize in Physiology/Medicine “for his discoveries in connection with the biological combustion processes, with special reference to Vitamin C …”

https://www.nobelprize.org/prizes/medicine/1937/summary/.  Using the term ‘anti-scorbutic’ tied it to fighting scurvy. 

   Today, many understand the worth of Vitamin C although it is rarely used in conventional medicine.  One has to wonder why some experts even deny its efficacy.  The main reason is Vitamin C cannot be patented because it is a natural substance and thus has little to no potential to earn ‘big money’.  It is pharmaceutical drugs that make the ‘big bucks’. 

   Luckily, JAK knew of the importance of green vegetables, what they are and where to find them.  He said of New Zealand’s native celery and dandelions underfoot in one hideout, “They’re edible greens.” 

   They provide Vitamin C and also fit into my ‘three clicks’ practice:  scurvy, remedies, well-being. 

 

   With the material passing over my desk for PSGR, I built a credible backcloth to JAK-73 chasing freedom.  Add in life’s experiences and my familiarity with JAK’s bush, shores and sea, I had a tangible feel for scenes and JAK’s experiences, and he remains a well loved companion to me.  I know him well!  

   JAK chases freedom through New Zealand’s North Island from Little Barrier Island to the Urewera Forest south of Whakatane in the Bay of Plenty.  Half a century on these places have numbers and no name.  I have walked and/or sailed those routes, except for Little Barrier Island where one cannot land without special permission.  For that Island, where JAK-73 starts chasing freedom, I drew on accounts written by people who have been there, books on its flora and fauna, my view from offshore, and my imagination. 

 

Most writers draw on life’s experiences …

 

   One for me was the donkey ride I had on a beach in England at age10.  (click Meet Grey)

   The fishing wall outside JAK and MIN’s cave home relates to one I saw on Great Mercury Island. It was built in the mid-1800s and is detailed in an account I have read written by a boy living there at that time.

   I saw bioluminescence on the sea at Great Barrier Island exactly where and as described in JAK-73. 

   On one sailing holiday a cyclone kept us sheltering at anchor in Port Charles on the Coromandel Peninsula for eight days.  Waves were still huge when we moved on under sail and our yacht leaned well to starboard.  I stood below deck in the galley looking out and up to port.  Swimming through a wave well above my head height was a dolphin!  This was part of our sailing experiences with storms.  It helped me ‘be there’ in RON and JAK’s storm in a small dinghy and unable to control where it took them.

                                                                                                               

Wind, rain and sea battered their craft, its noise defying talk.  Waves grew steeper and deeper.  From the bottom of a trough, they towered above the dinghy.  From a wave top, it was a sickening plunge to the bottom again.   

                                                        I have been there!    

You can read an ‘Interview with Jean Anderson’ on the Christchurch Library website https://my.christchurchcitylibraries.com/new-zealand-childrens-authors/jean-anderson/. 

See the work of PSGR on www.psgr.org.nz.