little store by his feats. In later life he seldom spoke of them. No-one knows what happened to the myriad medals and trophies he won. Few in Scotland outside the games circuit have heard of him, and the ultimate irony is that the New South Wales Police, whose ranks he graced and enhanced for 38 years, have completely forgotten him.
But this is not quite the end of the McHardy saga. Charles and his family at Taranaki cleared bush and made a successful farm. Of his remaining five sons, four became farmers and one a banker. Their descendants are mainly farmers, with a sprinkling of professional people. Charles's great-grandson Bob told me that he and his three brothers have 20 sons between them.
Charles's second son, John, was an excellent heavy, but his feats in this field were eclipsed by his Spartan stoicism in the mid-1890s, when he was working alone in the bush in Opunake, clearing land for his farm, and broke his leg. Unaided, he found a piece of tin, and fashioning a rough splint, tied it in place with flax. He then somehow caught his horse, saddled and mounted it, then managed to ride 28 miles to the nearest medical aid.
Emmet Charles McHardy, the younger of John's two sons, was born in 1904 at
Pihama, where by this time his father was |
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successfully farming two blocks of land. His parents wanted him to become a doctor, but his elder brother John was a priest, and Emmet also felt a call to enter religious life. He started his Novitiate when he was just 17, and was ordained seven years later, being overjoyed when his request to be sent to the North Solomon Islands was granted. In his three years there, most of the time single-handed, he was tireless in his work, and not only built up a flourishing station and school, but was a prolific letter writer and enthusiastic photographer. Not surprisingly, his selfless devotion to his calling exacted its own price, and he died at the age
of 28.
In 1979, the year is which Father John McHardy, his brother, died, worshippers started to use Emmet's name in their prayers and, following the miraculous recovery of a young man, a growing number of people thought that he should be glorified by the church, which has endorsed a prayer including his name.
The road to canonisation is a long one, but Emmet McHardy has made a sure start, and when he completes it, his journey's end will mark the most significant milestone yet in the saga of a truly remarkable family. |
