LifeStory

At the time of my birth in August 1947, my family lived in the Bank of New Zealand's manager's house in Redan Rd, Kaitaia. This was to be a fairly short occupancy for me, as my father was to retire from his position as the BNZ manager the following year, at the age of 60, and we would move shortly thereafter into a new house built on an acre of land in Okahu Rd. For about 6 months, while this house was being built, we stayed in a rented house in Arkles Bay, Whangaparaoa, a time that my mother and brothers remember fondly, though I was too small to have any personal memories. Family tales of the time, however, give me the sense of having been there. How many of our childhood "memories" are actually of this type? Having been retold many times, such tales embed themselves in the fabric of our own memory. One such "memory": My cousin Lorraine, aged about 6, running inside, wailing, "Mummy, I trot on a bee!" "Not 'trot' Lorraine..."...

I was born Mary Josephine O'Sullivan in Kaitaia on 19 August 1947, at a time when this small rural town was a pleasant microcosm of post-WW2 New Zealand, not the marijuana-and-meth headquarters that it appears to be today. I was the third child of Marjorie and John, following on after my two brothers Michael John (9 years older) and Kevin George (6 years older). It took me many years to realise that I was probably something of a surprise arrival, as my mother was 42 and my father 59 at the time of my arrival. However, despite the surprise aspect, by all accounts I was a much-loved addition to the family, with my father, by then in his 60s, taking me shopping in town in our big Ford V-8 car, patiently holding the door open for me until I deigned to climb down to street level, much to the amusement of local gossips. So, let's backtrack to how I ended up being born in Kaitaia in 1947. My immigrant story is no doubt quite typical of many New Zealanders, being a tale of poor work...