Czahn Armstrong Takatāpui Talk

In this powerful and deeply personal episode of Takatāpui Talk, I sit down with playwright, storyteller and proud uri of Ngāti Hine, Czahn Armstrong.

Together we explore identity, whakapapa, grief, whānau, creativity and the journey home to Te Ao Māori. From memories of his father and childhood in the North, to the origins of his play ĀE WOMAN — inspired by the true story of his great grandmother and the confiscation of her whenua in Pipiwai in 1965 — this is an emotional, funny and beautifully honest kōrero about survival, storytelling and becoming who you were always meant to be.

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Arohanui.

Transcript

SPEAKER_05 0:00

Kyoto Kocho, and welcome to Chuckat Pui Talk. I'm your host, Donald Hollingsworth. Today I'm honored to be joined by Zahn Armstrong, a storyteller, playwright, and proud Uti of Natihine. In this corridor, Zahn shares his journey from childhood and leaving home to finding his way back to his Fenua and his voice through writing. We speak about identity, resilience, Fano, and what it means to carry and tell our stories. This is a powerful one and honest conversation. One I know many of you will see yourself in. Let's begin.

SPEAKER_03 0:51

Oh my grandparents. My mum's parents. And and my dad's parents. So my dad's parents were Sam and Sue Armstrong. And my mum's parents were Jim and Sarah Prime. Because I'm the firstborn, I'm the Mata Mua of Alfano on both sides. I was the eldest grandchild, and because my parents were so young when they had me, mum was 16 and dad was 20, I was the only grandchild around for a lot of growing up. But my sister and brother really didn't spend that much time up in Moriwa when we were growing up, or in Kalkawa for that matter, but I was there like almost every weekend of my life up until I was an adult. And being around those kind of people who were brought up in the church. Yes. So my so my mum's parents are born-again Christian and my father's parents are Mormon. So having that kind of faith around my whole life was very grounding for me. I always saw church as something that was very Māori. It was there was never, I never saw it as a Pakia way of moving through the world. Because in both in both denominations and in both those churches were predominantly Maori people in those congregations. And a couple of Pakia, sure. But just growing up around people who had old school values that they grew up with, that they were all the tikanga that was involved in that, like moving through the world proudly as Maori. Yeah. So that was a huge thing. Huge thing. Huge thing for me. And plus they spoiled me, as they always do with the first grandchild. Yes. Very looking for indulged. And that was in mostly in creative stuff. Even though I was I had a natural ability for it, it was just still not. Just yeah, just wasn't my thing. What about Tereo? Was there a lot of Tereo in the church? Yeah. More than I noticed, it was more in in the Christian church because my grandparents used to hold their sessions in Tereo. Actually, it was bilingual. It was bilingual. But I do remember at one point, I think it was when I was in high school, my my grandparents, my my mum's parents, my nana and papa, they used to take church at the Muhinui Marai out of Wayomyo? Yes, yes, I know. So those were always in Tril. I never took uh Til at school because when we were growing up, it was something that was really only for ourselves. It was never utilized as something to ford our careers or like in the world. I was brought up around the real. We didn't really speak it at home. No. Like growing up. My dad, I remember when my parents split up when I was like 10. My dad had because he would have been 30 at the time. He went through a big thing about like going back to he went, he went back to Polytech to learn. But what I found, and this is even what I found, like being home as Maori, we don't learn our little, it simply re-emerges within us. No, you you you live it in different ways. Yep, absolutely you live it. Yeah, you live it. And that's and that's how you learn it any language, I feel.

SPEAKER_05 4:24

What did you know when you when your eyes started opening to yourself? Like who how when did you sort of think I'm different?

SPEAKER_03 4:34

Oh, from a very young age, very, very young age. I think it's far as back as I can remember, because of the reaction I always got and still get from the world around me. Yes. Just the way that I move, just the way that like I say things, and that's and and and that probably has a lot to do with my autism and my ADHD as well. You know, though? Sorry? You don't think it's just being us who we are? And oh yeah. Oh, without a doubt, I think within our community that we just we we kind of have to move through the world like differently. Firstly, out of safety. Yes, first and foremost, because we grow up in the closet and with a lot of homophobia like around us, and we see uh the violence that happens to other people who are like us, and so it's uh it's always around safety first. And and I'd have to say it probably still is, and I don't think I probably don't think like that will ever leave me. And I'm okay with that. What did you experience at school at CUDA? Well, it was kind of like a double-edged sword because I was very popular at school, right? But the double edge of that is that you get even you get picked on even more, right? You know, because it's like, oh, why do you think you're so special? It's like, well, take a look. It's not my fault, you're you. You know, and so what I learned very young is that you can be whatever you want, but it will trigger other people, and then they will project whatever they can't handle onto you. And then I learned at a very young age that that actually has nothing to do with me. No, it doesn't. That's that's and I learned that it was probably a really good lesson I learned at a very, very young age, very young age in primary school. And I must say I I got lucky because I was I was nurtured through school by all the women in my life and all the females in my life, and that's just not at home, that's the girls I went to school with, the female teachers who were teaching me as well. And so when I found out I was gonna go to an all-boys school, you'd think a little gay boy would love that. Oh no, I was terrified. I was terrified. I couldn't think of anything worse. It was that bad that I begged my parents to send me to a Catholic school because at least that was co-ed. Yes, you know, yeah, and and and at least there would be like a feminine energy or forces that I could I could feel safe with. But then when I realized I was going to that all boys school, like whether I liked it or not, it's just like, well, okay, I've gotta I have to navigate this for my own safety.

SPEAKER_05 7:15

Where was the boys' school? Was this like your 13 when you turned 13?

SPEAKER_03 7:19

Yeah, so at Fangaday Boys, so so even though I was born and raised up north, we actually lived in Fangaday. Right. In the big city, so but I mean, like home, and when I mean home, I mean like Kawa Kowa is only a 35-minute drive. So for me, it's really all the same. So even now, when people ask me, Oh, are you from Fangaday? I I always said my entire life, no, I'm not. I lived there, I went to school there, but I'm not from there. No, different place, really, isn't it? Very much so.

SPEAKER_05 7:49

Different place to home. And did you go home with what sort of did you feel you needed a little bit more support at home when you came home from school? Like when you were going to the boys' school, like what's yeah, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_03 8:01

But because at that time my mother had married her boyfriend, who was now my stepfather, okay, and my younger, my sister, who's only two years younger than me, and uh our brother, who's five years younger than me, were all at home as kids. And then I just I kind of I kind of realized I was on my own. Yeah, I was on my own, and that no matter what bad stuff came along, I was gonna be on my own. Well, no one was coming for me, basically. Yeah, no one was coming.

SPEAKER_05 8:33

It's because they don't understand, yeah, and that's not actually their fault because they're not living our lives, exactly.

SPEAKER_03 8:40

Yeah, yeah, yeah. And and and having said that, I've never held that against my parents' stuff at the time, because we've had Cordy Doyle over the years, and the boys said we're really sorry, you should have been more empathetic or or more supportive. I said, Yeah, but yeah, sure, but I I don't hold that against you. I mean, I and I'm gonna put my own on this, I wasn't I wasn't the most easiest teenager to fucking deal with.

SPEAKER_05 9:02

Well, we're constantly on the defense to tell the truth, yes, when we are constantly, you know, diff people are at us all the time. So we are we learn to be defensive. It's our first way of reacting to any situation, yeah.

SPEAKER_03 9:15

And and with that defense, you know, it comes in all sorts of form. And because I've got a slick mouth, I knew I caught along very early when I was a kid that that my words could get me out of trouble. I could always just as easily as I could talk my way into trouble, I could just as easily talk my way out of it.

SPEAKER_05 9:32

And so so did you have any like creative outlets that made you feel better, or like sometimes people have sport or well, actually, what made me feel better was music.

SPEAKER_03 9:43

So I used to come home straight from school, lock myself in my room, put my headphones on, and just listen to music. And when I was a teenager grow up, a lot of it was a lot of it was musicals, yeah, a lot of it was hip-hop, opera, just basically stuff my parents didn't get or understand. And it actually got a blunt. I remember in the third form, my parents, it's funny now, but I didn't find it funny back then. They confiscated all my music, so all my musicals. But were you listening to them privately though? You had headphones, yeah, in my room. But I think it was more the fact that it wasn't so much the music, it was the fact that I was locking myself away from the world in my room. Yeah, because I uh it was just so hard having to deal with my family. And at the time there was a lot of tension in the house between myself and my stepfather and my mother being in the middle, and my younger brothers and and sister not really understanding. And and why should they? They were kids as well.

SPEAKER_05 10:43

And so you couldn't really cop a break because you had it at school and then you would go home and you'd be yeah.

SPEAKER_03 10:49

And then when I couldn't be at home, I'd go to the library, right? It's still my favorite place in the world because the library is is is one of the few places you can actually be by yourself, and people will just leave you alone. Yes, because that's all you want, that's all you want. Yeah, you just have complete autonomy, and because I was always into reading and writing, I could just lose myself in books. And plus, at the public library in Fangaday at the time, it was one of the only places I was able to read magazines from overseas. So, like The Vogues, The Harvest Bazaar, Rolling Stones, The Vanity Fairs, The New Yorkers. And I used to steal those magazines all the time because I couldn't afford to buy them. And I'm sure those librarians were onto me, but they just thought, oh, there's that nice little Mary boy. He doesn't we'll let him take the magazine or or I would bring back the magazine with half of the pictures torn out. There's nothing like a bit of vandalism, but but like all those pages I tore out ended up on my walls because we couldn't afford to buy me like any of the latest like teen magazines. I remember when teen magazines were like huge back then. I think I must have been the number one sculpture that didn't have one close. Yes, yeah. So I'd have to go to the public library to read them.

SPEAKER_05 11:56

What were you hanging on your wall? Gowns, dressed women.

SPEAKER_03 11:59

I was a lot of sports illustrated stuff at the time, remember, because I thought those because I thought the photography was just beautiful, beautiful, a lot of auture stuff. Like I couldn't wait for when the September edition would come out. And I wouldn't even bring that magazine back to the library. I'd just pay that. Well, not that I pay, I get my parents to pay the fine because I'd say that I'd lost it. When all the while I was like at home reading, and it was almost I actually had to sneak around to read it, so that's why I went to the library all the time.

SPEAKER_05 12:30

It's Kai, it's food, isn't it? Food at the time. It's food.

SPEAKER_03 12:34

Absolutely.

SPEAKER_05 12:34

Yeah, I love that absolutely. Yeah. So then you left home. Yeah. Well lead you to moving home and going to the city.

SPEAKER_03 12:45

Well, when I was shit, I think it was maybe 14 or 15. My parents had kicked me out and I went to go live with my dad, and that was an even worse experience. It was just Oh, okay. Oh yeah. I won't get into it, but it was really, really traumatic. I think for between my father and myself, we actually thought it was a good idea because we thought, oh, we're gonna get to bond a little bit more and stuff, but that's that's not what happened. I think I think the stuff that had happened at at my mother's house only really got worse when I got into my father's and my stepmother's space. I really felt like they didn't want me there, that I was only there because you you have a legal requirement. And uh plus, as my um said, my dad, well, it's your turn. Yeah, like you're the dad, you need to take responsibility. So he did as best as he could, but I think I was only there for maybe maybe a year.

SPEAKER_05 13:43

And how bad for you all? I mean, that's that's that's quite that's rejection, really. This is from both of them. It was no and all you were doing is being yourself, you weren't actually harming anybody.

SPEAKER_03 13:54

Yeah, that's what I'm doing. But apparently I was I was harming everyone around me, and I'm just yeah, but being yourself, yeah, it was, and then I got into even more trouble at school. I wasn't going to school, I was bunking all the time or stealing. I was just it was really toxic, but it was just I don't even at the time I was just trying to make it from day to day, yeah. Like like I'd wake up in a house that didn't want me, and then having to go to school, fuck, that was even worse, and then knowing that that was the only place I had to go back to, and then it just got worse. And then and then my parents decided which it's probably the best thing that they ever did. That's when they decided, all right, you're gonna go live with your grandparents full time up in Kalkoa, you're gonna go to school. Yeah, so I quit halfway through was it the fifth form or the sixth form? I think it was halfway through the sixth form, and that's when they moved me up to Kalkoa to live with my maternal grandparents full time, and was the best thing they ever did. You loved it. Oh, I loved it, and and and what I will say, my grandparents they pretty much had me on a tight leash, but not but but loose enough to make sure that I still enjoyed myself, and like they let me go out with friends and stuff, and not all the time, and when I mean but not all the time, I don't know how many times I snuck up to parties from my grandparents' house, and then at the time my younger cousin who would be staying with us, and we'd like over the weekend, we'll walk to school like on a Monday, I would sneak out on a Saturday night, and I I would put like the pillow under the under the cover to look like someone was sleeping, and then I'd be like, Shh, I'll be back in the morning because I had to be back before they woke up because we had church on the Sunday. And then so I did that for like a whole year being at Bay College. Yeah, it was like seventh form. It was great, man. It was just it was really awesome just being home. And then halfway through that year, I was approached by these two ladies who were part of Northern Youth Theatre. Oh, right, and they were doing and they were and they were doing the rounds of all the schools to recruit kids for the upcoming uh summer season. And they came in and I was really into musicals at the time, and I'd heard of youth theater, I'd been to some of their shows, and uh and they said, Well, we're having an audition weekend, like why don't you come down? I was like, Yeah, cool. What's the show you're doing? So it was Godspell. I was like, ah, I know that back to Friday. Of course, of course. I can play all the parts. So I went along to the weekend, I got cast.

SPEAKER_04 16:34

Mm-hmm.

SPEAKER_03 16:34

Uh now Godspell's only a small show. I think it was only maybe like 10 of us, I think. But for that whole season of youth theater, there would have been like maybe 200 kids. Yeah, so like it was huge. And then the guy who was directing us, his name was Jim McMullen, he was also a tutor. He just started being a tutor at Polytech at the drama school there. And he was like, What are you doing next year? I said, Oh, I don't really know. And he goes, Well, have you thought about drama school? Are you really enjoying yourself? And I just went, shops, I've got nothing else better to do. So signed my life away on the dotted line for a student loan, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And then I did that for three years, straight out of school. So that was so I finished school in '95 and then did drama school '96, '97.

SPEAKER_05 17:22

Where was the drama school? Sorry, where was it?

SPEAKER_03 17:23

In Auckland. In Barnaday. And when I got there, it had been already going for a couple of years, and it's okay. Uh like reputation. Yes. Then I've gone to that, and then I was introduced to this entire creative world that I didn't know existed. Yes. Do you feel that you'd come home or yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, my people had found me. Yes, yeah. You know, I've always thought that, you know, I've been really blessed in that way. Is you know, is that stuff has always found me first. Yes.

SPEAKER_05 17:59

Yeah. Yeah, you because you couldn't even have imagined.

SPEAKER_02 18:03

No, not at all.

SPEAKER_05 18:04

It's there in front of you, yeah, and you take it. Yeah. Absolutely. Just getting back to your grandparents when you compare them to your own parents. Do you feel because they were your grandparents that you might have had a different respect for them? Oh, yes.

SPEAKER_03 18:19

Oh, yes. Oh, yes, yes, yes. As I got told many, many, many times, my grandparents aren't the parents that my parents grew up with, you know, and I really didn't understand that until I got older. Yeah. You know, because you know, I can never understand like, why are my parents fighting with their parents? They're the coolest people in the world. Yes. Yeah, you know, but as I know now that I'm a lot older now, that you know, uh, there's a reason why those things are. And I think, especially for my dad's parents, it was a little bit different because a couple of years before I was born, my father was in a car accident with his twin brothers, and one of them passed away after that car accident. Oh, and my father was never the same ever again, you know. That trauma actually, it really affected our entire family. And then so, so he died in 75, and I was born in 78. So when I came along, it was kind of like almost like a new start for you know, for my family, especially for my grandparents. Because you were the the first one, you were the first one, yeah. And I'm sure they saw that as a way to keep the connection with their son, yeah, uh my father, you know, and which it did, you know, and which it did, and which it really did.

SPEAKER_05 19:33

So yeah. And so then you moved to the you moved to the city basically, farmaday, or then yeah, yep.

SPEAKER_03 19:40

Was there for three years, and then um when um I graduated, um, I toured New Zealand for a whole year with this group called the Aunties. Um, I think they're still around. So they're almost like a Māori version of the Wiggles. So they did uh um a lot of um song and dance theater aimed at primary school kids, and our particular show was uh it was all bilingual, and it and we did Māori myths and legends, and we did Kai and the Whale, and we toured that all around the North Island, all around the South Island. So it was a fantastic experience, my first year out of drama school, to be not only find good paying solid work, but to tour the country for a whole year. It was it was really wonderful, and then that's when I moved to Auckland. Yes, you know, and then I got an agent, my auntie Vish, she had a really great agent at the time, and she basically dragged me into her office one day. Her agent took one look at me and just went, Well, if you're any as good as your auntie, you're signed up. And so, yeah, and so then I was waiting tables on the side and then just starting out in the industry and stuff, and I gotta say, I found it really just disheartening because there was like little or to no work for young Maori and Pacifica performers. You were putting you were put in a box, yeah, basically, and through no fault of anybody's, but but it was just I kept having to go for auditions for rapists or gang members and stuff, and I never got cast because I didn't fucking look like any of them. You look like such a nice boy, you didn't like me, you don't because yeah, I said, Well, I am. I've never I've never been in trouble with the law, I've never been to court, I've never had a I've never had a speeding ticket, and they're like, Yeah, we can tell.

SPEAKER_02 21:20

Yes, and and then I'm like, Well, how do I get these roles? They're like, Well, try acting, and I'm like, Oh, okay.

SPEAKER_05 21:26

Did you find it difficult to deliver those sort of lines when you're auditioning for these types of roles?

SPEAKER_03 21:32

In the beginning I did because I couldn't do it with a straight face. Yeah, so I wasn't doing myself, I wasn't doing myself any favors, eh? I knew I was talented, I knew I had the goods for it, but what I quickly learned in in the industry is that you can be the most talented person there, but it really comes down to look. Yeah, and especially in film, like producers and directors can teach you on technique, how to deliver a line, but like whether is in if you're in the theater, they're a lot more harsh as they should. And there are a lot more critical. So, like in film, you can kind of almost work around it. Yeah. Yeah. And and then so, and this was after like, and then like after three years, I was it's not that it wasn't progressing. If I'd probably stuck at it, it probably would have had progressed to somebody which I felt really good about, but it wasn't. And shit was just going down. I was in a really toxic relationship. Yeah, he was an alcoholic, and I it was my first relationship too. And he was a lot older than me, too. Beautiful man. Oh god, tall, blonde-haired, blue-eyed, broad-shouldered. How did you meet? Oh, we met at work. Okay. We used to work in the same restaurant in Auckland, and he was the host, and I was on the floor. I was a senior waiter in Auckland. We were only making we were making $13.50 an hour, and we thought that was pretty awesome. We were the top waiters in Auckland. And making great tips, man. The tipping was phenomenal because that was around the top, the time of the America's Cup. Okay. So all those people were in Auckland and just spending money like hand up fist. And then that relationship just got worse and worse and worse and worse until I really, really had had enough. And because I was also dealing with the fact that he was HIV positive, which he kind of kept from me until he couldn't hide it from me anymore. Because I was like, what are all these marks on your body and stuff? It looks like he got a rash. Well, I know that's now seroconversion. And uh and he admitted to me that he caught it through a sharing needles. Okay. And then and then so I kind of doubled down and just went, Oh, I can't leave him now. Yes. Because he's sick. And me as the partner, I have I I I proudly bore the responsibility of looking after him. But I couldn't in the end. Just the just the drinking, the temper tantrums, the abuse, it it just got too much. It just got too much. And then the final straw was I'd lost my F-Post card, couldn't find it anywhere. And so I went to go get a new one. And then I checked my bank balance and the teller had said, Oh, look, there's no money in here, it's all gone. I said, What do you mean? I've lost my card. I haven't been spending it. And then she goes, Does anyone else know your candle? I said, Yeah, my partner does. And she was like, And I said, Warwick, no, he wouldn't do that to me. I know, I know. And then so she goes, Well, how about we go through the statement? Oh, I just go through the statement, and she's like, Oh, you spent such a money at Flesh, and then you spent some more money at Flesh, and then you spent some more money at Flesh, and I'm just like, Okay, it's him.

SPEAKER_05 24:37

And then something in me just and so so what Flesh was a gay bar and it was on Five Street, wasn't it? Or yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_03 24:46

It was upstairs in the old squid bar. That's right. Yes. Yeah. Fabulous place. It was great. And then something in me just really snapped. And I just had had enough. I I literally packed all I could into my bag, went across the road to my ma he told them exactly what had happened. They're like, Have you got a plan? I said, Yes, I'm going to Australia. My mum has paid for the ticket. And they said, What about your flat? I said, Well, it's his name on the list, even though I'm paying the rent because he's not working. And at that point, I didn't care. And they said, Have you got somebody to go? I said, Yep, I'm going to be up at my mum's. He won't, he won't dare show his face at my parents' house. No, they were living in Auckland at the time. How did your mum respond to it? Oh, she was overjoyed. She was like, You've made this decision. Yes, I'm happy for you. What do you need? Yes, I will pay for that ticket to go to Australia. Right. At that time, my brother and sister were living over there. Right. And they were living in Sydney. And so I went to Sydney first to go see them. And then I moved up to one, I moved up to Brisbane. So yeah, you know, I ran away from a toxic relationship. And it was probably the best thing I ever did for myself at that time. I just like I said before, my people found me over there.

SPEAKER_05 25:56

Well, sometimes some people don't know that it's toxic and they stay in it for a very, very long time. Well, I was one of those people. Yeah. Yes. It's like you had voices or people that were with you, which I can only describe as our fucker papa, really. Perhaps your great grandmother. It's almost like a protection that we have and we're able to make these decisions. Absolutely. Absolutely. So you never saw him again. That was it.

SPEAKER_03 26:21

Well, I well, actually, I did run into or I did run into him again, probably in like 2010 in Brisbane of all places. So this is where I'll Oh, where you'd moved to, yes. Yeah, yeah. I moved, had been there for a while. New Year's Eve. We're at the big bar, the big gay bar in Brisbane. It's called the Wickham. Great place. So anyway, I'm there with my mates, we're all drinking, and uh then my friend goes, Hey, I gotta say, there's this guy that's been staring at you ever since you walked in. I'm just like, oh, really? Which one? Okay, they said, Oh, the tall blonde one behind you. And then I'm like, oh, okay. I turned around, and there he was. And right in that second, I just thought, oh, I'm actually okay. Because in the seven years between the last time I saw him, I'd actually done a lot of work on myself and and and forgiven myself and forgiven him. Yeah. You know, so when I saw him, it wasn't fear, yeah, or sadness or anything. It was like, oh, it's work. Oh, I'm gonna go and say hello. We embraced, we said hello, and then he he gave me the up and down, and he was like, Wow, you've really changed, you've really you've you know really matured into into a man, yeah. And I said, Yeah. Yeah, because you were a teenager, right? When you met him, yeah, yeah, yeah, pretty much. And then I said, I suppose I kind of well, I don't owe it to you, but you're the reason why I came here. And how did he respond? Well, actually, he was like, Of course, such a smart ass backhanded response. And then we got talking for about like 10-15 minutes, and then he had like his kind of friends who he'd obviously maddened were drinking and stuff, and then I said something. Oh no, he said something about my mom. And then I said, What did you just say? And he goes, Oh, is your mum still like that? And I just went, and then I thought, no, no, he's poking me to get a response, and yeah, I could see it coming, and I just went, It was really lovely to see. Yeah, I'm gonna go now. Because I went back up to my friends and they're like, is that the guy who you left, the one who hit you all the time? I said, Yeah, do you want us to go over and give him a hiding? I said, No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. I'm sure he would love that, but we're moving on, and then so as I walked away from the pub, he was behind me, like throwing beer bottles and just screaming and shit at me and stuff, almost like uh almost like a temper tantrum, like a like like like from a child. And as I was walking away, it really empowered me to just be like, man, that's awesome. All the work that I've been doing this whole time has served a purpose for if this occasion was ever going to come, and that's probably what made him angry.

SPEAKER_05 28:52

Yeah, you know, it's seen he's so it's seen how you'd change, you couldn't control you anymore.

SPEAKER_03 28:56

Exactly, yeah, exactly.

SPEAKER_05 28:57

Yeah, did any of that time and him did it influence your storytelling?

SPEAKER_03 29:05

No, no, because when I was with him, because we were just working all the time and I was doing like like auditions, but in terms of like writing, no, I didn't do any writing. Oh, you didn't? Okay, no, no, I didn't, I didn't up until well, I probably say for a lot of my life, the only time I would I would really concentrate on writing was when I was in a depression or a funk. Right. And I would use writing to get me out of it. So and it would only serve as a hobby. And writing was something I never ever shared with anybody else, like a few people, like close friends, and they would say to me, Man, you're pretty good at this, Aren't you? You should think about a career. For me, just being in hospital because I was I was really bloody good at it and making really good money. I thought, well, no, I'll just I'll just stay in this lane.

SPEAKER_05 29:50

Let's talk about that lane. So you were in Brisbane and working in restaurants, and yeah, what were what was that like? But tell me what restaurants did you work at?

SPEAKER_03 30:00

Did you work at a few? Yeah, well, when I first got to Brisbane, I worked for a guy named Stephen Holmes, and he used to own this restaurant down on the river in Brisbane called Eve's on the river. And luckily for me, a cousin of mine was going through a divorce, and uh, she owned an apartment upstairs. Wow, and yes, when I first got to Aussie, sorry, when I first got to Brisbane, she's like, Oh, you can stay up there and get a job downstairs so you don't have to stay with me.

SPEAKER_01 30:26

So I was like, Yeah, sweet, right?

SPEAKER_03 30:29

And I was right in a new farm in the middle of a gay ghetto uh in Brisbane, so it was perfect, and uh, he was a wonderful boss, and this is what I quickly found out over there in Australia is that they love Kiwi and they love Māori, yeah. They love Mori because we work hard, we play harder, we're loyal, we don't really complain, we just get on with the job. Yeah, and I think he was just really glad just to have a good worker. And uh I stayed working for him for seven years, seven years, yeah, throughout his different because then he opened up another restaurant, another eat, and then he opened up another bar right in the city, which I worked at, and that was man, that was fantastic fun. And then I left there, and then I went to and then I found a job with my last boss, his name is Andrew Baturo. Okay, wonderful man, wonderful man, very big in the hospital scene now in Australia and in Brisbane, and he and his first restaurant was called Libertine, French Vietnamese kay. Honey, let me tell you, let me let me tell you, French Vietnamese. I know people are, what no, it's yum.

SPEAKER_05 31:39

There was a restaurant in Sydney called Tetsuya, and that was French Vietnamese, yeah. Well, okay, so it was like tetsuya, not on no, you know how it's like Tegascape.

SPEAKER_03 31:51

Yeah, no, yeah. Well, it was more like shared plates, okay, yeah, like Tuck Buffs. And when and when Andrew first opened that place, a lot of places in Brisbane were still very old school, still very fine dining, very 80s and 90s. Yes, yeah, or you would go to the pub, yeah, for your chicken palmy or your steak or whatever. Yeah, and then so he was really one of the first places that really popularized shared dining. And when I got there, he'd only been open for about not very long, I think he'd only been on here for about two or three months because they originally used to have a libertine in Potts Point in Sydney for years and years and years, and it was only like on a smaller scale, and when him and his business partner both moved back to Brisbane and started having families, that's when they decided to open up this libertine. So that's where I started with there. And man, it was wonderful. And I was there, I worked for Andrew for 10 years. Wow. And in that 10 years, he really he really built up a fantastic portfolio of all his other restaurants and bars, which is now part of a conglomerate called the Dapinco. It's okay. And to his other business partners. Fantastic. Dennis and Paulie. Hi, darlings. And uh he was a wonderful, was not was, he is a wonderful man. He became my my boss, my mentor, my older brother, my father figure, my cousin, my best friend. I I probably wouldn't be here if it wasn't for him. He he was one of those wonderful hospitality operator owners that as soon as he found a great hospital work, he would do everything in his power to keep you there, whether that be like a pay rise, or we might start giving you Saturday Sundays off or stuff like that. And that's he and he could obviously see that I was loyal and that I worked hard and that I was fun. And not only that, and this is what it goes back to my point about Aussies love us Māori, because we work hard and we play harder. Yes, you know, whether that be sports or or whatever arena you're in, that's just the way we are. And then and that relationship still blossoms, like to this day. Like he was like when my dad got sick, he would fly me out to Perth on his dime, I don't remember paying it back, or he would fly me to New Zealand for Tungi and stuff. Yeah, I would tell him, and because he knew, like being Maori, Fauna was everything to us, you know. So there was never any question of whenever I had to do something for my fana, he'd be like, Absolutely. There wasn't like I need a note from you from your comatwa saying that you're doing this. And I think that's actually because his wife's kiwi. Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_05 34:31

And he's just Australian, well, not just Australian.

SPEAKER_03 34:35

He's gonna lumber when he hears that.

SPEAKER_05 34:38

Was he no European, like Lebanese or no?

SPEAKER_03 34:41

Oh well, his well, because his name is Baturo, his great-grandfather was Polish, right? So very family-oriented the Polish. After one of the wars, yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, they are and so Andrew and uh and and I and I have to mention his wife, Jamie as well. They've and still do, they were always there for me. And then when dad died in 2017, my dad had called me up on the phone, and which is random. The only time he calls me is when he wants something, and I'm just like, oh, what does he want this time? Really apathetic about it. And the voice I got on the other line was, I just said, Oh, you sound really far away. And he goes, No, he goes, I'm just he goes, I'm quite ill. And he made no bones about it. He was like, the doctors have said they can't do anything for me anymore. I'm in my last days, like basically. And that's a that's a like that's a lot to you know to comprehend and to put on someone. And then he goes, and then we had like we had a little bit more of a cordial, and then my brother and sister got on the phone about it, like just to say he's just not saying this, this is actually a thing, and they didn't expect me to come home, and I didn't, and I thought, well, actually, like this is your own doing. You can go and rot on your own. It's like, now you want me to come home. Oh, now you want to spend home. Well, of course you didn't. Oh, yes, oh yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes. And then so right away, I called Andrew and told him exactly, you know, like what had happened. Then I started crying, and then um, and then he goes, What are you gonna do? And I said, I'm not doing anything, I'm staying here. And then very calmly, he said to me, he goes, Sani, if you don't go home and help your brother and sister look after your father, you will regret it for the rest of your life. And I knew he was right, you know. I you know, I wasn't about to um launch into you know a big spell of why I shouldn't. You know, I knew very well that um I had to go home, but he knew that before I did. I just needed a little gentle nudge, yeah, you know, and um so I did, and then and then I said, Oh, what about work? And then he goes, Don't worry about that. And he goes, and don't worry about your rent either. I'll sort that out for you. And I said, Look, Andrew, I don't know how long I'm going home for. And he goes, Well, that's okay. He goes, Look, I tell you what, if you're still over there after a month and a half, you know, like we'll reassess the situation, you know, but don't you worry about it. So um um uh I called up my landlord, they were great as well. They understood because they were regulars of the restaurant as well. That's how I got the place, you know, that I was in at the time. Yes, and then so um um I came home and um my dad didn't know that I was coming home, and um Andrew paid for it, and then got home, and my dad had just come back from the hospital, and what I thought was a 58-year-old man coming down the stairs. He walked into the room, it was like he was a hundred years old. His skin was all yellow, so was eyes. He had a he had a quite um he had a tumor on his pukoo. Right. I didn't recognize the man who walked in, and that's when I realized I was just like, oh, okay, all right, so this is real. So between my family and my brother and sister, we looked after after my dad in his last days, and he died January the 28th.

SPEAKER_05 38:21

So like a month after you got home, yeah, yeah, pretty much.

SPEAKER_03 38:25

I'd been home for a month, and I remember about four or five days before he passed away, I had to have like a meeting with the fano. I said, because for about the oldest, you're the oldest son, you're the tour cannot. Well, that's the thing that really terrified me as well. Yeah, this entire time. I was like, man, I need to step up and just I don't know how I'm gonna do it, but I'm gonna do it anyway. However, that presents itself. I will be open to anything and everything, right? And then there was about four days where with dad, he looked like he was getting better. Like he was up, round, walking, he was eating. Wow, that was the big thing for us that he had a big appetite because up until that point, he he just didn't, he he he couldn't stomach food and he was eating, he was playing guitar. We took him to the beach one day, and we just thought, oh, he actually might he actually might make this. But then, like we were told by quite a few people who've been the same experience as we had, oh oh, this is what happens. And then literally on the fourth day, it's like a stage of death, do you mean?

SPEAKER_05 39:30

Stages of death. Yeah, sure.

SPEAKER_03 39:32

It's almost like their last hurrah before they have to go back to to dying again.

SPEAKER_05 39:35

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 39:36

And then so I had a meeting with my father, and I just went, look, if this continues, I I said, look, if dad doesn't die within the next two weeks, I have to go back to Australia. I said, I've got a life back there, I uh I've got rent to pay. There are people who are covering my ass. Yes, and and they all agreed. They go, sure, because everyone was back here. I was the only one who came back over. And then and then I and then I think I think after that meeting he died like maybe a week later. Okay. After that, he didn't get any better. No, and then we had the palliative care people like come in and they say, man, they're basically saying the best thing for him is to keep him at home, morphine, just keep him comfortable as much as he can. And then he passed away. And I gotta say, that whole week of the tongue him and him leading up to him him like dying is all kind of all blurred. The only thing I actually do remember was him refusing to die. I always say he had to be dragged into the afterlife, screaming and having to kick. There was one point we'd been around his bed for like about seven hours, and he had the death rattle and everything. We thought, oh, it's coming. And then it looked like the moment it happened, we all kind of held hands, and then it went quiet. And then, like, literally, maybe 10 seconds later, oh and I gotta say, it was so funny.

SPEAKER_01 41:05

We all cracked up laughing. We're like, come on, Ariel. You know, there are people waiting on the other side.

SPEAKER_03 41:13

Okay, that house was filled with spirits, you know, for those in the days.

SPEAKER_02 41:18

And then he passed away maybe another another two hours later. He finally passed.

SPEAKER_03 41:24

And fond memory of him. My fondest memory of him. Oh, was probably when I was a kid. So when him and my mum were we're still married, he would take me out fishing. Oh, wow. Or take me hunting. Yes, yeah, yeah. I remember one particular one we went, and I was never really into fishing or going hunting and that stuff. It was just the fact that I was I was with my dad. He was doing stuff that he absolutely loved, like horse riding or just being out in the bush or whatever. It wasn't for this queer deer. But I loved being with him. I remember this one time we went on an overnight camping trip out at Erkitz Bay out at Fangaday Heads, and he said we're going camping. So I thought, oh, camping, yay, how this is gonna be great, until I realized that we had no, he didn't bring a tent. I was like, oh, where's the tent? And then he pulled out this big black tarpaulin, and I just went, What's that? Is that for us to sleep on? He goes, No, it's our tent. So he literally he put it over a branch, tied it down, we think out our swag, and I just thought, this is not what I signed up for. And then it started raping and shit. And of course, the fire that we had went out, but that entire night he kept me awake and telling me all the stories he had of when he was growing up and he would go hunt in the bush with his grandmother.

SPEAKER_05 42:39

Yep.

SPEAKER_03 42:40

And all the stuff that they did. Yeah.

unknown 42:43

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 42:43

So those are my happy stories. Oh, very much like well, because he was happy. Yeah. And then when my parents split up, he realized that he really fumbled the bag big time in regards to being a husband to my mother, right? And a father to us. And then he married two times after that. Then the second wife was Robin, they were married for seven years. And then his third wife was Ada, who was his old girlfriend from church college, and they reconnected at their old high school reunion. And uh because sorry, I should have said so. During this time, my dad had left the Mormon church become a born-again Christian. Okay. Yeah, I know, right? And when he met up with Ada, she was still in church and had recently become a widower. And she said to my dad, Well, this is the line here. If you want us to be together, you have to come back to church. And for my dad was a no-brainer. He was like, Yep. Yeah, I'll do anything for the woman I love. And when they got married, I have to say, he became just a he became a more approachable father. Like he actually wanted us around because he became a stepdad to her eight kids. Right. By his third marriage, should you say? Yes. Yeah. And Ada was a wonderful woman. She was. She's not she's not here either. She died a couple of years before Dad. Oh yeah. And uh she was she was so beautiful. And I think those two being together, he was finally able to be the man that he always knew that he could. And then when she died, it just he knew he never really recovered after that. Right. I think she died like maybe two years before he died.

SPEAKER_05 44:26

Mm-hmm. Yeah. Yeah. I think that's a good idea. Did you see them all? Did you see them all while he was sick? Oh no, because you just said she'd she'd passed before a couple of years. What about the second wife? Did she come to visit or no?

SPEAKER_03 44:40

Well, well, funny enough, I didn't see her unlike until the tonguey. She showed up. She showed up. It was it was really, really nice to see her. Really nice to see her. And they had a lovely marriage for as long as it lasted, and then they both wanted different things. Yeah. And so, and that's why that ended. So, what about your mum? Oh, she's still married to my stepfather, so they've been I'm 48 now, so they've been to together for over 30 years now. Okay. How was she when he was quite sick when dad was sick? Oh, mum was really, really cool. She's a Christian, she goes, Well, I'm gonna come over and pray for your dad. Okay, okay, cool, cool. So now they hadn't been in a room together for a very long time. A very long time, very, very long time. And they had moved past all their own crap and stuff. Yeah, and when we told dad that mum was coming over to visit, he we he goes, Oh, I have to look nice. So we got him showered, dressed all nice because he wanted to look nice, and he did, he looked really good. And uh, she showed up and and we kind of just gave them their space out on the balcony. Mum wasn't there very long, so they probably would have spent maybe like 10-15 minutes together just talking, mum praying over him. Yes, and for us kids, it was just really nice to see our parents together sitting in that space. It was really beautiful, it really, really was. It really was. And one of the first things that my mum said to dad, she was like, Are you ready to meet the Lord, Ariel? And he goes, I am Pearl. And she goes, Have you said what you need to say to our children? And he goes, Yes, I have. And she goes, Is there anything you want to say to me? And he goes, Yeah, there is. And so he said whatever he had to say, and my mum hugged him, and then she she laid hands on him and prayed. Yeah, and it was just it was really beautiful, it really was, and and then and then mum left, and then I think maybe he died maybe like three days after that.

SPEAKER_05 46:38

Okay, yeah it was final, wasn't it?

SPEAKER_03 46:40

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_05 46:42

And did he truly speak to you, three children? Your brother and no, no, seven o'clock.

SPEAKER_03 46:49

What he did, what he did do though, is that maybe like two weeks beforehand, one of his really good friends had come over and they were just having a discussion, and it was actually his his friend who came up with the idea. How about we just get your voice on tape about your thoughts and stuff, and you can share like what you want to your children, because having a a court or can it can bring out the best or the worst in people, right? So him and my father sat down and talked for hours. And then after my dad died, he sent us the recordings, and he he talks about his life and what you know, his regrets and what he should have done, and then he goes through each and every one of us. So he goes to my sister first, because she's the favorite, and that's right, she's daddy's little girl, and like, and then my brother, and then he comes to me, and he really didn't have that much to say, which I really wasn't surprised by, but what I was surprised by was David asked him about, well, how do you feel about your son being gay? Now, I have to preface this is that throughout my entire living life, while my dad was alive, it seemed to me that he never had a problem with it. Like, he wasn't openly homophobic to me or or said stuff around me. I mean, I'm not saying he was glad that I was gay, but he definitely came from that generation of Māori who went like issues like that came up, you just didn't talk about it. You ignored it, yeah. Yeah, ignored it, yeah. Yeah, and not that he hoped that it would go away, you just didn't he just didn't want to have to talk about it. So I always I always took that as as dad was really on my side. As it turns out, when I heard that recording, he actually said to his friend, he goes, actually, I I've found it hard my whole son's life to deal with. But he also said in that same sentence, but he goes, but it it does not compare to the hardship that he faces in the world. And so he said, I always made sure that whatever feelings I had were my own feelings, and I wasn't going to project those onto him like some other family members had done to me.

SPEAKER_05 49:04

That that that always interests me, that statement to think that we are not tucked up being tackled up, we're not happy. We are in a really bad situation, yeah.

SPEAKER_03 49:16

Yes, but but but I think we can both safely say that like we know where those concerns come from, yes, from from people outside of our community, and those and those thoughts are valid, extremely short-sighted, really short-sighted, yeah. Because we're really happy. But he said to his friend, the one thing one of the things that I love about my son is that he's always known who he is and he's never been afraid of it. Yeah, he's been absolutely fearless of it, he's embraced it, even though people his entire life have have tried to shape him into something that they feel that was. Your father said this.

SPEAKER_05 49:57

Yeah, that's beautiful, son. That's beautiful.

SPEAKER_03 50:00

So for him to for him to get as far as he has so far with everything that has happened in his life, he goes, I'm really proud of him. You see that? Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_05 50:10

That's wonderful. And so you went back to Perth, sorry, you went back to Brisbane after he'd passed.

SPEAKER_03 50:15

And yes, I went back to Brisbane and foolishly thought that because I really didn't see my father in my when I was alive, it surely his death won't affect me at all now that he's dead. Oh no, man. Nah. The grief was how do I put it? Actually, I'd say it was kind of it was almost delayed, but one thing that did happen to me two weeks after I got home, I saw him.

SPEAKER_05 50:41

In your bedroom.

SPEAKER_03 50:42

No, no, no. On my way to work, on my way to work.

SPEAKER_05 50:45

I was on the side of the road.

SPEAKER_03 50:47

Darling, are you ready for this? Okay, so this is in the middle, so this would have been in the afternoon. I think I had to start work at like 4:30. So I'm walking to the valley. It's like a half an hour walk from my house because uh because I was too stingy to pay for the train. So yeah, so I walked there, and then I'm sitting at the lights and I look over and I see this motorcycle pull up. And my father was a motorcycle nut. He had a Harley Davidson, yeah, the letters, everything. And then this guy flips up his visor, and I see my dad, I see my dad on this Suzuki, this black Suzuki, because man, I know those eyes anywhere, and they were smiling eyes, yeah.

SPEAKER_05 51:28

Right.

SPEAKER_03 51:28

Smiling at me, yes, smiling at me, and then he just well, actually, even before he drove, I had to look away because I thought it was hallucinating. Yes, I had to look away, and he was like, no, that can't be real. I looked back, and there were those eyes smiling at me, smiling at me, yeah, and then he drove off, and then I got to work, and I was a complete mess. I was bursting to tears. Even homeless people were coming up to me, going, Are you okay?

SPEAKER_01 51:54

Yeah, no, no, I just saw my dad and he's dead. People were like, Oh, well, all right, girl, keep on walking on your way, on your way.

SPEAKER_03 52:07

And that's when my grief really sets out. Yeah, yeah, very much so. And then probably about 18 months after that, so into 2019, my grandmother passed away. Oh gosh. My my mum's mum. Yes, and she'd been sick for a while because I had seen her in January of that year when I came home for the summer holidays. I knew she was sick, she was looking because she'd had another bout of cancer, and so we kind of all knew that it was on the cards at some point, possibly this year.

SPEAKER_05 52:38

Was this the grandmother you lived with when you were a teenager?

SPEAKER_03 52:40

Yes, yep. So my nanoprime, okay. My nano prime and my papa was still alive, so she went first and he died a year later. And uh when she died, oh man, it was just that it was just like grief after grief after grief, yeah, which I almost couldn't keep up with. No, and that's when that broke me a. It was just and even though I had been mentally preparing myself about this for years, nothing ever ever prepares for you when it actually happens. So, what had actually happened is that when she got towards the end, everyone started flying home from wherever they were. I got the call on, I think on the Sunday. Well, like, no, no, I got the call on the Friday. On the Sunday, when she was still in the hospital, I talked to her on the phone, so she was still uh oh, your grandmother.

SPEAKER_02 53:28

Yeah, and she was like, hello, darling. I'm like, oh hi, Nana, I'm coming home, I'll be home tomorrow. And she goes, No, you stay there and please don't make a fuss. I'll be fine. I'm getting out of here on Wednesday.

SPEAKER_03 53:42

I mean, she left on Wednesday, it just yeah, it was feet first, and and then so I got on the plane that morning on Monday morning when I got to Auckland. Um, I got through customs and then I went over to the domestic airport waiting to get the flight up to Carrie Carry, and then I opened my phone and then I got the message that she'd passed away.

unknown 54:03

Okay.

SPEAKER_03 54:04

And like an airport full of people. And this is one of the most beautiful things that happened to me. So I'm sitting there and I on my phone, there's tears streaming down my eyes, and I'm I'm openly ugly crying now. So, like the circle around me is getting wider and wider and wider and wider.

SPEAKER_01 54:20

Someone's like, oh please someone go and talk to that poor little Mary boy.

SPEAKER_03 54:24

And then out of the corner of my eye, I'm at first, I see this Māori girl sitting down and making her way towards me. And I'm like, Oh, yay, thank you. Someone's coming up for me. I look up and it's one of my cousins. Right. She was on her way to Lot of Louis. She knew about Nana, but she didn't know that Nana had died, and she goes, Oh, I'd be coming for you, man. I said, I just found out she died, cuz. And so she held me in that space, you know, until we had to get on the plane, and then we come up here, you know, we did the tongue and stuff. I go back to I go back to Brisbane. Um and then my life just fell apart.

SPEAKER_05 55:00

Right.

SPEAKER_03 55:01

It just it just I had I had the bottle hard. Yes, bottle hard, you know, for a good like maybe four or five months.

SPEAKER_05 55:09

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 55:10

You know, and you know, because where I lived um in Brisbane, I used to live just behind the street. Um, it's called uh Caxton Street. Okay. And the bottom of Caxton Street is where uh Suncourt Stadium is, it's where they have all the gate. And along that strip is where all the pubs and bars are. Well, I lived at the bottom of that hill. My mahi was at the top of the hill.

SPEAKER_05 55:29

So that's how convenient.

SPEAKER_03 55:30

Oh, yes, telling. I know where it's like to live where the parties are. So it was like, you know, maybe like a hundred meters if that. So what I would do is that I'd finish work at nine, and then I would visit all my friends in all the bars, get wasted, make it to the bottom of the street where the bottle was, I'd get a bottle of wine, go back to my apartment, put some music on, and then drink that bottle of wine, and then pass out. Yes. Wake up, hung over, and repeat. And I did that every day for maybe like five months. Okay. Until it started affecting my work. Right. Like I was making really basic mistakes, and I and and the more I tried to get myself to do better, it just made it worse. And I'm still drinking, and actually, I think there's something that drink got its worst. It's really heaviest. Then I was like drinking behind the bar at work. Right. Just having shots in the morning, then I'd have a shot at lunch, and and then each day as the week progressed, I'd make another mistake. And then the mistake was even worse than the one than the day before. And then it was, and then I and then I got to Thursday, and I just thought, okay, there's a pattern happening here. I need to, I need to obviously recognize it. I'm in trouble. This isn't normal. It's starting to affect my work. And so I just thought, what am I gonna do? And then I thought, all right, I have to go home. I have to go home. I have to go home and heal. And this isn't just like I'm just gonna go home for six weeks. I have to go home for as long as it takes, right? And and you're at liberty? Yes, yes, Andrew. Andrew, yep, with Andrew. And then so I called him up early the next morning. I said, I need to have a talk with you at work before I start. Because I always did the days and I was opening, so showed up. I just let it all out. I just what was going down, and I cried, and I said, and I said, I have to go home. I have to go home and heal. And then he said to me, Goes, Oh, Zani, that's the best thing I've I've heard come out of your mouth for a while. That's awesome. He goes, I don't know, actually, you don't realize this, but you were this close to getting an intervention from myself and your friends who love you. Yeah. I was just like, How long have you guys been talking about this? We go, probably about maybe the last like two and a half weeks. Yes. They'd all been watching from afar, all knowing very well what I'd just gone through, but it was getting to a point where it was starting to affect like the customers at work and something, something I'd never had a problem with before. And that's when they were okay, at some point we're gonna have to step in. But Andrew actually said to them, No, no, no, I trust Zarney, he's got this. Yeah, I mean, it doesn't look like he's got this, but it's just just he basically said, if you hadn't come to me on this Friday, we would have been having the intervention on the Monday. Right. No, like we would let let's see how the weekend pans out. And if it's the same like every other weekend for the past five months, then okay, we're all gonna go in. And then so then I told my other work friends, and then he said to me, He goes, Well, look, the GM at the time was about to go to Europe because she's from Turkey. She was also my neighbor and very good friend, G. And then he goes, Look, G's going away for six weeks. This is what I propose to you. He goes, How about you give up the piss? Drugs I didn't have to worry about because I really wasn't abusing those, but he but he goes, How about you give up the piss for the next six weeks? So at least, like by the time when it's time for you to go, you'll have you'll be clean. You'll be clean, you'll be sober, and go home with a clear mind for the next step in your plan. And I said, Oh man, I and he goes, Do you think you can do it? I said, Yeah, sure. And I did, and I did. The only time I really and I really found it hard not drinking is when I'd go it out socially for lunch with my friends and stuff. And then I just found ways around that. Like they said, oh, we won't drink. I said, Don't be stupid. Like, this is my thing. So I just drink like a mock tail or sparkling water or something. I mean, yeah, only for six weeks. And then I organized my move over here. I spoke with my sister and my aunties and my uncles for counseling and stuff. And they said, Of course, please, yes, we want you to come to pie here. It's like, oh, poor me. I get to convalescent hill in one of the most beautiful places in the world. Poor me, poor me, poor. But it still seemed like the bush to you. Yeah, because when I came back, my brother and sister, they actually pulled me aside and they said, We just want to let you know now that you're home for good, home's gonna be a lot harder. It's not like when you're home for a holiday and you you're having a holiday, you've got all this money, no responsibility, or what it here, it's very different now. So you have to find a job and stuff. And living in a small coastal town of like 1500 people where everything shuts at like eight o'clock. But that first year was hard going, hard going to get back into. Yeah, it yeah, it it really, really was just basically like reconnecting with my family. And I'm not saying that that was hard, it was just something I really didn't anticipate.

SPEAKER_05 1:00:38

Right. Yeah. How were they responding to you?

SPEAKER_03 1:00:41

Oh, they were responding to me great. I mean, I was really open about why I was coming out. I think it was more me because it's like they only have really known me over the past 20 years from coming home for a holiday when everything's really good. Now they're gonna get to know like the full me. Yeah, the the the old alcoholic uncle who's come who's coming home to heal in our small town. But but that was just my own insecurities and making up that that own story in my head, you know. And uh and then so basically I got back into I got back into hospitality, and then I just started working, and then I was working for one of my cousins who owns uh the catering business in Kawa Coa. And then she shut up shop for renovations for about six months. Then after the six months, we'd moved into uh the new premises. So the new premises, so her cafe is actually in the old movie theater.

SPEAKER_05 1:01:33

In Coahua. Yeah, yes, I know, yeah.

SPEAKER_03 1:01:36

Wow, okay, yeah, beautiful, beautiful. So I went back in, so I'd had essentially six months' rest, so my my nervous system had reset itself. Okay. First week in, and it was just so hard. The vibe had changed. My cousin's expectations as my boss and and as a business owner had changed. Obviously, I had not. For some reason, I was like, this feels a lot harder than it should. And and I'm the most experienced person working in this place, and I couldn't get why. And then just like my alcoholic week in Brisbane, every day just got worse for me. I was making simple mistakes, and then I thought, okay, the same shit is happening, but I'm not drunk this time.

SPEAKER_05 1:02:21

You know, so how how were you feeling? Were you feeling what how were you feeling in a in a word like were you feeling micromanaged or what were you feeling?

SPEAKER_03 1:02:28

No, oh yeah, sure. Yeah, yeah, okay, yeah. I was feeling micromanaged, but I was feeling the anxiety was just like yes, okay, had just gone back through the roof. And for someone like myself, I can't with autism and ADHD, you can't contain that kind of feeling, no matter how much you mask. Yes, yeah. And I think the more I tried to do that, the worse I was actually making it for myself, and more further on making it worse for my cousin and all my other cousins who I was working with. Okay. And then, and then so one day my cousin, who's my boss, actually had to pull me aside. And gently she said to me, She's like, Cousin, I just have to share this with you. And you know, when a cousin takes that tone with you, you're just like, okay.

SPEAKER_05 1:03:16

I know that tone, yes, yes, yes, yes.

SPEAKER_03 1:03:18

Loving but firm. Loving but firm. Yep, yeah. And she goes, I just gotta say, cuz straight up, at the moment, you're the hardest work for me. Yeah, and that man, that hit me so hard. And she was it only being honest, and thankfully, I'm so thankful that she was honest because what that said to me, immediately as soon as she said that, I knew this isn't for me anymore. Okay, so because this is what happened to me in Australia when I was drinking. It's like this life that you've been living and having fun, so this isn't for you anymore. So the universe is gonna move you somewhere else. And then so you can acknowledge and see it. Oh, so can I, thank God. There's people that can't, yeah. Well, look, I've got to be honest with you, I think it's because I'd made that mistake probably like three times beforehand. Yeah, and it's just like, man, I'm not all right, universe, I get it. Okay, so I had a talk with my cousin, explained the reasons why she got it. Yeah, you know, she cried, I cried, we hugged, and she goes, What are you gonna do, Zani? And I just went, I don't know. I don't know, and I'm okay with that because I've been here before without and so then I was staying at my auntie and uncle's farm, and I got back on the on the motorbike to go up to their house, and I cried the whole way. I howled, man, ugly cried. So I thought, what am I gonna do? I just had nothing. And so then I got home, had a cut of here, cried again, and then I got a message from one of my cousins who I was working with, obviously he had just found out what had happened. And uh part of the message, which is the most important part that really got me, she goes, Don't worry, cousin, your higher calling will find you. Yes, and that and that really spoke to me. So I thought, What is that? Am I gonna be brave enough to say to the universe, what is that? What is that? Yes, and then so what I realized whenever I've faced stuff in my life, I've always written stuff down. So basically, I've got up my pen, yeah, and I've got it my pad, and I just went, I'm going to write. I'm going to write. I'm going actually here it is here.

SPEAKER_05 1:05:26

Wow.

SPEAKER_03 1:05:27

Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 1:05:28

Yeah, you've got to keep that forever.

SPEAKER_03 1:05:30

Oh yeah, I plan to. I think I think the date on yeah, the date here says February 3rd, 2025. So I write that. And then and then I'm just like, What am I gonna write? What am I gonna write about? And then I thought sorry, I should have said this earlier.

unknown 1:05:50

What?

SPEAKER_03 1:05:50

So for the past couple of years, I've been involved with a bunch of artists, actors, and directors in Fangaday are presenting readings of Māori Play. Oh, okay. Company called the Native Stage Collective. So it's actually the artistic director, or the creator of it. It's actually one of my aunties, her name's Noor Campbell. Okay. Actor, director, writer. And so I'd go to Fangaday, we'd do these readings, I would do rehearsal and stuff. And then, and then every then every so month, the collective would get together and just like have a little wanana about share about stuff we're working on. And one of the meetings that I went to, I knew for a fact that everyone who's going to be at that meeting was already working on stuff. Now, me, I didn't have anything. And I thought, I'm not showing up to this meeting empty-handed. So I was like, what am I going to talk about? And then so I remembered my auntie Ave had had approached me not long after my father had passed away when I was living in Australia. That she said if I was interested in writing a play about my great-grandmother. Wow, okay. So your auntie Ave was that your father's sister? Yes. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And uh she goes, You've got talents in Brandon? She goes, How about it? And I just went, No. I really wasn't interested in it at all. Really at all.

SPEAKER_05 1:07:02

Oh, I was well, is that your feeling about your grandmother or your great grandmother sorry?

SPEAKER_03 1:07:07

No, no, I just didn't want to write. It just seemed too, I'll be honest, it just seemed too hard. I just thought, oh God, all the research. No, no, I'm I'm not into that. But as I'm walking to this meeting, that comes into my head. And uh so basically I got to the meeting and and I told them I said, I'm I'm going to write a play. It's called I Woman. And they went, Oh, I. I said, well, it's actually A-E. So the Marikuku for yes, that actually seems like yes, woman. So I said, it's actually about, it's it's a true story about my great-grandmother, my dad's grandmother, and about how her land was stolen from her in the 1960s through a land development scheme and how she spent the last 20 years of her life trying to get it back through the courts, and how the bureaucracy and misogyny and racism of it all really wore her into the ground and uh through PTSD and her dementia, and it essentially destroyed her. And when I said that to them, they all just went that really happened to her.

SPEAKER_04 1:08:17

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 1:08:17

And it's not even that long ago. And I said, Yeah, and we're and we're still finding it to this day. We're actually at the pointy end. We actually probably are gonna get our land back, but we've had to my family had to jump through so many hoops over the past 60 years. Because when my great-grandmother died, then because she thought she was gonna get it done in her lifetime, then it went to my grandfather and his sisters, it didn't get done in their lifetime, and then it went to my father and his brother, they died still finding. So now it's come to the third generation of us. Where is the band? Oh, out of Pipiway. Pipiway, which is in what region it's up north, I understand. Um, it's up in Natihine, up in Tai Tokido. So it's about 40 minutes drive west out of Fangaday. It's right in the bush, man, on like a tiny little dirt road. Beautiful, beautiful.

SPEAKER_05 1:09:09

And so this land, this venue had been in your great-grandmother's history or fucker papa for oh, generations, generations oh 200 years, yeah.

SPEAKER_03 1:09:18

Oh 300 years, yeah. And then so I thought, I'm gonna do this play, right? And so I'm sitting at home and I'm just like, all right, Zani, so how are you gonna write this? So because you're gonna need research, right? Yeah, yes. Then I remembered my aunt had sent me, because 10 years beforehand, my auntie Ave, through the help of other Fundo members, my auntie Delarin and and and other people had acquired research to put forward a claim for the Waitangi tribunal. Okay. So that was like in 2014, right? So that was at the time where the tribunal was actually actually going into the Murai around a lot of raw hair around New Zealand to hear the grievances, like firsthand grievances. And at that time, my grandfather's sisters were all alive, so they all got to give evidence at this at this hearing. And then so out of that, my auntie was able to compile a research like document, which essentially our Fano claim is probably about that thick. Wow, okay. And I remembered she had specifically said to me when I started running, she goes, everything you need is gonna be within the pages of that document. So I just went, oh, okay, all right. Started reading it, and right away I was already put off because like I I don't understand any of this because I'd never read a legal document before, let alone one on this kind of scale, like 400 pages long. I kind of I kind of describe it like um someone tells you that you're gonna learn how how to drive a car. So they give you a manual to a Mazda 323, right? And so you're just looking through, just through at all this jargon and all the photos, all the diagrams. This means nothing to me.

SPEAKER_05 1:11:04

Yes, I see.

SPEAKER_03 1:11:05

But I didn't get disheartened. I thought, no, Zana, you can't you can't jump off the wagon now. You haven't even started. So I said to myself, okay, well, hang on. Two things I know about myself. I'm a good writer and I'm smart and I'm a good reader. What I'll do is that I'll just start reading this. I got my pen, I got my notebook, and every time I come across a word or a phrasing I don't understand, I'll find the meaning of it and the derivation of it and learn it that way. Okay. So I went through that 400-page claim, word by word, sentence by sentence, page by page. And that probably took me about four and a half weeks. Four and a half weeks. Now, when I got to the end of that, I actually realized, oh, okay, this stuff is actually starting to make sense now. So from that, I'm able to start a narrative of like how I'm gonna go. How am I gonna tell the story? Because that was also one of the other things. I thought, but how am I gonna tell the story of someone in dementia? Because my memories of my great-grandmother, because she died when I was seven, she died in 95. Okay. When I was seven then, I remember her as a very scary lady. So when so when we would go down to her house to visit my cousin Muzz, who lived and looked and looked after her, Farn Eye child, also a mortal, she wouldn't let us have any of the lights on because that wasted power, so we could only have the TV on, and she'd be sitting in the corner facing the wall talking to dead people. Right now, as a youngster, as like a little person, it just turned out. Yeah, of course. Yeah, just scared me. And then so I thought, how am I going to write the story? Because originally I the idea of the play, I was gonna write it as a solo show for an actress, you know. So I would just I just focus on my Nan and her story. What I quickly realized, because I thought, well, if I'm gonna write about this, I'll start with my memories of her and then just kind of work my my way like backwards through her own timeline. Does that make sense? Yeah, right. Okay, right. And then once I started writing that, I quickly realized that I said I can't tell the story without also telling the story of my cousin Muzz, okay, who is a caretaker and lives with her, right? Yeah. And and and then I realized, I said, oh shit, I'm gonna have to ask him. Because I thought, and then I thought, if he says no, I don't have a show. But it's like, well, just ask him. He might say yes. And thankfully for me, he was all up for it. He was like, he was excited. He was like, Oh yes, Zani boy, I want I want people to know the nan that I knew. She wasn't the crazy lady that you remember. And and he goes, and having said that, your memories are valid, but but there's a whole she existed for an entire life. Yes, correct. Yes, entire life before that. And so that's when I came up with like, well, that is what this play is gonna be about. So then I broke it up into three acts, and um, and then I thought, well, how am I gonna because this all happened like 10, 15, 20 years prior to when she got sick with dementia, yeah, and then I thought, oh, I'll use her dementia as a dramatic device, yes, tell her story or to tell the flashbacks. Yes, yeah, and that just opened up the the whole thing for me, and I just went, you know, just started writing hardcore. So first I started writing in an exercise book. Yep, that got tired pretty quickly, like I got to like page 24. I was just because then I realized I'm either gonna have to type this out or rewrite it again. So then I got up my old trusty typewriter. Nice. Um, yes, a gorgeous uh 1961 Urma's seafoam green with matching vintage typing paper. Of course. And I was living my Hemingway fantasy life for about three days, yeah, you know, typing furiously with a fag in my mouth and a wine, you know, up until early hours, and you know, just the creativity just flowing out of me. Flowing out of you, and then that got tired because I realized how shit my typing was, and that there's no backspace button, they don't sell twink anymore for God's sakes. So you know, I was you know, that red pen you know became my best friend. Oh, it's like red pen, red pen, red pen, red pen. Then um, I just mentioned it in passing to my parents, my mother and my stepfather. And then um two days later, I get um I get um a package. Well, actually, it was my brother who bought it in, um, a new laptop with a matching printer and um a giant a giant box of paper to go with it.

SPEAKER_05 1:15:40

Yeah, and then you're off. It changed my life. Yeah, it does. It would technology changed my life.

SPEAKER_03 1:15:45

You know, I went through, you know, over those weeks, you know, I went through the um entire change of technology for writers and creative artists. You know, I started out with a pen, then went to a typewriter, and then finally onto um um onto a computer. And then just so I started writing furiously. And then one night I'm writing, and then I'm thinking, um, gosh, man, I wish I wish Aave was here, you know, my auntie, you know, it's because I really wanted to share this with her. And this, you know, and then I'm I'm doing this, and I think I swear, as soon as that thought left my mind, I see my aunt walking my window. Your auntie Ave, your your brain is a good one. Yeah, my auntie Aave. And now me thinking my multi-brain is now engaged and just be like, oh my god, she's dead and she's come to visit me.

SPEAKER_01 1:16:34

And I just went, Av.

SPEAKER_03 1:16:36

And she turned, she goes, Oh boy, hi. I said, What are you doing here? She goes, Oh, um, I've got a stall up at White Tongue Day. We're all staying upstairs at your sisters. And she goes, How's the play going? I said, Come in, sat down, and God, I must have talked to Ear off, you know, for maybe like three hours, you know, just everything that uh I had, you know, I was going through with my job, and yeah, you know, you know, and she goes, Wow, how did you come to this? I said, Well, I think the universe just got sick of my shit, and I just decided to go, okay, we'll do it. You surrendered. You surrendered. Absolutely, absolutely, absolutely. And then so um, you know, we carried on having our um our corridor, and then she was like, excuse me. She goes, Well, how much have you written? I said, Oh, I've written a couple of scenes, I read them out to her, she was very quiet, and she goes, You are now ready. Oh, you are ready, you are you you are ready, my nephew. Yeah, and I said, What do you think about the scene? She goes, keep writing, you know, just like you know, you've only just started my bro.

SPEAKER_05 1:17:42

So yeah, that's right, because you want to connect it all because she knows all the information.

SPEAKER_03 1:17:46

Exactly. Yeah, exactly. Yep, and then so and then so so that would have been in feb still um still writing, and then luckily for me on the way, I've had all the um I've had two mentors on the way. So first is my auntie at uh at Native Stage, uh Noor Campbell, and also one of my ex tutors from drama school, Julie Edwards. Right, another writer director, yes.

SPEAKER_05 1:18:07

Is that that drama school that you went to when you were in architect?

SPEAKER_03 1:18:11

What yeah? I ran into her at one of the readings that I was doing uh for the native stage. I hadn't seen her in like 30 years. And she clocked me as soon as I walked, she was like, Zan, hello.

SPEAKER_05 1:18:22

These people are coming to you, eh? They just come, yeah, yeah, yeah. Those little gifts that come, you know, like here you are. Yeah, this is who you need.

SPEAKER_03 1:18:29

Yeah, exactly, exactly. And then so um uh she she knew what I was working on because she'd been talking to my auntie about it. And then she goes, You know what? I'm working on a play too and so I was like, Auntie, why don't we have a little wa nunga at my place on the weekend? I'll cook, you know, clean shop on the Friday, we'll ride, you know, like whenever. So we do this onega. Um now at this point, I've got the first half done. So I've got I've got act one and half of act two, still in a really rough form. Yeah. They read their stuff first, awesome, and then it gets to me, and then and I think I'm gonna read it out. And and they're both go, oh no, no, no, we'll act it out for you, you know, because I had scripts for everybody. You can see it. So that was the first time I'd ever seen my own work in front of me. Very visceral experience, and yes, it was it was oh powerful. I think it's it's the only word I can think of. Powerful. Like they were crying all the way through it, I was crying through it and stuff. And they both said, You've got something very special here, young man. Very special. I mean, yes, yes, the story itself is, but the way that you have written it, you know, you're on a really good trajectory. And out of that one, I got came some really great ideas. Okay, one was um how to end the first act. I'm not gonna spoil it here because it is a goodie. Yeah, you'll have to come watch it. Yeah, we we will be. Uh when it's up. Um because I had written the scene another way, and then I think it was actually, I think it was the both of them. They said, How about if you do it like this? And I just went, Oh, wow. Okay. See the importance of this wine, which is oh yes, yeah, just being you know, about being not just the wine itself, you know, but doing things in a Māori way, but also having Māori creatives in the same space, you know, and ones who love you and have known you, you know, you know, for you know, uh uh forever. And then so I continue writing, and then I decide because I'm kind of getting close to uh getting a first draft done. And so I thought, oh well, and I'd always knew once I got the draft to a point, the first draft where I was okay with um sharing it, you know, but the public and stuff, um, I was gonna do a reading just for my family. So um I booked them at I out um out of Pipi Wai from where we're from, where my great-grandmother's from, out at um Tohenade. Okay, and I picked it for October the 5th, which was when we did it on the day 40 years ago to the day that she passed away.

SPEAKER_00 1:21:10

Oh, okay.

SPEAKER_03 1:21:12

Yeah, so all my fano came. And she would have been there. Oh, yeah. Oh, that was her mother. Everybody else. Everybody else was there. Yeah, bro. I had to like one of my cousins, she goes, I had to keep my eyes down like this. Because all I could see with I said, Oh, I did too, but I just, you know, just I got a job to do here, you know. So um, my my auntie Vish and her husband, my uncle Tam helped me in the reading. Vish played her own grandmother. Oh, wow. Um, yeah, that was really cool. Um, I did some parts and Tam played some of the other parts as well.

unknown 1:21:49

Okay.

SPEAKER_03 1:21:49

And then so all my family are there. It goes off awesome. Great response, great response. You know, it was a very visceral reaction because my fano are very uh um sports-oriented, they love going to sports. Yeah, they'll go to theater if they know there's someone in it, but they don't like love it, you know what I mean? And that's okay. But um, they all had a very visceral and beautiful experience there. And one of my cousins, JR, she summed it up for me. She goes, you know what, cuz we know this story because we've lived it our entire lives, and so have our parents and our grandparents, and they're and they're all gone now. And she goes, The difference with today is that instead of being a participant, we became a spectator to our own story, yes, and it hit a lot harder and a lot deeper than we thought it would. Yeah, you know, and I was just like, Well, what's up? Well done, Zani. Okay, we're on the right track. So that's in October, the first week of October, and then I get, I think like the next week, I get a I can't remember if it was an email or a phone call. The um the organizers of the National Maori Theatre Hui, which was about to be held up in Hokjanga in November. They said, I kind of knew about it, but um, you know, I was going to attend, but you know, but I didn't know. And they said, We've actually um heard really good things about your play. We're wondering if you wouldn't mind um like doing a reading to open up the hooy and we'll give you a bit of pooch here for it. I was just like, oh wow, uh really okay, you know, and so so um that put the the pressure on me, like just to clean up the script, just like a little bit, because I was gonna have to engage all the other actors that were up there, and they would have like no rehearsal time, like whatsoever. So I basically found everyone either the day before uh the Hui started or um when we got there up at Waimamaku Marao up in um Hokjanga. And um I got them all together and um they're not they all had read you know like their own parts. I kind of gave them like a brief history of it. Um my auntie Art came up, my cousin Muzz came up, my cousin Miley came up, um, along with everyone. So there would have been like maybe like probably close to maybe like there were quite a few of us on the first night, so I think we're maybe like a hundred people in that mud eye. And um I sat down and then I realized, oh, this is the first time I'm actually gonna hear my play in full, sitting here like this. Yes, and then and there was another playwright there who's called Mitch Taffy Thomas, fabulous guy. Um, he knew that this was my first reading of my first play, and then he came out and he gave me a really, a really great suggestion. He was like, um, put your script down and the pen down because I know you want to make notes as as as this uh progresses, but it's going to distract you. He goes, just watch it. Because you know, you'll you'll be able to absorb a lot more of what the script needs if you're not distracted by your own words. And he goes, and plus you wrote it anyway, you know, it's not like you don't know what's gonna happen. I said, okay, so you know, really fair point. And it was a really good point. I actually got a lot out of it. And when we got to half time with the new um ending of the first act, people were you know stamping, hollering, crying, screaming. And this is at half time, and I just thought, all right, Zani. Yeah, you know, we're really onto something here. We get to the end, and it was, you know, really good applause. And then, you know, um, my fano, they got up and did like a mehi total and stuff. And when it came time to do like feedback, someone actually stood up and just went, uh, can I just say, and I think I speak on behalf of everyone, that that play was really, really awesome. But because it was such it had such an impact, I don't think anyone is really in a position to, you know, like to give you really, really good feedback. So we're here for the next three days, we'll give it to you over the next three days. But I think what everyone needs right now is a cup of tea and a biscuit.

SPEAKER_05 1:26:07

Because this has been so powerful, yeah, yeah. How do you look after yourself in such an intergenerational, you know, story? Powerful intergenerational story.

SPEAKER_03 1:26:18

Oh, um, do you feel any particular weight or um no, no, no, because words are healing, yeah. You know, so what I'm just a conduit, you know, for all this healing. And it's already worked on myself and other members of my fano, you know, and especially for my younger nieces and nephews who came along to the first reading, you know, they were like, they want to know more now, and and they want to know more about that side of their fucker papa, you know.

SPEAKER_05 1:26:51

Because this is what I'm understanding about you is that your writing is what's been healing you, yes, yes, and continues to, yeah, so it's your whole order, it's your type of hoe order, really.

SPEAKER_03 1:27:02

Yeah, absolutely. And with healing comes strength, you know, and with strength, you know, comes knowledge, you know. So when we know better, we do better, right? Um, and as uh I can I continue on this. So essentially the point where I'm at with the play, yes, which I don't know if I mentioned the name, oh yes, i Woman. Um I'm at the point now where um I'm looking for producers to help me uh produce this play to get Putier up because what the script needs now um is a workshop. Yeah, so that's the process where we don't really cast, we just get like a bunch of actors, a director, or a dramaturgan with the you know, with the producers and myself and really work the script and really form you know this play into something that can be stage.

SPEAKER_05 1:27:51

Yes, yes, yes. Hopefully, our podcast can help you know anybody that can be listening to this sort of thing. It's going to, it's going to, and I can't wait to meet you. People.

SPEAKER_00 1:28:00

I can't wait to meet you.

SPEAKER_05 1:28:03

That's that's so hopefully our podcast can help you with that. I'd love that. Yeah. Um, and that's what I really love about sharing what we're sharing with you because you know, a lot of my conversation, I want to talk about how we care for ourselves in this, or what is our our our type of hoard or care that we go to. And writing is, I mean, that's and being creative, and that's certainly if I think of myself as a creative person, which I am, that's where I get a lot of relief. Definitely. Yeah, and we can only do this by ourselves, you know. And um, yes.

SPEAKER_03 1:28:35

And that's also the thing that I've really discovered, you know, on this journey so far. It's because you are doing things on your own, it can really take a toll on um on your body, yeah, you know, because you're just pumping so much stuff. And so I've really learned to rest when my body says rest. Okay. And and not only that, but to not feel guilty about rest. Yeah, no, you can't, yeah, you know, because as Maori, it's kind of drilled into us, you know, from a very young age that we get um our validation through our Mahi, which is what we do. But you can't keep doing the Mahi if your body's worn out or if your mind is worn out or if your wai doer is worn out. So, you know, I've learned how to look after myself a lot better and a lot more effectively, you know, in this creative process. It's been quite an important time, really, coming home. Oh, yes, yeah, returning home. Very much so, very much so. And also that all my friends, you know, Andrew included, have been cheering me on from Australia, you know, because they've all known about this journey and stuff. And they're like, Zander, we can't wait till it comes to Australia. I said, Oh, don't worry, darling, yes, it'll it'll make it over there too. Or you can come see it here, you know.

SPEAKER_05 1:29:47

I'm sure you've got big plans for it. Um it's an incredible story. I mean, we don't want to share too much about it, but i Woman is enough. Uh, incredible story. Um, and it's uh I love hearing about the the how how it's made other people feel when they've watched it, actors, yes, you know, the Swanana that you've gone to, um, people performing it in front of you. So it's definitely your direction, isn't it?

SPEAKER_03 1:30:16

Yeah, and um, and not only that, when people who have heard about it through other people and came up to me, like heard about your play, and it's the same thing with all Māori, bro. The same thing happened in my far now, the same thing happened in my farm, the same thing happened in my far now.

SPEAKER_05 1:30:30

It's like, yeah, and it's and it's still happening, and you know, and and and like essentially it was land that was stolen and you know it was taken over by um colonials, really. Yep, uh, and and this is 1965, yeah. So um the idea that a woman comes home from work, I know she didn't come home from Mahi, did she? She came home from a holiday, your grand your great grandmother.

SPEAKER_03 1:30:56

No, she came home from town, she went which was far today to her, you know, like just to do shopping, you know, for the week or whatever. Comes back around the corner and sees all the cattle all over the road, like all the cows are out, you know, and then she's thinking, oh, one of those stupid parking farmers leave the gate open. No, no, she gets around the corner and where her cow shed, her shop, and her house should have been standing, it was a pile of rubble. So Maori Affairs and the county council had waited for her to go into town and pulled her house down, all in the name of health and safety, because they said that there had been a typhoid outbreak out in Pipe Y. Now, that actually put like fake news over there. Everyone knew that there had never been a typhoid outbreak out in Pipe Y. But that was one of the things that Maori Affairs used in County Council to get Fano off the land. And it worked with my grandmother because um it tore her soul in two. Yeah. Yeah, it tore so you know you imagine you're still, you know, up until this point, you've been going to the Maori Land Court every day for the past like seven, eight years. Arguing this point that you're arguing this, you know, because that's what she would do. She would go into the Māori land court and she never had an appointment. She would just sit there and wait until someone saw her, until it got to the point where um, and I've actually seen the actual internal memo, staff memo saying if Mrs. Armstrong shows up again, she is not to be admitted. Because she was that much of a whore to them, you know. You know, the squeaky wheel gets the grease. So there was that as well, you know. And then to come home and find that it's not that it's literally a pile of burning rubble. And they didn't just do that to her, they did that to 32 homes out of Pippee Way.

SPEAKER_05 1:32:40

32.

SPEAKER_03 1:32:41

32. So they did that to a lot of far now. Her brother, they did that too. And when he refused to move, he moved into his cow shed, even though the new farmers had already like moved in and stuff. He lived in his cow shed. And then they finally the only reason he left the cow shed is because Māori, I don't know if it was Māori Fest, but they'd found him a new house in Fangaday. It's when they were starting, you know, um state housing. Yeah. So they moved him into town into Fangaday. He died within a year. Right. Well, he didn't want to be in Fangaday. No, he didn't. No, of course not. Of course not. No one wants to be, you know, leave their land that, you know, has been there, you know, you know, for generations, because there's also that kill, like, oh, this happened on my watch. You know, this happened on my watch.

SPEAKER_05 1:33:22

This it this is, you know, because obviously I'm going to let Takatapu talk travel the world as much as I possibly can. And it's like to this really has people understand what's going on in the world has been happening here forever. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. For almost 200 years. 200 years. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 1:33:42

Almost 200 years.

SPEAKER_05 1:33:43

And you know, with your great-grandmother and her story or your fano story, this is 1965. That is not that long ago.

unknown 1:33:51

Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 1:33:52

Not long ago.

SPEAKER_03 1:33:52

Oh, sorry. I didn't even I didn't even bring up how she found out in the first place how her land got taken away from her. So her mum died in 1958. And then I think maybe early 1960, 1961, she um it had already been decided who was getting what land. Right. Um, you know, so not long after she died, Nan goes into town, goes to the land court, decide you know to sign everything over, just make sure everything is where it should be. She gets there and gets told, oh no, no, your land's been acquired for a new land development scheme at out of Pippee. So you're no longer a landowner, you're a shareholder. She was just like, uh, I didn't sign up for this. Yeah. You know, and so that's when the hooy's starting out of Pippy, you know, like they like, oh, did you sign? Or did you sign? Or did you sign? Did you sign? So the thing with my grandmother is that she was the largest landowner out in PippY. So therefore, you know, she was the largest shareholder. So that's how landing uh development schemes could only be implemented in order for the government uh to release the subsidy and the funding. Yes, that they had to acquire the best pastoral land and as much as they could have for these land development schemes. And in our case, it was my grandmother's land, but no one told her about it until she actually went and yeah. So that was in go in, you know. Yeah, what right? So this was in 1961, and then so the amalgamation went ahead in 1965. So for four years, she fought for them to actually not have it um implemented, but this is also the thing that I found out of the research that there were quite a lot of people who wanted the scheme to go ahead out in Pippy. Yeah, well, see, here's the thing. Now that people are no longer landowners, they're now shareholders, right? So, you know, with intergenerational land, if you're a shareholder, right, then your share gets smaller and smaller and smaller. The more children you have, right? Yeah, okay. So for some Farnho out there, they only had a very small share. And so these uh these are actually called uneconomical shares. Right. So in their mind, they're thinking, well, how come you get to make all the decisions because you've got the most land? What about you know us, you know, you know, who only have like you know, a small slice of the cake now? I think this would be really beneficial. So actually, that's how Moldy Affairs were able, you know, uh to get around not having a signature off everyone or not even needing signatures from from major shareholders, right? So all the other criteria they were able, you know, uh to meet within that four-year period. And then as it turns out, also the crown was going up to these Fano with the small economical shares and go, tell you what, if you sign this, we'll let you, we'll not let you because they're new, you can sell us your small share back to us the crown, and in return, we'll give you your own little plot of land that you can build a house and you can have stock or have a little farm and gardening or whatever, and then that'll be yours. Yep, and it worked on some funeral. They just went absolutely tick, sign away, sign away, sign away. Yeah, and then so, and that's how they did that with a lot of that, and that's how the crown was able to become the major shareholder out there, was no longer my grandmother, but that didn't stop her. She was like, Paul, no, no, this is unlawful, bro. This is unlawful, you can't do this, and because she was a postmistress, you know, it's also another thing, you know, of my nan. She was Ann Pippi was she was the postmistress, she was the telephonist, she was a shop owner, a business owner, a mom, and she was a queer at the time. She still had six kids still at home, you know, and um um a farmer as well, you know. So uh, you know, she just wasn't this like little old lady who had nothing else better to do. Yeah, she knew exactly what she was doing, and and she knew that they were wrong. And unfortunately for a lot of our people at the time, she thought she could trust the system. Yes. Now she found out the hard way that the system is rigged against Māori. Yeah, it's rigged against us, it's rigged, you know, it is you know, you know, it's like when you go into the casino, it's set up for the house to win, right? Yeah, well, that's how it was here you know, for her. And as I was going through the research, I came across um a transcript of one of um her court dates. So it's all verbatim, and it was just it's essentially the cross-examining lawyer and the judge tag teaming her. It's just awful, just you know, blatant racism, blatant misogyny, you know, to her face, you know. But you know, she she kept her back up, she kept her mana, yeah, and she, you know, and she continued through with it. And that's basically one of the main reasons uh I've discovered writing this is that this is uh a reclamation of of our nan's um rangatida tanga. You know, because essentially that's what they did, they acquired her land and then they destroyed her mother, and you know, uh, and they succeeded, they succeeded, yes, they got exactly what they wanted. What they didn't count on was my fano. Because here we are, fourth generation down, you know, and I'm writing a play about it, and I I really believe once this play is up on stage and out to the world, they're gonna see my play and they'll have no choice but to give our land back.

SPEAKER_05 1:39:42

Wow, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_03 1:39:44

Absolutely because the courts, I mean, uh I mean the courts are really dragging their feet, you know, because the order has to come from them to the trust that is there now, yeah, uh to release to release that land out there.

SPEAKER_05 1:39:57

You know, Napole have um, you know, we haven't even gone through settlement.

SPEAKER_03 1:40:02

Yeah, yeah, we haven't, yeah, yeah, we haven't and rightly so, you know, because of like this should be Hapu-led, you know.

SPEAKER_05 1:40:08

Yeah, it should be Hapu-led, but it's not everyone's always like, you know, where's my land? That's my land. Yes, um, that's mine, not yours. Do you become overwhelmed sometimes when you're reading the information and and you know, and you're researching? Okay, you you you did before. I did before. Because it's powerful, yeah.

SPEAKER_03 1:40:28

And that was one of the I knew that was the first big hurdle I knew I had I had to get over. Because if I don't get the research, well then there's no play, right? Of course, yeah, of course. Yeah, and also, and once I got all the information down, what I did is that I had because I'm a visual person, I had to have some sort of visual cue for me while I was reading, sorry, writing and typing, instead of having to flip back through uh um uh the case file. So what I did is that essentially I put up a giant mind map all over my wall, all over my wall, an entire timeline of my great-grandmother's life, like from the time she was born, the kids she had, yeah, uh her first husband left, dah dah dah dah dah, right up until she died, you know, and and I've only just taken them down, and they were up on my wall for like a year.

SPEAKER_05 1:41:17

Yeah, you know, well it would have helped, wouldn't it?

SPEAKER_03 1:41:19

Oh, it did, you know, it did, it did. And then and you know, uh I'm at the point now where I was like, Oh, I think I'm ready to take those down now, you know, because I'm at that you've got the flow, you've got that, you've got it happening. Yep, yeah, yeah. I still um, you know, I still have my notes that I make reference to because that's what I found. Whenever I'm stuck on an idea for like the next scene, I just go back to the research and I just flick through, you know, something. Oh, okay, or something I'd taken out before. I thought, oh I wonder if that'll work if I put it back in.

SPEAKER_05 1:41:50

So yeah. That's writing, it can take people a long time. Yes, yeah, yeah. Well, you know, it takes as long as it takes, I suppose they do. So, you know, um, on reflection, what do you wish your younger self had known?

SPEAKER_03 1:42:07

Oh, um that um you're right all along. Fuck them, fuck them, fuck them. Yeah, fuck the haters. So you know what you're doing, you know what you're doing, you were right all along, my bro. That's what I would say to my younger self. You're ro you were right all along, my bro. Yeah, you were right all along.

SPEAKER_05 1:42:26

Yeah, what would you say to a Takatapue person listening as they are going to, who's still finding their way? Trust yourself, yeah.

SPEAKER_03 1:42:36

Trust yourself, trust yourself first, because that's the only way you can if you're one of these people who are constantly putting trust in others because you don't trust yourself, it never works out because you'll you're essentially setting yourself up for disappointment and heartbreak. And I've had that happen, and I've had that happen to me too many times in my life. I'm just like, no, no more. I'm old enough and ugly enough now to know better. So yeah.

unknown 1:43:00

Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 1:43:00

Um, so I'm doing this with everybody uh that I interview, uh, which is five quick fire questions just to sort of wrap up so you don't have to think too much about them. First one is what is your superpower? Kindness.

SPEAKER_03 1:43:17

Very hard for a lot of people. Kindness, oh yeah. Yeah, I find it I find it very, very easy.

SPEAKER_05 1:43:24

Very easy. I think I already know the answer to this, but what brings you peace or balance when your life gets heavy? Oh, writing. Writing, yeah, yeah. That's been fabulous all the way through. This interview is hearing about the incredible words. Yeah, I love that. Um, who is someone in your life that shaped you in a powerful way?

SPEAKER_03 1:43:46

Oh, Andrew. Yeah, my boss and Lossie. Absolutely, yeah, absolutely. I mean, you know, because I met him when I was 29. And I worked for him for 10 years. Yeah. And I'm gonna be, you know, and I'm yeah, 48 now, so I've you know, I've known that guy for almost 20 years. So yeah.

SPEAKER_05 1:44:09

Um this is an interesting one. What gives you hope for the future of Takatapui people for our people?

SPEAKER_03 1:44:16

Oh, our real.

SPEAKER_05 1:44:18

Easy. Yeah, you know.

SPEAKER_03 1:44:22

Because we really didn't have that when we were growing up. Well, not as much as it is now, uh, you know. I mean, but it's it's not something I I realized I could latch onto and use to propel my way forward. Yeah. You know? Yes. You know, Māori almost Māori almost seemed like, you know, a hobby. You know, you know, when I was, you know, I was I was growing up, even though we were Māori at home and we were, you know, Māori everywhere else. You'd see the clock. You know, I I I never ever thought it would um lead me, you know, to work or to make money or to make myself happy, you know what I mean?

SPEAKER_05 1:45:04

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Because uh I think uh that's an that's an understanding that people don't have of the real too, how it is a tongue, it's a jewel, you know, it's a very important, there's no swear words in it, there's only kindness, and there's no thank you, actually. It doesn't really we don't need it because because it's inherent, right? Yeah, it's inherent. That's right. And it's a component to being Maori, you know. There's very mixed there's you know, it's a tree of life, really. And uh a lot of people don't know that. I didn't know it for a very, very long time. I didn't really realize that too until I came home, you know. Well, we're also brought up in a way that I mean, I I think, and I can say this for you being Nazi Henya as as myself, is that we uh brought up to we're supposed to just know. Yeah, you know, we went to just mind read, you know.

SPEAKER_03 1:46:00

We meant to just know which is yeah, what do you mean you don't know? Every time I heard that, yeah, I'll be I'll be running the play, that's for sure, you know.

SPEAKER_05 1:46:14

Well, because it's a feel, it's an in it's inside you, yes, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_03 1:46:18

Absolutely, and what I always say to people who say, Oh, I'm learning out real, I said, you know, as Māori, we don't learn our real. No, it emerges from within us. Yes, the only thing you know we're really learning is is different ways to access it, and that's completely different for every single person. And people like, you know, oh, do you take Artaniel classes? I said, No, I don't like being in a classroom situation. It's my autism, it's just too much nervous energy and all that trauma in one room is just too much. And this is the way that I've always learned things in my life, is purely by um having a keen eye and a keen ear and just and just being around it and observing and listening all the time. And it's worked for me. Well, it does work for me because my deal is always getting stronger, you know. Like I'm able to get up on my eye and do my mehi. And when I when I say do my mehi, I mean stumbled through it. You know, you still do it, yes. With a with a smile on my face, but I know for a fact every time I do it, it gets easier and easier and easier, you know. So um, yes, so you know, with with this play and just being home and um and the stories, you know, and the now and the fucker papa, it it's how do I put this?

SPEAKER_05 1:47:37

Well, I would say it's magical. I've always thought it's magic. I've always thought it's magic. Yeah, I've always thought it's it was uh it was higher than me. It's just magical, and yeah.

SPEAKER_03 1:47:48

That's a perfect word for it because for me, magic in my mind, magic is desire made real. Yes, yeah, that's what magic is, it's desire made real. So the way you just said that, it's like absolutely and that's what you're doing.

SPEAKER_05 1:48:01

Can't wait to see it.

SPEAKER_03 1:48:03

Yes, well, uh any producers out there who want to have record it all with Zani.

SPEAKER_05 1:48:08

Like I said, I can't wait to meet you. Yes, and we're gonna be really we're gonna be working very hard to uh get everybody to watch and see this series.

SPEAKER_03 1:48:19

This is who I want to um this is who I want to play, my nan. I want Renna Owen.

SPEAKER_05 1:48:23

I'd love to play that part.

SPEAKER_03 1:48:26

Yes, well, we're putting it out there, aren't we?

SPEAKER_01 1:48:28

If you're watching Auntie Mukka, you know, yeah, sure, make another cordial.

SPEAKER_03 1:48:32

But that's also the thing about me writing this play. I mean, if Renna doesn't want to do it, I really want um an actress of that age. Yes. You know, you know, there's something, you know, uh uh to be said about uh Maori Wahina in this industry, you know, and the gravitas that their own stories like bring to it, as opposed to uh um, you know, a Wahina Maori that is younger and is going to play older, which I will say there's nothing wrong with because we may have to do that here, but I would love an appropriate aged actor. And Brennan's the first one for me because I think and plus she's from Moonnyways, so I'm just like, well, of course you want to be in this play, you know.

SPEAKER_05 1:49:14

So any any final words for us? Any final words?

SPEAKER_03 1:49:20

No, just keep on keeping on, yeah, you know, keep on keeping on. You know, the bad times will pass just like any storm. You know, they happen to all of us, you know. Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 1:49:35

We've got gifts too. Yes. Yeah. I think we always bring gifts to the family. Um it's been so good to speak to you, Zahn.

SPEAKER_02 1:49:44

This has been cool, cut it. Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 1:49:45

I'm glad you've enjoyed us. I am.