Jack | Springlands, Marlborough

“I live with someone different to me. My brother Ryan, he’s had Cerebral Palsy all of his life, and being disabled of course, is quite a different thing, and with that there’s always different experiences and there’s never really a normal situation for a lot of things.

Especially like going out and doing different things. So finding ways to connect with him is always quite fun, and finding different ways to interact with him. He’s a really big fan of rugby, so he recently actually started doing a YouTube channel and helping him with that has always been really fun, and helping him connect with the online world and stuff has been really great. 

From a very young age you get taught to share, and just starting off helping someone else basically from the get-go, I think if anything, it’s really positive, because being able to be there for him, and being able to help him out whenever I can, I really enjoy it and people think it would be a hard thing, but if anything, it just feels normal. 

I was born here in Blenheim, born in a family with an older sister and my younger brother. I got on mostly with my dad, I stuck around him a lot, for his car-racing things, and my mum’s always been, a stay at home mum, and she’s been really supportive since I was first born. She’s always been really supportive of anything I did, and I’ve always enjoyed car-racing with my Dad, and stuff like that. He’s a mechanic by trade, and he owns the local vehicle testing station, here. We’re usually quite a sporty family, always doing something, so yeah, it’s good fun.

At the moment I’m getting ready for university next year. I want to go into an engineering degree, and so going into that would, I would, be a bit nervous, bit anxious of a few things, but also, really excited to see what happens.”