Darin | Kāpiti Coast, Wellington

“Experiencing it myself, I researched and wrote a book on a family member who was an architect in Wellington, Bernard Johns. The story was that my mother-in-law went around with my partner, and took a whole lot of photos of the houses that my mother-in-law could remember of the grandfather who was the architect.

She was taking photos of all the houses she could remember going to as site visits when she was a girl, and she remembered about 50 or 60 of these houses. So, she took the photos, gave it to her father, and he said, oh that’s great but you’ve missed a couple. And, so we went, oh wow, let’s go down to wellington and find them. So, we went down to Wellington and had a good hunt around, and we ended up finding over 300 houses and buildings that this guy had done. But what blew us away more was the kindness of people, we would knock on their door and say, hey look we believe that the architect of this house was Bernard Johns. They’d say, oh yes, we know him, now do you realise that there’s one down over here, or come in for a cup of tea, we’ll tell you where they all are. And, so it’s that sort of Kiwi generosity. You get pulled in, and they give you all this information, get me a cup of tea, send you on your way again and it was really helpful. We found so many extra houses we would never have found otherwise if it wasn’t for the generosity and kindness of spirit in people.

I think kindness is the glue that makes society stick together. It’s really important that people take a moment and be kind to one another. Stop the merry-go-round of rushing and being glued to your social media and devices, and just go, what’s really important is saying hello, and greeting someone, and acknowledging their existence, because people get lonely in cities, because no-one talks to each other, and I think that’s changed a lot over lockdown.

We’ve written books about that. About busyness, people getting carried out and losing sight of what’s really important to them, which is friendship, kindness, sense of community.

I grew up in Tauranga and moved up to Auckland and then since down Wellington way. I’ve always loved New Zealand. I think it’s a wonderfully dynamic place to live. We’ve very fortunate to live here. And what’s important to me is truth and honesty, kindness, and generosity. What makes us good Kiwis.”