Karani | Mangamuka, Northland

“Well, my wife passed. I’ve been a widower since 2004. My younger brother got killed. He was killed in Taupō in 2004, he had an accident. I was heading down to Taupō with him, because I’d just lost my wife then. Three weeks after I lost my wife, double-whammy came along.

My younger brother was killed. It was 2004. That’s over 16 years ago, and we’re still alive now, and I’ve just come back from Australia. I got locked down in Mangamuka on my section. I used to have a truck here years ago. John Carter. I was the first truck and trailer up here in the Hokianga. I had the first truck and trailer up here in the Hokianga. It was 1985, and I went to Australia. It was the downturn in the economy. Downturn in the whole licensing system. 

Too many, too many things in kindness. Well, my daughters financed me a house and my section in Mangamuka, and my two grandsons, they made me a great-grandfather, and one plays for Penrith Panthers. Fisher-Harris, and the older brother, he plays for Frankfurt. Plays rugby for Frankfurt. He’s married, and gave me two beautiful great great-daughters. A lot of karma has happened to me. They were given to me, this whenua. 

Kindness is important, people around here should not be starving. They should grow food. We used to have gardens in Mangamuka, the whole lot, 30 years ago. Our mother had 16 of us children. Sixteen that are whānaued to her, and she was a Thompson. Her father was a surveyor. He went down there to the King Country working in the bush, came back up here with her, married her, brought her back up here and had 16 beautiful children, and my youngest brother just got killed, in 2004.”