Patrick | Avondale
“That would be my wife.
Well, just the things that she does, like she goes to a lot of Salvation Army shops, looks around there and buys a lot of stuff from those sorts of places, and keeps herself busy doing that sort of thing. I was born here in Auckland. I was brought up in Freeman’s Bay, went to Freemans’ Bay Primary School. Growing up was good. My father worked for the, the Harbour Boar, and so it was close for him to commute from Freeman’s Bay to the city and when I was growing up there he passed away in 1989, and so me and my mother who’s Māori moved to Avondale, and we’ve been there ever since. My mother passed away December 2016, and so life is just moving on from there.
Our daughter she’s turning 10 in September. I suppose just plant a lot of that most important stuff in me, because of her needs and everything like that. I know as a father I need to step up, of course.
When my mother was alive, I used to sit back and think well hold on I’m the only guy in the house. I’ve got my mother, my daughter and my wife, and I was thinking there’s not very much of a male influence around, I’m the only male actually around in my life inside the house. Yeah, so I always was thinking about that sort of type of things, and I was also thinking, what if a male did come into the picture; how would I react, because I’ve been the only male around? But that wouldn’t have happened anyway, so at the moment it’s only my wife and my daughter. Just have to see how things go from here on in.”