Who has changed your life?

Richard | Pōneke

Richard’s father died in his home in England seven weeks before our interview. Reflecting on his legacy, Richard realised how much his father’s quiet strength and devotion to his family had given him the bravery to start a new life in New Zealand. 

Richard also discusses how the tikanga Māori he has learned since moving to New Zealand helped him manage the grief of the death of his father in England. This helped him feel closer to Aotearoa when on the other side of the world.

His humility, his courageousness and his determination, and his grit in terms of leaving India in the early 60s, me as a two-year-old, with his wife, to start a new life in England. Not knowing what to expect. No job to go to, very little networks to draw on. And I just had so much admiration for him when I reflected more upon what he’d done for me and what he’d done for my siblings in England as we grew up.

You know, I started a new life, came to live in New Zealand, and coincidentally, our daughter was only two years old too, same age as I was when I went to live in England. I used some of what he would have done and the courageous things he said to me when I remember when we left and not knowing where I was going to be working at that time, and that gave me a lot of courage and confidence.

I found it difficult, leading up to his passing and certainly immediately after his passing, because I didn’t have my friends and my work colleagues in New Zealand to draw on. So I missed that comfort, to be honest. And, while I had my whānau, my sister and my brother in England, I really kind of drew back on a lot of my knowledge of Māori tikanga and my attendance at tangi in Aotearoa, New Zealand, and that gave me quite a lot of comfort, actually.

By kind of thinking about te ao Māori. And yeah, so it wasn’t easy, but that was a strength I definitely drew on.