Rylon | Grey Lynn

“I come from Grey Lynn, which is not very far, just down the road. Rylon is my name. Before I start, I’d just like to acknowledge the many attributes that I have that I try to be more like Him. The attributes in particular that I’m talking about is like generosity and things like that.

I feel that it comes from the home of where the parents teach their children about that, and many other things. So I’m a reflection of how I was brought up. If I am generous to others, it’s the way that I’ve been brought up, and hopefully, they will be more generous than what they are at that present time, that they can become a better person.

I experience it all the time. It’s just how I am to other people that, like if we’re talking about a certain thing at a bus stop they want to know where a certain bus stop is, I show them how to find it, and they’ve been able to walk away, and they’ve been able to say; you are a really generous person. 

I use my walking stick as a bit of extra aid, just to help me get around, and sometimes people that I don’t even know, they come up to me and ask if I’m okay, and things like that. I walk away. How generous that they are, to me. I’m grateful for that. 

I guess I value that I have my life, because I just celebrated my 65th birthday, just on Saturday, October the 26th, and the most value that I have is that I was born. I’ve been on this earth for a long time, and to me, it’s that I didn’t just flare into existence. I value that I was born and that I’ve lived up to this time in my life. I’m grateful for where I come from. I am a Māori, and I come from the Tainui and from the Tūwharetoa tribes here, and I’m grateful to tell people where I come from. Because, people ask me where do I come from. I can tell you exactly where I come from, and I’m grateful for that. I’m grateful for my Māori heritage that I have, and also just to put a bit of limelight, that I know exactly who I am. My grandmother is a half-English woman coming from the Randell family, as in Taine Randell’s family, who was the captain of the All Blacks, not very long ago. And then my grandfather, he was a full-blooded Māori, they both come from the Waikato, and my mother’s family comes from the Chase family. You might be interested to know that my grandfather’s family many, many years ago, of when the Chase’s started to come from New Zealand, that’s my mother’s maiden name, Chase. They came from the States, and there were actually two of them that came here to New Zealand many, many years ago during the 1800s, and there were two brothers, one of them settled here and the other one returned back to the United States, and the one that stayed here, ended up having one of the biggest Māori families here in New Zealand. So, I’m very grateful to tell you that. I know all this, because of family history, of things that have been handed down from generation to generation, and from family to family. 

I think it is because I know that we want to live in a better community like Pt Chev, or Auckland or even the country of New Zealand, but I think it all starts with something small that goes bigger and bigger and bigger, and if we’re taught right, and if we govern ourselves of what we should do, and how we do things, I think it will help us to be a better people, whoever we are. White, brown like me like a Māori, whoever or whoever the people that live here in our country at this time. It’s very important.”