Barbara Anne McTurk Barclay (Willson) (nee Hastings) passed away in Sept 2004 and was certainly active right up to her the last days. Young at 71 she was walking around Hamilton Lake each day at her new home, a distance of 4.2K’s just days before. But that is a little ahead of her story as Barabara was a Palmerston North person, born on Anzac Day, the 25^th April 1943 and then schooling and starting a nursing career in that city. She did not fulfill this dream of hers due to some very serious sexual assault against her, and by the age of 20 was married to my father Frank. From 1955 to 1960 along came Judith my sister, then myself, my sister Deborah and then brother Trevor. As a family they struggled for a number of years as they built up the family, we always had a car though, sometimes we had our own house as in Tauranga and Hamilton, other times we rented as in Te Atatu in Auckland. But holidays were rare, mostly family visits, and Boys Brigades etc., but my mother always ensured each kid learnt a musical instrument, went clean and tidy to school, attended Sunday School each Sunday, played our sports and had good nourishing home cooked meals. She was very supportive of us all and if inclined to Uni or not saw it happen for each of us as needed. She was also working between full time and part time jobs during these years to help support, always in doctors’ clinics as a receptionist or similar, always in the field of health care. A soft-spoken and caring person, she was also one who had her own opinions and was not afraid to voice them! As said, we always came home each evening to very nourishing home cooked meals though, even if we did not always like the liver and onions, broad beans, (a particular dislike for Debs), tripe in cream sauce, or the packet of instant dried risottos! It took me many years to learn to like rice again and to realise an Italian risotto actually tastes great! But we also had dessert each day, custards, baked rice, trifles and what not and we never went hungry. In the afternoon it was my job to collect the loaf of bread from the corner store, I had the crust sandwich with peanut butter and Debs had the honey sandwich for afternoon tea! This shop was my only shoplifting offense for some sweet packets or similar, and my mother marched me around to pay and as a penance, I also had to do volunteer cleaning work some afternoons for a while! Family justice then, when parents kept control of their kids!

However, in early 1970 her marriage to my father broke down and whilst he lived in an adjacent unit of our Hamilton property, my mother carried on bringing us up. At this time, she started seeing and then marrying Bill Jimpson and moved across to his house in Hillcrest in 1972. He was ex-British Air force, ground crew and a stodgy typical pomme, very straight and narrow in his ways and quite opposite in many ways to my mother. A senior teacher at Fairfield, once I transferred into that school in 1972, it created the situation where I was forced to leave the “family” home in 1973 and my own journey out began. However, my mother ensured that I had a place to stay with clean sheets and utensils provided and this first residence I stayed in resulted in the house owner, Graham Elsmore, and I becoming lifelong friends to this day!

My mother stayed about 12 years at Bill’s place before she took the decision to leave in 1983, on Christmas Day to be precise, and she moved out and moved in with Royce Barclay, a fellow theatre lover and part-time actor, who was also quite effeminate, but they shared a love of gardening also. At the time this created a large stir within the family, some grand kids were stopped from staying over at their grandmothers due to her being the “devil incarnate,” and it took a while for things to settle down. Marg and I did not mind, it was my mother’s life and she had to live it as she saw fit or wanted to. They lived on Silverdale Road in Hamilton for 5 years before buying a lifestyle block together, that they called Barovale, located on Scotsman’s Valley Road outside Hamilton, and over the years built it up to a beautiful landscaped place where Mum also had extensive rose beds that she loved. For quite a few years they were happy there, doing costuming and other support for the Riverlea Theatre, having a close group of friends around as in Kaye from Hamilton, Trevor and Angie lived close by at his shop, and there were grand kids and family to entertain. It was also at this time that she was involved in supporting the Guide Dogs of NZ and also kept Golden Retrievers herself, always a couple and sometimes up to five. She share the love of Golden Retrievers with her Wellington based sister Kate who also breed the dogs.

Things fell apart in 2003 when Royce decided to call it quits on the marriage and the property needed to be sold. It broke my mother’s heart to leave her gardens and her roses and she only managed to take a half dozen of them to her new place on St Mary’s Road near Hamilton Lake. It was here that each day she would walk around the lake until a Friday morning when she could not move her leg. Judy arranged for a hospital visit to check and it was discovered a large stomach tumour had compressed the main nerve to her left leg. How a trained nurse could not feel something going on prior to this has always amazed the family since, but my mother always denied she could feel or sense something going wrong. The tumour was aggressive and she lasted only six weeks before passing away. I managed to come from India for the middle two weeks and saw her at hospital and I also took her out for the only two times she left for a short visit. Both times we went to her house at St. Mary’s Rd, and on one she noticed her roses needed pruning. A phone call to the leading rose expert in NZ and he came rushing round, trimmed the roses and stayed for a tea. This was an example of the high esteem that people in the community had for my mother! Such love she gave and received by many!

In 2004 Marg and I travelled back to NZ and arrived at my mother’s late on the 2th April. The next day was her birthday and also Anzac Day, and while I excused myself, Marg joined My at the dawn service. Needless to say, when she died later that year, I was racked by guilt at not attending and a few years later made up for it by going to Turkey and visiting Gallipoli, a sobering and awe-inspiring experience in what our soldiers went through there. However, also on the NZ trip, my mother mentioned that in 30 or more years I had never cooked for her, and so I put on a special dinner for Mum and her close friends. Marg was not sure on the trouble we both took over the dinner but to see the pride and joy on my mother’s face and in front of her friends made up for all the effort! She shone with pride that evening! Sometimes you do not know why you do things at a certain time, and then afterwards you are so forever thankful that you did, as I am that I cooked a dinner for my mother that night!

I did not go back for her funeral; we both had a feeling when I left after two weeks, that we were saying goodbye and would only see each other in the stars next time. It is always better to say goodbye when the person is alive than to a wooden box afterwards when it is too late. I do have a video of the ceremony so am very grateful for that. There was some hope for more time and some response to the treatment, but it did not happen, we had said our goodbyes as we both kind of knew. And so, her legacy lives on, four great children, none in prison, all with their careers and own children, some retired now, all still missing our Mum and all thankful for the love and care she gave each of us. I am sorry that she never got to meet Marika, they would have got on like sisters I am sure, kindred souls and always chatting away to each other with fits of laughter!