Tauranga mother, grandmother and great-grandmother Nola Campbell holds a congratulatory 100th birthday card from King Charles and Queen Camilla. Photo / Clive Caine
Tauranga mother, grandmother and great-grandmother Nola Campbell holds a congratulatory 100th birthday card from King Charles and Queen Camilla. Photo / Clive Caine
In 100 years, Tauranga’s Nola Cochrane says she’s never drunk alcohol or smoked, always ate healthily and avoided gambling - despite some youthful luck with a Golden Kiwi ticket she never cashed in.
Gisborne-born Nola, who turns 100 today, is the eldest and last surviving of seven children. Sister Hope died in her late 80s and their five brothers – including twins David and Donald, both school teachers - are also deceased.
She said her mother Muriel Cochrane (nee Morrison) died at age 53 and father Tom Nicholson-Cochrane, a funeral director and furniture builder, died in his 70s.
Educated at Mangapapa School and Gisborne Girls’ High, Nola said she left school at 18 and initially worked in her father’s funeral business before accepting an offer to train as a school dental nurse in Wellington. She worked in that role in Wellington, Thames and Auckland before marrying at age 22.
Nola said she met her husband, the late Eric Dearlove, at a church “tent” meeting in Gisborne after she was asked to play the piano. They wed in 1946.
Granted an extended leave of absence from her dental nursing job, Nola and Eric headed to India in 1947 and spent five or six years doing missionary work in Bangalore.
Three of their four sons - Clive, 72, who lives in Te Puke; Murrey, 75, in Auckland; and Lloyd, who died at 59 from skin cancer - were all born in India. Stephen, 69, was born in Tauranga and lives in Northland.
Clive Caine said he recalled his mother telling him about his parents’ frightening ordeal on arrival in India - their two-day train journey from Calcutta to Bangalore in Southern India was interrupted after the train was attacked.
Nola said she and Eric “barricaded” themselves” inside fearing they would be robbed or killed and “survived on peanuts” for two days.
This was the time of the 1947 partition of India, a violent period after independence from Britain that divided the sub-continent into two independent nations - India and Pakistan.
Mahatma Gandhi. Photo / Supplied
The couple were in India when Mahatma Gandhi, renowned for his non-violent and successful campaign for India’s independence from British rule, was assassinated in New Delhi in January 1948.
Returning to New Zealand
The couple moved home in 1953 and settled in Tauranga. Nola said she resumed her dental nursing job and worked at several primary schools in Tauranga including at Fifth Ave, Pillans Point, Greerton and Omanu until her retirement at 60.
“I used to ride a 50cc motorbike to get to and from work,” she said.
Eric became well-known as a postman and they built their home on Kulim Ave in 1954. This was the time when there was no Maungatapu bridge and the Chapel St causeway did not exist until its construction in 1959.
The couple divorced after many years together. Eric died in 2008, aged 83.
Clive said his mother lived in Kulim Ave for about 70 years and was driving into her late 90s. Several falls meant a permanent move to Te Puke Country Lodge about a month ago.
A ‘simple, peaceful’ life
Nola said she and her siblings had a “strong Christian upbringing” - which meant no dancing – but she loved music, played the piano at church meetings, and was a keen sewer. She would make and sell soft toys, and jams from the produce she grew.
Gambling of any kind was frowned upon by her parents, she said.
Clive said he recalled his mother telling him that during her dental nurse training in Wellington, she was “reluctantly” persuaded to buy a Golden Kiwi lottery ticket and won thousands of pounds – but ripped up the ticket because she was “too scared” to tell her father.
Nola said she believed in living a “simple, peaceful life” and had never drunk alcohol or smoked. This and eating lots of fruit and vegetables – especially her favourite, tomatoes – plus quality family time were keys to her long life.
Despite receiving congratulatory birthday cards from King Charles and Governor-General Cindy Kiro, she insisted she did not want a lot of fuss on her big day.
“Spending time with my three sons is the only birthday present I need.”
Sandra Conchie is a senior journalist at the Bay of Plenty Times and Rotorua Daily Post who has been a journalist for 24 years. She mainly covers police, court and other justice stories, as well as general news. She has been a Canon Media Awards regional/community reporter of the year.
