3. Do you ever think "why me?"
Well, my father used to have this theory that things that got done on a Friday afternoon were not as good as things done earlier in the week so I think I was a Friday afternoon job. I got the bits that were left over! You can't dwell on it. Life is for going forward. I will go forward - I don't know what I'll be doing, but I will go forward.
4. Where did you grow up?
A very small town in the northwest of England: Parsonby, in the parish of Plumbland. We lived in the village shop and sold all manner of things from bacon to bike tyres.
There was a farm across the road, a little row of houses, two pubs, a few more houses, a village school, and that was it.
5. What did you expect from life and what was expected of you?
I had a great desire to leave from about 13 - I had the years and the weeks calculated. My way out was education, university was the goal. I was the first child from that village to go to university, most didn't finish high school. I always expected to go somewhere else.
6. How did you make your escape?
I left at 18, as soon as I got into university. I went to Birmingham to study law. Girls were expected to be teachers or nurses and I thought there was absolutely no way I was going to be either of those things so I thought I'd be a lawyer. The campus of the university was bigger than the village I grew up in. I didn't know what to expect. I didn't know what a lecture was, or a seminar, and I had no one to ask. Within a term I began to think it was not for me. I told my tutor I wasn't happy and he said, "Well, I don't know what you're doing studying law." And I thought in my arrogant, 19-year-old way, "Who are you to tell me? I'm going to do this degree if it kills me." So I did. It didn't kill me but it didn't fascinate me either.
7. Where do you get your sense of social justice from?
My family, mostly. Things like fairness and equality and people having enough and not being left out come through the experience my parents had living through the war. And I remember my grandfather's sense of injustice that he was conscripted into the army in World War I and so were his brothers, and he never saw them again. He used to say, "Never trust politicians, police or priests." My other grandfather died after a motorbike accident because the local doctor wouldn't come out to see him. It was before the National Health Service and they owed money from their previous bill. My mother is 95 and would describe herself as a Christian so there was always that kind of moral code as well. Those things all spiked my interest and fuelled my reactions.
8. Have you ever been subjected to injustice or discrimination?
At university, I was ridiculed mercilessly because I had a strong Northern accent. I still have it now and I haven't lived there since 1971. There was a horrid boy who used to walk down the corridor behind me chanting. My first name was Judith and my surname at that time was Dunn and he used to shout "Judith Dunn has had her onions" to mock the way I spoke. Because he'd been to Harrow, you see, which is on a par with Eton. And then when I went back home after my first term of university everyone said, "Why are you talking so posh?" Also, we were told that some law firms would just not take women. Some of the students were unashamedly at university to find a husband, which mystified me ... and ironically I was the one that found one! This was 50 years ago and I'd like to think it's radically changed.
9. What is the greatest challenge you've overcome?
I don't think of life like that. If something comes along, you deal with it. I think I have a strong survival instinct. Making my own way was a challenge when I had no path to follow from parents, relations or close friends but I just got on with it. Coming to New Zealand was a challenge. When I left, my mother said to me, "You know when people used to go to New Zealand we would consider them dead."
10. What was the biggest shock about moving here?
No bloody central heating! That there is poor-quality housing and that's the norm ... that was a shock. There is a noticeable level of inequality here. There's inequality where I come from but somehow, maybe because this is a small country, there's some quite ostentatious wealth here that's right up next to very obvious, unrelenting poverty. The only other place I've seen that is South Africa. I didn't see as many Maseratis, Porches and Lamborghinis in London as I do living in Auckland. That says something. I've also seen every kind of clapped-out car though ... every [type of] car I was driven in as a child is on the road in this country!
11. Is it a burden to feel that you have to make a difference in the world?
No, because I don't think I'm that important. Any person, living their life day to day can make a difference, to another person or to the people they're close to. I'm not elevating myself up into some sort of saint or martyr or champion of social justice. I've just bumped along trying to do some positive stuff.
12. What's the story behind your tattoos?
I have two, so far - one on each
arm. They are stylised feathers designed by a wonderful artist on K Rd. I love birds and have collected feathers since childhood. I also love the written word and you can see the feathers as quills. I'm very proud of them. Tattoos were on my bucket list before reaching 60, along with snorkelling on the Great Barrier Reef and learning to ride and buying a motorbike. I managed all three. I didn't have a bucket list for 50 - I just wanted a damn good party, and I had that - but I did for 60. For 70 ... I have one but I'm not telling you what's on it!
