The flight of time's arrow

061114PBJosie HOME AT LAST: Josie Brown lived away from New Zealand for 44 years, living life to the full. PICTURE: PAUL BROOKS

She left her hometown, Timaru, in 1953 to see the coronation of Elizabeth II. "It rained all day so I watched it on TV," she says.
For three years Josie was head cashier at British Home Stores in London. After leaving her job, she took a few weeks touring Europe, "seeing as much as I could", and took a ship from Germany to Halifax, Nova Scotia in Canada, ending up in Toronto. She got a job with the Bulova Watch Company.
Josie says she always intended to come home but never felt she had quite seen enough.
On one brief trip to New Zealand she went from Canada through California and thought, "this is the place I want to be". In 1959 she went to Hollywood, living two blocks from Hollywood and Vine. "I could see Capitol Records from my window." A failed movie, Weekend of Fear, was made in her apartment in 1966. "It was a good time to be there."
"I was lucky and got a good job with a man who had a jewellery suppliers' business." He branched out into wholesale jewellery and sold the other half of the business. "I went with him and got to be his designer. I had that job for 18 years and I think it's the best job I ever had." She used only 14-carat gold and precious stones for her jewellery. "He gave me a free hand."
She has sat next to Rock Hudson - but didn't know it - and has had her photo taken with race driver Mario Andretti, but living in Hollywood for so long, it didn't pay to be starstruck, she says.
When her sister came to visit, she and Josie went to Las Vegas for a week and went to shows every night. "It cost $4, for which you got two free drinks and we saw the top stars. That was when the big bands were playing and that's what I really liked.
"Then it got hectic. I had my job and also played darts three nights a week and went to darts tournaments on the weekend. In the meantime I owned a tavern and had to put a manager in, but that was a disaster. After I met my husband [through darts] I got him to manage it." With her husband's support and encouragement, they moved to Arizona in 1979.
"When we got there they were starting a dart league but didn't have anyone that knew how to run one. My husband, James, suggested I open a darts store. 'There's none here and you'd be the only game in town'." Josie opened the darts store and helped run the league for a couple of years. Starting off with 242 members, it grew to 1600 after the first year.
Josie says the United States adopted the traditional British pub game and grew it. Tournaments were held in Las Vegas, Arizona, on the Queen Mary ... "We went to Hawaii three years in a row. It was amazing how it spread. I attended the World Darts in Nelson and played in Brisbane. We sponsored the New Zealand team when they came to America."
She had six policemen on her darts team and also ran the Police Olympics for 10 years. Lots of women played, says Josie, including her best friend, Sandy Reitan, who became number one in the world. Sandy still plays, running her own league in Los Angeles. She and her husband recently came to Wanganui for Josie's 90th birthday.
Josie ran the store for more than a decade, then she and her husband moved into the desert about 32km out of Phoenix, where they worked together in James' trucking firm. "In the evening we'd sit out on the deck and 'critters' would come by - quail, cottontail rabbits, roadrunners, red cardinals and coyotes."
In 1997, they retired to New Zealand. "Being away for 44 years is a long time to be away from family. I had to get to know everybody again," she says.
Not long after moving to a house in Wanganui, James was diagnosed with cancer, necessitating trips to Palmerston North for treatment. On one such trip, thieves cleaned out their house, taking most of their memories of the US. "It was the day they told me he had nine months to live," says Josie. It was Melbourne Cup Day and it was raining. Two cars pulled into the driveway and the neighbours just thought they had company. Josie and James sold the house.
"The Cancer Society and Hospice helped us both so much to get through that." She says James would never have got such care anywhere else in the world.
Now Josie reads - she's a big John Grisham fan - knits and watches TV. Her brother moved in to live with her about 10 years ago.
She misses the US, the people she met and "the availability of everything", but she's glad to have been there and done it. And she loves Wanganui. "It's a pretty place."