About Me

Kath's Pages Of Stories and Verse | home

About Me

My maiden name was Margerison. I was born in Bradford West Yorkshire but later moved to Pudsey, where I attended the Grammar School. I served in the Royal Corps of Signals, ATS, from 1944 to 1947.

I have lived in New Zealand for forty-eight years. I came here in 1953, as an immigrant, on the SS Captain Cook, having been sponsored by an aunt who had arrived two years earlier.

I was a primary school teacher and started work a week after I arrived at Manurewa Central School, Manurewa, which is about eighteen miles south of Auckland. There was no secondary school, so we took children from the age of five to fifteen. The area was rural but new housing estates were springing up all over the place.

I met my husband Chris, an immigrant from Castletown-Berehaven,Co Cork, Eire, shortly after I arrived. We married in 1954 and Chris and his brother built a house on land he owned in Manurewa. We had five children, Kevin in 1955, Christopher in 1959, Kathleen (Kate) in 1961, Maureen (Mo) in 1963 and Margaret (Margie) in 1965.

I resumed teaching when Margie was three years old and taught for a further thirteen years. After that I worked with the resettlement of refugees at the Mangere Refugee Hostel in South Auckland.

When my husband died in 1990 I moved across the water to Waiheke Island in the Hauraki Gulf. We had a holiday cottage there which we built in 1975. I added on to it and have lived here ever since.

I belong to the Island Writer’s Group and write short stories. I paint a little. I am a volunteer member of the Waiheke Citizen’s Advice Bureau where we help the public to solve the sort of problems they encounter in today’s the complicated society.

I have thirteen grandkids. Three in Brisbane, Queensland, Australia, three in Perth, Western Australia, six in Auckland, NZ and one in Wellington, NZ

It' a Girl

(18 July 1926)

The voice of the Welsh tenor, Walter Glynn, poured its notes into the front bedroom of a brick corporation house in the Fagley, a suburb of Bradford, West Yorkshire, England. The song, `Just Because the Violets', was a popular love song of that day, and this was the tenth time its lyrics had flooded the room. It was difficult to know who was more tired, Phylis, who lay on the bed in the second stage of labour, eyes filling with tears as she listened to that beautiful voice between tearing bouts of pain, or her mother and midwife, Granny Philips, who had spent the few last hours either comforting her daughter by rubbing her back or winding up the damned gramophone. Jerry, the prospective father, had been dispatched to the phone box to call Doctor Anderson, and until the doctor arrived Phylis was determined to draw solace from her favourite record.

A loud rumble of thunder gave warning of the approaching storm. The afternoon air was hot and still; and dark clouds covered the July sky. An ear-shattering crack of thunder broke the silence and was followed by the clatter of heavy raindrops against the roof and windows of the house. This noise drew Granny's attention and she moved to the window to watch the rain bouncing back from the front path like dried peas hitting the bottom of a saucepan. Turning back to the bed she examined her patient once more.

`It won't be too long now, my pet, you're almost fully dilated.'

`Wind it up again mother,' was the only response.

Once again the handle was turned and the needle replaced in the groove of the record, but before the song could begin there was a loud rat-a-tat on the front door. Granny snatched the needle off the record when she heard Jerry's voice directing Doctor Anderson up the stairs.

`Oh, Mum, I wanted to listen to it again.'

`No time for that now love, you've work to do,' said Granny as she pushed the sweat-soaked auburn hair out of her daughter's eyes. The doctor, a tall, well built man, was an impressive sight as he entered the room. He was wearing tennis whites and the shoulders and front of his white shirt was plastered to his body while his dark hair dripped with the rainwater.

`You certainly picked a good time, Phylis,' he joked as he bent over the woman on the bed and patted her shoulder. She twisted awkwardly to avoid the drips of water running off his hair and he laughed.

`Still it wouldn't have been much of a game in this weather, water polo would be more appropriate the state the tennis court's in.' He turned to Granny, `How's she doing, Polly?'

Down below, in the back room, Jerry listened to the murmur of their voices. A chap felt so useless at a time like this, but there was nothing for him to do. He prayed it wouldn't be long now and that Phylis would be fine. God knows it wasn't as if she was a strong woman and this pregnancy had taken it out of her. He remembered the day he'd watched her kneading bread in the big, yellow bowl her body swaying with fatigue. He'd insisted she sit whilst he took over the kneading and found it such laborious work that from then on they'd eaten shop bought bread. He'd known when he married her that she wasn't a strong lass, the rheumatic fever she'd suffered as a five year old had left scars on her heart. But she was a bonny lass and wanted this bairn so much. He remembered how she had laughed at his fears. Having babies was a woman's job she'd argued, look at her mother, she'd had seven of them and been widowed at the age of thirty nine yet today at fifty three she still looked a young woman.

The thunder still rumbled overhead but it was more distant now. The child had certainly chosen a wild day to make its entry into the world. He jerked his head when he heard the thin wail of an infant, then strode to the door, only to stop there. His mother-in-law would play hell with him if he dashed into the bedroom too soon, so he waited patiently at the bottom of the staircase until she opened the door and called to him to come up and see his new daughter. Oh heck, Phyl isn't going to be too pleased with this, he thought, she'd set her heart on having a son. He shrugged. We get what we're given and must make the best of it. Besides he'd been secretly hoping for a little lass. He pushed open the door of the bedroom in time to hear Polly giving Phylis a real telling off.

`Don't you dare turn your head away,' she was saying, `stop this silliness at once! Hold out your arms, you've got a lovely little girl. What will Doctor Anderson think of you if you carry on like this?'

The Doctor turned and winked at Jerry, `Well lad, you've got a daughter, and what a daughter, she's a real streak of pump water almost two feet long. I reckon she'll top six foot when she's fully-grown. But she's a strong little thing. Come on Polly, let's leave the new parents with the bairn while you and I have a cup of tea.'

The two of them descended the stairs in companionable silence. They'd worked together for ten years now and understood each other well.

Jerry tiptoed across to the bed and gazed down at the two heads below him. The red gold hair of his wife mingled with the jet-black hair of his baby daughter. He put out a tentative hand and touched the baby's hair.

`Wonder where she got that from?' he whispered. Then he leaned over and kissed his wife on the cheek.

`Oh, Jerry, I did want a boy,' she said looking at him, her deep brown eyes full of tears. `I know its silly, but I'd counted on it so much.' The baby gave a little whimper and Phylis instinctively clutched the small bundle closer to her breast. Jerry smiled as he saw the gesture. Thank God, he thought, everything was going to be all right after all.