10. Tuakiri

At thirty five I met a woman who played the most pivotal role in my life.

She gave birth to me.

We met for lunch. Over Jimmy’s whitebait she asked what I did for work. So I told her the story.

I was seven when I decided what I was going to be when I grew up.

I’d just met a family friend who had a job drawing cartoon rabbits. The rabbits were for something called a television commercial. This was a bit of a big deal. She was an Art Director and worked for something called an ad agency.

An Art Director sounded important. Exactly the sort of thing I should be doing. I liked the idea of being a big deal.

So that was that then. Decision made. Advertising it was.

In my last year at Napier Boys, Dad showed me an ad from Wood & Mitchell, a local ad agency who were looking for a copywriter. It didn’t sound as impressive as an art director, but from what I could tell it was easier, which suited me perfectly, so I front footed it, and was generously given some freelance work by Kim who was running the Napier branch.

I was seventeen and full of it. I had my first job in advertising, and had no idea what I was doing. Kim saw something though, and so I left school early.

As our fish arrived, I told my mother all about the importance of being an advertising copywriter, trying to explain it in a way that a civilian would understand, and excitedly joining up the dots between cartoon rabbits and Kim.

She let me finish, then smiled and laughed gently.

“I used to be an art director... At Wood & Mitchell”

Nature vs nurture.

There was more. For a while I thought it was a good idea to take flying lessons, inspiration I assumed would have come from Dad, who although he didn’t talk much about it, flew Lancasters in the war.

As it turned out, lessons weren’t the great idea I thought they’d be, and the inspiration was clearly questionable too.

“I was a pilot instructor” said my mother.

Nurture vs nature.

Like I said, the most pivotal woman.

Somewhere in the middle of fish and chips, everything I thought to be true no longer was.

Most people don’t know that I was adopted.

It wasn’t information I shared often or easily. Secrecy is implicit - adopting parents...