FROM THE EDITOR
You’re diagnosed with a terminal illness. What do you do with your remaining months? At our team meeting this week, we pondered this Big Question. Staff writer Bea decided she would spend up big on designer clothing and wear it every day. Homed reporter Bela would throw herself into mad creative stuff like stand-up comedy and musical theatre. There was talk about travel – to New York, Shanghai, the Cotswolds – and about drinking lots of good wine. Senior reporter Colleen thought she’d write a family history; associate editor Rosemary wanted to smash all the good books on her reading list.
It was a good discussion to have, on a Tuesday between the business items, because for a few minutes it made us focus on the things in our lives we loved – and (perhaps more importantly) the things we think we’d love but haven’t got round to.
Derek Elvy, whose story is on page 70 of this issue, went through the process for real recently when he was diagnosed with terminal spinal cancer, and immediately launched himself into a wildly ambitious home renovation.
Why would he do that, we asked one another when we first heard Derek’s story. Those of us who have lived through renos were especially amazed: all that stress, the worry about budget blowouts, coordinating contractors… and he did some of it from a hospice bed. Sounds horrible.
But when you think about it, the essence of Derek’s plan for his last months is not that different to the plans we dreamed up for ourselves: he’s doing stuff he knows he loves, and some stuff he hasn’t got around to. It’s just that his stuff has always been a bit different from most people’s.
Derek, aged 59, is a true creative. He started life as a chef, became a celebrity hairdresser and a supporter of artists. He collected truckloads of dramatic religious and Gothic treasures, and lived a big, rich life. The one thing he hadn’t done, until recently, was own his own home.
This house is his final, big creative act – and it is a triumph. Derek took an unprepossessing pigeoninfested former butcher’s shop in Featherston – his friends all warned him off it – and transformed it into a series of beautiful, moody living spaces that are different to anything that has been in this magazine. It has exotic furnishings, a luxury hotelstyle bathroom with brass swan taps, and plenty of space for friends to stay in outbuildings.
When he dies, Derek’s house will be a legacy to his truly unique life. Until then, it is home to him and his rotating roster of caregivers. “It’s just a pleasure. It gives me so much enjoyment every day,” he says.
Mission accomplished.