In a year of gloom, here’s the uplifting news you might have missed you might have missed
In a year of, quite frankly, depressing news, stories that lifted the spirits, offered hope and provided an escape were awelcome distraction.
Amid the gloom of reports of the coronavirus death toll, countries shutting their borders and the world as we know it grinding to a halt, there was some light in the darkness.
Here are the stories you might have missed, as picked by Stuff’s Auckland editor, Natalie Crockett.
To Russia in search of love
The first is one that is especially close to the hearts of everyone at Stuff. It is the story of our colleague Emma Barrett, who went on a journey from Auckland to Russia in search of love.
Brought to New Zealand at the age of 3 after being put up for adoption in her native Russia, Emma escaped a life that would have otherwise seen her raised in an orphanage. Now an adult and keen to know where she came from, the documentary follows Emma’s quest to learn more about her biological family. Emma’s remarkable story, carefully told by the Stuff Circuit team is the must-watch of 2020.
Precious Cargo
In a year when public health was top of the agenda, it was easy to overlook anything that wasn’t linked to the Covid-19 pandemic.
One vital service that keeps the country’s sickest children alive was highlighted in Precious Cargo. The Stuff project highlighted the stories of four youngsters who got a second chance at life thanks to the work of the charity-funded National Air Ambulance Service.
Preserving Ma¯ori history
When news that one of the country’s best-preserved pa¯ of the New Zealand Wars was being revamped, Stuff went to learn more about the site’s history.
Ruapekapeka Pa¯, in the Northland town of Towai, is to be restored with $8.5 million funding to improve the site’s paths, signs and facilities.
‘‘This is probably the most well-preserved pa¯ inthe country,’’ Pita Tipene, Te Raupekapeka Trust’s Nga¯ti Hine trustee, said.
The restoration is due to be finished in time for 175-year events in January and February 2021.
In Honour
New Zealand has 600 surviving World War II veterans, but on Anzac Day in 2019, the Defence Force acknowledged it had no way of knowing exactly how many Kiwis who served in the war were still alive. That’s where Stuff journalists stepped in. In Honour was launched to compile an independent national public database of veterans, and to tell their stories. These are their memories and experiences – a living history of the ordinary men and women who did extraordinary things in the line of duty. The purpose of In Honour is not to highlight war but to acknowledge those who put their lives on the line for their country.
The other nurse Jenny
A Kiwi nurse was praised for her efforts in treating British leader
Boris Johnson when he was hospitalised with coronavirus, but she wasn’t the first nurse Jenny from New Zealand to look after a British prime minister.
Johnson publicly thanked Jenny Mcgee, from Invercargill, for saving his life ‘‘when things could have gone either way’’.
But 60 years earlier, Jennifer Jones, from Takapuna in Auckland’s North Shore, was the private nurse of then-prime minister Sir Winston Churchill in 1960. Jones, who died from cancer in 2006 aged 68, was hired by Churchill’s wife, Lady Clementine Churchill, when she was 22 years old. She worked at his country home in Chartwell.
The ‘‘bubble man’’
The word bubble has become synonymous with staying safe in the coronavirus era. But what is not widely known, is the man responsible for the concept is Kiwi scientist – or bubble man – Dr Tristram Ingham.
The University of Otago professor, himself a wheelchair user living with muscular dystrophy, put the idea forward as a way to ease the anxiety surrounding the pandemic, particularly for people with disabilities who were keen to avoid infection.
‘‘Build your bubble’’ was the answer he pitched to the ministry and before long, the term was everywhere: in headlines, cartoons, the PM’S daily briefing and talk of the trans-tasman bubble. It was later adopted overseas.
‘‘It’s a bit trite to say you like helping people but I do, I get a lot of vicarious pleasure from seeing other people benefit,’’ Ingham said of his involvement.
Double baby joy
Celebrating the end to a long year with a happy ending, are Taryn Cumming and fiancee Kat Buchanan.
The same-sex couple, who fell pregnant to the same donor via artificial insemination, welcomed their son Ryan and daughter Piper just four days apart in November. The couple, who have been together for two years, started talking about having children early on in their relationship but faced declining fertility and an expensive fertility process. Cumming said the couple hoped their story would help women to access information about fertility and their options.
Titirangi’s chickens
And just when you thought 2020 couldn’t get any more bizarre, the worlds of West Auckland’s infamous Titirangi chickens and thriller writer Stephen King collided.
The master of supernatural novels was intrigued by the mysterious return of the suburb’s feral birds when they came back during the Covid-19 lockdown, months after they were rounded up and rehomed. King tweeted: ‘‘The chickens came out of the shadows ... with a thirst for vengeance’’, in response to a story which quoted a resident describing the bird invasion as ‘‘like something out of a Stephen King movie’’.