40th anniversary spurs trip

A Picton family will travel to Auckland this week to commemorate the 40th anniversary of the Erebus disaster.

Picton hairdresser Rochelle Stevenson, who lost her father Antony (Tony) Stevenson in New Zealand’s worst aviation accident, will be taking her mother Gwen to the national memorial in Auckland.

She said the family had never gone to anything official before, but she had been encouraged by her brother in Auckland to take their mother along to the memorial.

‘‘We don’t really do this kind of stuff and we’ve never been to anything, we always thought we would do it ourselves,’’ Stevenson said.

‘‘We’re not private people but we don’t shout it from the rooftops. The day comes and you just do it in your own way.’’

She said the family usually ‘‘popped up the hill’’ to visit Tony’s grave, to take flowers and weed the garden.

This year, to mark 40 years since the disaster, the family would ‘‘put on their Sunday best’’ and attend the official service at Government House. Gwen and Rochelle Stevenson would be joined by Tony’s sons, Greg and Scott.

Along with the family members of all other Erebus victims, the Stevensons were also contacted about the National Erebus Memorial in Auckland’s Parnell Rose Gardens.

Stevenson said her brothers in Auckland provided feedback to the ministry in the memorial’s earlier stages of development, which began in 2017. They also put their father’s preferred name ‘‘Tony’’ down for the inscription.

Thursday will mark 40 years since the Air New Zealand flight crashed at Mt Erebus in Antarctica, killing all 257 passengers on board. Rochelle Stevenson was 14 when her father was killed in the crash.

‘‘It was the first person I knew that died, I still had all my grandparents. My cat was still even alive in those days,’’ she said.

But time had been a great healer, and she saw the disaster as an important part of New Zealand’s history.

‘‘One day I’d really like to read the files, when 50 years are up, because they’ll be opened up then, that will be interesting,’’ she said.

‘‘[But] you can’t blame anyone for it, accidents happen.’’

She said all her children had studied the Erebus disaster as part of New Zealand history.

‘‘I just look at it as it’s part of history and my dad’s part of that,’’ she said. ‘‘Dad’s part of history.’’