And here’s to the next 10 years
Happy, happy birthday to the Ten years is a significant birthday in any circumstance but it’s particularly special when you consider that a decade ago, commentators were gloomily predicting the demise of deadwood media and forecasting we’d all be receiving our news via cell phone and computer apps.
Of course, many of us are doing just that. There’s nothing like being able to access news immediately — but I also enjoy the simple pleasure of being able to browse the papers on a Sunday morning, turning the pages in a leisurely fashion, either at home or in a cafe.
And clearly many of you do, too. Which is why the is not just surviving 10 years after its launch, it’s thriving.
When I was approached to write a column for this bold little Sunday tabloid, I was writing a column for the and had been for a number of years. The
I suspected, would be a different matter entirely. I knew the audience would be far more critical — and I was right.
Originally, I was asked to write a girl-about-town type of column — you know: night club openings, racy affairs, fabulous shoes. The only trouble was, I had given up the drink and settled into domestic bliss with my Irishman, my daughter and my border collie dog.
I had no idea where the hip places to drink were and there didn’t seem to be much from the domestic front that could be turned into diverting, saucy stories.
Wendyl Nissen had been asked to write a weekly newsy op-ed piece and she was most reluctant to do that, so I asked the original editor, Sue Chetwin, if I could do the news And many more . . . Kerre toasts the Herald‘ Siunnadallyya, column; Wendyl offered to do a lifestyle column and Sue signed us both up. And we joined the
columnist team — with Michael Barrymore, Deborah Coddington, That Guy, Matt McCarten and Damien Christie.
Ten years on, I’m the last man standing as different columnists have left the paper — or in some cases, had the paper leave them.
I asked the current editor to send through my first column so I could see what launched my decade-long association with the paper. It was on Sharee Adams, the 24-year-old daughter of United Future MP Paul Adams.
She had appeared before a parliamentary select committee
Oornig‘ write a girl-about-town type of column — the only trouble was, I had given up the drink and settled into domestic bliss.’’
hearing to deplore the very idea that gay men and women be able to formalise their relationships through civil unions.
Ah, those were the days. Remember when United Future was more than just Peter Dunne and when debate raged over the Civil Union Bill?
Looking back on that first column, I could have been a little less snide. Adams had been a Miss Universe contestant and I could have toned down the comments about that. Still, we both had firm opinions on the Civil Union Bill.
Adams told the committee that the legislation would serve the interests of a few, to the detriment of marriage, children and society as a whole.
It was all very well for Parliament to be considering introducing a bill that would give same-sex couples the same legal rights as married couples, she railed, but she and other members of her generation would be reaping the effects of the bill, while “the members”, she proclaimed memorably “would be pushing up pansies”. An unfortunate slip of the tongue on the part of Adams, but you were left in no doubt as to where she stood.
I wrote that true love is a rare and precious thing and although what happens in the bedroom seems to be a major preoccupation with homophobes, love is about so much more than sex. If two people happen to find love, it should be celebrated, no matter what their sexual orientation. I still stand by that, and I’m delighted that now, gay couples have the same rights to marry as the rest of us.
Ten years on, Adams is selling real estate north of Auckland with her dad. I hope she fulfilled her dream of marrying and having children and that she’s happy.
It’s quite a stretch of time, 10 years. New Zealand has changed irrevocably and so have many of us. In my own life, I took up running marathons (five to date). I have written three books, climbed Mt Kilimanjaro and travelled to many beautiful parts of the world.
I have seen my daughter marry and then I became an honest woman myself. I’ve made a couple of new friends and kept my old ones. Our much-loved border collie died this year but fortunately, that’s the only time I’ve experienced real grief in the past decade.
To those who read this column, thank you. I know I’ve probably brassed some of you off over the years and I really do apologise. I don’t set out to antagonise people but it’s an occupational hazard.
Here’s to the next 10 years — and I hope I’m still writing, you’re still reading and the is still thriving in 2024.