A woman named Audrey
Reporter, teacher, traveller and mother, but Audrey Carson Ewan was always a girl at heart.
How do you tell the story of a beloved partner, capturing her lifelong youthful spirit? For former journalist John Ewan, the answer is: In her own words.
Ewan’s just-published book: The Audrey Story is about his late wife, Audrey Carson Ewan – teacher, reporter, traveller, mother – and ‘‘a girl always at heart’’.
It was never intended as a tribute book, Ewan says. ‘‘I had lots of Audrey’s writing in various forms that had not been published and deserved to be saved . . . I realised they were virtually her life story, so I wrote a framework to tie up the pieces.’’
A big part of Audrey’s story was her time as a reporter on the Manawatu¯ Standard .Itwasa period of change, as folksy Palmerston North began to slowly morph into the modern city it is now.
‘‘She filled in her diary entry for her first day [in March 1965] with typical understatement: ‘Started new job at the Standard. Pretty good. Nice to be able to come home for lunch’.’’
In fact, she would do so well that in the year and nine months of her tenure she rose in the grading system of the time from J1 (beginner) to J5 (seasoned reporter).
Audrey Carson grew up on a farm in outback Nelson, Ewan writes. ‘‘Her approach to life was uncomplicated. The aim was simply to have a go and just keep trying.’’
Her first jobs were as a teacher in Tapawara (Nelson), Hunterville, Taihape and then as primary school teacher at Linton Military Camp.
At that time, Ewan explains, the camp had a proportion of families who’d been living in Malaysia and Singapore, so many of Audrey’s pupils spoke a mixture of Malaysian and English. ‘‘She would say how much she enjoyed the freedom and the budget to develop the 38-pupil junior department.’’
Home was a flat shared with other girls in Palmerston North.
She played sport, and once entered a women’s stockcar race. Her diary entry reads: ‘‘My car broke down.’’
Theatre also called: Audrey performed with the chorus of the Operatic Society (now Abbey Musical Theatre) in Showboat (1964) and Annie Get Your Gun (1965).
Through the show business community, Audrey got to know Colin, who’d worked in the ambulance service in London. They became close and Colin spent Christmas at her family’s Nelson farm. On January 25, 1965, Audrey wrote: ‘‘Colin’s 25th birthday and most important day of my life so far – Colin and I are engaged!’’ Five days later, Colin was dead. The Standard reported that Colin had been driving a truckload of sheep to a nearby freezing works. Taking a corner on the Bullsturakina highway, he left the sealed surface and his articulated truck smashed through a fence and rolled down the hill. The report suggested he’d been thrown out of the cab by the force of the impact.
After bereavement leave, Audrey left her school job. Soon after, Standard editor Denis Wederell signed her on to the newspaper’s staff. She worked her way up through proofreading, acting as copy runner – taking items written by another reporter back to the paper, or phoning them through to a copytaker – to finally, her first job, covering a couple of fires in town.
‘‘Within 10 days,’’ Ewan recalls, ‘‘she was getting three items a day published. Before long she was covering local body meetings throughout the area covered by the paper.’’
Often, Audrey was the only woman present at these meetings and she was never invited to join the councillors in the lunch break. Unfazed, she’d buy a sandwich at the local dairy.
‘‘There were fun times, too, such as when she and a photographer, out on a story, made an unscheduled visit to Himatangi Beach to dig shellfish out of the sand. It wasn’t long before they also had to dig out ‘Powerful Pete’, the staff car.’’
When the Queen Mother visited, Audrey wrote: ‘‘She was leaving Palmerston North by plane and journalists were allowed out on the tarmac. It was a bitterly cold afternoon and the Queen Mum . . . leaned over to me and said: ‘Please do not stand out in the cold too long.’
‘‘I was so stage-struck that I didn’t even reply.’’
Audrey left the Standard on December 23, 1966. Her diary entry reads: ‘‘Last day on the Standard ... Got holiday pay and no bonus, so the staff rallied around and gave me one.’’
Travel adventures followed, before love again entered the picture.
Ewan picks up the story. ‘‘One evening I was walking home from a work meeting and passed the home of mutual friends. On a whim, I decided to look in. Met Audrey, who had just come to Wellington. We started talking and found many interests in common. We met every day after that before getting engaged.’’
They were married in 1970. Later, the birth of their son, Kerry, brought the couple new joy. The family travelled together to many countries. There was a bach at Waita¯ rere Beach and frequent visits to Palmerston North relatives.
Audrey became one of New Zealand’s first female parliamentary press officers, later leaving the Beehive to work for The Evening Post, as bureau chief for the Hutt office and then as Ka¯ pitihorowhenua correspondent.
It was a happy life, marred only, finally and irrevocably, by the shadow of cancer.
John Ewan has worked in journalism, advertising and public relations.
He was Wellington sports correspondent for the Sunday News and edited a football magazine; reported on club and representative cricket for The Evening Post and Radio 2ZB’S sporting roundup; wrote a book,
Getting Started in Publicity and two others on early New Zealand families.
His most recent book has been
Accidental Immigrants, a true story of Whanganui settlers.
The Audrey Story has been published by Chateau Publishing. The book is distributed by Bookreps NZ for $35.