Worried mum loses hope over daughter missing with ex-teacher
Jim Hickey has been accused of ruining a wedding, killing off a hay crop and spoiling all manner of plans. For two decades, Hickey’s face beamed into the nation’s living rooms as he delivered the next day’s weather forecast and the outlook for the coming week.
As he gave the news, good or bad, and in that down-to-earth way which has made him one of the most recognisable faces in New Zealand television history, he knew the reality of life as a weather presenter.
People with jobs like him had ‘‘targets on their backs’’.
Hickey says he would get tapped on the shoulder wherever he went and grilled about the state of the weather, especially if the forecast had been a bit off.
‘‘It’s banter and it comes with the territory,’’ he says.
Despite retiring from the small screen in 2014, Hickey still prepares to weather the storm of questions which come his way when he is out and about.
‘‘Everywhere I go I have to be locked and loaded. I’ve got my phone here and I’m checking what the forecasts are doing.’’
New Zealand’s fascination with the weather is real.
From banal small talk with strangers at the bus stop to tackling the serious consequences of the country’s changing climate, New Zealanders’ interest in the elements borders on obsession.
A preoccupation Hickey thinks is entirely understandable, given New Zealand’s place in the world.
He says part of the passion Kiwis have about the weather is due to the vital role it plays it our lives, including as a key part of the nation’s economy.
Hickey says 85 per cent of the country’s cash, be it related to agriculture, viticulture or tourism, depends on what’s happening outdoors.
Another more recent change is the ubiquity of the smartphone and people being used to having information about the weather, literally at their fingertips.
‘‘I think access to data is a big part of that,’’ Hickey says.
It’s one of the ways Hickey himself keeps tabs
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❚ ❚ ❚ ❚ feeling sick or unhealthy a peaceful time before A worried mum whose daughter skipped the country with her former primary school teacher says she is losing hope of ever learning where the pair are, as she struggles to get to grips with the relationship.
The mum has barely heard from on the weather, along with scanning the map in the daily newspaper or checking the forecast on the nightly news.
Weather still plays a major role in his life. An avid pilot, Hickey lives next door to the New Plymouth Airport, where he and wife Sue own the Airspresso cafe.
‘‘You get the whole gamut of weather through here. You can get it all at a moment’s notice,’’ he says.
The hold the weather has over us is not just physical, it is psychological too.
Registered psychologist Sara Chatwin says global research suggests the weather has a lot to do with how we perceive life.
‘‘It affects our mood.’’
Chatwin points to evidence of seasonal affective disorder, a type of depression as defined in the globally recognised Diagnostic Manual of Mental Disorders.
Connected to a change in the seasons, the ailment is most often diagnosed in winter, but the symptoms can also be felt during the onset of warmer weather.
She says while people can experience a loss of energy, change in appetite or trouble concentrating in a colder climate, extremely hot weather is also linked to increased aggression.
On a lighter note, Chatwin says the elements also dictate what we wear, what we do in our spare time and often what we talk about with our workmates and acquaintances.
‘‘Weather is a bit of a universal as it does affect everyone and it affects everyone’s life.’’
She says the weather is also an inclusive her 19-year-old daughter in the past year and says even the young woman’s friends don’t know where she and her ex-teacher, who is four decades older, are.
‘‘Everyone keeps telling me to keep my hopes up, but I’m really not too sure,’’ the mother said.
Adult children refusing to speak subject to talk about – everyone can have an opinion on the topic and it’s one which is sure to get a response.
Being able to deliver the types of information people want about the weather is Lisa Murray’s bread and butter.
As communications meteorologist for MetService, Murray is paid to talk about the climate and explain to the public and the press about what it all means.
She says Kiwis are so interested in the weather because of its unpredictability. ‘‘We get really extreme weather. We get everything.’’
This is because of the country’s geographic location, the fact it is surrounded by ocean and also the presence of the Southern Alps. These factors result in variable weather patterns and the creation of micro climates.
It explains, for example, why the weather in New Plymouth can be very different to what the people of Stratford, just 40 kilometres south, are experiencing, Murray says.
Due to New Zealanders often being faced with four seasons in one day, Murray believes this makes our weather an inherently more interesting topic to talk about it.
Murray has worked for MetService for 13 years, the last three in the communications role.
In the past decade, she has seen the interest in the weather increase. This is also reflected in contact from the public, who fire questions through to forecasters via the service’s different social media platforms.
This demand has meant MetService has become more interactive, Murray says.
Along with providing forecasts, explainers about weather events are also posted, along with recommendations about what to do if bad weather is on the way.
Murray admits that even in her downtime, it is hard to take her meteorological hat off.
Many of the conversations she has with family and friends centre around the weather.
‘‘I do get a lot of questions,’’ she says.
‘‘They’ll see the forecast and say
‘well Lisa, what does this really mean?’.’’
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❚ to their parents is more common than many realise, according to an expert, who warns that parents often feel responsible.
In July last year, the mother learned her then 18-year-old daughter had started a relationship with a man in his 50s, who was the daughter’s teacher in primary school.
The relationship is not illegal, because the teen is over 16, the age of consent. However, the family felt it was inappropriate and were shocked the man was still teaching after the relationship began.
The mum made a complaint to the man’s school and to the Education Council, and the council confirmed it had started an investigation. The man was no longer teaching at the school.
Stuff is not naming the family, the man or the school for legal reasons.
The daughter’s family have barely heard from her since July, except for a handful of text messages, and do not know which country she is in.
‘‘I keep my messenger on in case she wants to reach me one day,’’ the mother said.
She understands her daughter is also not sharing her location with friends and other family members, who have told her the daughter’s messages were uncharacteristic.
A friend of the family told them she had left the country suddenly in the early hours of the morning in February. And a detective told the mother paperwork filled out by the teacher showed they entered Japan and had declared they would stay for a year.