A lifetime of caring
Stephen grew up at 558 Cashel St, Christchurch, in a learned household, where you were never allowed to raise your voice.
His father, Digby, headmaster of Aranui Primary School, suffered all his adult life from post-traumatic stress from his time serving in the war, so he could not abide arguments. Digby was kindly, but a little distant, and Stephen never remembers feeling he could ever give his father a hug.
Anne-Odile grew up in the south of France, very close to the Mediterranean, in a family with three brothers. She was a rather sensitive and shy little girl and felt her family rebuked her for her timidity, so learned to shut up and mind her own business.
Stephen’s mother, Ailsa, a softly spoken, golden-hearted lady, was in the first intake of speech therapists to be trained in New Zealand. Sadly, Ailsa had a stroke when she was just 40 so this then restricted her, but her love of humans and humanity never left her.
Stephen remembers being taken to visit her in hospital in a very long ward divided only by curtains. Looking back now, he thinks it was very Edwardian. No-one told him anything about what was happening at the time, he says – you didn’t tell children much in those days.
Ailsa was a consummate letter-writer and later in life she would wake early every morning and stay in bed until 10am, writing letters. She would keep in contact with not only her own friends but also her children’s friends. Stephen says she was a web of kindness.
Stephen’s father never had the opportunity to attend university, but for all his life his hunger for knowledge was insatiable. Digby taught himself French, Latin, Greek and Spanish and he also attended night school to learn carpentry, so he could build bookcases for his school in Aranui.
Digby had a secretary at Aranui Primary School, who, as soon as the children arrived in the morning, would see who did not have lunches and then go to the local shops to buy large quantities of fruit and other healthy food for them, with Digby’s blessing.
Sensitive, dreamy Anne-Odile started learning the piano at the age of 6 and showed such a natural talent that she was admitted into the Marseille Conservatory at the age of 8. She remembers her teacher, Mademoiselle Roussel, was terrifyingly strict.
Stephen’s parents connected when their eyes met across a crowded room in Arthur’s Pass. You may wonder how they managed to find a crowded room in Arthur’s Pass in the 1950s but evidently the Education Department had accommodation there for teachers to take their holidays, as did the Post Office and the Ministry of Works.
Stephen attended Shirley Boys’ High School before completing a master’s in English at the University of Canterbury, followed by a one-year teacher training course. He then taught at Mt Pleasant Primary School for 18 months, but by then knew teaching was not for him.
Stephen had friends who had headed to England to study at Emerson College, in East Sussex, so instead of teaching, he set his sights on following in their footsteps. Emerson College was an international college for adult education, set up to help people discover the gifts that live within them.
Stephen had saved some money from teaching, and had enough for either the college fees or for the airfare, but not for both.
After spending his first English winter working in Leeds, he travelled around the Mediterranean for a few months and then took a job on a farm in Norway as a WWOOFer. I know that you all know it stands for Willing Workers On Organic Farms.
As with so much of Stephen’s life, he had no idea where his life would take him – Stephen says he was an innocent abroad and was so wet behind the ears he had waterfalls. He just followed the tip of his nose.
From Norway, Stephen headed to England, where he put his master’s degree to good use by taking a job in Haslemere in Surrey as a milkman. Many bottles of milk later, Stephen had finally saved up the necessary money to attend Emerson College.
By the age of 19, Anne-Odile had taken her music studies as far as she wanted to and was now studying English at university. She had no idea what she was going to do with her life and her parents, who were both teachers, were a trifle nonplussed by their aimless daughter.
Her mother suggested that working with people who had intellectual disabilities might appeal to her. This suggestion was met with a very definite “non” from young Anne-Odile. Although she had no idea what she wanted to do, she knew exactly what she didn’t want to do.
As part of French university language courses, it was standard for students in their third year to spend a year teaching in a foreign school.
Shy Anne-Odile was terrified by this prospect but strangely enough her parents attended a summer school at Emerson College. They enjoyed their time there so much that they invited their daughter to visit the college for a couple of days.
As Anne-Odile was leaving to go back home, her mother said: “Your father and I would be prepared to pay for you to come here and study for a year. What do you think?” To this day, Anne-Odile can’t quite understand why she answered “oui” so quickly but it was a decision that would change the course of her life for ever.
Anne-Odile says when she started at Emerson College “it was so liberating because suddenly I felt it was OK to be me”.
Dreamy Stephen and Anne-Odile’s lives collided at the college and AnneOdile found in Stephen a guy who did not demand anything of her. In her life until then, her experiences of men had been very different …
Their summer wedding was the wedding of the year at Emerson College.
While studying there, they both gained skills they did not know they had and before they knew it they were both on staff. Anne-Odile was asked to run the college choir and although she had no training in this, everyone gave her such encouragement that she found she not only enjoyed the experience but shone at it.
Stephen was now in charge of managing student rosters and inducting new arrivals to make sure all the students from around the world felt at home.
They had to take turns working around the house and he remembers on one occasion instructing a dapper, enthusiastic young Colombian man in how to clean the house.
Stephen covered everything from mops to rubber gloves and when this exemplary training was completed the young man thanked him and explained that when he returned to Colombia he would now be able to train his wife in how to run their home.
After four years at Emerson College, both Anne-Odile and Stephen felt they were too young to stay there on staff, so decided it was a good time to have their big OE. Where should they go? The world was their oyster. After much consideration, they settled on 558 Cashel St in Christchurch.
They arrived in Christchurch with their backpacks and two bicycles on a day with a biting southerly and snow flurries. Anne-Odile was quite shocked at how different it was from her native France. Cashel St was so wide, the sky was so big and the houses were so far apart.
Stephen proudly pointed out they were only a 10-minute walk from the centre of town but Anne-Odile couldn’t see any people. For her, this was not a major change but a mega shift.
Then, before they knew it, they both found rather unlikely jobs working for knitwear company Snowy Peak.
Peri Drysdale, Snowy Peak’s founder, must have liked the look of Stephen and his young French wife because even though Stephen had no knowledge of knitting machines, he was now responsible for the firm’s first industrial one, which ran on a computer with punched paper strips.
Anne-Odile, an experienced knitter, was now a finisher.
Within three weeks, Stephen hadn’t lost his job and Anne-Odile had been promoted to the role of supervisor of the finishers. At that time, much of the knitting was being done by people scattered across Christchurch.
She remembers visiting one of her finishers in Lyttelton, who by day operated a wharf crane and, in the evening, sat in front of his TV knitting on his knitting machine for relaxation.
After a few months, Anne-Odile and Stephen took a break from their passionate commitment to knitwear and set off on a four-month cycling trip around New Zealand.
On their return they were welcomed back to Snowy Peak but, despite this, Anne-Odile still felt like a visitor in New Zealand.
The plan was never to stay in the southern hemisphere for more than 12 months, and they landed back at Anne-Odile’s parents’ place in the south of France only to find her parents not completely thrilled to have the young couple back.
Anne-Odile and Stephen didn’t have any definite plans other than a burning desire to do good.
Anne-Odile returned to university to complete her degree and Stephen, who spoke no French, spent every day in the university library, reading Victor Hugo’s Les Misérables with an English-French dictionary at his side. He found the story so gripping that by the time he’d finished the book his French was très bon and he’d thrown away the dictionary.
They both found housekeeping jobs in a derelict château in the centre of France. The crumbling building was a biodynamic agricultural school that had been there for a very long time.
Biodynamics started more than 100 years ago and was one of the initiatives to come out of Rudolf Steiner’s work. After World War I, farmers in that area became aware of how impoverished their land had become. They asked Steiner for guidance and he gave them a series of lectures and left them to develop a holistic understanding of land care.
For the next two years, Anne-Odile worked in the kitchen, cooking for hordes of students. Classes from the Steiner schools from Paris would stay for a few days to learn about agriculture.
Anne-Odile says: “Having to feed 30 schoolchildren and the accompanying parents, about 50 in all, with very limited means, you either quit or quickly become very practical.”
Stephen worked with the agriculture students on the farm and learned how to milk a cow, make butter, look after the chooks and rabbits, and slaughter a pig and transform it into sausages. He feels he got his Kiwi education in France.
After two years, one of the trustees on the board of the School for Biodynamic Agriculture told them about a community down south for people with intellectual disabilities. Maybe this was something they would be interested in exploring.
Anne-Odile and Stephen visited one weekend and decided they’d like to give it a try. They agreed to stay a year but ended up staying there for the next eight years.
This community was based on a group of five families who had chosen to share their lives with adults living with intellectual disabilities. They had taken on an abandoned silk mill and had just purchased the neighbouring small farm. They wanted to have cows, so needed someone who knew how to milk a cow.
Stephen was now an expert on cows and knew enough about biodynamic agriculture to help without being overly opinionated on the subject. Anne-Odile’s experience was going to be a huge help in the house.
They found their new community life was based on everyone aiming to be thoughtful and co-operative about what they were doing. Apart from all the projects around the farm, everyone was involved in cooking and the many creative activities, including lots of music. Anne-Odile and Stephen’s two sons, Hugh and Martin, were born there and Stephen says this was the time he grew into himself.
In this community, no-one personally drew their salary, which went into a common fund; once a month all the families got together with their accounts and stated what they had spent over the past month and what funds they needed for things like new shoes or school fees.
It was a conscious exercise in sharing: the less you asked for, the more the other people could have. Nine salaries were able to support 25 co-workers.
After eight intense years, it was clear the Roberts needed to return to New Zealand: Stephen’s mum had recently had a mammoth stroke and was in care. Hugh and Martin were now aged 5 and 3 and soon would need schooling.
When Anne-Odile and Stephen left this community, they were given a generous nest-egg, the equivalent of what they might have saved had they been putting money aside. This was something they weren’t expecting to receive and which, in time, paid for good quality music instruments for Hugh and Martin.
Stephen knew of Hōhepa back in Christchurch: a sister organisation to the one the little family were leaving. He and Anne-Odile decided to contact Hōhepa to see if it had any work for them on their return.
Hōhepa replied and asked them to make a video as an application. Not having the equipment or the money to do this, Stephen and Anne-Odile instead compiled an album of stories and photos.
They received a very positive response back to say that Hōhepa was interested and even knew exactly which house the couple would be offered when a position came up.
On the strength of this reply, the couple set off for Christchurch with their two little boys in tow.
Anne-Odile says: “We landed on December 1st, 1997, and by the 13th of January 1998, we were on Hōhepa’s casual list. By Valentine’s Day, I had a full-time job as a house co-ordinator and we all lived in a tiny one-room flat. By Tuesday, March the 3rd, we both had full-time jobs and moved into the house that we were destined to have.
“At the same time, we met with the Steiner School and told them our story and Hugh and Martin found themselves happily enrolled there.”
Despite their busy new life, AnneOdile still struggled with being so far away from her native France and Stephen now realised what a strong bond he also had with France.
He went to the French Honorary Consulate to apply for a French passport. For anyone who has lived in several places, you will understand how they both felt.
Iasked them what had helped them to settle down? Was it financial necessity or was it their children’s education? Stephen hesitated and then replied: “Just putting one foot in front of the other and believing in the great good of vocation. We put our lives into Hōhepa and that became our life 24/7.”
Anne-Odile says: “My job has basically been a house person, providing a household by cooking, cleaning, washing and caring. If I had followed my original career path of becoming a professional musician, I feel I would have become an insufferable person. But, having lived and cared for people who on one level are ‘imperfect’, it has made me a much better human being.
“Running a house is not a transaction but much more an art, where you have to pay special attention to all the different, often fragile people. That’s been my big learning.”
I was curious to know the influence growing up at Hōhepa had on their sons’ lives. Anne-Odile says both Hugh and Martin remember that everything was based on rhythm and order. Consequently they felt incredibly secure.
There was always at least one parent at home and they learnt to accept other people for who they were, and never knew any different. The idea of disability didn’t occur to them and they learnt that other people’s needs came before their own.
When they were in the house with their parents, their parents were actually working, so mealtimes usually had 12 people sitting around the table. When Hugh and Martin practised their instruments in the flat down the corridor, people would listen, and they played for events such as Christmas celebrations, festivals and funerals.
Both Hugh and Martin are now successful professional musicians and I was curious to know how they viewed their idealistic parents, who are motivated by vocation and doing good. Stephen replied that he was “honoured to know that they love us”. “There’s something about us that they like and I think that’s nice. Both boys take us for who we are and they have never been disrespectful of our life choices.”
Three years ago, Stephen and Anne-Odile moved out of Hōhepa and although both still work there, Stephen no longer holds a managerial role. Both found it took time to adjust to this separation.
“We spent 23 years living on site so it took a long time to extract ourselves,” Stephen says. “Living there, everything was connected and everything belonged. For the first time in decades we suddenly had to think about going to work and simple things like how to get there, where do I park my car and I must remember my keys.
“All these things, of course, are totally normal for other people. It was a necessary transition, of course, as even when you weren’t on call you actually always were, and times evolve.”
Looking back, Stephen ponders that “what we could have done might have been so different”.
“I could have been a teacher for 40 years and slogged it out but hated it. But instead, our lives collided and we metamorphosed into something that was innately using the same skills but expressing them in other areas and that’s fascinating. Our lives and work were interwoven.”
Anne-Odile adds: “It’s really interesting when you look back at the course of your life and you see all these transformations, the different threads of your life coming together and, rather like writing a piece of music, the final form is unlikely to look anything like the original sketch.”
Stephen muses: “Where you stand within yourself is a precious point and so many people never get there, but I feel I am getting close to understanding and connecting all the threads of my life.”
Anne-Odile nods in total agreement and says: “This is me – it’s OK to be me and this is where I stand.”
Former Cantabrian Mark Walton, an internationally recognised clarinettist and saxophonist, has an enduring fascination with NZ history.