LAUREL DEVENIE & MUM GILLIAN SKYRME

ShortlandStreet star Laurel and her mother might live an eight-hour bus ride apart, but Gillian only has to turn on her TV to feel close to her daughter. “It’s like having a little secret meeting with Laurel every evening,” smiles Gillian, a linguistics teacher in Palmerston North. “But if they ever play a whole episode that doesn’t feature Laurel at all, I do feel very short-changed.” However, 65-year-old Gillian, who once dabbled in acting herself, admits she’s been spoilt with a lifetime of performances from her talented daughter. When Laurel was young, it became a family tradition to put on plays for her birthday, which her mum wrote and her dad, MeettheFeebles actor Stuart Devenie, directed. “They weren’t small productions either,” Aucklandbased Laurel, 34, remembers. “Dad had connections at the radio station, so for about four weeks ahead of my birthday, my friends and I would rehearse there. This was well before any of us could learn lines, so Mum would have to stand up the front and recite them to us line for line!” While the Shorty siren – who plays nurse Kate Nathan on the TVNZ 2 soap – longed for Barbie dolls and McDonald’s while growing up in Whangarei, she now appreciates the simple, book-filled childhood that her unmaterialistic mum insisted on. “Mum’s not decadent in any way and is acutely aware of her carbon footprint,” tells Laurel. “She eats out of her garden, cycles to work and feels guilty if there’s a spare room in her house – someone has to fill it! “I really admire how Mum sustains herself in a world where people think they need everything. It wasn’t that she was strict – she was teaching me an important lesson I never knew I needed. I know I’ll be the same with my children.”

Mum eats out of her garden, cycles to work and feels guilty if there’s a spare room in her house’