Hard day today. To look to the future at times is quite frightening but so many friends lost their future so to go on is not only for yourself but for those who did not make it. My proposed journey is also for Donna,Jo and Joanna and Murray who were all Francophiles and perished in the Canterbury Television Building building.
Val you ask about me.
72 years old.
Born in Coventry on night of the blitz on Coventry Hospital 09.04.41. Born under the table
at 2.10am. Is there not a sycronicity that 70years later I spent a lot of time under a table during the hundreds of aftershocks from that the first massive quake of 4th Sept 2010 - it took me at least five seconds to realise that it was an earthquake. I also thought that the initial quake was it, nothing had prepared most of us for the fact that we would racked by 12,000 plus aftershocks, some of them major events in themselves.
I arrived in NZ with my parents and an older sister,Margaret and brother Christopher(the only survivor of triplets). One of my fathers sisters had married a member of the RNZAF and arrived in NZ as a war bride. Her glowing reports of life and opportunities in NZ fired my father, not so sure about Mum. We arrived in 1947 and lived in Auckland but my mother was seriously ill and died at a relatively young age of 38 ( I was 12+). I took over the role of homemaker and longed to train as a Psychiatrist but eventually trained as a Psychaiatric Nurse and then travelled to the UK and trained as a forensic Psychiatric Social Worker. Since then I have spent roughly half my life in UK and half in NZ and have worked in people related work. In my latter years I worked for an MP as his social worker and then with the Schizophrenia Fellowship supporting sufferers and their families and advocating for changes. My last salaried position was with young adults with an intellectual disability training them to live as independently as possible with support in the community. I also was chairperson of a voluntary organisation 'Your Studio Trust' working with Art to enable youngsters with an intellectual or mental health issue to express themselves with Art.
That is an abridged version of 50+ years and gives some idea of why I relate to and feel part of what you are doing with Tag on Lines and your work for the children in Mali and animals in the Tarn and all this in a part of France that I fell in love with - especially Ingres and Montauban.
I am so looking forward to meeting with you.
Take care and love
Ann
Val says We will take you once again to the Ingres Musuem in Montauban and have a nice lunch out into the bargain.
Val you ask about me.
72 years old.
Born in Coventry on night of the blitz on Coventry Hospital 09.04.41. Born under the table
at 2.10am. Is there not a sycronicity that 70years later I spent a lot of time under a table during the hundreds of aftershocks from that the first massive quake of 4th Sept 2010 - it took me at least five seconds to realise that it was an earthquake. I also thought that the initial quake was it, nothing had prepared most of us for the fact that we would racked by 12,000 plus aftershocks, some of them major events in themselves.
I arrived in NZ with my parents and an older sister,Margaret and brother Christopher(the only survivor of triplets). One of my fathers sisters had married a member of the RNZAF and arrived in NZ as a war bride. Her glowing reports of life and opportunities in NZ fired my father, not so sure about Mum. We arrived in 1947 and lived in Auckland but my mother was seriously ill and died at a relatively young age of 38 ( I was 12+). I took over the role of homemaker and longed to train as a Psychiatrist but eventually trained as a Psychaiatric Nurse and then travelled to the UK and trained as a forensic Psychiatric Social Worker. Since then I have spent roughly half my life in UK and half in NZ and have worked in people related work. In my latter years I worked for an MP as his social worker and then with the Schizophrenia Fellowship supporting sufferers and their families and advocating for changes. My last salaried position was with young adults with an intellectual disability training them to live as independently as possible with support in the community. I also was chairperson of a voluntary organisation 'Your Studio Trust' working with Art to enable youngsters with an intellectual or mental health issue to express themselves with Art.
That is an abridged version of 50+ years and gives some idea of why I relate to and feel part of what you are doing with Tag on Lines and your work for the children in Mali and animals in the Tarn and all this in a part of France that I fell in love with - especially Ingres and Montauban.
I am so looking forward to meeting with you.
Take care and love
Ann
Val says We will take you once again to the Ingres Musuem in Montauban and have a nice lunch out into the bargain.
