Homecoming #1
Knowing where you come from can be a tricky thing for some of us. I grew up, for example, in a town my family settled into shortly before I was born, and then left once I’d flown the coop – which makes it my hometown, but not where my wider family is from.
Even so, my parents loved their time in Levin. They’d moved there from Wellington when my older brother was a toddler. It was a booming manufacturing and market gardening town. A great place to raise kids, build a business and enjoy a vibrant social life and warm community.
They left three decades later, eventually joining me in Auckland where I’d moved to work and raise my family.
But even though I have no family left there, I am about to head to Levin for a very special weekend.
Three years ago, I was contacted by the Heritage Horowhenua Trust, a dedicated group of locals whose aim is to celebrate the character and history of that area – places, buildings and a “Walk of Fame” with plaques in the main street that recognise people from the Horowhenua who have done good things.
Would I, they asked, agree to being one of those people? For the comedy, writing and social activism?
Instantly, you assume there’s been some mistake and they’ve got you mixed up with someone much fancier. Or it’s a hoax or a scam or a jolly jape and there’ll be a “gotcha” any minute, and won’t you look silly.
When it turns out to be real, you begin to get a sense of how much your late parents, John and Donna, would have loved a plaque somewhere in that town with the A’Court name on it because this is where they spent their happiest years, and felt so much a part of this community.
Dad was in the Lions Club, spending weekends at working bees and fundraisers. My mother was on the committee of the Levin Little Theatre from the moment she arrived in town pregnant with me till the year they moved away.
The year before Donna died I took her on a road trip back there, and there’s a photo of her sitting on the theatre’s stage with her dear friends, local theatre legends Jocelyn Whitehouse and Joyce Corrin, all three looking so entirely at home.
My parents would have been chuffed to have our name placed alongside so many of their contemporaries and friends, like world shearing champion Sir Godfrey Bowen, jockey Bill Skelton, and motor racing enthusiast Ron Frost. And to see All Black Carlos Spencer named, too – his mother, Wiki, was a valued and respected part of my parents’ clothing business.
How especially good, Donna would say, that the arts are represented on those plaques – writer Joy Cowley and actor Rebecca Gibney - as well as sports and business.
I’ve been reflecting on the people I was so lucky to have in my Levin childhood.
Not only Jocelyn and Joyce at the theatre, but also Margaret Craddock at Levin North Primary, and Anthony Dreaver and Tony Marsh at Horowhenua College who all nurtured kids who loved theatre.
Jean Scott who taught dance, Marie Parrington and Pauline Cattell who taught speech and drama after school. And Miss Picken at the Levin Public Library who took you by the hand and led you to the right books when you were ready.
Knowing “where” I come from feels complex, but knowing “who” I come from is clear. I can’t wait to go home.