Thank you Mrs Topia

My older sister Kathryn was in the kapa haka group at primary school way way back in the late 1960's and early 1970's. Mrs. Topia taught the waiata and haka and my mother did the driving because Mrs Topia couldn't drive. Mrs. Topia and my mother became very good friends. They had a lot in common: lots of children for one thing, a love of netball,which the Topia girls and some of my sisters excelled at, and the pleasure of sharing stories.
I showed no talent for performance even then so I was never asked to join the haka group. I used to hang out with and semi supervise the younger ones, or walk home in a sulk because it was all so boring. I did help my sister make a needlework top to wear with her piupiu.
Anyway Mrs. Topia was my mother's friend and I remember the immense pride she felt when Pounamu Pounamu was published in 1972. She was so excited to read stories about her Maori world that she gave a copy of the book to my mother to give her some insight into that world. Of course I devoured it straight away. This was the first book I ever read by a New Zealand writer, and he described a world at once familiar and strange. So refreshing, no English boarding schools, no dragons,
no trips to the seaside to ride donkeys. New and fresh New Zealand.
I have already thanked Witi for all the pleasure this book and others he has written gave me, so this thank you is for Mrs. Topia. For her knowledge, her patience and her good humour in sharing with and teaching us. And we didn't even know she was doing it.
Tēnā rawa atu koe.
Aroha nui

Barbara