Eyewitness

Rugby legend Sir Bryan Williams made All Blacks rugby history as the first player of Pasifika blood to play in Apartheid-era South Africa in the early 1970s. He talks to Sonia Yee about the cultural obstacles and challenges heading into the three-month tour, what it meant for Black South Africans and why he's advocating for Pasifika players today through Moana Pasifika.

Today, Pasifika players are commonplace in the All Blacks, and rugby in general. But that hasn't always been the case. During Sir Bryan Williams' time there were cultural barriers.

​Listen to the podcast to find out what it took for Sir Bryan Williams to alter rugby history

The year was 1970 when a shy, 19-year-old Bryan Williams was selected to play for The All Blacks. It was an exciting and daunting time.

"I was selected alongside many of my heroes - Colin Meads, Brian Lochore, Malcolm Dick, and a whole array of top players who I'd spent the 1960s absolutely idolising, and then suddenly I was selected alongside them, so I was terrified," Williams recalls.

"Coming into the All Blacks, you're always under pressure. There's the expectation that you live up to what the jersey stands for."

Williams was only just getting used to the spotlight in his rookie year, when he was selected for a three-month tour to play against the Springboks in apartheid-era South Africa.

While Williams was not the first Pasifika player to join the All Blacks - Walter Batty, and brothers Frank and Dave Solomon came well before him - Williams would be the first to travel there, but not without some anxiety leading up to the tour.

The system of apartheid, which translates as 'apartness' in Afrikaans was built on a legislation of separatism and racial segregation under a white-led National Government.

Formally coming into law in 1950, apartheid kept those of black and coloured skin completely separate from whites in the public domain. Designated areas were set up on the basis of skin colour.

'Whites Only' signs would be seen hanging in shop windows, on park benches, at entrance ways to cafes and restaurants, and even access ways to beaches.

Interracial marriages were banned and all South Africans were classified into four groups - black, coloured (mixed race), white, and later, Asian (for Pakistanis and Indians).

Previously, in 1960 Māori All Blacks were banned from touring to South Africa and New Zealanders were signing petitions opposing the exclusion and the tour.

Ten years later, Williams and the three Māori players - Sid Going, Buff Milner and Blair Furlong - would be admitted under a special pass, giving them what was referred to as 'honorary white status.'…

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Not much is known of the suburban zoo that was once situated in Christchurch's North Beach. But those who visited recall eyeing up a mysterious crocodile in a small glass enclosure. In this episode of Eyewitness, Sonia Yee uncovers some myths, and finds out why it has left many with a mix of wonder and bewilderment.

Roaring sounds of Suzy the lion would wake up local residents in an otherwise quiet suburb in Christchurch. The mini zoo known as North Beach Zoo was situated at 153 Beach Road. A former aquarium it was re-imagined by Bill Grey who bought it in the late 50s.

​Listen to the podcast to hear more of Miles Dalton's adventures with the animals and why the zoo leaves behind mixed emotions.

"It had a very special place in my heart," says Wellington-based Aaron Alexander.

Alexander visited the mini zoo many times with his grandmother who lived in the area. And to this day, the crocodile in a glass case near the entrance, remains firmly in his memory.

"As a little kid I wouldn't want to get any closer...it was a beautiful mix of terror and excitement," he says.

The zoo was established before Orana Wildlife Park, which didn't open its doors until the mid-seventies. So for many visitors, the mini zoo provided an opportunity to see large, wild animals up close and personal.

But what also made this zoo peculiar is that it was small - a stone's throw from the beach and across the road from a golf course, it was also surrounded by residential properties.

"It wasn't really aimed as a big money making venture," says Miles Dalton who worked there part-time as a student.

Dalton says the entrance fee for visitors was around $3 dollars for adults, and half that again, for kids.

During the summer months it was bustling with families and tourists, and visitors could buy cups of food to feed to the smaller animals. Although it seemed like an odd location for a zoo, it was established before the area became residential.

"There was a point where Bill used to take the lion for walks on the beach," says Dalton.

"But then it got too populated, so he couldn't do that."

Dalton refers to owner Bill Grey as a 'hard worker and a lovely man who really cared for the animals,' some of which, had been acquired not by choice, but because previous owners had mistreated them, and the animals had shown signs of neglect.

…

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At a time when women were embracing their femininity after the war years, Barbara Herrick wanted to change the way women felt about themselves through fashion. She speaks to Sonia Yee about Dior's New Look that took the world by storm, carving a path in Auckland's high-end fashion scene with her label, Babs Radon. And shares what it was like to meet Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II at The New Zealand Wool Awards.

"We risked everything for fashion," says Auckland designer Barbara Herrick of the celebration of femininity seen on the streets of central Auckland after the war years.

​Listen to the podcast to find out more about Barbara Herrick and Babs Radon

During the Second World War, women had entered the workforce in large numbers to help with the labour shortage. It was then that utilitarianism became the order of the day.

But the launch of Christian Dior's debut collection would reinvigorate the fashion industry.

Launched in 1947, just two years after the end of the war, Carmel Snow, former Editor in Chief for America's Harper's BAZAAR coined Dior's collection 'The New Look'.

It was an exciting expression of the female form, taking women's curves - and imaginations - to new heights.

Full skirts, curved collars, padded hip-lines and cinched in waists took a global hold of women's wardrobes, and New Zealand was no exception.

"Women suddenly looked so feminine after the bleak years of the war," recalls Herrick.

"You tried your best even if you might have a little cardigan on, which was the thing about New Zealand girls - always in their little cardigans."

Herrick wasn't one to don a cardigan herself. In fact, she loathed them.

Like many women, she was mesmerised by Dior's 'New Look' which signalled a social shift for women.

There was no longer any need to conserve fabric and leisure time was being brought back into everyday vocabulary.

But these new garments weren't always practical.

"The only problem was getting on and off trams because the skirts were quite long, and your heel would often catch in one of these layers. Very dangerous!" Herrick recalls.

Herrick, the daughter of a knitwear designer, was also studying fashion at Auckland's Druleigh College. She was determined to pick up the tools of the trade and had her sights set on starting a high-end fashion label.

After completing her course at Druleigh, she picked up odd jobs and also worked part-time for womenswear designer, Emma Knuckey, which would later set her up to go out on her own.

…

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Little is known about The Wizard of New Zealand who took centre stage in Christchurch's Cathedral Square from the 70s until the Christchurch earthquakes in 2011, which saw the city in a state of disrepair. A man who challenged political, social and cultural ideology, The Wizard posed provocative questions in this public space, much to the delight, and sometimes dismay, of passersby. But the background to why The Wizard was there in the first place has been something of a mystery... until now. Sonia Yee finds out more in this episode of Eyewitness.

Anyone who visited Christchurch's Cathedral Square before the 2011 earthquakes will know of The Wizard of New Zealand - an iconic figure and mainstay of the city centre.

Often dressed in a velvet kaftan and pointy black hat, the Wizard carried a wooden staff and performed on a step ladder that acted as his portable podium.

Listen below to find out more about The Wizard and the mark he made on the history of Christchurch:

These days, you'll find The Wizard, who refers to himself simply as 'Jack', living a much quieter life, spending his time between Christchurch and Oamaru.

But what many won't know is that the man formerly known as Ian Brackenbury Channell, was also part of a larger project that would see him become a living work of art.

"That means everything about you is created by yourself as an artwork," says The Wizard.

"Your identity is only one thing, but you need to have a whole lifestyle - your family and friends, the universe you live in and the way you see the world - has to all be turned into something aesthetic, rather than moral or rational."

The Wizard's transition to becoming a living work of art began to take shape while he was living in Melbourne.

It was 1969, and he was starting a new position in the Department of Social Science and Sociology at the University of New South Wales, where he specialised in religion and revitalisation movements.

During this period, he was looking into new ways to challenge social and political ideology. But he wanted to activate this by steering clear of violence, and instead, confronting people with what he refers to as 'unusually creative responses.'

For The Wizard, that was very much like street theatre. But he was keen to push the envelope further by creating a fully formed aesthetic.

To make this official, he and his partner, Alice, visited the National Gallery of Victoria. It was there they met with the director, Eric Westbrook, who was excited by The Wizard's proposal.

Becoming a fully-fledged living work of art was edgy and provocative. No one had ever conceived of something like this before…

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This year marks 100 years since the first radio transmission in New Zealand and the man behind it is also responsible for laying the foundation for the oldest radio station in the country - Radio Dunedin. Sonia Yee finds out why Radio Dunedin couldn't broadcast the weather during World War 2, and more...

Radio has always been a form of entertainment that takes you somewhere else. And when longtime Radio Dunedin presenter, Lyndsay Rackley was a teenager, it provided the ultimate escape.

'I'd go to sleep with the headphones on and listen to YA and ZB and Life with Dexter," he says.

Listen to the podcast to find out more

Rackley says he feels lucky that he's been around for the past 60 years at Radio Dunedin which is due to celebrate its 99th birthday in the coming months.

Considered one of the oldest stations in the world, it is the longest running station in New Zealand and five-weeks older than the BBC. And to this day has continued to run as an independent station since its inception in October 1922.

But the reason the first station began in Dunedin is its connection to the first radio transmission in New Zealand, which came out of an Otago University lab 100 years ago, headed by Professor Robert Jack, who was the Head of the Physics Department.

Together with some of his students he constructed a small transmitter with parts imported from Britain to create the first successful transmission on 17 November 1921.

Professor Jack was a legend, and without him, Radio Dunedin may not have come into being, at least not so early.

Gordon Paine who is the President of the Otago Radio Association and also a current presenter says in the early days Radio Dunedin, then known as 4XT, broadcast right through World War II. But there were restrictions in place.

"They weren't allowed to broadcast the weather forecast in case the enemy heard it and decided it was a good day to bomb Dunedin."

Paine volunteered for the first time at Radio Dunedin as a teenager. A big music fan, he says Radio Dunedin played the latest offerings from overseas, which other stations in NZ during the 60s and 70s didn't play.

"Back in the 60s the music industry in New Zealand was strictly controlled, so a lot of our famous bands and singers were not doing their own material."

Instead they were mimicking the big hits from overseas.

And because of this, the international record companies wouldn't allow these overseas hits to come in. Through an exchange - Radio Dunedin was playing religious programmes from the States, in turn, they supplied the station with the latest records.

As a volunteer, Paine also had a chance to meet one of his idols after he took over the Country and Western show…

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What Now is New Zealand's most successful and longest running children's television show and this year celebrated 40 years. Rex Simpson who founded it says it was a platform to grow new talent, and a place where kids were encouraged to get off the couch.

What Now is New Zealand's most successful and longest-running children's television show and this year celebrated 40 years on air.

Rex Simpson, who created the show, says it was a platform to grow new talent and encourage kids to get off the couch.

Listen to the podcast to find out more

Simpson, a former presentations director, started his TV career after making a sideways shift from live radio to state television in 1976, when there were only two channels.

"I was only 21 or 22 years old at the time. There was more of an opportunity to experiment and people were more prepared to take risks," Simpson says.

Experimenting is what Simpson does best.

During his early days as presentations director, he created what he refers to as a segue slot that bridged the gap between a couple of other programmes.

That was a show called Nice One Stu about a cheeky schoolboy who gets up to all sorts of mischief.

When the segment launched, Simpson hadn't informed the executive team who were in shock when it went to air for the first time.

But while they might have been thrown by Simpson's experimental programming, the show became an instant success.

"I recall one time we went to Gisborne and it was like we were The Beatles - we had to have security guards to ensure we weren't being trampled. It was just nuts."

Nice One Stu's popularity gave the executive team the confidence they needed to let Simpson do what he does best - create new content.

And later, that would lay the foundations for What Now, which launched on Saturday 9 May, 1981 from a Christchurch studio.

Starting out as a half-hour show, What Now was founded on Simpson's belief that children's television should be educational, informative, and entertaining. And more importantly, it would also provide children with inspiration and ideas of what to do once they turned the television off.

The irony of making a show that encouraged kids to get off the couch while also transfixed by the show wasn't lost on Simpson.

"It was an interesting conundrum," he laughs.

"By actually having a programme that was all about young people showing what young people could be doing, we actually garnered a large audience."

Getting kids moving, especially in those early days, was a high priority for What Now. At the time, aerobics was taking the world by storm, and for Simpson, it was a no-brainer to incorporate it into the show…

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It was the spirit of adventure that took teacher, Tony Washington and his family to Pitcairn Island. One of the most isolated communities in the world, Pitcairn is just over five-and-a-half thousand kilometres from Christchurch. From an outsider's perspective, it looks idyllic but was it the adventure Tony and his family expected? Find out more in this episode produced and presented by Sonia Yee.

From the early 2000s, Pitcairn Island caught international headlines relating to incidents of historic sexual abuse and assault on women and young children on the island.

These shocking stories emerged at least a decade after Tony Washington, a former teacher, lived there with his family.

Listen: "I learnt some things about my family, self-sufficiency and accepting what you had" - Tony Washington

"We had interviews with the Kent police who came out from England to interview a number of people including my wife, my children, and myself," Washington says.

As his family were outsiders, Washington believed the locals made sure they didn't know or suspect anything.

One of the most remote communities in the world, Pitcairn has a population of around 50, but in Washington's time, there were about 65 people living on the island.

He recalls one community dinner where a crowd of men aged between 16-25 years-of-age, surrounded his daughter.

Washington managed to fend the young men off. But there were other times when he felt things weren't quite right, but the family carried on none-the-wiser.

When the family relocated to Pitcairn between 1990 and 1992, the overarching decision was informed by a career opportunity - Tony Washington would be appointed as Pitcairn's School Principal and Government Advisor.

Another appeal was the simplicity of island life and an experience that would allow them to have some quality family time. They had been sent a home video made by one of the former education officers.

"They were zooming around on a rubber duck and having a great ball of fun, there were cricket and soccer matches," he says.

But although the video provided some insight into life on Pitcairn, Washington says it didn't give them the full picture."

The family would encounter new obstacles. There are no roads on the island, so they would get used to travelling by foot, and usually on uneven and muddy ground. They would also be living in isolation with little, or next to no contact, with anyone outside Pitcairn.

Washington says many an unrealistic view of life on Pitcairn and on a couple of occasions, visitors working on the island for a 6-month stint found themselves at the Washington home, a place where they could air their concerns…

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In this episode of Eyewitness Sonia Yee takes a look at why The Great Crunchie Train Robbery was a runaway success at a time when the advertising industry hit a turning point.

What do an old train carriage, a chocolate bar, a guitar and a lawn mower have in common?

The answer: They were all involved in the making of one of New Zealand's most iconic and longest running ads, The Great Crunchie Train Robbery.

Listen to: New Zealand's most iconic ad - The Great Crunchie Train Robbery

The commercial was made in 1975, and according to its director there were a number of components that contributed not only to its longevity, but also its success.

"I think it was the storyline ... the way that it develops and builds and goes into the surreal," says Tony Williams from his home in Kangaroo Valley, New South Wales.

Set in the Wild West, the story was bursting at the seams with distinctive characters, interspersed with black-and-white, World War II footage and scenes from old westerns that Williams had sourced through an industry friend working at Paramount Studio in Hollywood at the time.

"I got it for next to nothing," he laughs.

The story was also action-packed and filled with the kind of suspense that kept its audience hanging on.

As for the location, it couldn't be further from the Wild West, but was filmed inside an old train carriage in Lower Hutt, just outside of Wellington.

"We put tracing paper on the windows and had lighting outside," says the veteran filmmaker whose job it was to keep the action moving.

But the hardest task fell into the hands of the helpers and assistants outside the carriage who had to bring it to life.

"Every time we were about to do a take we'd say, 'rock the train,' and these poor guys were out in the middle of the night in the freezing cold, rocking the train with their crowbars."

Williams recalls a fun, party-like atmosphere on the set with a cast that included young actors Bruno Lawrence and Stuart Devenie, who were in the early stages of their careers.

"You couldn't get the guns off the guys during the morning tea breaks ... they were in their characters of cowboys and were practicing their fast draws," laughs Williams.

The commercial ran in New Zealand for more than two decades and was also a runaway hit overseas, winning lots of awards.

But when the director moved to Australia in 1980, industry insiders struggled to believe that this very successful ad had been made in New Zealand.

Williams remembers visiting an ad agency and handing over his showreel. The Great Crunchie Train Robbery was right at the top of his list…

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An epic train journey for a game of rugby marks the end of an era. Produced by Julie Benjamin

My father Harry Benjamin came from Westport, and after finishing high school in 1946, he started a pharmacy apprenticeship. He soon purchased a new camera and began to click away on black-and-white film.

When I went through the pile of photos and negatives from dad 's youth, one photo stood out: three rows of well-dressed, young men smile at the camera.

It had been taken inside what looked like a pub. Dad's in the middle row, laughing as he squeezes in between two of his friends. All of them wear medallions with long white streamers.

What was going on?

Because dad died young, I couldn't ask him to explain. So I showed the photo to Brian Collins, one of his closest friends from Westport.

Brian immediately recognized the faces.

The image had been taken in 1949 on a rugby trip, and most of these lads played for Westport's Old Boys Rugby Football club. They were there to support Buller, a minor union, in their attempt to take the Ranfurly Shield off Otago. They had travelled for 17 hours on an overnight excursion steam train to Dunedin, as few people in Westport owned cars back then.

Buller supporter, Jim Kissell, was 19 and worked in the Forestry Service in Invercargill with Brian. Together they met their weary Westport friends as they alighted at the Dunedin railway station around noon on Saturday 30 July. They then gathered at a nearby pub.

A young woman, 23-year-old Vera Cooper had also been on the train trip with her fiancé, Bill Cargill, and five others. She grew up in Millerton, a coal-mining town outside Westport and knew many of the Buller players who had gone to Granity High School with her.

During the long and noisy journey from the west to east coast they got little sleep. Instead, they had singalongs 'and there were lots of laughs'.

Vera had packed her make-up bag, scarf and gloves, as well as a warm 'brown coat with velvet trim... all rugged up for the weather.'

On arrival in Dunedin, Vera and her friends freshened up at the Central Hotel, then walked to Carisbrook. It was there that a photographer snapped the attractive Buller women entering the ground. The photo later featured on the front page of the Sports section.

The game turned out to be a tense battle, particularly in the second half of the match.

Jim Kissell says the stand-out players for Buller were the 'country' boys,"They were rugby players, probably brought up playing soccer up on the mines."

"Old Geordie Anderson used to have a few pints before he played."

Hear more about the epic journey, and the match, in the latest episode of Eyewitness.

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Basketball has taken Whanganui born and raised, Megan Compain all over the world, including competing in the 2000 and 2004 Olympic Games. But she also made history as the youngest player (and the only New Zealander) to be selected for the Women's National Basketball Association or WNBA - the counterpart to the NBA in the United States. It’s 25 years since the WNBA was established and along the way, Megan also had her fair share of interactions with some legendary players...and Kobe Bryant was one of them.

Becoming part of women's sporting history wasn't at the forefront of Megan Compain's mind when she was selected to compete in the inaugural year of the WNBA - the counterpart to the NBA in the United States.

"I should have kept my memorabilia," laughs the former Utah Starzz basketballer.

Listen to: Making WNBA History

But despite leaving her uniform in a cardboard box back in the U.S more than 20 years ago, Compain still remembers what it was like to don the jersey and being handed her own gear.

"You were kitted out from head-to-toe and you didn't have to bring your own socks and sneakers...there was this incredible feeling of pride, pulling on my training jersey with my number, and that WNBA badge on it," she says.

It was 25 years ago, on the 24th of April 1996 that the announcement was made about the formation of a women's basketball league. At the time, there were no other professional opportunities for women in basketball, unless players opted to go to Europe after College, or compete in the Olympic games.

For women, that only became an option from 1976.

The prospect of playing for the WNBA was a chance for women to be recognised in the sport.

There would be eight teams, and twelve players on each roster. The only downside - there were only two spots available per team.

Compain says the top players who were already competing internationally would take a majority of the spots, so the competition for the remaining selection was tough.

At only 5 ft 9" she would find herself competing against much taller athletes, which meant she would be put through her paces in a sea of 300 to 400 girls, all vying for selection by NBA scouts.

"You've got to wrestle your own team mates to showcase what you can do," says Compain of the rigorous weekend trials held around the country.

As with the men's teams in the NBA, players who were competing for the WNBA had their eyes set not only on winning these coveted spots, but also playing for particular teams.

"We all joked that anywhere but Utah would be alright," she laughs.

…

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Empire Day fell on the 24th of May and was celebrated in New Zealand from 1903 - two years after Queen Victoria passed away on 22 January 1901. The date was The Queen's birthday, but it was also one shared with a 7-year-old boy. Find out what happened on this special day and hear the personal story of a young boy dreaming of reuniting with his Dad who was fighting in the second world war, in the latest episode of Eyewitness.

Holidays allow us to celebrate with family and keep us sane, but also give us a moment to commemorate the past. But one special date that has been long forgotten for many, is Empire Day - once an important day widely celebrated across New Zealand.

Listen to: The Rise and Fall of Empire Day

This special calendar event commemorated Queen Victoria's birthday, May 24th, and became recognised in New Zealand two years after her death in 1903.

Chris Cameron was about 7-years-old and recalls what happened on this public holiday.

"We thought of Britain as the head of the Empire," he says.

For Kiwis, Empire Day consolidated the country's national identity and its close ties with Britain, the mother country.

It was also a half day for school children. Chris had just started at Auckland's Cornwall Park School in 1942 when Empire Day celebrations were held.

"Cornwall Park School in those days had a huge collection of all the flags of the Empire - Australia, Canada, South Africa. I remember I marched at the head of the group with the New Zealand flag because it was my birthday," he says.

The children paraded around the vast school field with marching music blasting from a large gramophone, while families and people from the community came to watch.

But pledging allegiance to the British Empire and the flag was also at the forefront of Kiwi's minds because New Zealand soldiers were away fighting in the second world war.

Conversations about the war were common in the playground, and it was common for children to play with toy guns pretending to be soldiers.

"All the children there were the same...we missed our fathers and mothers who were overseas and tried to keep track of them," he says.

According to Chris, everyone had a heightened awareness about what was happening abroad and who was winning or losing.

"It was very public and the radio was our key means of what was going on in the world."

Chris' father was a former teacher who became a Captain in the 34th Battalion. As an avid letter writer, he kept in touch regularly with his only son, and Chris' mother. But one day, the letters stopped.

…

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What is it like to be catapulted to overnight stardom? That very scenario happened to five Kiwi girls who became part of all-group Truebliss back in 1999. South African-born Megan Alatini recalls the moment that changed her life and what it meant to be on Popstars - the first music-based reality TV show of its kind to have a world premiere.

The year was 1999 and it was one that Megan Alatini will never forget. The South African born-singer was 23-years-old when she was hand-picked to be part of an all girl group in a new reality TV show called Pop Stars.

Listen to Making Pop Stars - TrueBliss

Every step of the way, singers were filmed by a television crew. And Alatini laughs thinking back to the moment that changed her life.

"That was a wonderful feeling and experience," says the Auckland-based singer.

"I felt like such an idiot because I started crying...I was so elated and I was thanking my family like I was at the Grammy Awards!"

Alatini's tears are forgivable. She was filmed for a show that was the first of its kind in the world - a TV show looking for singing sensations.

Pop Stars was a precursor to the popular X-Factor and Idol shows, but the show that launched Alatini's career became an international franchise.

Everything about the show was new and Alatini agrees that at times it felt more like an experiment. But she has a lot of fond memories associated with the show that ultimately changed television history.

And while being part of a show that was finding its own feet wasn't always easy, she got to share that experience with four other girls in the band: Keri Harper, Jo Cotton, Carly Binding and Erika Takas who she is still friends with today.

For a pop band, establishing an identity can be pivotal to success. And TrueBliss were dead-set on making an impact.  Alatini laughs now, recalling how they resisted the 90s baggy jeans and grunge look of the day, opting instead for glam glitter and sparkly Bindis.

"Usually girls would have one bindi on their forehead and they might have two on the side of their eyes. I decided to go the full haul and had them all above my eyebrows and in the middle..."

Alatini was taking a leaf from some of her drag queen friends, but says she ended up looking pretty tragic.

"We had a really, really great team who looked after us beautifully. And it wasn't actually the choices of the stylist sometimes that were not so wonderful, it was actually us thinking that we knew better," she says. 

But the glamour and over-the-top Bindis weren't to last.

…

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Tiwai Point is a polarising place, people tend to love it or hate it. 2021 will be its 50th year of operations, it could also be the smelter's last. Eyewitness follows the history of the Tiwai Point aluminium smelter.

The first of Tiwai Point's pots were fired up on the 23rd of April, 1971.

But the story of the smelter starts at least a decade earlier.

Tiwai Point opened in April 1971.

In 1960, the New Zealand government signed an agreement with Consolidated Zinc, giving the Australian mining company the go-ahead to build a smelter on Tiwai Point and a hydro-electric power station to fuel it at Lake Manapōuri, in the nearby Fiordland National Park.

Listen to Tiwai Point: Fifty Years in the Furnace

By 1963, the company realised it couldn't afford to build both a smelter and a power plant, so the New Zealand government, led by Sir Keith Holyoake, agreed to build the power station.

It was the start of a partnership that has spanned half a century and has had its ups and downs.

In July 2020, the company, now Rio Tinto, announced it would be terminating its contract with Meridian Energy, the current owners of the Manapōuri power station, and closing down the smelter.

A reduction line at Tiwai Point

Rio Tinto has cited high transmission costs as the reason, but Meridian says it offered the company $60m of savings.

But even back in the 1960s the company, which was then called Comalco, was asking for more than New Zealand wanted to give.

Sir Alan Mark

It wanted to raise the level of Lake Manapōuri, which sits in the protected Fiordland National Park, to increase power production. Initially, the government agreed, but the public wasn't happy. After huge protests - the biggest the country has ever seen - the lakes were saved.

Sir Alan Mark, now an emeritus professor at Otago University, was a young botanist in the late 1960s. He oversaw the research into what raising the lakes might mean for the surrounding area.

"By our assessment the increase in lake levels would only increase the annual generation of electricity by 4.5 percent," said Sir Alan, "(But) the cost ecologically, environmentally and aesthetically would have been major."

Sir Alan went public with his findings. Meetings were held and protests staged. One petition put together by Forest and Bird recorded 250,000 signatures, which equated to about 10 percent of the population of New Zealand.

"It was very obvious that the public of New Zealand was strongly opposed to the lake raising," said Sir Alan.

Amongst all the controversy, Comalco was getting on with building its smelter at Tiwai.

Construction begins at Tiwai Point…

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Prior to 1958 mortality rates for babies born with heart conditions was extremely high. But a groundbreaking open heart surgery performed 62 years ago at Greenlane Hospital by Sir Brian Barratt-Boyes changed medical history forever. Sonia Yee looks at the lead-up to the big day and the innovative machine used in the operation.

Helen Harris (nee Arnold) was about 10 or 11-years-old when she underwent New Zealand's first open heart surgery performed by Sir Brian Barratt-Boyes at Greenlane Hospital in September 1958.

"I was a blue baby," says Christchurch-based Harris who was born with a large hole between her right and left ventricles.

Listen: "I was a blue baby"- New Zealand's First Open Heart Surgery 

Her surgical procedure was a progressive, groundbreaking event using new surgical techniques that drew attention from the international medical fraternity. An important innovation used in that procedure was a piece of equipment called 'The Melrose Machine'.

"They'd been working for two years to get the heart-lung machine up and running - they'd done 17 sheep before me," Harris says. 

One out of 100 babies are born with some form of heart defect, and prior to Harris' operation, there was no effective treatment.

"Congenital heart disease is much more common than people realise," says Dr Alan Kerr - a cardiologist who spent much of his career working alongside Sir Brian.

"Many of those  die in early infancy... some survive to be disabled and die prematurely, and some actually recover spontaneously," Dr Kerr says.

But the first open heart surgery required a lot of preparation and was an incredibly risky procedure. There were a number of factors that had to be taken into consideration.

From a medical perspective, Harris' age at the time made her an ideal candidate - she was the eldest among six other children of varying ages being considered for the operation.

Kerr says the risk of performing the surgery using the heart-lung bypass machine on babies could cause blood poisoning.

"Most of the first operations were done on older children because it was technically easier to do the surgery on someone who was bigger, rather than a baby," Dr Kerr says.

A bigger team was also brought on board, including engineers and technicians, to get the machine up and running, and to ensure that the operation was a success.

And clearly it was.

Today Harris is in her 70s and has undergone five procedures to-date, including four pacemakers, which help keep her heart beating…

Go to this episode on rnz.co.nz for more details

In the 1940s, Marie Storey was part of the third intake of women to join the police force in New Zealand. She speaks to Sonia Yee about being used as a decoy to catch a pervert; segregated training and why women were working as plain clothed officers.

In 1943, while many New Zealanders were away fighting in the war, 18-year-old Marie Storey (nee Nixon) made the decision to join the police force and she was part of the third intake of women to do so.

But the police force was nothing new to Storey. Her father was a Senior Sergeant and editor of the Police Gazette. He had witnessed the very first intake of women to join the force.

"He came home one evening in 1941 and said he'd seen history made in New Zealand - the first ten police women sworn into the police force," Storey recalls.

Listen to The First Female Police Recruits

Her father remarked, "They were a fine bunch of young women."

In that very moment, Storey also made her mind up - she wanted to join the force.

A year later, she saw an advertisement in the paper calling for new recruits. She had no real expectations of what the job would entail, only, she knew she wanted an outdoor job where she also had the opportunity to contribute to the community.

Her application was accepted, and she was placed in a three-month female-only training programme which was held over the summer.

Storey was posted to Wellington and she says back then, roles for women in the force weren't the same as they are today.

Much of her time was spent patrolling parks and community areas where groups of people congregated, and also on jobs that concerned women and children.

Female officers were also used as decoys to catch male predators.

One evening Storey was sent out to Mount Victoria in Wellington where she had to confront one of her biggest fears - she was scared of the dark - an obstacle she would have to quickly overcome.

"There had been women living nearby complaining of a male molesting them," she says.

This particular night was pitch black and deadly quiet. And Storey says all she could see was the city lights below.

The lack of visibility was one obstacle. The second obstacle was that she was alone on the job. A detective had been assigned to accompany her, but on this occasion he was nowhere to be seen.

So Storey set off up an uneven, dirt track in total darkness, making her way back-and-forth at least half a dozen times. What's more, she had to do it clambering in a skirt, blouse, hat, gloves and a handbag  - appropriate attire for women in the day.

…

Go to this episode on rnz.co.nz for more details

Rebuilding the iconic Mount Cook Road was both a challenge and a privilege. Find out more in this episode of Eyewitness.

Drive inland from Tekapo and in under an hour, you'll hit a road like no other.

Just 55 kilometers long, it follows Lake Pukaki - one of our largest southern lakes - to our longest glacier and to our highest mountain, Aoraki/Mount Cook.

On the southern flank is the towering Ben Ohau range. In summer, lupins paint the land a dazzling purple. In winter, the cold is so intense it freezes cars to the ground. Above is a night sky filled with stars and officially designated a Dark Sky Reserve.

We call this remarkable road State Highway 80, or the Mount Cook Road.

David Chamberlain used to call it his place of work.

He built this road and calls the four years he spent here the highlight of his career.

"Just looking straight up the lake at Mount Cook. Yeah, you don't get any better than that," he says.

Listen to The Most Beautiful Road in the World

Geographically, this area is called the Mackenzie Basin. Politically, it's referred to as the Mackenzie District. These days its commonly known as the Mackenzie Country after the Scot who may (or may not) have rustled cattle here and forms part of the region of South Canterbury.

Ngai Tahu, who call the land here Te Manahuna, came to tend their mahinga kai and to be with their ancestor, Aoraki, but in 1848 a dodgy bit of business called Kemp's Purchase meant the area was sold to the Crown. Tourism began in the late 19th century and a gravel road was built from the end of Lake Pukaki to the village further up the valley. By the 1950s thousands of people travelled this road every year.

But the road had its challenges. Wide rivers and streams slowed down vehicles and dust blown up by the summer nor' wester ruined clothes and choked motorists as well as obscuring the view. Winter conditions were a real adventure, with freezing fog, snow and ice.

In the 1960s the Mackenzie Basin became the setting for a massive hydroelectric power project. The plan called for the raising of the level of Lake Pukaki by 37 metres to feed the dams which meant drowning sections of the old gravel road. A new (and better) road was now a priority.

David Chamberlain was a 26-year-old engineering associate for the Ministry of Works. In 1972 he was shoulder-tapped to lead the project.

"I sort of jumped at it, really," says David. "I actually didn't have a job title. I was just the boss."…

Go to this episode on rnz.co.nz for more details

Forty years ago the Māori language was on the brink of dying out. Only 5% of Māori spoke it fluently. A massive push to save it was underway and at the heart of that movement was a little school at the foothills of the Urewera Ranges...

In 1978, a little district school at the foothills of Te Urewera in the Bay of Plenty became an anchor for the Māori language, one that caught deep and held strong.

Ruatoki School was founded in 1896, a small school for the children of Tūhoe to learn the mainstream curriculum.

Nearly a century later, as the language spoken in the homes and marae of these students was decimated, it became a place of refuge for te reo Māori

Listen to the story of Te Wharekura o Ruatoki: The Leap of Faith To Save a Language

By the 1970s, the first generation of Māori born after the urban migration began arriving at University. Their parents and grandparents had come to the city and abandoned their language.

John Rangihau, 1984

And now this generation was feeling the loss.

They became the catalyst for change and we began to see a concerted push to have more te reo everywhere, but especially in schools.

In Ruatoki, the lobbying began to have tamariki taught in their language.

In this 2018 interview with John Campbell for RNZ's Checkpoint, Turuhira Hare described the many, many meetings held through 1977 as the Tūhoe people fought to make their school bilingual.

Dr Richard Benton worked for the New Zealand Council of Educational Research at the time. In 1973 he had written a booking raising the idea of having bilingual schools. But he said the Department of Education would only agree to "consider without commitment".

Benton said the breakthrough came when the outgoing Education Minister Les Gandar asked John Rangihau what he could do for Māori.

Rangihau asked for a bilingual school at Ruatoki and the decree went out. The Department had to comply. The school got the go-ahead to become bilingual. A new principal, Tawhirimatea Williams, was brought in.

Tawhirimatea Williams spent 19 years as principal of New Zealand's first bilingual school. His wife Kaa, worked as a teacher alongside him.

"I was jumping into the unknown," said Williams, "What the heck was bilingual education? What's Māori medium education? Even the (Education) Department didn't know what it meant really at that time."

Tawhiri Williams describes some of the challenges he faced in this interview with RNZ.

He was always very aware of his responsibilities to the Tūhoe people and the trust they had put in him to teach their tamariki…

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How culturally diverse is New Zealand television and when did things start to shift? Sonia Yee explores the making of character Dr Grace Kwan - the first Asian character to become part of mainstream TV on New Zealand's most loved soap opera, Shortland Street.

Twenty-five years ago, actor Lynette Forday was a pioneer on our screens, playing Dr Grace Kwan - the first Asian face to appear on mainstream New Zealand television.

And we still have a long way to go to improve how people of colour are represented in the media and on our screens, Forday says.

A graduate of the National institute of Dramatic Art (NIDA) in Sydney, Forday played Dr Grace Kwan on Shortland Street between 1994 and 1997.

Listen to The Making of Grace Kwan

Forday was sent some episodes of the show before her audition, and found the cultural diversity of Shortland Street appealing. And when she landed the role, she was more than happy to leap across the ditch, and onto our screens.

"She was such a well rounded character...she was fun, loved shopping...she loved food. She was very three dimensional," Forday says of playing the feisty, fun-loving, Dr Grace Kwan.

Forday was 28 when she made her first appearance on Shortland Street, joining the popular soap two years after it launched.

The show initially received mixed reviews - Kiwis could barely stomach hearing their own accents played by an array of young actors who were learning the tricks of fast-turn-around TV on the job.

The format of the show was new for New Zealand, and much of it came across as trial and error.

On top of that, introducing an Asian character onto the show came with some obstacles. Back then, there were not enough Asian actors in New Zealand who were suitable to play the role of Kwan. So the casting directors had to look further afield in Australia to find Forday.

Forday says Australian TV wasn't exactly multicultural in the mid-nineties either, but she grew up watching shows on channels such as SBS, which were always culturally inclusive.

"I didn't imagine that the colour of my skin would ever be an issue," she says.

At the time, Forday was to become the first Asian face to be on mainstream television in New Zealand. But being part of a show that was breaking new ground was as eye opening for Forday as it was for viewers.

After appearing on the show for only a couple of weeks, the biggest shock came when she opened the weekend newspaper and saw an article written by a well known journalist.

"It was the very first bit of prejudice I received...on the cover it said 'Grace Kwan must go'."

And if that wasn't eye-opening enough, the headline that followed read "Asian Invasion"…

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New Zealand is the third largest producer of kiwifruit in the world. But in November 2010, that looked to change when kiwifruit vines across the country became ravaged by the bacterial disease PSA. It spread like wildfire and wiped out the Zespri Gold breed at the time. Sonia Yee speaks to award-winning researcher, Professor Russell Lowe and New Zealand's leading organic kiwifruit breeder, Jeff Roderick, to find out how PSA affected the wider industry and what it took to fight a disease that was destroying one of New Zealand's most precious export products.

New Zealand is the third largest producer of kiwifruit in the world behind China and Italy, and despite the global pandemic, kiwifruit exports have shown no sign of slowing.

In 2019, 149 million trays of green kiwifruit were produced for export. And the gold variety on supermarket shelves known as Zespri Sun Gold rose from 67 million trays to 75 million in 2020, proving popular with its smooth skin and perfect oval appearance.

But the road to the success of the Zespri Sun Gold variety has been bumpy.

Listen to the podcast

In November 2010, the HORT 16A gold variety, was ravaged by the bacterial disease PSA. This variety of gold kiwifruit was smaller in size and had a flat, almost woody beak.

The disease spread like wildfire.

"The general consensus is that PSA was imported on pollen," says award-winning scientist at Plant and Food Research professor Russell Lowe, who this year was awarded the Plant Raiser's Award by The Royal New Zealand Institute of Horticulture.

Very little was known about the disease in 2010, including how it behaved or travelled, and how fast it could spread.

"It was pretty nerve-racking at the time," says Lowe.

The news of PSA hit media headlines almost as quickly as the bacteria spread across the country.

"Once PSA spread from the original site across the Bay of Plenty and arrived on the Te Puke Orchard, visible signs of infection were seen right throughout the plants," he says.

"One of our researchers did some forecasting based on the number of plants that were dying over a short period and estimated that within a year or two there wouldn't be a single kiwifruit plant left," says Lowe.

PSA spreads rapidly, especially during rain and the symptoms include wilting young shoots and visible die back in the canopy. And as the bacteria begins to multiply, red ooze begins flowing from mature branches.

Kiwifruit growers across the country were sent into a state of panic. And with approximately 100 scientists across the country working on ways to eliminate the disease, the only way to contain the spread of the bacteria was to eradicate any plants showing signs of disease…

Go to this episode on rnz.co.nz for more details

"From the good and the great to the lowest of the low, she bridged a gap," says Georgina Beyer of transgender trailblazer, Carmen Rupe. Find out more in this episode of Eyewitness.

"From the good and the great to the lowest of the low, she bridged a gap," says Georgina Beyer of transgender trailblazer Carmen Rupe.

Carmen was born Trevor Tione Rupe in 1936 and grew up in the small North Island town of Taumarunui. She was one of a family of ten, and was brought up doing 'the kinds of chores a girl would do.'

Listen to the story

Carmen realised she was different when she was about eight-years-old, and explored her trans identity throughout her teens and early twenties, taking direct inspiration for her name from one of her idols, Spanish Romani dancer, Carmen Amaya - the first female flamenco dancer to do footwork largely reserved for male performers.

Also a keen flamenco and belly dancer, Carmen had a variety of jobs before she headed off to the bright lights of Sydney's cabaret circuit, and the infamous red-light district, King's Cross.

But on returning to New Zealand in the late sixties, Carmen was keen to add some spice to Wellington's nightlife scene. She set up a number of businesses including cafes, a brothel, a curio shop, and a nightclub.

One of her most popular businesses was Carmen's Coffee Lounge - a late-night international cafe, which ran from 6pm to 6am.

Georgina Beyer, New Zealand's first-ever transgender MP, arrived in Wellington when she 16-years-old and felt at home as a patron at Carmen's establishments.

"She had a beautiful spirit and a wairua and although she was this extraordinary person, she had this compassion for those who were down and out and underprivileged," says Beyer from her Wellington townhouse.

The Balcony on Victoria Street also attracted a steady stream of punters. It seated up to 400 people and focused on variety shows. There were striptease performances, drag queens and crossdressers, flamenco and comedy acts.

Busy round the clock, these were destination hotspots and Carmen made a concerted effort to employ people from the rainbow community at a time when job opportunities were limited.

"The law worked against us so we had to live in this twilight zone," says Beyer of the prejudice that prevailed at the time.

"Camen was an omnipresent figure...she protected us from the haters and homophobes," says Beyer.

"She was an awesome presence and had very little judgement of you."

Carmen was a savvy businesswoman who knew how to attract attention. She was often seen gliding down Cuba Street in designer ball gowns, and she knew every single shopkeeper by name…

Go to this episode on rnz.co.nz for more details

As Covid-19 sweeps across the world, Eyewitness examines another outbreak that captured the headlines a decade ago.

As Covid-19 sweeps across the world, Eyewitness examines another outbreak that captured the headlines a decade ago.

"Än hour later he died. It was so quick. Pretty traumatic."

In July 2009, Lou Lovegrove was a working as a bus driver in Christchurch.

"We assume that's where he got it from", his wife Julie Lovegrove said.

'It' was swine flu, otherwise known as Influenza A H1N1 PDM 2009: the pandemic virus that swept through New Zealand in 2009 and 2010.

The 54 year old came home from work feeling unwell.

"Ï didn't realise what it was. I thought it was a cold and he got sick" Mrs Lovegrove said.

She and the couple's two children also caught the virus but for them it manifested more like a common cold. 

"We were fine but he just slowly got worse."

Mr Lovegrove, who used a machine for his sleep apnoea, was taken to hospital, put on a ventilator and then placed in an induced coma.

After a week hospital staff tried to bring him out but he slipped back into a coma and suffered a stroke.

Julie Lovegrove remembers feeling a mixture of emotions as her husband's health fluctuated wildly.

"To me it was just a blur."

She had to work but took her children to the hospital to see him every night.

"He looked as though he was getting better and then he didn't.  It was just this roller coaster of getting better, no, yes, no, yes, no."

Lou had been in the hospital for a fortnight when the realisation came.

"He just wasn't coming out. I just knew."

"His whole body just collapsed basically. The virus ate his lungs. His internal organs slowly failed."  Mrs Lovegrove said.

"They called me in and said 'His heart's going,' and they wanted to take him off life support.'"

Together Julie Lovegrove and her children made the devastating decision.

"We said 'Ýes.' Än hour later he died. It was so quick. Pretty traumatic."

It had been just over three weeks since he first came home sick.

Ministry of Health figures showed 49 New Zealanders died from swine flu in 2009.  Lou Lovegrove was one of them

"No one saw that coming"

While deaths from a new virus were to be expected, the provenance and type of influenza were not.

Wellington Professor of Public Health and Epidemiologist, Michael Baker said health authorities had been long been anticipating a pandemic, just not this one…

Go to this episode on rnz.co.nz for more details

APEC 1999; the unlikely story of how a free trade talkfest helped save a nation from destruction. Produced by Justin Gregory.

It was called "the single greatest terrorism opportunity in New Zealand history".

Others called it a toothless, irrelevant has-been.

But APEC, the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation forum, was about to play an unexpected role in an international humanitarian crisis. New Zealand was where it all happened.

This is the story of APEC in Auckland - how a free trade talkfest helped save a nation from destruction.

"I was being yelled at down the phone."

Timor Leste or East Timor, has had a hard history. Colonised by the Portuguese in the 16th century, this small south east Asian nation declared freedom from colonial rule on 28 November 1975.

Nine days later, neighbouring Indonesia invaded. The Timorese fought back. An estimated 100,000 people were killed in that first year. The next two decades of occupation would see massacres, torture, executions, sexual assaults and starvation as a result of famine.

But the Timorese never stopped fighting for their freedom and by early 1999 the situation was primed for change.

Indonesia's economy, which had been hit hard by the 1997 Asian financial crisis, was being bailed out by the International Monetary Fund.

Global sentiment had begun to turn against the occupation. Indonesia's new President B. J. Habibie announced a referendum on the future of East Timor with a choice between autonomy within Indonesia or independence.

The referendum would take place at the end of August 1999. Habibie allowed the United Nations to administer it but he wouldn't let foreign peacekeepers be present but despite the threat from armed pro-Indonesian militia groups within East Timor. This would be an insult to the Indonesian army, said Habibie.

East Timorese in their thousands turned out to vote on 30 August 1999 despite the militias threatening "a sea of fire" if they chose independence. On 4 September the result was in. 75% had voted for freedom.

The sea of fire swept in.

Journalists on the ground reported people being round up by militia members and gunned down in the streets. Thousands more were herded on to trucks and driven over the border into West Timor. Neither the police nor the Indonesian army did anything to stop the militias. RNZ's Geoff Robinson described the violence as "a campaign of ethnic cleansing in the region." President Habibie said the reports were lies and fantasies.

Leaders and activists around the world demanded an international peacekeeping force be allowed in to protect the East Timorese people. But this could only happen if Indonesia (and their army) agreed…

Go to this episode on rnz.co.nz for more details

At the turn of the millennium 15,000 people gathered at the top of a mountain to dance. And then, it rained. A lot. Produced by Kirsten Johnstone

"I had half the crew yelling at me to stop this madness."

Twenty years ago, at the turn of the millennium, around 15,000 people gathered at the top of a mountain to dance. I was one of them.

Around half had bought forged tickets or climbed up through the bush to get in. The Gathering was an alcohol-free event, but most came with a stash of illicit substances.

And then, it rained. A lot.

The first Gathering was in 1996, a break-off from pioneering NZ outdoor dance party Entrain, which had been going since 1992, inspired by festivals in Europe and Goa. 

Murray Kingi, Mel Rutherford-Dower, Tim Owens, Grant Smithies and Jose Cachemaille saw the opportunity to bring the fractured sub-genres of dance music together for one festival with high production values.

They'd caught the zeitgeist - electronic dance music was growing exponentially in popularity; raves were popping up in provincial centres. But there hadn't been a festival that had brought trance, drum 'n' bass, dub, ambient and happy hardcore together in the same festival. Kids came from all over the country to party at The Gathering, and it became a massively important part of the musical eco-system of the time. 

Acts like Pitch Black, Fat Freddy's Drop, Minuit, King Kapisi, Salmonella Dub, and The Nomad really found their people there.

"It felt like a first for New Zealand"

"It really felt like a coming together," says Tiki Taane, who was playing with Salmonella Dub at the time.   

The Gathering was held at Canaan Downs/Pīkikirunga on the top of Takaka Hill near Nelson. The only road in was narrow and windy, but once you were there, the beech forest surrounding the paddocks was idyllic, the lime-stone landscape perfect for exploring in between dances. Māori legend says that the scales of a Taniwha are embedded in that land.  

"It's special up at Canaan Downs" says Tiki.

"There's a magical wairua up there. It's raw, it's rugged, but it's also got an intense but beautiful energy."

In the lead-up to the turn of the millennium there was global anxiety over the Y2K bug - that our computers would stop working, and that it might cause missiles to drop out of the sky, or rip out the fabric of our entire economic system. 

And while the EFTPOS did crash for a little while at the Gathering festival, it wasn't the only worry.  …

Go to this episode on rnz.co.nz for more details

Millions of dollars worth of New Zealand fruit and grapes were at risk of rotting on the branches due to a worker shortage. Until a bunch of growers took a risk. Produced by Eva Corlett.

Millions of dollars worth of New Zealand fruit and grapes were at risk of rotting on the branch due to a shortage of local pickers. So a visionary group of Central Otago growers took a chance on guest workers from the Pacific, who also took a chance on them.

"What keeps me coming back? It's another home."

In the early 2000s the orchards and vineyards of central Otago were heavy with fruit. Peaches, cherries and grapes were ready to be plucked, boxed and shipped all over the world. But there was a problem. There weren't enough people to pick them.

Hiring backpackers and students on holiday was the usual practice, but it was risky, James Dicey, the man behind Mt Difficulty wines says.

"I remember a Swedish backpacker who turned up. I did the paperwork, gave him his tools, trained him. He spent two and a half days with me, got enough money to get on the juice and do a bungy jump, then disappeared."

For Basil Goodman, another grower from Cromwell, the staff shortage was becoming demoralising.

"For two of three years, we did get to a stage, where we did not harvest all the fruit we grew. You put your whole year's work into a box of beautiful looking peaches or nectarines and apricots and then they just don't quite get to the box."

Last month, Basil retired after a lifetime in the industry, just a few weeks before his 80th birthday. One of his proudest achievements is starting what is now called the Recognised Seasonal Employer scheme, or, the RSE.

The government now leads the project and it's become the biggest formal overseas worker scheme in the country. It has two purposes: to fill the labour gap during the busy harvest seasons and to boost pacific economies.

Last year, about 12,000 workers took part, mostly from the Pacific.

And after years of industry begging government, the cap's set to jump to 16,000 over the next two years.

The government is yet to collect thorough data yet on how much money is sent back to the islands. But a 2014 study put the total earnings of just Vanuatu RSE workers at about 130 million, that year.

Meanwhile, the fruit and wine industries' exports are now worth $5.5 billion, more than double what it was in 2005.

But about 25 years ago, finding reliable workers was becoming a gamble. There is a window of only one week before a piece of stone fruit becomes too ripe for export, Basil says.

"So if you didn't do it, you didn't do it. Getting people became our prime focus." …

Go to this episode on rnz.co.nz for more details

Once upon a time, a TV show changed the way people around the world saw New Zealand, ushered in a new way for fans to get together and made a permanent impact on one fan's life. Produced by Justin Gregory

The TV show Xena - Warrior Princess changed the way people around the world saw New Zealand and ushered in a new way for fans to get together. Xena also made a permanent impact on one fan's life.

"I just wanted to be immersed in it."

From the moment Gabrielle Podvoiskis first saw Xena - Warrior Princess, she was obsessed.

"It was just completely Xena," she says today.

"All Xena, all the time."

Nine-year old Gabrielle and her sister Rose felt like the show was made just for them, especially as Xena's closest, most loyal friend was also called Gabrielle.

"I used to wear my hair the way Gabrielle wore hers. It was quite embarrassing in lots of ways."

Xena was her world.

"I loved it and I just wanted to be immersed in it."

So did others.

Carolyn Skelton was a New Zealand academic living in Sydney when she first saw Xena. She had heard about a new show being discussed positively in feminist and lesbian circles. A show that was "creating a buzz" about gender roles and sexuality. She wanted to know more.

But what really intrigued Carolyn when she watched it, was the fact that the show was being made in Auckland.

"What's happened to the industry that they are filming overseas TV programmes in New Zealand? That caught my attention."

So much so that Carolyn would spend years writing her PhD thesis on Xena, asking questions about location, identity, how the TV show connected with its fans and how they connected with each other.

Because Xena happened at an interesting time. The internet was just finding its feet and fans of the show went there to find each other. This community, the Xenaverse, may well have been the first to be born on the web. Carolyn began to explore.

"And I found this whole community. There were different factions; the lesbian subtext fans, the feminists and the heterosexual males who might have found Xena sexually attractive."

But all of them found something intriguing about this new show and its female lead.

"For American fans, (Xena) was something totally different from what they had previously seen on television or film in terms of a female character. She was more down to earth. As one fan put it she didn't care if she broke a fingernail, she'd throw herself into the part. (These were) empowered, relatable characters."…

Go to this episode on rnz.co.nz for more details

The 1972 Munich Olympics was meant to be a festival of sport. But that's not how it turned out. Produced by Sonia Sly.

The 1972 Munich Olympics was meant to be a festival of summer sport.

"A policeman was shouting at me to stay in our quarters"

"I was brought up to shoot straight and tell the truth," says Bruce McMillan (76) -  a professional target pistol shooter based in Whanganui. 

McMillan's shooting career began in the mid 1960s. A recreational pistol shooter today, he has competed in two Commonwealth Games, a world champs, and was one of 89 Kiwis competing at the 1972 Summer Olympics in Munich.

This particular Olympic Games had been the biggest at the time, with more than seven thousand competitors and it was an event kicked off to a celebratory start with an impressive venue.

"The atmosphere at the Games was absolutely fantastic...it was a summer festival of sport," recalls McMillan.

By the time the Olympics were halfway through, McMillan had already completed his part of games.

"I finished in the middle of the field with the world champion close to my score," he says.

Josef Zapedski, a cavalry officer from Communist Poland, had taken out the title, winning a new Olympic record of 595 out of 600. McMillan says Zapedski wasn't the most talkative man, but given the Cold War was taking place, and Poland was bleak, this was almost to be expected.

But it was on 5th September 1972 that the atmosphere at the Olympics would turn sour.

It was dawn and there was a bit of commotion taking place outside. People were being shooed away by police, according to McMillan who headed outside to take a peek.

"That's when I got shouted at," he says.

"A very well-built policeman in a leather overcoat was shouting at me to stay in our quarters."

McMillan only knew a few words in German and couldn't make out what was going on. But when he headed down to the village car park on a day trip out of the Olympic Village, he saw confirmation that something big had just taken place.

"They were bringing Weinberg's body out on a gurney," he says of Moshe Weinberg - the coach of the Israeli weightlifting team.

McMillan was staying in the men's-only quarters, about 40 to 50 metres away from where the shooting had occurred. He never heard the shot that killed Weinberg.

Eleven Israeli athletes were being held hostage by members of a Palestinian group called Black September who were making a political statement calling for the release of just over 200 Palestinians and non-Arabs imprisoned in Israel. …

Go to this episode on rnz.co.nz for more details

On Eyewitness - it's been 20 years since the killing of a child shocked the country. We said it must never happen again. So why has it? Produced by Katie Doyle.

When James Whakaruru died, the only part of his little body that wasn't bruised were the soles of his feet. It's a case that has stayed with journalist Doug Laing for a long time. It's now been 20 years since the killing of child shocked the country. We said it must never happen again. So why has it?

"I don't think anybody goes out to kill a child."

Doug Laing was a journalist in Hawke's Bay for a long time, but he's not your classic hardened journo.

He cares a lot about people and loves Hawke's Bay. He's lived there most of his life and probably knows most of the people who live there too.

Being a court reporter, homicides weren't new for him and after a while, one just ran into the next.

The story of James Whakaruru, who was killed in 1999, was different though. That one has stayed with Doug.

Riri o te Rangi 'James' Whakaruru was born in Hawke's Bay on 13 June 1994. His mum, Te Rangi Whakaruru, was just 15 and his dad Kevin wasn't on the scene.

When James was one, his mum fell in love with a local guy called Benny Haerewa.

One of the first domestic incidents between Haerewa and Te Rangi happened at the end of 1995.

Police were called, but no complaint was filed by Te Rangi. There are no records that police referred her on to Women's Refuge or Victim Support.

A year later, James was rushed to the Emergency Department, covered head-to-toe in bruises.

His injuries weren't accidental.

Haerewa was charged with injuring with intent and was ordered to stay away from James, but Te Rangi and Haerewa saw each other often before he eventually went to prison.

At the same time, James' maternal grandmother contacted Child, Youth and Family, warning that the little boy wasn't safe.

For a while, James stayed with his grandparents, but at some point, he was returned to Te Rangi.

When Haerewa was released in 1997, he and Te Rangi picked up their relationship where they left off.

They picked up the abuse, too.

James would get hit with jug cords, wood, and a steel vacuum cleaner pipe.

Once, Haerewa hit James with a hammer because the four-year-old wouldn't call him 'daddy'

When James died, the only part of his little body that wasn't bruised were the soles of his feet. His arm was broken, and his intestines were ruptured.

It was later established that James had died from one, or several, extremely prolonged beatings that had caused massive internal injuries. …

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On Eyewitness - a look at the drug that affected the lives of 10,000 babies...the story of Thalidomide. Produced by Sonia Sly.

"

Barry De Geest is a vigorous fifty-something man; a talker and a doer.

He's an entrepreneur and a public speaker, is active in the disability sector as an advocate for change -  he was involved in making public transport and movie cinemas accessible for wheelchairs, among other things. De Geest has achieved a lot.

He's also the oldest thalidomide survivor in New Zealand. When he was born, the medical profession didn't expect him to survive. The doctors told his mother to forget about him and go have another baby.

But she didn't listen.

Thalidomide was developed in West Germany in the late 1950s. Within a few year it was being prescribed for anxiety, insomnia and gastritis. The drug was sold under several other names such as contergan, Inmunoprin, Distival, Talidex, Talizer, Neurosedyn, Oncothal and Talimyde.

It was also deemed safe during pregnancy and used as a treatment for morning sickness. Barry's mum Anne Kapohe was given a sample by her well-meaning doctor in Ōamaru.

But no one knew then that when ingested in the early stages of pregnancy, the drug had serious side effects and caused severe deformities in unborn children.

These can include shortened limbs and hands and feet without the usual number of fingers and toes. Some babies were missing sexual organs or had damaged and under-developed internal organs. Others were born deaf and blind.

Around 10,000 babies around the world were affected. Grunenthal, the company who developed the drug, are still in operation. On their website, they refer to the "thalidomide tragedy"  as "a significant part of our corporate history. Grünenthal's family owners, and the company as a whole, deeply regret the consequences of this tragedy."

Relatively speaking, New Zealand got off lightly. There were only 21 cases here and according to De Geest, the saving grace was our isolation as the drug was not distributed widely.

"Transport services weren't that great in the early sixties so things took a long time to travel around the country," he says.

When Barry was born, his parents were advised to put him into care and let others raise him.

"I would have gone to the Home of Compassion in Wellington and been brought up as an orphan."

De Geest says when the Home closed, many of the residents ended up at another facility in Waipukurau. He's heard stories from there of ill treatment and outright abuse.

"It was an institution so a lot of the staff got away with things that they couldn't in a home."  …

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When the police started cracking down on Pasifika overstayers, a group of young people called the Polynesian Panthers started pushing back. Produced by Jamie Tahana.

"We brought racism to everyone's attention."

It was a cold winter's night when Melani Anae snuck out of home and headed for Keppell Street, Grey Lynn, where a group of teenagers were gathering to, in their words, start a revolution. 

"We couldn't tell our parents, 'oh we're just going down the road for a Panther meeting' with these ex-gang guys," recalled Anae. "Especially for us girls who were just starting university and were good church girls."

But they were all at the house with a purpose: to push back against racism and to form the group that would become known as the Polynesian Panthers. 

"We knew this was different," Anae said.

"We heard the leaders speak, we heard the platform and we were inspired to be part of that."

Molded in the shape of the Black Panthers, the Polynesian Panthers was formed in Auckland in June 1971. One of its co-founders was Will 'Ilolahia, who had been inspired by the works of Bobby Seale, Malcolm X and other US civil rights leaders. 

"When we looked at their ten-point platform, it was relevant to us," he said. "Barring the (carrying of) arms, everything else that we saw and experienced actually was to the point," said 'Ilolahia.

"Legal rights, education ... housing. We just translated it to be relevant to our times here, and that's how we started up."

Those times were 1970s Auckland where the Panthers were formed in response to the marginalisation and discrimination experienced by the Pacific community. 

From the 1940s to the 1960s, Pacific migrants had been encouraged to come to New Zealand to fill gaps in the labour market, often in poorly paid and back-breaking manual work. 

They flocked mostly to Auckland, where they filled the inner-city suburbs of Ponsonby and Grey Lynn, an area that became known as 'Little Polynesia.' Entire families filled houses; the first Pacific church opened in Newton and crowds were drawn to Karangahape Road to shop and mingle. 

But the area was also run down and impoverished, with families living in houses that 'Ilolahia said should have been condemned, and where violence and gangs flourished. 

As the economy plunged in the early 1970s, the spotlight - and the blame - was turned to immigrants and overstayers which eventually led to the dawn raids that began in 1974.  …

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The 1985 Live Aid concert was broadcast all around the world. But it very nearly wasn't seen here. Produced by Katie Scotcher.

"We had nine days to put the production together."

Don Hutchings never liked the title 'Mr Telethon' but for more than a decade that was exactly who he was.

He helped introduce the fundraising television marathon to New Zealand in the early 1970s and has been stuck with the name ever since.

But after more than a decade on the job, Don decided Telethon 85 would be his last. It was a good one to go out on. Over 24 hours, New Zealanders donated more than $6 million to the Child and Youth Development Trust - a record breaking amount.

Bewildered by the amount raised and shattered after the broadcast, Don was ready for a nap - but there was no time. He had just nine days to prepare for a broadcast much bigger than any Telethon or anything this country had ever seen.

The Ethiopian Famine

Michael Buerk was the BBC's correspondent in Africa covering the Ethiopian famine. In October 1984, he filed a story about the 18-month-old crisis like he'd done many times before.

But this story caught fire. Pictures of malnourished children and heartbroken mothers flashed across television screens around the world. The cry of children starving to death was haunting. People were glued to their screens, watching, in Buerk's memorable description, a "biblical famine in the 20th century."

The situation was dire. An estimated 200,000 people had already died and up to 8 million more were at risk. Buerk called the crisis "the closet thing to Hell on Earth".

Irish rocker Bob Geldof saw the news report and was desperate to do something.

With mate Midge Ure from the band Ultravox, Geldof wrote a charity single, then asked some of the biggest names in pop music to perform it. Recorded in one day in late November, the single was released just a few days later, in time for Christmas.

'Do They Know it's Christmas' was the biggest song in the world that year. It reached the top of the charts in 13 countries and held the number one spot in the UK for weeks. Donations poured in, eventually raising millions for food and supplies for Ethiopia.

But Geldof soon found out that aid wasn't getting very far; a cartel operating at the Ethiopian port was blocking it. Geldof needed a fleet of trucks instead and several million pounds to finance them.

His solution? A giant charity music concert, featuring the biggest bands in the world, performed simultaneously on two stages; Wembley Stadium in London and JFK Stadium in Philadelphia. Beamed through 13 separate satellites, this 'Global Jukebox' would be broadcast around the world…

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Timaru man Colin Murdoch was one of the world's great inventors. Produced by Justin Gregory.

It's entirely possible that you are alive because of one man.

"I suddenly got a bright idea."

In the town I grew up in, there was a man who knew how to do things.

His name was Colin Murdoch; he was a chemist and the kind of guy people would ask to solve problems for them. He always said yes and he always got the job done.

Colin was an ideas man and an inventor. In 1952, he had a very big idea indeed.

On a flight between Auckland and Christchurch, Colin took out his fountain pen to write something down. As he took the cap off and put it back on again... inspiration struck.

Using the same fountain pen, he drew a design for what would become one of the 20th century's most important medical inventions; the disposable, pre-filled hypodermic syringe. He was 23 years old.

In his home of Timaru, though, he was always known as the tranquiliser gun guy.

Colin Murdoch was born in Christchurch in 1929 into a family of chemists. He must have been an interesting kid; dyslexic, ambidextrous, experimenting with chemicals, making his own gunpowder for the pistol he'd built. He wanted to be a surgeon but was steered towards pharmacy, opening his first practice in Timaru at the age of 25.

Three years later a female friend set Colin up on a blind date with a local girl called Marilyn Tregenza.  He turned up to the date at the cinema with his leg in plaster. He'd broken it skiing.

"And at the end of the performance she (the friend) said 'oh you can take her home'," remembers Marilyn today. "And he had a big plaster on. I'm not really sure how I got home, but I did."

They were married six months later. Marilyn discovered Colin's inventive bent when he moved a metal lathe into their top floor flat.

"And the two elderly ladies downstairs wondered what on earth the noise was."

Syringes in the 1950s were made of expensive glass or steel and had to be used multiple times across different patients. As a chemist and a man keen on medicine, Colin knew the risks of cross-contamination they posed, even when properly sterilised. What was needed was a single-use product, made from inexpensive materials, that could be disposed of after use. Plastic was the answer and Colin was the man.

He took his prototype to the New Zealand Health department who dismissed it as too futuristic. So Colin took out patents in Australasia and put the syringe out to market where, after a slow start, it's fair to say, it did pretty well as a concept…

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In 1995 rugby dropped its amateur ethos and went openly professional - but not before nearly tearing itself in two. Produced by Justin Gregory.

Rugby went professional more than twenty years ago. Getting there nearly tore the game in two.

"Professionalism is about more than just money, right?"

One cold winter's night, Keith Quinn went to a party.

It was 1979 and down at the Hutt Valley Marist club they were holding a send-off for club stalwart Bernie Fraser. He was about to leave on his first overseas tour with the All Blacks.

Towards the end of the evening, an official came to Keith and asked a favour. The local businesses had held a whip-round and raised some money for Bernie. It was a gesture typical of the time, thoughtful and generous, meant to make sure Bernie didn't suffer financially while off work playing for the national team.

The official wanted to know if Keith, one of the country's best known sports journalists, would present the money to Bernie.

Sure, said Keith.

"But I knew that I should have really been reporting this as a breach of the amateur rules."

Rugby Union back then was an amateur game and had been since it was invented and codified in the mid-19th century. No one got paid to play, but not because there wasn't any money in the game.

Australian journalist Peter FitzSimons played seven test matches for the Wallabies in 1989-90. He clicked to the truth early on.

"I was standing at the Sydney Football Stadium, singing the national anthem. And the stadium was a cathedral."

As he sang, he let his eyes wander around the stadium.

"You've got 40,000 people here, Mum and Dad were paying $65...huh, there must be $2.7 million dollars flowing through the gates here and I'm on $50 a day!"

But the debutant couldn't have cared less.

"It wasn't about the money. It was about the honour of the jersey. And that was the glory of the game."

But within a few short years, honour and glory were no longer enough for most top players. And in truth, some were already being paid.

They called it shamaterurism; amateurism in name only. Lots of sports did it. In rugby's old days there was boot money; cash quietly stuffed in your boots after a game. Or generous gifts from good honest rugby fans like the business owners of Lower Hutt.

By the 1980s there were large expense payments, commercial sponsors for big sporting competitions and brand logos on team jerseys. Athletes of all kinds did ads and endorsements, implicitly trading off their sports profile. Everyone winked at the hypocrisy. Occasionally someone was nicked for it and the contradictions of the system would be laid bare…

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When restrictive new abortion laws were passed in this country, a grass roots group of women immediately mobilised. Produced by Claire Crofton.

When restrictive new abortion laws are passed, a group of women decide to act.

"I was given a number and (told) 'try these people' and I rang them."

It's June 1978, and Judy* has a lot on her mind. In her second year of nursing college and dealing with a difficult break up, she was struggling with the typical challenges of being a teenager, but was also beginning to feel ill. Judy was taken into hospital with stomach pains, diagnosed with appendicitis, and rushed into surgery. When she came around from the anesthetic, she was told something shocking. She's pregnant.

"I was not sexually active, so how did it happen?"

Judy racks her brains. She looks back through her calendar and works out the date she must have got pregnant. But Judy can't remember much about that night, which is weird -  she's never had a memory blackout before. So she asks her flatmate; did anything strange happen that night? Her flatmate remembers that Judy was brought home by security guards that night when she was found wandering the grounds of the nurse's accommodation in a total daze. Again, really odd, and really out of character.

But then.... it dawns on Judy.

"It turns out that a young man I knew at school had coerced me into going over and saying goodbye to him because he was going back to Canada, and I was roofied (drugged) and raped."

Judy confronted her rapist last year and today, she feels like she's finally getting some closure. But in 1978, she was lost and confused. She had no support. She felt totally judged.

"I'm pregnant and everyone's saying 'well how did you get pregnant? Who was it?' 'Ah I don't remember' and of course immediately, in that day and age, I was just a dirty bitch. And the whole family, everybody other than my nursing friends, all were like, 'ew, you're worse than the worst. Worse than a slut because you can't even remember having sex."

Judy felt her future closing in on her.

"It got to the point that I couldn't cope. I mean honestly, it was like what am I gonna do? You know, I'll get kicked out of nursing, I've got nowhere to go, except home, and that's not really what I want to do because my mother was really terribly judgmental."

Judy felt stuck. Just months earlier, the Contraception, Sterilisation, and Abortion Act of 1977 had come into effect, and getting an abortion in New Zealand had become pretty much impossible…

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When a routine search warrant goes suddenly wrong, an ordinary man becomes a hero. Produced by Anneke Smith.

Bullets fly in Napier as an everyday police operation turns unexpectedly deadly.

"That's when I grabbed the barrel and swung it away."

It's been ten years since Lenny Holmwood was shot by his mate but he remembers it like it was yesterday.

Lying on the cool pavement of Napier's Hospital Hill he could see bullets spark as they hit the concrete and hear the cries of wounded police officers.

It was here, enveloped in chaos, he sent a famous text about his cat Scrappy that marked perhaps the only light moment of the Napier Siege.

'Jan busted. Three cops shot. Me leg. Can you feed Scrappy?'

What ensued was a 51-hour standoff between police and gunman Jan Molenaar after a routine search warrant went horribly wrong.

How it started

7 May 2009 was a crisp autumn morning when Senior Constables Grant Diver, Bruce Miller and Len Snee knocked on the door of 41 Chaucer Road. They suspected Molenaar was running a small dope growing operation so, search warrant in hand, they knocked on his door. Molenaar's partner, Delwyn Keefe, let them into the house. Lenny isn't far behind them; popping over for a cup of tea after a boozy night out.

Molenaar was out walking his dog and by the time he returned, the police officers had found cannabis plants and a sawn-off shotgun in his basement. Lenny is with Delwyn in the kitchen when Molenaar arrives home and the situation kicks off.

In Lenny's words, "it exploded".

Molenaar becomes immediately angry and disappears down the hallway; returning with a rifle, he orders everyone out of the house. Outside, things seem to have de-escalated. But in fact, they've only just started. Jan Molenaar's eye follow Constable Snee as he reaches the roadside.

As the police officer turns to face the house, Molenaar takes aim with his telescopic rifle and shoots. Lenny watches in horror as Constable Miller is hit in the back and a bullet tears through Diver's forearm, lodging in his stomach.

Lenny's memory gets patchy here, there are seconds and movements he's lost over the years, but the next thing he remembers is Jan Molenaar standing in front of him.

"I heard the moans of the officers up the road. I looked at them over my shoulder and as I looked back the barrel was swinging past me towards them."…

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Not that long ago, the New Zealand economy was built on sheep, sheep and more sheep. We were asking for economic trouble and in the late 1960s, we got it. Produced by Justin Gregory.

Not that long ago, New Zealand's economy was built on sheep. There was only one real export commodity and one real market. We were asking for economic trouble, and in the late 1960s - when the wool price plummeted by 40 percent overnight - we got it.

"One dollar in six went down"

If you'd asked them at the start of the year, most Kiwis would have reckoned that 1966 looked like being a cracker.

And for the most part, it didn't go too badly.

In March, Country Calendar debuted on the telly. In April, the Queen Mum popped in for a cup of tea and a pikelet. In May, sadness over the death of Māori King Te Korokī Mahuta was tempered by excitement at the coronation of his daughter Princess Piki. That winter, the All Blacks downtrou'd the British Lions 4-zip and Maria Dallas, the pride of Morrinsville, had a huge hit with her song 'Tumblin' Down'.

New Zealand in the 1960s had one of the highest standards of living in the world with near-full employment and low inflation. Politically, we were the picture of stability; National Party leader Keith Holyoake was about halfway through his 12-year run as Prime Minister and eyeing-up another win in the general election later that year. 

'Steady as she goes' was the motto. We were rich, a bit boring and everyone was as good as everyone else. Sure, we had compulsory military service, the death sentence for treason and it was only in 1961 you could order a glass of wine with your meal, but there was no need to bust a gut worrying about stuff.

Or so most people thought.

Cracks, though, were starting to appear.

Anti-apartheid protests opposed South African sporting teams coming here and us going there. Prison riots had broken out across the country the previous year and the police were concerned enough about violent crime to establish the Armed Offenders Squad. Radio Hauraki took to the seas to break the state monopoly on broadcasting.

Thousands marched to protest our troops being sent to Vietnam and when US President Lyndon Johnson visited that year, a huge crowd gathered to cheer but a loud group of roosters booed him, too. Vietnam became an election wedge between National and the opposition Labour Party, but not enough to change the government. National were returned in November with an eight-seat majority but shockingly, had lost the previously safe seat of Hobson to the Social Credit Party…

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In the last century we have seen a massive revolution in telecommunications. Technological advances have brought the world closer together, but we have lost something too. Liz Garton looks at the shift from manual to automatic telephone exchanges - a roll out that took nearly a century.

Today most people have the world at their fingertips. But it wasn't that long ago that we shared phone lines and there was no SIRI. Instead, we had The Operator.

Liz Garton looks at the shift from manual to automatic telephone exchanges - a rollout that took nearly a century.

Mike Watling: 'The cellphone is driving people apart'

The shift from manual to automatic telephone exchanges ushered in an era of rapid technological advances which have made our current means of communication, Skype, social media, hangouts, almost unrecognisable to someone born just a few decades ago.

Maurie Challinor is nearly 87 and began working for the Post Office in 1948, back when it was in charge of pretty much all the country's communications. Now he volunteers at Auckland's Museum of Transport and Technology .

Maurie Challinor with a telegraph receiver at MOTAT.

He says the advances in communication technology since he started has been out of this world and it's still improving all the time.

"If anyone had've told me at the time, I'd have said no, you're joking, that will never happen, it's impossible," Maurie says.

But while the change was rapid for some, for others it was excruciatingly slow.

Telecommunication came to New Zealand about 150 years ago - in 1862 when the first telegraph line was set up between Lyttelton and Christchurch

The first electrical transmissions of sound happened in early 1878 and by 1881 New Zealand had its first telephone exchange - in Christchurch.

A telegram Maurie sent to his young daughter while he was postmaster in Antarctica.

Brian Potter volunteers with Maurie at MOTAT.  He spent 45 years working for Spark, Telecom and the NZ Post Office, essentially living the evolution of the telephone.

"When you consider the phone wasn't invented until 1876, New Zealand was very early in the game," Brian says.

Early adopters, but perhaps not thorough ones.

Because while the Morse system closed about 1963, the telegraph service as an entity didn't close until 1988.

"The phone saturation in the country wasn't immediate. A lot of people couldn't afford telephones for a long, long time. Not only that, the technology wasn't available to supply everybody with them anyway," Maurie says.

"I think this country was quite behind in getting full coverage of phones."…

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For over a century, Niueans have been moving to New Zealand in search of a better life. Did they find it?

For more than a century, Niueans have been exercising their right as citizens of New Zealand to move here in search of a better life.

In the last fifty years, what started as a trickle of migration has become a flood.

More than 24,000 people living in New Zealand identify as Niuean. But in Niue, the population barely tops 1600.

There is some evidence that the trend has topped out and may even be slightly reversing. But when over 90% of your people live somewhere else, the story of your nation, your language and your identity inevitably becomes complicated.

Here are two of those stories.

"The whole of the Pacific is where I'm from."

It seems like kind of a mean trick.

Little Shimpal Lelisi was four years old and living in the village of Liku in Niue. It's 1976 and his family had just given him some flash new clothes. Shimpal was excited.

"We got new shirts made, to go somewhere.

"I didn't know where we were going but it was somewhere big."

He was right. Shimpal's new shirt wasn't for church or visiting. He and his family were leaving Niue to live in Niu Silani - New Zealand.

Shimpal's folks weren't being mean or playing a trick; they were trying to do the best by their family. But Shimpal wasn't that impressed, and even less so by his first sight of Auckland.

"It was raining and it was dark and it was cold. And I was still in my shirt. My short-sleeved shirt."

He was also a bit scared.

"Where are we and when are we going to go home?"

It would be nearly twenty years before Shimpal went back to Niue and by then, he wasn't sure it was home anymore.

Liku is on Niue's east coast, directly opposite the capital of Alofi. Shimpal was just a kid when he left, but he clearly remembers eating mangoes, fishing with his dad, hunting for delicious uga (coconut crab) and chasing other kids around the village. Life for him was good.

But Shimpal's dad was a carpenter and he couldn't find enough work. Mr Lelisi had left for New Zealand a couple of years earlier and now the rest of the family was following.

If you set aside the cold weather, the family had a reasonably soft landing when they arrived in Auckland, with plenty of relatives and people from Liku to welcome them and ease their way into jobs and housing. The idea was to earn good money, educate their kids and then go back home…

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Isobel was 14-and-a-half when the Napier earthquake hit. Decades later, her grand-daughter interviewed her about it for a school project.

It was the morning of 3 February, 1931.

My Nana, Isobel, was 14-and-a-half years old. Her family lived at Whakatu, not far from Hastings.

It had been a hot, dry summer and it was her first day back at Mangateretere School.

Everyone was outside on the field because they weren't doing any work - it was just too hot.

But at 10.47am, disaster struck.

"I've never forgotten that day ."

"It just felt as though someone had punched me right in the small of the back. I was looking around to see who had done it and I nearly had a fit when I saw the ground up there."

Isobel and her schoolmates were knocked right off their feet.

The shaking went on for about 45 seconds, she said.

Others who felt the magnitude 7.8 quake reckoned it went on for more than two-and-a-half minutes.

The Napier earthquake remains New Zealand's deadliest natural disaster - 256 people were killed.

Across Hawke's Bay, the ground shook, cracked and rolled.

Huge expanses of land were pushed up out of the sea.

Napier and Hastings were in ruins - buildings crumpled and the streets were covered with debris.

In 1998, when I was almost 10, I interviewed Nana about what she saw that day - I was doing a school project about the disaster.

When it hit, she said it sounded like thunder.

Was it scary? I asked.

"It was scary alright because we didn't realise what was going on."

There was a lot of damage inside the school, things falling off walls and books coming off shelves.

"We saw the chimney at the Whakatu freezing works go, it was a brick one of course, and it just seemed to shoot off in the air and break in three bits and fall and there was an awful lot of dust that went up after it," she said.

Nana's brother picked her up from school and took her home.

Her mother was inside the house when the earthquake hit and rushed outside.

"She got to the backdoor and there was a big safe hanging there and it came and hit her," Nana said.

"She was thrown down to the bottom of the back steps - and they were quite high and of course there was a concrete floor."

Luckily, she ended up with just a few bumps and bruises.

But the house was a mess, Nana said.

"The wardrobe with the mirror on the door fell over. Dad went and picked it up and then it fell down again that night.

"The cupboard doors flew open and all the jam on the shelves dropped on the floor."…

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Did you know that the tomato only became popular locally about 1920? Or that brussels sprouts and silverbeet didn't catch on until the 1930s? Our national diet has undergone massive changes in the last half-century. Duncan Smith heads to the annual NZ Symposium of Gastronomy to find out why.

Did you know that the tomato only became popular locally about 1920? Or that brussels sprouts and silverbeet didn't catch on until the 1930s?

Our national diet has undergone massive changes in the last half-century. Duncan Smith heads to the annual NZ Symposium of Gastronomy to find out why.

'It's a tough job but someone's got to do it' he said, giving me what I can only call a meaningful stare.

He stared for what seemed an uncomfortably long time.

My bottom lip trembled a little but I managed to suppress a deep internal shudder as my stomach churned.

I held his gaze and feigned ease.

'Oh yes,' I proffered. It caught in my throat and squeaked out like an aging choirboy.

'I need you to go to the bay,' he plowed on bullishly, 'Napier, this coming weekend'.

'Okayyy...' My mind was racing; the bay, Napier, why me?   

'There's something called The Symposium of Gastronomy' he continued.

It's in Napier next weekend and we think you're the man to cover it."

My visions of waking to the sight of a bloodied horse's head nestled on the rice pillow beside me evaporated into the ether as I digested what the mission required of me.

I would have to spend a weekend in Napier with a group of friendly foodies listening to interesting presentations about food, the making of it, it's history and what the food we eat it says about us. My tummy gurgled in a different way

"Mmmm ... Symposium of Gastronomy."

This group of chefs, anthropologists, historians, food writers and foodies are interested in the history and philosophy of eating, meals, food and food-ways, and they are out to promote a better understanding of our culinary heritage.   

They have been meeting annually since the year 2000 in different locations around the country.

They welcome anyone with an interest in food and eating (Me! Me!) to take part in the Symposium and to contribute to their journal The Aristologist.

The theme of this year's symposium was 'migrate'. It featured numerous and diverse papers and presentations…

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In last year of the old millennium, governments and businesses warned us all of the dangers of the Y2K Bug. So did the hype help? Or was this bug never going to bite?

For those of us that remember it, Y2K is now looked back on as a bit of a laugh. It's a funny story about the world dealing with technology, but at the time, it was serious business. So how did it become such a memorable moment in history?

Image by Don Merton.

"Y2K was coming and you better be ready."

The internet arrived in New Zealand in 1989, but it was six years later that the World Wide Web's popularity caught on with the general public. Kiwi's finally had a connection to the rest of the world, but the web we knew then, wasn't anything like it is now.

"I don't even think Google was a search engine in those days."

Maurice Williamson was New Zealand's Communications and Information Technology Minister at the time. Unusually for an MP, he came from a coding background, and so had previously heard people in the computer industry talking about date-based operating systems and a possible problem at the end of 1999.

Back then the computers were large and their memory space was small, so programmers, trying to save space, had shortened the year format from four digits to two. This meant that instead of a date reading 1999 it would instead read as 99. When 1999 clocked over to the year 2000, computers would actually read it as 00.

With only 2 digits, 00 could potentially mean any date at all. This fault became known as the Y2K bug - 'Y' for year and '2K' for 2000. A 'bug' is an engineering term for a fault or flaw.

This flaw meant that computer dates might reset or even go back in time, and because of this, the systems running hospitals, power and other essential services could fail. The fear was that if we didn't fix this flaw, the world as we knew it might shut down.

Andrew McKie was working for Wellington Red Cross in 1999 and had heard the Y2K whispers.

"We had i386 computers back then so it was all pretty basic.

"We have a global Red Cross movement and I was talking to countries like Canada and the United Kingdom and they were really interested in what was happening in New Zealand, because we would be the first country affected."

Because of our proximity to the International Date Line, New Zealand would be the first developed country to see in the New Year - and by default be the early warning system for the rest of the world…

Go to this episode on rnz.co.nz for more details

Two lions escape from a circus in small town New Zealand. Who you gonna call? Produced by Justin Gregory.

Two lions escape from a circus in small town New Zealand. Who you gonna call?

In the beginning, it wasn't really about the lions: the starting point for this story was a dog.

'Jay' was a German Shepherd, a police dog, and his beat was Auckland in the 1970s. His handler was Constable Mike Lodge; the two were a team, and good mates as well.

Listen to an audio version of this story

But the working life of a police dog isn't that long. Most retire around eight years of age. Jay was getting close and the higher-ups told Mike that he'd have to be put down if he couldn't do the job anymore.

Jay was a good dog, and Mike wasn't going to let him go out that way - and anyway, he was getting tired of big city policing.

So Mike talked the bosses into letting him transfer to a quieter station somewhere and to take Jay with him. They agreed.

"I applied for about three different places," he remembers.

"And eventually got Lawrence."

Lawrence is a storied small town in Central Otago, on State Highway 8 between Dunedin and Alexandra. The New Zealand national anthem was composed there, and nearby is Gabriel's Gully where the discovery of gold in 1860 led to the Otago Gold Rush. At one stage, more people lived in Lawrence than Dunedin.

That wasn't the case when Mike, his family, and Jay arrived in early 1978. There were just a few hundred people living there. Mike soon knew them all.

"They were a loose bunch," he chuckles, "very friendly".

The people of Lawrence wanted to know about him, too.

"Being the new cop in town, they tested me."

It's forgivable then, that when Mike got a phone call one night from the local headmaster about some lions on the loose in the town, he didn't believe him.

Simpson Park in Lawrence is just south of the town's main road and next door to the Lawrence Area School. It's used for all kinds of sporting and social events and on 30 March 1978 was partly occupied by some welcome visitors; Carlos' Circus, making a return to the town.

Fast forward a few hours to 8.20pm: about 400 people, including children, are watching the second show of the night. Two of the circus' three lions, Sultan (a male) and Sonia (a female) have left the ring as usual at the end of their segment but found their cage wasn't properly closed. It's not entirely clear how this happened but it's believed that a new circus employee had simply failed to lock it…

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Why is a Soviet ship lying on the bottom of the Marlborough Sounds? Produced by Justin Gregory.

Why is a Soviet ship lying on the bottom of the Marlborough Sounds?

"Like a 55-storey building at the bottom of the ocean."

Port Gore Bay in the Marlborough Sounds is a beautiful place - from the shore. But head out onto the water even just a short distance and you can soon see another side. The water here is deep, very cold and murky. Turbulence from Cook Strait churns up the bay, making it rough to swim in and lowering visibility to nearly zero.

Only the very good and the very brave go diving here. After tying up to a nondescript buoy, divers slip into the water and clutch tightly to a taut, shuddering rope that leads them down through the depths. At about 15 meters below the surface they come upon what looks like the bottom of the bay. It's only when you touch it do you realise that this long, curved mound was once a ship.

That ship was the Mikhail Lermontov, once the pride of the Soviet Union's fleet of cruise ships.  The Lermontov has been lying on the bottom of Port Gore bay for more than 30 years. Very few people get to see it now and even then, they don't see much of it.

Derek Grzelewski has seen as much of the ship as he cares to. Derek is a writer and a filmmaker, the author of the book 'Going to Extremes', with a chapter about diving on the wreck of the Mikhail Lermontov. It's an eerie, uncanny experience, to explore a dead ship Derek which describes as "like a 55 storey building lying on its side at the bottom of the ocean".

'Everything just recedes into the gloom,' says Derek. 'You're in this void, in this dome of what you can see and outside of that it's just darkness.

'It's basically the stuff of your nightmares.'

But what is a Soviet ship doing lying on the bottom of the Marlborough Sounds? Well, it's a funny old tale and it doesn't have a happy ending or even really an ending at all.

The port town of Picton has seen a lot of ships but not many like the Mikhail Lermontov. At 150 metres long and twelve decks high, she was far bigger than anything else around her when she docked in the early hours of Saturday 15 February 1986. Under Captain Vladislav Vorobyov this elegant white cruise ship had crossed the Tasman from Sydney with more than 700 passengers and crew on board, on what advertising claimed would be the "experience of a lifetime". They'd visited Auckland, Tauranga and Wellington and were sailing to Milford Sound before heading home. The pilot who'd guided her into Picton would later take her out again; local harbourmaster Captain Don Jamison, a man with decades of experience in these waters…

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Health camps have been helping sickly Kiwi kids get better for a century now. What was it like to be at one? And why are the camps today failing to thrive?

Health camps have been helping sickly Kiwi kids get better for a century now. What was it like to be at one? And why are the camps today failing to thrive?

"For some reason I was the sickly one."

Moana Sinclair had a tough start in life.

There were seven kids in her whānau; her dad had shot through so her mum was raising them all alone. This was Taumaranui in 1966 and there was no DPB. Her Mum worked three jobs just to get by and when she got home, she was exhausted. It was up to the older kids to pitch in. Nine-year-old Moana and her big sister worked from first light to lights out helping their mum take care of everyone.

"We all had jobs to do. I had to get up in the morning, help my sister make the lunches, make sure we were all ready to go to school. Then when I got home I had to peel potatoes and get tea on."

This wasn't a case of neglect. Moana was loved by her mum, her aunty and the church community they all belonged to. She was doing really well at school and in sports, but she wasn't thriving. She was upset over her dad leaving and just wasn't able to eat. Moana needed help.

On the recommendation of the District Nurse, Moana was sent to a health camp at Ōtaki on the Kāpiti Coast. She fell in love with the town and the camp from her very first glimpse through the train window.

"I remember thinking how lovely it was. There were nice gardens and trees, the people who picked us up from the train were nice. It was exciting."

For the next six weeks, Moana Sinclair was fed and cared for and she got well.

She is one of thousands of kids who have spent time at a health camp since the radical experiment in care was dreamed up by an exceptional doctor in 1919: Dr Elisabeth Gunn, MBE, paediatrician and pioneer in children's health, was a force of nature.

She had left her home in the South Island to study medicine in Edinburgh and later served overseas as a medical officer during the First World War. During her time in Britain she saw many kids who were suffering from tuberculosis and malnutrition and was horrified to discover similar conditions when she arrived home. A plan began to form in her mind and like everything else Dr Gunn dreamed up it soon became a reality.

The first health camp was launched in November 1919 at Turakina, near Whanganui, on a piece of land supplied by a local farmer. With food from the farm, 55 malnourished children spent three weeks under Dr Gunn's stern but loving command…

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A famous mountain gets two new names. Was this a messy compromise or a farsighted decision? Or is it still too early to tell? Produced by Justin Gregory.

Love their work, hate their work; the New Zealand Geographic Board has been busy naming and renaming bits of New Zealand scenery for nearly a century now.

There have been a few blowups along the way. None of them bigger than the controversy over what to call one of our most famous mountains. Was this a messy compromise? Or a farsighted decision?

"It was because of political pressure."

When I was a kid at Pihanga Primary School in Tūrangi, the teachers used to tell us the legends of the mountains that stood all around us. One of them went something like this.

Once upon a time, seven gods in the form of volcanoes lived around Lake Taupō. Tongariro, Ngāuruhoe, Ruapehu, Pūtauaki, Tauhara and Taranaki all fought for the love of the beautiful Pīhanga.

Tongariro won and stands next to Pīhanga today. Five of the losing mountains retreated peacefully away to the south, the north and the east, where they remain.

But one of them, the furious Taranaki, stormed off to the west, gouging a trench across the land as he went that filled with his tears, becoming Te Awa Tupua, Whanganui River.

Taranaki stopped when he reached the Pouakai Ranges, close enough to see Pīhanga, but far away enough to placate Tongariro. They say that during particularly stunning sunsets, Taranaki is displaying himself to Pihanga. And when Tongariro erupts, he is warning Taranaki to stay away.

So far, he has.

At the time, the volcano was known to nearby iwi as Pukehaupapa and as Pukeonaki by tribes living further away. It became known as Taranaki after Rua Taranaki, the first ancestor of the iwi of the same name.

In 1770, Captain James Cook sailed past the mountain and named it Egmont. This was to honour John Perceval, the Second Earl of Egmont, First Lord of the Admiralty, and a key supporter of Cook's voyage. Cook didn't land in the region so iwi weren't informed about the name change. Poor old Perceval died before he ever found out.

Two years later, French explorer Marion Du Fresne renamed the mountain Pic Mascarin, but he was killed not long afterwards so that one never really took.

To recap: Pukeonaki, Pukehaupapa, Taranaki, Egmont and Pic Mascarin have been some of the names the mountain has worn - but in the colonial era, it was 'Egmont' that started appearing on maps.

After the second Taranaki war in 1865, the mountain and a million acres around it are confiscated by the Crown and sold for resettlement…

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At thirteen Taeko Yoshioka Braid survived a moment of history that changed the world forever; the atomic bombing of Hiroshima. Produced by Lynda Chanwai-Earle.

Aged just thirteen, Taeko Yoshioka Braid survived a moment of history that changed the world forever. Meet one of the last survivors of the atomic bombing of the Japanese city of Hiroshima.

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Taeko Yoshioka Braid is one of our country's last surviving Japanese war brides. In 1950 while translating and singing for a living the 18 year-old met Noel Braid, a soldier with the New Zealand K-Force stationed in Kure, Hiroshima.

They married in 1952 and four years later Taeko followed Noel home to Hastings. She's lived there ever since, and at 86, has six children and many grandchildren.

But her path from Hiroshima to Hastings has not always been an easy one.

As she tells me her story, she is supported by her daughter, Sonia Yoshioka Braid.

Taeko was born in Hiroshima in 1931. She is the eldest of six with five younger brothers. Her name means "funny girl" and was given to her by her father who had big plans for his only daughter.

"My father always said I have to learn English and Chinese."

Her father was a high ranking official with the Japanese Navy and served in the port town of Kure in the Hiroshima Prefecture. He was killed during the war when his boat was torpedoed.

Aged just 12, Taeko became head of the family and scrambled to make a living to support her sick mother and five brothers.

"That was really terrible. My mother thought not very safe in Kure, so we shift to ."

Takehara is three train stops or 60 kilometres from the centre of Hiroshima. It was a decision that saved their lives.

It was late summer, August 6th 1945, during the last months of World War II. Taeko was learning how to make kimono with other girls at their substitute school in Takehara. A group of her school friends were in Hiroshima making uniforms for the soldiers.

Just after 8 o'clock the American B-29 bomber Enola Gay dropped the "Little Boy" - the world's first atomic bomb over Hiroshima.

Every moment of the day is indelibly etched into Taeko's memory.

"It went like that!" She says, slapping her hands together. "Very sharp! Very, very - spark!"

The blast has been described by other survivors as; "A blinding white light that seemed to cover the sky, an intense heat ..."

The girls ran to the windows to look. "Oh, another bomb!"

But no, says Taeko. "It not another bomb - it totally different!"…

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Moscow, near the end of the Cold War; paranoia, politics and perestroika. An embassy guard recalls life behind the Iron Curtain. Produced by Justin Gregory.

Moscow, 1983. The capital of the Soviet Union is at a crucial moment in the Cold War. The New Zealand Embassy needs extra people to guard it and keep both diplomats and documents safe. To know why, we need to go back to 1979 - and a diplomatic scandal.

"How would anyone in the military ever get to visit the Soviet Union and get the chance of living behind the Iron Curtain?"

Just before Christmas 1979, Ambassador Vsevolod Sofinsky, the Soviet Union's man in Wellington, met with George Jackson from New Zealand's Socialist Unity Party in a motel in Auckland.

Their room was bugged by the Security Intelligence Service (SIS).

They report back that Sofinsky had handed Jackson $10,000 in cash.

Our then-Prime Minister, Robert Muldoon, took a pretty dim view of all this and he took action. Sofinsky is expelled from the country.

Before he left, the Soviet ambassador was almost incandescent in his denial of wrongdoing.

"Never. Never in my life. It is absolutely lie (sic), slander and nothing more!"

Moscow took it badly, too and retaliated by expelling our ambassador.

The scandal kicked off a tetchy time between the two countries. Just a few days earlier, New Zealand had announced a package of measures against Russia in protest at their invasion of Afghanistan, and in 1980 we send only a small team of athletes to the Moscow Olympics.

But life goes on and things eventually calmed down. New ambassadors were exchanged. We sent butter and mutton there - and they sent Lada cars here (which is surely the real crime).

Although relatively normal service had been resumed, it was felt that our diplomats in Moscow needed a bit more security. Defence Force personnel were to be deployed there to keep an eye on our hosts. It's volunteers only. And one man jumped at the chance.

"How would anyone in the military ever get to go visit the Soviet Union and actually get the chance of living behind the Iron Curtain?"

James - not his real name - is a former military policeman in the Royal New Zealand Air Force. He deployed to Moscow twice in the 1980s.

His first posting is planned for late 1983 and he prepares as best he can by getting in touch with colleagues who have been there before. They tell him what to expect and what to pack, while the SIS and the Government Communications Security Bureau (GCSB) brief all the team members on security issues.

"We would be persons of interest  and could be followed. Common sense had to prevail."…

Go to this episode on rnz.co.nz for more details

EFTPOS and ATMs changed not just the way we bank, but arguably, the way we live. But was that a good thing? Produced by Justin Gregory.

"I'm like the Queen; I do not carry cash."

A few years back, a Kiwi actor flew out to Shanghai to film a TV ad.

The shoot would only take a few days but he told his friends to expect him back in about a month. He had never been to China before and wanted to have a good look around.  Fair enough.

So his mates were a bit surprised when he arrived home just a week later.

What happened, they asked, we thought you were staying longer?

"Oh yeah," the actor replied, "yeah, I meant to. But it's the weirdest thing. Do you know they don't take Taranaki Savings Bank EFTPOS cards in China?"

For more than 30 years, electronic banking and especially EFTPOS have been the way we pay here in New Zealand. I truly can't remember the last time I carried cash or paid for something but didn't swipe a card to do it.

If you open your wallet, purse or what have you right now, I'll bet you find more bank cards than cash in there. Unless you're Professor David Tripe, Massey University's head of banking studies.

"Gosh, I've got $180 in there!"

How many bank cards?

"Let's see...a credit card, another card, another card and a debit card. And a second credit card."

Or you might be tech expert and PR guy Paul Brislen, who forgot to bring his wallet to our interview.

"Yes, and I drove here, without my licence so now I'm in trouble with the law."

Cards on the table (so to speak) - Paul Brislen does do PR work for Paymark, which controls around 75% of all EFTPOS transactions in this country. But the opinions here are his own, he promises.

In case you're not old enough to remember, back in 1984, when people went shopping for a new synthesiser, some legwarmers or a can of hairspray ("now with extra CFCs!") they didn't pay for them with an EFTPOS card. More often than not, they used cash.

A few people had direct salary credits but a lot of us still got our wages in cash in a brown envelope. We'd set aside enough for the week, then, in our lunch break, go to the bank with our savings book and deposit the remainder.

If you ran short over the weekend, when the banks were closed, your only option was to write a cheque, but banks and retailers didn't like that very much. Cheques took a few days to clear, and during that time you could make a mistake with your bank balance and your cheque would bounce.

Of course, sometimes it wasn't a mistake…

Go to this episode on rnz.co.nz for more details

Trade Me - buyers sending money to people they've never met for goods they've never seen? It'll never catch on! Produced by Justin Gregory.

"It was the  Wild West."

Trade Me: buyers sending money to people they've never met for goods they've never seen.

It'll never catch on.

It kinda did, though. But not without a few obstacles in the way.

"Go back 20 years and the advice was don't trust people online and don't get into cars with strangers."

This is Jon Macdonald, who today runs Trade Me, reflecting on how much things have changed since the company launched in 1999.

Back then, you flicked off your unwanted stuff in newspaper classifieds or in Trade and Exchange magazine.

Homes that actually had internet connections felt lucky to run at 56KB per second. Nowadays, most urban dwellings cruise at 5-6 megabytes.

So; dialup internet at slow speeds and very low levels of trust around online transactions. Sounds like a great time to launch an online auction site.

The legend of Trade Me is that founder Sam Morgan was struggling to find a second hand heater to buy in his local classifieds and thought: bugger this.

Jon Macdonald worked alongside Morgan back then and remembers he also had a vision of how things could be done better online.

"You could post an ad and people would see it immediately as opposed to waiting for the paper to come out on Saturday. You could post photos and a long description (of the goods); make it a far, far richer experience."

There was a more prosaic reason, too.

"(Sam) wanted to learn how to code."

Trade Me went live in March 1999 with a homepage that Jon describes as "distinctly hobbyist. "

"But it worked and it was fast and that was enough back then."

Growth was slow initially but by 2001, 100,000 people had signed up and the site was profitable. Jon joined Trade Me in 2003. The company was four years old by then and Jon says they often acted like it.

"To some degree we ran around a bit like a kid's hockey match."

"We were all young and total management experience across the company was reasonably light, as well. But having said that, we did get stuff done."

The next few years were hard graft but growth began to be exponential. Trade Me started listing cars, then property, then jobs and, by 2004, they were the fastest growing company in the country.

At one point, visits to the site accounted for nearly 3/4 of all internet usage in New Zealand and by 2005, 50% of all Kiwis had visited or used the site. …

Go to this episode on rnz.co.nz for more details

Auckland, 1998. After a long, hot summer, the lights suddenly go out in the city.

Auckland, 1998. After a long, hot summer, the lights suddenly go out in the city.

Subscribe to Eyewitness for free on iTunes, Spotify, Stitcher or wherever you listen to your podcasts.

"There was a lot of anger."

At first glance, the summer of 1998 looks a lot like the one we've just had.

The nation has a woman in charge and Winston Peters as her deputy while the New Zealand cricket team promises much - but delivers less. And just like 2018, the weather's driving everyone crazy.

It would turn out to be the wettest year anyone could remember. And it wasn't just wet; it was hot, too, with February hotter than any month on record to date.

Appliance stores couldn't keep up with the demand for fans and air conditioners. As it turns out, the power supply to downtown Auckland couldn't, either.

Mathew Bolland remembers that summer well. In 1998 he was the communications manager at Mercury Energy, the company responsible for supplying the CBD.

"Rather than for heating in winter, (the power supply) to the CBD became about cooling in summer."

Mathew has been in the job for only six months and is enjoying himself. But that's about to end.

At the time, downtown Auckland is supplied by four major power cables and one smaller one from a substation in Penrose. Two of them, the older, gas-filled models, were nearing the end of their operational life. The other two are more modern, oil-filled versions.

In late January, one of the older cables blows. The CBD is down to only three cables, but no one's seriously inconvenienced. But then, on 9 February, its mate blows as well.

"At that point" says Mathew, "it was an issue rather than a crisis."

Then the unthinkable happens. Unbelievably, 10 days later, one of the two, more modern, oil-filled cables also goes. With just one cable left, power supply to the city is now critically impaired. No one at Mercury can believe it, but while they're aghast, they're not panicking. Their engineers are confident they can safely increase the load on the remaining cable while they repair the other three. The situation surely can't get any worse.

"It was almost beyond imagination that you could lose all four."

Friday, 20 February, 5.30pm. The last remaining major cable blows up in Mercury's faces. The 1998 Auckland power crisis has begun. And that evening, from Mercury Energy: an extraordinary statement. "The company no longer believes it can supply the CBD with electricity."…

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In early 90s Christchurch, a remarkable group of Pasifika performers take their first steps towards success.

In early 90s Christchurch, a remarkable group of Pasifika performers take their first steps towards success.

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"And I said, why don't we start our own theatre company?"

In the unlikely setting of Christchurch in 1993, something remarkable is underway. In a small theatre at the Arts Centre, a young Samoan man steps out onto a stage and addresses the audience.

"For too long now, my people, we have been oppressed. We were once welcomed into this country with open arms because the government at the time needed cheap labour. Now it seems we are no longer welcome."

The character's name is Samoa, played by then-novice actor Oscar Kightley. The play, called Fresh Off the Boat, is the debut show by a new theatre company called Pacific Underground, a group that will change both theatre in New Zealand and the way pacific stories are told.

For all his bold words, Samoa - real name, Englebert - isn't the hero he believes himself to be. The would-be revolutionary leader still lives with his mum and is terrified of leaving home to look after himself.

In that sense, Englebert and Oscar had a fair bit in common back in 1993. Oscar may have felt like a newbie acting on stage in just his second professional performance - and the first play he's written - but the home truth was something different. He had been performing all his life, mostly in shows at his church.

"And they're very traumatic experiences, to be honest."

"No director is as scary as your own rellies in the front row of church at White Sunday, looking at you and daring you to get it right and not muck up."

Oscar Kightley, one of the Pacific Underground founders, was born in Samoa in 1969 and moved to Auckland as a child. He trained as a journalist at the now-defunct Auckland Star but his move towards theatre began in 1991 when he moved to Christchurch for TV work. To his surprise, Oscar discovered a community of Pasifika and palagi actors, writers, dancers and musicians in the southern city.  They were all young, talented and ready. And their timing is just right.

"Our pacific community was starting to grow. In fact it grew by 40% in the 1990s."

"We were all born around the same time, all young and hungry and beginning to explore the performing arts as a career."…

Go to this episode on rnz.co.nz for more details

In the icy waters of the Southern Ocean Whale Sanctuary, a protest boat is rammed by Japanese whalers and sinks soon afterwards. But who was really to blame?

January 2010. In the freezing Antarctic waters of the Southern Ocean Whale Sanctuary, Sea Shepherd boat the Ady Gill is rammed by a Japanese whaling ship. The Ady Gill sinks soon after. But who was really to blame?

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https://youtu.be/ynecStOsoto

"I thought we'd be bringing people back in body bags."

Pete Bethune isn't a man to mince his words. Especially not when it comes to whaling in the southern ocean around Antarctica.

"It's the Wild West down there," he says bluntly.

He would know. Eight years ago, as the skipper of a high speed boat with a crew of environmental activists, he tested the limits of the law by getting up close and very personal with the Japanese whaling fleet.

On that occasion, his boat came off second best. But possibly the real damage done was to Pete Bethune's sense of the world, his respect for his fellow activists and maybe, to himself.

In 2008 Bethune set a new speed record for circumnavigating the globe in a bio-diesel fuelled trimaran named Earthrace, a vessel he called "the coolest boat in the world". Just after finishing his record-breaking journey, a journalist asked him what he wanted to do next.

"Just off the cuff I said I might take (Earthrace) to Antarctica to disrupt the Japanese whaling. (Afterwards) I got a call from Sea Shepherd."

"Six months later, there I was driving the boat down to Antarctica."

Founded by Captain Paul Watson, Sea Shepherd Conservation Society uses a mix of direct action tactics and sophisticated publicity campaigns to, in their words, 'conserve and protect ecosystems and species'. The Society is famous (or infamous) for opposing Japanese whaling programs in the Southern Ocean Whale Sanctuary surrounding Antarctica.

Since the sanctuary was established, it is estimated that more than 10,000 whales have been taken for what the Japanese call scientific research. The IWC rejects this description and so do Sea Shepherd. So does Pete Bethune.

From 2005 to 2017, the Sea Shepherd fleet, unofficially known as Neptune's Navy, disrupted the Japanese hunt by doing what Bethune calls 'naughty stuff.' This involved ramming their ships, attacking the crew with butyric acid and rancid butter and deploying prop-fouling cables.

"What we did down there was illegal. We're breaking the law. But we would also argue that they (the Japanese whalers) are breaking the law with what they do…

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Christmas 2005; a hundred drunk men dressed as Santa allegedly riot in downtown Auckland. But was it true? Yes. Yes it was. Mostly.

Christmas, 2005 and a hundred drunk men dressed in Santa suits allegedly start a riot in downtown Auckland. News around the world have great fun with stories of bad behaviour by crazy Kiwis. But was it true? Yes. Yes it was. Mostly.

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"It was just a bit of ballyhoo."

Christmas; peace on earth and good will to all men.

Except for anyone unlucky enough to make the news during what we rightly call the Silly Season. If that happens, then good luck to you, 'cos you're on your own.

And that need for news is why in 2005 media outlets around the world gleefully reported the antics of a 100 drunken Santas, out on the lash and supposedly rioting up and down Auckland's Queen Street. Breathlessly, we (yes, RNZ too) broadcast details of drunkenness, theft, public urination, assaults, arrests and red-faced reindeer.

The story went around the world faster than a fat man on a sleigh.

This apparent collapse of civilisation as we know it was called Santarchy (a play on Santa and anarchy), a worldwide movement protesting the commercialisation of Christmas - and a good excuse to get slaughtered while wearing a Santa suit.

Alex Dyer and his mates set up the local chapter of Santarchy in 1999, but he doesn't buy into the idea of it as a protest.

"I love Christmas. I'm the only person who's ever been happy when his parents split up because it meant I got two sets of presents."

Alex calls the first Auckland Santarchy a "weak effort"; just two or three blokes in Santa suits drinking cider in a park. But the following year was bigger and Santarchy continued to grow and get more visible.

There were about 75 Santas at the 2004 event and some had overdone the sherry. As they hit town, it all got a bit gross. There were two arrests for fighting and disorderly behaviour and one Santa lost his (liquid) lunch right in front of a small child. Merry Christmas to you.

But Alex Dyer argues that Santarchy 2004 went off "basically without a hitch."

"And I thought if you can get that big, you can go as big as you want and have no dramas.

"But the following year proved me wrong..."

Santarchy 2005 began at Victoria Park in downtown Auckland, just one week before Christmas and there were early signs that this one was going to be different.

"People just kept turning up. There were a minimum of a hundred Santas and one bloke dressed as a reindeer..."

"We just welcomed them all in."…

Go to this episode on rnz.co.nz for more details

Five months without work, scant food and the whole nation against you... Katy Gosset hears a first-hand account of the 1951 Waterfront Dispute.

Five months without work, scant food and the whole nation against you... Katy Gosset hears a first-hand account of the long battle that was the 1951 Waterfront Dispute.

It was 151 days, a long 151 days and some men who lived through it will never forget it...

Baden Norris is one of them.

"It was my blackest period of my life because I had no money, or very little. I had a daughter  was in hospital with melanoma. You couldn't get another job. You'd be pretty unpopular if you did."

So how did it all begin?

Baden describes himself as "Lyttelton material",  born and bred in the little port town like his father, his grandfather and great-grandfather before him.

"It was the centre of the universe when I was a child. I never wanted to be anywhere else."

He worked in a factory at 13, went to sea at 15 and then, in his 20s, being "Lyttelton material" led him to work on the wharves.

Being a watersider wasn't an aspiration, as such, but, by then Baden was married, with a child, and money had become more important.

And on the waterfront, a man could make good money, not because the job was so well paid, but because there was plenty of overtime.

It was also a place where Baden found camaraderie among like-minded types who shared his love of the sea.

"Companionship.. there was an awful variety of men on the waterfront  interesting backgrounds, particularly of maritime worlds. You almost joined a club."

But trouble was brewing on the wharves.

Strike or Lockout?

The union movement had become divided. By 1951 the waterfront workers supported the Trade Union Congress, a group that had splintered away from the main union, the Federation of Labour.

New Zealand was emerging from the Second World War and the Government offered a wage increase to workers.

Except it wasn't across the board.

Baden Norris said wharfies had to apply to a separate tribunal for the pay hike and it was turned down, on the basis that the workers were already well paid.

But he said this was only because they worked so many overtime hours.

"So  said "We will refuse overtime until we get some satisfaction" and, of course, that's how it all started."

But their employers responded that, if the men would not work overtime, they couldn't work at all.

The ship owners, and later the Government, called the dispute a strike but, to the workers, it was a lockout.

A State of Emergency…

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At the age of 20, Huia Welton got married. But not to the person she loved.

At the age of 20, Huia Welton got married. Nothing too unusual in that, you might think. But there were a few things about this wedding that made it a little different. For a start, she hardly knew her groom.

"You could marry someone that you didn't even know but I couldn't marry someone that I loved."

It was 2000 and Huia was a second-year student at Massey University in Palmerston North. She was active in student politics and keen to have her say about the things that mattered to her. One of those things was student fees and parental means-testing on eligibility for student allowances. But a loophole that became a cause celebre and the focus of many student protests meant that if you got married, you got money.

Huia felt the best way to make her protest heard was by getting hitched in what were widely known as 'mock weddings' - but not to the person she loved. Because for her, there was a second injustice at play.

"I came out (as a lesbian) when I was 16. The issue of not being able to marry the person that I loved was a really big deal for me."

A little backstory; since the late 1980's, big changes had been taking place in tertiary education.  Under the 1989 Education Act, the Labour Government introduced a standard tertiary fee of 10% of course costs (around $1200) and swapped out the old grants scheme for the flasher sounding student allowances. Allowances were a universal entitlement; if you studied fulltime at tertiary level, you qualified.

When National replaced Labour as the government in late 1990, funding for universities was reduced and the standard fee abolished. Universities were allowed to set their own fees and made up the funding shortfall by charging students more.

National's then education minister Dr Lockwood Smith also introduced means testing on allowances for students under 25. If your folks had a combined income of $27,872 or above, your allowance was progressively reduced. If they made more than $50,000, you got nothing.

If students didn't have enough work to live off, they could borrow their living costs through the 1992 Student Loan Scheme, which you could also use to pay your now increased university fees. At the time, these loans were interest bearing for all students

So if you were under 25, your parents made more than $50,000 per annum but couldn't afford to pay you an allowance, your only real option was to take out a loan.

Or get married.

"If you were deemed to be financially independent of your parents then you were entitled to an allowance" explains Huia.

"And one of the criteria (for independence) was that you were married."…

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An emergency signal sparks a desperate search for a missing air force helicopter.

An emergency signal sparks a desperate search for a missing air force helicopter.

"It didn't look survivable."

There are the decisions you make and then there are the decisions that make you.

As a young boy in Queens, New York, Dave Greenberg was obsessed with ambulances and fire engines. Visiting his local firehouse as an eight year-old, he decided right then that this was the life for him.

"I wanted to be a fireman when I grew up."

It didn't quite turn out that way. Teenaged Dave joined the Ambulance Corps and a youth programme for fire fighters and saved his first life aged just 13.

"It was scary but it was the best adventure of my life."

His parents pushed him into computer programming and it wasn't until he decided to move to Wellington in 1990 that he found his way back to emergency service work. He jumped at an opportunity to become a crewman on Life Flight - the Westpac Rescue Helicopter and his first flight confirmed that this was where Dave was meant to be.

"It was a night flight over Wellington. Just lifting up into the blackness then coming back in over Wellington city.

"They say your first time is your most memorable and that certainly was for me."

The decision was made and Dave Greenberg spent the next 25 years with Life Flight, operating the winch used to insert and extract people and often on the line himself, a job the crew calls being the 'dope on a rope".

"I loved being the dope on the rope, more than anything else I ever did on the helicopter!"

"I managed to make a life that looking back at, I'm jealous of."

But it's the people he saved that Dave remembers and one rescue in particular stands out. It happened on 25 April 2010 - ANZAC Day.

Dave Greenberg wasn't supposed to be working that day but when asked to cover an overtime shift he agreed straightaway.

His day began with a 5.45am phone call; a Blenheim patient needed transferring to Wellington. The weather wasn't great, with low cloud and poor visibility, so Dave and pilot Harry Stevenson waited for daylight before leaving. But seconds into the flight they're radioed about a search and rescue beacon activated near Pukerua Bay northwest of Wellington. An Air Force Iroquois helicopter was missing. Dave and Harry needed to decide what to do and fast.

This was one of those decisions that make you.

"There's a saying that you're better off making a pretty good decision with 70% of the information than a really good decision with 100% because if you wait for the 100% it's usually too late."…

Go to this episode on rnz.co.nz for more details

The mighty Manchester United go head-to-head in a match with an amateur Auckland team. How do you reckon the game turns out?

The mighty Manchester United FC go head-to-head in a match with an amateur Auckland team. How do you reckon the game turns out?

"For the first 10 minutes out there I was so nervous I couldn't breathe."

By John Baker.​

It's been 50 years since Kiwi footballers  Mark Burgess and Billy Hunter played against probably the best Manchester United team of all time.

But when they turn up at RNZ's Auckland studios, both men look fit enough for another 90 minutes and are full of memories.

In 1967, their David and Goliath moment occurred when their amateur Auckland XI took the field against First Division champions Man United - at a rugby league ground.

Hello! Hello! We are the Busby Boys!

The Red Devils, as they're known, were probably the best football team in the world back then. They'd just won the First Division championship (now the Premier league), two of their team were World Cup winners and in the following years, this tough professional team would dominate the European competitions.

By contrast, back then Mark Burgess was a young employee at a trading company and Billy Hunter had just started his own trucking business. Mark had been named New Zealand Footballer of the Year in 1965 and played First Class cricket for Auckland. Billy was a tireless, tough defender, a fearless header of the ball and keen on a bit of "interaction" with opposing players.

The two would fit in training whenever work allowed. Billy recalls parking his truck at Auckland Domain before running to join a training session "then I'd run back to the truck to carry on the day's work."

From the banks of the River Irwell to the shores of Sicily...

Jingle bells/Jingle bells/Jingle all the way/Oh what fun it is to see/United win away! -  stadium chant.

In 1967, Manchester United were becoming the mega-brand we know today. The club was near the end of a 10 year rebuilding period after the Munich Air Disaster which killed several of their players and support staff. A young Bobby Charlton and manager Matt Busby survived the crash and were in the squad that arrived in Auckland in late May.

Premiership Football is a different game now and the idea of any top team coming to New Zealand seems far-fetched. Back then Man U regularly took off-season tours but mostly stuck to Europe. But this time United's 12 match tour took in the United States and Australia with two games penciled in for New Zealand, the first against Auckland…

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In this episode of Eyewitness: a dramatic alpine rescue that kept New Zealand on tenterhooks More than thirty years ago, two climbers were stranded on Mt Cook for two weeks, while the media recorded every detail of the drama. The survival of Mark Inglis and Phil Doole is now a well recognised part of the country's alpine history. Here Katy Gosset tells us the lesser known story of the man behind their rescue.

In November 1982, for about two weeks, time stood still - not just for two climbers, stranded in an ice cave on Mt Cook's inhospitable middle peak - but for New Zealand too, gripped by the prospect of a dramatic and potentially dangerous rescue in atrocious conditions.

Mark Inglis and Phil Doole, both members of the Mt Cook Alpine Rescue Team, had failed to return from a climb.

For close to a week, as a storm prevented any kind of search, no one could say if the men were safe.

For the nation's media, it was a story that had all the elements; lost climbers, challenging weather conditions and New Zealand's highest peak.

It needed only a rescuer.

Enter Don Bogie: one of the most important figures in the drama but one whose name is less commonly heard.

I guess I saw it as a problem to be solved and a technical challenge.

He was the senior mountaineer and the most experienced at strop rescues (in which an alpine rescuer is lowered on a line to uplift an injured or stranded climber using a harness or stretcher.)

And he was to play a major role in the men's rescue.

When Don Bogie first heard of his colleagues' plight he wasn't too concerned.  The weather was poor but he was confident the experienced climbers could endure a night out on Mt Cook, as he had done himself on a previous climb.

"As long as you've managed to find some shelter, you can survive."

But several days later, he wasn't quite so sure.

"We knew the weather was atrocious. It was gale force north westerlies. You couldn't even really see Mt Cook."

Rescuers were beginning to get worried.

You know they're definitely in trouble now.

As soon the weather allowed, Don Bogie and his helicopter pilot Ron Small began flying reconnaissance flights. Gradually they eliminated huts and other possible locations where they believed the men might shelter.

But there were risks.

"Some things didn't go right. We pushed some of that searching too hard."

There was a serious near-miss when the helicopter nearly crashed into a ridge.

Don Bogie said the rescuers' instinct to help needed to be held in check by the conditions…

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Sri Lanka, 1992 - New Zealand's Black Caps cricket team dodge a suicide bomber but get caught up in a web of civil war, contract disputes and fights between players and management.

In a new episode of Eyewitness, the Black Caps cricket team avoid a suicide bomb blast but get caught up in a web of civil war, contract disputes and fights between players and management.

The Black Caps were caught up in Sri Lanka's civil war violence not once, but twice - with a bomb exploding outside their hotel in 1987 and again in 1992.

"I know I made enemies out of it" - Peter McDermott

The bomb

8am, November 15, 1992: The New Zealand men's cricket team - the Black Caps - are waking up in Colombo, Sri Lanka. They've been in the country less than a day and are looking forward to some practice and working out the kinks after a long flight.

Ahead of them is a month of test matches and one-day internationals against their hosts. They're tired, a bit stiff, but cheerful and ready for a good competition.

In his hotel room, batsman Ken Rutherford's breakfast has just arrived.

"And I just plonked it on top of my bed and then - boom! The tray ended up on the floor and gee whiz, what's this?"

It's a bomb, exploding directly outside the team's hotel. The entire building shakes for several seconds afterwards.

Shocked players stumble into the corridor to check on each other and find out what's happened. No one's hurt but they want to know what's going on.

Details trickle in. A Tamil Tiger suicide bomber on a motorbike has rammed a car containing Sri Lankan navy commander Clancy Fernando. Four people, including the bomber, are dead. Later that morning, Rutherford goes down to the site of the explosion to get the lie of the land. What he sees shocks him.

"Big hole in the ground, horrible, human parts around the fence and gate area. A real sobering scene for us Kiwis."

Captain Martin Crowe asks Rutherford how it looks outside. "Not too good," he says.

He knows what he's talking about. This isn't the first time a bomb has exploded near the Black Caps or even the first time it's happened to Rutherford.

History never repeats?

Five years prior, Sri Lanka was four years into a vicious civil war between the government and the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (commonly known as the Tamil Tigers) when the New Zealand team toured there back in 1987.

Immediately after the first test ended, the Tamil Tigers exploded a huge bomb just 400m from the team hotel, destroying a bus station and killing nearly 200 people. The station was on the team's bus route home. They had missed the bomb by just a few minutes…

Go to this episode on rnz.co.nz for more details

The 1980s will be remembered for big hair, shoulder pads and the biggest destruction of wealth investors had ever seen. It's 30 years since the 1987 share market crash but the legacy of Black Monday still lingers.

Welcome to 1987, where businessmen are Rock Stars, investing is the new black - and a crash in the share market is about to change everything.

"People weren't thinking rationally" - Brian Gaynor.

A conversation at a dinner party nowadays is likely to turn, at some point, to house prices. Who's made lots of money, what's happening to prices and who can't afford one.

In the 1980s, you can substitute out 'property' and replace it with 'the share market'. That's not a topic that has ever been dinner party fodder for my generation; it's generally left to finance professionals and the already-wealthy. But 30 years ago, it was a different story.

The newspaper headlines were dominated by stories of share market wins instead of phenomenal house price gains. Share clubs, where everyday people got together to pool their money and invest in the stock market, were a dime a dozen. Mercedes Benz were flying off the lot and Moet champagne was in hot demand. The share market one year went up 99 percent, another year it was up 116 percent. Market mania took hold.

John Douglas was in his late 30s back then; a school teacher, father of 5, and a small-time investor with his share club. He remembers lots of talk about how much money people were making on the market.

There was quite a lot of hype around it. - John Douglas.

"I remember some people going off for lavish weekends because their share club was doing particularly well, so they'd spend the weekend doing some sort of exotic thing, or so it seemed to us anyway".

Veteran business analyst Brian Gaynor was a stockbroker in the '80s and says everyone wanted a piece of the action, from taxi drivers, to customs officers, pilots, even schoolboys.

"There were one or two schoolboys who used to ring up from the schoolyard in Wellington College wanting to know what had happened in the share market, wanting to know if they should be selling shares or what they should be buying"

These days, companies' annual meetings are typically populated by retirees, there for the tea and biscuits and a bit of a question and answer session after the presentation. Brian Gaynor says that couldn't be further from a typical meeting in the 1980s, when businessmen were almost on par with rock stars.

"For example, Brierley Investments had over 200,000 shareholders and at the annual meeting there'd be 1500 people there. The meeting started at 3pm..…

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In 1961, the 'Pill' went on sale in New Zealand and women's lives were changed forever. The first truly reliable contraceptive, the Pill meant being able to control your fertility was now a matter of choice. But not everyone here in Godzone was judged worthy of making that choice. In this episode of Eyewitness, in 1966, Carol, as she wants to be known, was young, single, sexually active and in a hurry to be an adult.

In 1961, the 'Pill' became available in New Zealand and women's lives were changed forever. Being able to control your fertility was now a matter of choice. But not everyone was judged worthy of making that choice.

"We had the right to take care of our bodies. It shouldn't have been a moral issue."

Carol's Story

In 1966  "Carol" was young, single, sexually active and in a hurry to be an adult. She decided to leave home, move cities and live with her boyfriend.

I thought '16, woo-hoo! I've left school, I've got a job  I'll go and live in Wellington!' See ya later Mum and Dad, I'm gone! Maybe in hindsight, not such a clever idea.

By now, the Pill had been available for five years. But if you think the swinging sixties had fully arrived, you'd be wrong. Abortion was illegal, condoms and diaphragms weren't reliable and many couples took their chances with the withdrawal method. Two different doctors refused to give Carol a prescription for the Pill.

For a woman, there was no chance in the world that you were going to get the Pill if you were single.

"You would go the doctors and you were greeted with horror and disapproval."

Her doctor turned her down flat. Carol wanted independence, fun and love, but instead found herself being judged.

People looked down on you if you were sexually active. You were just, for want of a better word, a slut.They simply didn't see you as an adult. You were a single woman; you had no right to do that.

"You didn't have the right to take care of your own body."

Carol and her partner were let down by the contraceptive method they were using.

"I was 17. My fiancé bailed on me; he didn't want to be a parent."

I was feeling very much alone and scared.  I was absolutely on my own. Abortions were not an option, unless there was a medical reason for it.

According to the State, it also wasn't an option for an unmarried teenager to raise her child…

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Only one Catholic Pope has ever made the trip all the way from Rome to New Zealand. In 1986 His Holiness Pope John Paul II spent three days here and the local church prepared for his visit in a uniquely Kiwi way. Eyewitness producer Justin Gregory remembers the Pope's flying visit and tracks down a special item he left behind.

Eyewitness producer Justin Gregory remembers the Pope's flying visit and tracks down a special item he left behind...

"I did most of  down on my knees, appropriately."

Just 50m from Christchurch's ruined Catholic Cathedral, six shipping containers sit in a row. Behind high fences and securely locked, they store treasures rescued from the cathedral, including the prize we've come to find - a unique piece of papal paraphernalia.

But the containers are not easy to get into.

"Am I allowed to swear?" asks Father Chris Friel, the administrator of the Cathedral of the Blessed Sacrament on Barbadoes Street.

While Father Friel and property and facilities manager Mary Curtis struggle to open one of the containers, he tells me the Cathedral came through the 2010 and 2011 earthquakes reasonably well.

But six months later, cracks in the walls were discovered and engineers warned its dome had to be removed. When this happened, as with Jericho, the walls would come tumbling down.

"The workers were given one hour to get inside and were asked to strip everything from the cathedral that could be taken. These are now all  these containers here." - Fr Chris Friel

After a big effort - but no swearing - the container swings opens to reveal its contents, stacked haphazardly on top of each other.

"There we go. There's an organ I can see here, there are vestments, there's a crucifix, a piano...

"...and looking directly at us, is the papal chair used by Pope John Paul II for Mass at Lancaster Park on the 24th of November 1986."

Only one Catholic Pope has ever made the trip all the way from Rome to New Zealand. In 1986 His Holiness Pope John Paul II spent three days in Aotearoa, and the local Church prepared for his visit in a uniquely Kiwi way.

Pope John Paul II flew in to New Zealand on Saturday 22 November 1986. He kissed the ground at Auckland Airport and after a state welcome climbed into our version of the Popemobile - a converted ute - for the drive to Auckland Domain for Mass.

The Pope flew to Wellington that evening and on the next day, a Sunday, battled high winds while celebrating Mass at Athletic Park. He left for Christchurch shortly afterwards…

Go to this episode on rnz.co.nz for more details

June 1984 and a drunken decision late one night leads to a snap election. Sir Robert Muldoon's ruling National Government is thrown out of office and David Lange's reforming Labour Party voted in. But before they could take power, an unprecedented constitutional crisis gripped the country and for three days, no one knew who was in charge.

In a new episode of RNZ's Eyewitness podcast, Sir Jim McLay tells Justin Gregory about the day he faced down the most dominant politician in living memory.

"I am not going to devalue so long as I am Minister of Finance!" - Sir Robert Muldoon.

Late on the evening of 14 June 1984, National Party Prime Minister Sir Robert Muldoon walked unsteadily down a corridor in Parliament towards waiting journalists. He stared glassily into a TV camera and announced that the country would go to the polls early.

The date he chose for the snap election was 14 July, just four weeks away. RNZ journalist Richard Griffin suggested it didn't give Muldoon's party much time to run up to an election. The Prime Minister slurred a famous reply.

For nearly a full parliamentary term, Sir Robert had led a government with just a single seat majority. When National backbencher Marilyn Waring announced she would vote against her party on certain issues, Muldoon decided he couldn't continue on that basis.

Standing just behind Sir Robert that night was Jim McLay. Now Sir James McLay and a senior diplomat, in 1984 he was 39 years-old, the Attorney General of New Zealand as well as Deputy Prime Minister. McLay had been in the job for just a few short months; he and Muldoon had "a very correct relationship. We were not particularly compatible spirits. It wasn't difficult, but it wasn't super-friendly either."

"We certainly weren't drinking buddies".

For some time, McLay had thought a snap election likely and during the short campaign fully supported his leader. But Labour won in a canter. McLay expected Sir Robert to follow established convention and obey any instructions he might be given during the few days it would take Labour to form a new government.

But McLay was wrong. Instead, a defeated Muldoon dug in his toes on one crucial issue.

For many months prior to the election, the Reserve Bank had been warning Sir Robert that an overvalued NZ dollar was vulnerable to speculation. They recommended a 15% devaluation. Muldoon disagreed…

Go to this episode on rnz.co.nz for more details

It's been a wild three-decade ride for broadcaster TV3. They launched in 1989 as an energetic alternative to state-owned Television New Zealand and proved they had what it took to survive - but not before going broke, being sold a few times and losing large numbers of long serving staff members. Earlier this year TV3 broke with the past and rebranded as +HR=E. Journalist Bill Ralston was headhunted by the new network and signed up before they began broadcasting. He cheerfully admits to Eyewitness producer Justin Gregory that it was his short attention span that made the offer so appealing.

In a new episode of RNZ's Eyewitness podcast, Bill Ralston* tells Justin Gregory about the wild beginnings of TV3.

"TV3 was going to be fun. They were going to go for it in pirate kind-of way and I quite liked being a swashbuckler." - Bill Ralston

It's been a tumultuous three-decade ride for the broadcaster. TV3 launched in 1989 as an energetic alternative to state-owned Television New Zealand and proved it had what it took to survive - but not before going broke, being sold a few times and losing large numbers of long serving staff members.

Earlier this year TV3 broke with the past and rebranded as +HR=E.

Journalist Ralston was headhunted by the new network and signed up to the news team before they began broadcasting. He cheerfully admits that it was his short attention span that made the offer so appealing.

Bill Ralston on...

Moving from TVNZ

I was working for TV ONE on a current affairs show called Frontline. You could spend months working on a story. I decided I was more of a news guy. I have a very small brain; I just like to be constantly entertained. 

TVNZ in those days was effectively a monopoly. It was very large and it was very fat and it was very lazy.

Why he joined TV3

TV3 was going to be fun to do. There was going to be a really good cut-throat attitude and they were just going to go for it in a pirate sort of way. I quite liked the idea of being a swashbuckler.

The early days

The place was reasonably chaotic simply because it was a new start-up.

There were people in jobs that probably shouldn't have been there and there were people who bloomed and really came into their own.

A lot of the technical people who got TV3 to air did a fantastic job with very little.

Like the Viet Cong, we could live on a handful of rice a day and move stealthily through the forest while TVNZ were still trying to fire up their tanks.

The launch of TV3

It was a spectacular launch . They pulled out all the stops. I think they might have spent all the company funds on the launch.

First 6pm news broadcast…

Go to this episode on rnz.co.nz for more details

How young is too young to compete in international sport? Rebecca Perrott had an outstanding swimming career which began when she was picked at the age of 12 for the 1974 Commonwealth Games in Christchurch. Rebecca was the youngest athlete there and she tells Eyewitness producer Justin Gregory that taking up swimming had a lot to do with sibling rivalry.

"I think if you're fast enough to be there, then you're old enough." - swimmer Rebecca Perrott.

Like everyone who saw the '74 Commonwealth Games, Rebecca Perrott  clearly remembers New Zealand runner Dick Taylor winning the 1500m finals on the opening day. She laughs at the memory of weightlifter Graham May falling on his face during one of his lifts and recalls with awe the moment legendary Australian swimmer Michael Wenden announced his retirement by tossing his togs into the crowd.

What she doesn't remember is whether she felt nervous before her races.The Games were more than forty years ago and astonishingly, Rebecca was only twelve at the time; the youngest competitor there.

"I get very nervous now. I can't imagine it was any different back then!'

Born in Wellington in 1961, Rebecca moved to Fiji with her family in the early 70's when her father worked for the University of the South Pacific. Her big sister Jane was shoulder-tapped to join the Suva swimming club and a few months later, Rebecca joined her - much to her sister's annoyance.

"She hated the fact that anything she did, I would eventually end up doing, too."

With good coaching and regular training, Rebecca's times kept on improving and her development was so fast that, despite not having made the qualifying times for the Games, she was picked on potential and given a licence to simply swim as fast as she could. With her sister also in the team and Mum along to take care of them, they flew to Christchurch.

The 10th British Commonwealth Games began on 24 January 1974 at the brand new QEII Park in the suburb of North New Brighton.  Fiji was one of 38 teams at what was billed as the "friendly games". The '74 Games were a mix of the old and the new; this was be the last time the word "British" would be used in the official title and the first time that TV coverage of most events would be in colour, including the swimming. With a catchy theme song and an eye- catching logo, the Commonwealth Games were a bit of a big deal. Not that Rebecca knew that.

"We lived in Fiji; no TV, there was no internet back then."

"I went into (the Games) very innocent and naive."…

Go to this episode on rnz.co.nz for more details

February 1994 in Auckland, the Big Day Out is bursting noisily into life. But as the giant outdoor music festival gets going, one band on the line-up is calling it quits. Eyewitness goes back to the day Dunedin's Straitjacket Fits split.

February 1994 in Auckland, the Big Day Out is bursting noisily into life. The headline acts are American grunge kings Soundgarden and Smashing Pumpkins. But as the festival gets going, one band on the line-up is calling it quits.

Eyewitness goes back to the day Dunedin's Straitjacket Fits split.

"We kicked both their arses!"

Shayne Carter laughs. I've just asked him what success in the music business looks like and he's got just the story. It's 1994 and his band The Straightjacket Fits is playing the Big Day Out, blowing headliners Soundgarden and Smashing Pumpkins off the stage.

Two months later, Carter's in a WINZ office in Dunedin applying for the dole. His Case Officer asked if he was living at the drug rehab facility just up the road.

She wanted to know when I was going to get a real job. I thought, you mean like yours? We'd been on that band trip, y'know, taken away to America and feted by major labels. It's a long way from (there) to the WINZ office, but not really. Two months!

Carter laughs again, but without much humour. He sounds more like someone who has accepted that his definition of success has little to do with how others might measure it, or even how he once might have wanted it.

The Straitjacket Fits formed in Dunedin 1986 when guitarist Carter and drummer John Collie, who had previously played together in a band called the Doublehappys, teamed up with bass player David Wood and guitarist and songwriter Andrew Brough. Right from the start, they seemed to have bigger ambitions than a lot of their contemporaries.

They hired a manager (Debbie Gibbs) and with their unique sonic dramas seemingly in place from the start, they signed to Christchurch label Flying Nun less than year after their first gig. In 1987 they released an EP called Life In One Chord. Track number two would become their best-known song.

'She Speeds', written by Carter with the rest of the band, was a classic from the moment it dropped. It made the Top 10 here and got the band attention overseas. One Australian reviewer called it "arguably the greatest debut single of all time". In 2011 Apra would put the song at number nine in their top 100 New Zealand songs.

The band's debut album, Hail, followed a year later and in 1989 the Straitjacket Fits began the first of several international tours…

Go to this episode on rnz.co.nz for more details

On Valentine's Day 2007 Georgina Beyer brought down the curtain on her 8 year career in government. The first transsexual in the world to be elected to parliament, her short time in national politics had been remarkable for its candour and courage as well as for its achievements. On the tenth anniversary of her resignation, Georgina tells Justin Gregory from RNZ's Eyewitness programme that she left it all behind with no regrets and little ceremony.

On Valentine's Day 2007 Georgina Beyer brought down the curtain on her eight-year career in government. The first openly transsexual person in the world to be elected to parliament, her short time in national politics had been remarkable for its candour and courage, as well as for its achievements.

"I've now found myself to be a Member (of Parliament)."

At times it must have seemed to Georgina Beyer that she had spent most of her career in politics in the passenger seat of a car. During the election campaign of 1999, Georgina - who back then didn't have a licence - was driven over almost all of the enormous, mostly rural, Wairarapa electorate by a volunteer driver.

Once she had won the seat, her duties as an MP saw Georgina back on those same roads most days of the week. Now that she was leaving parliament for the last time, it seemed somehow appropriate that Georgina should do so by simply driving away; but this time, in control of the vehicle.

"I just got in my car and drove home. There was no sadness."

Georgina Beyer (Te Āti Awa, Ngāti Mutunga, Ngāti Raukawa, Ngāti Porou) was born in Wellington in 1957 and given the name George Bertrand. After leaving home, she pursued a career in acting while also working in the Wellington gay nightclub scene and spending some time in the sex industry.

In 1984 she underwent sex reassignment surgery and some years later, seeking a new start, she moved to the small Wairarapa town of Carterton. In 1992 Georgina stood for election to the local council and narrowly missed out on a seat but in a by-election a year later, she romped home.

The following year Georgina ran for the top job in the town and won, becoming the world's first transsexual mayor, Carteron's first female mayor and the first Māori mayor Wairarapa had ever seen. Media around the world wanted a piece of the story and, overnight, Georgina became a star. It was inevitable that sooner or later one of the big political parties would come calling and, in 1998, they did.

Georgina Beyer's official portrait as Carterton's mayor…

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Not that long ago, women held all of the top-ranking positions in NZ. In this episode of the Eyewitness podcast series, we discover that this is far from the case now.

Not that long ago, women held all of the top-ranking positions in NZ. In this episode of the Eyewitness  podcast series, we discover that this is far from the case now.

"I think what's driven me is a deep-seated resentment at injustice. I think I've always felt that people have to be treated fairly." - Professor Margaret Wilson DCNZ

Margaret Wilson is a Law Professor at Waikato University. Her career has spanned a number of high-profile cabinet positions, including Speaker of the House of Representatives.

Back in 1999, Wilson was appointed as Attorney General as a host of women took center stage in New Zealand, holding the fort in high-power positions. Among them were Dame Silvia Cartwright (Governor General), Sian Elias (Chief Justice), Prime Minister Helen Clark and Jenny Shipley (Leader of the Opposition).

Alongside them, actor Lucy Lawless was fighting fierce as the ever-invincible Xena Warrior Princess and savvy businesswoman Theresa Gattung staked her claim as CEO for Telecom, one of New Zealand's largest corporations.

This period signalled major change as women in New Zealand made visible inroads into what had formerly been the domain of white middle-class men.

For Wilson the new appointment saw her continuing on a path of pushing for change in both the political and social spheres. While it was an important and symbolic period for New Zealand women, she says she was purely focused on the task at hand.

"I was so terrified at the prospect of the amount of work I had to do that I wasn't thinking externally. Obviously people commented on it and I thought;

I hope this can help others because it shows that women are quite capable of doing this job.

Women were proving to be robust with an unstoppable energy that exploded an unbreakable glass ceiling. Back then and even today, Wilson maintains that it felt like a long, hard slog to make ground and for women to push past some of the invisible social barriers and negative attitudes.

"I was told quite early on that I wouldn't get advancement in the university because women got married and had children, so why would you invest in them? I didn't feel resentful about that, I just went out and did what I could" she says.

"My mother was a major influence - she insisted that women have an equal education. There weren't a lot of women that were ahead of you that you looked up to  it just seemed to me irrational that you wouldn't accept women for their capabilities and the contributions they could make."…

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November 2016 sees the arrival of an American warship in a New Zealand port; the first for more than thirty years. The visit is stirring up memories of a time when New Zealand's harbours were battle zones and peace activists faced off against nuclear warships. US Navy ships and submarines were frequent visitors here in the 70s and early 80s as part of our commitment to the ANZUS treaty with America and Australia. But as fear of the nuclear threat grew, these visits became scenes of protest and some took to the water to show their opposition. The Peace Squadron, as they were known, were a loose flotilla of motorboats, canoes, surfboards and sailboats and people who were prepared to put their bodies in the way of warships. The protests were organised by Anglican priest George Armstrong who tells Eyewitness producer Justin Gregory that he got the call to act while watching American TV.

In November 2016, an American warship will enter a New Zealand port for the first time in more than 30 years, stirring up memories of a time when New Zealand's harbours were battle zones and peace activists faced off against nuclear warships.

"Turn this bloody thing around!"

US Navy ships and submarines were frequent visitors to New Zealand in the '70s and early '80s as part of our commitment to the ANZUS treaty with America and Australia.

But as fear of the nuclear threat grew, these visits became scenes of protest and some took to the water to show their opposition.

Anglican priest George Amstrong founded the Peace Squadron, a loose flotilla of motorboats, canoes, surfboards and sailboats and people who were prepared to put their bodies in the way of warships.

George led the squadron on three memorable protests in the usually calm waters of Auckland Harbour, and documentary photographer and peace activist Gil Hanly was there to make sure the events were captured on film.

This story was produced by Justin Gregory with additional audio from Nga Taonga Sound and Vision and also the 1995 documentary Nuclear Reaction by George Andrews.

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Contrary to popular belief, All Black Buck Shelford did not lose a testicle while playing against France but Colin "Pinetree" Meads really did play almost an entire game of rugby with a broken arm. This moment of legendary toughness - or madness, take your pick - happened in 1970 when the All Blacks were in South Africa, playing warm-up matches ahead of the Test Series. South African rugby chief Danie Craven had expressed the hope that the provincial teams would "soften up" the All Blacks. The New Zealanders next game was against cellar-dwellers Eastern Transvaal, a team they didn't know much about. But halfback Sid Going tells Eyewitness producer Justin Gregory the All Blacks knew right from the first whistle that they were in for a fight.

All Black legend Colin "Pinetree" Meads once played nearly an entire game of rugby with a badly broken arm. This moment of extraordinary toughness (or madness) happened in 1970 when the New Zealand team were touring South Africa. Three All Blacks who were there that day recall the game for Eyewitness producer Justin Gregory.

"Aw s**t Pinetree, you haven't broken it, have ya?"

All Blacks first five eight Earle Kirton has always blamed himself for the broken arm that Colin (later Sir) "Pinetree" Meads suffered on the 1970 All Blacks tour of South Africa. Just a little bit, anyway.

The injury happened during a tour match against provincial team East Transvaal. The All Blacks had been in South Africa for a few short weeks and had their eyes on the looming first test against the Springboks, South Africa's fearsome national team.

South African rugby boss Dr Danie Craven had expressed the hope that the provincial teams would "soften up" the New Zealanders. The East Transvaal team were up for it.

"We were getting hell knocked out of us."

Kirton, now a dentist in Wellington, recalls the game vividly. "There were boots flying everywhere at the bottom of the rucks. I can remember him  saying to me, 'S**t, it's like duck shooting season down here. They're all over the bloody place.'"

Kirton remembers that All Blacks team as a very close one, with a strong sense of 'one in, all in'. A key ethos was that if the little guys got into trouble doing their job, the big men would be there to help them out.

"There was a pact between the forwards and the backs," says Kirton. "The idea was 'you backs hold onto the ball and we'll get there'."

It was keeping true to this code that would see Meads get injured. An early converted try by All Blacks winger Bryan Williams enraged the East Transvaal team. At just six minutes into the game, Kirton got his hands on a loose ball…

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In 2015 a violent earthquake shook Nepal, killing thousands across the country. In its wake, climbing teams at Mt Everest were hit by a deadly avalanche that destroyed Base Camp and caused the deaths of nearly twenty people. Anthea Fisher was there and recalls the avalanche and the aftermath for Eyewitness producer Justin Gregory.

"You could actually see the avalanche heading towards us. It was like an explosion. I wasn't sure if I would survive" - Anthea Fisher.

The day of 25 April 2015 began early for Everest Base Camp manager Anthea Fisher. Back home in New Zealand it was ANZAC Day, but high in the Himalayas, Anthea was thinking only of her job.

The Wanaka resident was working for Kiwi mountain guiding company Adventure Consultants and this was her first time on the highest mountain in the world.

The team had been at Base Camp for about three weeks and Anthea had got up that morning, while it was still dark, to see off her climbers as they began their first trek up to Camp 1. With most of her colleagues and clients away, she was enjoying the relative peace and quiet of a nearly empty base camp.

"I was actually having a little late morning nap."

"Just because I could! Because I knew I wouldn't be disturbed by questions or having to organise anything."

"So I was in my tent when the earthquake struck."

The 7.8 magnitude earthquake hit at 11.56am and lasted for 50 seconds. The epicentre was near the Kathmandu valley, just 160kms northwest of Everest.

But while the shaking was over in less than a minute, the real danger to Anthea and others at Base Camp was about to begin. An ice cliff between the Pumori, Lingtren and Khumbutse mountains above them had collapsed, causing huge chunks of ice to fall hundreds of metres to the valley floor below.

"It sounded like the valley was falling down around us."

The force of the ice cliffs collapsing shattered the rocks beneath them. The resulting avalanche was a deadly mix of snow, ice and razor-sharp shards of broken rock - and it hit Base Camp within seconds.

"You could actually see the avalanche heading towards us. It was like an explosion. I wasn't sure if I would survive."

Anthea took shelter in a large nearby tent, but had the presence of mind to stay in the doorway to avoid being suffocated as it collapsed under the pounding of rocks and snow.

"I remember thinking 'I hope this stops soon because I don't know how much longer I can take this for'."

Several large avalanches hit that day. One, in the nearby Langtang Valley, killed more than 300 people. Nepal's capital, Kathmandu, was also hit hard…

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In 1992 a sudden financial crisis forced the Mercury theatre to close in dramatic fashion. Auckland Theatre Company rose from its ashes. Actor/director Simon Prast was there and recalls the upheaval for Eyewitness producer Justin Gregory.

"These men in suits came rushing down the stairs and told us to collect our personal belongings and leave the building"

The curtain has gone up on the $36 million ASB Waterfront Theatre, a 660-seat venue purpose-built for Auckland Theatre Company.

ATC, as it's known, turns 25 next year but until now has had to hire venues to stage its productions. Opening its own theatre is a significant milestone for what has become the largest professional company in our biggest city.

ATC rose out of the ashes of The Mercury Theatre, Auckland's original professional theatre company.

In 1992 a sudden financial crisis forced the Mercury to close in dramatic fashion. Actor Simon Prast was there and he recalls that day for Eyewitness.

The day the doors closed:

"Upstairs in the smaller theatre called The Gods we were doing a play called, rather ominously, Glorious Ruins. Simultaneously, on the main stage, we were doing The Rose Tattoo by Tennessee Williams."

"I was preparing myself for the early show when all these men in suits came running downstairs into the dressing room and they asked us to collect up our personal belongings and leave the building.'

"By the early 1990's Auckland was going through a change. The Aotea Center had just been built and new musicals from overseas were coming through. The Mercury relied upon (its) musicals to subsidise the rest of its programme. If they should not deliver then it really put the whole operation at risk. Once the Board found it was in a certain position, it legally couldn't continue."

"For about seven days we kept on meeting (as a company) until finally word came through that it (The Mercury) was going to be placed into liquidation. I was not at all well prepared for sudden, instant redundancy. It left a lot of people in a very precarious position."

"And of course, it wasn't as if we could just go and work at the next professional theatre company in Auckland - because there wasn't one!"

Endings and new beginnings:

"That night it was like a huge wake where everyone got extremely drunk... singing songs... it's very vivid in my memory.

"Raymond (Hawthorne, ex-Mercury Theatre and Theatre Corporate director) pointed across the room at me and said, 'That man could run a theatre company!'"…

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In August 2013 Labour MP Louisa Wall's Marriage Amendment Act came into effect. Since the passing of this historic law, more than two thousand same sex couples have tied the knot. RNZ's Eyewitness series takes us back to the night of 17 April 2013, to the third and final reading of the bill in Parliament and the vote that meant that marriage equality was now the law in New Zealand.

This historic Bill, granting same sex couples in New Zealand the right to marry, came nearly thirty years after the Homosexual Law Reform Act of 1986, which decriminalised homosexual acts between consenting adults, and just nine years after the passing of the Civil Union Law in 2004. Since the passing of the Bill into law, more than two thousand gay and lesbian couples have since exercised their legal right to marry.

Sitting in the gallery that night were two very special witnesses to this moment of history. For seven years Kapiti Coast couple Jenny Rowan and Jools Joslin had argued in court for the right to marry and had been denied at every turn.

In 1995 Jools and Jenny were one of three lesbian couples in New Zealand who each applied for a licence to marry. Their applications were denied. They challenged that decision in the High Court and then again in the Court of Appeal. They lost, both times, in what became known as the Quilter case. In 1998 Jools and Jenny sued New Zealand before the United Nations Human Rights Committee on the grounds of discrimination but again lost.

The couple had celebrated an unofficial wedding in 1996 and were later legally wed in Canada but by the early 2000s, had largely given up the struggle to gain the right to marry in their own country.

Archival audio courtesy of Ngā Taonga Sound & Vision

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Ella Henry is a respected broadcaster and academic but in 1970 she was a lost and restless teenager, on the verge of getting into serious trouble. A chance encounter with a famous literary figure helped her see there was more to life than she imagined. She tells Justin Gregory the adventure began for her one famous summer.

As told to Justin Gregory.

Living at Jerusalem

I think I was sixteen the first time I went to Jerusalem.

There was a whole bunch of people just like me. Race wasn't an issue, culture wasn't an issue... a lot of us were broken in different ways. But we all had this incredible sense of camaraderie and of sharing a journey together.

So long as you meant no harm to people you could pretty much do what you liked. You could wander around without clothes on, you could go down to river and hallucinate; you could do anything.

There was a kind of omnivorous quality to all of us. Things would turn up and people would take it. Nobody sat there and said "ooh, I'm smoking marijuana" or "ooh, what's that pill?" Every day was a new experience; everything you encountered was visceral, whether it was alcohol, or nicotine or new food I'd never tried.

Life with Baxter

Something about him felt like home. He had kind eyes and was always ready to smile. I always felt really comfortable in his company.

I knew he was an important man, I knew he had enormous charisma but I had no idea he was a famous poet. I had no idea he was acknowledged in literary circles. None of that was part of our relationship with him. He didn't sit and write stuff, but he would certainly speak in a very poetic way and I'm sure at times he was reciting poems.

Walking with him is something I remember. He'd ask "So what are you doing, where are you going, what are you going to do next?" but not in an inquisitive way, just in an interested way. And of course the presence of books all around all of the houses we were in, and he'd say "Ooh, are you reading that? "Yeah, it's really interesting!"

I never felt ever in my dealings with Hemi that he judged us in any way. And that was a very freeing relationship. To find an adult who was interested in talking to me as a person, as a fellow, equally sentient being, was quite a new thing and I really enjoyed it. And I think that helped me to expand my horizons and to want to look at different things and experience different things. I think that there was a period there when I could see the sunlight.

Leaving Jerusalem…

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Aung San Suu Kyi's recent historic democratic victory in the Myanmar elections seems to have brought positive change for the country but for a whole generation of former child refugees, life was conflict ridden. Burmese born Ngelay Aung Soe fled Myanmar as a child with his family to find a better life here. Lynda Chanwai-Earle is in Auckland to hear how Aung and his family survived years of separation and turmoil to turn their lives around, with help from some dedicated community leaders and an Outward Bound course.

By Lynda Chanwai-Earle

He was only three years of age when his mother May Lay first left their home in Nay Pyi Taw the capital of Myanmar. It was 1999, she was forced to run because of her family's outspoken political allegiance with Aung San Suu Kyi, the Burmese opposition politician and chairperson of the National League for Democracy in Burma. May Lay's mother and aunties were all imprisoned. May Lay would have been next.

Aung San Suu Kyi's recent historic democratic victory in the Myanmar elections seems to have brought positive change for the country but for a whole generation of former child refugees, life was conflict ridden. Burmese born Ngelay Aung Thu Soe fled Myanmar as a child with his family to find a better life here.

I'm in South Auckland at the family home where Aung, his older brother Si Thu Myo Myat, May Lay and husband Hla Soe describe how Aung and his family survived years of separation and turmoil to turn their lives around, with help from some dedicated community leaders and an Outward Bound course.

May Lay struggles with English so Aung helps with translations. She tells me she escaped Myanmar to work as an illegal immigrant in Malaysia. She was arrested and imprisoned several times while there, once serving 4 months inside a Malaysian jail.

Each time she was released and sent back across the border, she would try to rescue her children and sneak them out of Myanmar without success. The lengthy separation from her children and repeated imprisonment caused May Lay to suffer serious bouts of depression, bought on by post-traumatic stress.

May Lay tells me various people including and extended family, members of the Burmese community and UNHCR staff supported her through these dark times but it was her children she desperately wanted to be reunited with, in a safe country. She would scavenge for work and send money back home to the family. She would try to make monthly telephone calls but these were sporadic…

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The city of Auckland was founded in 1840 in a mix of hope and compromise and the occasion was marked with a suitably pompous ceremony. Just one eyewitness account remains from that day, and it was written by the only Pakeha woman present.

Sarah Mathew was born in London in 1805, and for ten years worked as a governess. In her late 20's Sarah agreed to marry her cousin Felton Mathew and follow him out to Australia where he had obtained a position as a surveyor. He left for Sydney in 1829 and two years later, Sarah followed - the first of a remarkable six journeys she made between Britain and the southern hemisphere, all the more impressive when you learn that she suffered terribly from sea sickness. She arrived in Sydney in January 1832, married Felton and then almost immediately went with him on his long surveying trips into the bush.

Author Tessa Duder has written a biography of Sarah, drawing upon the journals and diaries she wrote during her long life in the colonies and back home in England. She believes Sarah would have assisted Felton with the hard physical work of surveying and shared his hardships under canvas in the baking New South Wales sun.

'The extraordinary thing is, she kept the diaries. She wrote the books day in and day out.'

Sarah and Felton suffered two stillbirths while in Sydney and in her journals there are hints of other misfortunes.  This was the start of a run of mixed luck for the couple. Felton lost his job in 1839 due to disagreements between Sydney and London over which had the power to make civic appointments. He was quickly shoulder-tapped by William Hobson to help found the planned colony of New Zealand and to advise on the location of a capital city.

Felton sailed to the Bay of Islands in January 1840 and was present at the signing of the Treaty of Waitangi. Sarah arrived three months later.

I expect we shall very shortly be sent off again to survey and lay out another town in which the seat of government will be fixed. Felton has selected a very favourable situation for the purpose. It is to be called Auckland.

For two months on a tiny boat, Sarah and Felton sailed and surveyed from Northland to Thames, climbing seemingly every mountain and exploring rivers, streams and harbours. Despite some initial misgivings on Felton's behalf, a site on the Waitemata harbour was chosen and on September 18 1840 a ceremony was held to mark the founding of the nation's new capital. Sarah was the only Pakeha woman present on shore and typically, she wrote it all down…

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Imagine having to beg for your child's life with nothing but a couple of cigarettes as a bribe. Thirty years after their trauma, a group of 10 Cambodian New Zealand women are only now able to tell their stories. Participating in an oral history project that began as part of the 1993 Women's Suffrage Centenary, these survivors of Pol Pot's genocide finally published their harrowing experiences in a book titled I Tried Not To Cry, launched at Parliament. Some of these extraordinary survivors are talking to Lynda Chanwai-Earle with the help of translator and Cambodian community leader Niborom Young.

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A day of terror on the London Underground. The bombs go off 12 years ago.

"There were people there we couldn't help. The dead were all around us."

- Former Paramedic Sandie Davis Roberts.

It is twelve years ago on Tuesday 7th July since suicide bombers set off explosions in the London underground and on a London bus, killing dozens and injuring hundreds.

A former English paramedic now living in Auckland spent hours helping the injured in one wrecked carriage. Sandie Davis Roberts recalls it was a scene of complete carnage.

8.49am, Thursday morning rush hour on the London Tube; Bombs exploded in three crowded trains, and an hour later a fourth went off in a bus carrying many who'd just been evacuated from the underground.

Fifty two people were killed and 700 hundred injured in Britain's first ever suicide attacks.

The bombings came one day after London had won its bid to host the 2012 Olympic Games with a campaign which had highlighted the city's multi-cultural population. Three of the bombers themselves were British born sons of Pakistani immigrants while the fourth was born in Jamaica.

Amongst the confusion and panic following the attack came dozens of professional emergency teams, among them Sandie Davis Roberts who was a senior paramedic of sixteen years' experience with the East Anglia Ambulance service. It was around noon on the 7th that Sandie in her ambulance was called into London.

"We thought we would take over the regular work of the London teams while they coped with the emergency", Sandie says.

But soon she was ordered to the Aldgate tube station, where she and her colleague had to traipse down immobilised escalators, along the rail tracks to the wrecked train.

"It was all very hazy and smoky, and really quiet, until we came across this scene of carnage". A bit like hell she imagines.

Sandie recalls the smell too; "burnt rubber, hot mechanical smells, and the noise! The sound of cutting machinery; there was surgeon next to me, amputating a leg."

The first person she helped was a woman trapped in a mangled door. She was covered in burns and cuts.

"She was angry", says Sandie "asking what sort of people would do this sort of thing"; only in stronger language. Her name was Felicity. Close by, a young man had a badly lacerated leg.

"He was praying."

Then she helped a surgeon who was trying to stitch together the badly damaged face of a well-dressed business woman. Sandie doubts she survived…

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Mark Cunningham - known as Marko to the locals in Thailand - is a Kiwi from Upper Hutt. Marko survived the Boxing Day Tsunami in 2004 and joined local volunteers to collect bodies. These days Marko is an English teacher by day, and an Emergency Medical Technician by night with Bangkok's volunteer rescue charity. Nan Sirisamphan is in Bangkok to learn more about this altruistic Kiwi.

Marko is a 'Farang', a lone westerner amongst his Thai volunteer family. Under a layer of bulletproof jacket and an assortment of emergency radios, the Kiwi from Upper Hutt stands at approximately 6' tall. An English teacher by day, he switches to a life less ordinary by night.

'Marko' as his fellow Thai volunteers know him, is an Emergency Medical Technician and former body collector with Bangkok's volunteer rescue charity, The Ruamkatanyu Foundation. His duties vary from delivering babies in the back of taxis, to transporting sick elderly patients from squalid slums, to being the first on the scene of a murder investigation.

The rush was on to get all the bodies out of the sea - Mark (Marko) Cunningham, eyewitness, 2004 Boxing Day Tsunamis

In 2004, the Indian Ocean Tsunami devastated the south coast of Thailand. Without hesitation, Marko joined Ruamkatanyu in their efforts to collect the deceased. Spurred on by his sense of duty and a daily overdose of energy drinks, he spent his days in heat and humidity, collecting bloated bodies amongst wreckage that was once homes, stores and holiday retreats. Refrigerated vans, brought in to save the bodies from further deterioration, acted as a welcome solace from the heat - so much so that Marko would be found sleeping inside the van amongst the corpses.

After the tsunami, there was no leaving his newfound family and Marko was welcomed permanently into the Ruamkatanyu Foundation, where he continues to volunteer today.

In Bangkok, a city of more than 8 million people with a notorious reputation for gridlocked traffic, it is simply impossible for the underfunded public ambulances to cater to every emergency call. Instead they rely on the volunteer services, such as Ruamkatanyu to cover the majority of accidents.

The Ruamkatanyu Foundation is a reflection of modern Thai society in action - it stems from the Buddhist belief of creating spiritual merit through the idea of 'karma', i.e. whatever good you do in your current life will have a positive impact on either your life, next life or the spirit of your ancestors…

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Eyewitness producer Lisa Thompson hears the serendipitous story of Tony Forster; a New Zealander who was one of the first to cross through Checkpoint Charlie the night the Berlin Wall started coming down.

"My god, am I ever glad I extended that train pass...to have been through the Checkpoint at that time... I would not have missed it for anything."

- Tony Forster.

It's November 1989 and New Zealander Tony Forster was in love and on his way to Bavaria in Southern Germany to meet up with his girlfriend. But on the way, the 30-something assistant film director was persuaded by a fellow Kiwi to make a three-day detour to Berlin. By making that side-trip, Tony was about to inadvertently write himself into one of the most famous events of the 20th century.

"Martin was desperate to have a Kiwi visitor...I went there for three days but he complained constantly the whole time why wasn't I there for a month but on the third day I decided to go over and explore East Berlin."

By the time Tony arrived, Berlin had been a divided city for 28 years. On 13 August 1961, the German Democratic Republic leadership closed the border to West Berlin and established 8 crossing points to be used by West Berliners, citizens of the Federal Republic of Germany, and foreign nationals. East Berliners and GDR citizens were not permitted to cross the border.

But being a foreigner, Tony Forster was allowed to and on the advice of his friend Martin he decided to enter East Berlin on foot at Checkpoint Charlie, the city's best known crossing point.

It was the 9th of November, and despite the momentous events that would take place later that evening, Tony says there was no inkling that morning of what was to come. After spending the day sightseeing, Tony enjoyed a meal at a restaurant before preparing to cross back to West Berlin about 9 pm that evening.

He was completely unaware that earlier the same evening East Germans watching a televised government press conference were surprised to learn that they were now free travel to the West. And within hours, thousands, including a puzzled Tony, had descended on the crossings. "It wasn't until I was getting close to the Checkpoint when suddenly people started jogging past me to the Checkpoint, and certainly in my observation nobody would run in East Berlin, that was the first sign that something strange was going on..."…

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In August 1998, the Auckland Art Gallery was the scene of this country's first major art theft. An armed man burst in, threatening visitors and assaulting a security guard before making off with the 19th century painting Still on Top by French artist James Tissot worth around $2 million. Visitor Experience Manager Richard Wormley was on duty in the gallery when it happened.

In August 1998, the Auckland Art Gallery was the scene of this country's first major art theft. An armed man burst in, threatening visitors and assaulting a security guard before making off with the 19th century painting Still on Top by French artist James Tissot, worth around $2 million. Visitor Experience Manager Richard Wormley was on duty in the gallery when it happened.

"One of the security guards was requesting assistance because he could see somebody trying to remove an artwork from the wall. When I came around the corner, I could see that it wasn't quite that simple."

The man was carrying a weapon and had just used it to assault a security guard. A visitor in the gallery with the gunman immediately rang the police. Richard retreated and he and his staff began moving the public into side galleries, away from a likely escape route through the foyer.

"By the time I had cleared the foyer and turned around, he was pretty much right behind me."

With the weapon pointed at him, Richard was ordered to get down on the ground. After the gunman exited the front doors, Richard and the visitor who had rung the police followed him around to the rear of the building.

"He turned around and fired a shot over our heads into the trees in Albert Park.  At which point we both hit the ground pretty quick."

The gunman escaped on a motorbike clutching the painting under one arm. Only four minutes had passed since the drama began. Conservator Sarah Hillary was working upstairs in her lab when she got a phone call from the head of security. "He rang me up and said, 'Sarah, something terrible has happened.'

A confused Sarah made her way to the gallery to examine the scene and to determine any damage to a painting she assumed was still there. But it wasn't. It was gone.

As well as distressing, the theft was confusing for both gallery staff and police. On the surface, it did not seem like the work of highly professional art thieves, stealing to order. Richard Wormley said he could not even imagine a reason for the crime.

"I struggled to see how you could turn that work into a profit. It was really hard to understand what had been going through the thief's' head."

…

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Two artists share their stories of the personal connections and memories they have of their homes through the exhibition Something felt, something shared. What are the connections and relationships that we build with our homes, and what story can they tell about the people who once lived there? Kalya Ward and Gabrielle Amodeo share their experiences and personal connections.

"Suddenly there was emergency everywhere ... students themselves were divided over ethnic issues, we heard that in some schools students were killing each other. We heard the military were killing students. We could hear gunshots everywhere, we could see people injured, blood everywhere."

- Doris Niyonsaba, former child refugee from Burundi, Africa.

By definition the word "miracle" is often used to; characterise any beneficial event that is statistically unlikely but not contrary to the laws of nature, such as surviving a natural disaster ... survival of an illness diagnosed as terminal, escaping a life-threatening situation or 'beating the odds'.

In the case of Doris Niyonsaba and her family their story sounds like a miracle of survival, one where they beat all the odds. You see Doris comes from Burundi and like Rwanda, Burundi has endured civil war and genocidal conflict between Hutu and Tutsi since the 1960's.

Little is known about the Burundi community living in New Zealand. Doris Niyonsaba and her family would be M&M's, that's "minorities within minorities" as far as our country's Pan-African communities are concerned.

When you look up the Republic of Burundi online you find out that it's; one of the five poorest countries in the world with one of the lowest per capita GDPs of any nation in the world. The country has suffered from warfare, corruption and poor access to eduction ... According to the Global Hunger Index of 2013, Burundi has an indicator ratio of 38.8, earning the nation the distinction of being the hungriest country in the world in terms of percentage.

But growing up in the tiny country that looks like a slice of cake sitting between the Democratic Republic of Congo, Tanzania and Rwanda, Doris remembers a childhood full of rich, cultural experience. Burundi is also known as the heart of Africa, covering an area of 27,834 square kilometers. It's a region of lakes and valleys, lush and beautiful, rich in resources. By all accounts Burundi should not be poor…

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Roland de Bruyne is an elderly Malaysian Aucklander and a survivor of the infamous Changi Prison during the Japanese occupation of Singapore during WW2. Last year his children discovered letters and photos taken during his internment on a camera smuggled into the prison. Lynda Chanwai-Earle is in Auckland to meet Roland, now 91, to hear his incredible story of survival.

'Help is on the way' - pamphlets distributed after Allies liberated Singapore in 1945

"Weeds can't be killed, they can survive anything!" - Jean de Bruyne, daughter of Roland de Bruyne, Changi/Sime Road Internment Camp Survivor.

The dining table is littered with Roland de Bruyne's memorabilia. The objects are imbued with grave meaning; faded love letters to his sweetheart Low Swan Tin on crumpled Australian Red Cross paper, albums of sepia photographs, British Army pamphlets, a fragment of rusted bomber shrapnel wrapped in tissue.

When Singapore fell to the Japanese on 15 February 1942, the British had prayed that relief forces might arrive, but it wasn't meant to be.

During the Fall of Singapore that year the Imperial Japanese Army detained around 3000 civilians in Changi Prison, built to house only 600. The British Army Barracks nearby became a prisoner of war camp, housing around 50,000 allied British and Australian troops. Changi Prison and the nearby Prisoner of War (POW) camp were rife with sickness and death. 73 years later and a world away in Auckland, one survivor tells me his story.

Roland de Bruyne is Eurasian, 91 years old this year, born in 1924 in Penang, Malaysia. He was imprisoned by the Japanese Military, along with his entire family and 3000 other civilians in Changi/Sime Road Internment Camp in Singapore during the Second World War simply because they were Eurasian.

They were stripped of clothing and belongings, starved and forced into hard labor. The tiny black and white photos that Roland shows me were taken by him on a camera smuggled into the prison. In one photo, almost naked, Roland's friend is a skeletal figure in a loin-cloth. This was all the clothing they were allowed.

Miraculously Roland's whole family, all except one, survived. Roland's little brother Jimmy died from dysentery at the age of five during the war. Jean notes that perhaps a small mercy that little Jimmy died before the family were interned in Changi. "It's one of the ravages of war."

Roland's daughter Jean de Bruyne states proudly that "You can't kill weeds." Jean tells me her father is remarkably healthy for a 91 year old, let alone a survivor of Changi. If the prison ordeal couldn't kill him then almost nothing would. The tenacity to live runs strong within the de Bruyne family…

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Archived audio courtesy of The New Zealand Archive of Film, Television and Sound - Contains commentary of New Zealand's first-ever cricket test victory: against the West Indies in Auckland on 13 March 1956. A short interview is heard with John Reid, the New Zealand captain, at Eden Park after the test.

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Archived audio courtesy of The New Zealand Archive of Film, Television and Sound - Contains commentary of New Zealand's first-ever cricket test victory: against the West Indies in Auckland on 13 March 1956. A short interview is heard with John Reid, the New Zealand captain, at Eden Park after the test.

"We weren't professionals you see.  There was no such thing as a professional in those days."

- John R. Reid

New Zealand and England have been competing against each other in Test Cricket since 1929. To date, the two sides have played 99 tests, with England winning 47, New Zealand eight and 44 drawn. And while the two sides have keenly contested recent Tests, it hasn't always been the case.

On March 28 1955, England (then known as the Marylebone Cricket Club) bowled New Zealand out for 26 in their second innings at Eden Park in Auckland. It has been described as our 'darkest day' in cricket and it is a score that still stands today as a record test low.

For former New Zealand batsman and bowler John Richard Reid, looking back sixty years to that day is something he says he'd rather avoid. "Do we have to go round to that? I didn't think we'd get bowled out for 26. Can I whisper that?" he says with a chuckle. "I don't remember much else and I don't want to remember much else either!" However, his twinkling eyes tell otherwise and rafts of memories are soon revealed.

Fresh from winning the 1954-55 Ashes series against Australia, England travelled to New Zealand with a formidable team. Amongst the players was Frank "Typhoon" Tyson, who at the time was regarded as one of the fastest bowlers ever seen in cricket.

John Reid says the New Zealand players had never seen the like. While New Zealand posted a competitive score in the first innings of 200, anchored by 73 from Reid, and held England to a lead of only 46, they were laid bare in the second. "I had problems with Tyson... the first ball I faced him I had my bat going back and the ball went past me...I was not out overnight but the morning of the next day I had guys throwing it at me from halfway down the pitch to quicken up my reactions."

Another player who tormented the New Zealanders was Bob Appleyard, who took four for seven in the second innings and seven for 45 for the match. "We knew they were a good side... top rated players. We just had to go out and do as best we could," John says. "But we weren't used to it because we'd play club cricket, representative cricket and then a gap as they'd come over in March sometime and our season would have finished end of January. Then we'd have a touring team with the fastest bowlers in the world!"…

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Lynda Chanwai-Earle meets Red Cross and local legend Margaret Rankin. An Eastbourne resident, Margaret will never forget one of the worst storms ever to hit our coasts. Witnessing the sinking of the Wahine in 1968, Margaret was determined that her community would be prepared for any disaster in the future.

"We have seven fundamental principles that guide us in all that we do, whether it's delivering a meal in Rotorua or providing medical help to a family in Syria. These principles are our lifeline, connecting us with the Red Cross Red Crescent Movement and the 187 National Societies throughout the world."

- The International Red Cross and Red Crescent Movement

The Red Cross in New Zealand is currently celebrating its centenary and right now helping the people of Vanuatu.

"New Zealand Red Cross has been part of the fabric of our country for nearly a century. In 1914, at the start of the First World War (WWI), ad hoc Red Cross groups began raising money and sending medical supplies to New Zealand troops overseas. During the wartime effort for both WWI and the Second World War (WWII), New Zealand Red Cross groups worked in conjunction with the Order of St John as a joint council."

Our own Civil Defence movement also grew out of the work of the Red Cross. The fundamental principles include humanity, impartiality, neutrality, independence, voluntary service, unity and universality.

They're certainly values that Eastbourne resident Margaret Rankine grew up with. Her father and mother were both deeply involved in the war effort during the 1940's and after finishing school at Queen Margaret's she decided to go into nursing.

Margaret became a VAD (Volunteer Aid Detachment) with the Red Cross and it was here she did her training, including in hospitals. Margaret met and fell in love with a likeminded man in her late husband Ian Rankine. Both were heavily involved with Red Cross work when they bought their family property in York Bay, Eastbourne, with its fantastic panoramic view of Wellington Harbour.

Young Margaret Rankine (centre) as a Red Cross VAD (Volunteer Aid Detachment)

This was the dream home for Margaret, Ian and their two young children but then early one morning on the 10th April 1968, as the family prepared for a normal working day they became witnesses of one of the worst storms ever to hit New Zealand's coasts. Two violent weather fronts merged over Wellington to create the extreme extratropical cyclone conditions of the Wahine storm…

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It's nearly 50 years since Marlborough whalers J. A. Perano and Company harpooned their last whale in New Zealand waters. Peter Perano reflects on what it was like to be a third generation whaler. Archived audio courtesy of The New Zealand Archive of Film, Television and Sound - Whale Hunt, 1955 and Spectrum 918 / 919 The Last of the Whale Hunters, 1996 featuring Charlie and Joe Heberley.

Gunner Trevor Norton firing a harpoon towards a humpback whale just to the left of the chaser's bow. Peter Perano says Trevor was an ace gunner and one of J. A. Perano and Company's best - image taken by and courtesy of Peter Perano

"Quite angry actually... I mean it was bloody well unnecessary... they had a license but it meant nothing to them" - Peter Perano

After a record whaling season in 1960, with 226 humpback whales caught in Cook Strait and the Marlborough Sounds by J. A. Perano and Company, whaler Peter Perano was understandably looking forward to the year ahead. However, it was never to be repeated. With numbers so low, it was only four years later that more than 170 years of New Zealand whaling history came to an end on December 21st 1964, with the last whale harpooned in our waters from a New Zealand-owned ship.

Image: Gunner Trevor Norton and driver Joe Perano (Jnr) on board the chaser Narwhal - courtesy Peter Perano

"We were devastated," says Charlie Heberley, who whaled with Peter's father Joseph. "We got blamed here in New Zealand for killing the whales out."

"Well let me give you an example; in 1960 we took the record number of whales here in New Zealand... that same season the Japanese and the Russians took 42,000 whales down in the Antarctic and that's only what they reported."

While an emotive subject, the whaling history of Marlborough stretched over generations and made a significant contribution to New Zealand's economy. Whale oil was used for lighting and lubrication, as well as in the manufacture of products such as rope, paint and soaps. Whale meat was also used for human and pet consumption and much of the blood and bone by-product wound up feeding the market gardens of Pukekohe.

However, Peter Perano says the Marlborough whalers were committed to the survival of the whales they were hunting as their livelihood depended on it. The whalers were prohibited from taking right whales and while they didn't have a quota for humpbacks, they were dictated to by the factory at Fishing Bay which could only process three whales a day…

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Seventy five years ago several hundred Chinese women and children arrived in New Zealand, fleeing the Japanese invasion of China. These were the wives and children of the Chinese men already here. The 75th anniversary of their arrival in New Zealand is being celebrated in Auckland. Lynda Chanwai-Earle and Justin Gregory hear from some of these eyewitnesses.

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In 1993 Tony Gardner was just another Kiwi on his OE when a friend talked him into a dangerous plan - transporting medical supplies into the besieged city of Sarajevo.

"Everywhere you looked (there was) mortar damage, RPG damage, many bullet holes. Sarajevo was beaten up, and sore, and ugly."

In 1993 Tony Gardner was just another Kiwi on his OE when a friend talked him into a dangerous plan - transporting medical supplies into the besieged city of Sarajevo. The Bosnian War was raging and the sustained encirclement and bombardment of the historic city appalled the watching world.

Tony was living in Munich and at a dinner party one night an American friend named John Ashton asked him what he thought about the war. Tony had to admit that he didn't know very much about it. But a seed had been planted.

"From somewhere came the idea that we should travel down into Croatia to refugee camps there and take people some winter clothes. And just that relatively simple experience, I suppose, was the beginning of it."

Tony had no medical, charity or NGO experience, while John Ashton had worked as a journalist in Beirut and was in Munich recovering from a gunshot wound he had received in Sarajevo. After that first short Croatian trip Tony, John Ashton and another Kiwi, John Coghill, began to talk about going instead to Bosnia and taking medical supplies instead of clothes. Tony readily admits that they had very little in the way of a plan and even less of an idea of what they were doing. But the naivety of their approach was also its virtue.

"It's a simple idea to think that you can help people. And if you keep it simple, then your chances of having an effect are greater."

The three men formed the Emergency Medical Response Agency, or EMRA. They hustled hard for publicity, support, money and medicine. Soon they were ready and after loading up their Land Rover - known, not entirely affectionately, as The Beast due to its size (and its personality) - they began their first trip into the Bosnian war zone. Taking a series of back roads, they hoped to avoid as many military checkpoints, manned by ill-disciplined and dangerous militia forces, as possible.

Their first stop was a ruined church south of the city of Mostar: one of the first indications of the true nature of the conflict. To Tony's eyes, it was obvious that the damage was not just the accidental result of battle.

Diary Entry 30.05.94

"The three bells in the peak of the roof were shot almost completely to pieces, the target of intense gunfire. It was a completely shocking sight, piercingly vivid against the clean blue sky. Testimony to the wanton destruction and tribal hatred…

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In 1973, at just 19 years of age, Anna Horne sailed with three others to Mururoa to oppose nuclear testing by France. But rather than witnessing a bomb being detonated, she watched the skipper being beaten and detained by French commandos. Anna observed the events through the lens of a camera and the pictures she took were smuggled out to the world, causing international outrage. Anna's experience became part of the case that New Zealand and Australia took to the International Court of Justice challenging the legality of the French testing programme. On 27 January 1996, 23 years since the Vega's protest, the last nuclear test explosion by France was conducted at the Mururoa and Fangataufa Atoll test site. It's believed at least 175 explosions took place in all, over 40 of them atmospheric.

In 1973, at just 19 years of age, Anna Horne sailed with three others to Mururoa to oppose nuclear testing by France.  But rather than witnessing a bomb being detonated, she watched the skipper being beaten and detained by French commandos.

Anna observed the events through the lens of a camera and the pictures she took were smuggled out to the world, causing international outrage.

"I was up forward with David's Nikon 35mm camera. I could hear Mary screaming as I watched her through the view-finder of the camera. I was afraid of David's rage if I missed the shots of the French soldiers."  As Mary Lornie's video camera had been thrown overboard by a commando, Anna's film was the only other record of what happened that afternoon on-board the Vega.  She says there anxious moments waiting to discover whether she had in fact captured any images.  When they were released, she felt relief that the violence had indeed been captured.  "It certainly turned the whole thing on its head and I think that was the beginning of the end really for the atmospheric testing and of course this violence hit home to people...the French were mighty pissed off with us."

2600112 "It felt quite good as a little Kiwi chick to get one over them"

A priest blesses the Vega in Whangarei, before it sets sail for Mururoa. Image courtesy of Anna Horne

The 11.5 metre ketch Vega (Greenpeace III) was built and launched in Whangarei in 1949 and is said to have been made from a single large Kauri log by one of New Zealand's finest boat builders, Alan Orams.  Her history with Greenpeace began in the late 1960s when she was purchased by Canadian David McTaggart, a former chairman of Greenpeace International. …

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Willy Bennett and Roger Delamere Dansey recall the horrifying night of 10 June 1886, when the eruption of Mount Tarawera killed up to 150 people and destroyed many settlements.

Willy Bennett and Roger Delamere Dansey recall the horrifying night of 10 June 1886, when the eruption of Mount Tarawera killed up to 150 people, mostly Māori, and destroyed many settlements.

Listen to the full documentary

"The time was winter, and the 10th of June to be exact. The year 1886."

The place was the village of Te Wairoa, just west of Lake Tarawera and under the shadow of the massive, three-domed volcano that gave the lake its name. Willy Bennett was 12 years old.

2597606 "I felt the call of Wairoa"

Sixty-eight years later, on the anniversary of the eruption, Willy Bennett sat down with a New Zealand Broadcasting Corporation presenter to recall his memories of that night and of the mountain.

2597607 "Mt Tarawera was never thickly bush-clad"

A few kilometres away to the north in Rotorua, Postmaster and Telegraph Operator Roger Delamere Dansey was at home with his wife and children.

His written account is read here by Bill Beavis of the New Zealand Broadcasting Corporation and was recorded in the 1960s.

2597608 "I've since been told that was what's been called an electric cold"

Timeline

12:30am - a series of tremors being to shake the region

2597609 "And so on they came, getting stronger and stronger until the windows of the house rattled"

Dansey ran outside to see what he thought was an electrical storm over the volcano.

Willy Bennett was asleep when the tremors began, but he didn't stay that way for long.

2597610 "It was rumbling like long-distance cannons going off"

After the tremors subsided, Dansey went to bed to read.

In his own words, he had not the slightest idea what was to happen.

A little later his reading was disturbed by a "terrific roar".

Running outside, he saw "an immense column of fire, miles in height" coming from the mountain.

1:45am - The main eruption begins at the north-eastern end of Mt Tarawera

The mountain explodes upwards into an enormous column of black smoke and boiling hot rock.

2597622 "An immense column of fire"

2:30am - A second and a third eruption occur

The final southern eruption bursts with an immense roar which is heard as far away as Auckland.

The smoke cloud reaches a height of approximately 10km and is visible in Gisborne, nearly 150 kilometres away to the south west.

Mount Tarawera is split into a rift running for 17 kilometres…

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Tim Howard recalls the violence and the hope that surrounded the 1999 East Timor referendum on independence from Indonesia

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Wellington-based Beth Houston shares her views on apartheid and recalls her experience as an election observer at the 1994 General Elections.

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Getting the strap at school - a harmless rite of passage or an awful abuse of power? Produced by Justin Gregory.

It was a time many of us would like to forget. Less than 30 years ago, teachers in New Zealand had the legal right to physically punish their students for bad behaviour and some of them were more enthusiastic about it than others.

"I remember one time not spelling something properly and getting kicked, really hard, in the base of the spine."

Poet, rapper, author, performer, Auckland artist Dominic Hoey mines his life for his material. This poem, which he performs live a lot, is about what he calls his "awesome education":

our teacher was a thick-necked sadist.

he carried soft brutal hands

and wore big wet eyes on his stupid pig face

he taught a master class in the joys of violence

spelling mistakes

laughing

being a child

all were answerable with

beatings

that'd make

any meth head bouncer proud

Dominic goes on to describe how one day this "thick-necked sadist" loses control and his beaten victim escapes from the class. Everyone settles back down to work until a man in a red jacket arrives. He wants to know if the teacher hit his son.

the man in the red jacket grabbed the teacher by the throat

and dragged him from the classroom

we all leapt to our feet

ran to the windows

our sticky fingers pressed to the glass

watching with glee

as the man in the red jacket beat the living shit

out of the teacher

'kill him, kick his face off'

when our teacher returned his face was a rotten mess

he never did grow back to his former size

and the man in the red jacket

became revered like Jesus or MacGyver

The name of this poem is 'Kill Him'.

Dominic has other not-so-fond memories of school.

"I remember one time not spelling something properly and getting kicked, really hard, in the base of the spine...getting thrown across the room by the neck ... but yeah, a lot of kids got it worse than me."

No one's saying this was standard behaviour for teachers, but most New Zealanders in their mid-30s and older can remember teacher-led violence at school - because if you were thinking this all took place a long time ago, think again. Dominic was at primary school in the 1980s. The late 1980s.

When RNZ asked our audience to share their memories of corporal punishment, they flooded in. We received literally hundreds of responses, almost all condemning the practice.

Only three responses were in favour, and one of them was from an ex-teacher.

I ask Dominic if receiving corporal punishment ever helped him to learn…

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