I wrote the below in Lucireâeven though plenty of publications have covered our monarch’s passing, it still felt right to acknowledge it. After all, she had appeared in Lucire a few times.
With the passing of HM Queen Elizabeth II on Thursday UK time, it would be remiss of this magazine to not mark this world event.
During the 25 years of Lucire, the Queen has featured several times, mostly from events that she attended. We werenât around when she was newly crowned in her coronation gown by Norman Hartnell, and wearing the latest British fashions in her youth, a glamorous symbol of a new Elizabethan era that lifted the United Kingdomâs mood after World War II and continued rationing. But it is easy to imagine the coronation in 1953 being a dazzling, colourful event, and indeed it was covered in the likes of British Vogue at the time.
Her era has seen unprecedented change. As the longest-serving monarch in British history, she presided over an era which saw television become mainstream (a technology that she embraced with her Christmas message), many former colonies gain their independence, the dawn of the World Wide Web, the end of apartheid in South Africa, and both her countryâs entry into and exit from what is now the European Union.
Much has already been said about HM the Queenâs sense of duty, and how she still read her red boxâs worth of papers as head of state right to the end. On Tuesday she asked Liz Truss as the new prime ministerâthe Queenâs 15th, having begun with Sir Winston Churchill when she ascended to the throneâto form a government.
Here in Lucire the late Queen has attended events we happened to cover, beginning in 2008, with her last appearance at the Cartier Queenâs Cup in 2017.
I only caught a glimpse of her during a state visit to New Zealand in 2002 during her golden jubilee. It was her last visit to Aotearoa.
The visit was very subdued and HM the Queen and HRH the Duke of Edinburgh were whisked from the airport round the back roads of Rongotai, past the main street by Lucireâs then-HQ. I managed to photograph them as they drove by.
A neighbourhood shop had a staff member who was a diehard monarchist. I mentioned I had a photo of the royal couple and later gifted her my print. I still have the negative somewhere.
At the time, my sense was that our Labour government had republican leanings and downplayed the royal visit, hence ferrying them in the viceregal Daimler past industrial areas; it was a far cry from an earlier visit I witnessed in 1981 when as a school pupil, my schoolmates and I lined the drive at Government House to welcome her.
As someone who chose to retain my British nationality (I dutifully renew my passport every 10 years), as well as adopting my New Zealand one in 1980, I admit to having a tremendous amount of respect for HM Queen Elizabeth II and her unwavering sense of duty. Some of us born in Hong Kong in the 1970s, whose parents had memories of less pleasant times behind the Bamboo Curtain, appreciated the freedoms, although they stopped short of democracy, that we enjoyed in a Crown colony. Up to a point: my father said he could have worked harder to lose his Chinese accent after fleeing Taishan for Hong Kong after the communist revolution of 1949, but he chose not to as he didnât want to be seen as sycophantic to the colonial power.
It was thanks to the Commonwealth that my Hong Kong-born, but China-raised, mother was able to obtain her nursing qualification from the General Nursing Council for England and Wales. When we emigrated to New Zealand, that made her transition into her job that much easier, as it was considered a notch above the rest. (Having said that, the Hospital Board put her on a lower pay grade than what she deserved, leading my parents to fight for it, with the help of Sir Francis Kitts, a family friend and the former mayor of Wellington. We won.)
My fatherâs preferred form of governance was social democracy, but he appreciated a constitutional monarchy; and my own studies at law school concluded that while an imperfect system, it was one which I, too, valued. The prospect of one of our own being president, at least to the law student me in 1992, seemed unfathomable and potentially divisive.
The success of the system does depend on our faith and trust in the monarch. HM Queen Elizabeth II gave us that sense, as one who placed duty first. As this nation enters into a period of official mourning, we also wonder what her successor, HM King Charles III, will bring to the table, with his interests in the environment and a UK government that he might not see eye to eye with.
Whatever the future, we pay tribute to HM Queen Elizabeth II and mark the close of this second Elizabethan age.
There was a Tweet recently along the lines of, âDear media, stop characterizing a death from cancer as a âbattleâ.â If I deciphered their Tweet correctly, their rationale was that it canât be won, so using such a term is somehow (politically?) incorrect.
I call BS.
My mother characterized her fight as a battle. And my father and I were the enlisted troops to support her.
So f*** anyone who wants to lecture me on how this should be stated. You have your viewpoint, and I have mine. Donât get on your high horse about it, thanks.
And coming from a family where we have âwonâ against the big C a few times, all I can say is: fight it if you choose.
If you want to believe itâll take you and you want to give up, that is your choice.
If you want to characterize it as a battle and have some hope, that is your choice.
This isnât clear-cut, like so many other things.
My mother fought it very bravely. She wasnât given that long and she beat every prediction. If she had given up from the start, to meet some prediction, who knows if things would be different? The day she died the X-rays showed no cancer in her lungs and her blood tests were normal. It appeared that we had beaten the primary.
But sadly, it had spread elsewhere, to places where medicine couldnât reach.
In fact, she only knew about it because of back painâlike Olivia Newton-Johnâs third diagnosis.
About six weeks before it took her, Mum said to me, âI donât think Iâm going to make it.â
With hindsight, I envy some of those families who have managed to say their farewells, but you canât turn the clock back.
On the morning about an hour and a half before she died, I saidâto God, to my inner voice, to my spirit guide, to whatever you want to call itââScrew this, no one should have to go through this sort of pain.â
Maybe that was letting go or accepting it. And not long after she was gone with Dad and me at her bedside.
So may I say in all sincerity, win or lose, fuck cancer.
I was thinking earlier tonight how cars were the one thing that helped me navigate Aotearoa when I got here with my parents. I might not have understood the culture immediately, and very little outside the faces of my family was familiar to me. But I saw Toyota Corollas (the E20s) and Honda Civics outside. And BMC ADO16s. These at least were an external source of familiarity, since they were commonplace in Hong Kong. A neighbour had a four-door Civic back in Homantin, the first car whose steering wheel I ever sat behind as a child.
The cars here in New Zealand were much older generally, since there was more of a DIY fix-it culture, and Hong Kong prospered later, resulting in a newer fleet. Those early days were like a history lesson on what had gone before in the 1950s and 1960s, filling in the gaps. But my eyes still went to those newer 1970s shapes. Curves? Who wants curves when you can have boxy shapes and those groovy vinyl roofs?!
I didnât say I had taste at age four.
What a real honour to promote my reo! Thank you, Dr Grace Gassin and Te Papa for spearheading the Chinese Languages in Aotearoa project and for this incredible third instalment, where I get to speak and promote Cantonese!
Obviously I couldnât say anything earlier, especially during Chinese Language Week, but I am extremely grateful the very distinct Chinese languages are being given their due with this project!
My participation began with Grace and I having a kĆrero last year, and how Chinese Language Week was not inclusive. The organizers of that make the mistake of equating Chinese with Mandarin, and claim that Cantonese and other tongues are dialects, which is largely like saying Gaelic is a dialect of English.
Do read more at the Te Papa blog as Grace goes into far more depth, and brings everything into the context of the history of Aotearoa.
Notes
Chrysler’s finest? The 300M rates as one of my favourites.
The original cast of Hustle, one of my favourite 2000s series.
Boris Johnson ‘wage growth’ quotationâwhat matters to a eugenicist isn’t human life, after all. Reposted from Twitter.
For our wonderful niece Esme, a Lego airport set. It is an uncle and aunt’s duty to get decent Lego. My parents got me a great set (Lego 40) when I was six, so getting one at four is a real treat!
Publicity still of Barbara Bach in The Spy Who Loved Me. Reposted from Twitter.
Koala reposted from Twitter.
Photostat of an advertisement in a 1989 issue of the London Review of Books, which my friend Philip’s father lent me. I copied a bunch of pages for some homework. I have since reused a lot of the backs of those pages, but for some reason this 1989 layout intrigued me. It’s very period.
Fiat brochure for Belgium, 1970, with the 128 taking pride of place, and looking far more modern than lesser models in the range.
John Lewis Christmas 2016 parody ad still, reposted from Twitter.
More on the Triumph Mk II at Autocade. Reposted from Car Brochure Addict on Twitter.
The origins of the Lucire trade mark, as told to Amanda’s cousin in an email.
More on the Kenmeri Nissan Skyline at Autocade. Renault Talisman interior and exterior for the facelifted model.
The original 1971 Lamborghini Countach LP500 by Bertone show car. Read more in Lucire.
More on the Audi A2 in Autocade.
Conversation with Mum, some time in the 1980s.
The credits for St Elsewhere begin rolling, and they read, âand starring William Daniels as Dr. Mark Craigâ. Two taller actors flank Daniels as they walk toward the camera.
I say, âMum, thatâs the guy who plays KITT on Knight Rider.â
She replies, âHeâs very short, isnât he?â
âOf course. How do you think they fit him under the bonnet of the car?â
(At this point, I knew Daniels was dubbed in post, but Iâd say my humour was pretty similar as a teenager as it is today.)
Demolition has commenced on 1â4 Māmari Street, across the road from where I lived for over three decades.
Iâm not against change and my feelings toward the development have already been recorded here.
It was with a tinge of sadness that I saw the demolition crews there and the only wall left standing was part of the north side to no. 4.
Right now the sections, littered with debris, are letting in plenty of summer sunlight.
But not for long.
Iâll remember Gus and Lyna Bourkeâs place at no. 2 which I understand they bought after the war. Lyna was widowed by the time we met her in 1983, and she had an incredibly low-mileage silver Hillman Hunter in the garage. As her eyesight failed, the car stayed in there, and it was in incredibly good nick by the time she passed in the 1990s. We always had good chats and Lyna was our âneighbourhood watchâ as she kept an eye on the street from her living room.
Frank and Carol Reading and their family at no. 3 were probably there for a decent half-century, and they were incredibly good neighbours. Frank passed only a few years ago but they had wisely bought the Bourke residence as well in the 1990s, plus no. 4 decades before, so I imagine that made life easy for the developers who only had to purchase from two sellers to build on the site.
We visited the Reading house many times over the years to help each other out, and that was the great community we had in the cul-de-sac back then. On our side of the street there were frequent chats over the fences with nos. 12 and 14.
The old street changed a lot when both nos. 10 and 11 went on the market in 2018, then it was our turn in 2019. And now it has had its biggest change in probably a century as those old weatherboard bungalows from the early 20th century were demolished.
I realize same-again McHouses arenât everyoneâs cup of tea but as one famous architect recently told me: itâs hard to get creativity consented. And the demand is there, so this was inevitable. I already felt that the old street was a memory, but one that could be refreshed on a revisit; but now it really is a memory. Contrast this with the other neighbourhoods Iâve lived in Wellington, which have remained largely the same, or were subject to far slower developments after our departure.
Just as well I got the neighbours together in 2011 to stop the council taking away the right turn into the street. With 24 dwellings there in the near future, theyâre going to need it more than ever.
And yes, the above video was on Instagram, which is going the way of Myspace and Facebook, I believe. I haven’t been on there for nearly a fortnight and the feed held little interest to me. Near-daily âGramming from 2012 to 2019 was enough.
This was the back of Mum’s 1985 tax assessment slip from the IRD. Helvetica, in metal. The bold looks a bit narrow: a condensed cut, or just a compromised version because of the machinery used?
Not often seen, since by this time phototypesetting was the norm, though one reason Car magazine was a good read was its use of metal typesetting until very late in the game. I know there are many reasons the more modern forms of typesetting are superior, least of all fidelity to the designed forms, but there’s a literal depth to this that makes me nostalgic.
