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Miriam. You've just shown me a photo of two chaps in military uniform in 1916 in France. Roy and Norman tell me about Roy and Norman. Well, Norman is my father. Norman Parro. Gibson. That was his name. Um, and he went off to the first World War. They were first in Egypt, and then he was a machine gunner, and Roy was actually a rifleman from Auckland. But somehow they met up or were in the [00:00:30] same troop ship. Perhaps, um, I think they were together in Egypt. Yes, because they had a chameleon, which we had as Children. It was a stuffed when it died. When it went to France, it was too cold. And it died, and somebody took it back to London, and it was stuffed. And my father had this stuffed chameleon, but, um yes. So Roy and Norman were there in the Battle of the Somme. My father had his 21st birthday and three days later was shot through the neck and was carted off. Not expected to live. He had quite a lot of shrapnel [00:01:00] in him. Um, and Roy was devastated. Um, there's a beautiful poem that's in the book. but it's also written on the back of the book. Um, Hercules starts off about Hercules form, um form like Hercules of old mighty limbs and shapely mould. Manly strength and beauty rolled old sunshine. Obviously, he wrote it after my father's injury because it says Dre, [00:01:30] the roadway I had trod all this shell scarred stricken sod without him to help me plod old sunshine. So when night doth hold her sway outstretched arms, I fling and pray Send him back. Dear God, someday old sunshine. It's very moving. It's always moved me. I always cry when I read this poem. That's why I put it on the back, so sad they couldn't be [00:02:00] together all the time. In another era they might have been. And maybe if they lived in the city, they might have if they had followed Roy's occupation rather than my father, who, of course, had a farm. And when I first discovered this poem, of course I recognised instantly the Hercules because I was always Atlas. Um, I look like my father, big and strong, and I was a shot putter, [00:02:30] and I still am. Well, I'm still pretty strong. I'm not as strong as I used to be. My daughter can beat me wrist wrestling. Finally, in my seventies, she started to beat me. But so we have this strength. My father's strength was absolutely amazing. Bend iron rods over his leg just but, um, Roy was much slimmer. Um, a more delicate bloke. Really? So when my father was carted off, he was obviously they were obviously in love. Or certainly Roy was in love [00:03:00] with my father. He was devastated, and he got taken out, possibly suffering from depression. But, um, given that there were just dead blokes all around them in the battle of the song, it was hideous. So he had some respite and then went back to the front. But later he came to London. He got time off and came to London. Those few survivors of the first battle at the first battles in 16. And it was there that I think my father's [00:03:30] nude photographs were taken The thinker and the thorn and from a photographer. And, um, Mrs Frank Mu is written on there. But you never know about the missus. Years later, when I discovered the poem, um, it was written in a book called New Zealand at the front. And there's a number of men of significance in that book. Ally and I think a number of those men who were writing at that [00:04:00] time are possibly were possibly gay or certainly liked men. But, um and I was so surprised to see poems by my father because he wrote under the name. But I mean is not a common name. I've never heard of anyone else in New Zealand called It means mud, so I'm not sure why, but my grandfather grew up in a so he spoke Maori. So he had some reason for calling a little blonde [00:04:30] blue eyed boy. I just want you to just to step back a wee bit because, I mean, I am not aware of a lot of documentation around, say, homosexual relationships for people in the first World War. I mean, this is sounds quite unique to me. How did you I mean, how did you come across this relationship? Well, I always knew that my father had lived with Roy, but growing up as a child with that information, I never thought about them doing anything together, [00:05:00] and then a friend of mine showed me Saget and said, Is this your father? There it was Norman Gibson and Roy ailing and in toss Williston book Sage T about how he and Aussie his mate rode on bicycles up to to spend time with the men and how the men had new dinner parties or for men and how my aunts coughed at the gate to make sure someone put something on so that we're decent When the woman came in, um, how, um, a story [00:05:30] about one man, um, almost burning his genitals on the hot plate when they was carving the roast. Um um, and got that story and also the silver servant serving dishes. And unfortunately, I had photographs of them. My mother had given them to me, not saying why, um, and identified them? Yes, those were serving dishes that had held vegetables at these dinner parties. So I still have those to serving dishes. And, um, I went and interviewed Toss by then. [00:06:00] I was really interested by at this stage. This was in the eighties, so I managed to get a flight down to Nelson and go out to where he lived and interviewed him and he of course to start with. He was very circumvent, Really. He wasn't, um, going to say too much. And he and he said there were no overt signs of homosexuality. And then I said, Well, you know where abouts they lived and and I thought that they lived in the house that I grew up in. But it wasn't [00:06:30] It was the house across the road. And so he described the house, and, uh, Roy and Norman had that bedroom, and he and Aussie slept in the other room. And there was a bit of talk about the potty full of piss underneath the bed that no one had emptied. So their house keeping on Too good either. Uh, but, um and then he stopped and he said, Well, the men shared a double bed, and so I thought, Oh, well, that's that's something. Um And then he said, I said, Well, what was my father like? [00:07:00] And he said, Oh, well, he was a quiet bloke. He, um, didn't say very much. He sort of went out on the farm, and he did all the farm work. He was immensely strong, and Roy did all the housework. In fact, he was a very good wife, so that sort of put it in place for me. I mean, one can never prove whether people are sexual or not. But I think two blokes sharing a bed and my cousin, in fact went to some of the nude parties. Not that his father knew his father would have whipped him. Um, but, um, [00:07:30] and he told me before he died, how he had gone and how the he folded up his clothes very neatly, just as Roy told him to do and put them in a neat pile and sat around with the men. And everyone was very polite and nice to him. There was because he knew I did a lot of research on sexual abuse. He was very clear. Nothing like that was happening and how he had learned about sex through Roy, telling him about, um, a sex and love and saying that you always must be in control of your Penis. You mustn't [00:08:00] let it control you. And I thought so many men could have that wisdom put on them even today. So that was really nice. And he painted quite a nice picture of Roy who, um liked cooking, liked sewing, particularly and made fancy dress costumes for the local school concert and things like that. So, in fact, Roy was the same star sign as my mother. The same build. They both belonged to the operatic society. They [00:08:30] both wanted to be journalists and writers. They were very, very similar. It's just my mother could have Children and the family. After my uncle was killed, he only had one son who was, um, had polio. So he had a limp. But he was also homosexual. And I don't know whether my grandfather had an instinct to know that because he he definitely wanted a AAA manly man, so to speak. So he wanted my father to have Children because all the other sons were now dead. [00:09:00] So, um, there was this all this pressure on my father. So he broke up with Roy, and my mother was in a difficult position. So So So So from talking with Toss, did you then WWWW When were toss's memories? Uh, of of Norman? What kind of years? But he published it in 1982. So it was after that that I found out, but he was talking about the 19 twenties. They split up in 1930 [00:09:30] or 31 was when Lance died and they split up around about that time 31 32. He was a bit unsure, but Roy was incredibly upset. And so he supported Roy, and and then from that point, did you then work back? And so I found. Then, um, I started reading about the first World War. And so and then I found the book. Um, we had a copy at home of, um, New Zealand at the front, so I think we might have lost [00:10:00] Oh, I might have had one copy. I looked in secondhand bookshops for it. I hunted around, and finally I managed to borrow a copy of my cousin and photocopied it. Sorry. Breach of copyright, but sometimes needs must if it's the only copy around. And then there was another copy in the Auckland Museum Library of the second edition, and I think I photocopied a few now. Roy had poems in that, um and so did, um my father, but not so many from my father, who was much more [00:10:30] the writer than my father. And what amazed me was the poem, including God in My Father's poems, because we were brought up with him as a staunch atheist. He said he he was stuck in no man's land at one point in the war full of beautiful German soldiers, all dead, and he at that point he decided there were a God. He would never allow men to do this to other men. So although he was still a staunch RS a person [00:11:00] a very anti, um, conscientious objectors, he, um, still had this view that it was such a waste and so terrible. Um, and like many of the men who came back from the First World War, a lot of conflict, I think about why they ever went to war. What was the reason? It was just an aristocratic dispute over a boundary, I think was a trigger or something. Someone said that I couldn't. I was more [00:11:30] interested in the actual happenings in the song and probably all the beginnings of the war. I'm probably a bit of a slap happy researcher in these things. Some of them are not so interesting. Perhaps, from my point of view, I really wanted to know about how they live their daily life and what they did and and so on. And Roy was into he was a vegetarian. Certainly was. Later, my father wasn't He was a hunter and shot goats and pigs and and [00:12:00] tried to clear the mountain of goats Mount Taranaki. So he was doing that during the forties, and possibly, uh, I think they probably stopped in the end of the forties. Perhaps So, uh, we were used to, you know, killing sheep for meat and having pigs and, um, things like that. So it wouldn't have been Roy's cup of tea, I don't think, But sadly, he died in the fifties. And I can. My only memory of Roy is his legs. [00:12:30] Beautiful brown, thin leg with very brief shorts at the top. I don't remember his face. I was only small. That's a guess. I didn't look that far up. So what? What What do you think was their relationship? I mean, how did they do? You know how they met and and and what the relationship was when they were at war, they were at a from Roy's point of view. [00:13:00] Uh, telling in Toss's story is that Roy saw my father diving into, um, a pond in France and fell in love with his body. So it was a physical attraction, I think, to start with. But then, um, they spent time together in London. There was a I think my father was into a bit of a network in London because I do have a book [00:13:30] that, um was published by Robert, whose name escapes me of Oscar selected writings of Oscar Wilde. And he went to the launch of that. So I think that's a bit suspicious. Um, we had lots of books by Somerset Mourne. Um, so my parents had gay writers in their bookcase. Um, my mother played the piano. We had sing songs we had When my cousin, who I know is gay. He's dead now, but I knew [00:14:00] he was gay. The front room door was always shut. My father and Ken was there talking, Um, also, sometimes it was shut when Jack was talking. Now, Jack, not sure whether he's still alive. He was alive a few years ago. He was the first person to fly over Mount Everest, and he flew over in the second World War. Jack was maybe the instigation of the beginning of the break up the pressure on my father to leave Roy and marry [00:14:30] or leave with Roy. Um, because Roy obviously admired Jack, who was a handsome young man and made a South Seas outfit and a gladiators outfit for him. So I think the the father who had quite Victorian Well, of course, my father was born in 18 95. Roy was born in 18 86 so they had very old fashioned ideas from our perspective. So I think [00:15:00] that, um, my grandfather see, I get the impression he was fairly anti gay, anti homosexual. And he's pointed out to my father that Roy was homosexual and they could either go together or and yet they owned the farm. But it was that sort of family pressure that you had to abide by. Really? So that was sort of pressure on my father, and my father and mother had a good relationship, really. They, um, were great companions. [00:15:30] They did lots of together. They danced together. They belonged to the Benedict Club, which was a dance club. They went to opera and songs, and we got all involved in in doing songs and things in new Plymouth. Um, we had a little local drama club and farmers stomping around, playing parts in the hall. And And then when a school teacher left to another place, we swapped and did plays down at and they came and did plays with us in. So that was [00:16:00] that was a good interest for my mother and father because they liked acting and theatre and so on. But we were stuck with the farm and 82 cows to milk daily that my father visited Roy, though all the time. I remember often he would go off and see Roy and Roy's lunchtime. He worked, I think, for an electrical company or something. Doing office work. Uh, he lived in, uh, Carling Road, and he was very friends with the neighbours, and they went [00:16:30] to a lot of concerts together, and Roy was involved in Little Theatre in New Plymouth. My mother could no longer be in the little theatre because she was out on the farm having babies. So So they sort of swapped some clubs, but, uh, my father would drop off and go and see Roy and be away for half an hour or an hour. And then we might have a special treat fish and chips or a fish and chip shop. And, you know, with the Worcester sauce or the vinegar and the lemon, and or sometimes the RS A. He would go to the [00:17:00] RS a and at other times he probably he went to New Plymouth and we nobody else went with him. So I think he kept up certainly an association with Roy. And when Roy was dying, he had stomach cancer. I suspect because he was a vegetarian, he grew a lot of vegetables. He probably use the sprays and things that were around at the time because it was all pushed as being great for your vegetable garden and killing the weeds and stopping various diseases. I suspect that might have been the reason, Um, but also [00:17:30] the gas and the war and so on. There could be many reasons. Anyway, when he was sick, my mother used to make chicken broth and take it. And when they went to town, there was always AAA pot of something to take to Roy and some things. So after he died, um, we got a new car. So my father was paying off. Uh, Roy is part of the farm, and I think that took a long time because it had been the depression when he got married. So I think that [00:18:00] was a burden for them. Um, so, uh, my mother was negative about the mortgage, but, um, she didn't say anything else. Negative. And my father never said anything. Well, he wasn't a man of words, really. Except occasionally, he would surprise you by coming out with a Greek quote. Or, you know, Rain had started falling. Oh, gentle reign of heaven. You know, a bit of Shakespeare, boy. And he left school [00:18:30] at 12. But he was actually well read and And my mother had done Greek at university, so they and they were quite into spartan things. Plato. They loved Plato. They had several books on Plato. They thought we should all be good Spartans and work hard on the farm and so on. We weren't quite so amused at those ideas in your research during the time that they were in World War One. Did [00:19:00] you come across any other kind of homosexual relationships? Well, that's what I was looking for. I was hoping to find connections. And the only one really that I felt any sense for was re reality. And but I did think some of the names in New Zealand at the front would have been worth chasing up. But I didn't do that. I mean, I was working full time, and 1000 other things are going on. So, [00:19:30] um, and it must be quite tricky to work out whether, um, you know, as this comradeship, is it sexual? I mean, how how do you kind of navigate trying to put on what we would class our homosexual relationship today to something 100 years ago? Well, particularly for re reality, because he lived with a four young men. I think he had, um in his house. And of course, the Chinese are not keen on homosexuality. And yet he was revered in China. So much so that we all get [00:20:00] free visas. I think we can still get free visas to China. So thanks to reality. But they didn't realise that he was gay. Well, most of us think he was gay. You know, the bits and pieces that have gleaned on reality's life and so on. He certainly wasn't um, a blatant heterosexual, that's for sure. So I think some of the other men might have been the same now. Now, some people say, Well, after the first World War, they were so traumatised that they clung to each other, you know, trying [00:20:30] to deny any homosexuality, but having new dinner parties, I actually think that that solved it for me and the double bed. I didn't think that having a double bed would be in that time, a great thing. In 1919, they came back from the war. My father spent some of his money in an oil and a drill, a horse drawn drill to sow seed, which we then converted to pull behind the tractor, which we were still using on the farm when I was [00:21:00] there and the end of the fifties. So, um, uh, there were little tidbits, I suppose, and that's what I gleaned. Like my He refers in the poem to my father as old sunshine. Now I thought, old sunshine, where did that name come from? And I was in Rotorua when I was, uh, starting to work on this book. So that must have been 1989 1990 and there was some game in there farmers and they great big hands. It amazed me. They were in a tea shop and [00:21:30] the these delicate little cups, these great big farming hands pouring tea into cups So I'd go there for a cup of tea and, um, and a cake and talk to them. And I said, Look, there's a notation in one of the poetry books Um, that says to sunshine with my very best love Granny. So and I'd asked my sister about it and she said, Well, there wasn't anybody alive then. No [00:22:00] grannies, So it couldn't have been his mother. Um, his grandmother, at least his mother was still alive, but not his grandmother. So I asked these men I said, Look, we discovered this. And they for me to old sunshine, you know, Sunshines. And then I realised Sun shines out. Yes, OK, and my father had beautiful. You can see by the nude photographs in the book. He's got a lovely buttocks. Very nice buns. So, [00:22:30] Granny, Oh, Granny and Auntie, that's what we call an older man who brings a younger man out. So I was quite happy with that. I that I didn't really ask other people, but they were very interested. And, uh, I showed them pictures that I had. I did come across a social worker up north who had some interesting information about, um, nudity and a group of, um, sort of sunshine lovers or [00:23:00] nudists. And so I put a bit of that in the book. She sent me some bad photocopies, which I tried to reproduce. They're not that great in the book, but it's just an added dimension that there was a group here in New Zealand after the first World War, whereas in Germany, of course, it became very big because they'd lost. The war meant that their soldiers weren't robust enough and they needed lots of sunshine. And so they had very organised, as the Germans do, um, health camps and so on, particularly for men. [00:23:30] Um and possibly that's where the gay culture of Berlin came from, who knows? But they certainly had a good gay culture in those books that we now have about, um, times in Berlin and, uh, Christopher Isherwood's book, too, as I read his books as well. So the poems that that Roy and Norman wrote were they for publication, or were they just for personal? They were. The only ones I have are those that were published in New Zealand at the front. [00:24:00] There were no little booklets or anything that they actually published. But they had many poetry books and what I noticed in them. And I point that out in the book was that they made little notations. Um, one had some reference to them. Might have been sturdy legs or something. And Roy had written in his handwriting, not like mine. So there are little comments to each other about the poems. The other thing they did at the dinner parties was they spent a lot of time reading verses from [00:24:30] it was very popular in the twenties, so they lay on, you know, uh, there, under the loaf of bread and a glass of wine that sort of, um, poems and and my father continued to recite when we were young when he came to wake us up to go and get the cows for milking. Awake for the morning bowl of light has put the stars to light, and the hunter in the east is called the sultan's current and the noose of light, that sort of quotes and so on. So that was a sort of remnant. Really? How did [00:25:00] how did Norman explain the relationship with Roy to you? As as Children never did? No. It was just a fact that Roy had been there and Roy was no longer there. So was this just societal pressure back in the day, where where people just couldn't have, like, openly homosexual relationships? Well, they were been certainly living there openly since 1919 to 1931. That's quite a substantial period of time. They did things [00:25:30] together. They were involved in the local community, Roy making costumes and things. So maybe they accepted it as two men traumatised by the war. Maybe they didn't think about sex. Um, who knows? But there was a lot of freedom. I mean, there was Betty McDonald's head that was going on in the twenties, too. So there was a lot of, um, a certain amount of freedom, I think, in New Zealand in the twenties, about nudity and about, [00:26:00] um, gay. I think there was a much more, um, a gay society, and certainly in the mental health records, if someone came in depressed, Um, described as a Manish woman, which is, or sometimes they mentioned the third sex. Uh, and an introvert was the other term. They used Hillary Lapley and I did some research on files. There was no they treated the Depression. They treated the problem. But once we missed out [00:26:30] from the thirties to the fifties, there was a chunk of files missing in the fifties. They ignored the presenting symptoms. They were much honed in on the homosexuality and trying to change it with incident, shock and terrible stuff. So there was a big change, and I see that as relating to the Second World War and the Americans influencing the mental health, you know, putting in that homosexuality was a mental disorder. That's where lesbians really had a hard time because they [00:27:00] used DC T on lesbians. Many things so and some of those lesbians are still too frightened to come here, for instance, to the museum because of what was done to them high anxiety, others were brought in by themselves secretly. So, um, it was a bad black time, I think, for homosexuals and a number of Well, I think any gay man who could left New Zealand and went to London. There was plenty of Cottaging to be had there. [00:27:30] So So do you think Roy Norman would have actually seen themselves in a kind of a homosexual way? Or is that just like a construct? Now, looking back, it might have been a constructor from our perception. Looking back, they were used to being close to each other and doing things together in a trench full of half the time dead people so used to trying to do what they could to an injured comrade. Um, the trauma and grief [00:28:00] of losing friends, um, that would bind them together. But the fact that they stayed together so long and weren't ostracised by the community, which is a very small crime area, is a very small place. It's a dot on the map. I mean, Inglewood is the closest town. Um, those days it had a post office, a tennis court and a bowling green. A school. Now it has nothing. Uh, shut up. Parts of the tennis school are still there. The empty school buildings are still there, [00:28:30] so it's very, um it's very small, and it was made up of a mixture of Scottish, English and German settlers. So there were and Zimmermans there were Patersons, the Scottish Patersons and Gibsons. And then there were the Robinsons and the Georges, I think were English. Just going back on the story a wee bit. And you were saying that, um So So Norman got shot. Um, and and Roy got depressed. [00:29:00] Can you tell me a little bit more about that? Well, I just looked up the Army records and and followed those. And so Roy had some time out and then went back to the front. And then later he came on leave to London. I didn't know very much. It wasn't very clear. Um, Roy also suffered from Barrack during the time. But of course. I mean, the conditions were dreadful. And getting fresh socks was a was a marvel. Really? Um, which was why the spin discovery have a photograph of them knitting socks for [00:29:30] the men in the first World war. So you just get little tit you don't get the the full story. Um, I did know that, um, when Roy's mother was dying, my father drove all the way and what would have been an old car all the way to Auckland on metal roads to take Roy up to to deal with the death of his mother. And then they sent a message. They got toss and Aussie to, um, milk [00:30:00] the cows for them while they were away. And so, um, sent a message down a telegram down to toss. Would they be able to milk them a bit longer because there was a concert they'd like to go to, So that happened. They stayed a few days longer. So they did go to concerts together and and so on when they were in Auckland. But who knows? I mean, the scene in Auckland during the twenties was really around. Theatre, concerts, cultural things. Um, there was picking up in Albert Park, [00:30:30] just across from the police station that used to be in Princess Street. That seemed to be fairly risky. But gaming seem to always take high risks, I think. And so I think the twenties was a special time and that I think there there was much more gayness around in Europe as well as here. There were many clubs in Europe, many many clubs. The first lesbian magazine was published in the 1924 in Berlin. There were 60 lesbian clubs in Berlin alone. [00:31:00] Can't find one now. It's changed so much. We are changing society and the nude photos of of your father. They were obviously done in the studio, possibly for for Roy's benefit. Um, so I don't know whether they were present for Roy or or why they were construed and so on. Um, my father was not sent back to the front after he recovered. He was ill for some time, [00:31:30] but he trained. He was then sent to grant them. He was in horn church first and then went to grant them and trained troops there. So he's still in the military and involved to right after the end of the war. So he wasn't didn't really come back until 1919 and came back with Roy. I think they were on the same boat from, but I can't always trust my memory now, but I did get the Army records, and fortunately I just fudged the Roy and they assumed Roy must have been a relative of mine [00:32:00] and gave me his records. But normally I think now they would be stricter and I probably wouldn't have access to them. Years later. I'd never found my father's grave. And so, um, a few years ago I did go to New Plymouth and find my father's grave in the RS a cemetery. So then I was looking at the years and trying to work out where Roy's was, and I found Roy's wasn't too far away, just a couple of lines away. So and there were some daisies growing by [00:32:30] his grave. So I took some daisies from his grave to my father's grave. And so I'm back again and my mother's ashes are scattered with my father's grave. So, um, there's no plaque or anything for her, which I think is a bit sad. But I'm not sure that we can put something in the RS A for someone who's not from the RS A. It wasn't a soldier. So down and and tell me about their life Post World War One. Um, [00:33:00] Roy, I think did accounts or something. Um, what did he do? It was something an office type, um, things and writing and involved in the theatre and the concerts and so on. He was up in Auckland and my father was, um, on the farm. He left school at 12, worked on the farm, and so they would have run a different farm than the one we grew up on. When my father decided to get married, they had to put a wall back on this house that was probably built [00:33:30] in about 18 80 because they'd used it as a hay shed. So they stuck the wall back up and took the hay out and probably cleaned out the rats and so on. And then my mother, coming from the city, had to deal with that. Fortunately, she had taken home science at university with Greek art and literature. Not sure that the Greek art and literature did her too well. But, um, the home science certainly did. She knew exactly how to skin and prepare rabbits and whatever came into the house. We ate eels, rabbits. I love eel, fresh eel. [00:34:00] It's quite hard to get. So I don't know whether Roy was good at doing those things. But as Toss said, he was a very good wife. So I think he probably maybe tidied up nice arrangements and flowers and things. He seemed to be that sort of a person. From what I gleaned from my writings and just the notations in the poetry books. I still have those little poetry books and they had written to each other, and then sometimes they were gifts to each other. [00:34:30] Some of them have the first leaf written ripped out, so I suspect my mother might have done that. So, um not sure who ripped the front leaf out. I think that was perhaps a bit more blatant. Um, words there, um I got my sister had some books and she had Robbie Burns collected works that had the, um, two sunshine with Granny's very best love. So [00:35:00] she told me that, of course, before she knew what it meant. Once I'd written the book, she knew what it meant. But she also hid it from her husband. I don't think he ever saw that book. Just the nude on the cover would have upset him. He was from a German stock and Lutheran. So quite so. My sisters are much more conservative than I. So, after all the research, you you published your book in the late nineties? Yes. How was that [00:35:30] received? Well, not so well I published it, and it was in quite a hurry, Which meant that I wasn't clear to the printer on the back end. It's got lots of lots of mistakes. Um, and I published it for the chiro Centenary. 100 years of chime school, and they wouldn't let me have it there because, uh, because it was shocking, but they hadn't read it, but it was about my father. So obviously there was some gossip around [00:36:00] and also that I was such an out lesbian by then, and I was shocking, Probably. So, um, uh, some of the older people were really friendly to me, but others are the ones that were still living in Chimaera were not so friendly to me. No, um, the ones who'd moved away to cities and so on were much more liberal and quite accepting of me being so out as a lesbian. But, um, not the locals. With this now being the [00:36:30] the we're in the 100th year, 100th anniversary of of World War One. are you aware of any other New Zealand military personnel that have had kind of homosexual relationships that have that? That that you know of no I don't, Um I always regretted that I didn't spend time to hunt up those men who were published in New Zealand at the front. But of course, I was writing books about sexual abuse of Children and stopping child abuse and so on, and [00:37:00] it was also quite seriously ill, so I didn't, um I didn't do all the things I wanted to do. Still haven't. Of course, I've got a long list still of projects in writing the book. Did it Did it change your perception of of your dad? Uh, yes. I, um There were little things about my father that I put together like his voice. He had the soft intonation [00:37:30] that some gay men have. It was a softer. I mean, it wasn't when he was angry and yelled at you, but he had this soft intonation when he said things quietly that I liked, um and yeah, the nude photographs then fell into place by doing the research. I then understood because I tried to took me ages to try and decipher the signature on the photographs to start with. I thought it [00:38:00] was Frank Muir, and then it looked like Mrs Frank, you know. And then someone said it could be Irwin the It's hard to read the surname. Um, so I was going to I thought, Oh, I should go to London and look for the photographer, but never did. When I went to London, I was too busy going to gay bars. We were trying to find someone to stay that was, was affordable, like friends. [00:38:30] So, um, yeah, the there is a lot I. I just regret that I didn't, um that you don't have the resources to do that sort of research. And and I think it's still hard to get resources to do gay research. It's not high on the list of research and the whole thing about the first World War. They're not telling about the traumatised men and how terrible fathers they were, [00:39:00] Um, and how skewed things were. It was much more so military orientated. And there was no qualms about shooting things dead. Um, I think that they overlook that partly because their own ancestors weren't so hot. Um, and the Second World War was just as bad. Um, one thing that misses out in the Second World War that I did my performance about was [00:39:30] I was born in 1941. My father was sent off to Trentham to train troops. So what did the government do? They sent a a young bloke to run the farm because my mother didn't milk cows. Um, she was too busy cleaning rabbits and and and looking after she had a breast fed baby and and three young Children. So three other four young Children channel together at that time. So they sent a young man to run the farm and he was expected. They quickly put [00:40:00] an ad on to the house, which was really tumbled down. Some of the weather boards have fallen off at this stage. It wasn't AAA good, healthy place to live. Um, so they put up an even shoddier building attached to the end of the hall where he was to live. Um, and of course, one day he tried to rape my mother in the bedroom and I was in the cot. I was 18 months old and I screamed so much. I had a flashback [00:40:30] to it years later and asked my mother about it, and she said, I'm amazed. I never said anything about it because I thought you'd never remember. But she said yes. You screamed so much that it stopped him. He couldn't continue, Um, and he turned around and got a pillow and tried to smother you. And I was trying to drag him off you. And she said, and from then on you had trouble with your breathing and I thought, Well, that's where my asthma comes from. I do have a lot of allergies, but yeah, so and I think, [00:41:00] How many women did that happen to whose husbands trotted off to the war and they were sent? And it would be some young man who wouldn't understand he wasn't selected, possibly because he was cross eyed or had flat feet or some little. He wasn't a real man because he didn't go on the great adventure as men saw it, not knowing the realities so he'd have all the hallmarks of that angry resentment that builds up [00:41:30] and take it out on a weaker person than yourself. Which is how I find rapists think, having worked for in the prison, it's interesting that I chose to work in a prison with sex offenders for so long. 12 years no longer because I work with adolescents later for child, youth and family. But so, um and they're not They don't talk about that. They don't talk about the damaged men who come back from war and expected to take up life again and [00:42:00] and be healthy. Good fathers. I don't think that happens. Their visions distorted. They they, um, don't, um And they have quite severe post traumatic stress disorder. So you know, there there's many secrets. I think in New Zealand we are at the end of the world and the stories don't actually go anywhere. They are not very open about it. I mean, people were shocked when I started talking about the sexual abuse of Children and journalists tried to shut me down and so on. [00:42:30] But I just if every child had a happy, healthy childhood, what a lovely world we would have. We are in a beautiful country if the dairy farmers stop polluting all the rivers. Mhm. Did your mom ever talk about, um, Norman's male relationships? No, no. Um, it seemed to be acceptable that he went off to have time with Roy. That seemed to be acceptable. But sometimes my [00:43:00] mother was negative about the money are paying. But, I mean, they put all their war money, and what I couldn't understand is why they couldn't stay there together when they owned the farm. But it seems like parental pressure was still had to be observed.
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