Family

I had a call from my cousin tonight - he'd just heard the news that his brother in Auckland has been diagnosed with pancreatic cancer. Gerald and his wife are flying halfway round the world on Thursday in order to see him.

I don't think I ever met Richard - or if I did it was so long ago and for such a brief time that I do not remember. He must have been in NZ for almost fifty years. I thought I might find a photograph of him in the cardboard box archives, but all I could come up with was a collection of his female ancestors. On the left of the three sisters, his mother Winnie. In the deckchair his (and my) grandmother Kate. And faded but still fierce on the right, our formidable great-grandmother Bridget.

For Richard, with love from M.