I am not good at making speeches at all, though most of you would have known granny or Peggy in one way or another be it through family or other connections. Granny was the last of the Lissington family after her sister Nola Williams passed away in 1998, and her young brother, George who passed away in 1941 around the age of 11. To me she was granny, though there was a huge distance between us as we live in Australia and her in Whangarei. Nearly every trip I took to New Zealand I would at some point visit and stay with granny and Claude. It would usually be at the beginning of the journey or towards the end as I don’t drive, so catch the bus everywhere.
Granny never really went that far when I came over, but I know she loved her puzzles and her cooking shows that always seemed to be on in the evening. I am unsure as to why New Zealand did not have their own version of Master chef. There was always a puzzle on the table next to the TV that she would get from the library and later on there would be some that we bought for her. They would be the Wasgij, or the whats happening next as the puzzle was different to the cover picture on the box. I know she loaned them out so others could have a go at them.
On the odd occasions we all went out somewhere was to the Genji restaurant for Granny’s birthday. I think it was meant to be a surprise, but I cant remember. There was a group of us and it was pretty cool to have the food being cooked in front of you. Another trip we did take was to the Kauri museum and on the same day to visit her childhood home in Paparoa. On that day we did visit Georgies grave in the local cemetery.
While it was fun discovering bits and pieces of information on the family tree from grannys side of the family, she would always be tight lipped about a few of the people I was looking for information on. When I told her I had found something interesting her response was that she knew that already. I don’t know if that was on purpose or she wanted me to find the information to tell her about. She was especially tight lipped about her own life saying no one would want to know. Mum at one stage did sit down with her and typed out several pages especially on a trip to New Zealand where she lived on an outback property, where she found Australians treated their people differently to New Zealand. Before granny became sick and went into hospital, we had a discussion over Skype as I was trying to find out what life was like when she was a kid. She told me I wouldn’t understand as I live in the 2000s, which is totally different from then. We never really had that converation
It wasn’t until recently when someone was asking what her favourite music was and there were a few of us who did not have the answer. I spoke to dad about it and he had said every time he was in the car with granny and asked to turn the radio on, she had said no. Apparently she never had the radio on in the car. I was surprised that a few of us had missed something interesting. Sometimes the more you know about someone the less you seem to know.
The last time I did physically see granny was in the hospital as I had thought at the time it should be best that I get over there mainly to support mum if something happened. When I was in the hospital she would tell the others about the story that I had found of her as a child giving flowers to an elderly lady in Paparoa. Granny wanted something that she had never really had before and that was ginger beer, so off I went to the shops near the hospital where I got some ginger beer and a bag of chips. She was happy with the drink and I was sharing my chips with her that she seemed to like as apparently she had not eaten those types before. I think it was Salt and vinegar if I remember rightly.
Over the last few months while Granny was in the nursing home mum would skype her and they would have some conversations, but it was mostly granny watching what mum was doing especially on weekends for several hours. She even fell asleep during these sessions, though she had done that before anyway. I think she was more happy to watch what was going on even though she had become quiet.
