Where are you originally from?
I was born in Hale, Cheshire which is 16km south of Manchester, famous for its soccer teams. The house I grew up in backed onto a railway line and for the seven years of my high school years I travelled on this railway line into Manchester. Going by train and bus to school from the age of eleven certainly gave me great independence which has served me well throughout my life.
Where did you train?
After leaving school, I went to St Andrews University in Scotland. Most people will have heard of St Andrews because of golf. I have never played golf but did thoroughly enjoy my years at the oldest university in Scotland, founded in 1413. There I studied geography and graduated with a BSc Honours degree in 1974. I was awarded a scholarship to study for a PhD in Geography but only did a year before deciding to go into high school teaching. In 1975 I married my husband, Doug Stirling, who was also a student at St Andrews.
Tell us about your career.
As there were no teaching jobs In Scotland after I had finished my teacher training year at Dundee, Doug and I went to London where we both obtained employment immediately. My first job was teaching Geography in a boys’ grammar school and from that time on I started running numerous field trips to show my students the world around us.
How long have you lived in Palmerston North?
Both Doug and I had always wanted to travel to New Zealand. My mother had lived here in the late 1940s and had stayed in contact with friends in Auckland. I had been sent lots of beautiful and interesting gifts from these kind people and really wanted to see the country.
Doug got a job offer from Massey University to teach Statistics and hey presto we were here, arriving on 10th January 1981. Everyone at the university in the Statistics Department was very welcoming, inviting us for meals and lending us untold items until our belongings arrived. I was soon employed at Palmerston North Girls’ High School - yes teaching Geography again but of course adding Social Studies to my teaching subjects.
Family and later career highlights
Our three children were all born in Palmerston North and attended local schools, West End, Russell Street, Intermediate Normal (now PNINS) and Awatapu College. When the children were tiny, I did an extra-mural degree in English and History. This proved useful when I went back to teaching as it gave me extra subjects to be able to teach.
In 1989 I started teaching at what was then Feilding Agricultural High School. Once again, I taught Geography and Social Studies but some years I also taught English. Of course there were more field trips. The two farms at Ag proved very useful resources for teaching the farming sections in our Geography curriculum of that time. Eventually I returned to teaching in Palmerston, first Girls’ High in the late 1990s and then from 2000 until I retired in 2015 at Awatapu College.
In the 1990s I studied for a Teacher Librarian qualification and became the Teacher Librarian at Awatapu for many years before finishing my career as Head of Social Sciences. At Awatapu I taught History and Tourism as well as my beloved Geography which fitted well with my interests in the Social Sciences.
In the early 2000s I got a chance to go back and complete a PhD in Geography. This time I focussed on my favourite aspect of Geography, field trips and researched Geography field trips at school and university level in New Zealand. To obtain data for this research I interviewed about 60 university lectures and teachers. That was an exciting time dashing around the country armed with an afternoon or morning tea to encourage people to share their experiences with me. I sometimes call this the 33-year PhD having begun my first attempt in 1974 and finally graduating in 2007.
What is your favourite part about living in Palmerston North?
I really didn’t like Palmerston North when I first arrived having lived in big cities but over the last 45 years, I have grown to really appreciate this small welcoming, vibrant city. Number one for me is the kindness of people I have met throughout the 45 years I have lived here. The chances my own children had to pursue various hobbies and activities, especially sporting, were enormous.
The accessibility of everything is amazing. For 15 years I was able to walk to work and at other times my employment was only a short drive or cycle ride from where I lived. I love seeing the hills and the river and adore the many walking tracks that have been established in the years I have lived here.
What do you do for fun?
Although I was never a top sportswoman, I have always loved walking and tramping. In 2006 I joined the Manawatū Striders and competed in half-marathons and marathons. Although I no longer compete, I enjoy going for club walks with other members of Striders. In 2023 I completed writing a history of the club which was first established in 1983. I have regular walks with friends and currently I am especially enjoying exploring the tracks by Te Ahu a Turanga, which is such a fine piece of engineering.
I spend a massive amount of time each week at the Lido in Palmerston North. I am a member of the gym and attend a large number of Legends classes which are gym classes aimed at those of us who are over 60. They are fantastic and I would recommend them to anyone in my age range.
My other interests are more sedentary. I am in a number of U3A groups and especially enjoy the book and poetry groups that I attend. As I have always enjoyed writing I have written and illustrated a number of stories for my six small grandchildren. The books I am proudest of feature Mrs Piwakawaka and her school for birds.
What is something that most people don’t know about you?
I established the archive at Awatapu College and worked on this for the fifteen years that I worked there. The late Ian Matheson, the first city archivist, helped me to learn how to do this, for which I am eternally grateful.
Eventually, I thought that these interesting historical items needed more publicity and so I wrote the history of the school. Students at the College, under my guidance, interviewed a large number of teachers, principal, ex-principals and students to provide the information. This was published in 2016 for the 40th anniversary of the founding of Awatapu College.
As a way of saying thank you to Manawatū Heritage for all the help the City Archives has given me over the years, I volunteer there one morning a week and thoroughly enjoy scrolling through old editions of newspapers delving into the past.
One interesting feature that I’ve accomplished with husband Doug is to visit all restaurants, pubs and cafés in Palmerston North where you can sit in and have an evening meal. The first time we did this 2012 to 2014 we visited 104 different establishments. The second time 2020 to 2022 we got to 100. By going out just once a week we paced ourselves nicely. For the fast-food joints, we just visited one of each of them, not all the Subways, McDs and KFCs. We did rank them but that’s a secret, other than to say that UCOL Ambitions came out tops!
