Anne Farrar

Your mother, Anne Farrar, was a strong figure in your childhood.  Half Italian, you describe her as  the forceful one in the family. She does seem to be a high-energy, strong woman - driving army-trucks during the war is not for dainty types.

She was driving my father for some debriefing. .. So they met like that. And being two amazing romantics, actually, they were married actually, I think a few weeks later. .. And my eldest brother was born well before I think nine months of gestation happened.  So obviously, you know, sex wasn't invented at the latter part of the 20th century and they went on to have six children.

 

I wouldn't have brought the subject of your mother and father having sex up, but seeing how you've mentioned it - doing the maths - if they married within a few weeks of meeting and your eldest brother was born well before nine months of gestation, guess they had sex in the first couple of days they met! So yeah, it must have been a magnetic attraction.

 

Whereas your father seems somewhat distant, your mother was a writer and artist - who painted the above picture when she was pregnant with you. You describe her as slightly bohemian - an adventurer - a person of blended and sometimes divided personalities.  Which is a great description of you, also. She was a pretty good painter. I’d love to read some of her writing as well - she had an exciting enough life - did she have anything published?

 

For a bohemian, she also had a good relationship with the US military whilst living in Singapore.

[00:32:18] In 1964 .. (s)he used to hitch rides with the American military on a plane .. to go shopping in Saigon. So Saigon has been sort of part of my background since the early 60s and had such a profound influence on me.

It was her decision to ditch NZ after 6-months in the late-60's. It's no easy thing to relocate a family of six across the oceans - but she hated New Zealand - too chauvinistic - too boring.

[00:10:05] : (M)y mother, who sort of ruled the family, really said, look, we're not having this.

So we all got on a boat. And so when I first came to Britain, I came by boat.

We left Britain soon afterwards to go and live in Libya

Although you remember having big arguments with her, the sense is you connected. She was a remarkable woman - it's worth ticking off her accomplishments again: army truck-driver, painter, writer, bohemian, military plane hitch-hiker, itinerant adventurer, mother of 6, forceful family ruler ...