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for me personally in the different subject areas. I
love to see Maths classes go there to work. I teach Because after it had just been built that was when
drama there. I have English classes over there, Mrs Gregory died?
Social Studies, Health — it's used all the time. Yes, now that was an interesting story, worth
It's booked up probably four periods a day, thinking about too. While we were building it
every day and it’s such a nice place to work and somewhere along the line she told us that in Maori
people love getting over there. belief somebody closely tied to the building of a
I love it when students say to me, "Can we go wharenui or a marae died within a year of its
to the wharenui to work?". That feels good. So all opening.
the things that I helped work for in building it have When she told us that at the time we thought
come true. They were the things that we said we to ourselves, "Oh, wonder if it will be me". We were
wanted. And the other thing is that I love the fact a bit scared about it and thought, "Yes, oh well then,
that it's living history. maybe as a Pakeha?”
I like the fact that the carvings and the murals I didn't really believe it in any depth you
tell wonderful, wonderful stories and they're there, know. I just didn't want to think much about it. It
and they're alive and they're ours. So I get the crossed my mind and I looked around us all and
pleasure of going and telling the junior classes thought, "Uh, I hope it's just none of us”, and forgot
about the stories and those things. about it.
I find that when I think of all those things it’s When it was opened on about the 30th April
probably even done more than we ever believed it (something like that) in 1988, and her words came
was going to do. I love the fact that it is living back to me just in living technicolour the night she
history. died and that was in November, so it was six
months.
Who did the carvings, paintings and made the
plans and designs for the wharenui? That's pretty Freaky!
There's two parts there. The plans and the Yes, but it was really hard to think about.
design was sort of done as a group, the committee,
and that just came around from the fact that we At least she could come to our marae though and
couldn't fundraise money to build new. So we took we could come here.
that Maori Studies pre-fab and moved it around Yes, that just made it all.
there and then Mr Jarnet, Mr Abraham and Mr
Rhind and people in the community worked out Did she come here First?
where to put new windows in. Yes. She died on the Tuesday night here at
We built all the mahoe (the verandah), added school, taken home, and the next morning she had
all that on. We worked on it ourselves and we had to go to the Funeral directors to get dressed up and
the plan where we could place it and all it's everything, and then she came straight here. Her
significance and those things. So we did all Family brought her here, she stayed here for about
that. two hours then we went to Turangawaewae and
The carvings and the paintings were done by then we went from there to go to Taupiri.
the Waipa Kokiri Centre at Te Awamutu. They
were all access trainees and they've got this huge Is there anything else you would like to say about
building down there where the access workers are it?
learning ancient Maori skills like carvings and There's lots of things I could say. I could tell
tukutuku. you about some of the plans for the future if you
We employed them and fundraised to pay for want?
them to do all of our work for us. The reason
we did this was that the Maori Queen's own carvers, Yes, that would be good.
when we approached her about whether they could It's not complete, because a marae has to be
carve it for us, were doing the one down more like a complex. To have what we've got there
at the Post 0ffice and a whole lot of big National is fine during the day, but we need it to be able to
carvings, and they were too busy and couldn't do it. host people, and to do that we've got to
That's why we went and employed the Waipa build a wharekai (an eating house).
Kokiri. Two more things we really need, we need a
wharekai, and we also need a wharehoroi (a wash
Did you come up against people who were opposed area), showers, toilets. So we need two more blocks,
to the idea? But Mr Cranshaw, he's all for it! an ablutions block and an eating block because you
Yes, he came just after it was opened. can't have people stay over if you can't feed them
and can't give them a place to wash.