When I arrived in New Zealand all those years ago I was not expecting the country to harbour so many eccentrics. For some it was eccentricity verging on deviancy - Felix for example who taught violin and did his best to alienate most of his students. And Elwyn who somehow or other became Principal of one of the biggest primary schools in Auckland and made a religion out of loathing the School Inspectorate.
Then there was Carol with whom I struck up an immediate friendship. Funnily enough I cannot for the life of me recall who introduced us, what the circumstances were, all I remember is entering her large untidy house in Remuera where each room appeared to be lined with books from floor to ceiling. And excitingly for me at the time with my own pre-occupation with enticing children into the world of books, so many of them were what we then called Reading Schemes. Row upon row of little volumes outlining the day to day activities and adventures of child duos called Janet & John or Susie & Sam who were sometimes accompanied by dogs called Timmy or Tommy. Carol proudly told me each Scheme was complete and the earliest dated from the Victorian era, one entire volume containing words of only two letters. It began with the edifying sentence: Lo I am an Ox! There was of course an appropriate illustration.
Carol had a husband who taught either maths or science and three girls who were roughly the same age as my own children. My three considered her to be a fantastic mother, the kind any self-respecting child would be inordinately proud of. This assessment had emerged originally from Seamus because at a time when he longed to own a lizard she had caught one for him in her teapot. What's more the creature, unimaginatively named Lizzie, had been pregnant at the time of her capture and shortly after becoming resident in the glass tank in his bedroom obligingly gave birth to many lizard babies. Oh what exciting days they were to be sure!
There were always lots of animals at Carol's house - cats, hens, rabbits, guinea pigs, the occasional goat and from time to time a piglet, wandering at will outside and inside, their needs considered at least as important as those of the human inhabitants. Little wonder that it was a popular destination for local children whether or not they were keen readers.
The multitude of animal life was not always equally admired by the immediate neighbours it must be admitted who from time to time complained and upon realising that Carol was impervious to complaints, rang the SPCA and spoke of noise and fleas and even cruelty. They were of course being somewhat over-dramatic and it was clear they were not part of Carol's fan base - she maintained they had also been responsible for the complaints about the two abandoned cars on her front lawn. She had no intention whatsoever of getting rid of the cars as she might well think about restoring them to road-worthiness at some future stage and in the interim her children and a host of visiting playmates really enjoyed playing in them. Yet another reason why she retained her phenomenal popularity with all who had not yet reached their teens and indeed some who had.
New Zealand is a place that has always operated admirably upon the work of community committees and Carol was an enthusiastic participant. Strangely this did not always meet with the approval of other team members. She had a problem with suffering fools gladly and an uncanny knack of pointing out the obvious in a manner that would have earned the approbation of Donald Trump himself. Like him she cared little about what others thought of her and her at times scathing and caustic comment regarding hitherto ignored elephants in committee meeting rooms were met with silences that echoed relentlessly from wall to wall. She was constantly central to critical and disparaging discussion and often to be her friend invited the same censorious analysis and fault finding.
Happily Carol was able to rise above the condemnation and never stray from the path of what she considered was righteous and decent. She continued to give back to the Community and was the only person I knew who would happily sit with dying nuns night after night, knitting for stress relief, intricate socks for Highland dancers, often with eight different balls of wool.
It was she who kept me on the straight and narrow when I was going through an enthusiasm for keeping a tidy house. She told me she had stopped doing housework at the birth of her youngest daughter - after two years she maintained, the cobwebs and dust in all the corners would not be noticed. She was of course correct.
Carol was highly intelligent and her educational achievements eclipsed those of the majority of her critics. She was also a loyal friend and she was most definitely an eccentric. People like Carol are never easily ignored - and they are rarely forgotten.
