Caller of the Night: Passing time during power cuts

Kate joined Roman to share her stories of surviving power cuts in the Wairarapa and the games she would play with her family.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:08):
You're listening to a podcast from News Talks EDB. Follow
this and our wide range of podcasts now on iHeartRadio.

Speaker 2 (00:16):
Turning Back at the Clark with Roman Travers.

Speaker 1 (00:19):
Call eight hundred eighty ten eighty It's in my Day
on News Talks EDB.

Speaker 2 (00:25):
How are you?

Speaker 1 (00:26):
Oh good, Kate, Oh good?

Speaker 2 (00:28):
I'm calling from the Wirerappa and we in twenty eleven.
It was wonderful out here with the snow and it
was just very magical. Being from England, it was very
reminiscent for me. But the boys are very excited. But
we actually we had power cuts and all sorts of things,
so we dragged out our game of Escape from Coldets

(00:49):
and it's one of the original games, the board games
where you have your prisoners and then you have your
German guards and you've got to work out how you're
going to escape from Colditz Castle. And it was the
most wonderful time, very very close and the kids were
very excited. And you know, you turn a very negative
kind of moment into something very positive and have some

(01:11):
very special.

Speaker 1 (01:13):
You did you dress up like Nazis and get a
little like a little felt pen for the mustache and
all that stuff.

Speaker 2 (01:19):
You don't really dress, no, not really, but because we
had no power, we've got a log burner and so
we put a tin of beans on top of the
fire and a pan with water in it, so we've
have a cup of tea and it was all it
was all very organic and the kids just loved it.
And even long after the power had come back on,
we made out the kids it hadn't so we could
keep it going.

Speaker 1 (01:38):
That's a good trick. I love that idea. I remember
my girls, as I said, at the outset, they were
outside running around in gun boots and dressing gowns because
we didn't get snow. We were between so we were
on the tatadooa side of State Highway too, up against
the hills near fench and Reserve that way.

Speaker 2 (01:55):
Yeah, you know it very well.

Speaker 1 (01:56):
Yeah, it was a lovely, lovely spot. So they had
great fun. It's all fun and games until you can't
move your fingers or they go blue and fall off,
you know.

Speaker 2 (02:05):
Exactly, until you get wet and cold and miserable. You know.
Growing up in Yorkshire when we have snow and stuff
like that, it's just it's just magical, you know, just
the silence that you get with it, and it's just
very reminiscent of yes, you can't. But it's also teaching
your kids that you don't have to have electrical but
appliances to keep yourself amused. You can have family time

(02:28):
and play a game and have laughs and cook food
without electricity and have a wonderful time. And it was
it was quite a valuable lesson. I think that bring
it on.

Speaker 1 (02:38):
Yeah, isn't it. It's so Look, I love the old
fashioned nature. I built two homes in that area and
we always put a big old log fire and that
you could cook on because no one's going to put
a can of baked beans on a heat pump, are they.

Speaker 2 (02:52):
It's not going to work very well. But we pick
ourselves very well fed and very comfortable and and you know,
when things are failing, you've always got that warmth and
you sit around and it's just lovely and we're quite blessed.
And for me, it's kind of teaching my boys, you know,
the way we did it in England and how different

(03:14):
it was for oz and letting them grow up with
a different way of life. And it's very important.

Speaker 1 (03:20):
I love that now, just before I move on, because
people who live in the snow all the time. They
people like me go, oh it's snowing. How dramatic and
how romantic they go. It's hideous. It gets sludgy, it
goes everywhere in Yorkshire. Did you get sick of it
when you were growing up?

Speaker 2 (03:35):
I don't remember ever getting sick of it, because I
suppose you're a child. I'm sure my parents would have
had a totally different view of it. But you know,
I remember going to school and it was like pitch
dark in the morning when you went to school, and
it was pitch dark when you got home, and you're
weighing yourself through snow, and we took a short cut
and it was through a cemetery, and of course sat

(03:55):
just added to the excitement of it. But you know,
and then you snuggle around near Christmas and you've got
Bruce Forsyth generation game on the telly, and the snow's
coming down outside the window and the Kelson's coming up.
It's just magical. And this is what I tried to
impart into my boys, because you don't get that here.

Speaker 1 (04:14):
That's right, No, that's dead right, Bruce Forsythe nice to
see you, to see y nice there's a TV show
from the Ages Man and you know that whole game
with the conveyor belt. There's an iron there's an ironing board.
There's a suitcase, and the cuddly toy and the cudl toy.
I love it. The only white The first time I

(04:35):
ever had a white Christmas was the first and only
time a proper white Christmas was in a village called
Creef in Scotland where I lived, and I loved it.
It was so beautiful.

Speaker 2 (04:45):
Yeah, it just brings a certain magic about it. And
we missed out here the Christmases. I've been there fifty
years in New Zealand and Christmases are they nice. But
it's not the same when you're sitting out the fat
bacon in thirty degrees when an England we would have
been snuggling around the five it. Hey, it's different strokes
of different folks do that with your children lovely. So

(05:09):
I absolutely love it and it brings me a lot
of comfort when I'm lying there, wakeful at night just
listening to you guys. It's wonderful.

Speaker 1 (05:16):
O good on you. For more from News Talks B
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(05:39):
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