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Tuesday 21 July 2020

Newsworthy: Georgian PIRRETT


I think my Nan was a bit of a mover and shaker. In her younger years, long before emigrating to New Zealand with her husband and my parents she was effectively a single parent. Granddad was a merchant seaman and spent months and months at sea, not unusual for those in their East End neighbourhood. Yes, he would have contributed to the household finances, but in an erratic way. Nan did domestic work, and according to my Aunt (her daughter) she also worked at the local pub, and raised her small family of three mostly on her own.
There’s nothing newsworthy about that, Nan’s newsworthy moment came later. In 1955 Nan wrote a letter to a local newspaper, probably the Hutt News. In the letter Nan expressed her outrage at Rev. R.F. Clements ‘attack from the pulpit concerning the press publishing an account of the Foster case’  
I remember a family story about Nan writing to local MP Walter Nash about the same case, but so far have not been able to prove it.
My Aunt provided me a copy of Nan’s letter to the newspaper, and with a bit of help from google I found an actual newspaper report.




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