Dad. Greatly loved also. Naughty grandpa to all the grandchildren. With reason.

Born in Auckland, brought up mostly in Takapuna. Lots of stories about him fishing as a child, hitting Pop on the head with a shovel, spilling the paint on the carpet, etc. Went to Takapuna Grammar and won a scholarship. Meant a lot in those days, before they changed the system. I have a newspaper page, from 1951, of the scholarship announcements for the University of New Zealand. Dad got a total of 1458, putting him in the top 50 or so. His worst subject was mathematics, with 159/600. Tut tut. Not good, Dad, you naughty man. His best was French, with 459. The newspaper clipping I got after Pop died. It’s in an envelope with Pop’s handwriting on the front “Scholarship list”. Pop kept that clipping for 50 years. He must have been very proud indeed.

Went to Otago to do Medicine, did a PhD along the way, and became a biochemist. Post-doc at Vanderbilt with a Nobel Prize winner, Sutherland. Then came back at an obscenely young age to the chair of Clinical Biochemistry at Otago. Held that position for many years, but resigned early (the department was closed down, he refused to fire his staff, and so just resigned, or so I believe) and then gallivanted all round the world with Mum, working in Fiji, Malaysia and Hong Kong, before finally coming home again. He was a seriously good scientist and his publications are still all over the internet. He could have stayed in the US and had a high-powered career, but opted for a quieter family life in New Zealand, away from the big time. I don’t think he ever regretted this.

Lived in the same house in Cliffs Road for over 35 years now. A lovely house it is, too. Keen fisherman still, but mostly for trout. I went with him often when younger, and would still, except that they live at the other end of the country. He hates sloppy grammar, and sloppy thinking. He has no time for religion or Freud or Byron or Shelley or pop music or politicians or Ulysses. He reads science fiction but not fantasy (no taste). He has this huge ugly nose and a bald head but he doesn’t usually smell too bad. (Just kidding, really truly).

See? It’s impossible to do him justice. Anyway, he’s my Dad, and the best Dad anyone could ever ask for. Even though he once shut me outside with no clothes on so that Mrs. Baker next door could see my bare arse. And I bet she was looking. Oh, and he always complained when I wouldn’t mow the lawns. Geez, Dad, whine, whine, whine, moan, moan, moan, it’s just a bunch of lawns, no big deal, just leave them, what’s the rush. Bloody hell. Of course, now that I have a teenager myself I am beginning to understand how irritating I must have been. Lucky I survived my childhood, if you ask me.

Mum. Greatly loved, but not at all respected. Not even I would go that far. Famous for the saying “A fart is always funny”. This gives the correct impression. The old Granny (Dad’s mother) always thought that Dad had married beneath him. She certainly had a point..... (just kidding Mum, put the axe down).

She once broke a painted wooden spoon on my arse when I was in the bath, and this was a painted wooden spoon that Mr. Joe had given her, and this was a very naughty thing for her to do, and all because I was just having a tiny little fight with my sister Mary, no big deal, but up she comes and whack, whack, whack, bloody hell. I bet I didn’t deserve it. And in the bloody bath, too! Talk about catching you when you’re vulnerable. It’s those damn McPherson genes, I tell you. You don’t mess with them.

She did Medicine at a time when very few women did. Her father, I believe, encouraged her strongly. That’s where she met Dad; they did Medicine at Otago together, and judging by the amount of giggling those two do when they talk about it I bet it wasn’t just Medicine on the agenda. Whoooeeee, no sirree. As Sarah would say, GET A ROOM!

Let me see, what else. She loves antiques and has filled the house in Cliffs Rd. with lovely things. She can draw really well. I have a portrait of Monique she did, and one of Sarah when young. She takes excellent photographs and develops them herself, or at least the black and white ones. She plays the violin and passed on a love of music to all us kids. Mind you, Dad loves music too, but doesn’t play. She worked as a cytologist for many years, part-time. I remember going in to her laboratory at the Medical School when I was young, and looking down her microscope.

Born in Blenheim and went to Marlborough College. Lived for many years at 9 Dillon St. when young.
When she was 16 Mum stayed with Kate when her parents went overseas for a trip for about 6 months. When they returned it was Mum’s 7th form year, and her Dad (Robert Adair McPherson) got a job at Taumauranui and Freda worked there also. So Mum went to boarding school for a year, the nearest place being New Plymouth. Mum didn’t start until after the beginning of the year, and she was the last to leave (from Kate’s home in Blenheim) so there were no suitcases. So she put all her stuff in an apple box, tied it up, and went off to boarding school. Sister Valerie was teaching also at Taumauranui. She hated it.

After New Plymouth, went to Dunedin to do Medicine. Her parents came down too, to make sure that Mum kept on doing Medicine, not like sister Valerie who started Medicine and then stopped. Gummy (Mum’s father) was dead keen on Mum going through Medical School. Fortunately Mum was too. She decided to do Medicine while Ma and Gummy were on their long overseas trip, and changed all her subjects to match. Ma and Gummy got jobs at Macandrew Intermediate, teaching. They also used to go down to Owaka for two days in each week, to teach at the school there.

The family lived in several places in quick succession in Dunedin (first in New St with the old bugger that Gummy didn’t like, then in Skene St in Mornington which was a whole house but pretty dirty and run down), as accomodation was very hard to come by, and finally lived in a flat along Forbury Road, just by the corner. Grandmother Kate sold up in Blenheim and came down to join them, and took over the flat in Forbury Rd when the house in Ravenswood Rd. was all built. That’s where Kate lived when I knew her.

She married Dad on her birthday, only five days after her final Medical examinations. She wasn’t too interested in the wedding details; someone else bought the material and made the dress. She and Dad then started work in Auckland, at midnight on 1 Jan, 1960. Mary was born that September. The wedding announcement in The New Zealand Free Lance, on Wednesday, January 8, 1960, read: “Two doctors recently capped, Dr. Rosalie McPherson and Dr. Graham Trevallyan Sneyd were married in Trinity Methodist Church, Dunedin. Both have accepted positions as house-surgeons at Auckland Hospital.”

My elder sister Mary was born in Auckland, but then they moved back to Dunedin where I was born. Then, when I was two or so, off to Nashville, Tennessee, for a post-doctoral research position for Dad. Then he got offered the chair of Clinical Biochemistry at Otago, and returned to NZ in about 1967. Stayed there ever since, give or take the odd trip overseas.