Joan | Warkworth

“I was born in Taranaki, moved around the country with my husband. I’ve got five beautiful children, nine grandchildren, and one on the way. I love Warkworth. I’ve been here for eight years now and I wouldn’t go anywhere else. Perfect place to live with friends and family.

I’ve been quite ill, so getting through each stage is good. When we moved here it was like a sleepy town, and it was big enough. We had, at that stage, one supermarket and now we’ve got two, but it’s like a community thing. If you’re out doing something and people recognise you it’s just about being in a community.

My ex-husband died and that was quite a challenge. That’s when I gave up smoking. It wasn’t sad. It was sad for the kids, but not for me and it was quite emotional because all of my stress had gone, and we’d been parted for six years after 30 years of marriage. It was a really, really bad marriage. I just felt this… thank goodness, and then I started living again.

My husband was an alcoholic and what I call an ‘ist;’ He was a sexist, a racist, an ageist, an everything. If it wasn’t him then he was against it, and it was very terrifying a lot of times when he was drinking. So I don’t drink alcohol, because I had to be there for the kids.

Before he died, all bar one of my four adult children had stuff to do with him. He went and lived with them all and then they remembered, ‘oh gosh that’s just what he’s like’ and kicked him out. I believed my marriage vows, and I wasn’t competent enough to think that I could be a solo parent. I always knew the kids behaved themselves when they were with their father, although it was the wrong thing, but, no, they’re okay about it. You know? They’re okay.

I’m all in for Women’s Refuge because they helped me several times. But it was my own thoughts, my own feelings, that perhaps he might change, perhaps he might get better, and nah it didn’t in the end, but I always had that hope. I hoped that I could talk him around to not drinking or whatever. So it’s financial difficulties and all sorts of stuff that you go through.”

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