Kiwi Voices - Sharon

Liam’s mum Sharon (Shazza), was the first to respond to my call for help, when I clearly couldn’t control the class of year 7 kids I was teaching. He and his chums were a room full of feral, turning the desks upside down to play beyblades. Giving me the finger. 8.30 am she rocks up to my prefab at Waiheke High school, baseball cap on backwards, two cans of V in her hand, finishes the first one, punches the tab on the second, takes a long draught, thrusts out her hand and says “I’m Shazza, you must be Bazza” … laughs and sits with the bad boys. “Oh Shame Liam, your mums here” a couple of classmates said. By the end of the week when Shazza didn’t show, they were saying ‘Bro, where’s your mum'?’, like we’d been abandoned, she didn't love us anymore. She’d had to get back to her cleaning job.

Not so many years after that she got her own takeaway bar, Ao’ Place, in Surfdale. It was devastating for her when it burnt down. I’ll never forget her help trying to tame that class - which if they achieved one thing that year, it was getting good on unicycles, Shazza’s son Liam being one. (That’s him second from left in photo’s)

He’s now got his own auto business in the community he grew up in, and a couple of years back the two of us got new unicycles together (bottom pic). Awesome seeing our kids grow up. Cheers Shazza, cheers Liam 🫶🏼

(A big shoutout to DoP Simon Ellis who shot those Kiwi Voices interviews with me, and Graham Elliott at Picture Talk Productions in Auckland for gfx and post work, a pilot for SkyTV and early YouTube … years ago)