Entertainer Angela Ayers, who grew up in Palmerston North, does not know what the word retirement means. She has now written two children's books. Photo / Judith Lacy
Entertainer Angela Ayers, who grew up in Palmerston North, does not know what the word retirement means. She has now written two children's books. Photo / Judith Lacy
“You must do what you must do.”
This is a line in Angela Ayers’ first children’s book, 2 Little Kiwi Birds, and it also reflects how she lives her life.
Ayers grew up in Palmerston North singing and dancing. She went on to be a household name through her appearances with Peter Sinclair and Craig Scott in the musical TV shows Happen Inn and Sing in the 1970s.
She has had a successful career in Australia but when the music industry dried up due to Covid-19 Ayers, who turns 70 this year, knew she was not ready to retire. The lack of gigs gave her time to sit back and think about what else she was capable of doing and what she would like to do.
She began oil painting; the paintings are used as wallpaper on her website.
Using a brush instead of a microphone ignited an underused creative side of her brain. Poems started coming to her at 3am, and eventually she had written 48.
2 Little Kiwi Birds tells the story of Les and Beryl moving from New Zealand to Australia, their travels around Oz and how they found themselves in heaven in Watsons Bay, a harbourside Sydney suburb.
In 2 Little Kiwi Birds New Zealand Les and Beryl travel the length of New Zealand and proclaim they will make visitors “haere mai”. Beryl is Ayers’ middle name and Les is one of her husband’s names.
Each book has a QR code to download the accompanying song written and performed by Ayers. With fellow Kiwi and music producer Robin Workman she has recorded six children’s songs.
Her next children’s book and accompanying song will be about the colours of the rainbow.
An illustration from Angela Ayers' book 2 Little Kiwi Birds New Zealand.
Ayers loves working with kids. Getting into the self-publishing business has been a steep learning curve but she is proud of what she has achieved. An Argentinian illustrator through Creative Illustrations Studio brought kiwi birds Les and Beryl to life.
“It is a good feeling to have accomplished what I have done when I had no idea that I was going there.”
Ayers hopes Air New Zealand and Qantas will include her books and songs in their kids’ packs.
Ayers and her older brother and sister lived in Guy Ave. She went to Central Normal School, then Monrad Intermediate and Palmerston North Girls’ High School.
She used to dance with Michelle Robinson and appeared in Palmerston North Operatic Society shows.
She came back to her home city to attend Central Normal’s sesquicentennial at the weekend.
She remembers walking across the wooden bridge behind her house to get to school. She hadn’t been back since 2019 when her mother Betty died and she was looking forward to a tiki tour of Manawatū.
In 1972, she moved to Auckland. At 23, she was told she was too old to be a pop singer and was overexposed and washed up. Ayers viewed the move to Sydney in 1976 as a stepping stone to achieving her dream of appearing in the West End or Broadway. It wasn’t to be but she found plenty of work in Australia getting into chorus lines and musicals.
Angela Ayers in Menopause The Musical in 2006. Photo / Supplied
In 2000, Ayers and her family came back to New Zealand and lived in Auckland for eight years. It was a painful time as she felt shut out of the Kiwi entertainment industry. She couldn’t believe people didn’t want the knowledge she had gained from overseas and felt if she stayed in New Zealand she would never sing again.
So the family returned to Sydney and has been back there for 15 years. More recently, she has been a cabaret artist. Simple Dreams: The Songs of Linda Ronstadt is her tribute show to an artist she truly admires.
A career highlight was singing the New Zealand National Anthem to more than 90,000 people at a Bledisloe Cup match in Melbourne.
Angela Ayers, Steve Maharey and Ray Columbus at the New Zealand Music Month opening party, in Auckland in 2007. Photo / Bradley Ambrose
Ayers and her husband, childhood sweetheart Wayne Harris, have four children between them aged 30 to 40. They have five granddaughters with a grandson on the way. Harris is also from Palmerston North.
The growing family is another reason why she thought it was a good time to write children’s books.
Ayers says she is forever a salesperson - making a book sale on the shuttle bus on her way to Sydney Airport last week.
She has created a lot of material in the past three years, including writing half her memories and co-writing a musical. She would like to publish a book of poems for adults.
