A journey back to a foreign country

ALL ABOUT FAMILY: Ann Williams (nee Sticovich) with her grandchildren Astyn (left), Gianni and Kingston Hobman-Williams.

'The past is a foreign country: they do things differently there.'

So began English novelist LP Hartley's 1953 novel The Go-Between. And Kaitaia woman Ann Williams knows exactly what he meant.

Ann (nee Sticovich) is very proud of her family, and particularly her parents, Giovanni (Johnny) and Rosa Sticovich, with good cause. She was born and raised in the relatively benign environment of the Hokianga and Kaitaia, but her parents and three older siblings had a much harder row to hoe.

She tells that story in From Istra to Kaitaia, beginning with her parents' early lives in Yugoslavia/Croatia (or Italy, depending on where the border was at any given time). There they endured the hardships that were common in that region in the early 20th century, and World War II, which did not leave them unscathed.

In 1951 they began considering emigrating, initially to Canada but finally to New Zealand (because it would accept three children, none of them over the age of 14.) They sailed for the other side of the world wearing as many clothes as they could, the maximum of one suitcase, what little money they had and a small sack of food, mainly bread and cheese.

When they arrived at their refugee camp in Pahiatua their wealth totalled $22.90.

They worked hard though, and in due course moved to Auckland, where the children went to school and their parents found work. They subsequently bought a small piece of land (for $1600 cash), where they built a modest home and grew strawberries, until 1957, when they moved to Pawarenga, when they began dairy farming on what even for those days would have been a very small scale.

The family still didn't have it easy, but nothing Ann writes suggests that they were aggrieved or disappointed. Bigger farms followed their first purchase, and they became part of the local community.

Giovanni and Rosa would eventually retire in Kaitaia (although both continued working for some time). They passed away there, both at the age of 81.

The stories Ann tells of growing up in the Hokianga particularly will resonate with many of her generation. Few would have shared her heritage, but the poverty (by modern standards), the understanding that nothing would be achieved or gained without hard work, the self-sufficiency, the pride taken in earning an honest living were common qualities then.

Giovanni and Rosa never lost their gratitude for the fact that they had been accepted in New Zealand, or their determination to be good citizens. Ann recalls being woken one night and taken outside the house to see a kiwi that the dogs had killed. She remembers her father recognising the bird as protected by law, and his fear that its death could see him and his family deported back to Yugoslavia.

Anyone who believes that life is hard now, that the age of opportunity is over, should read this book. They might gain some understanding of the huge physical effort, the courage, pride and determination that went into laying the foundations of what we have now. And they might well marvel at how much has changed in such a short time, how the past has become a foreign country.

-From Istra to Kaitaia by Ann Williams. Available at Marston Moor.