New Zealand 21

Listen to New Zealand 21, a 55-year-old man from New Zealand’s South Island, particularly Foxhill (near Nelson) and Christchurch. Click or tap the triangle-shaped play button to hear the subject.

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BIOGRAPHICAL INFORMATION

AGE: 55

DATE OF BIRTH (DD/MM/YYYY): 22/07/1970

PLACE OF BIRTH: Westport, New Zealand

GENDER: male

ETHNICITY: New Zealand Pākehā

OCCUPATION: mechanic

EDUCATION: high school

AREAS OF RESIDENCE OUTSIDE REPRESENTATIVE REGION FOR LONGER THAN SIX MONTHS:

The subject was born and has lived on the South Island of New Zealand for his entire life to date. Born in Westport, he spent from birth to age two in Granity, a remote village in the Karamea region of New Zealand; at age two, he moved to the slightly less remote Runanga, also on the remote west coast of the South Island; and at age 10, he moved to Foxhill, near Nelson. He moved to the city of Christchurch at age 18, where he lived until age 40, when he moved to nearby Hororata, where he has lived for the last 15 years.

OTHER INFLUENCES ON SPEECH: N/A

The text used in our recordings of scripted speech can be found by clicking here.

RECORDED BY: David Nevell

DATE OF RECORDING (DD/MM/YYYY): 06/08/2025

PHONETIC TRANSCRIPTION OF SCRIPTED SPEECH: N/A

TRANSCRIBED BY: N/A

DATE OF TRANSCRIPTION (DD/MM/YYYY): N/A

ORTHOGRAPHIC TRANSCRIPTION OF UNSCRIPTED SPEECH:

Well, what if I can’t remember? So I was born in Westport, where we lived in Karamea or Granity, which is up the top of the west coast. Um, I was just talking about this with my mother, actually, yesterday, for some strange reason. And we moved to Runanga, when I was two, and we were in Runanga until — I would have been 10, probably, and 10, 10 to 12, somewhere around there, and then we moved to Nelson, um, just out of Nelson, a place called Foxhill, which is about 30 or 40k from Nelson, just on the edge of the forestry. Um, and I grew up there and then moved to Christchurch when I was 18. Left school when I was 18 and went to work in Christchurch. I stayed in Christchurch until — see the time is here — when I was about 40, so 15 years ago, and we moved to Horarata. Essentially 50k in land, so, so well traveled. …

So it’s a mining town, as such rundown. Very. Have you ever been to the coast, up that side of the coast? Oh, you’ll have to make a trip up there and have a look, ’cause if you drive through Runanga, you go, “Oh, gotcha.” [Subject laughs.] So, decrepit old houses, and my stepfather had a butchery on the main street, and obviously there’s a school and there’s, yeah, it’s all right, but it’s just rural west coast, so it’s quite, um, a unique, not as rural as Karamea. That is full rural. That’s across uh, um, called the Karamea Bluff, so it’s quite a large hill, and it’s the only road in or out. So, um, and it got — back in the day, it would get closed quite a lot, so they would have to fly a lot of stuff in or out to supply, um, all the families and dairy farmers that lived up there.

Um, on my mother’s side, her, her parents moved there when they were offered their job running the co-op store, which must be, I could guess, like a Foursquare, or I don’t even. I’m assuming it’s like a grocery supply store. Um, because they’d just had their business fail, a shop that they must have had. And I’m unsure where that was. I’m still in the middle of this conversation with mum. Um, and so they took over there, and that’s when my father was already in Karamea. They had a dairy farm — his parents did — and so they met there and, well, got married for better or for worse, but they had two children, and that was us; so that was our, our story.

TRANSCRIBED BY: David Nevell

DATE OF TRANSCRIPTION (DD/MM/YYYY): 11/08/2025

PHONETIC TRANSCRIPTION OF UNSCRIPTED SPEECH: N/A

TRANSCRIBED BY: N/A

DATE OF TRANSCRIPTION (DD/MM/YYYY): N/A

SCHOLARLY COMMENTARY: N/A

COMMENTARY BY: N/A

DATE OF COMMENTARY (DD/MM/YYYY): N/A

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