KERRY RACKHAM-MCGREGOR

7 October 99

Hi everyone, Kerry here. Thought I'd better not be absolutely the last to get off my tail and write!!   When we left Samoa in July/August 94, we went back to Australia (via NZ for a month's holiday) and I completed the final term of 5th form ( equivilent to 6th form in Samoa and NZ) in Melbourne. 85 was form 6 (or form 7/ Bursary).After that, I decide to delay any tertiary education for a year, and work, go flatting etc. I went over to NZ  (Palmerston North!) mid  July 87 to spend some time with Tai, as his Father had died, and he was pretty much left as 'man of the family'.  I ended up meeting my first husband there (please oh please tell me that SOMEONE out there has been married twice??!) :-)   He and I got married in Melbourne in January 90, then moved over to Christchurch where he had a contract with The Court Theatre (he's an actor). For that time I did lots of bits and pieces, fitting in around his weird working hours: 10am till 5pm, 7pm till 11pm - drinks from11pm till 2am!!! Mainly I was cooking in an arty all night cafe in The Arts centre, along with some nanny and office work during the days. We split up at the end of 91 (committment and acting are not such good companions...) and I ditched all the bits and pieces, working only for a family who owned a school  book supplies company as their office manager/ chef/ nanny! They became very close family friends, and the children meant the world to me, so it was devastating to lose the young boy, Edward, to a rare heart disease when he turned 11. The wee girl, Liz, is now 17 (gulp!!) and it seems I have had some influence - she wants to train as a chef!  :-) In Nov 92 the company franchised, and so I took on a job with Reed Publishing as their rep for the South Island - great fun. I took over the job from  Ian McGregor,  their existing rep, who had been promoted to the Auckland territory> He and I married in September of 94, and we moved to Wellington, where I took on another rep job managing the Wellington territory for Harper Collins Publishers. After 2 years redundancies hit the trade, so I took off for a low stress office job in a consulting firm - initially for a few months while we planned to return to Australia, but in the end we took a year to get organised! Ian, by this stage, had swapped streams too (- the publishing industry has just collapsed in NZ - almost all companies have relocated to Australia and are either serviced from there or all buying is done through head office -damn Whitcoulls!!) He trained as a technical writer and was doing a variety of contract work. We moved to Melbourne in August 97 when I was 4 months pregnant with our first daughter, Eilish, who was born Feb 28 1998 Three months later, #2 daughter was on the way(!!!) and Ciara was born on Feb 25 1999! Ian has worked for MYOB as the  head of the technical communications department, and I have been fulltime mum- ing it! What I would love to do, once the kids are off to school, is do a sign language course and train as an interpreter. I need to do some research into demand, but it has been something that has interested me for a long time. I toy with the idea of my own cafe sometimes, - I agree with you Konrad that the ability to do it on your own gives incredible freedom -  but think I enjoy cooking too much to risk ending up hating it by working in the trade! It can be a bit demoralising I think. I'll see - for the moment the girls keep me busy enough! That's enough  rambling from me anyway - it is great to hear from everyone about the last 15 years! It has been wonderful to see a few of you over this time - Felicia and I had a blast in NZ just after Ross and I separated, and I bumped into Leinani in Palmerston North a few years back too - took a while to recognise each other! Michele Jessep and I were in touch for years, but lost contact just before I moved to Melbourne, when she moved to Nelson with her new man. If anyone has heartd from her recently, please let me know. Would love to do the reunion thing at some point and see everyone! ciao for now Kerry