The Day That Changed My Life
Myrtle Ann Gillies
2000
The day that changed my life was Sunday 19th November 2000 and I was in New Zealand. My friend Margaret and I were driving our hire car from Geraldine to Mount Somers, a winter sports resort in the foothills of the Southern Alps, when we saw that sign - the sign that was to change my life.
What were we doing in the South Island of New Zealand? It's a long story but suffice it to say that my Mother, Mary McMillan, had kept in touch with her cousins in New Zealand for many years and had planned to go there when she and my Father retired. She had shown me photographs of a number of these cousins and I knew how important the contact was to her. Sadly Mum died before she could ever keep her promise to her New Zealand relatives. When we were sorting out Mum's belongings, Dad gave me the NZ photographs and my husband, John, suggested that we, when we retired, should make the trip to NZ on Mum's behalf. Sadly, John himself died very suddenly in 1995 at the age of 57 and I found myself having to adjust to life without him.
I was due to retire in 1999 and I made up my mind to make the trip to NZ in 2000. I booked a tour, starting in Auckland and finishing in Christchurch. I knew that a number of Mum's relatives lived in Ashburton, about 60 miles south of Christchurch. So I arranged to pick up a hire car and delayed my return to the UK for 4 days, during which I would try to track down my relatives. After I had booked the tour and the flights to and from NZ, my friend Margaret decided to join me. So there we were - and there was that sign. It read 'Glenacardoch Farm Belgium Blues' and bore a hand-painted picture of a very large bull. Since we had left Ashburton that Sunday morning and toured around part of the Canterbury Plains, having lunch in Geraldine, we decided to head for the snow capped mountains that formed a dramatic backdrop to the plains. After all, we were Scots, accustomed to the hills and mountains and these endless flat green fields (called paddocks in New Zealand) were just a bit boring. The network of roads criss-crossing the plains was confusing to say the least and we took several wrong turnings. It was due to these quirks of fate that we came across that farm sign at all. But there it was - Glenacardoch Farm - the same name as the farm where my Grandfather, Matthew McMillan, was born and brought up on the Kintyre Peninsula; the same name as my Grandfather's house in Gordon Street, Dunoon, where my Mother was brought up. Surely it was far too much of a coincidence!
Farmers, Charles and Barbara Sewell, greeted us warmly and we discovered that he was a grandson of Mary Sewell, nee McMillan, who was one of my Mum's most regular contacts in New Zealand. Mary and her husband Charlie Sewell had lived in that very house and called it Glenacardoch after her father's home in Scotland. Because of the 20 year age difference between Matthew, the youngest of the family, and his eldest brother, Duncan, who had emigrated to NZ, there is still a wide age gap between many of the NZ family and me. Charles put me in touch with his Aunt Ruth in Ashburton and from that point my life has changed. I had taken Mum's NZ photos with me and was astonished to find that Ruth had inherited an almost identical set of photos from her Mother, Mum's first cousin also Mary McMillan. Ruth had a photograph of me taken to mark my 21st birthday that my mother had sent to her mother. Ruth introduced me to many of our relations in and around Ashburton and Christchurch and we were able to compare notes on the family history which had developed on opposite sides of the world. It was an amazing, never to be forgotten experience.
I have so far made six visits to NZ, met 23 relatives there and made friends with quite a number of Kiwis. A number of them have visited me in this country as well as making me welcome in their homes around NZ. I now feel almost as much at home there as I do in Scotland. New Zealand is a beautiful country of enormous contrasts, dramatic scenery and friendly, self-reliant people. There are striking contrasts in culture and lifestyle between the descendents of the British settlers who came to NZ 160 or so years ago and the Maori people who had settled there many centuries earlier. As a Gael, I feel a strong affinity to the Maori people who often came into conflict with the early settlers and who suffered many of the pressures and injustices experienced by Gaelic speakers in Scotland. Yet these settlers are my kith and kin.
I love NZ and its people and my travels have broadened my horizons and given me confidence to travel widely, make friends around the world and tackle all sorts of challenges in my life absolutely head on. As an only child with few close relatives in this country, I had faced a lonely widowhood. Thanks to Sunday 19th November 2000 I am happy, fully occupied and able to contribute usefully to my community here in Scotland. In New Zealand, I have been accepted as an integral part of a large widely scattered, multi-talented and fascinating family - you see, Great-uncle Duncan McMillan had 15 children and 49 grandchildren!
