Memorial to Tanya Burr, killed 15 September 2002
Kieran's memories of his sister
Kieran said a few weeks after the funeral that he would have liked to have spoken there, if someone had guided him over what to say. However, it was not something anyone even thought to suggest for a (then) 11-year-old to do at his sister's emotion-charged funeral. He feels that no-one - police, media, etc. - is interested in what he had to say about the sister he battled with all his life, but whom at the same time he loved and desperately wishes he'd been able to protect. (Tanya's view of Kieran was similar if anyone had else besides her picked on him). This then is his memory of Tanya:
My Memories of Tanya
By Kieran - 27 November 2002
Franz Joseph Glacier?
I feel really sad that I don’t have a sister that I
can play Scrabble with any more. I didn’t realize I’d miss her this much,
because we found each other irritating. Everything I got, Tanya had to have, and
everything Tanya got I had to have. I always looked forward to her coming down
from Rotorua, because Mum’s always on the computer and its good to have
someone else here who isn’t.
The last memories I have of her was looking through her photos with her and Mum, and in the morning she had given me a pack of chocolates. She had told me they were very expensive chocolates and not to eat them all at once. She said she’d have bought me a Toblerone, but they can be bought in New Zealand. She had visited the Toblerone factory in Switzerland. The night before, I had given her a picture of a teddy that I had made at Technocraft. It says “To Tanya, From Kieran”. Next time I saw it, she was dead and I saw that she had put it into her photo album. I saw it when I got to Tokorangi.
Russell and Jenna took me out to Tokorangi on Thursday evening and I stayed the night sleeping on a mattress next to Tanya. When we first got there, we went to the dining room and I was looking for Mum. So I went to the meetinghouse. The first part of it I was scared, cause I didn’t know what she would look like, but then I got used to being with Tanya. When I walked over and asked “Is that Tanya?” I gave Mum a fright because she didn’t know I was there. I wasn’t expecting an open coffin in the first place. She just looked like her, but like a doll made to look like her. If I hadn’t known she had been murdered, I wouldn’t have been able to tell that she had been murdered. She just looked asleep and not at all injured. But I could only see her face.
I liked being out at Tokorangi, cause I liked being with lots of people and being with Tanya. I didn’t mind sleeping there (in Poupatete Meetinghouse). I just got under my blankets and fell asleep. I think I had my hand on the coffin’s handle when I fell asleep. Two or three days later I heard that I lifted my head up while I was half asleep and Anita and Cate, who were on the other side of the coffin, got a fright because it in the half dark it looked like Tanya was lifting her head up!
I didn’t really talk to many people there, because I was too shy. I mostly talked to my Dad, Clara, Ira, Hannah (the girl who asked lots of questions all the time) and Tanya’s friends. Also Uncle Russell and Jenna, and Uncle Bruce. Uncle Paul, Auntie Karen and David were there too, but I can’t remember if I talked to them as well.
I came into town (Palmerston North) in the funeral procession with Mum. Dad was driving the 4WD wagon with Tanya and there were quite a few cars. We stopped at the other meetinghouse at Tokorangi (Te Tikanga) where there was another tangi taking place. We visited and said hello to the people there. Tanya came in too.
Then we went to our house in Kelvin Grove and took Tanya inside there for a little while. They put new makeup on Tanya and I got dressed up into a suit Uncle Russell had hired. Afterwards we went to Kelvin Grove Community Centre for the funeral service. I saw a few people from school there. I cried for a bit. I also cried when they were carrying out the coffin. I would have liked to have talked at the funeral, but they didn’t ask people to speak (other than those already selected to speak).
Then we went out to the cemetery and it was very cold there. Mum and I went out there in the hearse with Tanya. We stopped the procession for a few moments outside our place and outside Grandpa’s place for a few moments, so Tanya could visit for the last time. We (me, Mum and Dad) got handed a rose to drop into the grave. Then we all helped fill in the grave. I had two turns. One was quite long, but one was about two shovel-fulls.
Then we went back to the community centre and had some food. That is the end of the funeral part. Later – after we watched Tanya’s funeral on the TV3 News - we went over to Dannevirke, to Sarla’s restaurant for dinner, and Anita and Vito (who used to work with Tanya and Anita) waited on us. James and Margaret (from Rotorua), Anita and James’ Dad, Donna, Chris (from Auckland), Bruce, and some other Rotorua people were also there. Then we came home.
My First Memories of Tanya – 3-5
My memories from back then aren’t very good. I can remember me and Tanya always playing with her dolls and toys but we both grew out of that.
I can remember a few people from when Tanya was at Whakarongo School. The only Whakarongo School friends of Tanya’s I know now are Anita and Mara. I see Mara a lot at Biofarm when I’m there. Tanya also went to Queen Elizabeth College for a while with Mara, and Dannevirke High School with Anita. I called Anita ‘Meeta’ and she thought it was funny. Then I called her Ameeta for a while. Then I found out what her name really was! I don’t know any other high school friends of Tanya’s anymore.
I can remember my third birthday. We have a video of Tanya and I and Russell and Mum eating my birthday cake. She was annoying then. She teased me. I remember her having music up loud all the time when Mum was out. Also feeding me corn fritters, even though I hated corn. She teased me by putting Molly (our elderly cat she loved) in the oven for a few seconds. She liked scary horror movies. I didn’t like them, but I watched them. I could only watch my videos when Tanya wasn’t here. She picked me up from grandpa’s after school on her bike for a while, and carried me home sitting on the handlebars of her bike. Then Mum growled because it wasn’t safe and was also damaging the bike. She still did it for a while after that.
When Tammy (still our cat) and her brother Tom Kitten were little (and were orphaned), Tanya made a box for them. It was really cool. It had stairs and all sorts of other things.
In my first year at school for buddies
(trying to make friends with other kids at school you get put into peers with
another kid older or younger) my buddy was Tanya’s friend Seth Strawbridge.
The year before, Tanya and I had
given his family a kitten called Tom Kitten. In early 2001, he got killed in a
car accident and the only 2 people to have cats from that same litter both died.
In Thomas' hayshed at 'Buchanans'
Memories of Tanya-5-8
I didn’t see much of Tanya at this time cause she was hanging out with scumbag friends she had found at High School. They tried to put on a pretty face around mum, but when she was gone they were nasty pieces of shit. Tanya still had her good old friends such as Anita who lived in Dannevirke but still visited frequently. Tanya decided that her new evil friends were better than her nice friends from Whakarongo School. In 1996 Aunty Clara took me and Tanya to the Marae. I can’t really remember it though.
In early 1997, me Tanya and Russell went to the South Island. We travelled to a lot of places like glaciers, lakes, cities, and just plain sightseeing. At one of the lakes, Tanya said to block my nose - I didn’t - she dunked me. Tanya got really bored on the whale watching boat. When we got back to Wellington, Tanya walked off the ferry in a snot. We found her halfway down the road. She had been looking for us cause she got scared cause a guy had tried to pick her up. Tanya moved out and started flatting in early 1998. We sometimes took her to Aunty Pam’s for our weekly family meal.
Memories of Tanya-9-12
Tanya was really sad in 1999 when Great Aunty Vera died, and later in the year Grandpa died. It was Tanya’s first year at UCOL, also the year she had heaps of bad flatmates who didn’t pay the rent. In the beginning of 2000, Me, Mum, and Tanya went to Somes Island We didn’t have electricity half the day and Tanya didn’t like that, and me and Tanya got really bored and all we could do was play noughts and crosses and hangman. We were worried that the boat would be a day late cause it was a stormy night and the faulty window kept on crashing. When we did get home, Tanya went back to her flat.
Somes Island, with the drawing games on the table
Later in the year Tanya started looking after me when mum went out. I enjoyed the young kittens Phoebe and Puffball, the Playstation and also the company of Tanya. So I didn’t love it when Tanya moved to Rotorua. I only visited Tanya twice in Rotorua, although she visited us a number of times over the last two years of her life, like over the Christmas holidays she told us that Phoebe and Puffball had ripped her Christmas tree to bits.
Sparring with Tanya after the Christmas 2001 evening BBQ at Uncle Russell's and Auntie Jenna's
Mum bought Tanya one of those 21st keys for her 21st birthday party in the pokie room at State of Art Café in Dannevirke on 23rd May 2002. We all pigged out there for 2 hours.
Me, Mum, and Tanya left for Norway on the 12th of August 2002 and got really jet lagged and couldn’t get to sleep. We got to Norway and stayed at Tom, Britt and Elin’s. It was Russell and Jennas wedding on Saturday. There were about 20 people there. The next day we went to Pasotorpet. An old cottage there was a new hut there called Pasokoia. On the way back, we stopped at a healthy spring to fill up our drink bottles, but the water was orange so Tanya didn’t want it. But there was nothing wrong with it. Russell and Jenna the next day went on a tour to the upper part of Norway and Uncle Paul went to Milan. The next day us who were left went to Sweden for the day. Me and Tanya were enjoying being in both countries at the same time. The day before Tanya Pam and Dennis went to England, we visited Hamar to see Stan and family. We visited boring museums, which only the adults enjoyed.
Tired and bored stiff at Heathrow, en route to Norway
At the wedding
It all came so quick and shocked me so much I was really sad and will be for the rest of my life. It hadn’t even been a month since Russell and Jenna’s wedding when it happened. Goodbye Tanya.
