Memorial to Tanya Burr, killed 15 September 2002

Portraits (part 1)

Tanya aged three days (15 May 1981) as a stroppy headstrong baby. Her stroppiness probably traced to me overworking dramatically over the last six months of my pregnancy in the course of buying my house - after her father and I broke up. The only time she fell asleep in my arms was amongst the noisy animal ear tag stamping machines at Delta Plastics Ltd. (later Allflex) when I called in to visit my former workmates when she was a few weeks old.

Tanya and I when Tanya was 13 weeks old. So about mid-August 1981

An Evening Standard photo of Tanya in October 1981 aged five months, photographed receiving the first Plunket rental infant car seat issued in Palmerston North. Our seat, Seat No. 1, was still around when Kieran received his rental car seats (i.e. baby and later infant seats) nine years later. The woman with Tanya is Laraine Willshire, of the Plunket Society, and my tired old Humber Hawk (since sold for restoration) provides the backdrop. The first issue consisted only of ten seats donated to Plunket by the Palmerston North Kiwanis Society, so we were quite lucky.

The photo was published in the Evening Standard on 22 October 1981, as part of an article on the use of safety belts. The other photo was of a car from a fatal car crash, the family of the two deceased girls having 'taken it on the road' to convey this message. Had I known this in advance, I would have pointed out that Tanya had already survived her first car crash when I was about four months pregnant. The car I was driving (my Mum's Triumph 2000!!!) had been hit from the left and rolled three times - and written off - at the dangerous Ashhurst-SH3 intersection. Until then I seldom used seat belts (despite the legalities), but had put it on for unknown reasons as I drove along SH3 barely five minutes earlier. Without it, at least one of us (Tanya and I) would have been killed. The other driver was prosecuted, and we couldn't have been hit by a nicer and more kindly - and utterly shocked - elderly couple!.

Studio portrait from 1983, aged about two

August 1995

Whakarongo School portrait from 1988, aged about seven

Whakarongo School portrait from 1991, aged about ten

Whakarongo School portrait from 1994, aged about thirteen