Draft 2 PhD Introduction - ResearchSpace@Auckland

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everything, but on the other hand, she would have had to ask him. And it was his
country […] and he was nearly forty […]. It was his country and he knew all about
it”. 236
Judy had come from a very different culture. Ingrid describes her mother’s family as
being “quite cultured” and her mother and her sisters as being “strong women” who
came from a strong matriarchal family. This could be seen as accounting to some
extent for Ward’s first three films centring on female characters and for his fascination
with characters who are outsiders in society. Certainly, others such as Graeme Barnes,
a high school friend of Vincent’s, feel that Vincent was like his mother in terms of his
looks and personality and that perhaps he identified more strongly with his mother than
his father. 237 Marianne describes her mother as being “articulate and forthright, with
strong opinions on life”, but she concedes that the whole family “has strong opinions”
and that they always had “interesting” family discussions. 238
Both the parents were “very intelligent and educated and wanting to discuss current
issues”, according to Ingrid. She talks about her father growing up in the Depression,
on an isolated farm. He attended a one-teacher primary school and then a Catholic
boarding school, but had to leave because his family could not afford to pay for his
schooling during the Depression, something he regretted all his life. She describes him
as being “self-educated” and having a “wonderful grasp of language, a better grasp than
any of us because he’d read a lot good literature and he liked language”. 239 Marianne
states that their father was the one who was “in charge of” all their education. Initially,
he did his duty and sent the children to Catholic schools but he also wanted his children
to be educated in a coeducational environment and subsequently they all attended local
high schools. 240
Pat’s love of literature had a strong influence on the family, according to Ingrid: “My
father loved books, so he used to read to us when we were young and books had a high
value, even though we didn’t have a huge number of books at home”. She describes
herself and her sister Marianne as being “bookworms”. Interestingly however, her
236 Lynette Read, interview with Ingrid Ward, 15 April 1999.
237 Lynette Read, interview with Graeme Barnes, 16 December 1999.
238 Lynette Read, interview with Marianne Chandler, 1 October 1999.
239 Lynette Read, interview with Ingrid Ward, 15 April 1999.
240 Lynette Read, interview with Marianne Chandler, 1 October, 1999.