Leading from the front issuu

STAMINA AND RESOLVE
WITH NO EQUAL
by martin williams, barrister
I first met Pat Magill in about May 2008 at our house
in Cameron Road, soon after we moved to Napier from
Auckland. My parents Jon and Helen Williams had met
Pat on several occasions, and knew that he used to live
in our house from the time he was born in the mid-1920s
until (I think) the late 1940s or early 1950s, when he was
married. My Mum had read a book written by his sister
Marie called Irish in the Blood which she loaned to me,
and I had read prior to meeting Pat.
This book tells the story of a family growing up during
the depression and post-earthquake era in a loving but
strict Brethren household. Many of the stories were of
course set within rooms of the house now occupied by
our family, and I found it fascinating to learn that history
through reading those stories about the house we now
lived in. Also, about Pat’s antics as a youngster, such
as getting hold of a transistor radio (which was strictly
banned in the household), or in later life, returning home
a little worse for wear after a football match and a few
beers with his mates.
Stories also of Marie sitting at the window seat of
the room my daughter now occupied, looking wistfully
out over the city and hearing the music of a dance in
town that she longed to be part of. Hearing how Pat’s
father had a premonition of the earthquake so the family
Through meeting Pat, my
world view was transformed.
I began to very much believe
in and still champion to this
day a model whereby social
wellbeing is best achieved
through enabling everyone in
our communities to realise
their full potential.
headed out of town for safety; then how they received
a message that there had been a catastrophe in Napier
and they quickly returned to help people out as a family.
Of how the house needed to be shifted back and reset,
having fallen off its piles. Of how the house used to be a
private school back in the 1890s and how Pat’s mother
Martin Williams and Pat, walking, talking and walking the talking.
Napier Pilot City Trust – for a kinder, fairer city 129