Never much of a fashion icon, Aunty Margie always wore old floral dresses with holey cardigans and football socks. This was standard attire except on those occasions when she went out, in which case she would tidy up a bit.

In the old days when we had no car, and sometimes after did, Aunty Margie would make the occasional visits to our place in Papatoetoe. She would come by bus and Warwick and I would often wait at the nearest bus stop for her. Sometimes she would bring Harry Mayne, the son of her good friends Laurie and Dawn Mayne. Harry was around Warwick’s age, so we would play a few games and generally hang out with him.

When we had a car, we would make visits to Aunty Margie’s, and I always enjoyed this. Her funny little ramshackle house with it’s musty smell, and sitting in the tiny lounge on decrepit chairs having afternoon tea that Mum always took over. Her and Mum would chat away about all these people I didn’t know, and Aunty Margie would tell us about all the bargains she had got since we were last there, or complain about the cost of something.

After we had the kids, they would go over with us, and they were always a little bemused. On one occasion, Karyn leaned too hard on the armrest of a chair, and it just fell off, sending her into a fit of barely controlled giggling.

Later on, as we got our own cars, Warwick and I would take Mum over. The routine never changed. We started getting jobs to do like mowing the lawn or cutting firewood. Aunty Margie never had a phone, but she would ring from a neighbour’s or friend’s place and drop hints to Mum that it was time we went over, and could we take this or that when we came. This or that was usually the chainsaw or the lawnmower. Her section was on a steep slope, so mowing the lawn was a bit of a mission. Later on, she actually paid somebody to do the lawn, much to our amazement.

Visits were always on a Sunday afternoon, and Mum would spend the morning baking and filling tines with cakes, biscuits and other treats. Aunty Margie had a sweet tooth. There was also left over soup, meat and other things. When we arrived, Aunty Margie would carefully inspect all the offerings and would sometimes frown and complain that we hadn’t taken enough! On one occasion, Mum had told her about a fruit flan I had made, so she put in her order. When we arrived with freshly baked muffins, and no fruit flan, she was so annoyed that she barely spoke to me. When it was time to go home, she would gather up all these grotty old magazines and spotty old fruit that somebody had given her, and give them to us, along with anything that needed fixing.

I got the call from Mum in May 2002 that Aunty Margie had died. The lady across the road hadn’t seen her for a couple of days and called the police who got in a window and found her in bed. There were remains of a meal in the kitchen and a few groceries she had bought within the last couple of days. Her death was attributed to Myocardial Infarction - in other words, her heart just stopped.

In keeping with her wishes, and very much in the style of Mum & Dad, there was no actual funeral. I was all set to go but Mum had already called the funeral director and Margie was cremated without ceremony, with her ashes sprinkled in the gardens at Schnapper Rock Cemetery. Some people, on hearing this, are horrified, but it was exactly what Aunty Margie wanted.