Mary Baigent's lifetime of service
Mary Baigent; “We’re all here to help each other.” Photo: Neil Wilson.
Mary Baigent’s philosophy of life is that “we’re all here to help each other”, and she has certainly done her share of helping.
A life member of the Golden Bay A & P Association, the Women’s Division of Federated Farmers (now Rural Women), the Abel Tasman Scouting District and the Golden Bay Work Centre Trust, Mary also holds the prestigious ranks of Nursing Sister and Officer in the Order of St John. She was also involved with the Golden Bay Community Workers and was president of the Community Centre Committee. For all her community service, Mary received the Queen’s Service Medal in 1991.
“I was honoured to receive my QSM from Dame Cath Tizard, our first lady Governor-General,” said Mary. “She was lovely.”
Mary says her life of service to others was a result of her challenging childhood.
“I didn’t have a very happy childhood after my mother died,” said Mary, “So I decided very early on that if I ever had anything to do with children I’d treat them better than I was treated. With my own children and all the other kids I met through cubs and scouts, St John and everything else, I ended up having a happy childhood over and over again.”
Mary was born in Te Kuiti on 25 February, 1927. “I was named Evelyn Ellen Mary Moore after my mother and her mother,” she said. “I was the eldest girl and my father thought the sun shone for me.”
Mary’s mother died in childbirth in 1932. Things became very tough for the family. Mary’s father eventually remarried and her new stepmother made her life miserable. “I think my stepmother was jealous of my relationship with my father, and she did everything she could to come between us.”
Mary’s father refused to take the dole during the Great Depression of the 1930s and the family had to move often so that he could get work. Mary attended 17 different schools and changed schools 19 times in her 6½ year school career. “I was never at a school for long. I was always the new girl.”
At Rangitoto School in the King Country, Mary was given the strap for the first and only time. “Two boys were having a conversation in Maori in the playground,” said Mary. “I was a fluent Maori speaker until I was about eight, and I joined in their conversation. One of the boys got six of the best but I only got one. This was at the time when the school system was trying to get all the Maori children to just speak English. On my mother’s side, my iwi is Te Atiawa. I’m related to people from northern Taranaki. It was the most natural thing in the world for me to speak in Maori when I was a child. I lost it later but I’d really like to take Te Reo lessons now.”
From the age of seven Mary knew that she wanted to be a nurse. “There were healers and helpers on both sides of my family,” she said. “My father wasn’t keen for me to be a nurse because of what he’d seen during the First World War. He thought the work was too hard and he tried to talk me out of it, but I was very determined.”
You had to be 18 before you could begin nursing training, and Mary spent her early teens in poorly paid housemaid positions in Auckland before making her way to Nelson, where she first enquired about training.
“I was one birthday short,” said Mary, “But the matron told me there was a nurse-aide’s position at the Golden Bay Cottage Hospital. I could come over and give it a try to see whether I was suited to nursing.” So, in 1944, the 17-year-old Mary arrived in Takaka by Newmans service car.
“I got out in Takaka and asked where the hospital was. Of course I’d been right past it on the way into town from East Takaka. There was a man there with a taxi and he offered to run me back to the hospital. When I got there and asked him what I owed him, he said ‘nothing’. I remember thinking, ‘If this is the place I’ve come to, it’ll do me.’ That was my first experience of kindness in Golden Bay and I’ve enjoyed lots more since then.”
Mary worked at the hospital for nearly year and “took to the work like a duck to water”. She shared a room with a fellow nurse aide, Nita Papps, whose father Roly was the teacher at Central Takaka School. The family used to have a sing-along around the piano on Sunday nights and Mary was invited to join them. When it was time to go home, Roly deputed another of his guests, Keith Baigent, to escort the young Mary back to her quarters at the hospital. So began a romance that blossomed into marriage and ensured that Mary would eventually make the Bay her home.
When the Baigents’ three sons, Rex, Noel and Graeme, were growing up, Mary’s sense of service, fun and playfulness led her into being a cub leader. Her involvement with that movement was to last 30 years. It saw her progressing with her sons from cubs to scouts and started her connection with the Order of St John.
“I used to take the cubs and scouts out into the hills,” said Mary. “On one trip Colin Taylor, whose father had the limeworks, fell and hurt his head. I remember thinking that if I was going to have the boys out in the hills a lot, I’d better do something about first aid.”
This led to Mary’s 31-year-long immense contribution to Golden Bay St John. After joining the brigade in 1964, Mary became an ambulance driver, an instructor and examiner, a voluntary hospital aide and the superintendent of the adult division.
The Golden Bay Work Centre Trust has also enjoyed Mary’s support for 30 years. She is their only life member and she still takes an active interest in their affairs. “I was in town one day all those years ago and saw some women walking down the driveway to the work centre. Being interested and nosy, I got Willie Butler to introduce me to some of the women. That’s how I met Helen Bracefield and Merrin Westerink. I remember some of my husband’s relations being a bit horrified with my involvement there. They told me I was at risk of all sorts of terrible things. It’s a pity that people don’t visit and see it’s the wonderful institution it is now.”
Mary’s strong Christian faith is very important to her. She worships at the Church of Christ at Milnthorpe these days, but she was baptised an Anglican, confirmed a Methodist and received her entire secondary education—one year—at two Roman Catholic girls’ schools.
After suffering a stroke in 2006, Mary became quite despondent about her lost independence, but she has fought back with great determination and faith, regained her speech and a fair amount of mobility.
Living at the Joan Whiting Rest Home brings her great happiness, she says. “This is my home now. It’s filled with fun and laughter and I’m very happy here.”
Neil Wilson
