The author looks back with frank honesty on her life as an expatriate in developing countries and her personal search for a sense of integrity, belonging and community. From her early childhood in New Zealand and Fiji, she packed and followed her first husband to Hawaii, Iraq, Sudan, Vietnam and Jordan.
Working when she could as a journalist and teacher, she became disillusioned with her relationships with her husband and parents and the toll international life imposed on family life and her children.
When her daughter became seriously ill, she left for London and began again on her own, overcoming alcoholism and depression to find a new happiness within a second marriage
With her two children in English boarding schools, she went back to university, earning two masters’ degrees in English and International Relations. Her interest in politics led to her being a parliamentary candidate for the Liberal Democrats in the UK election in 1992. On her husband’s retirement they moved to Santa Barbara, California until his death in 1997. Several years of painful introspection led her to write this memoir as a way of achieving an examined life, “the only life worth living.”
The author looks back with frank honesty on her life as an expatriate in developing countries and her personal search for a sense of integrity, belonging and community. From her early childhood in New Zealand and Fiji, she packed and followed her first husband to Hawaii, Iraq, Sudan, Vietnam and Jordan.
Working when she could as a journalist and teacher, she became disillusioned with her relationships with her husband and parents and the toll international life imposed on family life and her children.
When her daughter became seriously ill, she left for London and began again on her own, overcoming alcoholism and depression to find a new happiness within a second marriage
With her two children in English boarding schools, she went back to university, earning two masters’ degrees in English and International Relations. Her interest in politics led to her being a parliamentary candidate for the Liberal Democrats in the UK election in 1992. On her husband’s retirement they moved to Santa Barbara, California until his death in 1997. Several years of painful introspection led her to write this memoir as a way of achieving an examined life, “the only life worth living.”
New Zealand was at war when I was born. By the end of 1940, New Zealanders were being called up or were volunteering to fight in North Arica against Rommel. Over the next few years, the country was depleted of its young men, including boys lying about their age, as they left to join the thousands already overseas. Between 1940 and 1943, about 140,00 volunteers sailed away, a huge proportion when the total population was only about 1,600,000.
Entire shearing gangs signed up, abandoning New Zealand’s sheep farms to the farmers’ wives to manage as best they could. One of my aunts managed the tobacco farms for her husband and his brothers while they went off to fight in Italy, and another aunt successfully ran their butcher shop while raising her young family. It was a matter of pride that women could drive trucks and tractors, raise their children, and pay the bills while their men were on the other side of the world engaged in a patriotic endeavor to save the mother country from Fascism.
But my parents were different. My father was a Quaker and a conscientious objector. As a result, my mother was somewhat ostracized by the neighbors in the small town of Masterton where I spent my first five years. Only the Methodist minister and his wife who lived on our street were understanding and I was christened in their church in gratitude. My father could have been sent to a detention camp along with many other conscientious objectors but was instead directed by the New Zealand Department of Agriculture to the essential service of growing food for the troops in the Pacific war. More than a third of all food received by American troops in the South Pacific came from New Zealand, with farmers growing great quantities of potatoes and cabbages. It was said that the acreage of cabbages multiplied to such an extent that the Americans revolted and dumped large quantities of the despised vegetable at sea.
My father was stationed in nearby Featherston and managed a large market garden operation with labor from the nearby Japanese prisoner of war camp. I have a hazy memory of going to the fields with him, in a coke-burning, gas-producing truck, modified in response to the gasoline shortage. It had a place to heat the kettle for inevitable cups of tea. Mile after mile of grey-green cabbages stretched off into the mist and on every row, it seemed, was a bent-over figure in prison blue, hoeing weeds. I was completely happy to be with my father, watching his competent hands make tea, keeping me safe and warm in the cab of his truck.
About 900 prisoners were housed at the camp, mostly Koreans and conscripts who had been captured at Guadalcanal. Many were young farmers who were happy enough to be working again in the fields instead of building airstrips on tropical islands.
A smaller group of prisoners arrived later. These men were about 240 officers and other ranks of the Imperial Japanese Army, Navy and Air Force. About half of them were crew from the Japanese cruiser Furutaka, which had been sunk during the Battle of Cape Esperance.
Ashamed to be prisoners, they refused to work, refusing to concede that compulsory work was allowed under the 1929 Geneva Convention on Prisoners of War. However, Japan had not agreed to the convention and the men subscribed to the Japanese concept of bushido, a warrior’s code of honor that demanded suicide rather than surrender. Fear of disgrace haunted the prisoners and they dreaded the dishonor of eventually being returned alive in shame to Japan.
On 25 February 1943, a group of about 240 staged a sit-down strike in their compound, refusing to work. Armed guards were brought in. One lieutenant, Adachi, refused to come out of the compound, and sat with his men. They demanded a meeting with the commandant, who instructed his adjutant to get them back to work.
Accounts vary on what happened next. It is believed that the camp adjutant shot and wounded Adachi. The Japanese then rose, either starting to rush or seeming about to rush at the guards. Although there had been no order to shoot, the guards opened fire with rifles and sub-machine guns as the Japanese threw stones and moved towards them.
The shooting lasted about 30 seconds. Thirty-one Japanese were killed instantly, 17 died later, and about 74 were wounded. One New Zealander was killed and six were wounded. (Te Ara, Encyclopedia of New Zealand)
Today, a plaque commemorates the site with a 17th-century haiku:
Behold the summer grass All that remains Of the dreams of warriors.
My father’s role in the Featherston mutiny remains unknown. I wish I had questioned him more while he was still alive. As a Quaker pacifist he would have been appalled at the bloodshed and if he had been at work that day, he would have probably been in the fields, pipe in mouth, cup of tea in hand as he watched the other prisoners tending the vegetables. He was well-liked by the laborers – one of them gave him an intricately carved wooden plaque depicting a Japanese scene of cherry blossom, a wooden bridge, and a tea house – but cut in half so that each piece could be hidden under the prisoner’s shirt and given separately to my father. It hung on a wall at home for many years, the glued split down the middle a reminder of those tragic days.
My mother subscribed for a while to Christian Scientist beliefs and during the war years she believed in natural remedies for childhood maladies. I remember gagging down the carrot juice which she made herself in the wash house by the kitchen – grating, pressing and straining carrots by the sack load. The smell of wet cement washtubs and her firm hand on my arm stick in my memory just as the lump of unstrained carrot stuck in my throat. She also collected rose hips from the wild roses that straggled along the country roads, turning them into rose hip syrup as a source of vitamin C for us in winter. She must have been very idealistic to have refused to have us vaccinated against whooping cough and would not let us have our tonsils removed as we grew older. That was a matter of some regret for me later when my schoolfriends boasted of living on ice cream for days after their tonsillectomies.
Our town had an American army base for troops for rest and recreation away from the war in the Pacific. The base was built on the showgrounds of Solway Park for some 2400 Marines. It must have been a considerable culture shock for men brought up in American suburban homes with central heating. The New Zealand winters were unpleasant, and the local diet of roast lamb was an unwelcome substitute for hamburgers. Many Americans were surprised by the spartan existence of wartime New Zealanders with no imported goods and a lack of luxuries due to rationing.
My parents had befriended an American –we called him GI Joe - an Italian American from San Francisco and homesick for his family. He came to our house for meals bringing gifts and I remember tasting a Hershey bar for the first time and falling in love instantly with America. Our main treat at the time was battleship-grey penny ice creams made from home-grown beet sugar.
The American presence in Masterton certainly changed its social structure. Quoted first in The Miami Daily News, April 1944 as ‘over-paid, over-sexed and over here’, the Americans brought a taste of glamour to the wartime austerity of New Zealand and while they were welcomed by lonely women, they were also a cause of unrest among New Zealand soldiers overseas. I suspect my favorite aunt was a casualty of American charm; I found out years later from another aunt that she could not have children because of an abortion during the war.
Suddenly, in strolled the Americans: all smiles, perfect teeth and looking like Clark Gable. Their uniforms were smart and well-tailored (at least by comparison with the New Zealanders’ ‘baggies’). They had money (about £5 – $400 – a week in pay, about twice what New Zealand soldiers were paid), and they were looking for fun. Their lucky date could expect taxi rides, meals out, exciting new tastes such as ice-cream sodas or cocktails with Manhattan names, evenings spent dancing wildly to bands or snuggling up at the movies, and a gift of nylons to clinch the deal. (NZ History, US Forces in NZ).
This caused some unrest among the soldiers overseas, imagining the worst about their women at home. There was a story about a young Maori soldier whose unit captured an Italian outpost in Libya and proceeded to drink the red wine they had “liberated.” The young soldier was tired of desert warfare and was concerned that his girlfriend back home was forgetting him, so, full of alcohol-fueled courage, he stole a motorcycle and headed off “to New Zealand.” As the cool desert air sobered him, he realized the tanks he was passing had German insignia on the sides and they were heading for his friends. He did a u -turn and sped back through the night, unchallenged by the Germans, and managed to warn his friends in time, for which he received a medal for gallantry in action. It made me think of the random nature of war – from deserter to hero by one lucky decision.
The last Marines left Masterton in 1943, to capture Tarawa in the Gilbert Islands. This landing turned into an American Gallipoli, with men mowed down by the Japanese as they waded ashore at low tide. More than 900 were killed and over 2000 wounded, leaving many New Zealand women young widows.
When the base in Solway Park closed, it was decided to destroy or bury all surplus US equipment rather than allow it to be sold and skew local markets. Buildings were knocked down, tents, beds, canteen equipment as well as Bren gun carriers, trailers and jeeps all went into two huge trenches. It was said to have taken nearly a week of convoys of army trucks to transport the equipment to the burial site. Local townspeople were aghast at such profligate waste at a time when everything was scarce or impossible to buy.
About this time, my sister, little brother, and I were all ill with whooping cough at the same time. I remember waking in terror in the eerie landscape of my temporary bedroom in the living room by the firelight, sheets and blankets draped over table and chairs to dry as my mother struggled to keep up with the laundry. She talked in later years about taking us up to the fence surrounding the base, watching with bitterness as the Americans buried and burned blankets, sheets, pillows that she could have used for us.
She would talk about how I was such a good little girl during those early years, and how I would sit in a corner for hours playing quietly with my dolls. I remember it more as seeking refuge from my sister’s torment and teasing, having learned that to seek attention from my mother was to result in retaliation from my jealous big sister. I was often blamed for Jane’s misdeeds and it was pointless to cry out, “It’s not fair!” Another of my usual cries was “Wait for me!” I loved taking refuge in the garage when my father was working at his carpenter’s bench. I would pick up the curled wood shavings from his plane and tuck them under my doll’s bonnet for curls.
One memorable day, Jane cut off my little brother’s blond curls and encouraged me to use those for my doll instead. I was punished by my irate mother who refused to listen to my tearful protestations, and once again I would retreat, sucking my thumb for comfort from the unjust world.
As the war was ending my father was sent by the New Zealand government to America to study irrigation methods with the Tennessee Valley Authority, so that he could bring back state of the art technology to improve productivity on the Canterbury Plains. He left on a troop ship taking American servicemen home and his absence was marked for us by a flow of colorful postcards which we cherished and fought over. His return several months later was even more eventful with a trunk full of toys and treats that made us the envy of the neighborhood children.
I remember vividly a little pilot figure with a parachute attached – you simply folded the parachute around him and threw it high in the air to watch him floating down. My sister snatched it from my little brother and threw it onto the roof, causing tears and consternation until my father came home from work and rescued it with his ladder.
A fleeting memory of that time was when I was alone in the garden and suddenly the white wooden rose trellis started swaying alarmingly; if it was the big earthquake of 1942, I was not quite two at the time. Another flashback was when I was sent on my own to the dairy on the corner to fetch the milk. The dairy was what we called the corner grocer’s shop where milk was not yet sold in bottles. I was on my way home trying not to spill the full white enamel billy can and must have been walking in the gutter or close to the edge of the road. An enormous US Army truck swept by me, its noise, exhaust, and rush of air startling me so much that I dropped the can of milk. I remember the men’s concerned faces looking back at me from the truck as I burst into tears and ran home.
Another memory was of my kindergarten teacher coming to the house to show my mother a penguin I had modeled from plasticine. The door had hardy closed when my sister snatched the little model and reduced it to a crumble. I was too astonished at her gratuitous spite to be upset. My teacher’s pride was consolation and for the first time I realized that I did not have to rely on my family for approval, and it was the beginning of my lasting pleasure in schoolwork.
As the war ended and the prisoners were sent back to Japan from the camp in Featherston, my father was transferred to Ashburton in the South Island. For some reason, my father and I travelled separately from the rest of the family and all I can remember from that overnight ferry trip to Nelson was my father’s clumsy fingers as he tried unsuccessfully to tie a ribbon on my hair the next morning, the first time I discovered my father, my hero, was fallible.
We stayed a while with my aunt on the tobacco farm in Motueka, my uncle still away at the war. I have a memory of another truck sweeping by. I had been befriended by some of the land girls working the fields and they asked if I could go with them to a movie in town. If I was allowed I should let them know. If they did not hear from me they would know I was not able to go. I got the message wrong. I was waiting at the gate for them to pick me up and was desolate when the truck sped by, the girls waving back as I tried to get them to stop. I suppose it taught me something about precise communication, but it was a hard lesson at age four.
Another vivid memory was of miscommunication or maybe I was just trying to show my independence. I had been delivered by my father to stay with a family friend in a strange town under circumstances that I never understood. The family had a son, three or four years older than me and we walked to and from the local elementary school together, my first experience of being at school. On a hot dry, windy day a spark from a passing train on the nearby railway track lit the nearby grassy field on fire. Billowing smoke filled the classrooms and all the children were marshalled in the playground and told to go home. I looked for the boy but could not find him. I set off, away from the smoke, believing I knew the way home. I walked and walked, hot and thirsty, it seemed for miles. I decided I would go as far as the distant mirage-like shine on the tarred road and was disappointed when a car stopped and my parent’s friend took me back to where I was meant to be, scolding me for not waiting to be met. I was wistful that I had never discovered the reason for the mysterious shiny glare on the road.
These are the memories of early childhood that linger – of confusion, loss, fear of abandonment and so very much to learn. There must have been many happy times and it is sad they do not come to mind as readily as those that convince you that your childhood was unhappy. As Tolstoy said in his novel Anna Karenina, "Happy families are all alike; every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way."
Written in Susan Broidy’s eloquent and engaging style, An Unexamined Life is a page-turner of a memoir. It is at once a highly personal read (as, indeed, one would expect a memoir to be) and – as one might equally expect from a writer whose political work and support has spanned the Atlantic, having being heavily involved in supporting and campaigning for the UK’s Liberal Democrats and the USA’s Democratic Party – acutely attuned to the wider political currents of the last eighty years. From her early childhood in New Zealand during the Second World War to the Vietnam War to life in modern day America during the Covid-19 pandemic, it seems Broidy has always lived during “interesting times” – which, in turn, makes for interesting reading.
Thanks to the author’s peripatetic lifestyle, however, at times An Unexamined Life also reads like an immersive piece of travel writing: with each new chapter, we accompany Broidy to a new destination. Moreover, Broidy makes illuminating use of epigraphs for each chapter, helping the reader to immediately understand her emotional state in each new phase of her life as well as adding a sense of intertextual richness to the book.
While the memoir ends in a contemplative vein with Broidy reflecting on her fears and regrets in light of the existentialist notion of “bad faith” (“the phenomenon in which human beings, under pressure from social forces, adopt false values and disown their innate freedom, hence acting inauthentically”), it is clear from reading An Unexamined Life that the author has led a full life as a devoted mother, wife, political campaigner – and writer. The memoir also ends with the mention of a novel she intends to write, the release of which I for one will eagerly anticipate. But in the meantime, I would highly recommend giving An Unexamined Life a read.