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Sonja Davies died last Sunday (June
12 2005). Although she had been fragile for some time,
her death was sudden. She left us in the same way she
lived - in a hurry and down to business. To say that
she was "one
of a kind" is an understatement. Sonja Davies was
a force of nature.
To us younger women of the 70s women's
movement, she was a beacon. I first met her when she
was working for the Shop Employees Union and promoting
the Working Women's Charter - a document as relevant
today as it was 30 years ago. At that time she already
had her feet under the table at the Federation of Labour
as the first woman member of the executive. That's the
thing you notice about Sonja - the firsts. First president
of the New Zealand Child Care Association, first female
vice president of the FOL.
Born out of wedlock, she never
knew her father and defiantly, I suppose, came to relish
the position of outsider. Her life was triumph and tragedy
in equal measure. Both her children and their fathers
died before her and she lived for her last 50 years on
roughly half one lung. Having survived tuberculosis and
faced death on more than one occasion, once she gained
her health there was no stopping her. When we were making
the mini-series based on her autobiography, Bread & Roses,
we used to say, "She had a chin and she knew how
to use it."
Communities, like individuals, are not always immediately
grateful to the ones who help. Working on behalf of others
can be a thankless task. Being a politician is a brutalising
occupation, but somehow Sonja managed to survive it all.
She was part of a generation who put
this country on its feet. They knew from personal experience
the price of war. Sonja tirelessly campaigned for peace.
She came to national prominence in 1955 as part of a
women's protest sit-in on an obscure railway line in
a tiny place called Kiwi. If they'd won, there could
now be a railway line linking Nelson to the West Coast.
That would have been one of the most stunning train rides
in the world. ("We
were right," I
can hear her saying - chin out.) They may have lost the
battle then (the line was pulled up), but, sitting on
that railway line, Sonja discovered the community of
activism that was to become central to helping win much
larger fights for universal principles. Principles that
would eventually achieve greater equality and a nuclear-free
New Zealand.
None of it was easy. They lived in
a conformist monocultural country where difference was
hardly celebrated. She suffered the slings and arrows
for her strongly held beliefs on many occasions. The
most recent was probably Robert Muldoon calling her "Granny" when
she came to take her place in the House of Representatives
for the first time. She was quick on the uptake. "I'm
proud of that," she said. "And it's something
you will never achieve." She
battled on in the circular corridors of power.
Even in
the middle of the Douglas years and the pulling down
of the post offices, the selling of the railway, she
battened down the hatches and worked tirelessly for her
constituents. If everyone did as much on behalf of their
fellow human kind as Sonja Davies did, we all would surely
be living in a better world.
She was a persuasive and
passionate public speaker and though she was always associated
with women's issues she was a great unionist and friend
to men's causes. I was always amazed at how she seemed
to be able to travel the length and breadth of New Zealand
on the train without being able to get anyone to accept
payment for her ticket. When we were filming the Kiwi
sequence on the railway line past Lower Hutt, Sonja arrived
with hot muffins that she'd baked for our crew. At the
end of the day, we offered her a ride home to Masterton. "Don't
worry, I'm fine," she assured us as she whipped
out her red jersey and held it out over the tracks. The
regular train came along, stopped, picked her up and
off she went. The guards, the driver - they all knew
they were in the presence of greatness. She had the common
touch.
I learnt to allow extra
time if I went anywhere with Sonja. Even a quick walk
to a taxi could be interrupted by a stranger wanting
to thank her or, more usually, to ask her for help. I
went to Nelson with her in 1993. It was Suffrage Year
and Robin Laing and I had just completed the mini-series
we made with Graeme Tetley based on her autobiography.
It was Sunday. Nelson was deserted. I was walking with
Sonja down a suburban street when a car came along, passed
us, slowed down, did a U-turn and stopped. A door was
flung open and a man approached us. "Are
you Sonja Davies?" Out came the chin. "Yes," she
replied. "I've always wanted to thank you for helping my father keep his
job at the hospital. I was 10 at the time, you were on the hospital board ..." Sonja
nodded and smiled. She had no idea who he was, but she was happy to have helped
them out, whoever they were. Later that night at the Suter Gallery Cinema,
a packed house sat in silence as the credits rolled at the end of a three-and-a-half-hour
screening. No one clapped. The lights came up. To my amazement, no one moved.
They all sat there, wanting to be in her presence a little longer. Then from
somewhere a man's voice rang out strongly, "Three cheers for Sonja! Hip
hip ..." and the place erupted.
A mighty tree has fallen. A warrior
is lying down.
Ka hinga te totara o te wao nui a Tane.
Haere ra. Te Rakatira.
By James Oppenheim
As we come marching, marching in the
beauty of the day,
A million darkened kitchens, a thousand mill lofts gray,
Are touched with all the radiance that a sudden sun discloses,
For the people hear us singing: "Bread and roses! Bread and roses!"
As we come marching, marching, we
battle too for men,
For they are women's children, and we mother them again.
Our lives shall not be sweated from birth until life
closes;
Hearts starve as well as bodies; give us bread, but give
us roses!
As we come marching, marching, unnumbered
women dead
Go crying through our singing their ancient cry for bread.
Small art and love and beauty their drudging spirits
knew.
Yes, it is bread we fight for -- but we fight for roses,
too!
As we come marching, marching, we
bring the greater days.
The rising of the women means the rising of the race.
No more the drudge and idler -- ten that toil where one
reposes,
But a sharing of life's glories: Bread and roses! Bread
and roses!
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