The late Nell Graveson

Into this challenging environment was born a girl who would later travel halfway around the planet to carve out a pioneering new life for herself in the strange and distant land that we all call home.

In January this year our most senior resident, Nell Graveson, reached the ripe old age of 104. It is extraordinary to think that when she was born in that north of England snowstorm the first powered flight had taken place just 14 years previously. The Titanic had sunk five years before. Queen Elizabeth II’s grandfather was King. And Pavlova had not yet been created!

Nell and her family came to New Zealand in 1923, when she was just six. The story of what brought her to Kerikeri 23 years later, a year after the conclusion of yet another World War, is a reminder of the very different way things were back then.

“I was living at home with Mum and Dad and my three children aged 5, 4 and 2,” she explains. “Dad had returned from a short trip to Kerikeri and said simply that he’d put a deposit down on five acres of land and planned to run a citrus nursery there. That was it – no family discussion, no nothing.

“So Mum said: ‘well, if you’re going I had better go too!’ And I said, ‘well, if you’re going the four of us will come as well, if you’ll have us!’ So that’s exactly what happened.” 

Once in Kerikeri Nell became what she calls “Dad’s apprentice boy”. She helped him in the nursery and she helped him build the family home on their new land.

“He taught me to hammer, saw and mix concrete. All while looking after the kids. It was fun!” she says.

The family pioneered the Kerikeri citrus scene. Literally. They carved it out of native bush and the new citrus nursery flourished, just like its trees. And, like its trees, it kept growing. The family grew all sorts of citrus; oranges, lemons, mandarins, grapefruit… there seemed to be endless buyers for it all.

Then Nell’s world was turned upside down. Except that’s not how she tells it. She’s far less dramatic about it all. A young man called Jock Graveson turned up in Kerikeri, having made the significant journey in those days from the Bay of Plenty on the off-chance of meeting his very distant relatives. This was the way things were done before the telephone and, more recently, Facebook.

Meet them he did! And then some. As Nell says, very simply: “He was my sixth cousin and we rather liked each other. So we got married.”

It wasn’t long before Jock took over the citrus nursery so Nell’s Dad could retire. This led to Nell getting on the tools once again.

“I had bought a five-acre block on other side of road, where we built another house. Once again I was the apprentice-boy, but this time to Jock.”

The business grew from strength to strength and it wasn’t long before Nell and Jock had to transfer the nursery to a 15-acre piece of land. “We were sending trees all over New Zealand – they were taken away in an articulated truck. Many went down to Watties in the Bay of Plenty, around Gisborne and Napier.”

In those days Kerikeri had rough gravel roads, just two garages, five shops and no more than a dozen cars. There were 78 pupils and two teachers in a school across the river from the Stone Store, which her three children attended. They grew up and gave her nine grandchildren, some of whom went to school in Kerikeri too.

Eventually Nell and Jock ended up in a large home in Kerikeri’s Riverview. After his death in 1978 she remembers discussions in that house about how his estate would help establish the Kerikeri Retirement Village. And about the designs of the original eight cottages. One of which she now lives in.

It was clear even back in the late eighties that there was growing demand for retirement care and accommodation in Kerikeri. None of the mainstream providers were interested in building this so, as with so many things in this town, the community took it upon itself to build the village.

The venture was made possible only through generous bequests from Nell’s Jock and another Kerikeri resident, Mr Herbert Murray. In 1983 Kerikeri Village Trust was founded as a not-for-profit community venture between Presbyterian Support Northern, the Murray-Graveson Trust and the Auckland Methodist Mission. 

Land was purchased and construction of the first cottages was completed in September 1986. The Care Facility opened in April 1991 and the 30 rooms were soon full.

Nell has lived at the Village since it opened in 1986, so she is our First Resident in more ways than one.

She says she’s “thrilled to bits” with how the Village has developed since then. She had no idea that it would grow to the extent it has.  

She remains fit, well and an active member of the wider Kerikeri community. To mark her 104th birthday earlier this month she threw a sausage sizzle for forty of her closest friends. And made sure there was plenty of wine to wash them down with.

She’s fond of a tipple, is our Nell!

“I am on no medication at all,” she says proudly. “My meds are simply a glass of Pinot Gris two or three times a week.”

She has the most refreshing and matter-of-fact approach to life. And to what comes after that. It’s quite off-putting for a person hearing it for the first time.

“I’m getting tired! All I want to do is make 104 and then I can pop off any time!” she says – a huge grin spreading across her face. I remark on this amazingly matter-of-fact attitude.

“In my view its your attitude that can govern your life. That’s the secret to a calm and peaceful life – just look on the bright side. Be content. Be satisfied with what you’ve got. And surround yourself with good friends.

So that’s Nell’s secret to content. What’s the secret to her longevity? I said I thought it might be her tough, north of England heritage. “No dear,” she said. “It’s 34 worry-free years of Village living.”

I couldn’t have said it better myself!

Bless you, Nell – you’ve made your target. Please decide that you’ll stay with us a little longer. We can’t imagine this place without you.