Suzie Dean

This is my model of Suzie Dean's house in Side Road, Waiuta. I have got photos of the real house and of Suzie herself, but i can't upload them because - well, it won't!

In the real town, there's not a trace of the house but there are two huge pine trees growing where the front gate used to be. Suzie's son, Lance, was working in the Forest Service nursery in Reefton, as a teenager, and he 'borrowed' a couple of seedlings and planted them there when he went home for the weekend.

Suzie was a friend of my grandmother and was a well-known resident & character in Waiuta. As the oldest-attending ex-resident, she was the one who cut the cake at the reunion dinner in 1986 - while the band played, "If you knew Suzie, like I knew Suzie, Oh what a gal!"

She was also the one who took an umbrella with her to every rugby game, regardless of the weather, just in case she disagreed with the ref's decisions. Alec Goodmanson told me that, as a boy, he was running down the short-cut track, through the Manuka scrub, in the centre of Waiuta, and he came across Suzie, in all her Sunday best - fur coat and all - lying face-down in the mud, as drunk as a lord. He helped her walk, (stagger?), home.

In later years, Suzie lived at Crushington, east of Reefton. As a boy, i used to bike out there to see her and her pet deer - named Sally. She had an amazing house. Crushington was a dying town and Suzie had several empty houses moved and joined on to hers. Quite eccentric, but very cool to a boy.

One room was filled with a huge table that had a model farm on it - field & roads, animals, people and buildings. It fascinated me, but i wasn't allowed to touch it. I think that's where i got interested in modelling in the first place. Scarred for life. Thanks Suzie.

cheers