Richard Stewart - Run Kiwi Run

Copyright 2021 Richard Stewart

Published by Flyover Books

All rights reserved.
No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written consent from the publisher, except for brief quotations for reviews.

If you have questions about this book, you can reach the author at

FIRST EDITION
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
ISBN: 978-0-6451989-0-4

To all my friends and family
who have had an impact on my life.

This is a story about courage, about faith, about stepping out into the unknown, about trying to make sense of a world that is rapidly changing in views, morals and standards.

Most important is seeking Gods will for my life in the struggles of growing up and into an adult, taking responsibilities for my actions, treating people fairly, helping the unloved and the downcast, whilst enjoying lifes journey with the adventures along the way.

For any person reading this story, I hope you will be inspired by the motivation and the sacrifices to achieve goals and will not overlook people on your journey who have had misfortunes in life and need a gentle hand, either physically or mentally, or just need somebody there to listen.

If it wasnt for some of these people, I think my journey through life would have been a little different.

Important to note, laughter is a medicine. (A merry heart doth good like a medicine, said King Solomon in the book of Proverbs in the Bible). Laugh at yourself and make others laugh.

I would also like to thank my Mum and my Dad (Dad who has just recently passed away in the last two years) for the love and support they gave me growing up with my older brother and four sisters.

If it wasnt for their values and Christian teaching, which I hold onto again, my journey would have been a little different.

I have many friends who have worked with me and inspired me over the years, but in recent times, one in particular has asked me to write this book.

Courage is what it takes to stand up for whats right and courage is also what it takes to sit down and listen.

This is my story.

Richard Stewart

During my early childhood years, I often got into trouble and extended my mums boundaries. My dad, like me, had a sense of humor and saw the funny side to most things I did but he could be stern and non-compromising.

My mum was an English nurse who came to Australia to do her out training in Melbourne and worked as a bush nurse at Broken Hill, a famous mining town in NSW.

My father met my mum on a ship as he was travelling on a ship from New Zealand to an international Scout Jamboree in England and Mum was travelling home to Yorkshire.

Dad travelled back to the United Kingdom, working in Europe and traveling on his motorbike where Mum was. Eventually they got married in England 1960 and came to live on the east coast of the North Island of New Zealand, a place called Gisborne, a place where Captain James Cook left his mark.

Dad was a building contractor and would often take my brother and me to work with him on our holidays and some Saturdays. Dad mainly built houses, farm sheds, and some commercial buildings, eventually building his own commercial properties.

I remember Dad had a flat deck old Bedford truck with an old push start ignition. As a five-year-old, I would play in the truck, which happened to be down by the riverside this day. The truck had been left in gear and I had somehow managed to start it, the truck began moving and it was great just steering it till I saw my Dad in a panic, running after his truck and me in it.

Well, that moment didnt go down too well for either of us.

There were times my brother and I would help stack precut timber for house frames for Dad and one day Dad stacked and removed timber from his trailer, ensuring we were both off. I decided to climb onto the trailer without him noticing and sat there quietly whilst he drove away.

It wasnt till he got down the street a bit he saw me through his mirror sitting on the trailer and to his shock immediately stopped and grabbed me, taking me straight home.

The things I put my dear mother through. My mother was a great knitter. She knitted all our woolen clothing. There was one time she had been knitting me this jersey by the fire. It was nearly complete. She went out of the room, wondering what she would do if I threw it in the fire (which I did). Well, I saw the other side of her wooden spoon.

These were just some of the things I got up to in a time where families cared and interacted with each other in the 1960s, 1970s, and early 1980s.

We made things out of nothing growing up and had fun doing it. We made go-carts, pushing them down hills, sometimes falling off, sometimes scratching ourselves or bleeding a little. Building tree huts to watch the boat races out in the bay, building sand bunkers to play war games. Swimming, fishing, participating in the Scouts, camping, having the courage to create and invent stupid things.

We got into trouble once firing sky rockets next door on Guy Fawkes night, which was probably a dumb thing to do.

We lived across the road from the beach in Gisborne, so part of the beach was for swimming and down further was for surfers. In the 1970s, we had professional surfing bum houses at the end of the street. Although they might have been on the benefit (dole), they made the best of surfing every day. (My brother and I did surf. Andrew was more into it than me.)

Each end of the beach had surf lifesaving clubs and this one fella from the midway surf club used to ride his motor scooter up and down our street. He just seemed so annoying. Even more funny, he wore this bowl helmet with leather side straps (completely old style).

Well, my brother and I waited for him to ride his usual ride into the sunset and as he passed, we threw a handful of stones at him and ran back down the driveway. No joking, he turned around and drove down our driveway and abruptly gave Mother a message on how to control her boys.

My brother and I were around the corner laughing our heads off until Mother came out with wooden spoons, which had some effect on tender bums.

Dad had proudly built the family home. A two-storied five-bedroom house with a two-car basement. He turned the old establishment in the front where we originally lived into units.

One of these units became my English grandparents home when they retired and came out to live in the sunny shores of New Zealand. My mother was an only child and my grandparents reluctantly came out from England to be with family and we were always reminded how things were better back in Yorkshire. (Yorkshire today is full of foreign nationals, sorry, Grandpa.)