About Catherine

Who Do I Think I Am?

By Catherine Lea

 

I’m Catherine Lea, author of the DI Nyree Bradshaw novels, The Water’s Dead and the recently released sequel, Better Left Dead.

I began writing and publishing my bestselling thrillers on Amazon in the 2010s when someone told me no one reads Kiwi authors.

 

A 5th generation Kiwi, I was born in Auckland, and moved to Kerikeri in the Far North in 2019 after the death of my disabled daughter. These days I live, breathe and write everything Far North.

And while the Far North is now my home, Lea is not my paternal family name—Aspden is.

 

My paternal great, great grandfather, Henry Aspden and his wife, Alice, were among those forced to leave their home in Preston, Lancashire, when lock-outs and pay disputes in the cotton industry left the working population destitute. When the  American Civil war followed shortly after, the cotton milling industry ground to a screaming halt.

 

The choice for many was: leave or starve. Having risen to the position of foreman in his last employment, Henry realized there would be few jobs for foremen in their new country, so put himself forward as a gardener, and was accepted.

 

After months of sailing on the passenger liner, the Lancashire Witch, Henry and Alice finally arrived in June1865 to begin their new life in Aotearoa New Zealand. 

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My great grandfather, Thomas Aspden, was born in 1867 in Mauku, Tāmaki Makaurau Auckland and purchased land in the Far North at Matapōuri where my grandfather, William, was born in 1899.

 

I remember sitting wide-eyed on my grandfather’s knee listening to stories of his life — stories of their neighbours whose children suffered malnourishment due to an introduced Pākehā diet; of the Māori bones that lay buried in the beaches of Matapōuri; of the dreadful day the bullock chains snapped and slashed through his uncle’s legs as they hauled logs from the land they were clearing. With no doctor for miles, he died the following day.

 

Using words I didn’t realise back then were te reo — potae for his hat, pukunui for his belly – he would revel in his boyhood antics. Riding his pony to fetch the mail, filled with excitement because he had mail-ordered a cannon — yes, a cannon!

 

The things you could get in those days.

 

Unable to contain himself, he stopped on the way home to fire it. His terrified pony galloped off with the rest of the mail and my grandfather returned home to a whipping.

 

When he spoke of the endless blue sea teeming with fish, summers when the pōhutakawa dropped a shawl of red across white-sand beaches, and of the wildness and the beauty of Matapōuri, it was easy to see his heart had never left there. I guess the North was embedded in his DNA.

 

My own move here has been a real eye-opener. Far from what the tourist brochures portray, the reality is a sea of poverty stretched out across a land in which tiny islands of wealth and privilege thrive.

Tourists don’t hear about the crushing lack of resources and crumbling infrastructure in the North: SH1 through the Mangamuka Gorge that suffered sixteen critical slips in 2022, requiring 747 enabling piles and 317 anchors to make it roadworthy again.

 

Hopefully, it’ll reopen at the end of this year — that’s if there’s no more torrential rain.

 

That same highway through the Brynderwyns — our lifeline to the rest of the country —seems to be closed more than it’s open lately. Potholes tear cars apart and loose metal roads wind through the most stunning landscapes.

 

Northland is a place where communities and families are torn apart by the latest influx of meth, the use of which is now estimated to be the highest in the country. Our customs team of five individuals are not only tasked with overseeing arrivals into the country by sea, they’re responsible for guarding more than 3,000 km of coastline and 1.25 million hectares of land against the increasing importation of  illicit drugs that plague the area. Even with all their modern technology, that’s a tall order.

 

Add to this an under-resourced police force that at times might only have three officers to protect the area from Whangārei to the Cape. Power prices are among the highest in the country. Then there’s the beautiful Hokianga where the crystal blue waters meet towering, golden sand dunes. It’s a place where, if your house catches fire, you may as well stand back and let it burn because no fire department will make it in time.

 

My research for authenticity in my books has led to some shocking discoveries. I’m told by Jonny Wilkinson, CEO of Tiaho Trust (which supports and empowers people with disabilities), that nationwide, 24% of the population carry a disability, whereas in the North, that figure rises to 29%. Here, caregivers for people with disabilities must travel to Auckland for diagnoses and there is a two-year waitlist for respite . . . pretty tough when you’re locked out of the workforce by a dearth of employment opportunities and benefits are so meagre. He tells me there are those in wheelchairs whose loved ones have no choice but to wheel them outside and wash them down with a bucket and sponge because there’s no bathroom access.

 

And yet, there’s so much to love here.

 

I’ve had the joy of meeting Mike Butler down in Moerewa. It’s a small town that’s suffered many an economic downturn and is coined ‘Mo-town’ by the locals. I met Mike at a Community Patrol meeting. Of Irish/Māori whakapapa, he’s the chair of a collection of marae around the Kawakawa area. He works tirelessly bringing communities together and working on tikanga-based initiatives. The last time I saw him, he was up to his neck in the mass planting of indigenous species more suited to the heavy rains that flood the area. There’s so much that’s good up here. Mike’s generosity knows no bounds. He walked me through a marae, describing every aspect of the building, the tikanga, and the significance of the old tōtara tree in the grounds of the wharenui where conflicts are taken to be resolved.

 

As a writer, I’ve found my tribe up here. I’ve met the most wonderful writers and artists, including Lauren Roche who penned the beautiful Mila and the Bone Man, Mike Botur whose horror is too gruesome even for me, and K.V. Martins who accosted me once in a carpark — one hour and a coffee later we were besties. Writing can be so isolating, but the advice and support we offer each other is priceless.

 

There’s far more to the Far North that I can’t possibly mention in such a short piece: the cultural diversity, the political landscape, the history with close communities at its heart — all of which offer a brilliant and colourful palette from which I draw my crime stories.

 

I guess you could say the North is in my DNA.