Alumni Profile – Enid Hardie

Alumni Profile:

Enid Hardie A thoroughly modern woman

Enid Hardie is extraordinary. It’s a privilege meeting her.

The St Margaret’s College Old Girl is 95 years old, quick of mind, slight of build, and interested in everything around her. She belongs to a book club, her favourite TV programme is the current affairs show Q&A and Te Ao and she’s a big fan of broadcaster Kim Hill.

But it’s when you look at the photos on her fridge that you get a glimpse into Enid’s earlier life – as a woman who loved tramping in her younger years, and was unafraid to take on new adventures. The neatly ordered pictures are a mix of family and friends including Sir Edmund Hillary with Enid’s late husband Norman, also a mountaineer. There’s another of Enid and Norman at Everest base camp in Nepal.

A woman ahead of her time, Enid (whose surname was then Hurst) studied English Literature at the University of Canterbury after attending SMC in the early 1940s with long-time friend Bet Godfrey (mother of Marianne Hargreaves). The pair had been together at Fairleigh Kindergarten, Fendalton School, and today they’re still good friends, keeping each other company at Old Girls events.

It was at university that Enid met husband Norman, who was studying civil engineering.

“I was looking at a noticeboard and trying to decide whether I’d keep going with hockey, which I’d played at school, or do something different. Norman persuaded me to join the tramping club.”

And so began a romance which survived Enid moving to Auckland for a year and then England for another year before Norman joined her.

“We married in 1951 and lived in Kent – I was teaching at St Christopher’s School for Girls in nearby Beckenham and Norman spent five years working in London as a structural engineer.”

Norman’s climbing reputation preceded him and in 1955 he was part of a successful expedition to climb Kangchenjunga, the world’s third-highest mountain and the highest unclimbed peak. Kangchenjunga was not climbed again for 22 years and only then by an Indian Army expedition.

After that expedition, Enid joined Norman in Nepal where she and a friend were responsible for sourcing supplies for Sherpas to take up the mountain.

“Then we were faced with the big decision of whether to go back to New Zealand or should we go back to England. We didn’t have children at that stage so we could please ourselves. But we wanted to start a family so we decided to return to New Zealand – I have no regrets about that decision.”

The couple went on to have two daughters; one who lives in Christchurch, the other in Nelson, both are full time counsellors.

While they were growing up, Enid went back to part-time teaching – at Avonside Girls’ High School for six years followed by 14 years at Cashmere High School. In those latter years, she took on more of a counselling role and returned to university to get a formal qualification as a counsellor.

“I loved it. I was ambitious for the youngsters and I wanted to help them identify their strengths. Not everyone is academic and they needed help to broaden their horizons beyond that to realise their potential. My advice to young people today is still the same. Go as far as you can with whatever skills you have.

“When I was growing up, my father wanted me to join his business as a typist. But I didn’t want to do that.”

Today, Enid still lives independently, has a wide group of friends who drop in, loves reading detective thrillers and biographies. She’s a big fan of John le Carré, Germaine Greer, and Kiwi biographer Rebecca Macfie. But her all-time favourite author remains Shakespeare.