Life + Style - 22 May 2020

The Weekend Sun ˜

Photo: Chris Parker

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life+style The Weekend Sun °˜22 °˛˜˝ °°August, May May,, 2020 °˛°˛ Photos: John Borren

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Tom Bradley Still a big kid Sitting in an outside chair at his Papamoa home, with my eyes squinting nearly shut, I could faintly visualise what Tom Bradley was telling me. It was pre-lockdown and we were enjoying one of the many sunny summer days.

“I have this imaginary muse that sits on my shoulder,” says Tom. “He’s a boy I call Tommy and he’s about ten.

“In the days when I was writing for children, we would sit down together, Tommy and I, and I’d say to him ‘where are we going today?’ He’d say ‘I don’t know, let’s have an adventure’ and off we’d go.”

Tom has now written more than 20 children’s fun adventure books, all available as downloadable free ebooks on his website www. bradley.nz There is the Johnny Whistler series with titles like ‘Johnny Whistler and the Whizzbang Tandem Race’, a set of popular junior fiction novels. ‘Crowded House’ and ‘Double Dilemma’ are two of the Brightside Bunch series, also aimed at the seven-years-plus fiction lover.

“There are four Johnny Whistlers, six Brightside Bunch books, and then there are three young adult fiction standalone titles,” says Tom.

“And I threw in three previously unpublished very short titles to make up what I think is a good number to throw on the website.”

Prior to ‘throwing’ or uploading his books in mid-2019, Tom contacted HarperCollins, his publisher as well as the book cover illustrators, to check they approved of the books being available free online. They were.

“It’s starting to build momentum. The Libraries Association of New Zealand are now getting behind it.”

The uptake of interest on the website has resulted in NZ school libraries and library associations in Australia also downloading the free series.

“I do love to be able to make them available for free for the next generation because you can’t go buy them now.”

There are maybe a few dozen in school libraries around the country.

“They get battered and knocked about, so by putting them into an ebook format, they can last as long as there’s an internet and electronic transmission.”

I only discovered recently that Tom is a fiction writer. He wrote ‘A Kiwi Christmas’ for Tauranga which was performed on stage at the Holy Trinity in December, and a musical called ‘Dr Luke’ which I remembered seeing in the 1980s. And he’s very well-known as one of NZ’s iconic news readers from the early days of television in this country. These other roles required writing or reporting facts. So how did

°° May , °˛°˛

life+style The Weekend Sun ˙

“I’m a big kid. This surprised people who saw me through the years reading TV news, which was for them quite a serious role.”

he slip over into writing fiction?

“I’m a big kid. This surprised people who saw me through the years reading TV news, which was for them quite a serious role.”

His books are full of adventures, with one book of slightly quirky short stories aimed at the sevenyear-olds and above. His young adult books target the early teen age bracket.

“I’d describe the Johnny Whistlers as family comedy dramas. Lively kids, fast, adventurous.

Good kids having fun. They’re sort of PG.” No sex, drugs or rock and roll.

“There’s plenty of that in the world. They have a certain innocence. My wife Dayna, bless her heart, has always said ‘I don’t think you could ever write adult fiction. You’re too innocent.’

“She couldn’t see me writing nasty adult fiction and I wouldn’t want to either.”

I remembered Tom arriving via television in our lounge in June 1975, at the dawn of TV2. I was 15. We’d turn on the six o’clock news and there he was, his calm steady tone bringing reassurance into our lives that everything across the nation would be okay. Still years away from the launch of the internet, but Tom was there, with Philip Sherry, John Hawkesby, Angela D’Audney, Richard Long, and Judy Bailey. He appeared on telethons, breakfast news, ‘lates’, then going full circle doing weekend news as well.

“Telethons were exciting because it was new.

People would stand for hours with buckets of money to have their face on TV for five to ten

seconds. The good-hearted simplicity of it was amazing.”

Not many people knew he had arthritis even way back then.

“I was always very cautious during the Telethons because people would ring up and say they’d give $100 if Tom does push-ups and squats or something, and I’m thinking that’s not a good idea.

“Fortunately, I had a job for all those years where I was sitting down.”

He jokes that Tauranga is the elephant’s graveyard of old TV news readers.

“There’s Phillip Sherry, Peter Williams, Richard Long, and me. All the blokes really from the last 30 years.”

The big four, now living in sunny Tauranga, with Peter Williams daily expressing his opinions and livening up the airwaves.

Since leaving television news reading, Tom has written dozens of scripts for animated series ‘Buzz and Poppy’, has been a professional master of ceremonies and accomplished voice over artist.

He’s also penned a family memoir of over 60,000 words.

He and Dayna happily settled into the Papamoa lifestyle about seven years ago, becoming locals.

It’s now 22 years since his television stint and he’s still surprised people recognise him when they’re out for coffee.

“The hairdresser said to me the other day, has anyone told you that you look like someone?”

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°°August, May May,, 2020 °˛°˛ life+style The Weekend Sun °˜22 °˛˜˝ SUE BLOMQUIST – Blomquists Artisan Bakery & Café – Greerton Village

ALEXANDRA HAMMON ELLIOTT– Hammon Diamond Jeweller – Downtown Tauranga

Photos: Chris Parker

The life and style of our local business owners Every day across Tauranga doors open, lights turn on, and smiles are placed on the faces of the many thousands of mums and dads, grandmas and grandads, sons, daughters, entrepreneurs and risk takers who own and run our many local businesses. And then, they wait. They wait for us to come to their businesses and buy their products and services.

Just eight weeks ago everything changed.

It’s always been tough running a business; there’s risks and challenges, staff to manage, ordering to agonise over, stock levels to maintain or not, suppliers to work with, bills to pay and family and whanau relying on these business owners to support them. They do it because they love it or they have to. But on March 26 all that changed and likely for a long time to come.

COVID-19 lock-down brought a whole new set of challenges. Can I afford to retain all my staff? How long will we be closed? How can we preserve cashflow?

Will I get the virus? What about my whanau? What happens after lock-down?

How should I evolve and adapt my business? Can my business even survive?

Business owners across Tauranga signed up for the challenges of running a business - they didn’t sign up for this. No-one expected this. But now there is hope again.

The dawn of a new day.

Level 2 restrictions mean they’re back to business; different business like they’ve never experienced before. With the right approach, fortitude, savvy business planning and execution and a bit of hope they might just be alright. A pivotal element our business owners haven’t been able to take control of though is whether their loyal customers and clients will come back again and that’s where Tauranga residents come help.

It’s a sunny Thursday morning across the city. In Greerton Sue Blomquist is back at the bakery – they’ve baked this morning, as they do every day, although today is a lot different because they just don’t know how much stock to carry. But what they do know is their craft. They’re artisan bakers who make high quality products in small quantities using traditional methods.

There’s history here - 100 years ago Eva and Thomas Blomquist operated a bakery in Katikati. Kids loved the bakery because they could buy a hot pie and a bun for less than five cents. In 1992 Sue and David

YOUR RESTAURANT & BAR NEEDS YOU Jessica Rafferty CROWN & BADGER Downtown Tauranga

Spending locally saves local businesses

BUY LOCAL

www.buytauranga.co.nz

°° May 22 May, , 2020 °˛°˛ °˛˜˝ °˜ August,

life+style The Weekend Sun ˝

“Our local businesses need us right now, more than ever.

So, make it a great day for some locals.

Buy Local. Buy Tauranga”

Blomquist entered the industry purchasing a run-down cake shop and transforming it into a thriving bakery. In 1992 they opened New Zealand’s first Muffin Shop, then Brumby’s Bayfair and in 2010 Blomquists Artisan Bakers in Greerton. It’s their name on the door and their passion in the products they make and sell.

Across town the glass on the cabinets has been exquisitely polished clean and the diamonds and jewellery sit waiting at Hammon Diamond Jeweller in Grey Street, downtown Tauranga. Mother and daughter duo, Julie Hammon and Alexandra Hammon Elliot are ready for another day and genuinely excited to have their doors open again. They’ve been opening those doors for many years. This is another genuine ‘Kiwi family business’ with its origins lying all the way back to 1947, when the company was founded in Gisborne by Julie’s parents-in-law.

In 1986 Julie and her late husband, Ian, relocated Hammons to Tauranga. In 2001 Alexandra joined the business in partnership with her mother and today Julie and Alexandra share the buying, and retail side of the business. Customers will attest to the fact that often their warmth, passion and radiant smiles outshine their glittering jewels.

Across the bridge and nestled in the heart

of Mount Mainstreet there’s buzzy bees, wood carvings, paua jewellery, kids clothing and a myriad of gift ideas sitting on the shelves of an iconic Kiwi souvenir store. Ian and Lisa New previously owned a successful a Gift & Souvenir store in Otorohanga for five years before opening Kiwiana Gifts and Souvenirs in 2008 in Mount Maunganui and they’ve been proudly selling all sorts of New Zealand-made goods to thousands of locals and tourists each year since. Post COVID-19 things are a whole lot different.

The tourists are gone and likely for a long time. Now they must rely on the residents of Tauranga and regional visitors to keep them going. It’s a tough road ahead but the smiles are still broad, the chin is still up and there’s sheer grit and determination to make this ‘new normal’ work for them and their trusted team.

It’s the start of a new day in Tauranga and the success of today for Sue, Julie, Alexandra, Ian, Lisa and the thousands of other local business owners across Tauranga will depend on us and whether we choose to spend what we can, locally. Because when we spend locally, we save local businesses.

Our local businesses need us right now, more than ever. So, make it a great day for some locals. Buy Local. Buy Tauranga.

Meet more locals here: www.buytauranga.co.nz

IAN NEW – Kiwiana Gifts & Souvenirs – The Mount

RYAN VAN DE PAS – Vanquish Cycles, Greerton Village

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°°August, May May,, 2020 °˛°˛ life+style The Weekend Sun °˜22 °˛˜˝

Tana’s Tina Welcome Bay’s ‘Tina Turner’ livens up lockdown Tina Turner bursting onto your street to perform her greatest hits is a sure-fire way to break the mundanity of lockdown.

With nowhere to perform and no cars on the road, Tina Turner impersonator Tana Tapri decided the end of her Welcome Bay driveway would make the perfect stage.

“I put a flier in my neighbour’s letterboxes the day before, which said to bring their chairs and snacks to the end of their driveways for the show,” says Tana.

“They know me, because they see me walk my Chihuahua down the street.”

An audience of around 20 neighbours were treated to a 40-minute one woman show.

With strong rock vocals coming from a large speaker, Tana is pretty sure the rest of the block heard her performance, too.

The audience was even bigger online, with the Facebook livestream of Tana’s April 5 performance gaining more than 50,000 views in a week, and almost 900 comments praising her performance.

It encouraged her to do a follow up show on April 12, and another on May 9. Every performance had a different 80’s-glam outfit, matched with a voluminous wig to imitate Tina Turner’s signature hairstyle.

“I didn’t expect such a lovely response, both

online and during the show.

“Some people even got up to dance, including a young girl from my neighbour’s house, which was very sweet.”

This isn’t Tana’s first rodeo. She has been a performing singer, both solo and in bands, for years, and has released several original albums and Eps. “I can sing anything from Ave Maria to ACDC, but singing rock is my favourite.

“Tina Turner is my idol, and I’ve always sung her songs.

“My friend was listening to Tina Turner on the radio one day and told me I actually sounded like her – that’s when I decided to try act like her on stage.”

While Tana has been impersonating Tina Turner for four years, she only recently set up a local Tina Turner Tribute Band.

“It took us half a year to get ready, and now we can’t perform together. Our last performance was the Tattoo Extravaganza in March.

“The eight of us still practise separately every day at home – we have 30 Tina Turner songs ready to go.”

Tana’s powerful, raspy singing voice and similar appearances to Tina Turner makes her quite the match. But, she still practices up to three hours every day to master the impersonation.

“I watch a lot of Tina Turner performance

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°° May 22 May, , 2020 °˛°˛ °˛˜˝ °˜ August,

life+style The Weekend Sun ˘

“Tina Turner is my idol, and I’ve always sung her songs.

My friend was listening to Tina Turner on the radio one day and told me I actually sounded like her – that’s when I decided to try act like her on stage”

videos. I have to keep physically fit because she is always dancing when she performs.

“To practice, I listen really closely to try and say the words like she does, especially because of my Slovakian accent. I’ve lived in New Zealand for twenty years, and was even taught English in my home country, but my accent has always stuck.

“We speak Slovak at home, as well as Czech, because my husband’s from the Czech Republic.”

To get the look exactly right, Tana makes all of her Tina Turner outfits, as well as matching clothes for the two dancers in the Tina Turner Tribute Band.

Seamstress and musician are just two of her many hats.

Her main job is being a cosmetic tattooist, which includes eyebrow micro-blading and lip tattoos.

She’s also a keen sketch artist, and regularly posts her drawings of animals on her Facebook page.

Baker is also on her list of talents. Last year, she became known for making mini cheesecakes, decorated with jelly and handmade icing flowers.

To top it all off, she’s a mum of three. Her youngest daughter, who is 17, is the last one left at home.

“My life is never boring, I always have plenty to do!”

Music has been Tana’s main muse during the lockdown.

She practices in her at-home studio, kitted with a mic, audio mixer, speakers, six guitars and a bass.

“I first learned bass guitar, but decided to move

on to normal guitar so I can sing along while I play. I like collecting guitars, and giving them my personal touch by decorating them with glitter.”

While her performance lifted lockdown spirits, Tana has her own worries about the COVID-19 pandemic.

“When the lockdown happened, my tattooing business stopped. I keep praying for normal life to return.

“We are so lucky to live here, because what COVID-19 is doing to the rest of the world is terrible.

“I probably won’t do another driveway performance now that we are out of lockdown, but I can’t wait to perform with the band again.”

To see Tana perform, search @tapritana on Facebook.

MacKenzie Dyer

Photo: Patchwork photography.

14 Grey St, Tauranga

07 578 8707

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