Hayley Westenra (2 page)

Life is pretty laid back in New Zealand. It is very cut off from the rest of the world, so a lot of the country is quite untouched, especially down in the South Island, which is where I come from. The views are breathtaking and the landscape is stunningly beautiful and largely unspoiled by development. Christchurch, where I was born, has a population of around half a million people. We have a cathedral and that makes us a city, but, as cities go, we are definitely on the small side.

When I was starting out on my singing career, Christ-church was plenty big enough for me. Eventually, though,
there was a point when I realised that I would have to go up to
Auckland, the big smoke in New Zealand, and then ultimately overseas to fulfil my dreams. But, for the first decade or so of my life, Christchurch was my world.

Although Christchurch has always been home for me, my family on neither my mum's side nor my dad's side originate there. The way in which my mum, Jill, met my dad, Gerald, has always seemed very bizarre to me.

Now, I love him very much, but I have to be honest and say that Dad really is not the most musical man on earth. Mum used to do a bit of singing, but it was Dad rather than she who had somehow got himself a singing role in a musical production of
Bugsy Malone.
Mum had just arrived in Christchurch from Timaru and they met at the after-show party. The rest, as they say, is history and they have been together ever since.

Westenra is actually a Dutch name and my family on Dad's side emigrated from Holland to
Ireland and then on to New Zealand. Dad's mother, Patricia, died when I was just three years old, so I do not remember her now. Sadly, I also never met my paternal grandfather, Aylmer, who died when Dad was fourteen. In the stories that Dad has told me, he always sounds like a heroic kind of guy. He contracted polio when he was working out in Kenya and so was confined to a wheelchair. His disability never affected his sharp mind, though, and he was forever thinking up new inventions, including a night-and-day globe, which was sadly never put into production before he died.

Mum's maiden name is actually Ireland. Her parents, Shirley and Gerry, were second-generation Kiwis. They owned a bed-and-breakfast on the West Coast and Grandad also drove the delivery lorries for the local brewery.

My grandmother, Shirley Ireland, is still a very important person in my life. She used to be a great singer, but sadly her voice was affected by the radiotherapy that was used to
treat breast cancer. Grandad was incredibly musical, playing the piano accordion, the piano, the harmonica (in all of its different sizes) and the violin. Together with Nanna, he would travel around the hotels and pubs near their home putting on entertainment. She would sing the hits of the time – the sort of music made famous by Vera Lynn during and after World War Two – and he would accompany her.

During their childhood, Mum and her sister, my Auntie Carol, were regularly taken out for drives in the car by Grandad and Nanna on Sunday lunchtimes. Invariably, they would end up at a local pub and the two girls would run about in the adjoining playground, once they had been bought a treat such as a raspberry drink or a Crunchie bar. Grandad always had his piano accordion in the boot of his car, just in case the opportunity arose to bring it out. The opportunity nearly always did arise. So Nanna would sing and Mum and Auntie Carol would join in with their own version of the Highland fling.

Eventually, the four of them moved to
Timaru on the east coast, where Mum went to high school. For as long as I can remember, we have always gone down to Timaru for Easter and Christmas. When we were small, the house was always filled with sound: lots of music and lots of singing. My brother, sister and I would regularly put on a show for our grandparents. It was always a big deal and the three of us used to practise in my room, working on harmonies. The music that they brought into our lives made them one of my earliest and most important musical influences.

When I was as young as three years old, I can remember sitting on Grandad's lap as he played the piano accordion. When he played the piano, I would jump up and perform my latest ballet moves alongside him. His talent was all the more remarkable, since he would play all these instruments by ear, never having had any formal lessons. I loved the way
his fingers would run up and down the piano keyboard. He played with such ease. I really don't know how he did it.

Mum and Dad are polar opposites – very much yin and yang. Mum is constantly on the go. It always seems to me that, even when she should be taking it easy, she is still flying around at rocket speed. There's always something which needs to be done urgently, so she is permanently busy and bustling. There is the odd occasion where she will sit down at the dining room table for a moment with a cup of coffee and a couple of squares of chocolate, while she reads a newspaper or magazine. But then, after just a few minutes, she will be out of the door again, racing off to pick something up or to see someone.

Right now, while I am writing this book, it is the renovation of our house that is occupying a considerable amount of Mum's time. She puts a lot of thought into all of her projects and, at the moment, every conversation I have with her includes a good proportion of house talk. Mum invests so much effort in things. She will never go into a shop and make a snap decision over buying, say, a skirt. She will always ask, 'Will it work with this top? Does it go with these shoes?'

Dad, on the other hand, is very laid back. To be honest, I don't think they would still be together if either Mum were as laid back as he is, or Dad were on the go as much as Mum. She is the worrier, but he is very chilled. Me? I think I'm lucky enough to be a mixture of the best bits of the two of them!

When they first got together, Dad was a surfer dude and Mum says he was eating terribly, with his diet consisting of virtually nothing other than milk shakes. She was always very interested in natural medicine and health, so she taught him about the benefits of healthy eating. He took the advice to heart and nowadays he is the one sticking to the healthy-eating regime fairly religiously, which Mum finds just a tad
frustrating, as she succumbs to yet another chocolate craving. I am on Mum's side for this one. I think it's a woman thing!

After they were married, Dad took a job in a jewellery shop and worked his way up to being the manager. He decided to study gemmology, as he figured it would be a little more stimulating than simply climbing the business ladder. He learned a range of skills, including identifying precious stones and grading diamonds for insurance policies. These skills were put in practice when he opened his jewellery-valuation business around thirteen years ago.

Mum was training to be a teacher when she became pregnant with me. This was a great opportunity for her to put all of her interest in healthy eating and naturopathy into practice. She did all of her research on what food to eat to increase the probability of having a healthy baby, becoming something of an expert on the subject in the process. She really is one of those people who, if they are going to do something, do it properly, whatever it is.

I was born on 10 April 1987 and named Hayley Dee
Westenra. My parents felt that Hayley Dee had a nice ring to it. Hayley was chosen because Mum and Dad were fans of the actress Hayley Mills. I was a very contented child and am told that I was very undemanding.

My sister, Sophie Larelle Westenra, came along three years after. Our little brother, Isaac Ireland Westenra, was born three years after Sophie. His unusual middle name was in tribute to Mum's maiden name.

I love my brother and sister very much; they are both wonderful people. I find it hard to believe that Sophie is seventeen and is already in her final year of high school. It is quite scary really, because in my mind she is still 'little Sophie', still very vulnerable and very small, which is really not the case at all any more.

Sophie is lucky to be both musical and intellectual. I'm very proud that she's always been near the top in nearly all of her classes. At the same time, she has a brilliant singing voice. Her biggest dilemma is deciding which direction to take in terms of a future career. Either way, I know she is going to make her mark on the world, so watch this space.

Isaac, who is fourteen, is very much a cross between Mum and Dad. Because there are six years between us, we have never fought or squabbled. I was very much his 'big sister'. He's very laid back, but at the same time he's a real detail person. Growing up, he was always very interested in inventing things. He liked to draw intricate little diagrams of his inventions and then talk me through them in great detail.

Isaac was quite a shy kid, but he's recently come right out of his shell. Growing up, he's always had a beautiful voice. He would join in with Sophie and me, but he was always quite a reluctant performer. When I was last at home, he spent the whole time singing and playing his guitar. I was left in awe of my little brother's newfound skill and pizzazz. He has become a great rock performer and gives some brilliant renditions of the hits of bands such as Nickelback and the Red Hot Chili Peppers.

Christchurch was a great place to grow up. These days it would not be ideal for me to live there because it's so far away from the other countries where I perform most often. But, when I was a youngster, it had everything I could possibly want, and living there gave me the chance to have a really wholesome upbringing.

The weather in that part of New Zealand is very mild. The winters are never too harsh and the summers are never too hot, making it a very enjoyable climate. Even in the depths of winter, I used to get up
early and run outside. I loved the sound of the frost scrunching under foot. Although the air was very crisp, the sun was nearly always still shining. When
I was very small, Mum would often take me out to feed the ducks in the local park, which was just a short walk down the road.

One of the many benefits of living in New Zealand is that Kiwis tend to lead a very outdoor sort of life. Children have a very free lifestyle and it's quite normal to have a playhouse or tree house in your backyard.

New Zealand is a big enough place with a small enough number of inhabitants to mean that most people are lucky enough to be able to have a decent patch of land to call their own. Our backyard was big enough for us to run around in to our hearts' content. We still had space for a trampoline and a playhouse, as well as jungle bars (a sort of metal climbing frame). We built tree huts at the end of the garden and we happily spent hours clambering in and out of them, creating imaginary worlds as we went. Behind our house, we had yet another hut – this one built among the firewood. There were holes in the fences between our garden and those of our neighbours each side, meaning that all the children could run between the houses without ever having to venture outside the safety of our backyards.

Underneath my bedroom window, I had my own little area of garden, which I would lovingly tend. In our vegetable garden, we planted parsley, garden peas, silver beets and lettuce – all the 'easy-to-grow' vegetables.

I desperately wanted a pet and plagued Mum and Dad. It turned out that our record of animal ownership was not a fantastic success to begin with. First, we had a cat called Tammy, but Sophie proved to be allergic to cats, so poor old Tammy was shipped off to live with Auntie Carol.

I was besotted with rabbits when I was small and had a collection of soft toy bunnies. Perhaps it's because I was born in the Chinese Year of the Rabbit that I've such affinity to them. The decision was taken that I would be given a pet rabbit for my eighth birthday. Being a little sister, Sophie
wanted everything that I had when we were kids, so she had a rabbit too. At just five years old, she was too small to look after hers, so the rabbit-care duties fell to me. We were never keen on keeping them locked up in their cage all day every day, so we had Dad build some special rabbit runs, putting his famous Kiwi ingenuity to use. I always ended up in charge of keeping an eye on the rabbits, Peter and Snowdrop, as they pottered about their grassy patch. On one occasion, when I didn't have my eye on them, they escaped, much to my horror. We managed to catch them, but after that scare Dad blocked off all the rabbit-sized escape routes from the back garden. We gave up on the runs and instead let the rabbits run free around the yard when we were out with them. But our rabbits just kept on growing and the bigger they became, the faster they seemed to be able to run away from us.

We had the best of intentions because we didn't want to keep them cooped up in a cage, but, every time we let them run free, we then had to spend hours running after them trying to put them back into the safety of their cage for the night time.

Eventually we gave both of the rabbits away, and mine, Snowdrop, was last heard of eating the cabbages and flowers in the gardens neighbouring her new home.

Our quest to find a suitable pet was not yet over, though. We opted for something a little smaller and so bought two mice – one for me and one for Sophie. My mouse, who went by the name of Snoopy, developed a scab on its back, so we used to have to put ointment on it every day.

In the end, the mice were handed on to new homes as well. After we'd tried a cat, rabbits and mice, you might have thought that we would have given up on pet ownership altogether – but then we alighted on our perfect pet, who arrived on my eleventh birthday. Zac, the cockatiel, still lives with the family today. He is a small grey bird and he can talk a little, although I think he might be envious that he
cannot sing. At least, whenever I sing and he's nearby, he makes a terrible racket. It's possible he might be trying to join in, but, equally, he could be voicing his disapproval.

We thought it was very normal at the time, but looking back I realise now that we enjoyed a very creative childhood. Mum definitely encouraged it, putting into practice what she had learned when she trained to be a teacher. She knew all about child development and I'm sure it was no accident that, in the corner of our house, we had a box filled with all sorts of arts-and-crafts materials so that we could make anything that our imaginations could come up with. Next to it was another box full of different outfits and clothes for us to dress up in. These were things that I took for granted as a child. The one thing we definitely didn't do was to sit in front of the television during all our spare time.