Intrepid spirit

Not many people have a full-sized moa skeleton in the front room, but then Christine Fernyhough is not most people. Her home is full of surprises. There she stands, a female stout-legged moa, smaller than the giant fortunately, in a big glass enclosure at one end of Christine’s vibrant turquoise-coloured Parnell living room.

Christine is a collector. For more than three decades she has been haunting second-hand shops and auction houses the length of the country in an effort to preserve what she sees as a golden era in New Zealand. The 1950s and 1960s were a time when New Zealand came into its own. A simple, uncomplicated time when we made things ourselves, before manufacturing was outsourced to China. Her collection includes furniture, toys, Crown Lynn china and a vast array of Kiwiana. Much of it is displayed in the old family bach she bought with her husband John Fernyhough at