EXPLOSIVE BEGINNING
Helen was rehearsing a play at the Karori campus of Wellington Teachers’ College when word came through of an explosion at Trades Hall. Someone had been killed.
It was the evening of March 27, 1984. The college drama group, of which Helen was an enthusiastic member, was working on The Birthday Party, a play by Harold Pinter. She was in one of the leading roles as Meg Boles, a boarding-house operator. By then she was also president of the college students’ union and student representative on the college’s governing council. These twin roles occupied much of her time.
A member of the administrative staff came into the rehearsal room and asked to speak to her. Her face went white as she received the news. Her body seemed to crumble with shock.
She and her brother, Max, knew the Trades Hall building in Vivian St like the backs of their hands; throughout their school years they had gone there often, at lunchtimes and after school, and they knew most of the unionists who worked there. The building’s caretaker, Ernie Abbott, who lived in a flat on the top floor, was their friend. He would give them the bottles he had gathered from around the building, which they would redeem for cash at the dairy over the road. Often they would wait for their father, Pat, in Abbott’s flat, watching TV or playing with his dog, Patch II.
Helen knew Pat was in the building that day, involved with meetings relating to [Prime Minister Sir Robert] Muldoon’s wage freeze. It was clear to her close friend Clare Leniston, who was also at the rehearsal, that her first thought was
