Mamie Anania

Tu Tangata, Issue 31, 1 August 1986, Page 57

Mamie Anania

MAMIE Anania has a memory for faces developed over thirty one years at the front office of the Department of Maori Affairs in Auckland.

A Glaswegian by birth but a New Zealander by choice, she has been a recep-tionist-cum-cashier for all those years.

Mamie takes great pride in her job which has seen many changes. She came to New Zealand after meeting her husband, Amos James Nuku Anania, in Australia. She had been a head receptionist in a hotel in the highlands of her native Scotland - mixing with upper class folk, as Mamie puts it.

She says the people she worked for then were the peerage in Britain, the ones born and bred to carry on the family name and tradition. She believes the values she recognised then are still worth following today. She says these people were very courteous to staff and well-mannered. By contrast she says, a lot of self-made people have arrogant attitudes, which probably come from having to prove themselves.

Mamie was twenty one when she left Britain and came to Australia, for adventure she says. She became the head book-keeper for the Hume Pipe Co. After marrying, her husband transferred in his navy job back home, so Mamie went looking for a job in Auckland. She was offered a job with Kerridge Odeon looking after visiting stage performers ‘flesh and blood’ in the trade says Mamie.

Her first star would have been Winifred Atwell, but it was not to be. Straightfaced Mamie said she turned down that job and also five pound a week for her current position as cashier with Maori Affairs.

You get the feeling that Mamie hasn’t regretted that choice, and that many visitors to the department offices over the last thirty one years have gained from it.

With her good memory for faces, she is able to put a personality behind the civil servant. She says most people come to the cashier window to pay accounts, argue accounts or ask directions. She’s on the ball with all three and says the important thing is to listen to people.

Some of the older people can get pretty upset with misunderstandings and that patience goes a long way to fixing the problem. No doubt her ability to remember people’s names as well as the circumstances of their last visit is a handy tool.

She claims her job entails no big hassles apart from language difficulties with older pacific island people. At times like this she calls in someone who speaks the language to sort it out.

Mamie has seen four changes of location for the Auckland office. Paykel’s building on the corner of Beach Rd and Anzac Ave, then onto Anzac Ave, then

the Jean Batten building in the city and then the move to Ponsonby where she is now.

She’s also seen a change in the workload, from over one hundred staff handling everything from Maori Land Court business, through to Welfare and Housing to Maori Trust Development.

Staff then, she says, were expected to handle the lot rather than the specialisation that occurs now. Also she says there was more dedication, not just because of a pay packet at the end of the day.

In previous days Mamie paid apprentices their wages and through this built up quite a rapport with the young men. She still has visits from these not so young men today who like to keep in touch.

She admits that she became a mother figure to many of them, and having no children of her own, she is proud of the ones who adopted her.

Mamie says in those days most of the apprentices lived in hostels and needed advice on everything from budgeting to social manners. She encouraged good saving habits so that they budgeted wisely, and later helped with advice on how to get a house. She says the boys had no qualms about seeking her wisdom on these matters. She in turn had no qualms about tweaking the ear of those boys she caught drinking in hotels whilst underage. The relationship was not all beer and skittles.

She remembers those young people getting into trouble with the law and the young lawyers who took on the cases at ten bob a time, a low fee then. “David Lange, Peter Williams, Kevin Ryan, those were the ones around about 1956.”

Mamie Anania says she’s been taken for Maori behind the cashier’s window, but says that’s dashed when she opens her mouth and they hear her accent. She finds much affinity between Maori and Scottish culture, the clans and tribes being very similar. The superstitions and customs are much alike, from kehua and spooks to tangi and funerals.

Her great grandfather was a cousin of Thomas Lipton, who we now remember for Lipton Tea. This famous tupuna first made his money in grocery stores and then specialised in tea. However, says Mamie, his family cut him off very early on, so when he made his fortune, the family were not party to it.

Being a familiar face in Maori Affairs, Auckland, Mamie acknowledges, can make it tough for some. For example when she’s not at the window, customers would rather come back with their business, than deal with a new face. And she does get the odd call at home to enquire when she will be back on deck. Also people ring up to check if the latest Tu Tangata magazine is out and if such and such an article is in it.

Magazine enquiries, account hassles and cups of tea for visitors waiting to see the boss, it’s all been part of the work over the years for Mamie Anania.