A change from the Nieuport

It is now almost a year since the Nieuport last flew. That insurance premium really put a knock on my thoughts of flying it. Added to which our Test pilot has been busy on all sorts of other projects - and now COVID-19 has put us all in lockdown. I started this particular blog in April 2020 and it is now May 2021. COVID has changed our version of 'normality' and New Zealand has been fortunate in its stance of isolating ourselves from the rest of the world as long as possible to keep its citizens as safe as possible. We succeeded while the rest of the world struggled and continues to struggle to contain the pandemic -one not seen since the Spanish Flu of 1918.

However, to quote an annoying advert, "But wait, there's more!!": late in 2020 I received a phone call from a TV journalist wanting to see me about a family matter. Obviously with my curiosity piqued I had no choice but to say "Sure!". What transpired after our meeting was that a young lass (39 years old -definitely young to me!) was looking for her biological father -and he was me. This was not a complete surprise to me as I had been part of a sperm donor programme back in the late 1970s/early 1980s; although the parents of any issue were told that they were NOT to tell their children of their origins, people being people, some of them did. The advent of AncestryDNA and other such companies has made it a lot easier to find matches. The hard bit is tracking down the fathers. Whether they consent to making contact with said offspring is entirely over to them.

For myself, I have no problems in being contacted.

The upshot of all this was two days of filming in Blenheim,, a further two days filming in Auckland, getting to meet the (new) family and then waiting for the post production to be done and the show aired. I believe the show was a success in terms of bringing matters out into the open, not just about donor children but also adopted children. They can now see that it is possible -even if needing a lot of paper trails to follow- to find your origins if that is what you are searching for. Some may be quite content with not knowing; that is their choice. But if I have been instrumental in facilitating their searches and showing that secrecy is not necessary, then I have been part of a beneficial programme. What more could you ask for? Maybe another daughter, perhaps? Well, that is what has happened: I now have two daughters I didn't know I had -plus two extra grandchildren.

The rest of 2021 is going to be interesting!