RIDING THE WAVES OF LIFE

WORDS Liam Stretch PHOTOS Julie Chandelier 

In many ways, Nancy Meherne is your normal 92-year-old. Like plenty of nonagenarians, she tends to her garden, feeds a wayward cat, and gushes about her grandchildren and their successes to any visitor – with family photos all within arm’s reach. She does, however, have a passion that tends to be associated with abdominally gifted young people – surfing. 

Born in Wellington in 1929 amid the Great Depression, Nancy and her family followed her father’s work, and when she was six months of age, they moved to Ohakune, in the shadow of Mount Ruapehu. 

She later travelled the world for three and half years and eventually returned to New Zealand and found her home in Sumner, where she would raise her own family. 

She and her husband Doug would go on to have two of their own children and adopt a third. Nancy then impacted the lives of many other young people in her role as a teacher and music tutor; she continues to do the latter with a couple of students a week. In education for most of her life, she still hears from former pupils that remember her fondly, many of them taking part in the operettas she produced. 

“A lady who now lives in Australia wrote a lovely letter to me about how she has music for life now.” 

She has hopes to see another of her musicals performed by a local school. 

It was in raising her family in the seaside suburb that surfing came into Nancy’s life. Nancy has long had a relationship with the water and swimming, but after her first ride on a board in her late 40s, Nancy developed a deep love for the waves. 

Though not being able to take the stroll down to Sumner Beach to cruise atop the breakers as much as she would like, she still tries to get out into the water as often as possible, on the same foam Skellerup board she has used since she started – a 1970s model which belonged to her son. 

“People are amazed I’m still using it because it’s so old,” she says. “It’s well made.” 

She has never learnt to stand up on the board, and she has never felt the need to. She just enjoys being as close as possible to the water itself. She’s definitely no wuss, though. 

“I like a strong wave. The little ones only last a wee while, and I like to go right in.” 

Nancy says that she feels freed by the water and enjoys the break it provides her from everyday life. 

“It’s lovely and no effort. You just lie there. So many things are full of effort, this isn’t, I just love it,” she says. 

In between surfing, Nancy dances and plays along to the classical music on the radio and spends time in an extensive edible garden. Nancy is a keen vegetarian, and her patch is an outdoor larder full of herbs, vegetables, and fruit. It also has a creek that is home to around 15 well-fed ducks, all on a diet of rolled oats and dumpster-dived fresh vegetables.