A dissertation submitted by Cameron McLeod in fulfilment of an Honours degree in Diplomacy, covering community response and recovery in Lyttelton following the Canterbury Earthquakes. Dissertation supervised by Dr Bronwyn Hayward, University of Canterbury School of Social and Political Sciences.
A photograph captioned, "So it's been an eventful couple of years. I think the first earthquake, it was just so totally unexpected. You went to bed one night and when you woke up - in just a few seconds- everything was different than it had been before".
A photograph captioned, "I miss living here, right by the river. I'd been there for quite a long time, 12 years or so. I realize now I took it for granted a bit. I used to get a bit bored with having a big old house that was cold, difficult to clean, and perhaps hard to keep warm. But now, when I go back there, I miss living in a big house by the river with an open fire and a big lounge and everything. I had the park there on the other side of the river. And there was a little bridge down there where you could walk over to it. There was actually a circuit you could do, up to the New Brighton Bridge and back. Yeah, it was beautiful".
A photograph captioned, "I was reading in the paper this morning about one of the people who was orange and then went red yesterday. They said they were really glad they'd gone red rather than green-blue. Green-blue is the one they're going to have problems with".
A photograph captioned, "After the September earthquake, it was more a simple case of something gets broken and it gets repaired. Then came February, and June as well, and suddenly it's just not so straightforward anymore".
A photograph captioned, "Lovely big weeds, they're pretty aren't they. Amongst all this".
A photograph captioned, "It feels like it has been a really on-going process. We weren't in the head space for it really, because when you retire, you think you're in your retirement home and you're there to stay. You don't expect to have to move on. To do all this".
A photograph captioned, "We went to Nigel's place for breakfast and stayed for three months".
A photograph captioned, "In the 1930s the traffic in Gayhurst Road was so light that I can remember playing hockey and cricket with apple boxes for wickets. If a car or cart came along there was plenty of time to shift the boxes to let them past".
A photograph captioned, "My daughter grew up in this house. She's 10 now. She is going to miss it - and Dallington. It's where she's grown up, what she knows. She'll miss it alright. Me too".
Caption reads: "Yeah yeah, I know, but you’ve got to look. It’s incredible what’s happened to these places. It’s not something you see everyday and once it’s gone, it’s gone forever."
Caption reads: "You can’t do a thing about it but I can’t be bothered going house hunting. I’ll just live each day as best I can. I keep thinking it could change again. The dust here doesn’t bother me, the noise doesn’t bother me. When they start pulling down houses the vibrations don’t bother me. Nothing bothers me. We’re all like that. That’s how you have to be when you can’t do a thing about it."
Caption reads: "At the moment we’re trying to carry on like everything is normal. It’s not easy. It’s hard sometimes to remember what things were like before the earthquake."
Page 10 of the Your Weekend section of the Christchurch Press, published on Saturday 7 January 2012.
Pages 16 and 17 of the Your Weekend section of the Christchurch Press, published on Saturday 7 January 2012.
Page 11 of the Your Weekend section of the Christchurch Press, published on Saturday 7 January 2012.
Page 18 of the Your Weekend section of the Christchurch Press, published on Saturday 7 January 2012.
Page 8 of the Your Weekend section of the Christchurch Press, published on Saturday 7 January 2012.
Page 9 of the Your Weekend section of the Christchurch Press, published on Saturday 7 January 2012.
Page 3 of the Your Weekend section of the Christchurch Press, published on Saturday 7 January 2012.
Page 5 of Section G of the Christchurch Press, published on Saturday 7 January 2012.
Page 15 of the Your Weekend section of the Christchurch Press, published on Saturday 7 January 2012.
Page 7 of Section B of the Christchurch Press, published on Tuesday 10 January 2012.
Page 13 of Section A of the Christchurch Press, published on Thursday 19 January 2012.
Page 11 of Section A of the Christchurch Press, published on Thursday 19 January 2012.
Page 1 of the Punt section of the Christchurch Press, published on Friday 20 January 2012.
Page 1 of Section B of the Christchurch Press, published on Saturday 21 January 2012.
Page 2 of Section B of the Christchurch Press, published on Saturday 21 January 2012.
Page 16 of Section A of the Christchurch Press, published on Saturday 21 January 2012.
Page 17 of Section A of the Christchurch Press, published on Saturday 21 January 2012.