From Paris with love  . . . and a didgeridoo

This is the first In Profile of the 2023 series, and with it, we also pay tribute to the memory of Tony Gill, former manager of Rotorua Trust.

Tony died on April 8 after a 16-month battle with Motor Neurone Disease. From the time In Profile started in 2021, Tony embraced the project, supporting it and working hard behind the scenes to make it the success story it has become. We thank you, Tony, for your encouragement, enthusiasm and enduring smile - the legacy you leave us with. 

Jill Nicholas 

Stephen Parker

Words: Jill Nicholas
Pictures-video: Stephen Parker

 His Christian name’s Italian in origin, he’s worked on a Montana ranch and he plays the didgeridoo.

Yet Bruno Viel is neither Italian, American nor Australian. He is, by his definition, a “Frenchie”. To be more precise he’s Parisian, growing up in the affluent suburb of Saint-Cloud. It’s a stone’s throw across the River Seine from the heart of the City of Lights. 

For the past seven-plus years he and his wife Frederique (need we say she’s also French?) have lived and worked in Rotorua. To add to the international mix their four-year-old daughter, Adele, is a genuine Kiwi. Rotorua is her birthplace.

They are part of a thriving French community who’ve made this city their home. Named the French Connection they rendezvous monthly at Le Café De Paris.

Trite as it may sound, the Bruno Viel we meet is quintessentially French. He’s expressive. . .  charming  . . .  a romantic, a man whose heart is embedded into his sleeve.

His greeting is so oh la la French -  a  kiss on both cheeks. He calls it “la bise” and says if he came from further south it would have been three, maybe even four. 

“We do it the way you would give a handshake; it’s our way of saying ‘hi’ to men and women. In the beginning when I arrived here people were greeting me with their hands out. I was offering them my cheek. It was pretty funny really. I had to get used to it quickly. Now it is the opposite when I go back to France.”  

Growing up in Paris and Northern France was, for Bruno, “tres bien” or, as he puts it in English, an amazing experience. His parents sold Parisian real estate. After they divorced his mother opened a beauty salon. His father died when his son was 18. “He was married three times. I have five half brothers and sisters who I’ve only met once in my life.”

His grandmere (grandmother) took him to all the famous museums and art galleries. “She was into art, classical music. In Paris she took me to many cultural places. 

She had a holiday home in Normandy I love both places.

Normandy’s where Bruno, his sister, their cousins and friends spent their summer holidays. He and Frederique he calls her Fred, Freddi or cherie (dear) married there in 2015. 

“Paris was a great place to grow up but now I have a daughter it is more safe for her to grow up here in Rotorua than a city like Paris.

 I have a few souvenirs . . .  I left behind a lot of people.”    

Before we get to those people we quiz him about the origins of his Italian name.

He was named after a friend of his mother who died when she was pregnant with him. It’s not his full name. That’s Bruno Jacques. Jacques is a poignant salute to his grandfather, killed in the Second World War.  

“He was a pilot who went down over the Mediterranean.”

School, down on the Montana range  

School wasn’t to Bruno’s liking.

“I was never very good at school academically; I was pretty smart but not into studies.  I was having too much fun being a teenager. Saint-Cloud was quite, me and my friends we were the trouble.

I had a lot of friends. There were about 12 of us. We are still very close.

“We were young and silly. We discovered weed and were going to rave parties.  My  friend who was a DJ with techno music had a didgeridoo. He gave it to me, after that I never stopped playing it. I always carried it on my bike. I do not play the typical Aboriginal way.

“I was very bad at first. I trained a lot by myself.  Some people say it’s the hardest instrument to learn. I  play hip-hop, jazz and techno music on it.

“Everything comes from the mouth, sounds, screams, songs.

“I still play it but you can only buy decorative ones here. They don’t sound good.  I regret not bringing mine from France. I’ll buy one in Paris when we go back for a visit in May. Australia’s not on the itinerary.”

He thanks his childhood babysitters for his fluent English.

“My sister and I had girls from the UK and America looking after us. In France we call them ‘jeune filles au pairs’.”

One came from Montana in the US, a state where cattle ranching drives the economy.

Bruno visited her twice on the family ranch, working “down on the range”.

“Everything was so new to me coming from Paris.  I moved water pipes in the mornings, rode horses in the afternoons. Like New Zealand, there was a lot of nature. I was the only Frenchie so I learnt a lot of English fast.”

The following year he sold his scooter and was back. The reason; he’d developed a crush on his au pair’s sister. 

“I came back to see her but by then I was in love with a French girl. We still spent time together, I became friends with her friends. There were a lot of parties. 

“Those two summers were amazing. I was totally immersed in American culture. I learnt a lot about myself.”

He was still a schoolboy which meant he didn’t graduate from high school until he was 19, completing papers in French, English and movies.

Career in movies

Movies had always fascinated him but to please his grandmother he enrolled in Boulogne University, aiming to study psychology.

But he didn’t last, dropping out a few months into the course.  Making movies was much more to his liking. “When I started work it was as an assistant stage manager for short movies, then I became the stage manager.  They were realistic, grounded movies.”

One that’s particularly dear to him is titled Le Plafond, (The Ceiling in English) and was directed by Mathieu Demy the son of leading French film director, Jacques Demy.     

However good the movies were, they weren’t big money spinners. Bruno turned to retail

“I was 20 or 21 working in a fancy toy shop when I met my first wife, she was employed there too. We fell in love. I quit everything in Paris and moved with her to Tarbes in the Pyrenees. We married there in 2003 but only stayed married a short time. Borrowing from the words of the great French songstress Edith Piaf, he says “Non, je ne regrette rien”.  Translated into English that’s “I have no regrets.”

Back to Paris where his brother-in-law secured him work as a waiter-bar tender on board one of the Seine’s famous floating restaurants, Le K2.   
“It was a music hall bar restaurant close to Notre Dame and very popular. I got to play my didgeridoo there on stage with a famous pianist.

“I worked very hard. I lost 28kgs working off all the junk food I ate in the Pyrenees.”

The slimmed down Bruno returned to retail, joining the international company EB Video Games. Over a dozen or so years he worked his way up to manager.

Love at first sight

He was based in Montpellier in southern France when he and Frederique met.

“She was walking home with a friend from her birthday party.  I was so entranced by her beautiful eyes I don’t remember what her friend looked like. I took her phone number but I was in another relationship. I broke it off, I have never had two girlfriends at once. In those days I was a bit of an adventurer with girls.”

 A week after he first saw Frederique his best friend encouraged him to contact her.

“She said she was waiting for me to call. The following weekend it was my birthday. I invited her to my party. Our birthdays are very close together.”

The two gelled. 
“When we met she was assistant PR manager in the press office at the local council. After we were together a while we decided to take a holiday to either Australia or New Zealand.”

Destiny, kismet call it what you will stepped in. 

“Freddie emailed a camper van company in Auckland for a quote.  It was pure synchronicity. She only knew one person in New Zealand. Her name was Kate and it was that Kate who received the email. She was a Kiwi who was with a Frenchie from Montpellier. He sold living in New Zealand to us. I’ve always believed in synchronicity, coincidences.”

After three weeks touring in the camper van there was no doubt this was where their permanent home would be.

“We were both saying ‘Let’s do it, let’s move to New Zealand. We loved it. It is multi cultural, the people are more open than in France it it’s easier to mix in New Zealand than France”

They returned home and through EB Video Games made contact with an area manager who was Rotorua based. Bruno was guaranteed a job.

“It was a bit risky. I was over 30, I couldn’t have a working holiday visa but Fred could. 

We got married at my grandma’s place three years after we met. It was the best wedding ever.”

Rotorua becomes home

They sold up almost everything and swapped countries.

“Fred walked into a job at Princes Gate Hotel. That was in October, but because of all the paperwork involved I couldn’t start at EB Games until January. I took a lot of walks, played a lot of golf.  I’d played a bit of golf with my mother in Paris when I was a teenager and in a paddock with the cows in Normandy. “

The couple rented a flat in Grey Street’s art deco block.
“In another coincidence the Kiwi couple who’ve become like Mum and Dad to us here, Kate and Eugene Minnee, lived in that building too when they first came to Rotorua.”

With his work visa finally sorted, Bruno spent more than two years at EB Games in the mall before being headhunted by new owners of the neighbouring PhoneLife. For the past eight months he’s worked at Harvey Norman, selling computers, printers and mobiles.

“My boss says I’m good at it because people like my accent.”

Freddie’s had a long-time job as competency manager with Iskills, a company whose mission statement reads “Upskilling workers for a safer New Zealand.”

Adapting easy 

The Viels didn’t find it difficult adapting to living the Kiwi way.

“Kiwis have been so friendly to us. New Zealand is one of the most friendly countries in the world. It was very impressive. Straight away we made a bunch of friends, Pakeha and Māori, other foreigners. We love the lifestyle, the nature, the culture. Kiwis are more open minded than Frenchies. They tend to be wrapped up in themselves. It is easier to mix in New Zealand than France.”

Nor does he believe the Rainbow Warrior bombing turned New Zealanders off  La Belle France and her people.

“I didn’t know about it until I came here, I had to Google it. As a Frenchie I am not proud to be part of that. I feel I need to apologies for France for that.”   

The couple parlez vous Francais (speak French) at home, however English is their daughter’s first language

“She went to day care when she was a few months old. Now she has three languages: English, Māori and sometimes she puts French words in her speech. When she was two she asked us for kai. We didn’t know what she meant. Now she’s teaching us te reo.”

Before Adele’s birth in 2018 they bought their own home. It’s beside a stream and close to the lake. Ideally, they’d stay there for ever.

But Bruno considers it’s too small for them to increase their Kiwi-made family.

“Our goal is to have a house with a big garden that’s lost in the bush. I guess we’d have to go to the South Island to find our dream home but Rotorua is the place we love, the place these Frenchies are happy to call home.”