June Grant

Celebrating two Whakarewarewa wahine toa: June Northcroft Grant  and her acclaimed grandmother Maggie Papakura  

Words Jill Nicholas

Pictures/video Stephen Parker

It was purely coincidental that after sharing her life story with In Profile, June Northcroft Grant’s next appointment was her annual mammogram.

Unscripted, yes, but it couldn’t have been more fitting. 

This woman is one of breast screening’s most passionate proponents. She is adamant it saved her life, but the outcome could easily have been the polar opposite. 

Conquering breast cancer, and encouraging other women to be tuned to its potential presence, has become her mission. The gospel she delivers is one of self-preservation. She can’t repeat it often enough. 

Surviving cancer is but one strand of the fabric upon which the life of this inspirational wahine toa (strong woman) is woven. 

 She’s an accomplished artist and craftswoman, an international advocate for indigenous art and has played major roles in national and local Maori organisations.

 In 2010 she was created an Officer of the Order of Merit (ONZM) for her contribution to Maori art, coupled with breast cancer awareness. She became a Justice of the Peace earlier this year.

Whakarewarewa whakapapa

Whakarewarewa is her turangawaewae. “It is my querencia. That’s the Spanish word for the place where you are your most authentic self.”

June was born in the village in 1949. Her father, Henry Northcroft, was an Anglican priest. Whakarewarewa became the heart of his parish. This followed ministries in    Wairoa and Hawke’s Bay. 

His name is enshrined in the annals of this country’s military history.  While serving as a major in the Maori Battalion his bravery during the battle of Senio, in Itlay, was  recognised with a Military Cross.

 Military honours weren’t new to the Northcroft whanau. June’s great grandfather, also named Henry Northcroft, is recorded as the first person to receive the New Zealand Cross. It was awarded for valour during the Hau Hau rebellion in the 1860s. 

The Reverend Henry Northcroft’s appointment to the Whakarewarewa parish was a homecoming for him. He was brought up there by his grandmother Rakera Ihaia from infancy until he was 12. When his kuia became unwell he returned to his parents’ Waitahanui home. 

June’s three paternal great grandmothers were her close tupuna by birth and whangai (adoption).

Three grandmothers? As June recites her whakapapa there’s no question about it.

To be factually correct her direct line great grandmother was Rihi Waaka.  Her sister Bella Thom and cousin Makereti Papakura were two of Whakarewarewa’s original guides. History has it Makereti gave herself the Papakura surname after the area’s famed geyser. In June’s world the trio share equal billing in her whakapapa.

“If I had walked through the village and seen them I would have said ‘Morena kuia’ [grandmother] to each of them because to me they were all my kuia.”

In many respects June’s life has travelled a pathway parallel to Makereti’s.

Both shared Maori-Pakeha parentage, it’s heritage June describes as “cool”. 

“I’m half English too. My mother, Dorothy Lambert, was born in Bradford, Yorkshire. She emigrated to Aotearoa in 1923.” 

Like Makereti, June has promoted tourism, been a cultural ambassador internationally, shared entrepreneurial skills and has staunchly advocated for her people.

Add to that, each was a pin-up girl of her era.

Not that the pin-up girl tag sits comfortably with June, but that’s how her public persona was launched.

Teenage meter maid 

She was 15 when the Rotorua Businessmen’s Association chose her, along with fellow teenager Ngahuia Gordon (now emeritus Professor Ngahuia Te Awekotuku) to dress in Maori “costumes” and top up parking meters to prevent shoppers being fined.

 The concept was borrowed from the Gold Coast, where girls in bikinis did a similar thing in a bid to draw shoppers and tourists to the area. There was a trip there to meet the Rotorua pair’s counterparts.

“We had a fabulous time lying in the sun, drinking pina coladas. It was all good, clean fun.”

‘Meter maiding’ started as a school holiday job then became June’s first paid employment at 14 pounds ($28) a week. 

Like Makereti, her face became enshrined on post cards. Acclaimed Netherlands-born artist Walter Bakkens painted her portrait. 

June found the resulting publicity overwhelming.

“I was thrust into the spotlight which was not what I aspired to at all. I was really shy, honestly. When Keith Bracey [TV presenter] interviewed me I got so tongue tied I couldn’t say a thing.”

The businessmen’s association entered her in Tauranga’s Orange Festival. She was crowned queen. 

Another highlight of those days was being in pole position in Rotorua’s traditional  New Year’s Eve float parades. “There we were, sitting on top of these grand structures covered in flowers, waving to the crowd. It was quite overwhelming.” 

Local photographer Peter Fenwick recruited her as a model. His apprentice, Kerry Grant, introduced her to his younger brother Michael Grant (Ngati Pikao). June converted to Catholicism to marry him at 18.

Married life, art studies 

“We started a family virtually straight away. I loved it, staying home, being a good wife and mother, cooking wonderful meals, until I decided I wanted to do something about my artistic talent.”  

 June was 42 when she enrolled at Waiariki Polytech to study for a diploma in Maori arts and crafts design. The course was spread over four years and preceded polytech- awarded degrees.

She didn’t go in as a total novice with a brush. She’d already had tutoring from Bakkens and his fellow locally based artist Ted Bullmore. She’d also spent time at Whakarewarewa’s Maori Arts and Crafts Institute, learning piupiu and korowai weaving skills from master craftswoman Emily Schuster.

At Waiariki she specialised in fibre and paint.

“After Waiariki I had all this art training. I was really enthusiastic. I painted a lot of my tupuna, woman in our history, fabulous women from our waka, our canoe. At first my work was too big to fit on walls. I graduated to smaller works over several years.”

Following her graduation she was back at Waiariki, tutoring Maori women’s studies. She’d studied the subject extramurally via Waikato University.

In 1989 June and fellow Waiariki art graduate Mereana Hall (now Ngatai) went into business together designing Maori clothing. Whakarewarewa-based Pohutu Prints was born.

Businesswoman, Maori art ambassador 

“We had this fabulous business pioneering screen printing tee shirts and clothing for a number of years.”

This expanded and moved. Re-named Best in Maori Tourism, the operation featured an art gallery, souvenir shop and booking office for tours of the neighbouring village. Having always lamented the lack of Maori women in business, June went on to open the Tutanekai Street gallery she named Te Raukura (Red Feather). Her aim was that it become the epitome of Maori art.

It did, and became so successful she opened a second shop that carried the same name. It was in Haupapa Street. The global financial crisis, along with high Rotorua CBD rents, brought the galleries to an end in 2010. 

In its heyday June was making trips overseas exhibiting, promoting Maori art and liaising with First Nations people across the globe. She frequently travelled with other leading Maori artists, including Okere Falls carver Roi Toia.

As Export New Zealand representatives at a 1999 Pacific arts fair in Vancouver June and Roi met local gallery owner, Christchurch-born Nigel Reading. 

“He took a punt and invited us to exhibit and sell Maori artists’ works at his Spirit Wrestler Gallery.

“It was probably one of the best decisions I have made in my life. The gallery sold millions of dollars’ worth of Maori art until it closed in November 2019. I went up there to farewell them. It was as if its closure was prophetic. It was just before Covid stopped the world and a lot of galleries went out of business.”              

Cancer strikes

June was in New York in 2000 promoting Maori art and encouraging cruise lines  heading to New Zealand to sell it on board when she made the discovery that turned her life upside down and inside out.

“I was lying on my hotel bed watching TV when I folded my hands over my chest and felt something unusual . . . a lump. I kept thinking ‘yes, I can feel it, no I can’t’.

“Something clicked in my brain. My gut instinct was telling me something was wrong, bad, but I didn’t want to know. That’s not wise, but it is a normal reaction.”   

 She convinced herself she was too busy to have it seen to immediately 

By the time she did see a doctor in New Zealand five months on, a mammogram revealed she had grade two breast cancer. Major surgery, chemotherapy and radiotherapy followed. The side effects were awful. 

June’s knee length hair fell out. She became too ill to work or travel. 

Hers was an experience she’s adamant no other woman, whatever their race or creed, should have to endure because they too ignored the need to have a mammogram or see a doctor, regardless of how well they considered themselves to be.  

It’s the reason she’s been breast and cervical screening coordinator with Te Arawa Whanau Ora for the past seven years. Before the contract switched from the Rotorua General Practice Group she held the same role there.

Since her own cancer battle she’s dedicated her life to assisting women prevent and fight what she calls the “rigours” of its diagnosis.

In addition, she’s a founding trustee of the Aratika Cancer Trust. It holds wellness retreats and seminars for cancer survivors.

Championing Makereti 

June’s interest in her tipuna Makereti is virtually life-long.

Although Makereti died almost 20 years before June was born, her affection for her comes from the depths of her soul. 

“She has been an inspiration to me all my life. She was the first Maori woman to matriculate from Oxford University and, at the time, the only native woman to be studying her own culture.”

She graduated with a B.Sc focused on anthropology. The thesis that followed has been widely published but the formal Oxford recognition of her PhD has not come. It was shelved when Makereti died a few weeks before her scheduled 1930 graduation .

Almost a century on June has made it her personal crusade to have that righted. 

The former thermal valley guide had lived in England since taking a concert party to London in 1911 to celebrate King George V’s coronation, at which she was a guest. They met when, as the Duke of Cornwall and York, she showed him around Whakarewarewa.

She married Richard Staples-Brown, a member of the British landed gentry. Her Oxford studies began after they divorced.

Makereti is buried in Oddingtion, Oxfordshire. “A lot of Maori who visit England go there first.” 

At Whakarewarewa she’s commemorated by a carved pou behind her whare.

 Last year June spent several weeks at Oxford’s Pitt River museum, researching her “grandmother’s” work.

“Her thesis was entirely written by hand. There are lots of side notes that are absolute  gems. She was such a scholar that at times I had to use a Thesaurus to understand her words. I seemed to learn something new about her and her life in the village every day.” 

Life’s reflections

June’s regret that she was never taught to speak te reo Maori is profound.

“My great moko go to Kura Kaupapa; naturally they speak Maori. I would love to have sat down with my dad who was a fluent Maori speaker and learnt it but in those days it was forbidden to speak or learn it. That’s shameful.”

Whanau are June’s “absolute everything.”

“There is always someone from our whanau living here or visiting. I love that; our mokopuna are all doing something interesting with their lives.”

 One who’s presently with June and husband Mike during the school week is her moko tuarua, Nikau Grace from Kawerau. At 15, she’s recently released a solo album. It follows her appearance at this year’s Lakeside concert.

“She is a really talented kid but they all are,” this bursting with pride great- grandmother says.

Invite June to define herself as she is today and her answer is reflective.

“I can’t believe I’m sitting here at 73 years of age. It feels as if my life has been 20 minutes long. I look in the mirror in the morning and think ‘Who is that old lady in my nightie?’ The thing is my mind hasn’t aged but the body tells me every day ‘Slow down old girl’. To me, I am the same person I was at 18 but with additional extras: wrinkles, rolls and memory lapses.

“Humour has been a huge part of my life.  I am non-confrontational. I prefer not to argue or be aggressive. I would like to think I treat everybody fairly.

“My favourite quote is from American author Maya Angelou. She wrote ‘People  won’t remember you for what you said or did. They will remember you for how you made them feel’.”