"True compassion is impartial and bears with it a feeling of responsibility for the welfare and happiness of others."
Neil Cameron
The Camerons
A story of cynical, morally bankrupt users, abusers and frauds, masquerading as models of proprietary “above reproach.” Of people of devastating negligence and irresponsibility, of people who demand everything and return nothing at all, of people with a callous disregard for those they harmed; of people who set others up, people who never look others in the eye.
It is the story of my uncle Frank Cameron - MBE, NZ cricketing celebrity, and Chairman of the Board of Selectors: - the story of his true character, the way he treated his own family, and the major disservice he did the world of cricket in lowering its international integrity. (More)
It is the story of my cousin Neil Cameron – franchaisee of Budget Rentacar in Dunedin, NZ, prominent Buddhist, and media spokesman for the Dalai Lama.
Despite having requested a large favour from me in the past, when I recently asked him for a small loan to help me in Mexico - where I have had my money, property and passport stolen - he was abusive and aggressive.
When I mentioned a sample of what follows below, (the hand burning and the orphanage) he told me to “get off my high horse.”
Here then, is our story from the high horse's mouth.
My grandmother Fanny Cameron, apparently thought my mother had married “down” and my father wasn’t really good enough for The Camerons, despíte the fact that they had approached him.
Perhaps it was because his family had an Irish name, or because he was a plumber. Yet her own husband worked on the railway as an unskilled labourer –
and she herself was only a Cameron by marriage. But she had red blonde hair, and so did her sons- and this apparently justified every entitlement.
She spent her life putting out a superior attitude, and treating our family like we weren’t Camerons at all, except when it came to using us.
In reality, my father was intelllectually and creatively gifted, and so were his children. He had been a junior tabletennis champion,
and he and his brother were radio quiz show champions. They were invited to the university for tests, but had no formal entry qualifications.
My father had to leave school at 14 because of the war to work for the Post Office as a morse code telegraph operator, and delivering MIA notices
to unfortunate parents. At Christmas, he would “lose” the telegrams for a few days so these people wouldn’t forever associate Christmas Day with
the death of their son. He went from this level of sensibility to a place where he could beat his sensitive, loving daughter at his wife’s demand,
over a triviality.
My parents met at badminton, a meeting arranged by her brothers, the procurers. My mother also had left school at fourteen
(to pay for her brothers’ education), and worked in a typist’s pool for twelve years, saving every last penny until she had a house deposit.
With little else going for her, buying a husband was her only chance. My father had recently completed his master plumber's certificate, and
started working for himself. He took the bait. Little did he know, he had sold his soul to the devil. He thought her family were respectable,
educated people, with proprietary and standards, as they made themselves out to be. He didn't know they were complete frauds, and that he had been
bought and paid for - that it was a setup which would cost him his sanity and life. Was my Scottish grandmother’s attitude
because she thought a better level of lifelong income could have been gained from the “investment”? In reality, they were lucky to have anyone take her
off their hands at all. My mother was mentally, morally and emotionally defective, and a spectacular liability. Her brothers knew this. But the Cameron’s
attitude pervaded everything my mother thought and did. It was we who "weren’t good enough".
First born , I was the first casualty of her incompetence, negligence and unfitness for any role other than merely being a Cameron.
Later, she had the nerve to call me a “difficult child” because apparently I didn’t like being constantly pushed over when I started walking early
(it might make me “bandy”), or being forcefed molasses, or any of the other casual violences she perpetrated.
When I was two and a half, I burnt my hand on an electric wall heater in the kitchen, with no safety grill.
The electromagnetism of the bars grabbed my hand and seared it to the bars, sending 240 volts convulsing through me,
and burning the hand through to the bone.
Since Dunedin hospital had no burns unit, I was transferred to Burwood in Christchurch, where I underwent six or seven
operations in two years as they rebuilt the hand. I was lucky enough to have a good doctor using the latest skin graft techniques,
or I would certainly have lost the use of my right hand.
There were three sets of Camerons in Christchurch, but none of them ever visited their niece -
except for the time one of them took my visiting family out for a Sunday drive to a lookout point, where I was put in the back seat and
couldn't see a thing -and he proceeded to inch the car over the cliff to scare me, and kept doing it until I was frightened and upset.
Then he chuckled, satisfied. This was my only day out, and an appropriate introduction to the Camerons. It was to get worse, much worse.
When I was finally released, my mother acted like picking me up was the worst thing that had ever happened to her -
no hug, nothing - just this pained expression. She never hugged anyone in her entire life. Never watered a plant, patted an animal
or kissed a child. The hospital and the accident were never mentioned again.
Back home, my mother had a visitor over, and baked a chocolate cake . She loved baking cakes. It was her favourite thing.
Then she closed the lounge door and ate the entire cake herself, with not a crumb for me.
She was in there for hours, leaving me in the kitchen once again – unsupervised. She had learned nothing, but I had. I’d watched her
make chocolate icing, so with no cake, I decided to make some icing myself. Then I invited the neighbourhood kids over to share it,
and we all scoffed it to our heart’s content. My mother was flabbergasted, but failed to take the lesson about sharing, and she never would.
It was all downhill from there – literally.
About the same time, her second act of negligence which could have killed someone, occured. After church one Sunday,
she had been driving, and parked the car on an incline - we lived on a hill. But she failed to put the handbrake on properly,
or leave the car in gear. The car started rolling slowly down the hill, but the four adults present were so engrossed in idle small talk,
the only one who noticed was me. I tugged my mother's sleeve and cried "Mummy!" The car! The car! " She ignored me. The car was picking up speed,
so I shouted it again. She told me not to bother her. Finally someone noticed what was going on and my father went running down the hill and
somehow managed to get into the car as it was moving - at quite some risk to himself. That runaway car could have easily killed someone, as it was
heading for a crossroads. Then - incredibly - my mother blamed me, for not telling her. It was all my fault.
My younger brother by eighteen months – Phillip, was even worse off than me in many ways. A sensitive, artistic child,
also neglected and unloved, my mother somehow managed to get him pronounced a schizophrenic at the age of five. The childhood photos show a
lost, bewildered face – the victim of a wire mother who herself had serious mental problems and needed a supply of scapegoats. With me in hospital,
he became the next, and paid for it with his life – in and out of mental institutions - but with nothing wrong with him a mother’s love wouldn’t fix.
He was destroyed by this “diagnosis”.
Had anyone bothered to observe the parenting, they would have seen the complete lack of talking or listening to the children,
the lack of playing with, supervision, enjoyment of, or interest in her own children at all. She didn't even notice his artistic gifts.
The childhood photos of me are also revealing - most of them featuring my mother - a professional proofsheet where -
just at the moment of snap, she bent down and put her own head in the foreground, so you couldn’t see me, just her. She couldn’t stand
it being about anyone but her, even for a moment – especially another female, even her own daughter.
Soon I started school, St Peter Chanel in Green Island. On the first day, my mother just left me outside the classroom,
without notifying the teacher that I was there or who I was.
I was four and a half, starting school in the mid year, so there was no group enrolment, just me. When I answered a question in class that morning,
the teacher started abusing me for being there without her knowledge. The very next day I got in trouble again for having mistakenly taken someone
else’s beret in the mad rush to get on the school bus, where we had less than five minutes to drink half a pint of milk then run for the bus. I didn’t
know it wasn’t mine, or that I should have had my name stitched on the inside by my mother, who had neglected to do so. Nevertheless I got the hard
leather strap with full ferocious adult strength on the hand which wasn’t burnt. This was the beginning of a lifelong pattern whereby my mother never
had anything ready on time, but someone else paid the price, usually me.
A few days after this, I missed the bus home entirely. There was simply no time to drink that milk and make the bus in a normal fashion
(why wasn’t the school bus timed better?)
I was fearful of more violence if I asked the teachers for help, so with little other choice, I walked all the way home – three or four miles on
a main road without a proper footpath. I was scrambling the embankment most of the way, which was difficult and exhausting. I was only four.
When I finally got home – two hours late –hot, tired and upset, my mother wasn’t even there. I found her next door having afternoon tea with the
neighbour - at 5pm. She hadn’t even noticed that I was late or missing.
When I was six, we moved across town and I started a new school, but this school - St Brigid's, was also abusive, and my mother said nothing, as usual.
The Camerons and the Catholics were in perfect abusive sync. "Spare the rod, spoil the child" was one of my grandmother's favourite maxims.
The new house was always freezing. There was no proper heating. Only one room had an enclosed fire – the rest of the house was
unheated. My mother was fat with all the cakes, while the rest of the family were skin and bone. She drained everyone with her constant self-involvement
- but as long as she was fine, there was no problem.
My bedroom was the coldest in the house, getting no sun at all, and the bed had only two blankets and a thin cotton bedspread
- in freezing Dunedin conditions. I begged her for an electric blanket like she had all her married life, but her only answer was to throw an
old coat over me, which was so heavy it crushed my light frame, and provided little warmth. Most nights I shivered so badly my teeth were chattering
and my body was wracked with painful shuddering. I only fell asleep from complete exhaustion. Today, some forty years later, I have arthritis.
When I was eight, we were put an orphanage for a month. Her eldest brother (Ronald and Neil's father) was dying, and my mother
went to Christchurch with her mother. Her sister Joan, who was childless, should have gone, instead of a mother with three children under eight.
But that would have meant loss of income. Instead, we were put in an orphanage - where we were not allowed to utter a single word, and threatened
with beating if we did.
My mother dumped us there like baggage, and literally ran out the gate. I can still see her back - running away without a word or
wave goodbye.
We slept in a cold, draughty barn of a dormitory with all the other poor abused orphans - how sorry I felt for them - this was their whole life.
At night, my brothers were so cold and lonely they crawled into bed with me for comfort. There were no letters, messages, nothing.
At last, we went home, and found that our father had remodelled the house in our absence. Thank God for our father.
For all their affected superiority, the Camerons had no giftedness, artistry, intellect or ingenuity between them – nothing to hang
a superiority complex on at all.
My father in contrast, was a creative story teller – always making up little yarns and mental puzzles for the children at the
dinner table - as well as a talented tinkerer. One summer, he cobbled together a sail trolley out of a couple of old golf buggies. It was an inspired
piece of engineering, the wheels were perfectly poised and balanced, and the steering was excellent. Then he put a sail on it, and took us to the beach
to try it out. It worked great, with the wind filling the sail and buoyantly propelling the trolley along the sand, just as he had designed it to do.
A photographer from the Otago Daily Times saw us, and was impressed enough to take our pic, featuring it in the paper a few days later. It was an
invention ahead of its time, and a few years later, other people started marketing a similar kind of thing commercially. My father should have patented it,
but he had no support from my mother. Besides, he was too busy working every day supporting her.
My mother never mentioned this or anything else our family ever did, to anyone. She spent two hours on the phone most nights
gossiping with her sister about people in town she didn't even know, but never a word to anyone about us. Or to us, either.
The Camerons were always on about how other people should act, but they had no manners or morality themselves.
They were also phenomenally careless.
Not long after my uncle died, my grandparents went on an extended luxury cruise to Europe, and while they were away,
their house burnt down, due to faulty electrical wiring. As usual, the Camerons were dangerously self indulgent, and couldn’t get
out of their own negligent way – with disastrous consequences. So along with Joan, they came to live with us – for a year. After never
having bothered to visit us before, they took over our entire house, moved into the lounge, had dinner by themselves in the living room with
the harbour views every night, shut the door, and relegated us to the kitchen like servants. They treated the place like a hotel and ignored us completely,
with never a nice word to anyone. My grandmother was always saying “If you can’t say something nice about someone, you shouldn’t say anything at all.”
In fact, I never heard her say anything nice about anyone in her entire life – just muttered, meanspirited criticism under her breath -
finding fault where none existed, but too cowardly to let anyone hear. Her hypocrisy was breathtaking.
The only time my grandfather -John Cameron -ever spoke to me (or anyone) was one day on our back porch, where he devised
a pseudo-conversation designed to put me in a no–win position. Whatever answer I gave, I was going to lose and look foolish.
Additionally, he was blocking the back door, so I was doubly trapped. In my own house. He thought it all very amusing indeed.
I got very angry, turned on my heel, and went in the front door instead. These people had no class. What’s more, they weren’t normal, weren’t right
in the head. They stood on some imaginary dignity, then contrived to rob others of theirs.
With no help forthcoming from any other Cameron, they crowded into a house with three small children and a fourth on the way -
for an entire year. To my knowledge, they paid no rent, food or services, as they'd spent all their money on the holiday. God knows what my father
thought as they ate the fresh vegetables, mushrooms and strawberries from the garden he had planted and nurtured. Were they good enough for the Camerons?
Good enough for the railway worker and his haughty wife? In reality, he was good enough to put them up, and good enough to say nothing. We all were.
I also had to put Joan up in my bedroom for a year. No thanks, repayment or acknowledgement was ever forthcoming from these selfish, crass people.
They squeezed every last thing they could from us, for as long as they could.
Where were the Cameron's sons in the hour of their parents' need? Ewen Cameron - the headmaster - owned a large house in Christchurch.
Frank Cameron had a large house in Dunedin.
The Camerons could have stayed at Frank's, or he could have easily have made some proper arrangements for his parents.
Wealthy, connected, and worldy, Frank was their golden haired boy - the family celebrity.
But he took no responsibility for his family at all - he just took from them, and gave nothing back whatsoever.
Smug and self indulgent, he only made an appearance once a year on Christmas Day - for the food - threw around some supermarket chocolates,
and left.
Frank Cameron played cricket for New Zealand as a bowler, touring the world before becoming a selector for 25 years.
He and his glamorous wife were involved in the Miss New Zealand Show, and he taught English and Geography at Otago Boys’ High School.
But they also led a kind of double life. One Saturday night a few years later, I accidently ended up at a party in their basement with a
cricketer I knew. They were drunk, lots of young guys, few women. It seems they engaged in orgies there on a regular basis, according to my companion.
They were shocked to see me. I didn’t ask too many questions, and left early. I discreetly said nothing about it to my family.
Not long after this, Frank called my mother (for the first time ever) and told her he had seen me in a pub, where I was drinking a
soda and meeting friends before leaving for somewhere else. I was 16. Evidently believing I had snitched on him, he told on me. I still didn’t
“tell” on him. His business was none of mine. But it was hard to believe his low, petty, snakelike character.
Future cricketing events were to illuminate it even further.
"Cameron was an astute thinker of the game and one of his behind-the-scenes ploys was a major factor in New Zealand's dramatic
one-wicket win over the West Indies at Carisbrook in 1980.” (ODT)
Astute? It went like this. Fearing that his team were going to lose on his own home ground, Frank called a news conference and
lied about “expecting the pitch to turn” (softer), hoping the other side would play their (weaker) spin bowler, instead of their formidable fast
bowlers. They did – and NZ won the match by a hair’s breadth.
"That was Frank Cameron."
Indeed it was. Dishonest, unsportsmanlike, cheap and manipulative.
An untrained “stock bowler” who got by on height and stamina, he entered the NZ team very late (at almost 30) and played for
NZ for only three years before being dropped from the team. After that he opportunistically climbed the administrative ladder - first as a selector,
then as Chairman of the Selection Panel. He later received an MBE for his “services” to cricket.
""Shrewd, a thinker who squeezed everything out of his own ability..." yes, and out of his own family, who in turn squeezed every
last thing they could out of people.
When his mother died, before the body was barely cold, Frank arrived with a furniture truck and cleaned out her house of all
the furniture, which rightfully belonged to Joan, his sister, who had looked after their mother all her life, and who received only a double share
of the estate as compensation - not much, just enough for a deposit on a small unit, but not enough for furniture. So Frank then loaned her some
money, and charged her interest at the full bank rate, while he sat on his mother's furniture for nothing.
His low character had other, much larger consequences. He played that media deception in 1980.
The following year, in February 1981, Trevor Chappel played the infamous underarm bowl against NZ in Australia - an incident
roundly decried by Australians themselves as shocking and unsportsmanlike, and lowering the integrity of the game.
It was Frank Cameron who set that up. He introduced underhanded tactics into the game in 1980, and while on tour with the team
the following year, Greg Chappel merely followed suit against him. This is Frank Cameron's true legacy to cricket - the lowering of international
standards to the Cameron's level.
There was something quite feral about the Camerons - especially Frank and Margaret.
Meanwhile, because of the prolonged strain of the senior Camerons’ arrogant presumption upon our household and my parent’s marriage,
when they finally moved out, my mother decided that she and my father needed to attend “marriage guidance counselling” – which apparently consisted
of four adult couples discussing each other’s sex lives.
The housework was abandoned in favour of endless kitchen discussions about “Lydia’s frigidity” - regardless of the children present.
She had just had her fourth child – but had no interest in breastfeeding him – other people’s sex lives were much more important. My youngest brother
went on to develop lifelong excema and asthma, and the house was a constant mess.
She had me doing so much housework, a visitor asked "What did your last little black boy die of?"
Around this time, books like ”Games People Play “ and “I’m Okay- You’re Okay” started appearing. But when my father would try
to discuss my mother’s mentality and behavior rationally with her, she’d act like a retarded child, merely gainsaying “No, you are!” to everything –
then giggling like it was all just some stupid children’s game. She left a trail of wanton destruction behind her to which she was willfully oblivious,
but if anyone said anything about her behavior, she immediately attacked them as “mean” and ”hurtful” - and never acknowledged her own actions at all.
It was always someone else’s fault - butter wouldn't melt in her own mouth.
Yet she insisted on taking over both the mother‘s and father’s role, without being remotely qualified for either.
All control and no responsibility, dictatorial and intransigent, she merely abused the power of “No” in relation to her children needs,
and refused to give my father any say in anything. She never listened, talked to other parents, discussed anything, or had any idea what she was
talking about at all. The conviction that she somehow automatically “knew best” came directly from the Camerons. Cameron communication went strictly one-way.
The Group “therapy” went on for years, and the sexuality it introduced into the household was extremely unhealthy. One Sunday, some old
friends visited, and my mother actually sent me out of the house to the neighbours across the street so she could make some inappropriate sexual
proposition to her visitors. She pre-planned it. She was so mired in the Group, she blithely transferred it to real social life. A few minutes later,
her friend came running out of the house, crying and shocked, her mouth a horrified mute scream like she'd been gang raped, her husband running worriedly
behind. They ran from that house just as fast as they could, and we never saw them again. The neighbours across the street witnessed it, and they too
moved away soon after.
There was another bizarre sexual incident involving my mother.
She was always telling people that we "didn’t mind" them having a lend of us. Then she made the mistake of telling the neighbour’s
teenage son that he “didn’t mind” when she tried to rob him of the $2 she had offered him to babysit. With hilarious consequences. It went like this:
She was going out for the night, and she asked him to babysit us. So he sat for five hours in the kitchen – until she finally arrived home - two hours
late, and then casually told him she had no money left to pay him with - but that she knew he “didn’t mind”. He went red with rage, and stormed out of the
house.
The next day, his mother came over to confront my mother and collect the money. Magically, $2 appeared in her purse,
and she paid up. But before this, to get to the back door, the neighbour had to pass by her bedroom, and I heard her say “Ha! Caught you!”
I had to answer the door then locate my mother, who I found in the bedroom, underwear at her feet, masturbating in front of
a full length mirror. I was too young to comprehend what she was doing, but I knew it was something extremely odd. I was already mortified by the
$2 swindle – but it seems that after the neighbour had caught her, she’d pulled down the blinds and just kept going- even after the neighbour had
already seen her.
My mother was base and entirely shameless, on every level.
And she was always having a lend of me.
When I was 12, I was asked to do a young singer a favour and accompany him on the piano in a competition, as I had been studying classical
piano since I was nine. His regular accompanist couldn't make it, and it was to be the last year before his voice broke. I agreed to do it.
As it turned out, we won the best act in our category, as well as best singer and best accompanist individually. The following Saturday night,
we performed in the Dunedin Town Hall, with the other category winners. Despite the fact that my grandmother also played the piano, she didn't come,
and it was never mentioned by my mother to anyone. Apparently, I still wasn't good enough. The only musical interaction was a piece of sheet music she
once gave my mother called “The Campbells Are Coming, Hurrah, Hurrah” which comprised of nothing more than this one line played over and over. It didn’t
really have much musical value. Years later, history reading revealed that the Campbells were extremely violent, ruthless people –no one was ever
pleased they were coming. Except apparently, the Camerons.
About the same time, I was asked to befriend the son of a friend of my father’s, who was dying of leukemia. He was a sweet, quiet,
mature boy, and I liked him a lot. He used to come around and we’d play “battleships” –a game with pen and paper – simple but mentally challenging.
As an experienced player, and because the poor kid was dying, I decided to play to lose, but not too obviously, as I didn’t want him to know, and feel
patronised. But try as I might - shooting into what I thought was sure oblivion, I kept hitting him! I couldn’t believe it, and felt worse and worse as
I kept winning against my own will. He was a good sport and just pleased to be in good company. Always polite and well mannered. He died a couple of months
later, and it was tragic.
Not long after this, Ronald and Neil came to stay, and there we were on the same back porch, playing the same game. But it was
very different this time. Once again, I made allowances for their inexperience, but once again, I was generally winning. They hated it. They both
got very bad tempered and didn’t want to play any more. I got the impression they only wanted to play games they couldn’t lose.
They were classic spoilt children.
A few weeks later, I was invited to their house in Christchurch for New Year’s Eve - by myself. I was thirteen. But the only
interaction any of them had with me, was a bullying group nastiness and smartarse attitude, trying to make out I was stupid. It was like a setup.
They all went elsewhere for NYE, and I was left to attend the small gathering at the next door neighbours’, who I didn’t know.
Ronald and Neil had no games at their house, whereas we played chess, scrabble, monopoly, tabletennis, and various card games,
as most families do. They had none of these. Instead, as identical twins, they played antisocial head games with each other, always with some sniggering,
hidden agenda behind the eyes, which only they knew about – with a cold, passive aggressive exterior. They were really quite nasty and creepy -
boring too - and I didn’t have much more to do with them.
My grandmother was all about education. “An education costs nothing to carry” she would frequently announce .
To my father, an education meant reading and writing. How deeply disappointed he must have been to discover that to the Camerons,
an “education” was nothing more than a paper passport to other things - namely, status and wealth.
Two of her sons had an "education" and went on to become a headmaster (Ewen Cameron) and a high school teacher (Frank Cameron),
for which they only needed a two year Diploma of Education, not a degree. Otherwise, the family had no interest in education at all. To my knowledge,
none of my Cameron cousins ever went to university. My mother never read a book in her life, neither did her mother or sister. I never saw any books
in the Cameron houses – nor could any reading be detected in the Cameron males. They had no level – just a superior smugness passing as substance.
To my father, this was a con of cataclysmic proportions, and ended up costing him his sanity and life - as my mother worked against
his very essence as a writer, with all her might. He hadn't just married her for the house deposit. As a creative intellectual, he wasn't driven by materialism. He would have been quite happy alone. He was already 28.
He had married into her family's putative middle class morality (for he was a decent man), as well as their educational level, believing it to be compatible with his own intellectual values - but there was no level.
Like the morality, it was all just for show. In contrast, my father was a kind man, who often did unpaid plumbing work for the elderly.
He had converted to Catholicism (along with his brother) before he ever met my mother for intellectual and ethical reasons (which he also became disillusioned with over time). He had a small but choice library which included Mark Twain, Rudyard Kiplng, James Thurber, Robert Benchley, PG Wodehouse, GK Chesterton, Shakespeare, Cervantes,
Teilhard Chardin, Asimov and a large sci fi collection in the cellar. We were members of the childrens' library and grew up with a rich collection of quality literature as part of our everyday lives. But my
mother apparently didn't understand that reading waseducation, which was quite a shock, given her family's posturing.
When I was nine, I was given a reading test by the teacher who lived next door, and tested at a
reading level of fourteen. I was profoundy bored at school, and should have been bumped a few classes – but my mother said nothing – the school were
not informed, and it was never mentioned again. My mother didn’t even thank the neighbour for his time and
trouble. Instead, two years later, she almost set fire to their house.
It happened like this: Out the back was an incinerator, all rusted out and unusable, with great gaps where the metal used to be,
but was no more. One day of very high wind, my mother decided to burn some stuff in it. She had learned nothing about fires, despite her parents’ house
burning to the ground. We were playing out the back closeby. Also close was the macracarpa hedge separating the neighbours house from
ours - and suddenly, some burning rubbish got swept by the wind into the hedge, the hedge caught fire, and the windfuelled flames started licking the side
of their house, blistering the paint and scorching the timber. Luckily, they got a hose onto it quick smart and saved the house. I got the blame.
It was all my fault, according to my mother, because I was there and she wasn’t. She never was - never supervised the children playing, or any fires
she lit. Not long afterwards, these neighbours sold the house and moved across town. My mother was a dangerous imbecile. Years later, she actually tried
to sell another neighbour’s house without their consent or knowledge. It went like this: Our house was on a double block, with a spare piece of land laying idle. So she got this convoluted plan in her head whereby if the neighbours three doors up sold their house to someone who would allow her to put a driveway through their property up to the road above , she could join it to a new driveway she put in on our block, and sell that block separately or something. Made no sense, and she should have just built units on the vacant block, and put in a few steps up the embankment on our own property. Instead, she advertised the neighbours' house for sale in the newspaper, with her phone number, figuring if she could just get
the right buyer she could talk the neighbours into selling. Obviously this bizarre plan came to nothing, and she ended up selling our own house for less
than it was worth. The she did something even nuttier. Bought another house, decided she liked her neighbour’s house better, and talked the neighbour into
doing a legal swap. So they went through all the legalities and moving – then she decided she didn’t like it as much as she thought - and wanted to swap
back. The neighbour refused.
Back at the old house, things were getting even worse.
Now she was harassing my father every night. She hated him reading, accusing him of “escapism”. Actually, my father was a reader
long before he met her, but who wouldn’t want to escape a lunatic like her?
Then my father fell from a ladder and broke his back. He spent twelve months in bed with a slipped disc. When he recovered,
we were in debt, and he had to go to work for his creditors. As usual, no help was forthcoming from the Camerons. I think my father unconsciously
"fell" from that ladder because his wife was literally driving him insane, mentally torturing him - and he couldn't take it one minute longer.
Desperate for peace, he had to try and save his mind from breaking, by breaking his body. The pain must have been excrutiating. In the end, she broke both.
When he was walking again, my mother had a nervous breakdown over a lightbulb.
She was always playing “helpless” and getting other people to do things for her, but when she asked him to change a lightbulb,
he suggested she learn how to do it herself. His back was never the same after the accident.
At this, my mother threw a “nervous breakdown” and spent two weeks in Cherry Farm Psychiatric Hospital, where they gave her shock
treatment, put her on “pills”, and told her to take up smoking. My father’s mother came and stayed with us through this period, cooking and keeping
house. We never saw the Camerons at all, despite living in the adjacent suburb – until the day my mother was released, announcing that she “felt much
better now”. Now that she had everyone’s attention, that is.
From then on, it was all about how my father had “turned” on her. Over a lightbulb.
Somehow, through all this shit, my father managed to write a book, staying up all night on the weekends, after my mother had
exhausted herself harassing him. I typed it up and knew it well. Full of ingenuity and whimsy, it was a great story and well written - both of,
and ahead of its time. Reeds Publishing thought so too. They sent an editor to Dunedin to work with him on the final rewrite - which was virtually
nothing, in my opinion – it just needed the removal of a couple of lines.
But something went horribly wrong, and the book was never published - with no explanation forthcoming from my parents.
I’m damn sure my mother intruded and prevented it, because that is what she did every time the attention wasn’t on her, and she felt out of her
depth. She really hated him writing. She fought with him every night in the kitchen to stop him doing his thing and force him to attend to her
endless bullshit – yet she couldn’t even hold an ordinary conversation - let alone one on his level.
She should never have been released from Cherry Farm.
My father talked to me instead about books and philosophy. He was one of the first to acquire a copy of Lord Of The Rings,
and he shared this with me. I guess my mother hated this too, because about this time, she started getting him to side against me, and when I was 14,
she got him to beat me badly over some trivial control drama. I couldn’t believe it. I still can’t, to this day. It shattered my heart to pieces.
I badly wanted to run away from home, but there was nowhere to go. I considered suicide, and made a half hearted attempt at slashing my wrists.
My wonderful father, whom I deeply loved, had turned into violent monster I didn’t recognize. A subtle and gentle man, he had never been like this
before. He was going mad.
My father should have had that book published - it was in the very palm of his hand. But my mother robbed him of it.
Deliberately. She couldn't stand it being about anyone else but her. In turn, she robbed the whole family of lifelong royalties, as well as
badly needed immediate money. Later she stole the house for herself and robbed us of that, too. Was there no end to this toxic creature’s obscenity?
At about this time, my father started talking about a “death wish”- but there was nothing I could do for him. I was
also dealing with her ongoing violences against me.
I left Dunedin for Australia at 17, but returned quite regularly, with presents - as well as buying additional gifts for the
house. Despite everything, I was still trying to have a normal relationship with my parents. My mother, in return, withheld my 21st birthday present,
and got Joan to do the same. The “reason” was that earlier that year I had a minor car accident, and when I wrote her about it - she wrote me back an
aggressive, abusive letter. I wrote back saying I didn’t appreciate the abuse, and pointed out that she hadn’t even asked how I was. I did in fact, have a
foot injury. For this, she didn’t give me a 21st birthday present.
Later, when I bought yet more gifts home from Europe for both her and Joan, she actually stole Joan’s for herself. A thing was only of
value if someone else wanted it, and she took it.
When I returned home at 23, she and my father tried to get me to abuse Phillip for losing the watch they had given him for his 21st –
my mother complaining loudly about the expense. Of course he lost it. Unemployable thanks to his “medical status”, he had as much use for a watch as a
fish for a bicycle. They should have bought him paints, books, music –something which reflected what he actually was. Additionally, they had completely
forgotten they hadn’t bought me anything at all. They stared at me, willing me to abuse him. I stared back, waiting for the penny to drop, but it never
did. There was madness and emptiness in my father’s eyes. He was completely gone. It was the last time I saw him alive.
He died two years later, a sick and broken man in - poverty, madness, and despair.
My mother did not notify me of his impending death until it was too late to get there on time. According to her, he kept asking
“Is Claire coming? Is Claire coming?” He died believing I had been notified, but “wasn’t coming”. This causes me more pain than I can possibly express.
He only stayed in the marriage for the children’s sake, and when it completely failed, having nowhere else to go, he had to move out
to the YMCA, where they bar daytime access, so he had to walk around all day – at 56, with a broken back. He died of complete exhaustion, while my mother sat in the house
which he worked to pay off all his adult life. Then she sold it and kept all the proceeds for herself.
None of the Camerons came to the funeral, and those from his family who did, didn’t come back to the house, but left the church quickly.
They didn’t even speak to us, because they couldn’t stand my mother, and were probably too angry with her to speak. She had trashed their gifted brother
and worked him into an early grave. My mother was wringing her hands at the slight, and went on and on about how upset she was about it, but not a
single word about my father.
My father's sister had married a very good man, involved with Rotary and the Jaycees, and their whole lives were devoted to public
service. They never referred to it, let alone prostelized to others about how they should act, while doing the exact opposite. They were decent,
goodnatured people, and really showed the Camerons up. But they rarely visited either. Over the years, my mother drove everyone away with her bizarre
behaviour. Not only did the Camerons rob us of inclusion in their side of the family, they robbed us of our father's side as well. We were left with
no one at all, including a mother who automatically sided with the Camerons against her own children. We were truly orphans in our own family, and her
divisive nature split us up too. We didn't even have each other.
When my mother finally accepted that the marriage was over, she told her family that my father was a terrible person and an alcoholic.
I was shocked and disgusted to hear this. He drank a bottle of beer at night to ease his aches and pains, and to keep himself company while writing.
He took no liquor, and was certainly not an alcoholic. My mother didn't care what she said, as long as it put the blame for her own failures on someone
else. What a disgracefully twisted picture she painted - and her family automatically believed it, despite the fact they had lived with us for a year.
My father was dead, but there was still more of my mother’s bullshit to come.
When she turned 60, she invited me to NZ for her birthday party, and paid for the ticket. I should have known it was a setup, because
firstly, it involved doing Neil a favour, and driving a car from Christchurch to Dunedin for him (couldn’t Budget afford a driver?) but to do so, I had
to stay in Christchurch for three days before it was ready. (Neil had originally owned a surf shop, which had had for a number of years, but ended up closing down.
He couldn't even sell it as a going concern. Then he suddenly appeared in Dunedin as franchaisee of Budget Rentacar. How did thathappen? He didn't exactly have any business credibility.)
In any event, my mother had arranged for me to stay with Peter Cameron- Ronald and Neil's older brother. From the
moment I arrived, he was arrogant and abusive. I was shocked. His wife had recently left him
(because of the abuse?). He was a woman-hating, puffed up bully who worked at the airport all his life. But for all his posturing like he owned
the airline, he was actually a baggage handler. He had evidently been put in a position by my mother, but it was his own brother I was doing the favour for.
It was like another setup where I was trapped. I had to endure his hostility for three days before the car was ready for delivery. Finally, I drove down to Dunedin, arriving in the early evening –but
my mother wasn't home. The house was cold, the lights were off, and there was no food in the fridge or cupboards at all. I started to get worried. Where
was she? And why was there no food in the house? Was she really this poor? Despite everything, this was a deeply distressing thought. And now she was
nowhere to be seen, no note, nothing. I was increasingly worried about her.
At nine o'clock, she arrived. She had been out on a blind date, but it didn't work out because “ he read books” and her husband
had done that, and she “ didn't like it” - so he terminated the date - otherwise she would have been home much later. Yet I had spoken to her on the
phone just the night before, and she made no mention of this date . She knew I was coming. She had invited me. And it turned out that the reason there
was no food in the house was that she hadn't bothered to do any shopping.
Neil for his part, mumbled a perfunctory “thanks”, announced he had converted to Buddhism, and stared at my breasts.
At the birthday dinner at a restaurant the following night, The Camerons were there, and me - but poor Phillip was forced to sit
awkwardly on a table corner, with no proper place setting of his own, like some inconvenient afterthought. Yet this dinner had been booked for months
in advance. She told Phillip he “didn’t mind” and ignored him. Frank, for his part, made a loud comment to his brother about their two "ugly sisters" -
right at the table - at his sister’s birthday party. Yet my mother affected not to notice, because Frank was a Cameron, after all. No, the problem was
my father (who had never said anything so rude in his life, and was in any case, dead).
For the next five days, she subjected me to a constant barrage of “poor me” and what a victim she was, how my father
had “turned “ on her, and on and on. I had to listen to all this because apparently, I had been bought and paid for. Despite not having seen
me for years, she ignored me completely, deliberately oblivious to the trauma and upset the slander of my father, and the twisted lies she was
telling were causing me. I was just there to be blatantly used, as usual.
She interrupted herself only to announce to Phillip and I that (despite having received $7,500 from her mother’s estate, which we saw
none of) - she hoped we weren’t expecting anything when she died, as she was keeping it all for herself and the nursing home, with nothing for us
whatsoever. She wanted us to know that. She had a crooked smile on her face as she told us. She enjoyed the thought of everything for herself.
One Christmas, I was a student and there had been an error with my payments, leaving me with no money for food on Christmas Day.
I called her to ask if she could send me $20 ( I never asked for money, but it was an emergency). She started beating her breast about how bad she
felt for me, she was so sorry, but that she had no money to spare at all. I felt terrible for putting her in that position and causing her pain, when
she had so little for herself. But in the very next breath she told me that tomorrow, she was going to Wanaka on holiday for a month (“like I always do”)
and needed all she had for herself. By my estimation, that would have been more than $1000. I ate nothing at all on Christmas Day.
She surrounded herself with people much better than herself, then took advantage of them. Sneaky, manipulative, underhand and
profoundly dishonest , her left hand didn’t know what her right hand was doing. She would read my diary and open my mail like it was nothing. She
had a voyeur’s mentality. Stalking, prying and spying were her thing. Years later, when I had told my mother “goodbye” she started stalking me, and
actually got a Post Office employee to break the Privacy laws and release my address. She fooled him with her helpless, harmless act. He could have
been charged and lost his job. She didn’t care, as long as she got her way.
With my father’s income gone, she took a series of “little jobs”. She once worked for “mystery shoppers” - where she would pretend
to be a customer, but was actually trying to set them up and catch them out - then reporting them. This was really her – pretending to be in good faith, while actually
being in bad faith to the core. Another job she had was in a cake shop, but she got the sack, probably for eating all the cakes. Another was a
childminding position where she also got the sack, because the children became “too attached” to her, and the real mother was “jealous.” That was
a good one. In reality, she was probably caught reading her employer’s private mail, or stealing.
My mother started going out with other men, initially as blind dates from newspaper ads (which she lied to Joan about), where she
would get them interested on the phone with her soft, well spoken, carefully cultivated voice act. This is how she fooled people. And dropping Frank's
name. The first boyfriend didn't last because "he was always talking about money" and "she didn't like that."
A couple of years later, my mother acquired a new boyfriend who took her to Melbourne (where I was living) to see Phantom of the
Opera. In typical userly fashion, she asked me to find them a high quality place to stay with full amenities including kitchen, close to the city,
but cheap. This improbable combinaton took me hours to find. I was at university then, up to my neck in pressing assignment deadlines, and my time
was at an absolute premium. Nevertheless, I dropped everything to accomodate her, and finally found what she wanted. When they arrived, she invited me
there for dinner. I admired the apartment and mentioned that it had been hard to find. The boyfriend was confused, because my mother had told him someone
else had gotten it - some "friend" she had made up to make herself look socially successful. No acknowledgement of my efforts at all. Then in the
course of conversation, I mentioned that I had covered the last NZ elections, which was syndicated to three Australian newspapers.
As soon as he showed a surprised interest in this, my mother started talking over me, and somehow or other turned the subject
to Ronald and Neil - about how they had "lots of money". (Cameron-approved, with blue eyes, they were apparently her "real" children, not us).
Just then, the drop table suddenly collapsed ( she hadn't secured the rod properly) and the entire plate of hot food spilled all
over my lap. Charlie Chaplin couldn’t have orchestrated it better. So that was the end of that conversation. And my dinner. To this day, she has never
wanted to see that article or anything else I've had published. She just refuses delivery of anything positive or real about me at all.
Later, when this boyfriend also dropped her, telling a mutual friend that Margaret had “too many problems”, she told me it was
because of something Phillip had said or done one night. It was all Phillip’s fault.
My second brother was mediocre, with few of his father’s gifts, yet my mother favoured and spoilt him on account of “his big brown eyes”.
Apparently, eye and hair colour were all these stupid, shallow people could relate to. This brother turned into one of them – selfish, vapid, arrogant,
ignorant, narcissistic, sociopathic and dishonest. My mother thought he was the bees’ knees. None of the other three children speak to him.
My youngest brother, eight years younger than me, was also intellectually gifted - and emotionally ruined by her.
The last I heard he was teaching English in China - as far away as he possibly could be, and not speaking to his mother.
Email: the.dunedin.camerons@gmail.com
Frank Cameron set my father up. My father did not approach the Camerons - they approached him to marry their sister, who they knew was grossly defective, but he did not. Frank had known Margaret for 24 years. My father was going on his recommendation. The Camerons then proceeded to treat him and his subsequent family like poor relations, as well as demanding of them the burden of their own responsibilities, while giving absolutely no support in return.
Without Frank's manipulative intervention, my father would have been quite content alone,
and would have gone on to become a successful author, led a happy, fulfilled life, and probably still be alive today. Instead, Frank set him up, misrepresented his family and his sister - and she in turn worked her husband to death, drove him mad, and robbed him and his children of everything- while Frank enjoyed
a successful, wealthy, "respectable", charmed life, unhampered by any family responsibilities.
The Cameron family owe my family rent and full board for the 12 months his parents and sister imposed on our family, plus compensation for our complete loss of living facilities. These costs should have been borne by all the Camerons collectively, not just us - who were in the least position to afford it. They also owe us interest on this outstanding debt. And even if this is paid, it will still be an insult to everything they really stole from us.
They robbed my father and his children of themselves.
This is the story of the Camerons and the lives they ruined - my family’s story.
