Kiwis, it seems, are tigers for punishment.

There are almost 9000 men and women behind bars here. About the same number are released each year – and the stats show that two-thirds of them end up back inside. That’s despite the Deputy Prime Minister, Bill English, recognising that “prisons are a fiscal and moral failure.”

Meanwhile, there are a few souls who’ve made it their life’s work to reach out to those inside.

To visit the prisoners, to befriend and encourage them. To show them that they’re not rejects – in God’s eyes, at least – and to show them that there is hope. Lloyd Ashton has had the privilege of meeting one of those veteran visitors.

We’re known by the company we keep.

Sadly, at the age of 93, May Mackey appears never to have taken that truth on board.

Because for the last 30 years, she’s made a point of hanging out with undesirables.

Convicted criminals. Murderers and rapists among them. In their hundreds.

Even some innocents too, languishing on remand in prison until they are acquitted at trial.

The point is, they’re all the same, in May’s eyes.

They’re all people, that is.

All people who just happen to be in prison.

Most days of the working week for the last 30 years May and her friend Ben Dickson have been mingling with them – either at Mt Eden Prison, or at Paremoremo.

And on Sundays, May and Ben head into Mt Eden all over again – to take part in the services held there that morning.

They’ve built up relationships of trust with many of these men.

There’s part of May’s story, though, which she doesn’t tell her friends in The Rock.

But it came to light, nonetheless, on January 6 this year, at a park in Te Atatu, out in Auckland’s west.

Police and family members had gathered that day to lay wreaths at a new memorial unveiled to honour the memory of two policemen gunned down on a West Auckland Sunday afternoon, exactly 50 years earlier.

One of those slain policemen was Detective Inspector Wally Chalmers, QPM.

The gunman – he spent the rest of his days in a psychiatric ward – had another policeman in his sights when Wally challenged him, and drew his fire.

Wally left a widow – they’d been married less than three years – and two young children.

And May is that widow.

The reason why...

The die was cast for May back in 1937.

She was a teenager in Caversham, working in a Dunedin clothing factory. She’d bike to work with a girlfriend who worked there, too.

This particular morning May had spotted a booklet fluttering on the footpath. It was called: The Reason Why, by Robert Laidlaw, the founder of The Farmers’ Trading Company.

Her friend, who was a Christian, read that tract to her as they rode – and through her reading, May says she became “convicted”.

“And there was an opportunity at the end of the book to sign your name, if you wished – and I’d never heard the expression – to accept the Lord Jesus Christ as your saviour.”

She signed. She threw herself into Christian work in Dunedin too, and, at the age of 26, headed to Auckland’s Bible Training Institute, or BTI, which was the forerunner of today’s Laidlaw College.

That’s where May’s story takes another turn.

Back in 1946, just about every student who went to BTI had the foreign mission field in their sights.

When they’d finished their two year stint at BTI, they’d head to China, Indonesia, Bolivia or parts of Africa. Wherever.

But 1946 was also the year that Emma Kake arrived at BTI. Emma was Nga Puhi, and she was the first Maori woman to go there.

And one of the odd twists of fate is that even though May is Pakeha, she looks Maori.

You’d swear she has iwi ties.

Emma Kake thought so too, apparently. She gravitated to her, and those two became fast friends.

And because May had no cash to get back to Dunedin for her holidays, she spent the first of these with the Kake whanau, at their whare out in the sticks behind Whangarei.

May was the first Pakeha they’d ever had under their roof. They took her to their hearts, and wove her into marae and community life.

“I felt so much part of the family I thought: ‘I’m not looking overseas. I’m not moving out of Maori-land.”

And that’s how come May Garnett, as she then was, came to be the matron of the Shelly Beach Maori Girls Hostel in Ponsonby, in 1948, looking after 25 young Maori women.

Those young wahine had come to the big smoke from up north to work, mostly in the city’s clothing factories – and their mums and dads had urged May to “look after our girls.”

Sometimes, that was easier said than done – because those teenage girls usually had rellies around Freemans Bay, and in the weekends they’d be inclined to sneak out and party-up. So May often found herself walking the streets alone at night, bringing the girls back home.

Inspector Wally Chalmers of Auckland Central had cause to issue May with a stern warning about that activity.

“He’s hearing reports,” May recalls, “of this stupid woman walking the streets at night – and he’s afraid she’ll get skittled.”

True.

But it was also true that Inspector Chalmers, who was a member of the Prezzie church in Freeman’s Bay, had been skittled by May Garnett.

When they married, in April 1960, May was 40, and Wally was 43.

They adopted a couple of kids – and in less than three years, Wally was gone, shot down in an incident that led to the formation of the police armed offenders’ squad.

Family struggles

May’s prison work started like this:

In 1968 she’d remarried. Dave Mackey was the lucky guy. He was Tainui, an ex United Maori Missions hostel boy who’d been farming down Mangakino way.

Dave’s first wife had died. So May and Dave were both grieving, struggling by themselves to raise four kids – and they’d been longtime friends. Getting married was a no-brainer.

So Dave moved to Auckland, and May and Dave went back into looking after Maori trade trainees in hostels.

Then, about 1982, Dave heard that his old mate Nehe Dewes, who was the Presbyterian prison chaplain at Waikeria prison, was being transferred to The Rock. To Mt Eden Prison.

May and Dave went to Nehe’s induction there – and Nehe, realising the weight of what he’d taken on, soon took up their offer to help, to find visitors for the men.

That’s how May got started.

Dave died eight years ago. Nehe Dewes is retired back in Tikitiki – and of the original crew, there are three still going strong – Wally Haywood, who’s now the chaplain at Paremoremo West, Ben Dickson and May.

Some who’d lived through the kind of tragedy May knew would find it hard to mix with felons. Murderers among them.

But it’s never been an issue for her, she says, to go into the prisons.

“No hurdle,” she says. “None. At. All.

“It was just the most natural thing.

“I didn’t have to grow into it.

“I’ve always had a yen for the underdog. Always. It was part of me.”

In all her 30 years, she says she’s never felt intimidated, either.

“Never even had a harsh word. No feeling of fear, at any stage.”

Part of the reason for that, maybe, is the way they view the men inside.

“They’re people to us,” she says.

“We see them as people.

“In fact we’re so removed… that we never ask why they’re inside.”

Maybe too, part of the reason why prison visiting has never been an issue for her is because it’s never been about May.

“The significance of a person”, she says, “is not in themselves.

“It’s in whom they represent.”

'Where are you?'

So she’d missed catching up with a man she and Ben have been visiting out there for 17 years.

That man – we’ll call him Willie – has permission to phone May on Saturday mornings.

So their last conversation, she said, began like this:

“Ma, where are you?

“Where have you been?

“We’ve been missing you!

“Well now, that’s so heart-warming,
 isn’t it?

“We’ve been missing you!”

• • • •

“We don’t go in to talk religion.

“Not. At. All.

“We don’t need to.

“We go in as friends.

“We know how to feel our way – to present what we represent.

“And they know… if they’ve got a need, they seek an opportunity to seek you out.”

• • • •

So if it’s not hard-sell religion, what motivates May?

Simple.

“The message of redemption, which changed me, motivates me.

“With due respect to all the help the men get from psychologists, from programmes, from help from outside, from all these paid people… we know our message of redemption is the absolute. It’s the only answer.”

Part of the reason for May’s rapport with the men is that she knows the world from which so many have come.

“You just ask: ‘So where do you come from?’

“And when they tell you: ‘You say: Ohh… I know your relations. And you just mention some names…

“This is the Maori world, so it’s all whanau stuff. It’s all family stuff.”

• • • •

“I’ll tell you a surprising thing:

“We’ve got about three or four Tongan teams of volunteers who come in on a Sunday.

“We’ve got one beautiful AOG Samoan team from Mt Roskill.

“And we’ve got St Paul’s church.

“But we’ve got no Maori teams.

“I said to the men once: ‘You know, that’s funny isn’t it?’

‘Nah,’ they said.

“We’re all locked up inside.’

Prison routine

So what’s May’s Mt Eden routine?

Well, at any one time Mt Eden has between 900 and 1000 prisoners.

About a quarter of those men have been convicted, and are serving time – and the rest are on remand, awaiting trial.

So there’s an ever-changing population, divvied-up among 22 units.

Each unit has an elevated console with large, darkened sloping windows – rather like the bridge of a ship that’s going nowhere – through which the officers monitor the prisoners.

If there’s an officer “on the floor”, May and Ben can go in. Once they do, they split up.

The men are playing cards, pool, or table tennis… and even though the unit population is constantly changing, “they’re always one or two we’ve already spoken to, and they’re ready and waiting for us.

“We just sit down and say: ‘Hi. How are things going?’”

“And some say to us later: ‘Even although we didn’t sit and talk with you, just to know that you’ve come to visit, is enough for us.’

 “You would never keep going”, says May, “if it wasn’t for the appreciation, the changes in life that you see.”

She points to the carved bone taonga that she wears around her neck.

That was given to her 17 years ago, by Willie, the man who’d rung her that morning.

He’s still in Paremoremo, with years left on his lag.

When he’d been brought in – his arrest had made national headlines – he’d been held in Mt Eden’s special needs unit.

In those days, May, Dave and Ben were running services in that unit on Thursday evenings.

That first Thursday Willie was inside, he didn’t come.

No doubt he’d heard the singing from his ‘slot’.

But he didn’t come the following Thursday evening, either.

On the third Thursday, though, he did come.  That evening May had laid some posters on the floor. Including one of the face of the Lord.

“Something for the men to focus on”, May says, “while we were having our little talk.

“We were talking about the Lord walking on stormy waters, right?”

As the men were leaving, Willie asked May if he could have that poster. Of course, she said.

“So the next week he came back, and said: ‘You know that poster?

‘I took it to my slot, and I put it at the far end.

‘I didn’t want it too near to me.

‘But each day I brought it closer.

‘And I have decided that this is the way I should go.

‘You were talking about the Lord walking on troubled waters, and calming rough seas, and that’s what I need.’

That was 17 years ago, and through thick and thin, Willie’s stayed steadfast.

While he was in Paremoremo, he married the mother of his three children.

“The eldest was a boy,” May remembers. “Beautiful child.

“He was a bright, intelligent boy, and his dad was absolutely devoted to him.

“He used to come and visit Dave and me. Dave used to say: ‘He’s the only one I’ll let use my motor mower. Everyone else runs over tree roots.’

“Ahh. The next thing we learned, that beautiful boy had taken his own life.

“So on this day, we all had to go up to meet Willie in the chapel to tell him. His wife, his brother, Dave and I, Ben, and other kaumatua.

“It wasn’t just a one-on-one – you know, we did it the Maori way.

“It was so sad. So desperately sad.

“And of course, Willie couldn’t go to his boy’s tangi.

“He did a beautiful bone carving for his boy. He was allowed to send that out, and that carving was buried with his son.

“I remember the boy’s mum sitting beside the open casket, with her cellphone.

“And they let Willie, down in the prison, speak to her at the casket side.

“Then he said to his wife: ‘Put your cellphone to my boy, and I’ll say my farewells’.

“Very sad. So, he’s looking towards the day he gets out, so he can go up to the grave.”

Back then, Willie couldn’t really grieve for his boy.

That only happened eight years ago, when Dave Mackey went.

He dropped dead in a police station – he was at the prison mahi until the very end.

They held different memorial services for Dave around the prisons.

Including one up in D block.

And that was the trigger that allowed Willie to really grieve, says May, for his boy.

The welcome

“A lovely thing happened, last Sunday. We’d moved to this unit, and maybe 15 men came to the service.

“Only a few volunteers had turned up, so Ben and I were taking the service.

“So Ben said: Who would like to give us our welcome?

“Someone usually does a powhiri, and takes a prayer. And then this elderly Pakeha inmate – he must be in his late seventies – said: ‘I want to tell you something. Every morning I have a shave, I say to the man in the mirror: ‘You’re the reason I’m here.’

‘You’re the reason I’m here.’

“So I said to him: ‘Well. How lovely. You’ve come a long way.’

“Because there’s a lot who say: ‘The reason I’m sitting here is that joker out there!’

“I hope that at the end of our little karakia together, we’ll all be able to say: ‘It’s the one in the mirror.’ When we can say that, that’s when we learn something.”

When we finished, she was heading into hospital, to the bedside of a man in his late seventies.

He’d been out for a couple of years, having spent five years inside for crimes he’d committed 40 years earlier.

They were going to be joined by Jimmy, who’d done five years in Paremoremo – and who’d turned to the Lord through Willie.

Three veterans, living the victorious life: May was fair bubbling at the prospect.

“Such a reunion,” she said, “it’s marvellous.”

While she was out Meadowbank way, May was planning another brief reunion, too.

On her way into the hospital, she’d duck off St John’s Rd, and head into Purewa cemetery.

To spend a few quiet minutes at Wally’s graveside.

 Verily, verily I say unto you, unless a grain of wheat fall into the ground and die, it abideth alone; but if it die, it bringeth forth much fruit. John 12:24, KJV

Lloyd Ashton is this church’s Media Officer. mediaofficer@anglicanchurch.org.nz.