Hectic life likely for Mrs Palmer

Press, 17 July 1984, Page 14

Hectic life likely for Mrs Palmer

PA Wellington Mrs Margaret Palmer recently described politicians’ wives as “solo parents." Now, as the wife of the Deputy Prime Ministerelect, life will be that much more hectic for her. In spite of the extra pressure, Mrs Palmer says: “I know he can do the job. I am happy for him to be there.”

Miss Margaret Hinchcliff, as she was then, met her future husband at the tender age of seven when they were in Standard 1 at Nelson Central School. But it was not until their last year at school that they paid any attention to each other, just before going their separate ways to university. At Canterbury University she completed a bachelor of arts degree in music and English while he did political science and law at Victoria. A year later, in 1963, they married in Nelson.

After a short time of newly wed life and the birth of a son, Matthew, now aged 20, they began 10 years of travel.

In Chicago Mr Palmer gained his doctor of law degree while the family slept on a mattress on the floor of a South Side slum building. New York, Cambridge, Wellington, lowa, Virginia, Sydney, and Wellington followed — as did a second child, Rebecca, now aged 15. In Virginia Mrs Palmer began teaching remedial reading, now a major interest.

Many of the black pupils in the newly integrated schools had reading difficulties and Mrs Palmer would spend two mornings a week, as a volunteer, trying to find out what caused the problem.

She continued such teaching back in Wellington, at Hutt Valley Memorial College. In 1979 Mr Palmer was elected member of parliament for Christchurch Central and, until he was made deputy leader, Mrs Palmer worked as his electorate secretary. She says she has always shared her husband’s interest in politics. They agreed politics would help determine the type of society their children would grow up in. Whether remedial reading or politics, Mrs palmer likes the feeling of doing something “worth while.”