Mrs Lange pursues her interest in welfare work

Press, 4 October 1984, Page 16

Mrs Lange pursues her interest in welfare work

MERILYN CHAMBERS,

Naomi Lange returned to a mixture of old and new faces and places this week on her first trip to her birth country as the wife of the New Zealand Prime Minister. Apart from the formal schedule, she determinedly spent as much time as possible with relatives and long-time friends in her hometown of Newark. This also provided the Prime Minister with time off from his schedule. Travelling from London, they spent the main part of the week-end in the Nottinghamshire village before attending Sunday dinner at the British Prime Minister, Mrs Margaret Thatcher’s, week-end retreat, Chequers. On a strictly private visit to the northern mining area, “riddled with small villages” they stayed with her parents, Mr and Mrs Raymond Crampton. “My parents suggested that if we wanted to meet old friends we went to the Saturday gathering of ‘morning coffee’ at the church.

“It was just nice to see everyone again, but it wasn’t different from other times,” Mrs Lange said. “We’ve kept in touch with most people there, and it wasn’t as though I’d been away for a long time and come back. The only thing that my oldest friend, whom I’ve known since I was five, said was, ‘are you managing?” T They had returned in

NZPA staff correspondent, talks to Naomi Lange in London about her impressions during her overseas visit with the Prime Minister, Mr Lange. January this year when Mr Lange visited London as Leader of the Opposition, and Mrs Lange stayed for a longer visit with her children last year. After she met Mrs Thatcher she said, “I didn’t really talk to her much, but she does seem a bit absent sometimes.” Instead, Mrs Lange spent most of the time at Chequers talking to other guests, the British Agriculture Minister Mr Michael Jopling, and the Defence Minister, Mr Michael Heseltine. “I discovered that Mr Jopling’s constituency was Westmoreland. That was where I was born when my father was working 'in the colliery so it meant I knew something of what he was talking about.” Keen to spend more time with her parents in London, she decided to take them on a double-decker sightseeing tour around the capital. “I think it’s fun. I re-

member my parents bringing my brother and myself to see London for the first time, but it wasn’t like this.” In New York, however, she stayed more off the beaten track. Asked what her interests were so that a day schedule could be organised, she opted for looking into how missions and hostels were run in one of the city’s poorest areas, Harlem. Despite experience in the London mission, where she was working when she met her husband 16 years ago, and later in his electorate office in Mangere, she said she was quite amazed by the restrictions imposed on aid. "In - one nlace people

working would be booked if they gave food to someone who was not over 60, even if he or she was starving. They actually had officials going around and checking what was being given out, and to whom.

“But it was very interesting — better than going around museums, which can get quite tiring,” she said. Mrs Lange is looking forward to a brief stop in New Delhi, before returning to New Zealand.