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Speaker 1: Listen, if I'm honest with you, the passing of John

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Speaker 1: Barnett on Sunday has actually hit our house quite hard

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Speaker 1: over the last three days, because you know, at the start,

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Speaker 1: nobody knew anything about what had happened, and as the

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Speaker 1: information has come out, we've realized that when my husband

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Speaker 1: bumped into him on the street on Sunday afternoon, it

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Speaker 1: was literally just before he died, like they stopped for

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Speaker 1: a chat. Husband went in one direction, Barney went in

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Speaker 1: the other direction, and it wouldn't have been another two

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Speaker 1: hundred meters or so beyond that that John collapsed. Now,

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Speaker 1: I don't think the full force of it actually hit

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Speaker 1: me until I was watching the television news about this

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Speaker 1: last night, because you know, you're watching somebody alive on

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Speaker 1: TV in the footage, but not alive in real life anymore.

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Speaker 1: And what struck me last night was that I never

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Speaker 1: realized how big a force John Barnett was for us

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Speaker 1: in New Zealand. I knew what he'd done, we all

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Speaker 1: know what he's done, Shorty Street, whale Rider, all of that.

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Speaker 1: But it wasn't until I heard the list rattled off

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Speaker 1: that I realized the scale of the impact. Foot Trot

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Speaker 1: flats Son's wedding Whale Rider Shortland Street. Once we're warriors,

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Speaker 1: what becomes of the broken hearted? Outrageous fortune apparently commissioning

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Speaker 1: Dave Dobbin and who herbs to make slice of heron heaven,

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Speaker 1: apparently helping to rescue Dawnray. I mean, how much of

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Speaker 1: what we consider to be to be intrinsic parts of

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Speaker 1: our culture, or at least reflections of our culture back

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Speaker 1: to us, were created or facilitated by John Barnett. It

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Speaker 1: was really easy to forget that when you knew John,

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Speaker 1: because he's really easy going and really gracious, never reminded

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Speaker 1: you of what a big deal he actually was. He

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Speaker 1: was just Barney, who you bumped into almost every week

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Speaker 1: on the KINDI run, or at the weekend, sitting outside

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Speaker 1: disngof or strolling down Ponsonby Road. The last time I

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Speaker 1: saw him and sat down and probly not saw him,

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Speaker 1: but sat down and properly had a chat to him

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Speaker 1: was over dinner at Prago, not long ago. And the

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Speaker 1: thing that struck me about him was how much into

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Speaker 1: life he still was at the age of seventy nine.

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Speaker 1: He still had an eye for a good yarn. He

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Speaker 1: was telling us about the story he never got around

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Speaker 1: to making, which is of the only woman ever to

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Speaker 1: be jailed in London for being a hit man. She

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Speaker 1: was a Kiwi and his eyes lit up and he

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Speaker 1: cracked a big smile telling the story. He was still

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Speaker 1: enthusiastic about telling our stories back to us. I will

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Speaker 1: miss seeing John on my walks, not nearly as much

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Speaker 1: as his family and his wife and his dearest friends

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Speaker 1: will miss him. But how lucky were we that he

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Speaker 1: spent his life giving us this part of New Zealand

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Speaker 1: back to us For more from Heather Duplessy Allen Drive,

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Speaker 1: listen live to news Talks. It'd be from four pm weekdays,

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Speaker 1: or follow the podcast on iHeartRadio.