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Home  Community Alumni and Reunions
Lucy de Castro Alumni 1987
 Lucy is one of our foundation pupils who began school at Kristin in the 1970s at the Campbell’s Bay site and left in 1980 to go to Intermediate school elsewhere. She has updated us from her home in South London where she lives with her partner Nick.
“By the time I left school I remember wanting to be an actress. After finishing Secondary school in Hawke’s Bay, I spent a year in the Rio Grande Valley as an American Field Scholarship student – a lifechanging experience – then moved to the UK which was quite a culture shock after the vast, flat, open spaces of Texas!
A brief stint back in the USA to house-sit in Santa Barbara (the joy of seeing hummingbirds!), then I did a secretarial course in London (learning on manual typewriters, which seems archaic but it gave me a terrifically useful skill and I still scribble things down quickly in shorthand now).
My career in the Arts began when I landed a PA job at Glyndebourne Festival Opera in 1983. After five years I worked for Peter Hall, Director of the National Theatre on London’s South Bank, and then in the West End when he set up his own theatre company.
In 1996 I joined BBC Radio 3, based at Broadcasting House, to manage a massive
retrospective project called ‘Sounding the Century’. From 1997–1999 Radio 3 broadcast all the important musical works from across the century with related programmes about jazz, speech, people etc. I met Nick while working there and we discovered a shared sense of humour.
Currently I wear two hats! From the start of this year until June, I’m working parttime as Artistic Projects Manager for the London Sinfonietta, the UK’s foremost
ensemble specialising in contemporary classical music. The orchestra recently toured to Adelaide to perform in the Festival and had hoped to come to New Zealand but funding didn’t work out this time – we hope it will be possible in future. My sister Eve, who lives in Auckland, is a composer and it would be wonderful if the Sinfonietta performed one of her pieces on tour.
My other hat is as General Manager of a touring opera company called Opera Novella (www.operanovella.com). We create accessible performances of well-known operas (like Carmen or La Traviata) which are sung in English translation. During the summer months, our shows are often performed in open-air settings, like the grounds of a stately home, a London park or someone’s private garden. In July we are booked to perform Carmen at Hever Castle in Kent, where Anne Boleyn grew up. We hope to tour to Dublin later in the summer and, back in the Home Counties in early September, we’ll perform in a privately-owned amphitheatre made amongst yew trees, which should be terrific as the acoustics will be fabulous and the atmosphere amazing!
I love working in classical music – being around the singers and the instrumentalists and, in particular, being involved in ‘making the show happen’.
Thinking back, I was a ‘good little girl’ at school – energetic, keen to learn and happy in the family atmosphere of Kristin. I won the Deportment Cup once! (I wonder if that cup still exists?)
I shall always remember the headmaster, Roy Munn, and his wife. They shone with kindness and affection.
Classrooms were in different prefab buildings dotted around the site which was high on a hill with a view of the East Coast Bays. There was a rather exciting area ‘out of bounds’ at the back, covered in bush, which is probably now completely developed. I used to zoom around the school along tar-blistered asphalt pathways (in regulation Roman sandals, of course). Vegemite sandwiches at lunchtime.
I think we all started off wearing whatever we wanted in that first year, then the uniform came in. I liked the turquoise stripe in the grey wool V-neck as it was different.
The founding ceremony was attended by Sir Denis Blundell (NZ’s then Governor- General) and I still have black and white photos of the occasion. There’s a picture of me holding the hand of a much younger pupil, also called Lucy. We met up many years later through a mutual family friend. I have strong memories of friends Kay, Lisa, Susan and some cool boys – Guy and Todd stand out in my mind – hi to all, if you are reading this!
We had a memorable school trip to a volcanic plateau once and stayed at a well-run outdoor pursuits centre. It was somewhere near the Raurimu Spiral – an engineering phenomenon which was impressed on us all. I learned a haunting song called ‘I’m gonna leave ol’ Durham Town’ and sang it round a camp fire. I think that was the time we walked the Tongariro Track, which I’d love to do again.
Yes, happy memories of Kristin. He aha te mea nui? He tangata. He
tangata. He tangata.
Aspirations now and for the future include a visit to Japan with Nick at some point; I’d love to get my feijoa trees here in Tooting to bear fruit! And a trip to NZ to see family is always on the cards, with time to tour around more of the South Island (perhaps walk the Routeburn Track). Birdwatching is also a must! I’m so grateful to my dad for introducing me to NZ’s amazing native birds by, for example, taking me by canoe to find the shy Fernbird and, on another occasion, to see the rare Blue Mountain duck (aka Whio as it whistles rather than quacking).
If anyone reading this feels that he or she is rather different from the pack, then even if others make you feel you are uncool or weird, just keep your spark of individuality alive. You don’t have to go to extremes with fashion nor transmogrify yourself to show that you are unique. Follow that sense (however quiet it is within you) of ‘this is me’. My mum taught me the saying ‘In quietness and confidence shall be your strength’.”
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