Still Here

By Mathew Innes (Dungannon House 1987-1989)

“I was born in Papakura in 1972, the youngest of four kids. Dad was a builder, but before that, he was a professional deer hunter—jumping out of helicopters into the wild bush of Te Urewera, chasing deer through the thick scrub. That was his real passion, dangerous and raw, just like him.

We moved around a lot when I was a kid. My grandparents lived in Russell, and my granddad was a Canadian sergeant-major during World War II. From him, I inherited grit. From my grandma, a love of stories and history. Growing up, I thought being a quarter Canadian meant there was a bigger world out there beyond New Zealand.

Mum was a kindergarten teacher — warm but worn down by life. Mum and Dad had four kids together, but with half-siblings from later relationships, I ended up in the middle of seven. Our house was noisy and chaotic. Mum and Dad argued constantly. Doors slammed, voices rose, and sometimes there was silence so heavy it felt like the walls were holding their breath. I slept on the couch until I was a teenager.

Money was always tight. I didn’t realize it as a kid, but looking back, it was poverty. My earliest memories are of Thames — Dad worked as a tree feller, chopping timber paths through the bush. He’d come home with cracked hands and sap-stained arms, living by this motto: ‘If you stop working, you die.’

By the time I was eight or nine, Mum and Dad’s marriage had fallen apart. Mum had a new partner, a Welsh guy who worked fixing TVs and radios. He got me my first computer — a CBM 3006. I was hooked, typing code from magazines, making the screen flash. Computers became my refuge from the chaos.

But home was never easy. Discipline was strict, often brutal. If you were late or didn’t obey, you got a hiding. I learned to mistake pain for attention — if I got punished, at least someone noticed me. I started smoking when I was eight and by twelve, I was already a troublemaker.

Sport saved me. Mum signed me up for rugby league at eight, and I played until I was eighteen. I loved the hits, the mud, the feeling of earning every metre. Dad taught me to hunt in the bush, to survive with nothing but a rifle and some rice. But school was a disaster. I bounced around schools, failing everything but sports. I couldn’t sit still; I had ADHD before it was even named.

At fourteen, Mum sent me to Dilworth. I thought it was punishment. And it was brutal.

Throw 350 boys from broken homes together, and you get chaos. Older boys made life hell. My smart mouth made me a target. But sport kept me sane — rugby, athletics, cross-country — I loved it all.

When I first arrived at Dilworth, I was paired with a guide—Michael Carpenter. He showed me around and helped me settle in. But Michael wasn’t exactly popular. He was a gentle, quiet and kind kid who was raised by his grandmother. He loved trains and scouts. Michael didn’t push back when kids gave him grief. He didn’t really have that fire. I liked him, though. We were both outsiders in our own way. Later on, Michael started to rebel. He started smoking and began cutting himself. I suspect someone had abused him. He died in 1993 when he was 20. At the time the rumour was that he had a defective heart, but I suspect he had had enough of this world. I think about him often and it makes me sad. Gentle Michael was the sort of kid that should probably never have been sent to Dilworth. Not back then, anyway.

I had my own issues with predators. Father Brown was grooming me. He’d ask me about my father, making me emotional, softening me up. Then he’d ask for hugs, have me sit on his lap, his hand resting on mine in a way that made my skin crawl. I knew it was wrong, but I didn’t know how to explain it. Everyone said, “Oh, Father Brown is such a nice man, such a caring counsellor.” So I told myself maybe this was normal.

When I confided in my mum that it felt wrong, she went to the school. And that’s when everything turned. Instead of protecting me, I was put on “book-report”—after every class, I had to check in with each teacher, like I was the problem. I spoke up, and suddenly I was treated like I’d done something wrong.

My mum thought I might be gay because of the things I told her. My sisters teased me about it. I didn’t even understand what was happening to me, let alone how to talk about it. So I just stopped talking.

Because I started Dilworth later than most boys, I didn’t have the strong friendships that the other boys had, and I was kind of eccentric. And when they tried to provoke me, I’d laugh—which just made them angrier.

After Dilworth, I worked in tech, taught myself everything about computers. But I also found fighting — Muay Thai, also known as Thai Boxing. Along with rugby league, I trained hard. Fighting became my way to control the chaos inside and I eventually finished up with about 28 bouts. My last was just before I turned 40.

In the early ’90s, I worked security at nightclubs in Papakura. It was brutal — fights, blood, gangs. I learned to survive with my fists and instincts. One night, I knocked out a rugby player and his mates swarmed me. I fought back, taking punches and dishing them out. The rest of the security crew saved me from a trip to the hospital for sure. That was my world for years — chaos, violence, and the raw edges of life.

I met my wife through work in New Zealand. She was German, and after a messy immigration battle, we had to leave the country. I sold everything and moved with her to Germany. I didn’t speak German.

Nine months after getting there I found out she’d been having an affair. I came home to find her in bed with another man. I was crushed and I left the next day.

I had no friends, no safety net. I moved into a rundown house with broken windows and no heat, barely scraping by. I wasn’t ready for that world — I’d always relied on someone else to take care of the practical stuff. Suddenly, I had to fend for myself. I was lost.

But I kept going. I got a job at BMW, managing software projects across countries. I learned German, adapted, and slowly built a new life. I started the Munich Touch Rugby Club because there was no touch rugby in Germany. It gave me a new purpose.

Life wasn’t easy. My (ex) wife got pregnant by another man while we were still married, and legally, I could have been forced to pay child support for a child that wasn’t mine. But a judge saw the truth and stopped it. I divorced, started a family with a new partner, and worked hard.

Then, in 2005, my mum died from a brain tumor. That was the hardest loss of all. I flew back to New Zealand to be with her, but even money and success couldn’t save her. Watching her die made me rethink everything — I stopped chasing success and started searching for meaning.

I have four kids with four different mothers. I don’t see most of them. When my mum died, something inside me broke or maybe was triggered. I can get into relationships easily, but they never last. I’m stuck in a loop I can’t break out of.

My cognitive function is in decline. I don’t know if it is the ADHD, PTSD, or from all the knocks to the head over the years. It worries me, especially given how Mum died.

I’m still a traveller at heart. I move from place to place, unable to settle. My childhood was full of brokenness, chaos, and survival. Those patterns show up again and again in my adult life. But I’m still here. And maybe that’s what resilience really means — not never falling, but getting up every time you do.”