Sharon Barbour

Globetrotting Kiwi Sharon Barbour worked at radio stations from Sydney to Christchurch before she started her first television job in 1990. After a year reporting for TV3 in Wellington, she moved to England. There she found work with the BBC's Special Documentaries Unit. She went on to research the 1968 Wahine disaster for two years in her spare time, culminating in the 2008 release of documentary The Wahine Disaster. The Māori Television programme, which Barbour directed, wrote, produced and narrated, won several awards. Barbour still lives in England, where she reports and presents for the BBC.  

I was so moved by the stories, and how the men had broken through police lines to take their own boats out to rescue survivors. To this day, nothing moves me more. Sharon Barbour, on the Wahine disaster