Heartland - Ngāruawāhia

Are you still very sexy?

– A former Ngāruawāhia Primary School student greets an old friend

He beat me up because I did ballet. He thought it was a bit poofy.

– Debbie Dorday at her school reunion in Ngāruawāhia

We call it "the beastie machine".

– Local boy William's name for the old car wreck he and his brother play in

A lot of the townfolk wouldn't realise, but there is a difference between the centre of Ngāruawāhia and the actual surrounding town. People don't realise but if they came down here and saw the security at night, there are nine police here, the police station's open till 11, and it's just a running battle...I see the cars racing past here night after night chasing the kids around. It's unbelievable...

– Burger Heaven owner Kay Kahui on the youth crime problem in the centre of town

I remember once when my father bought a little Māori boy for a hundred pound bag of flour. Well he was in a quite a big family, and I suppose a hundred pound bag of flour meant something to them, you see...

– Elderly Hamilton woman Eleanor Lowther on her Ngāruawāhia farm childhood

Get a job and make the bucks!

– A teenage girl on Ngāruawāhia High School's transition programme Te Pua Waitanga is asked for her plans after leaving school

Land was taken. Land must be returned.

– Tainui Trust Chairman Hare Puke on the Tainui people's Waitangi Tribunal claim

For a group of young people who are apparently having trouble being 'mainstreamed', as the expression goes, they seem to be able to come together here in this place, work well together, and at the end of the day produce a great meal, with everybody having a good time. What more could you ask for out of an education system?

– Gary McCormick enjoys a hangi prepared by the Te Pua Waitanga transition programme

I remember I was way out in the Middle East, way out in the Sinai Desert, and I ran across this Kiwi, and he said "where are you from, mate?" and I said "I'm from Ngāruawāhia" and he said "gee that's a gutsy little place", and that sums it up, This is a gutsy little town, you know?

– Ngāruawāhia local Kay Kahui describes his home town, at the start of this episode

Alright well, I guess it's just a case of putting our shoulders back and our chins up and going for it, is it?

– Gary McCormick encourages an 8-year-old boy before his visit to the school dental clinic

Don't like the look of this. I think he's had a few games before...

– Gary McCormick plays pool with a Ngāruawāhia local

Being a vicar's daughter always makes you a little bit different, anyway.

– Cabaret performer Debbie Dorday on performing as a child while growing in Ngāruawāhia

...this only happens when you say to Heartland there's never any trouble down here...

– Pool hall manager Richard Bright after a window gets smashed

...Town's suffered a lot of changes in the last — you know, since Horotiu folded up. Everybody used to earning, bringing home four or five hundred a week, and now you're down onto the benefit. It's a big drop.

– Local Cyril Bright on the economic hit Ngāruawāhia took after the closure of Horotiu Freezing Works

It's quite common. Not just restricted to here, it's unfortunately seems to be a country trend amongst some of the younger offenders.

– A local policeman attends a smashed up church building

They're a great people, they really are...you can get exasperated with them because they don't see things the way you do. But often their way of thinking is a lot more sense than what we're at; it really is.

– Local Ruth MacDonald on local Māori opening up their marae for the Kimiora Floral Festival

There was an immediate dispersal of our people. They are people of the land, and when the land was taken and became another master, they then felt that they were of no consequence. Therefore their basis of existence was no longer there, because land was taken. So they were dispossessed...

– Tainui Trust Chairman Hare Puke on the painful legacy of the Waikato land wars of the 1860s

...I've only come ten feet — I've met ten people in ten feet... it's amazing.

– Kay Kahui enjoys himself at his school reunion

...around here everybody's got their own...they've paid for the land, they've got their title. Now what's going to happen? There's the river there — that's what they're claiming for. They want the bed of the river. But the river doesn't belong to anybody, it belongs to everybody — you, you and you, see? Everybody in New Zealand.

– Ngāruawāhia local Ray Millar rejects land claims by local Tainui people