Heads You Win, Tails I Lose

1975

A Radio Play

In 1975, Radio New Zealand ran a radio play competition for school students. A good way to describe the making of the resulting work, Heads You Win, Tails I Lose is to quote and excerpt from the Artist Statement from my 2013 exhibition She Dreams of Liberation:

‘It’s 1975 and I have decided to write a play. I have a vague idea of what I want to write: a drama about a family in the grip of domestic violence; but there is a problem: I am a uniquely unworldly adolescent and have no experience of the subject matter. I am at that time working in the school holidays cleaning cars. In the lunch break I have nothing to do, so I find a quiet office and set about writing down what seems to be naturally produced by my imagination, and what is interesting is that when I let go and let the story tell itself interesting things happen. The result is Heads You Win, Tails I Lose.’

I wrote the piece in long hand and having no access to a typewriter, or the ability to use one, my friend and schoolmate Bronwen Reid stepped in and spent hours with me in the Otumoetai College Library office as I verbally dictated from my scrawl, and she typed. I am greatly indebted to Bronwen, who went on to become a very successful journalist.

I didn’t win the competition, some kid, somewhere wrote a fancy play about their trip to India… I did however receive a very nice letter from the woman who figure headed the Radio Play for RNZ. I can’t remember her name. This constitutes my first rejection letter!