Mt Albert has been well represented in the United Nations’ peacekeeping mission in South Sudan.
Former Mt Albert resident, and one of the New Zealand army’s most senior women, Lieutenant Colonel Esther Harrop has recently returned from a nine-month deployment in the fledgling east African country.
While there she worked closely with former Mt Albert MP David Shearer, who is heading the United Nations’ peacekeeping mission.
In her role as the New Zealand Senior National Officer and Military Assistant, she provided advice on the military aspects of the mission. The country gained its independence from Sudan in 2011 after a long-running civil war.
A former head girl of Marist College, Esther Harrop grew up on the slopes of Mt Albert.
While home base is now Wellington, she still visits family and friends in Mt Albert from time to time.
“In fact, I passed through Mt Albert on the way to the airport the other week to visit a friend who is living at the top of Kitenui Ave,” she says. “It was a total blast from the past to drive up that road.
“St Mary’s Church featured pretty large in my childhood. Christenings, Christmases, funerals, weddings – they all happened there.”
The youngest of five children, she attended Marist School with her four brothers.
“It was the same school my father Paul (Harrop) and his brothers and sisters went to. A bunch of my cousins went there too.”
Esther Harrop and her brothers were in the Mt Albert Youth Orchestra, now known as the Aotea Youth Orchestra, which was started by her father and Laurie Soljak in the mid-1980s.
“We used to practise at Ferndale, then the War Memorial Hall. We toured all over the world with that orchestra. It is still going – and my Dad still conducts it.”
She remembers that as a child she used to love hanging out up the mountain.
“My brothers and I would take cardboard and slide down the grass slopes up the back of our place – avoiding the cow pats, of course.”
She also remembers walking home from school and helping themselves to feijoas from the trees that lined Alberton Ave in those days.
Esther joined the army full-time after completing a Bachelor of Commerce at the University of Auckland, having spent her student years in the Territorials.
Since finishing her posting in South Sudan, she has returned to New Zealand and is now the Deputy Director Defence Engagement – Regional. Based in Wellington, she is responsible for defence engagement in South East Asia and the Pacific.
“It’s a really busy job, with lots of interesting work and a wide variety of opportunities to explore. I travel a lot, but am enjoying being based back in New Zealand with my family.”
Esther now lives just north of Wellington in Pauatahanui, with her husband and four sons.
Jenni Austin
