New Zealand Woman’s Weekly Issue 22, 2022

When it came to the first official event of the Queen’s Platinum Jubilee celebrations, one was very amused! Her Majesty seemed in high spirits at the equestrian extravaganza A Gallop Through Time, held in the grounds of Windsor Castle as part of the Royal Horse Show. Celebrity participants in the production included Hollywood Top Gun Tom Cruise, 59, who introduced a segment of the show, and UK TV personalities Martin Clunes, 60, Phillip Schofield, 60, and Omid Djalili, 56. But the scene-stealers were the Queen’s carriage-driving granddaughter Lady Louise Windsor, 18, and Dame Helen Mirren. Helen, 76, who won an Oscar for the film The Queen, portrayed the other monarch called Elizabeth in a part of the show that chronicled the first Elizabethan age. She got a rousing round of applause, but…

It’s hard to believe that it has been 30 years since thousands of people around New Zealand – including me – gathered in their lounges, eyes on the telly for the first episode of Shortland Street. “You’re not in Guatemala now, Dr Ropata!” has been repeated so often, every Kiwi knows it. That first show received mixed reviews, but people kept coming back for more. Now the country’s longest-running soap, it has been the launching pad for some of our most famous faces and has repeatedly tackled issues relevant to every-day Kiwis. I have dipped in and out of the show, but presently watch it most nights. Like Hilary Barry shares on page six, it is a bit of escapism and respite amongst busy days. To be honest, the fact…

Before Hilary Barry got her job reading TV3’s news at 6pm, when she was still a young mum at home with two small boys, there was a regular weekday routine that helped her cope. “Every night after the kids were bathed, fed and in bed, I’d sit down and have half an hour watching Shortland Street to unwind and decompress,” she recalls. “It really kept me company and helped keep me sane when my kids were little.” Years later, when she moved to TVNZ to present Seven Sharp, Hilary kept hoping there might be a chance for her to appear in a cameo role on the long-running Kiwi soap. “I was thinking perhaps of lying on a gurney being attended to by a handsome doctor, a stethoscope on the chest, anything. But it…

RACHEL HUNTER The Kiwi supermodel visited the clinic to see if she could get change for the parking meter. Long-time receptionist Marj Neilson was not impressed with this request, and rudely pointed out that it was a hospital and not a bank. HELEN CLARK AND JENNY SHIPLEY In 1996, Helen Clark and Jenny Shipley, then Members of Parliament, welcomed Marj to the Beehive to start her new career as an MP. Elizabeth McRae, who played Marj, says filming the scene was the perfect way to end her four-year run on the series and was made even more special when Jenny Shipley became prime minister only a year later. BUCK SHELFORD Before he was the infamous Ferndale Strangler, nurse Joey Henderson was a young man who dreamed of being a doctor. He got his chance to…

Britney’s NEW HEARTBREAK The singer reveals her emotional struggle following a miscarriage Britney Spears is reeling from a devastating miscarriage – just weeks after sharing her pregnancy joy with fans on social media. The Stronger singer last week shared a Sex and the City meme showing Carrie Bradshaw with streaked mascara, saying, “I am not in the mood to be with a bunch of people.” Britney captioned the meme with her own words: “Unfortunately my mood these days… I honestly hope it doesn’t turn into years.” The pop icon, 40, who shares sons Sean, 16, and Jayden, 15, with ex-husband Kevin Federline, last year accused her father of forcing contraception upon her during his 13-year-long conservatorship over her life. And last month, five months after the controversial conservatorship was finally terminated, the star gleefully announced that…

She may be getting frail and losing her mobility, but make no mistake, the Queen is as sharp as a pin at 96. And she’s proving just how switched on she is, despite her advancing years, by executing what palace sources say is a “masterful” plan to prepare her son Prince Charles to take over her job – and the public to accept him in the role. Charles has been standing in more and more often for his mother, including at last week’s State Opening of Parliament. The reason given for why the Queen couldn’t make it was “episodic mobility problems”, which have been plaguing her for some months now. She had only missed the ceremony twice before during her 70-year reign, when she was pregnant with sons Princes Andrew and…