The overseas trip was long anticipated due to COVID travel restrictions, however after one year of waiting and forty hours of travelling from New Zealand I finally made it to Heathrow Airport. The three days spent in London were surreal as I was able to experience the sights and settings I had grown up seeing on the television. These included Paddington Station, the Big Ben, Buckingham Palace, the London Eye, 10 Downing Street and the red double decker buses. While in London, I was also given a tour of Parliament, met with the former high commissioner to New Zealand (Geordie Fergusson), listened to the bells of St Paul’s Cathedral and caught the tube.

From London, I then flew to Aberdeen, Scotland where I was greeted by the Head Girl of Robert Gordon’s College and her family who was hosting me for the week. Staying with the Shipp whānau was incredibly special and they made me feel right at home. I spent a few days at Robert Gordon’s College being introduced to different staff and pupils and giving assemblies, but a highlight was definitely listening to everyones accent. During one of my days in Aberdeen, I travelled North to Lossiemouth where I visited the RAF base. This was an incredible experience as I was lucky enough to be given a tour of the base including a typhoon fighter jet. While in Aberdeen, I also visited many castles, met with past Ōtaki Scholars and even tried haggis which was definitely an interesting experience. 

From Aberdeen, I made my way down to Edinburgh stopping in Cowie on the way for the Everiss Memorial service. Edinburgh was my favourite city and reminded me a lot of Dunedin which is where I spent most of 2022 studying. While in Edinburgh I explored the beautiful streets, had a tour of the Edinburgh castle and visited the Scottish Parliament where I observed the first minister's questions. I also visited Holyrood Palace where I had an audience with Princess Anne. Meeting Princess Anne still feels absolutely unreal. I can’t believe I was just sitting with her on the couch chatting for about half an hour.

From Edinburgh, I embarked on a tour to the Isle of Skye which explores the West Coast of Scotland. This tour was filled with truly jaw-dropping sights that resembled aspects of the South Island of New Zealand. After three days on the tour of the Isle of Skye, I made my way back to Aberdeen where the next day I said bye to my amazing host family and began the long journey home. 

Travelling to the United Kingdom was a life-changing experience. It was an opportunity that allowed me to see another side of the world and form connections with incredible people I would have otherwise never met. I am incredibly grateful to everyone who has made this experience possible for myself, for past scholars and for future scholars. It is amazing that students are able to embark on such special journeys at such a young age. 

 I cannot express how grateful I am to have been able to experience this. It being my first overseas trip definitely made it more special to me, and it was probably the most amazing 3 weeks I have ever experienced. The places we saw, the experiences we had, I will never forget them. It was a perfect way to start my independence. 

Although … I do not recommend the 12 hour layover in Melbourne to anyone.

A huge thank you to everyone who made this trip possible, from the organising and funding, to hosting Krisha and I in the UK, I am incredibly grateful to you all. 

Highlights of the trip:

Spending the weekend in London

Being able to see things like Big Ben, the London Eye, Westminster Abbey, and Tower bridge, along with many other things was so surreal. I think the touristy activities were a perfect way to start the trip, we got to do things at our own pace and take things in while getting over jetlag.

Sean Press was a great host, tour guide, story teller (and photographer). Having someone who was with us the whole weekend was really beneficial, not only keeping consistency and being able to get to know him more, it meant he knew what we had already seen and he was able to ask us what we wanted to do each day.

I definitely think things like visiting parliament is still an important aspect of the trip, I would just recommend that you reserve a day for those activities after the scholar has gotten over jetlag, as it is hard to take in all the information when you’re floating around in a daze.

Meeting up with Angus and Patrick

I think it is so important to reconnect with the past scholars that you meet during the year prior. 

We became so close in the short time they were in Otaki, so I was so happy that we got to spend some time with Angus and Patrick and just catch up. It was so nice to be able to see their end of the world and see some of the things they talked about when they were over in NZ. When they talked about how similar the two countries are, I never really believed them until I was in Scotland myself. 

I think it was really important to reconnect with some familiar people, and just make the most of being in the same country.

I loved spending time with them so much that we actually contacted Patrick and met up with him a couple more times in Edinburgh. 

Spending a day in the junior school at RGC.

I thought it was so amazing that the school was able to cater to our interests and allow us to spend time in different parts of the school. As an aspiring primary school teacher, I absolutely loved getting involved and even took a couple reading groups. 

“A new Everiss Scholarship commemorates the 24 year-old New Zealand pilot who stayed with his crashing Spitfire in 1941, steering it away from people in the village [of Cowie]. The two first scholars were at a ceremony in his memory at the crash site, by Cowie Bowling Club on January 16. It echoes a scholarship set up in 1937, which has taken a Scottish student to New Zealand. Two young New Zealanders laid a wreath at a memorial in Cowie recently, completing a link with Scotland which began in 1937. The sinking of a New Zealand merchant ship in 1917 and the death of a young New Zealand pilot in a Spitfire crash in Stirlingshire form the unusual background to a unique student exchange.

The visitors, Krisha Modi and Jess Thomsen, are the first Everiss Scholars, beneficiaries of a programme honouring the memory of Pilot Officer Carlyle Everiss, an RNZAF pilot who stayed with his Spitfire as it crashed near Cowie in 1941, ensuring that it missed the centre of the village. They visited Everiss’ grave in Grangemouth before the ceremony.

The ceremony, at the Carlyle Everiss Memorial at the Cowie Bowling Club, was attended by the Lord Lieutenant of Stirlingshire and Falkirk, Mr Alan Simpson, the New Zealand Air Adviser in London, Wing Commander Steve Thornley RNZAF, Flight Lieutenant Conner Adlington RAF, representing the Air Officer Scotland, the Heads and representatives of Robert Gordon’s College in Aberdeen, St Margaret’s Primary School in Cowie and Pat Maguire, President of the Bowling Club, where the memorial was erected in 2007.

Eighty-five years ago the New Zealand Shipping Company, whose lightly armed cargo ship SS Otaki had been sunk with the loss of the Captain and three others, set up the Otaki Scholarship in memory of Captain Archibald Bisset Smith VC. The company gave each year’s dux of Bisset Smith’s old school, Robert Gordon’s College, a trip to New Zealand, where the scholar would tour the country, visiting leading schools and staying with local families. Over the years, a distinguished line of Scots benefited from this experience, including Sir Graeme Catto, later President of the General Medical Council, and rugby stars Calum and Chris Cusiter. When the shipping company stopped operating, the scholars flew to New Zealand. Unusually, they have also been given guest of government status by the New Zealand Government, with an official car and driver and meeting the Governor-General and, often, the Prime Minister.

The new Everiss Scholarship, is a Scottish thanks for this longstanding New Zealand generosity to young Scots. A trust was set up, with half the funds coming from donations from former Otaki Scholars, and the remainder from the Wood Foundation and Babcock International. The beneficiaries are the winners of a leadership competition at Ōtaki College, a secondary school north of Wellington, in the town which the SS Otaki was named after.

After several delays because of Covid travel restrictions, the first two scholars, Krisha Modi and Jess Thomsen, are visiting Scotland this month. Before the Cowie ceremony, they laid a wreath at Carlyle Everiss’ grave in Grangemouth. Besides a period of attachment at Robert Gordon’s College, they are touring Scotland. In Edinburgh, they were received by Princess Anne, the Princess Royal, in Holyroodhouse, and among other visits and calls on VIPs such as Cabinet Secretary Angus Robertson, spent a morning at the Parliament as a guest of the Presiding Officer.”