Still Standing: Anna Crighton

Former local-body politician Dame Anna Crighton has fought tirelessly for the heritage and built past of Christchurch and Aotearoa New Zealand. But behind this fearless persona lies an extraordinary life story, told publicly for the first time in her memoir Still Standing. In it, Crighton recounts a childhood bereft of parental affection, a wild adolescence that included a stay at the Mount Magdala Convent ‘to straighten her out’, and unsuitable relationships clung to in a desperate search for love. She joins Morrin Rout in conversation.