Sir Bob Parker can't remember being face of Christchurch earthquake response after stroke

Sunday, 27 June 2021

Former Christchurch Mayor Bob Parker after his stroke, from TVNZ's Sunday.

A lifetime of leadership, erased.

After five months in a care facility after a stroke, former Christchurch mayor Sir Bob Parker has spoken to media about the uncertain future he now faces.

Parker appeared on TVNZ’s Sunday programme on the weekend as part of a special on a groundbreaking surgery that is giving stroke survivors a second chance at life.

The former mayor was admitted to a long-term care facility in January after a life-threatening stroke. He now uses a wheelchair and has limited movement.

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Parker became an inspiring frontman in the aftermath of the earthquakes 2010 and 2011 in Canterbury, before suffering a heart attack in May last year.

The 68-year-old was treated and received medication, including blood thinning drugs.

Parker and his wife looking at what’s left of the Christ Church Cathedral.

After recovering, he had a stroke on October 5. It caused bleeding on the brain, and Parker spent 11 days in Christchurch Hospital’s intensive care unit in critical condition before being transferred to a general ward for further monitoring.

After three months in Burwood Hospital, where he had two smaller strokes, he was moved to a care facility in Christchurch in late January.

Watching footage of himself walking through smoky central city streets in the immediate aftermath of the earthquake, Parker told Sunday’s Jehan Casinader he could no longer remember any of it.

He could not recognise himself in old TV clips either, from when he presented popular show This is Your Life.

Parker said it was hard waking up every morning, not sure how his day would be.

“As you can hear, I don’t always speak straight,” he said. “I’m just what I am.”

“He’s not completely aware of himself,” Parker’s wife, Lady Jo Nicholls-Parker, said.

Nicholls-Parker told Sunday about the day everything changed, when she returned home from a run in Hagley Park.

“I heard this little tapping, and he was actually under the table on the floor.”

But she said despite his struggles, the real Sir Bob was still in there.

Weeks after the February earthquake, two time capsules were found under the toppled John Godley statue in Cathedral Square. (First published in 2011)

“That’s what’s really cool about it, I haven’t lost my husband.”

Nicholls-Parker did not know why her husband had a stroke, but recalled the intense stress he faced in the aftermath of the earthquakes.

In particular, sitting down with the Japanese families who lost loved ones in the CTV building collapse took a huge toll.

“[They] asked him – how does it feel to be a murderer?

“[That was] devastating, they needed to say it to him… But he’s also a human being who can only handle so much.”

The Stroke Foundation said 11,000 Kiwis a year are having strokes, and predicted that number could increase by 40 per cent in the next decade, due to people working more stressful jobs, not getting enough exercise, and eating too much sugar and salt.

“He asked a lot of himself,” Nicholls-Parker said.

“Did that take its toll? Who knows.”

Parker still had moments where his memory came back to life.

“I never saw myself as a leader, [but] I’m proud of what I did.”

He was grateful for his wife’s support, and tearfully told the camera Nicholls-Parker meant the world to him.

“She’s my favourite in my whole world. She means everything to me.”

Parker was mayor from 2007 to 2013, and was knighted in 2013.

He was the face of the city’s earthquake response, and was a key figure in organising the crisis response in the first weeks after the February 22, 2011 earthquake.

Stuff previously reported the strain of that post-quake management, and a series of controversies, led him to decide against seeking a third term.

Then Prime Minister John Key lauded his leadership in a heartfelt public tribute, saying his “commitment to the city during its darkest hours will be his legacy”.

Parker became a familiar face in New Zealand homes in the 1980s and 1990s, and was best known as the original host of This Is Your Life before entering local politics.

In the 1990s he sat on the Banks Peninsula community board, before leading that district as mayor from 2001 to 2006.

When it amalgamated with Christchurch, he became the Banks Peninsula representative on the new city council before seeking and winning the mayoralty in 2007.