Anchorwoman

Metro Living Obituary Jan 2016

Heather du Plessis-Allan

News hound

1985-2079 

Heather du Plessis-Allan, New Zealand’s last surviving news reporter, has died in a TV studio on her 94th birthday.

Even as a little girl, Heather wanted to be a news reporter. She liked the way they looked in the movies with their horn-rimmed glasses and trench coats and high heels, asking the hard questions, taking no prisoners, saying answer the question Minister.

In no time at all she was reporting for One News in horn rimmed glasses trenchcoat and high heels saying answer the question Minister.

Soon enough she had her own TV show.

But the golden age of TV current affairs had come and gone. If you wanted people to tune in, you had to make it worth their while, or they would be off to Tinder.

“Tonight on Story we get someone fired” she would say. “That's right,” her co-host Duncan would say. “This is a real eye-opener. I couldn't believe it, to be honest with you.”

“Tonight on Story we show you how easy it is for a crim to cut off his ankle bracelet” she would say. “That's right,” her co-host Duncan would say. “This is a real eye-opener. I couldn't believe it, to be honest with you.”

It was only a matter of time before she was buying weapons online.

It made for exciting pictures as Heather lifted a rifle out of its packaging, locked, loaded, and intoned “answer the question minister.”

As far as anyone could make out, she was the first person in the country to ever buy a gun online with fake details. She was certainly the first person to be sentenced to ten years in prison for it.

The nation gasped, and the months that followed made engrossing TV. Night after night, footage would find its way to Story: Heather in a striped trench coat; Heather doing pressups in her tiny cell; Heather making a shiv out of a toothbrush; Heather scribbling angry messages to her co-host.

“A real eye-opener,” Duncan would say. “I just can't believe it, to be honest with you.”

He turned out to be more right than anyone had guessed when the whole thing was revealed as a giant stunt. 

“I’d say we’ve taken reality TV to the next level” - Heather said on her first night of ‘freedom’ -  “Your turn next Duncan! I reckon it’ll be a real eye-opener.” Duncan looked uncomfortable, but he was never all that much at ease in a suit, to be fair.

And so it went, as fewer and fewer people tuned in for current affairs.

By the time Story was in its twentieth season, no one ever asked a minister a question about anything. By the thirtieth year, its format had been simplified to a replica of the classic Dog Show format, where one clever dog tried to get half a dozen dopey sheep through a gate.

People loved the nostalgia of it, but they especially liked the way Heather would get exasperated after a minute or two and charge past the dog, give it a clip on the ear, grab the stupid animals and haul them into the pen herself. “Honestly Duncan, do I have to do everything myself,” she would say.

But by 94, Heather was exhausted. She expired in an editing booth, making the finishing touches to a story about dog licences that simply had to be told. Her husband, Barry Soper, 124, said she had paid the price for dedication. “I’ve always said you shouldn’t take work that seriously, but honestly it was just that hard to make her listen once she got an idea in her head.”