Judge Rosemary - “Tragedy makes us more human”

The judge-turned-author opens up about her acting ambitions and the grief that’s left her broken.

- JUDY BAILEY

How broken and scared we all are … even those who seem to have it all together. Judges are only human. Maybe it’s time to tell that story.”

Writing To Be Fair: Confessions of a District Court Judge was something of a catharsis for former district and family court judge Rosemary Riddell. She loved her job and all it entailed. She was not ready to leave it.

Her story is moving. It makes you think. It’s laugh-out-loud funny and also deeply sad. Rosemary has been both broken and scared, and she reckons it made her a better judge.

She is the judge who dreamt of being an actor. “Of course,” she muses, “there is so much theatre in court.”

Rosemary was born the oldest of five children to Scottish immigrant parents. She grew up in Blenheim, where her dad was a newspaper editor. They were a close family. Money didn’t matter – doing your best did.

“I always wanted to be an actor, right from when I read A.A. Milne’s The Little Black Hen.” She has a vivid memory of reducing one of the nuns at her Catholic primary school to tears of mirth with her impersonation of ʼ60s radio legend Aunt Daisy.

After leaving school, Rosemary went straight to work as a radio cadet for the New Zealand Broadcasting Company. “But my heart was in theatre.” She eventually won a part in a play at Wellington’s Downstage Theatre and, from there, went on to join a drama quartet touring schools nationwide. Rosemary ended up in Auckland, where she aimed to get a job and save to go overseas. But she couldn’t find a flat.