David Lomas

David's face and his voice have become so familiar as he travels the globe reuniting Kiwis with long-lost whānau members. What began in 2009 as Missing Pieces, continues several iterations later as David Lomas Breakthrough, which can be viewed on ThreeNow.

Long before we welcomed David onto our screens, he and his brothers Peter and Roger walked the halls of the Old Grey Mother in Cambridge Terrace. David started in the third form in 1966. Records from that year tell us that he was a handy cricketer in a not-so-handy team. David shares, “we weren’t very good. I remember a game against Rongotai when half their team had gone home, confident they wouldn’t have to bat again.”

David has been a lifelong journalist, something that began at school. He vividly remembers the day he was asked to stay back after assembly. Naturally, he says, he thought he was in trouble and headed for the cane. Instead, the Rector handed him an envelope addressed to David at the school. Mystified, he opened it to find a cheque inside – a reasonably hefty one for the times. It was from the Evening Post in payment for the ice hockey reports he had been voluntarily providing the publication each week. Doing so because of his love for the game, and because it was not being reported on in the paper. He spent much of his spare time at Paradice Skate Rink in Kilbirnie so he thought he may as well write about it. It was the start of a career that continued throughout his school years, including a move to the Dominion where he ended up covering weekend rugby.

English and Maths were favoured subjects. “I was pretty useful at maths. St Pat’s was progressive and an early adopter of New Maths. I loved it. And we were lucky to have P J O’Neill* as our teacher.” Despite being in the top maths stream, David recalls how he and fellow media stalwart Phil O’Brien fell out of favour for one misdemeanour or another and were booted out of 5A, but, “funnily we still ended up doing all our core subjects with the 5A boys. When I moved to board at Wellington College after my parents relocated overseas, I was lost. Their maths felt so behind”.

David says that he remembers the space – or lack thereof – at Cambridge Terrace. “If you were really lucky, you would get a go on the handball court at lunch time. Otherwise, you would have to wait until after school sports training to head through the tunnel to Kilbirnie for some green space.” David also played football at school, and even though he loved rugby he didn’t play it at St Pat’s for some reason. He does though have rugby memories from school, including those of the entire school marching up to Athletic Park to watch the rugby Traditionals against Silverstream and Wellington College. And Stream’s future All Black, Joe Karam, kicking a goal from halfway in one of the games. “We would have whole of school haka practices before those games. It was a ritual and we all loved it, and getting behind the boys.”

He has other memories around the school uniform and how important it was to wear it correctly at all times, for fear of being reported. “Back then, members of the public would tell the school directly if a boy on a particular bus or walking down the street was violating the stringent uniform code.”

One thing that hasn’t changed too much over the decades is ‘weekly notes’. While today’s parents can see daily how their sons are behaving in class, back then the notes would be published on the noticeboard each week.  “Gosh, nobody wanted to fall below the dreaded number and of course everybody would know.”

Since leaving school, journalism has taken David all around the world. He has worked on high profile television shows in New Zealand such as Holmes, and he was the journalist who broke the tragic Erebus story to the country in 1979. These days he spends about a third of the year abroad filming the stories we see in our homes. He says that he never intended to be the front person and had the first series voiced over. But, it evolved, and the format we see today is one that works and has a place in the hearts of New Zealanders. “I didn’t envisage it would have the longevity it has. I suppose it will have to stop one day, but at the moment we just keep going. There is always a story to tell.”

Thank you for your time David, we look forward to welcoming you back to St Patrick’s when next in Wellington.

*Father PJ O'Neill SM QSM was a renowned mathematician and educationalist.