Rob Caithness - A brief Biography.

 

Robin Ridges Caithness was born in Harare in the then Southern Rhodesia in 1955. There was an early connection to New Zealand as Sir Garfield Todd(Born: 13 July, 1908, in Invercargill, New Zealand ) was the Prime Minister of Southern Rhodesia rom 1953 to 1958.

 

I grew up in Southern Rhodesia and remembered well the Unilateral Declaration of Independance by Ian Smith. Only just having turned 10 at the time I thought that it was a stupid thing to do. I always thought it would have been better to negotiate a settlement and peacefully exit from that situation. Later I saw some of my own friends, my cousin and  a Sunday School teacher I knew, all die in the resulting conflict. To me, it has always stood as an example of how politicians can have a disastrously negative effect on the people they lead, while they themselves get away scot free.

 

I was educated at Ellis Robins School  in Harare, Zimbabwe. I went on to the University of Zimbabwe to study for a BSc and followed that up with a Graduate Certificate in Education. Moving to South Africa in 1982, to work in Johannesburg , I met my future wife, Barbara and married in 1987.

 

I worked in the commercial world , moving to Cape Town in 1992 and then, "always" having wanted to, I moved to New Zealand in 2001. I have worked in chemical companies in New Zealand since his arrival here and now hope that my vision of New Zealand as part of Australia will be of great benefit to the citizens of both New Zealand and the current states of the Commonwealth of Australia.