Queer Places:
Kaimiro, New Zealand
Norman Parau Gibson (September 21, 1895 - March 22, 1964) was born in Kaimiro, Taranaki, New Zealand. New Zealand
soldiers Roy Ayling (1886 – November 8, 1950) and Norman Gibson met in 1915 on their way to WW1, and
they fell in love. When machine gunner Norman Gibson was seriously injured in
the Somme, France, his confidante, Roy Ayling, didn't know if he'd live or
die. So Roy penned a poem to express his grief for the man he called his "Old
Sunshine".
After the war, they farmed together at Kaimiro, up Mt Taranaki from Inglewood, New Zealand. They lived together for 13 years and shared a double bed. They lived as nudists and had a circle of nudist friends, including Rewi Alley and his partner Jack Stevens, who subsistence-farmed at Moeawatea, 30 km up the Whenuakura valley from Waverley, from 1920 to 1927, when Alley went to China. Norman died at age 68, in New Plymouth, Taranaki, New Zealand.
Roy Ayling and his lover Norman Gibson farmed together at Kaimiro, up Mt Taranaki from Inglewood, New Zealand. Roy Ayling had seen the younger Norman Gibson while at the war, poised for a dive when they were swimming, and loved his beautiful body. When they came back he had left his accountancy business in Auckland and put his money into this farm with his friend. They lived as nudists and had a circle of nudist friends, including Rewi Alley and his partner Jack Stevens, who subsistence-farmed at Moeawatea, 30 km up the Whenuakura valley from Waverley, from 1920 to 1927, when Alley went to China. Roy left Norman in 1931 and both married, though they stayed in touch. Norman's daughter became lesbian activist Miriam Saphira. In her biography of her father, A Man's Man - which includes a series of nude "physique" photographs of him - she is convinced their relationship was physical.
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