1954: Fourth World

June 22, 2019

By AHNZ

65 Years ago: Today in history, 22 June, 1954, New Zealand was changed forever by two teenage murderers in Christchurch.

Pauline Parker and Juliet Hulme broke the accepted pattern of crime in New Zealand. Even today, female privilege keeps our eyes on the crimes of men and how to punish them. When the duo bludgeoned Pauline’s mother to death with a brick it was a wake-up call that women could be criminal too. The fact they were teenagers (c15yo) helped lead to the Mazengarb Report being posted to every household about 2 months later warning of children running rampant.

Like beheading King Charles I, the consequences go much further than the death of one woman; Honora Parker. How did it come to this?

Genesis of the Silent Generation

Pauline and Juliet were both born in 1938, well and truly within the bracket of The Silent Generation. A generation of Kiwis traumatised by events they had been unable to control or avoid; A told-what-to-do generation.

“Strauss-Howe Generational Theory calls them an Artist (Adaptive) generation, the sort previously seen in 1925–1942 who were cowed by the poverty of The Great Depression and called The Silent Generation.” – ref. 2000s: Generation Z

“We know better, most of us. But for a span of years, c.1920s-1970s, New Zealander newborn babies were kept away from their mothers in separate nurseries in hospitals. Look here for the reasons for The Silent Generation..”- ref. 1907: Plunket

• Juliet’s Family of Origin

  

Dr Henry Hulme arrived in New Zealand in 1948 to take up the top job at Canterbury University. High up in social status, he was also a powerful figure in his speciality of nuclear physics. Even after the murders, Hulme was an essential leader of Britain’s nuclear weapons development.

Mrs Hilda Hulme played the part of devoted wife, becoming just as famous herself. Her particular speciality was as a marriage guidance counsellor both in practise and on the board of the Christchurch Marriage Guidance Council. Hilda gave regular broadcasts on the Radio 3YA panel and lectured the public about how to have strong and faithful families. Like her husband, Mrs Hulme’s time and energy were tied up with high-status public service leaving little or no time for their daughter Juliet.

Walter Perry¹, on the other hand, was a man Mr and Mrs Hulme did have time for. This Canadian engineer confided his marriage troubles with Hilda but rather than put him back on the high road she invited him to join her own marriage with Dr Henry! Similar to Prime Minister Savage, the three adults lived together at palatial Canterbury University College’s Ilam House in a Ménage à trois under the nose of Juliet and her younger brother.

• Pauline’s Family of Origin

Honora Parker migrated to New Zealand in 1927 with her solo mother. Still a teen, she met and ran off with Herb Rieper. Like Honora’s chartered accountant father, Rieper was also an accountant with a family. Being 16ys her senior it is obvious, in my opinion, that Honora had Daddy Issues leading to her role breaking up the Rieper marriage. Although, in Christchurch, Honora and Pauline would hide under the Rieper name their legal names remained ‘Parker’.

The couple’s cover was almost blown in 1933 when their rented home burned along with a timber mill down Colombo Street. As a newborn (1938) Pauline’s mother had severe health problems and when she was 4 Honora was already back in the workforce, I assume, as a Red Cross Home Nurse. Honora’s eggs were a bit to ‘dusty’ to be having children but the couple did it anyway until, aged 40, she gave birth to a daughter with Down’s Syndrome.

Herbert Rieper was born in Tasmania to German parents before starting a family in New Zealand. For the real Mrs Rieper, much older than Herbert, it was her second marriage. When his wife was 47, Rieper abandoned her and their children to run off to Christchurch with young Honora. Experienced in accountancy, Rieper became manager of a fish retailer which involved leadership in industrial disputes and organising social events (see Papers Past.) The Riepers purchased their own home (1946) in Gloucester St, letting out rooms to borders. Even then the dark family secret was kept, the house being tactically placed in the name of “the wife of Herbert Rieper.” Mr Rieper was also a keen pigeon racer.

Fourth World

Both Juliet and Pauline, like so many other Silent Generation kids, failed to have their Attachment needs met. To survive mentally, these Adaptive generations (eg also Generation Z) flee into art and escapism. No wonder, then, that both girls longed to become professional writers and run away to Hollywood together. They even dissociated into a fantasy realm they called ‘Fourth World’ where the world made sense to them. In Fourth World they were loved and respected, the people were just and good and truthful. These visions were fuelled by the scenery of Port Levy where the girls recreated together and may resemble similar observations by Maoris.

Consider how starved for Attachment and serotonin Juliet had to have been. Two high-status parents busy climbing the social and professional ladder all her life. In her first years she experienced screaming nightmares and repository illness. The parents blame the Blitz but these are exactly the symptoms of babies who do not get empathy from care-givers and do not learn to self-soothe. Aged 5, Juliet’s mother became hospitalised and Depressed following the birth of a new son. Dr Hulme followed his job to America and Juliet herself was sent away to North England. Aged 6, Juliet continued to be badly ill which I speculate might have been her only means of gaining recognition and attention from her mother or from anyone. For the next two years, housebound, then at 8yo she was sent away to the Bahamas and then New Zealand’s Bay of Islands. Aged 10, Juliet finally saw her mother and father again when they came to hustle Christchurch. First thing they did: Send her off to boarding school at Hastings for a year. Juliet’s first real time of stability and unity with her Family of Origin was 1950, aged 12, far too late to get childhood Attachment needs met. How the heck is a kid supposed to survive and grow when they are being treated like someone’s lost luggage? How do you not become a sociopath under these conditions?

The dice was loaded from the start for Pauline and Juliet. Both separated from other kids by their illnesses, their dissociations, their dark family secrets. Their lack of Attachment problem led to Psychological Fusion with one another, a co-dependence by which they could finally get some epistemological nutrition from someone else in their cruel Silent world. Pauline didn’t even know her real name let alone the dark family secret her anxious parents lived to hide. Juliet lived with high profile celebrity fraudsters that everyone in the public considered the most moral and brilliant among them; Who could she tell?²

I worship the power of these lovely two

With that adoring love known to so few.

‘Tis indeed a miracle, one must feel,

That two such heavenly creatures are real.

…And these wonderful people are you and I.”

– The Ones That I Worship, Parker 1954

—
1 Perry later became Juliet’s stepfather, Juliet taking the name A. Perry

2 Reminds me of Millie Elder-Homes and her situation with the publicly prestigious Paul Homes from a few years back.

Ref. Heavenly Creatures FAQ/Database

Note: The Silent Generation “As a generation they seem to have produced a disproportionate amount of mass murderers and simultaneously the first generation of pop culture killers as well.” And, “The Unabomber 1942, Gacy 1942, Richard Speck 1941, Charles Manson 1934, Boston Strangler 1931.” – Ref. Philip Romanow, The Fourth Turning discussion group, Facebook (2023)

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