Tell us what your childhood in Dunedin was like. <\/p>\n
It was fairly idyllic. I\u2019m the third of four children. I have an older brother and sister, and my little brother is six years younger than me. We moved around a bit from Dunedin to Cromwell \u2013 back when Central Otago was barely inhabited. We eventually moved to Wellington when I was eight.<\/p>\n
What was teenage Mary like?<\/p>\n
I was a bit of a handful, and had my fair share of time in detention for being disruptive and loud more than anything. I liked school. I spent my final three years at boarding school in Christchurch \u2013 a school Mum and her four sisters all went to, and Mum wanted to keep the family tradition and ties to the school. Boarding suited me. Back then, we were only allowed out on weekend leave a couple of times a term. We had to run around the block every morning before breakfast, fully dressed in our school uniforms. We shared dorms with zero privacy \u2013unlike the cubicles of today. The food was all carbs. One pudding I remember was a doughy self-saucing chocolate number called \u201cDad\u2019s Favourite\u201d, laden in calories with no nutrition. The meat was tough, the vegetables boiled to within an inch of their life. Now the menu is all poke bowls, fancy pastas and moussakas.<\/p>\n
Mary, aged 15 (third from left), with her sister Sarah Jane, big brother Andrew and little brother David. Photo \/ NZ Woman’s Weekly<\/p>\n
Why did you initially want to study law? <\/p>\n
I pushed on to Canterbury University, thinking law would be an honourable degree to have \u2013 but I soon realised it was definitely not for me. I discovered student radio and the weekly uni newspaper in my first year, and was hooked.<\/p>\n
You worked in Japan for three years as a Tokyo correspondent for RNZ. Was it a formative experience? <\/p>\n
I loved studying Japanese culture at school. In standard three [age 10], one of my besties was Miko Ito \u2013 she was the daughter of the Japanese ambassador. I was intrigued by her lunchbox [bento box] full of wild and wonderful rice balls, vegetables, pickles and fish \u2013 such a departure from my Vegemite sandwiches. So coupled with the study and my friendship with Miko, I decided I must go to Japan one day. In 1991, the opportunity arose through a sister-city scholarship and off I went. I was 27 and working for RNZ. I said to my boss, \u201cI\u2019m going to live in Japan \u2013 want me to report back on happenings?\u201d And the answer was a swift yes. The three years I had there were fabulous. Not life-changing so much as life-expanding. <\/p>\n
Share a memory from working on docos with late TV personality Neil Roberts. <\/p>\n
He was an excessive, fearless, ambitious, creative, clever and generous man. I remember tearing around town in his flash soft-top \u2013 a Ferrari or was it a Lambo? What a crazy time. We worked night and day on a doco called NZ at War. My job was to interview old soldiers, having them tell their stories. One of my grandfathers was a frontline doctor in the war and I remember him regaling compelling stories. Meeting these soldiers built on that. What brave, courageous, valiant men and women they all were.<\/p>\n
What moments from hosting Good Morning still make you laugh? <\/p>\n
Mary Lambie and Steve Gray on Good Morning. Photo \/ NZ Woman’s Weekly<\/p>\n
The time my cat Louis decided to walk across the piano keys in the middle of a fairly serious interview. Or the time Laurel Watson \u2013 a fabulous cook and GM regular \u2013 picked up a potato and said, \u201cYou take one carrot and chop it like this…\u201d Once, Jeremy Wells<\/a> \u2013 who now hosts Seven Sharp \u2013 rang in during the talkback segment pretending to be Kevin and giving me quite a nonsensical conversational ride.<\/p>\n They let you bring your cat onto the set? <\/p>\n It started as a novelty as no one else was putting their pet on TV \u2013 and Louis soon developed his own fan base. Viewers went quite septic if I promised to bring him in and didn\u2019t \u2013 mainly because I couldn\u2019t find him in the morning. He was a bit of a nuisance, though, escaping out the studio door and weeing on the sofa.<\/p>\n Is there a TV moment that haunts you? <\/p>\n A highly embarrassing moment was the short-lived \u201cLambie PI\u201d segment, which was designed to investigate viewer queries. On one occasion, I put a shout-out to an old school friend from primer two and asked what happened to a couple of others I remembered from our year \u2013 bearing in mind we were about six years old, so it was going to be a long shot. Surprisingly, one of my old classmates rang the show to tell me, live on air, that our two friends from that year had both died in a terrible car accident when they were 21. My reaction was of such shock that the producer quickly flicked to a commercial break. I was literally speechless.<\/p>\n What has been the most difficult question you\u2019ve ever had to ask? <\/p>\n I never felt comfortable asking women why they don\u2019t have kids. It happened a couple of times because the audience would send in the questions and it would often crop up. I certainly didn\u2019t want to inflict any awkwardness on the talent. Her reproductive journey is her business, not ours, unless she volunteers it.<\/p>\n Did you learn anything from competing on Celebrity Treasure Island? <\/p>\nMary on Celebrity Treasure Island. Photo \/ NZ Woman’s Weekly<\/p>\n