Sunday ` brought to you by the Mazda CX3. Tonight on Sunday ` it's a crisis we're all paying for. You eat in your car. You eat on the run. You eat watching a movie. Pie, lasagne toppers, ice creams. It's a lifestyle that's killing us. Technically, I was obese, but, uh, I thought that I was normal. How do we curb our diabetes epidemic? It can't continue at this rate. And is it a losing battle? I'm not a superman. Anyone can do it. Writing was simply something I did, like breathing. A kiwi literary treasure. Have you got a favourite author? Joy Cowley. Joy Cowley on why books matter... Every time you open a book, you live new lives. ...and her relationship with Roald Dahl. I thought it was strange that he didn't like children. He called them noisesome little bastards. I do get scared when I'm trying new things. Poppy Starr ` skater extraordinaire. Did you see this girl?! I scream a lot, which is embarrassing. And why she's top of her game. You're leading the charge for girls. You are. Captions by Kate Parkinson Captions were made possible with funding from NZ On Air. Copyright Able 2016 Kia ora. I'm Miriama Kamo. They call it a lifestyle disease but it's a killer affecting half a billion people worldwide. In NZ, if you don't have type II diabetes, you'll probably know someone who does. What's certain is that you're paying for it. Type II diabetes is a massive epidemic. 250,000 Kiwis have it. The numbers have doubled over a decade, and increasingly younger people, even children, are being diagnosed. So what's gone wrong? Why is this mostly preventable disease out of control? John Hudson investigates. FUNKY URBAN MUSIC Life's a juggle for Tash Anderson. What are you hungry for? She's studying towards a law degree and looking after little Lochie. He can be a handful,... Do you want me to carry you? ...especially when it's time for dinner. Normally I get fried rice and honey chicken from the Noodle Canteen. Hi. Can I order a honey chicken and rice, please? This is just one of her many takeaway options. Six. Just in the one shopping complex. There's six of them. < You want nuggets? No. < No. (CHUCKLES) They often go to the drive-through. Thank you. McDonald's is an everyday thing almost. I don't need the tray, thanks. Cos they're just down the road, so it's easy to get to McDonald's, Wendy's, KFC. Thank you. I live in a cabin at my grandparents', so it's hard. Sometimes I cook, but maybe that's once or twice a week, if we're lucky. But recently Tash had a very nasty fright. To be honest, it's still sinking in. She has the fastest spreading disease in NZ. It's a silent killer that it slowly breaks down your organs and stuff inside. That's all I know. Tash has type II diabetes. What did your doctor say? Um, (CHUCKLES) just that I need to lose weight. You're 154 kilos now? Yeah. What do you think a healthy weight for you is? Um, I think my ideal weight was in the 70s somewhere. Right. Half what you are. > Yeah. Less than half. > Yeah. So what do you think you'll have to do? I'm going to have to get myself into a routine, for starters. Once, type II diabetes was considered an old person's illness, but Tash is only 30. What do you know about the long-term problems you could encounter if your diabetes gets out of control? Blindness. You can go blind and your organs fail. Kidney failure? Yeah. Sores that turn into gangrene? Yeah? No, I didn't know that. Limbs being chopped off. Dementia way earlier than normal. > Yeah. I didn't know any of those. Diabetes could shorten Tash's life by decades, and she's not alone. A few kilometres from her South Auckland home, the Middlemore Hospital wards are full. And it's incredibly expensive. It can't continue at this rate. Diabetes specialist Brandon Orr-Walker has seen the expense of treating the disease blow out. Nationally it's now more than a billion dollars a year. They're coming into hospital with heart attacks, infection of their skin ` we call cellulitis. We're seeing things affecting the arteries, either their heart causing a heart attack or heart failure, affecting the arteries of their kidneys, bringing them to kidney failure. Not everyone in this ward has type II diabetes but many do, and for them it's the ambulance at the bottom of the cliff. I never felt sick, and one day, I went to the doctor's, and they tested me, and there it was. Diana McKay has had diabetes for years, but now her kidneys are failing. I don't think I've done anything wrong, and now I'm here. And how often are you here? Three days a week. Three days a week. Four hours. Today there are 157 diabetes patients like Diana in this hospital with a disease that can often be prevented. The biggest factor is growing obesity, and that's the one that's preventable. It also appears much more in people who are of high deprivation. Why does being poor increase your chances of obesity and therefore type II diabetes? There are many foods` cheap foodstuffs that are readily available in large amounts, tend to be high in fat or sugar and salt. There are cheaper cuts of meat, and for poorer people with larger families, a cheaper cut of meat looks a very rational choice to make. For years, the rational choice for Tash has been cheap, convenient takeaways. My parents were both working, so we were brought up on chips, hot chips and bread, pretty much every night. Many people now do not know how to prepare their own food, and so pre-prepared food is very attractive, and pre-prepared food often has high amounts of sugar, salt and fat in it. And we would come home, and it's, like, pies and lasagne toppers, ice creams. Yeah, like, heaps of junk food. That bad start led to Tash's life-long struggle with her weight. These aren't people that have made a choice to be overweight or obese. They haven't made a choice to take bad-quality foods. They are often very uncertain or even know no other way. This is just the food they've got brought up on. People in Tash's neighbourhood are five times more likely than the general population to have type II diabetes. I know so many people that have it, but yet they live normal lives, so I don't see it as a threat. I've never actually experienced anyone really being affected by it. Type II often goes undiagnosed for years, and people who know they have it often don't appreciate the risks. Where people know about the risk, it's viewed almost fatalistically rather than being something which would be avoidable for them. Now that Tash Anderson knows what type II diabetes could do to her, she's taking action. My ultimate goal is to lose weight. The first thing you need to get down is your goals, right, what you really want to achieve. Tash's brother Daniel is a fitness instructor who wants to help. Ever since we were younger we all struggled with weight. It's like she got the worst of it, and just hearing she got diabetes, you know, it really means we've need to do something quite soon. We want her to live longer and happier and more confident and comfortable. Yeah. Oh! After the break, Tash is heading in a new direction. Will she succeed? And at schools like this one, they're starting to take control of the food environment. It gets confiscated. Schoolkids dumping the junk food. 4 SOMBRE ELECTRONICA MUSIC Children as young as 8 are being diagnosed with type II diabetes, the result of childhood obesity. But some kids are fighting back. They decided there was too much junk food. A few years ago, Bairds Mainfreight Primary School, in South Auckland, banned junk food. We now have, I believe, fitter, healthier children, but it's not just down to the food. Principal Alan Lyth says the pressure for change didn't come from the teachers or parents, it came from the pupils. What was it about the junk food that they objected to? It's gonna sound funny, but they objected to the amount of litter caused by junk food as much as the actual food itself. What are you having? Can I have a hot dog and popcorn? Today the fatty pies and doughnuts have gone. We no longer have any juice. It's just supposed to be water and milk only. So now you're a water- and milk-only school? Yep. And the ban on junk food goes well beyond the tuck shop. Do you still have a problem with kids buying junk food and bringing it into school? Yeah, we do. We have a dairy not far away, and they sell what they call a lunch pack. And the lunch pack is really just junk. It's chippies and Twisties and red water, and it costs $2. I mean, he sells $1 pies as well, and I'm sure they don't have the Heart Foundation tick on them either. If you see the junk food coming in, what happens? It gets confiscated, and we give them another lunch. In theory, they'll all have healthy lunches, and no one goes hungry. The community is very accepting of the policy. I've only had one person really question it. Do you think there's a greater awareness with this generation about the effects of diabetes? I don't think they think of it like that. I think they just think about being fat or being overweight. While Bairds Mainfreight might be an oasis of healthy living, in the suburbs outside the school, more than 40,000 people now have type II diabetes. If it's looking bad now, it's going to look a whole lot worse soon. We're going to have double the problem to deal with, double the cost of servicing and supporting people with diabetes, but we won't have double, if you like, the funding. It costs up to $100,000 a year to treat each patient with the illnesses caused by type II diabetes. And nearly a million Kiwis are now borderline diabetic. So anything inexpensive that prevents the disease progressing is well worth investigating. People like Kim Ollivier are leading the way. Technically, I was obese, but I thought that I was normal, like everyone else does. 14 years ago, Kim was diagnosed with type II diabetes. I changed my diet straight away and tried to lose a bit of weight. But I was told that wouldn't make any difference to my diabetes. And at first the disease did progress, so his doctor put him on medication. And yet it's been shown pretty well for the last 10 years that there is actually an alternative without drugs. The alternative is based on a British study of rapid weight loss. His doctor was sceptical. He said, 'Well, it won't make any difference, but there's no harm to try.' So he did. I went from 104 to 81. Lost 20kg in 10 weeks. < And that did it? That was enough? That did it. Kim's blood sugars fell dramatically. I decided that I would have to change my lifestyle as well. He began walking for two hours a day, changed his diet. It's mainly vegetables, raw foods, no processed foods if I can help it, and a minimum of carbohydrates. So no breakfast cereals, no toast, no bread with things, no sandwiches, no potatoes. So what does that leave you? Meat, chicken, eggs? Well, it leaves an awful lot of stuff, actually. And do a bit of dancing for me. He then signed up for an international study of pre-diabetics, research aimed at discovering what can prevent people with elevated blood sugar levels progressing to the full-blown disease. The people who attend the regular visits with the dieticians and have a good knowledge of how to have a good lifestyle in terms of diet and exercise,... Hurray. Beautiful. ...eventually they'll be able to control their own behaviour; will be able to prevent type II diabetes. So of that 250 people in your group, how many have gone on to develop type II diabetes? Only 12. Only 12? > Only 12. Marta believes the key to controlling the disease without drugs is motivation. It's having regular counselling from people who are giving consistent support to them and consistent information on healthy lifestyle, or lifestyle changes. Kim Ollivier was self-motivated, but he doesn't think he was anything special. Over 90% of people have been just as successful as me, which means I'm not a superman. Anyone can do it with good supervision. Kim now considers himself cured. So he's gone from being diabetic... Yes. ...to pre-diabetic and stayed there for five years... Yes. Yes. ...without any medication? With no medication, just by diet and` by controlling his diet and exercise patterns, which is great. So if a 68-year-old mapping consultant from Auckland's North Shore can get rid of his diabetes, why is a tsunami of this disease threatening to overwhelm our health system? 10 years ago we had 'Let's beat diabetes', 'healthy eating, healthy action', and yet the number of type II diabetes cases has doubled. Why is that? I think the enthusiasm for those approaches waned, and the sponsorship to continue them was lost. Why? The problem has been getting worse and worse; why has the enthusiasm waned? I think that there was a philosophical belief that this was not something that Health needed to be involved in. Doctors can diagnose and treat the disease but not prevent it. This ultimately comes down to government. Government has to look after the interests of the populous, and so there needs to be approaches that can de-incentivise or take away the tendency of having excessive food. A food tax? Tax? Yeah. Tax has to be a part of it. It's a means that we're happy to use for virtually everything else. We're happy to use it for alcohol, cigarettes, for driving your car on the road. The difficulty, of course, with food is that we all do need to eat. It isn't discretionary. But overeating cheap, energy-dense junk food is discretionary, and while overeating might be good for the fast-food business, the illness it causes threatens to blow out our health budget. You eat in your car, you eat on the run, you eat watching a movie, you eat in all sorts of environments. < And the more you do that, the harder it is to change. It is. It's very habitual. Overeaters like Tash Anderson know that only too well. In May, Tash decided she needed to change, to lose half her body weight. But since then, there's been a shocking run of setbacks ` family illness and a bereavement. That's sought of cut right across the regime that you had` Yeah. So that's put me right back. So instead I went ahead with going to the first appointment for bariatric surgery. And that should get the weight off, and hopefully the diabetes will disappear. Exactly. Yeah. If her publically funded stomach surgery does goes ahead, it will cost $11,000. Tash will have to lose some weight first. But in the meantime, you're sticking with the noodles? Yes, I am. (LAUGHS) Guilty. Well, schools are rapidly getting the message about obesity and type II diabetes. Fewer than 5% allow the sale of sugary, fizzy drinks. And this week, students and staff at two Christchurch schools went a step further, calling for limits to selling fast food near schools. Well, later in the show, the pint-size skating champion from down under, Poppy Starr, but up next, one of our most loved authors ` Joy Cowley. She opens up about when her life nearly fell apart. I just became hugely depressed. It was a very difficult, difficult time for me, and I nearly didn't survive it, but looking back now, it's probably the most valuable time of my life. READS: Dear, Mrs Cowley. I like your book 'Chocolate Chip Muffins'. Is this the best part of the job? Oh, by far the best part of the job. Writing stories, of course, is delightful, but getting feedback like this is wonderful. 1 Welcome back. Joy Cowley ` she's one of our most prolific and internationally successful writers. Her iconic kids book ` Mrs Wishy-Washy ` has sold around 40 million copies worldwide. 40 million. And that's only one of her hundreds of books. She's won so many awards and accolades that to list them we'd be here all night, and although Joy doesn't like to be called anything other than an 'ordinary person', to readers across the globe, she is a living treasure. Here's Sonya Wilson with the inspirational Joy Cowley. CHILD: Jane, read it now. Shall I read it now? Yes! READS: 'There once was an ogre called Gobbler Magoo, who lived in a swamp where the wild weeds grew. 'Nicketty-nacketty,... ALL: ...noo-noo-noo!' Have you got a favourite author? Joy Cowley. Joy Cowley. CHILD: Again! Again! Again? Again. Story is very important. Story is how we make meaning of our lives. Story is how we document our lives, isn't it? Joy Cowley ` 80 years young and a kiwi literary treasure. A woman to whom story is paramount ` with quite a story of her own. I've often said that the person who said you only live once wasn't a reader, cos every time you open a book, you enter a new world, and you live new lives. Cassia Joy Summers was born in Levin in 1936, and her childhood was sometimes pretty tough. Her father was sick with rheumatic fever, her mother an undiagnosed schizophrenic. Both could be violent. I can remember my sister, Joan, and I walking home from school, and we were laughing about something, and my mother was waiting inside the door with the leather strap, and she doubled it over, and she really hit us, because God had told her that we were talking about her on our way home from school. Of course, we weren't. We just did not understand her, and we were so afraid of her. Life must have been very hard for them both. They lived on the pension. There was never enough money to go round. Does that make you or break you, that kind of childhood? Oh, it can go either way. Joy was blessed, she says, with brains and with optimism. She showed huge promise as a writer at school, but her parents pushed her into a pharmacy apprenticeship instead. Then ` and this is the 1950s, remember ` she got into bikes and planes. I always wanted a big motorbike. Never got that, but I did` I did, um, fly Tiger Moths. PLANE ROARS The hobbies had to stop because, at 19, Joy fell pregnant. There was little option back then but to get married, so she did. Three more kids followed, but then things totally fell apart when her husband left for another woman and took the kids with him. Life got very, very dark, and Joy took a near-fatal overdose of pills. I just became hugely depressed. It was a very difficult, difficult time for me, and I` I nearly didn't survive it, but looking back now, it's probably the most valuable time of my life. It cleared out all the clutter, and very often that happens to us. We come out of some earthquake that's happened to us, and we come out in a different place. Joy was soon reunited with her kids, and at night while they were in bed, she wrote. Short stories at first, then novels. I never thought of myself as being a writer. I didn't call myself a writer, even when I was being first published. I was other things. I was a pharmacy apprentice; I was a mother of four children ` four children in four and a half years. I was a busy mother. (CHUCKLES) That's a full-time job. Um, I milked cows. I worked on the farm, drove the tractor, and writing was simply something I did, like breathing. MAN: Critics, booksellers and friends come to honour Joy Cowley. She wrote, and the world took notice. Your first novel, which would be every author's dream, was turned into a film. Yes. Well, he` he turned the author's dream into a nightmare, because he was Roald Dahl. MAN: Roald Dahl on the set with actor Gene Wilder... Yes, Roald Dahl. For many, one of the world's greatest storytellers, wrote a screenplay based on Joy's very first book. This must have been tremendous to have somebody like Roald Dahl to take over. Oh, it was tremendous. He's made a lot of changes. MAN: Two lonely women live in solitude. One of them is blind. (CHUCKLES) I didn't like the film very much, but for some reason, he paid a lot of money for the rights. As it turned out, Dahl didn't like the final film much either. But he kept in touch with Joy. There were visits, and there were letters. Letters that've been filed away, until now, in a university archive in the States. 'Dear, Joy. I've been flashing back and forth to Munich, 'where the film 'Charlie and the Chocolate Factory' is at last also finished. 'Might be very good ` might not. Who the hell can judge? 'The director was a prick ` that I do know.' He is considered a genius. Uh, he was, in many respects, and like many people who are genius, close to madness. His mind was like sharp glass, but he was an extraordinary man. Very complex man. And considering how children loved him, I thought it was strange that he didn't like children. Did he not? He called them noisesome little bastards. (CHUCKLES) That was his description of them. This is a story about a tiger. Once Joy started writing for children, she never looked back. I've done 20 children's novels, 60 picture books, seven adult novels, but there's also the spiritual reflection books ` six or seven of those. All down here is the early reading books. How many are we talking? Oh, early reading? About 1100. (CHUCKLES) And she's still writing ` sometimes for children, sometimes to them. READS: 'Dear, Mrs Cowley. I like your book 'Chocolate-Chip Muffins'. 'My imaginary friend Omar likes your book 'The Tiny Woman's Coat'.' How many have you received over the years? Oh, I don't know. Tens of thousands? Yes, it would be. Is this the best part of the job? Oh, by far the best part of the job. Writing stories, of course, is delightful, but getting feedback, like this, is wonderful. In went the pig. ALL: Wishy-washy. Wishy-washy. What's so great about Joy Cowley stories? Um, cos they're so funny. Because they're funny. 'Oh, lovely mud,' they said. Humour ` it's so important. My first duty when writing for children is to entertain. If we take children into another world of entertainment and laughter, reading just happens. Do you think you'd have to be quite clever to be an author? Yes. Cos the words are a little bit tricky. They do very good writing on the pictures. She is clever, our Joy, but despite selling millions of books around the globe, her feet, she says, have always remained firmly on the ground. I'm an ordinary person, and I like to protect that ordinariness. In the presence of each other, we bring ourselves into the presence of God. My faith, too, is very important to me. The whole life journey, I think, is one of spiritual journey as well as physical journey. One feeds the other. And we do need to go deeper. We need to go deeper as we get older. If we stay on the surface, we somehow cheat ourselves. LATHE WHIRRS I quite like the messiness of life; I like the messiness in my own life. Life, with husband Terry, is these days lived on either side of the Rimutaka Hill. There's the cottage in Featherston, with room for her very impressive woodworking shed. Beautiful. That's the beauty of working with wood ` you put something that looks old and dusty and cracked and put it on the lathe,... And the smell. ...and a lovely thing comes out. Yeah. And an inner-city apartment in Wellington, with it's big, beautiful window, and walls lined with books. I love to possess books. That's mainly because we didn't have books when we were children. My parents couldn't afford them. We had the Bible, and that was it. She's now a great-grandmother and still producing books. Her latest was launched just last month. It has quite clearly been written, not only with an enormous spirit of love, but also with a clear spirit of inclusion for the rainbow community. Over six decades of publishing, Joy Cowley has won just about every literary award and title going. I'd now like to present the Prime Minister's Award for Literary Achievement ` Joy Cowley. CHEERING, APPLAUSE And today, she's giving those awards away. When you're 80, you realise you don't have time for long-term planning. It just seemed a good time to do it. I might be ashes in 10 years' time. GIRL CALLS: Haere mai... It was the teachers at this school, many moons ago, that helped rescue a young Joy from the difficulties of her home life and encouraged her to write. And so she's returning on the eve of her 80th birthday to hand her accolades over to them. I feel like the daughter who has come home bearing the fruits of the seeds that were planted at Palmerston North Girls' High School. I would like to think that my story is also the story of all students who have similar struggles. And how would you tell your story? How would I tell my story? In looking back at my life and seeing the things that I thought were the hardest lessons, the hardest things to cope with, they have been the best, the most important. It's the uncomfortable things in my life that have been the greatest teachers. We need times of comfort, but we certainly learn a lot about times of tension, times of trial, times of grief, times of loss. They have a habit of emptying us, and we get filled with something greater. READS: 'If I walk past a mirror and look beyond the reflection, 'I see an old woman, sloppy, forgetful, still in love with life, 'paddling in a leaky boat on an ever-increasing ocean of light. It is all exactly as it should be.' Aw. Well, happy birthday to Joy. Joy celebrated her 80th birthday just last weekend. Coming up ` she's fit, fast and brave. How 16-year-old Poppy Starr Olsen has taken the skating world by storm. I guess you kind of have to be a little bit of a dare devil. I do get scared when I'm trying new things, definitely. But when flowing around, having fun, it's just amazing. What's it like for a mum to see that happening? Um, terrifying. I scream a lot, which is embarrassing. CROWD: Oh! Hello again. Poppy Starr's mum would have preferred her eldest daughter to take up a safe sport, like ballet or tennis. Instead, Poppy chose the thrills and spills of skateboarding. And as it turns out, she chose well. Earlier this year, Poppy headed to the US to test herself against the very best in the world, and as you'll see, she's become something of a superstar in the skating world. Rahni Sadler's with Poppy Starr. ORCHESTRAL MUSIC Skateboarding is an art form, a sport and a lifestyle. I just like to go fast and high. In skateboarding, that's my favourite thing to do, is just go high in the air. I put her into ballet. Um, she had tennis lessons. All these lovely, safe things. (CHUCKLES) She chose skateboarding, and so you've just gotta go with it. You've gotta` You've gotta do what they love. It makes them a good, happy kid. I guess you kind of have to be a little bit of a dare devil. I do get scared when I'm trying new things, definitely. But when I'm just flowing around, having fun, it's just amazing. ROCK MUSIC Skateboarding is taking Poppy Starr to some amazing places. From a purpose-built arena at Bondi Beach,... CHEERING ...with her mum cheering on the side lines,... ROCK MUSIC CONTINUES ...to America's skateboard Mecca ` Santa Monica, California. There's just so many awesome girl skaters over there. Every skatepark you go to, there'll be, like, a pro skater there. It's the coolest thing I've ever seen. We are travelling with Poppy as she prepares to take on the world's best... Have you ever hit anyone in the head doing this? No. ...with a repertoire of high-risk tricks. (SCREAMS) If you could have had your daughter go into anything, would you have chosen skateboarding? Oh, gosh, no. I would never in a million years thought she'd be a skateboarder. No way! My goodness! Poppy is leading a new generation of skater girls touring the globe. She's 15 and has just turned pro. Here, she'll be skating against the most skilled women, some twice her age. Did you see this girl?! They're all competing to be world champion. Skateboarding is everything. She lives and breathes it; it's her life. She can't go` You know, after a couple of days of not skateboarding, she gets antsy. She has to get on a board and (CHUCKLES) go to the skatepark. # The world is yours, baby. When did she first show an interest? Um, a friend of ours gave her a skateboard when she was 8, and she just absolutely became obsessed by it. # The world is yours, baby. # At the time, I just thought girls didn't really do it. I guess, th` I don't know if I thought they weren't brave enough, or they just had no interest in it, but I thought it was pretty cool to be a girl doing something that girls didn't really do. Poppy stood out, not only because she was a girl, but because, from the start, she pushed her limits. Here's a pint-sized Poppy, aged 9, at Bondi Beach. I just did it, and I was so happy after that, and I remember there were a bunch of teen-aged guys there cheering me on. It was really awesome. As Poppy got older, the ramps got bigger. Much bigger. What's it like for a mum to see that happening? Um, terrifying. I swear I didn't have a grey hair before she started skating. It's been, um, te` You know, I still get scared when she learns a new trick. I think I'm getting more scared the more she skates. I scream a lot, which is embarrassing. CROWD: Oh! Behind every dramatic trick, there are dramatic falls. Helmets and knee pads provide some protection, but injuries are common. Poppy takes the hard knocks and just keeps going. To parents who say, 'I'm not gonna let my little girl be a skateboarder cos it's too dangerous,' what would you say to those parents? I'd say, 'Just give them a go and see if they like it,' cos it might be the greatest, funnest, most exciting thing they've ever done. < What about parents who say, 'Boys should be allowed to skate, but girls shouldn't'? That's rubbish. (CHUCKLES) DRAPHT'S 'DANCIN' JOHN DOE' < How long do you spend here every week? Oh, gosh. Hours! Hours upon hours. Probably 30 hours, more. DRAPHT'S 'DANCIN' JOHN DOE' CONTINUES You're a pretty dedicated mum. Or crazy! (LAUGHS) # You can't tell John Doe how to dance. Poppy lives in Newcastle. She has a younger brother and sister. # I can dance like my name's John Doe, # no one knowin' who I am. Mum and Dad are separated but remain close. And creativity runs in the family. # You can't tell John Doe how to dance. # It really comes to the fore in Poppy's art. She funds her skating career by selling it online and at street markets. So many skateboarders are great artists, and they're creative people, and it's an art form to actually skate and to do these beautiful things on your skateboard. Her rise through the ranks has been meteoric ` competing and winning in Australia against the best girls and women, even going up against the men and holding her own. CROWD: Oh! At the prestigious Bondi Bowl-A-Rama, Poppy had the support of the world's greatest-ever skateboarder ` Tony Hawke. You're leading the charge for girls. (CHUCKLES) You are! Thank you. (CHUCKLES) Tony and Poppy met a few years ago. Since then, he's been a mentor and friend. On the eve of the biggest contest of her life, he's invited Poppy to his own personal skate ramp in California for some final tips before the big contest. Like, the last time I saw her, that height in the air was kind of a struggle, and now, it's, like, she doesn't put that much effort into it, cos she's bigger, more confident. He told me to remain calm in the comp, just act like it's a practise run. You already know how it is, competing. Um, just` Losing. (CHUCKLES) You gotta believe. Yeah. And drop in like it's another practise run you have dialled. Armed with Tony's advice, Poppy was ready to take on the biggest test of her life. These are the best female bowl skaters in the world, so I just wanted to get top 10. I thought that would be amazing. PA: Make some noise for Poppy Starr! CHEERING On a scale of one to 10, how nervous is Mum? Um, more nervous than Poppy, so I'd say 12. (CHUCKLES) Each skater has 40 seconds to prove themselves. Only eight will advance to the final. Yes! (CHUCKLES) CHEERING, APPLAUSE (CHUCKLES) That was awesome. Well done. Top three. Congratulations for Australia! Poppy Starr! ALL SCREAM And Poppy qualifies in the top three. MOTORHEAD'S 'ACE OF SPADES' PLAYS Oh my God. I've got` (LAUGHS) I've got goosebumps! And she's off! Poppy's through to the finals and will now have to skate better than she's ever done in her life. Yes! Yeah, Poppy! Go for it! Yes! Yes, Poppy! Go! MOTORHEAD'S 'ACE OF SPADES' CONTINUES PLAYING Yes! Yes! Keep going. Keep going. Yes! Yeah! CHEERING, APPLAUSE Whoo! CHEERING CONTINUES To me, she's won already, just making the final, but if she gets on the podium, I will be so excited, but it doesn't matter. She` She` She did more than I ever hoped for already. It takes 20 nail-biting minutes for the judges decision to be handed down. And that's when Poppy turned around, and she said, 'They've forgotten me. They've forgotten me.' They count down from 10th to fifth with no mention of Poppy. They missed me. I kept on saying that they'd forgotten me. 'It's OK, guys. They've forgotten me.' Where is Poppy Starr of Australia? Number one! Not only did Poppy make the podium, she won the whole competition. When they read our her name, she was in shock, absolute shock. Everyone was looking at me like... Oh my gosh, first! What the heck! Clapping and cheering. I was just so stoked and amazed and my face... (GASPS) I was just so surprised, yeah. CHEERING Your daughter is the number one female skater in the world. I'm so proud of her. We just thought, you know, go out and try your hardest and` and do the very, very best you can, and then she made final, and then she's done this! (LAUGHS) Even an hour after, I was just waiting for someone to come and tell me that, 'Oh, sorry.' (CHUCKLES), 'We handed it to the wrong person.' < (LAUGHS) But I thought it must be true if they've written my name on the cheque. How proud are you of Poppy? > Oh, gosh, so proud! I'm ridiculous. Don't ` it'll make me cry. I can't even talk about how proud I am of her. God. (VOICE BREAKS) Do you know what? (CHUCKLES) Oh! She's so humble. EMOTIONALLY: I think that's what I'm most proud of ` what a good person she is. And I don't know` How do you teach that? SMASH MOUTH'S 'ALL STAR' CHEERING, APPLAUSE # Only shooting stars break the mould. # Oh, wasn't Mum lovely? Earlier this month, Olympic leaders approved skateboarding as a new Olympic competition. Poppy's new goal is to make it to the 2020 games in Japan. Now, remember Sister Catherine? She was a novice nun in a Christchurch monastery. Did she take up her vows? We'll update you after the break. 1 Well, finally tonight, an update on an extraordinary story where we got a rare look behind the gates of a Christchurch monastery. We met Sister Catherine, a novice nun, who was considering whether to take her vows to stay in the monastery for life. CHORAL MUSIC I was Catherine Smith, and now I am Sister Catherine of Christ, a Carmelite novice. CHORAL MUSIC CONTINUES I've been here since 2014. I became a Catholic when I was 18 years old. I felt God asked me to be here ` a mysterious call to a life of prayer for others. There was some fear ` Can I live the life? You give up the possibility of a career, the possibility of a life` a committed relationship with a man, the joys that come with that, the pleasures that come with that. Is that something you think about? Yes. Is it hard? It has it's hard moments. I feel, sometimes, the desire to be in the arms of a man. In that moment of receiving the habit, I felt very at peace, and that peace surprised me, and that peace hasn't left me. It was very moving. ALL SING HYMN Taking the final vows, the solemn vows, in the monastery, for me, would mean that I am completely dedicating myself to God in this way of life forever. And as far as I can tell, I will. But God's will be done. So you may not stay? I may not. Frank, honest, generous ` Sister Catherine is sharing this huge moment, revealing she will take the next step ` her first vows. ALL SING: # Amen. # Amen. # Lord, have mercy. CONGREGATION: Lord, have mercy. Christ, have mercy. Christ, have mercy. Lord, have mercy. I decided to stay, because all along I've had this deep certainty, and it's withstood the test of time. You know, I love it in the monastery, even though it can be difficult, and I want to stay here, because it seems to me that this is what God wants for me. I, Sister Catherine of Christ, desiring to live faithfully with the Blessed Virgin Mary, a life of allegiance to Jesus Christ, with my Sisters as witnesses, into your hands, Sister Dorothea Mary of Jesus, vow to almighty God for one year, chastity, poverty and obedience. My dear Sister, what do you ask of God and his holy church? I ask for God's merciful love. It was obvious from the beginning that this was a very special young lady. I was so happy. So happy, and I was filled with peace. # Hallelujah. # It just felt right. So, Sister Catherine's vows are repeated annually for the next two years, and then finals vows ` a solemn profession ` are made, a commitment to stay for life. Well, that's our show for tonight. Do join us on Facebook and Twitter. Thanks for joining us this evening.