Roadie to the superstars, talented weaver of renown -  creative's unconventional life lived globally   

Words Jill Nicholas

Pictures, video Stephen Parker

It takes but two bullet points to highlight that Jill Fleming has led a life less ordinary.

Unquestionably hers has been unique. 

• She's circled the globe multiple time with its musical megastars.

• Her stunning raranga (weaving) work features in virtually every country in which Aotearoa has embassies and high commissions. 

Rotorua born and raised Jill (nee Shapley) was in her early 20s  when she became a roadie, working with bands as big as they come.

Headlining the list of musical royalty she's worked with are Paul McCartney, The Rolling Stones and Michael Jackson.

But while there've been breaks away it's Rotorua that she's always considered home.

And that’s where raranga enters the  Fleming equation.

Already a diploma-accredited clothing and textile designer, Jill was drawn to it while raising Ellen, the daughter she and her American husband Toby Fleming welcomed in the millennium year.

They call her "Our Y2K baby". 

Pakeha weaver in Maori world

What makes Jill Fleming's raranga talents out of the ordinary is that in a field which is traditionally the province of Maori craftswomen, her whakapapa is one hundred per cent Pakeha. 

She isn't merely someone who's woven a few token kete and a garment or two as a hobby.

Her work is internationally recognised.

As well as featuring in this country's diplomatic HQs it's been displayed in the British Museum. When the exhibition closed the London Royal Academy of Art snapped it up.  

On home turf a stunning contemporary cloak is Te Whare Taonga o Te Arawa's social history collection.

We had to have strong words with Jill about this. She neglected to tell us the museum acquired the work after she won the Toi Ohomai Innovation in Art award with it at the museum-sponsored 2017 Art Awards. 

Tut tut, Jill.  We had to learn this from those better than you at singing your praises.  

The prize-winning cloak carries the title Ascension. Jill chose the name to signify her rise through the weaving ranks.

Another of her kakahu is in Te Whare Taonga o Waikato's permanent collection.  

Centenarian’s daughter

Jill's maiden name Shapley won't be foreign to In Profile's followers.

Her mother, Eileen Shapley, featured here earlier this year when we chronicled her remarkable 100 years. That number climbed to 101 in October. 

It was Eileen who pointed us in her daughter’s direction. But it's taken a while to connect with this self-styled gypsy.

For the past few months she and Toby have been in Europe working with Aussie heavy metal rockers AC/DC. 

We were able to corral Jill, albeit briefly, when she joined fellow members of Te Roopu Raranga Whatu o Aotearoa for their annual hui. Conveniently it was held in Rotorua, the place where Jill entered the world in 1960.

Creative child adopted at birth

Her birth wasn’t as conventional as most. 

She was the child of a single mother.

It was the era when pregnant, unmarried women were sent away from home to have their babies. 

Her birth mother was from Christchurch. Rotorua was where she waited out her pregnancy away from gossip mongers.

After a difficult birth that kept baby Jill in hospital for three weeks, Eileen Shapley and her late husband David took her home to join Anne who they'd adopted 15 months earlier.

Jill praises the great childhood her parents gave the sisters but readily admits she and school weren’t a natural fit.

"I don't think school suited me at all. I wasn't sporty, I was creative. I was into sewing and handcrafts from when I was quite young.

"I think I felt a bit lost until I went to polytech in Wellington to  study for a diploma in clothing and textile design."

Although she'd been accepted while still at Girls' High, she didn't head straight to polytech.

Her first year out of the classroom was spent at Trumasters clothing factory.

"I was saving money for polytech and to buy a sewing machine.  I still have it."

Working with nude models, in pizza parlours 

In Wellington she thrived -  and froze. 

"We had classes in a draughty old house. The only heaters were for the nude models we had for fashion drawing."

Once graduated, she returned to Rotorua.

"I was aware I needed to work in the industry to have my certificate endorsed but I wasn't in a hurry."

She worked at La Pizza Forno in Hinemoa Street until she and a friend were shoulder tapped for similar jobs in Hastings. Time with IHC followed.

"Then I was offered a job designing and cutting with the Rotorua Clothing Company in Fenton Park.

"It was in the building that later became a bowling alley."

With her diploma endorsement secured, Jill headed for London. She went alone. 

"It was 1983, I didn't return to settle for 20 years."

Entering roadie world 

There were an assortment of "typical OE jobs" before she went to work at a Covent Garden restaurant.

"One of the waitresses left then reappeared. I asked where she'd been.

"She said 'I've been on tour with Janet Jackson'.

"I said 'What?' She said 'Here, ring this number'.'' 

It was for a catering company touring the world with rock stars. 

"It was called Eat Your Hearts Out, based in London and Chicago and owned by two Australian women. It was quite crazy.

"I went for an interview and was given a trial, working in catering for day-long video shoots.

"I had a French boyfriend at the time. He was a chef and we went to those jobs together.

"Surprisingly they didn’t want to keep him on but they wanted me and sent me off on tour. 

"That was the beginning of a 10-year stint as a roadie.

"I've never had a CV.

"I was young, single. It was a completely different world.

"I loved the lifestyle working with a great crew in catering.

"I was backstage seeing a side of musicians I'd never have seen otherwise."

With the perception of rock 'n' roll tours like the Stones' being drug fuelled orgies we  demand an insider's account of what really did go come curtain down.

Disarmingly candid, Jill doesn't fudge the facts.

"It was the '80s and '90s. There was a lot of partying.

"And yes, of course there were drugs. We worked hard, played hard."

But hard drugs weren’t to her taste. Wine was.

"I drank a lot of it."

Baptism of fire

Her first gig was a baptism of fire for the girl from Rotorua.

Chart-topping American rapper MC Hammer was the star.

"It was a very hard three week tour schedule through Europe with 200 street kids as his back-up dancers.

"I was working in the kitchen prepping food for the crew and getting three hours sleep a night in a bunk on the tour bus as we headed for the next back-to-back show.

"With all tours the catering and lighting crews are the first in and the last out. They work the hardest.

"It was tiring but it was fun."

Jill remained a roadie for the next decade as a member of crews  that generally tallied around the 200 mark.

Apart from McCartney, Jackson and the Stones the laundry-sized list of bands and artists she's toured with includes Oasis, Bon Jovi, R.E.M. Chris De Berg, Guns N' Roses, Simply Red, The Cranberries and Van Morrison.

Bomb-torn Belfast 

She was with Northern Ireland-born Van Morrison when he played in Belfast.

It was at the time the city was embroiled in sectarian violence.   IRA bombings were commonplace. 

"I was staying at the Europa Hotel which came to be known as the most bombed hotel in the world.

"It was surrounded by armed guards but I don’t recall being scared."

Initially Jill had little contact with the stars but that changed when she got to take Van Morrison his pre-show tea.

"After that I often looked after catering in the stars' dressing rooms. 

"Some were difficult, some were lovely."

Connecting with Linda McCartney

Jill was assigned to Paul McCartney’s 1993 The New World Tour.

"It was completely vegetarian. I was fine with that."

She looked after food in the dressing rooms, seeing a lot of the former Beatle's late wife, Linda, and their teenage children.

"Linda played a huge part in the catering. She had her own range of food in the UK.

"We had quite a strong relationship. She was a lovely, lovely lady, down to earth, absolutely natural.

"The kids were really nice. They were a really lovely family."

The tour left Jill with mementos she cherishes. 

"Linda drank Orange Pekoe tea from Fortnum and Mason. At the end of the tour she left a silver teaspoon in the tea caddy. 

I use it regularly. It's lovely having that memory.

"She asked the catering crew what music we listened to and gifted us each one of her famous photos of that particular artist.

"I liked Neil Young. I’ve always kept that picture which she autographed for me." 

One star she didn't get close to was Michael Jackson.

"He was very protected with a whole entourage constantly around him. He kept a very low profile back stage.

"I went to Russia and came to New Zealand with Jackson."

Sharing ciggy with Stones legend, meeting husband

"I was on The Rolling Stones nearly two-year-long Bridges to Babylon tour.

"They also had a huge entourage and celebrity chefs who came in to do their catering in a large chill-out tent. 

"We flew around the world in this big Russian plane."

"On one flight Keith Richards plonked himself down beside me

"I smoked then. Keith picked my cigarette up and finished it.

He was a tea drinker, a really lovely guy."

Jill was in Stockholm with Guns N' Roses when she first met her future husband - but merely in passing.

They were introduced by a mutual friend 

"I'd heard about him.

"He's site co-ordinator in charge of building and taking down the stage at each venue and the entire backstage area.

It's a huge job.

"I remember thinking 'He's nice'."

The pair reconnected on the Stones' Bridges to Babylon tour.

"Toby was overseeing three stages.

"The logistics were phenomenal."

Jill was in her customary catering role. 

They bonded but didn’t race into commitment.

"After so long as a roadie I'd seen a lot of relationships that didn't last. 

"We decide to take ours off the road and see if it was real. 

"Toby said 'Why don't you come to Maine?' It's his home state.

"When not on the road I was still living in London's West End.

"He's not a city person."

Life in Maine, marriage in Pukehina

Toby Fleming had been to New Zealand - as production manager on Joe Cocker's global tour.

Jill hadn’t been to Maine, let alone experienced the shock of a harsh North American winter.

"Toby's home was in Lubec near the Canadian border, not far from Nova Scotia.

"It was very, very cold, minus 20 degrees and so small it didn't even have a traffic light."

Their winter months together cemented the Kiwi-American relationship.

"We decided to get married, came back to New Zealand and had our wedding on the beach at Pukehina.

"I'd been going to the family bach there since I was 13." 

The couple returned to Maine where Jill became pregnant.

She was four months into her pregnancy when her mum broke her ankle. 

"Toby was away on tour so I decided to come home to help her and Dad for a month."

Fate decreed otherwise.

Unborn baby's life in peril

"I was within days of stepping on a plane back to the States when I developed terrible stomach pains and ended up in Rotorua Hospital.

"It took a day or so to diagnose I had adhesions.

"When I was seven I was severely injured while swinging on a chain at the Rotorua racecourse.

"A loose post fell back and hit me in the stomach with critical consequences.

"The adhesions were the result of surgery I'd had way back then."

Ecstatic that she'd become pregnant at 40, Jill faced the prospect of losing the baby.

"Toby was on tour in the USA with salsa artist Marc Anthony.

"I had to sign the consent for surgery knowing how devastating the outcome could be for us."

The operation was a success. Their growing baby remained unharmed. 

Rotorua becomes family home

Twenty five years on Jill continues to give thanks to Rotorua Hospital’s skilled staff.

With her pregnancy by then too advanced for her to fly, Toby joined her, remaining until Ellen’s birth.

They returned to Maine when she was six weeks old. 

The couple chose to make Rotorua home when Ellen was two.

"I wanted Ellen to have my mum in her life.

"I wanted her to grow up here and go to the same kindergarten and schools I did."

Toby continued touring from his Aotearoa home base.

When Ellen started at Otonga Primary her mother enrolled at the then Waiariki Polytech.

Introduction to raranga

"Waiariki still had its full-blown Maori arts course and I immersed myself in raranga.

"After life on the road and as a mum I wanted to do something creative again.

"Although we'd had the token Maori club at school I grew up in a Pakeha world where I'd never really heard te reo spoken.

"It was a totally new experience.  

"Raranga has meant so much more to me than simply learning techniques because it encompasses such deep meaning and respect for tikanga.

"I was drawn to the link between the growing plant, its integrity and connection to Maori culture.

"I just kind of blossomed in the raranga section. 

"I immersed myself in it. 

"It changed my life. I have such deep friendships with the weaving community here in Rotorua  

"I feel awhied [embraced]. Maori people have shared so much with me.

"I feel really honoured to continue to exhibit with my local ropu -Te Roopu Raranga ki Rotorua although I no longer live here."

The Flemings moved to the South Island after Ellen entered medical school in Dunedin.  

"But I really, really miss Rotorua's cultural diversity and my raranga whanau."  

Back on the road again 

Plans were that they'd retire to Wanaka. 

But these were scuppered when Toby was asked to go back on the road with AC/DC.

"He said 'I'm not going without Jill'.

"This is our fourth year touring together again.

"I said I wouldn't go as an appendage. I hang out in the office with Toby, look after the boys in the crew and take my raranga with me. It's a fantastic set up. 

"I love my life, our life.

"I give thanks to the Rolling Stones for bringing Toby and I together on their world tour but I do wonder what Ellen thinks about Mum and Dad meeting on a Rolling Stones tour!

"I love that we are gypsies.

"I feel so much gratitude for all the people in my life. 

"For Toby, for Ellen and that we have had Mum with us so long.

"She's inspirational. 

"I love the way my life has worked out."