Attachment

When their mother is committed to a psychiatric hospital by their father, Vera and her twin sister, Violet, are sent to live with their father’s mother in a poor suburb of Christchurch. When this arrangement doesn’t work out they are placed in St Saviour’s Orphanage. In their early life the emotional bonds that sustain them come from each other. This attachment will last for the remainder of their adult lives.

The twins tread their way through a working class life spanning eight decades; lucky and unlucky in love, each raising a brood of children. Vera’s first born are twins, which circumstances force her to adopt out to different parents. Despite raising a family of her own, Vera will wonder all her life about what became of these children.

Attachment follows the trials and tribulations of Vera’s life, the tragic and the comic, her steadfast commitment to her twin, and culminating in the earthquakes that destroyed Christchurch in 2010/2011. But Vera was always a survivor and as she nears the end of her life she is determined to triumph over adversity and give meaning to her life.

Terry Swanson is an award winning writer of drama for radio and the stage, who has also written for television.