Lawson quins: Sam’s emotional homecoming

It took Sam Lawson 12 long years of living in Australia before he felt ready to come home to New Zealand for a visit. But he only needed a week of being back with his family to realise it is time to return to Aotearoa for good.

“I always planned on coming back some day, but that day has come sooner and more suddenly than I expected,” says Sam, who decided to make the move during a recent holiday at home. “I need to be back with my sisters.”

The only boy in the famous Lawson quintuplets, Sam (51) likes the anonymity of living across the ditch in Cairns, where only a handful of people know he is a quin. Here in New Zealand, he and his sisters, Deborah, Lisa, Shirlene and Selina were the nation’s darlings, in the spotlight from the moment they were born.

As the country’s only set of quins, just about everything they did was captured by cameras, particularly in their first five years. Photographed in matching outfits alongside their beautiful, beaming mum Ann, they had a seemingly charmed life.

But what most people didn’t realise was that their fairytale existence became a living hell after their parents Ann and Sam Snr divorced when they were five, and Ann married painter and decorator Gary Eyton when they were eight.

Gary was violent and abusive, and in 1982, when he shot Ann dead, then killed himself, it came as a huge shock to the country.

Losing their beloved mum was devastating for the 16-year-old quins, who – apart from Deborah – were in the house when their mother was killed outside. They were already traumatised from years of abuse and while most of it had been directed at Ann, they also suffered verbal, physical and, in Selina’s case, sexual abuse.

The quins had spent eight years constantly on edge, fearing for their mum and anxious about what Gary might do to them next.

“He used to play mind games,” recalls Sam. “You never knew what he was going to do.”

Distant from their father when they lost their mother, they were largely left to fend for themselves. Their older sister Leeann did her best to look out for them, but she was only five years older and equally traumatised.

The quins have all gone on to endure very tough times. Several of the girls ended up in abusive relationships, with Deborah once being beaten so badly, she nearly died. Selina and Deborah both became teenage mums, but Selina lost custody of her daughter and Deborah’s son died of cot death. Meanwhile, Lisa’s son was very ill as a baby.

Even when they found happiness with loving partners, tragedy continued to strike. Lisa’s fiancé and Leeann’s husband both died, while Selina and Shirlene’s husbands have both had health issues.

Along the way, all of the quins turned to drugs and alcohol to numb the pain, but they’ve each come to the conclusion that that’s not the answer to dealing with their problems.

“We all went into self-destruct mode for a while, which is not surprising given that we had no idea how to move on,” says Sam, who felt enormous emptiness at losing his mum. “But all of us have picked ourselves up and cleaned ourselves up. We’re still fragile, but we are all in a much better place.”

For Sam, the physical place that helped him to heal was Australia. The dad-of-two moved to Queensland 12 years ago after the break-up of his marriage.

“I just needed time to find myself,” he says.

But before he knew it, he’d become so immersed in life there, with a busy job as a courier and a long- term relationship, that years had gone by and he’d had little contact with loved ones back home.

Three years ago, with the quins’ 50th birthday looming, his sisters decided to tell their story in a book, Stolen Lives, written with author Paul Little.

Sam didn’t want to be involved – he was going through a rough patch after his relationship had broken up and didn’t feel ready to delve into the past.

But he re-established contact with some of his sisters and saw Shirlene and Selina when they made separate trips across the Tasman to visit.

“I was thinking about maybe coming back to New Zealand on holiday, but what changed everything was getting on Facebook. I was able to catch up with lots of people through it, including my first girlfriend from when I was 16, and I started to think that maybe it would be a good idea to come over. Before I knew it, everything had fallen into place and I was on my way.”

He also hoped to see his children, Sam (25) and Hollyann (23), who had stayed in New Zealand with their mum. Father and son were able to catch up, but there are still fences to be mended with Hollyann, says Sam, adding that living near his kids is one of the main reasons he wants to return for good.

He also caught up with the ex-girlfriend and, much to his delight, rekindled their romance.

“That’s another reason to come back,” he says.

There was no big reunion with all the quins and Leeann because “the girls”, as he calls his sisters, are spread out in Auckland and Northland with busy lives, and trying to get them all together in one place proved to be logistically impossible.

“But in a way, that was probably a good thing because it meant I had one-on-one time with each of my sisters and reconnected with them individually. I think that was a better way of doing it. Get us all together and it is chaos.

“There were plenty of tears shed when we met up, but they were loving tears. It was fantastic not only to see my sisters but also to find that they are all in a good place.”

Within a week of being back, Sam realised that in New Zealand, with his family nearby, is where he needs to be.

“I’ve missed New Zealand, especially the landscapes and the great food here, but it’s about the people. The time is right to come back. Lately, I’ve lost a lot of friends and family members around the same age as me through illness and accident, and it makes you realise life is too short.

“I don’t want to miss out on the good times with my sisters. And if there is any more tragedy for us in the future – I hope not, but you never know – then I want to be with my sisters when that happens.”

The visit home has also helped him to come to terms with being a part of one of the nation’s most famous families.

“I’ve been better able to accept with this trip that being a quin is part of who I am, but not entirely who I am. I’m ready to deal with it. The important thing is for all of us to be happy now.

“We are still broken inside from what we went through and we always will be to some extent, but we are survivors. We owe it to ourselves, and also to our mum, to push on and to have good experiences in life.

“That’s how Mum would want us to be. She’d just want us to be happy and, for me, I think coming home will make me happy.”

‘His family are here for him’

Sam’s sisters were all delighted to see him again and are thrilled about his plans to move back to New Zealand permanently.

“I was quite surprised when he said he wanted to come over on holiday because when I saw him in Cairns a couple of years ago, I wasn’t sure if he was ready,” says Selina. “So it was absolutely fantastic to have him back and to hear that he wants to come home after all this time.

“It will mean starting over again for him, but he knows his family are here for him. If any of us ever needs anything, the rest of us are only a phone call away.”

“Going off to Australia and doing his own thing was something he needed to do, and we respect that,” says Shirlene. “I’ve missed him, but I know he did what he had to. He’s always been a bit of an individual, being the only boy, and he likes his privacy. That’s the way Samuel is.

“He seems a lot more relaxed now. I’m so excited about him coming back.”

Lisa says, “There are no grudges that he chose to isolate himself – it was what he needed to do. It was very emotional seeing him again. I just looked at him and said, ‘You haven’t changed a bit, mate.’”

“I think maybe he’s a little bit more mature than last time I saw him, but then we probably all are,” adds Deborah. “It’s been a long time. But when we got together, it didn’t feel as if it had been 12 years. It felt like hardly any time had passed.

“I’m so pleased he is coming back and we’re all going to be in the same country again.”