From Matangi Tonga Magazine Vol. 15, no. 2, June 2000.

There were tears in the eyes of eighty year old Vera Simpson as she returned to Tonga for the first time since she left at the age of 15.

Her son Peter Simpson and his family came with Vera at end of April, in honour of her 80^th birthday.

Peter said it was important for him to bring his mother to try and trace some of his Tongan relatives, whom he believed were of the Tongan nobility. His mother was an illegitimate child and when she left the islands with her mother Seini Longo, she was known by her maiden name, Vera Faka’iloatonga.

While in Tonga Peter and Vera met Baron Vaea. In very good Tongan, which she still speaks fluently, Vera said of herself, “‘E pehe mai ‘a e kakai kohai ‘a e ki’i ngeli fieme’a koeni! (who is this monkey who claims a chiefly linkage).”

Peter said that Vera’s mother, his grandmother Seini Longo, had married Ned Heritage, a Fijian who was working in Tonga. “They left for Fiji with my mother when she was about 15. Seini had two sons with Ned, but later left Ned and married another man, and had more children.”

Vera married Peter Simpson, and had seven children. Two of them Peter and Cliff are lawyers, and another son Albert is with the British Army in the UK. Peter has a law firm in Sydney, where he has employed a number of Tongan lawyers.