If there’s one thing Dame Susan Devoy knows how to do, it’s win. Though she missed out by a hair to make it to the finals of Celebrity Treasure Island last year, now she has a second chance with Fans v Faves she’s not going to let it slip through her fingers – even if that means taking out her own son, Josh Oakley.
“Josh wouldn’t expect me to throw in the towel just for him to win and vice versa,” tells Susan. “There’s a mutual respect there.”
Josh, 26, who has joined the TVNZ 2 reality show as a Fan, couldn’t agree more.
He says, “We’re both very competitive. We’ll compete, but then we’ll go home and be best mates again. I’m sure Mum’s got my back.”
Ever since he was young, Josh has been the type to give anything a go, no matter the consequences. While it has resulted in many sleepless nights and visits to the hospital for Susan, she is happy how he has harnessed that energy as an adult.
The competitive dame reckons Josh will be one to watch. “He’s diced with danger a lot.”
“He’s diced with danger a lot,” tells Susan. “He fell through a roof and got a big scar down his leg when he was a kid, and he jumped out of a tree into a bucket of water like Evel Knievel. But now that we’re on the other side of that, I’m proud that he gives everything a go.”
It’s also why compared to her other three sons – Julian, 29, Jamie, 27, and Alex, 24 – she knew Josh would thrive on Treasure Island.
“It suits Josh’s personality and I knew he wouldn’t be embarrassed by me,” she says with a laugh. “Julian would have done well in the challenges, but he’s quite sensitive, Jamie had just started a new job and I don’t think Alex would have wanted to be on TV with his mother. It was always going to be Josh.”
Josh and his three brothers have all followed in former world squash champion Susan’s sporty footsteps. Though they are talented players – three of them earned scholarships to play and study in the US, and they have all won national championships – none of them were willing to turn professional.
“We all considered it, but it takes a special breed,” shares Josh, who is a sales rep for Wattie’s. “We definitely got some of her genes, but not all of them. Mum never put any pressure on us, but I knew at a young age that it wasn’t happening. I wasn’t 14 years old doing three hours of court sprints before school like she was.”
Surprisingly, Susan has never played squash with her sons. After dedicating the first 30 years of her life to the sport, when she retired and became a mother, she was well and truly ready to leave squash behind.
“I made sure I fully retired before any of my kids could beat me, which was when they were about 10,” laughs the 59-year-old.
So, it was dad John, who was also Susan’s manager during her career, who spent long hours at the courts with the boys.
“Dad loved it,” tells Josh. “He trained all of us – he’d take teams away for national tournaments and all of that sort of stuff. Mum took a step back and Dad led the charge.”
Having such a supportive and loving father is what inspired Josh to choose Big Buddy as the charity he’s competing for in the reality series. The programme pairs boys aged seven to 14 whose fathers aren’t around with adult mentors who offer support and friendship.
“Their work hits home because I think about how much my dad did for us boys,” says Josh. “He set us up for so many opportunities and I feel for kids who don’t have that. Everyone needs someone to guide them and help build their confidence.”
Unlike his brothers, Dame Susan says, “I knew he wouldn’t be embarrassed by me!”
As Susan prepares to close another chapter in what has been a jam-packed life, from sporting hero to political player, she admits she finds it confronting that she has no idea what her future holds.
“Everything I do has been with full steam – playing squash, having four kids. I went for it,” tells Susan. “Now, I’m in a very strange part of my life. I wake up every morning and think, ‘What am I going to do with my life?’ I’m very lucky that I don’t have to work and that my kids are all grown up, but you’ve got no idea how long you’ve got left and I don’t know what I’m going to do with it.”
Watch Treasure Island: Fans v Faves Mondays to Wednesdays at 7.30pm on TVNZ 2.
