Early Life
Lange was born in Otahuhu, a south Auckland suburb as the son of a doctor of German stock. His relatives had suffered from prejudice during the First World War due to their German ancestry, and Lange himself would face a political rival in 1984 who tried to discredit him because of his German heritage. He received his formal education at Fairburn Primary School, Otara Intermediate School and Otahuhu College, then at the University of Auckland, where he graduated in law in 1965. He paid his way through university by working in a meat-freezing works. In 1968 he married Naomi Crampton. He gained a Master of Laws in 1970, then practised law in Northland and Auckland for some years, often giving legal representation to the most dispossessed members of Auckland society.
Lange suffered all his life from obesity and the health problems it caused. By 1982 he weighed 165 kilograms, and had surgery to staple his stomach in order to lose weight. He attributed his talent for caustic wit and repartee to the need to defend himself against bullying in his youth.
Read more about this topic: David Lange
Famous quotes containing the words early and/or life:
“Very early in our children’s lives we will be forced to realize that the “perfect” untroubled life we’d like for them is just a fantasy. In daily living, tears and fights and doing things we don’t want to do are all part of our human ways of developing into adults.”
—Fred Rogers (20th century)
“I suffer whenever I see that common sight of a parent or senior imposing his opinion and way of thinking and being on a young soul to which they are totally unfit. Cannot we let people be themselves, and enjoy life in their own way? You are trying to make that man another you. One’s enough.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)