Neti Davis was born in Whangarei and was educated in Hukerenui Primary School and Hukerenui District High School. Neti became New Zealand’s finest woman table-tennis player, winning eight national singles titles, thirty-four New Zealand championships and representing her country all over the world in an international career spanning fifteen years. In 1964 she married Alan Traill. When she retired from table-tennis, she went on to become a prominent businesswoman. She and her husband have been in the food industry for forty years and have successfully owned and operated coffee lounges and catering businesses. For over twenty years they have owned McDonalds’ restaurants and during that time earned the highest accolade possible from McDonalds’, "The International Golden Arch Award". Alan and Neti were the first New Zealanders to win this award which is presented to only a handful of people throughout the world. Now in partnership with their son Murray and their daughter-in-law Annabel, they own eight McDonalds’ restaurants in Christchurch, where they have lived since 1987. Their second son, Gary, lives in Bland Bay in the Bay of Islands. Neti is known by her married name Neti Traill.
Biographical sources
- Phone conversations and correspondence with Neti and Alan Traill, 10 and 14 August 1998, 2 April and 24 Nov. 2004.
Non-fiction
- "We saw Communist China during World Table Tennis Championships." Te Ao Hou 36 (1961): 59-60.
- Neti Davis writes this article during her time as a member of the New Zealand table tennis team which competed at the 26th World Table Tennis Championships held in Beijing in 1961. She gives an account of the trip to China, including the various stopovers, and provides a brief glimpse into life in China in the years leading up to the Cultural Revolution.
Non-fiction
- Brown, Amy. "Champions in Two Worlds: Māori Sportswomen in the 1950s and 1960s." Standing in the Sunshine: A History of New Zealand Women Since They Won the Vote. Principal author and principal researcher - text and illustrations Sandra Coney. Editorial advisers - Charlotte Macdonald, Anne Else, Dame Joan Metge, Tania Rei, Ngahuia Te Awekotuku, Angela Ballara, Merimeri Penfold, and Rosemarie Smith. Auckland, N.Z.: Viking-Penguin, 1993. 260-261.
- Brown writes of the sporting achievements of four Māori sportswomen of the 1950s and 1960s - Ruia Morrison, Jane Te Hira née Maxwell, Moana Manley, and Neti Davis.