Annoying MSN Person
09-23-2005, 12:04 PM
Right. Well. Hello again. Last little while has been kind of hell, but I need to preliminarily publish this somewhere.
In loving memory
http://i14.photobucket.com/albums/a310/pania/Father.jpg
This was dictated to me about a week ago from Father's bed in the ICU, so clarity/typos weren't a priority.
An extremely short summary of the life of an incredible man, my father.
0 - 9 years
Born in Hamilton, 1949. I can remember having lots of fun around grandmother’s house on the side of the Waikato river. School was really easy compared to what it is now. I had a set back with my health in 1958 which laid me low for a while, and so a few days before my 10th birthday we moved to Napier. People had to move around the country a lot when their fathers were in the public service, in order to gain promotions etc. That’s why we moved from Hamilton to Napier. We moved into a little house Sander’s Ave, Mum and Dad had found a little section out in Onekawa they were going to build on, and it took them 8 months to plan and build. We moved into the new house in Onekawa for the start of the school year in 1960, standard four year. This was the outer edge of Napier in those days, went to the earliest years of Whitclyff School. In these years I began to get an interest in fishing. First off Napier wharf, back when you were allowed to fish between the operations. I remember having a lot of fun with friends there. Later on bought an 8-foot dinghy, and used to fish between the breakwater and Harding Road. The best fish ever I caught was a 24 pound snapper, a local record.
10 - 19 years
The collection for the yacht club started in the 63-64 with Rod Fraiser’s boat. Rod Fraiser came to me after school one day to say he needed a crewman for his cherub, and went straight there. My first time sailing, and I was thrust right into the deep end. I was absolutely hooked. In the winter of 1965 the Fraiser family started building a Flying 15 in their garage, and invited me to build a little moth beside them. They taught me the fundamentals of boat building. I then had a little boat to race for myself, called moffitty. I spent a year racing that, then decided it wasn’t fast enough. In the winter of ‘66 I built another yacht at home in Onekawa. All through this time I was trying to get more experience by crewing on other yachts around the club, like flying 15s and cherubs. Once Rod Fraiser and I went up to Auckland for the national cherub finals. I out on the trapeze wire, one of the strands flew up to the top of the mast. Solemnly, I went “uh oh.” When I pointed it out to rod, he went “uh oh” and a few seconds later we were looking up at the hull from 15 feet below the surface. Rod got the capsized boat back upright, and reached down to pull me out of the water. However, with the principle that the lighter the boat the faster it went, there was only single layer of plywood supporting us both. As he yanked me in, his feet went through the bottom of the hull, sinking the boat. They had to send out another boat, and we never lived the incident down.
1968-71
Undertook the opportunity to complete a private pilots license at the Napier aero club, and found the disciplines of flying and sailing to be very similar in some respects. Took great delight in showing my father the sights of town from overhead, and giving friends a fright with nosedives and the like.
1971 - overseas.
One of my friends in Napier was going on a tropical cruise, and with a few weeks notice, brought me with him. Whilst on that cruise, I met a 17 year old young lady from Melbourne, Australia, called Pauline, and we spent a very happy couple of weeks travelling the Pacific. After that, she went back to Melbourne, and in 1971 I got transferred to Fiji to work on the new airport development in Nadi, Fiji. I had lots of fun working there, but after a couple of years there, but caught some devilish tropical infection and had to come back to New Zealand. Meanwhile, throughout the period of working in Fiji, I had been keeping up a correspondence with Pauline, to the extent where after only being together for only a very short period of time, we became engaged, and I moved across to Melbourne at the end of 1973.
1974
We were married in Melbourne, 2nd March 1974, by which time Pauline had completed her registered nurse training. While she went and did an advanced diploma in midwifery, I started work with the Melbourne ministry of works in their laboratories. We both worked on in Melbourne until the middle of 76, when we felt it would be a good idea to go and do an OE (overseas experience), so we headed off towards Europe, going via Asia, Russia on the trans-Siberian railway, spending quite a long time travelling around Europe and then North America, but not doing any work at any stage along the line. We were living on $10 a day for some time. At some stage along the travels, we discovered we had Michael with us, and so we travelled on back to New Zealand, deciding to try for a job on one of the big power projects.
Upper Clutha ministry of Works, including power investigations and early construction of Clyde damn.
We arrived in Cromwell right at the start of the project, and became involved right at the start of the investigations of the new dam. During our 8 years in Cromwell, Michael, Colin and Daniel made an appearance on the scene, all three born in a tiny maternity annex at Cromwell, where Pauline was also working as a midwife. During our days in Cromwell we made use of the local lakes by purchasing a Sunburst, which didn’t frighten the family too much but occasionally did get a few good gusts of wind. We were sailing in the southern lakes often, and were tempted to build up our fleet to match our ever expanding family.
Christchurch from 1985-2000.
In 1985 with Catherine well on the way, we realised there was going to be limited opportunities in Cromwell for further work, as the 5 dams were not going to be constructed. So we moved up to chch were Catherine was born just a few weeks later. On arrival in Christchurch, we continued sailing the sunburst in the estuary, and refurbished an old p class which Michael sailed up behind us. Helen completed the family as she joined us in 1987. In 1988 we found a 7.8m alan wright quintet bare hull trailer yacht, which we completed over the next 2 years, and launched at the end of 1989. We called it Pelorus Jack, after the dolphin. This provided lots of fun sailing between Lyttelton and Akaroa harbours. During our stay in Chch I also undertook the coastguard examinations up to ocean yacht master and celestial navigation certificate. I rounded it all off with qualifying as a commercial launch master. During this time I also found I was able to assist the Spirit of Adventure trust as required on their boat, the Spirit of New Zealand. I moonlighted for Lyttelton Harbour Cruises from 1992-2000, operating the company on nights and weekends for charter cruises.
This period was marked by the construction of a very large laboratory by the Ministry Of Works, which went under a series of restructurings, leaving me the sole technician in what would have been an 8 person lab. We decided that in view of the constant upheavals we would restructure our own lives, and so moved to Napier at the end of 2000. By this time, only Catherine and Helen were still at school, and so in spite of their protestations, we moved up to Napier to start a new life.
From 2001-present residing in Napier.
We designed and constructed a new home called Convent Hill, a multistorey home with breathtaking views of the Hawke’s Bay area. Pauline continued her work as a nurse, and I started my own geotechnical consultation agency.
Well, at that point he feel asleep, so I’ll have to finish off the story for him later. He passed away at 9.10 am, Wednesday 21st of September, 2005. I can’t say I believe in archaic notions of heaven, but at least he was finally released from his pain. Just a shame that I wasn’t ready to let him go.
In loving memory
http://i14.photobucket.com/albums/a310/pania/Father.jpg
This was dictated to me about a week ago from Father's bed in the ICU, so clarity/typos weren't a priority.
An extremely short summary of the life of an incredible man, my father.
0 - 9 years
Born in Hamilton, 1949. I can remember having lots of fun around grandmother’s house on the side of the Waikato river. School was really easy compared to what it is now. I had a set back with my health in 1958 which laid me low for a while, and so a few days before my 10th birthday we moved to Napier. People had to move around the country a lot when their fathers were in the public service, in order to gain promotions etc. That’s why we moved from Hamilton to Napier. We moved into a little house Sander’s Ave, Mum and Dad had found a little section out in Onekawa they were going to build on, and it took them 8 months to plan and build. We moved into the new house in Onekawa for the start of the school year in 1960, standard four year. This was the outer edge of Napier in those days, went to the earliest years of Whitclyff School. In these years I began to get an interest in fishing. First off Napier wharf, back when you were allowed to fish between the operations. I remember having a lot of fun with friends there. Later on bought an 8-foot dinghy, and used to fish between the breakwater and Harding Road. The best fish ever I caught was a 24 pound snapper, a local record.
10 - 19 years
The collection for the yacht club started in the 63-64 with Rod Fraiser’s boat. Rod Fraiser came to me after school one day to say he needed a crewman for his cherub, and went straight there. My first time sailing, and I was thrust right into the deep end. I was absolutely hooked. In the winter of 1965 the Fraiser family started building a Flying 15 in their garage, and invited me to build a little moth beside them. They taught me the fundamentals of boat building. I then had a little boat to race for myself, called moffitty. I spent a year racing that, then decided it wasn’t fast enough. In the winter of ‘66 I built another yacht at home in Onekawa. All through this time I was trying to get more experience by crewing on other yachts around the club, like flying 15s and cherubs. Once Rod Fraiser and I went up to Auckland for the national cherub finals. I out on the trapeze wire, one of the strands flew up to the top of the mast. Solemnly, I went “uh oh.” When I pointed it out to rod, he went “uh oh” and a few seconds later we were looking up at the hull from 15 feet below the surface. Rod got the capsized boat back upright, and reached down to pull me out of the water. However, with the principle that the lighter the boat the faster it went, there was only single layer of plywood supporting us both. As he yanked me in, his feet went through the bottom of the hull, sinking the boat. They had to send out another boat, and we never lived the incident down.
1968-71
Undertook the opportunity to complete a private pilots license at the Napier aero club, and found the disciplines of flying and sailing to be very similar in some respects. Took great delight in showing my father the sights of town from overhead, and giving friends a fright with nosedives and the like.
1971 - overseas.
One of my friends in Napier was going on a tropical cruise, and with a few weeks notice, brought me with him. Whilst on that cruise, I met a 17 year old young lady from Melbourne, Australia, called Pauline, and we spent a very happy couple of weeks travelling the Pacific. After that, she went back to Melbourne, and in 1971 I got transferred to Fiji to work on the new airport development in Nadi, Fiji. I had lots of fun working there, but after a couple of years there, but caught some devilish tropical infection and had to come back to New Zealand. Meanwhile, throughout the period of working in Fiji, I had been keeping up a correspondence with Pauline, to the extent where after only being together for only a very short period of time, we became engaged, and I moved across to Melbourne at the end of 1973.
1974
We were married in Melbourne, 2nd March 1974, by which time Pauline had completed her registered nurse training. While she went and did an advanced diploma in midwifery, I started work with the Melbourne ministry of works in their laboratories. We both worked on in Melbourne until the middle of 76, when we felt it would be a good idea to go and do an OE (overseas experience), so we headed off towards Europe, going via Asia, Russia on the trans-Siberian railway, spending quite a long time travelling around Europe and then North America, but not doing any work at any stage along the line. We were living on $10 a day for some time. At some stage along the travels, we discovered we had Michael with us, and so we travelled on back to New Zealand, deciding to try for a job on one of the big power projects.
Upper Clutha ministry of Works, including power investigations and early construction of Clyde damn.
We arrived in Cromwell right at the start of the project, and became involved right at the start of the investigations of the new dam. During our 8 years in Cromwell, Michael, Colin and Daniel made an appearance on the scene, all three born in a tiny maternity annex at Cromwell, where Pauline was also working as a midwife. During our days in Cromwell we made use of the local lakes by purchasing a Sunburst, which didn’t frighten the family too much but occasionally did get a few good gusts of wind. We were sailing in the southern lakes often, and were tempted to build up our fleet to match our ever expanding family.
Christchurch from 1985-2000.
In 1985 with Catherine well on the way, we realised there was going to be limited opportunities in Cromwell for further work, as the 5 dams were not going to be constructed. So we moved up to chch were Catherine was born just a few weeks later. On arrival in Christchurch, we continued sailing the sunburst in the estuary, and refurbished an old p class which Michael sailed up behind us. Helen completed the family as she joined us in 1987. In 1988 we found a 7.8m alan wright quintet bare hull trailer yacht, which we completed over the next 2 years, and launched at the end of 1989. We called it Pelorus Jack, after the dolphin. This provided lots of fun sailing between Lyttelton and Akaroa harbours. During our stay in Chch I also undertook the coastguard examinations up to ocean yacht master and celestial navigation certificate. I rounded it all off with qualifying as a commercial launch master. During this time I also found I was able to assist the Spirit of Adventure trust as required on their boat, the Spirit of New Zealand. I moonlighted for Lyttelton Harbour Cruises from 1992-2000, operating the company on nights and weekends for charter cruises.
This period was marked by the construction of a very large laboratory by the Ministry Of Works, which went under a series of restructurings, leaving me the sole technician in what would have been an 8 person lab. We decided that in view of the constant upheavals we would restructure our own lives, and so moved to Napier at the end of 2000. By this time, only Catherine and Helen were still at school, and so in spite of their protestations, we moved up to Napier to start a new life.
From 2001-present residing in Napier.
We designed and constructed a new home called Convent Hill, a multistorey home with breathtaking views of the Hawke’s Bay area. Pauline continued her work as a nurse, and I started my own geotechnical consultation agency.
Well, at that point he feel asleep, so I’ll have to finish off the story for him later. He passed away at 9.10 am, Wednesday 21st of September, 2005. I can’t say I believe in archaic notions of heaven, but at least he was finally released from his pain. Just a shame that I wasn’t ready to let him go.