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PUBLISHING CATALOGUE DORSET ENTERPRISES |
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OBITUARIES |
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OBITUARY WRITTEN BY BOB O’BRIEN LAWRIE GARDINER AND JIM MACGREGOR RE-PRODUCED FROM “THE CHARIOT” (ISSUE AUGUST 2004) |
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Jim, Bob, Lawrie and Denis take time out from Deck Golf on MV Rangitata in December 1959. |
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Sadly we record the deaths of the following Old Boys and teachers to whose families and friends we extend our sympathy. Lawrie Gardiner (College, 1935-41; teacher, 1951-63; died April 2004); Jim MacGregor (teacher 1956-62; died June 2004) Bob O’Brien, Old Boy and former teaching colleague of Lawrie and Jim, has provided the following tribute:
‘Many Old Boys from the late 1930s to the mid 1960s era will be able to make their own appraisal of their interactions with Lawrie Gardiner and Jim MacGregor, good mates who died within a few weeks of each other. Both men made significant contributions to Rongotai College and then went on to further eminence in the national education sector. Lawrie and Jim were both warmly sought out by many participants at the 2003 75th Jubilee Reunion, an indication of the high esteem that they were held in by past pupils and colleagues. Linking them together in this obituary is appropriate, for after Jim joined the Rongotai staff in May 1956, they became regular members of an informal tourist party that functioned in innumerable parts of the world for the next four decades. These sorties began with ‘social calls’ to sundry colleagues’ homes, in rotation, most weekends of the school year. Then there were summer vacation cricket tours around the lower North Island with successive First XIs. These led to a 1960 teaching, camping, Bedford van driving foray around Britain and Europe. Thereafter, only the Antarctic continent remained off their collective radar screens and Denis McHalick proved to be the other staunchest turistica.
Lawrie’s family were multi-generational residents of Seatoun so he and his brother Alan both enrolled at the Rongotai Intermediate Department after 1935. It seems that they may have played rugby against Jim when he was in the Horowhenua College strip in their last years as secondary school students. Lawrie trained to be a primary school teacher and undertook part time studies at Victoria University College before taking up a country service appointment in Northland in the later war years. He returned to teach in Wellington schools and by 1951 had joined the Rongotai Intermediate staff. He had relished his return to family and city life through the sporting and cultural opportunities that the post-war environment supplied and these interests he transferred wholeheartedly into his work at the college. He had come back to a Rongotai that had evolved from the ‘budded off’ scion of Wellington College in 1928. Renner, Fathers, Farquhar, Tier, et al ensured that the college that Lawrie and Alan attended in the late 1930s developed innovative characteristics that influenced them both during their adolescence and later teaching.
Some of the men who taught Lawrie, and a few others who had returned from the Armed Forces in the later 1940s, and who had adopted the ethos of the school, then went off to become foundation staff at Onslow College. This exodus helped clear the ground to allow Lawrie to begin teaching history and social studies in the secondary school and later succeed to the role of head of that department. His authority and prowess as a teacher were rarely challenged and his many extra-curricular contributions were informed, influential, committed and mostly appreciated. Lesser estimates were probably arrived at by those youths whose personal values and standards were below those expected by LFG.
When Jim MacGregor was appointed Deputy Principal of the about to open Wainuiomata College in 1964 the phenomenon of ‘budding off’ was replicated again. Lawrie led the way, and by the time he left ‘Nappy Valley’ for the Deputy Principalship at Wellington College in 1968, Bob O’Brien, Brian Williams and Graham Thomson had followed. Denis McHalick joined the diaspora and became D-P when Jim accepted the principalship. Lawrie came to Wainuiomata as an experienced, thoroughly professional teacher who had a profound influence on the newly created school. Collectively, all of his colleagues, under the leadership of Jack Caldwell and Jim MacGregor set the school up to launch its reputation as a successful educator of young people, as the public examination results of those early student cohorts reported. Lawrie was a touchstone in that achievement. He continued in this leadership role at Wellington College until his retirement in 1983. This was the secondary school that his father Bert had attended at the beginning of the twentieth century. For the Gardiner family the wheel had rotated a full circle, but the skills and educational philosophy that Lawrie, by 1968, carried with him, would have considerable impact on the life and ethos of that institution for the next phase of its history. Images of lamps and chariots are apt.
But in Jim’s case claymores, bagpipes, taiaha and wharenui are even more potent symbols. His heritage from Highland and Lowland Scotland, the Whanganui River of Ätihaunui-ä- Päpärangi iwi and the Heretaunga plains of Ngati Kahungunu ebbed and flowed in influential ways as his life unfolded. In this context, Jim’s association with Rongotai, at a time when mono-culturalism was still very much the norm in most New Zealand urban and suburban educational establishments, happened at a period in his teaching career when he consolidated his self assurance as teacher of science and biology in classroom and laboratory; confirmed his ability to work effectively among adolescents; and he made time to advance further his own education and philosophy. He built on the experiences of the itinerant family life of his childhood, his late adolescence/early adulthood as a serviceman in army, air force and Fleet Air Arm of the Royal Navy, forestry cadetship and university study.
Primary teacher training and a BSc had preceded teaching appointments at Balclutha HS and Takapuna GS before he joined the Rongotai staff. Jim’s own writing shows that when he left Rongotai his pakeha outer-self was still the over-riding influence in his life.
Wainuiomata College and community became a watershed. When he retired as the Principal of that college in 1978 the Maori component of his bloodstream had become increasingly important to him. This swing of priorities had been stirred into motion by his own learning and the world-view that he and his much-travelled companions had shared. For the next twenty-five years Jim set out to learn more te reo e tikanga Maori, and more about his own whakapapa. Jim would actively participate in any project that he thought would improve the educational outcomes for the increasing number of children with some Maori heritage who were presenting at the gates of the country’s schools. His experience as teacher and school administrator were considerable assets for many of the causes that he gave time and energy to.
Jim and Lawrie continued their friendship through their common sporting and cultural interests. Travel planning and execution was only constrained by budget and health. Lawrie tried to breath life into the occasionally moribund RCOBA while Jim helped create Te Wananga o Ruakawa. They drank their jugs of beer or carafes of wine in many a setting. They enjoyed each other’s company and took much pleasure from meeting up with former pupils and colleagues in many parts of the world.’
See publication catalogue for Jim MacGregor’s compelling autobiography |
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DENIS M McHALICK ( d 21 December 2009)
Now joins Lawrie Gardiner and Jim MacGregor in their joint Rongotai Old Boys Association archives.
At around two o’clock on Tuesday 15 December 2009 I stopped by at Coutts St, Kilbirnie to patronize a barber, but as I clambered in my gouty style out of my car, I caught a glimpse across the road a recognizable, long-standing friend, colleague and traveller whom I had not seen for some time. I was sure it was Denis McHalick, so I crossed the street to intercept him as he headed towards home at the Rita Angus Retirement Home. He was walking purposefully with the aid of a walking stick, somewhat stooped, but his self-assessment (and my observation) of general well-being was positive and cheerful, but he conceded that his hearing problems were still a cause of limitations for his social interaction. As it was by far the best summer afternoon that we in the eastern suburbs had enjoyed in 2009, we then parted in good cheer – Denis to Room 14 (?) and Bob to the barber (the same shop that he had used while teaching down the road at Coutts St from 1955 to 1964). I now suspect that this conversation may have been the last outing of Denis McHalick, the artist; teacher and school administrator; mathematician; bachelor; Varsity hooker; rugby and cricket coach; competitive and determined participant in all manner of sports, a sociable imbiber given to tourism in many parts of the world, since his first voyage to England in the early 1950s. If so, I decided I should share with you something about our 1960 voyage back to Rongotai College to resume the teaching duties of Bob, Denis, Lawrie and Jim in time for the following new school year. Rosemary O’Brien (nee Thomson) and her English friends, Kath Knight and Rosie Strachan, dined next to us in the heavily crowded facility throughout the Oriana’s maiden voyage from Southampton to Sydney via Naples, Suez, Aden, Colombo, Perth and beyond. Many Rongotai Old Boys from the late 1930s to the mid 1960s era will be able to make their own appraisal of their interactions with Denis and their other travelling companions Lawrie Gardiner and Jim MacGregor, good mates who had died within a few weeks of each other in 2004. The team of four made significant contributions to Rongotai College and then went on to further eminence in the national education sector. Denis, Lawrie, Bob and Jim were warmly sought out by many participants at the 2003 75th Jubilee Re-union - an indication of the high esteem that they were held in by past pupils and colleagues. Linking them together in this obituary is appropriate, for after Jim joined the Rongotai staff in May 1956, he, Lawrie and Denis became regular members of an informal tourist party that functioned in innumerable parts of the world for the next four decades. These sorties began with “social calls” to sundry colleagues’ homes, in rotation, most weekends of the school year. Then there were summer vacation cricket tours around the lower North Island with successive First XIs. These led to a 1960 teaching, camping, Bedford van driving foray around Britain and Europe. Thereafter, only the Antarctic continent remained off their collective radar screens, and Denis McHalick proved to be the other staunchest turistica. Bob had married Rosemary, and they lived in Rongotai, Arorangi, Lower Hutt, Wainuiomata and Seatoun as their friends continued their travels. Lawrie’s family were multi-generational residents of Seatoun so he and his brother Alan both enrolled at the Rongotai Intermediate Department after 1935. It seems that they may have played rugby against Jim when he was in the Horowhenua College strip in their last years as secondary school students. Lawrie trained to be a primary school teacher and undertook part time studies at Victoria University College before taking up a country service appointment in Northland in the later war years. He returned to teach in Wellington schools and by 1951 had joined the Rongotai Intermediate staff. He had relished his return to family and city life through the sporting and cultural opportunities that the post-war environment supplied and these interests he transferred whole-heartedly into his work at the college. He had come back to a Rongotai that had evolved from the “budded off” scion of Wellington College in 1928. Renner, Fathers, Farquhar, Tier, et al ensured that the college that Lawrie and Alan attended in the late 1930s developed innovative characteristics that influenced them both during their adolescence and later teaching. Denis, too, joined the Intermediate Department staff before moving on to secondary school duties a few years later. When Jim MacGregor was appointed Deputy Principal of the about to open Wainuiomata College in 1964 the phenomenon of “budding off” was replicated, as it had been at Onslow College. Lawrie led the way, and by the time he left “Nappy Valley” for the Deputy Principalship at Wellington College in 1968, Bob O’Brien, Brian Williams and Graham Thomson had followed the transfer from Rongotai to Wainuiomata.. Denis McHalick joined the diaspora and became D-P when Jim accepted the principalship there. Then, in 1978 Denis returned to the mathematics classroom, this time at Wellington College, and lots more bowls at the Hataitai Club and elsewhere. Denis, Jim and Lawrie continued their friendship through their common sporting and cultural interests. Travel planning and execution was only constrained by budget and health. Lawrie tried to breath life into the occasionally moribund RCOBA while Jim helped create Te Wananga o Ruakawa. They drank their jugs of beer (or carafes of wine) in many a setting. They enjoyed each other’s company and took much pleasure from meeting up with former pupils and colleagues in many parts of the world.
Bob O’Brien 2/66 Burnham St Wellington 6022 04 388 3531 |
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