Alf Rendell 1917-2019

Alf sharing some history with me, 6 December 2019
Image Fiona Kean

It wouldn’t be overstating it to say that Alf Rendell is a legend in this town. Like many people I had heard about Alf and his photographs long before we met. At our first introduction he gently explained that I had confused some of my facts about a photo from the Tauranga Heritage Collection printed in the Weekend Sun. Of course, he was right and over the years I, and many others, have had numerous occasions to be grateful for his amazing memory and his knowledge of Tauranga. Only three weeks ago I had an enquiry from a teacher at Pillans Point asking for help with research on street names around her school. Asking Alf was my starting point, as it often was, and his recollection of a Captain Good was all that was needed to unravel the meaning behind some of the names.

However, it wasn’t Alf’s great memory, and the fact that he had witnessed many of the changes and developments Tauranga experienced over the past 100 years, that made him a legend. There was so much more to Alf than his age. Alf was always positive, incredibly generous and seemed to lack the ability to say no. Alf told me that he once got a call from a regular customer at 2am in the morning asking him to drive to Te Puna to take photographs of a party in full swing.  I said, “surely there was no way you would have driven to Te Puna at that time of night.” Alf simply replied, “you don’t turn down business and he was a good customer.”

Alf Rendell in front of one of his images inside a new buildings on The Strand, Tauranga, October 2018
Image Fiona Kean

These qualities combined with the fact that he absolutely loved Tauranga meant he gave so much to his town. After the war and as a young business owner running the camera shop on Devonport Road, photographing weddings and spending nights operating a movie projector he had for hire, Alf somehow found time to take to the air and capture the photographs we used in his book Rendell’s Tauranga.

And perhaps for many, it is his photographic legacy that he will be best remembered. When Rendell’s Tauranga was published in 2015 the response was over whelming. He was “tickled pink” that so many people were able to connect with his photographs and more importantly for Alf, with where they lived. Thanks to the Legacy Trust the Toi Ohomai Alf Rendell photographic scholarship, which resulted from sales of the book, made Alf so proud and he really enjoyed meeting the recipients of the scholarship and attending their prize givings. Indeed, making money from his photographs was never a consideration and he generously gave copies of his images to both the Tauranga Heritage Collection and the Tauranga City Library.

Toi Ohomai Prizegiving Alf Rendell Photographic Scholarship, 2017
Image Fiona Kean

His generosity wasn’t limited to Tauranga. Just when I thought I’d seen all of Alf’s images a few months ago he pulled out photographs of Tongatapu taken while stationed on the island during WWII. He wanted the images to go home and as Alf’s luck would have it, the first public library in Tonga opened in October and we were able to reunite printed and digital copies with the descendants of those he photographed all those years ago.

Alf once told me he was born with a caul, a piece of thin membrane over his face. He explained that this was quite rare and considered a sign of good fortune.  I felt like I understood him a little better that day. Alf wasn’t just a positive person but lived with a sense of gratitude, believing that his life was blessed. He expressed thanks for the people who loved him and joy for the opportunities he was given, and he gave so much in return.

Peter Densem 1917-2019

Peter in a Fleet Air Arm dive-bomber cockpit. Densem Private Collection

Peter Alex Densem was born in Tauranga on 9 May 1917 in The Palms, a nursing home on the east side of Cameron Road between 8th and 9th Avenues. The parents of Peter and his two siblings, Rod and May, were Mary and Peter Densem, who had a confectionery and tearooms on The Strand. The Densem family lived at No.28 Durham Street and in that house, Peter grew up and from it he went to his first teaching jobs and then to war.

Alongside his lifelong friend Alf Rendell, Peter began his education at the Tauranga District High School (now Tauranga Primary School) in Cameron Road between Arundel Street and Fifth Avenue in February 1923. Peter chose a professional course when he entered the standards, gained the highest educational standard, matriculation, in the fifth form and planned to leave school, uncertain of what career to pursue. To earn money immediately, he managed, in late 1937, to get a job with the Bay of Plenty Times. While engaged in this work he met his teacher, Mrs Mackle, who enquired what he was doing. On being told she advised Peter that teacher training colleges were being re-opened and suggested he return to school for another year and study for the “D” teaching certificate. This he did, and in 1939 he entered the Auckland Teachers’ Training College.

Peter’s first permanent job was at a new one-room sole-charge school at Pehiri, 50 kilometres west of Gisborne in the Urewera hinterland. While teaching during the early World War Two years Peter also completed Royal New Zealand Air Force (RNZAF) courses. The roll at Pehiri School had grown to 19 pupils when he entered the RNZAF in 1941. After completing a basic training course with the RNZAF in New Zealand with the intention of becoming a pilot, Peter had a change of course. The service had discovered that he was a good mathematician, and at that time the Royal Navy’s Fleet Air Arm (FAA) was desperately short of competent navigators.

Peter flew first in a Swordfish open-cockpit biplane torpedo-bomber and then in the Barracuda, a monoplane torpedo/dive-bomber, from which he progressed to the more powerful and faster American-built torpedo-carrying Grumann Avenger, equipped with a power-operated gun turret. His service included a tour in Trinidad flying cover over convoys far out into the Atlantic Ocean. A forced landing in an Albacore at Trinidad’s Piarco airport wiped the wings off his aircraft and left Peter with a badly-injured leg. After recovering in a London hospital, he served in the aircraft carriers HMS Furious, Indefatigable and Formidable. Peter was among the Barracuda crews whose mission it was to sink the mighty German battleship Tirpitz. So great was the sudden change in air pressure as the Barracudas dived almost vertically on their target, he suffered permanent damage to one ear-drum.

After the war Peter married Christine, a Scots girl he met while overseas, and bought a house at the east end of First Avenue, planting out the land around it with native trees. The situation appealed particularly because it overlooked a beach, the harbour and his boat mooring. After Christine died in 1959 he lived there with his mother and sister May.

Home from the war, Peter with his Tauranga Primary School class. Densem Private Collection

Returning to his teaching career Peter attended a short course at the teachers’ training college, completed a B.Sc. degree in biology and began work at Tauranga Primary School and then as deputy headmaster at Tauranga Intermediate when that school opened in February 1958. He was appointed first headmaster of Arataki Primary School at Mount Maunganui when it opened in February 1963 and was the second headmaster at Otumoetai Intermediate School in 1967, a year after it opened. Peter retired from Otumoetai Intermediate in 1975.

It was in the 1930s that Peter became interested in boats. Peter’s first craft, in association with his brother, Rod, was the 12ft 6ins centre-boarder Koa, with a flat bottom and clinker sides. In 1934 they bought the 16ft Doreen. An open clinker boat, they put a cabin on Doreen and sailed her all around the Tauranga Harbour. After the war Peter had a variety of craft. He had Sanda, a 28ft motor-sailer of English design, built by Percy McIntosh in Fraser Street, Tauranga, in the late 1940s. Peter bought Jeanette from Phyllis Dumbleton and sold her to Captain George Carter, later Tauranga harbourmaster.

He obtained the 30ft launch Anne-Michelle in exchange for Whangaroa, a 34ft sloop-rigged motor-sailer, and next owned the 24ft launch Tauhara, the last launch built by Henry Geros (later of Tauranga) in W.G. Lowe’s Auckland yard. Then came Peter’s last yacht, the 30ft Koanui, built by Barwick Harding at Pyes Pa. His last boat was Ngako, a 16ft clinker launch built by Percy Vos in Auckland, bought in 1979 and kept on the foreshore beneath his house at the east end of First Avenue. Peter used his boats to good effect when he was appointed an honorary wildlife ranger for the coastal islands, thereby continuing an interest in fauna and flora established with Bernard Sladden over many years. He and Sladden had cruised regularly from White Island to Great Barrier, monitoring the Raurimus, Plate, Mayor and Cuvier Islands, the Mercuries and the Aldermen.

Lifelong friends Peter Densem and Alf Rendell, January 2016. Fiona Kean Private Collection

In 2003 Peter moved to Althorpe Village where he and his tabby cat Katie had a much-loved townhouse with a view of Mauao. In 2017 Peter celebrated his 100th birthday and was surrounded by many family, friends and formers students who gathered to acknowledge the significant impact he had had on their lives.

Peter will be greatly missed by all who knew him.

Taken from Max Avery’s article on Peter Densem and Alf Rendell which featured in the November 2017 edition of the Bay of Plenty Historical Review

Brian Davies

Stephanie Smith with Jinty Rorke, Brian Davies and Dave Page at the Society's Garden Party
Photograph courtesy of Fiona Kean

It was with great sadness that members of the Tauranga Historical Society learnt of the sudden death of our friend and member Brian Davies. Brian was born in Wellington and attended Scots College and Victoria University there. He met his late wife Mary when they were both taking the post graduate qualifications to become secondary school teachers. Brian concluded his career as Deputy Principal of Fielding Agricultural High School before he and Mary retired to Tauranga.

Brian taught History and he continued his interest through local history and genealogy.  He joined the Tauranga Genealogy branch not long after moving here and his history of the Davies family gained third prize in the New Zealand Society of Genealogists’ annual award for published family histories. Brian served a term as Convenor of the Tauranga branch.

It was with The Elms that he took a very active role in training guides, producing a guides’ training video, and acting as a guide himself. Brian enjoyed the opportunities to dress up as the Reverend Brown, top hat and all.

His active contribution to the Tauranga Historical Society was as a committee member in charge of publicity, a position he did well. As a couple Brian and Mary had wide interests and he kept up these interests after her death. Brian is survived by his two daughters and their families.

Heather McLean 1937-2019

Heather and a young helper at a cemetery working bee, Tauranga Methodist and Children’s Cemetery, 2011. Photo: Fiona Kean, Private Collection

Members of the Tauranga Historical Society will be saddened to learn that Heather McLean died yesterday, 31 January 2019, at Waipuna Hospice.

Born in Tauranga in 1937, Heather’s childhood was spent playing in and around the Te Papa Peninsula, a place and time she always remembered as idyllic. Heather attended Tauranga Primary School in 5th Avenue which was a short walk from her home in Cameron Road. In 1951 Heather started at Tauranga College and after leaving school she joined the New Zealand Post Office as a telephone operator. In 1954 this work took her to live in Wellington. Heather returned to Tauranga in 1964 and met her future husband Bill McLean at an Orange Festival dance.

Settled back in Tauranga, and with two young children, Heather's interest in genealogy began. In 1972 she joined the Tauranga Branch of the New Zealand Society of Genealogists and the New Zealand Society of Genealogists in 1973.

Heather and the Governor-General Dame Patsy Reddy at a special ceremony where Heather received her QSM, Sunday 27 January 2019. Photo: Fiona Kean, Private Collection

Her research skills and sincere desire to help others would lead Heather to volunteer her time to many groups and organisations, including the Tauranga Historical Society.  Within the Society her knowledge of local history, and in particular her expertise on Tauranga’s cemeteries, was well respected. Heather’s transcriptions of headstones, completed over more than 40 years, continues to be an invaluable resource.

Recently Heather’s work was officially recognised, first with the Tauranga Heritage Award and then in the 2019 New Year Honours List, a Queen’s Service Medal for her services to genealogy and historical research.

Heather will be greatly missed by her friends in the Society, who offer their condolences to her family.

Obituary: Dave Page, 1932-2018

Dave Page was born in 1932 into a family deeply affected by the depression. His father was unemployed and his mother resented lining up to accept food parcels. Unsurprisingly Dave developed a great sympathy for the working man. Eventually his father found work and Dave had a happy childhood, inheriting a love of reading from his parents. He attended Palmerston North Boys’ High, where he was in the 1st XV and enjoyed the rugby clashes with other schools. While still at school Dave mowed lawns and took paid work in a honey factory, then later at the Longburn freezing works in the holidays to help fund his university education.

He was the first in his family to go to university, majoring in geography and again playing rugby. One Sunday he was missing from practice and this was so out of character that his coach went to his flat to find out why. Dave’s flat-mates thought that he was just asleep but, when the coach investigated, he found that Dave was in a coma and suffering from meningitis. He was rushed to hospital and survived, thanks his coach's vigilance. While at teachers’ college he met Louise Blyth; they were married in 1956 and had a son Rob and a daughter Jessica.

Dave began his teaching career at Tauranga High School, then moved to Kurow and later to Opunake. His first position as principal was at Reporoa College and then spent 15 years at Foxton. Dave was an excellent teacher, working long hours, coaching rugby and taking a keen interest in other school sporting activities. He was also a keen supporter of a good education for Maori children. Dave was also involved in Lions’ Clubs and enjoyed playing golf, bridge and crib. The family enjoyed many camping holidays together, first in tents and later in a caravan.

In 1985 Dave took part in a teacher exchange programme and taught in a tough comprehensive school in Alloa, Scotland, where he was an assistant teacher. While there he and Louise saw travelled throughout the United Kingdom. Dave decided to retire in 1993 at the age of 61, wanting to spend more time with Louise at their home in Waihi, having previously lived all their married life in education houses. They made many friends there and their time was spent building, gardening, tramping and travelling.

In 2004 Louise died and Dave faced a couple of bleak and lonely years. In 2006 he found solace and affection with Ursula whose husband had died at about the same time as Louise. They enjoyed several trips to Europe and the couple established a great life in Tauranga where Dave soon joined the Historical Society, served on the committee from 2009 to 2013, providing thoughtful and helpful advice and assistance to many aspects of the Society. He also published an article on the Society's blog on the Waihi Golf Club, about which he had written a history, Centennial History Waihi Golf Club 1906-2006. He guided at Brain Watkins House for many years.

About a year ago Dave was diagnosed with a brain tumour and spent his last months at Althorp. He died last Thursday, aged 86.

Many thanks to Peg Cummins for providing notes for this obituary.