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Obituaries Bruce Finnerty - Murray Horton CAFCA’s Auditor For A Decade Bruce Finnerty, who died in Christchurch in June 2010, aged 65, was a CAFCA member from 1995 right up until his death. More than that, he was our honorary auditor from 1999 (when age and failing eyesight prevented the late Wolfgang Rosenberg from being able to continue) up until this year. As such, you will find his name in the Minutes of every CAFCA Annual General Meeting, published in Watchdog, for the past decade (in 2009 he told us that law changes meant that he had be retitled the honorary reviewer of our annual accounts, and could no longer be referred to as our auditor). It was his signature that appeared on the accounts, of both CAFCA and Foreign Control Watchdog every year, attesting that he had reviewed them and found them to be in order. Bruce never charged us a cent, nor was he rewarded in any other way (beyond being given free membership of CAFCA). It wasn’t a business relationship, he was a paying member for several years before he became our honorary auditor/reviewer and in those years he always included a donation with his sub. He also made several donations, of $100 a time, to the CAFCA/ABC Organiser Account, which provides my income (the most recent of those was in 09). He was always supportive of CAFCA’s work and sent me the odd e-mail commenting on things like one of my press releases about the misdeeds of the Australian-owned banks. And, yet the strangest thing was that, despite his being almost in the CAFCA inner circle for a decade, I never once met him. Our dealings were always by e-mail and phone – in the days when CAFCA operated a phone tree for our Christchurch members (long since superseded by e-mail) Bruce was on my section of it and we used to have a good old chat. He very generously offered me free accommodation at their bach on Stewart Island, an offer I never took up. The only time I ever went to his office, in 09, it turned out to be on a day that he didn’t work, so I just picked up the accounts and financial data from one of his staff. I didn’t even know what he looked like until I saw the photo of him on his funeral programme. In fact, none of the CAFCA committee ever met him, with the one exception of Liz Griffiths, who was our volunteer bookkeeper from 1995-2008. It was Liz who met Bruce personally every year, when she dropped off and collected the audited/reviewed accounts from him. “Bruce was such a willing and friendly man. We only met briefly, though many times over the years - when I dropped off the accounts and then picked them up - and we always had a chat, especially after I had a trip to Stewart Island with my son to a bay south of Oban. Before we left Stewart Island we spent a last night renting someone’s cottage in Oban and it was Bruce Finnerty's - so we always talked about that too when I called. His office was filled with his amazing eclectic pieces of modern art - not always my taste but a very definite choice to support the less conventional artist. He ran a good office with most pleasant staff who always greeted me with good cheer” (e-mail from Liz Griffiths to Murray Horton, 1/6/10). So it was appropriate that Liz represented CAFCA at his funeral. Art Was His Great Passion And Liz’s e-mail highlights the great passion of this most unusual tax accountant. Art. Bruce was part of the Christchurch art scene, not just because he was accountant to artists (his funeral notice in the Press described him as “accountant to the stars”; it was his friend and client Llew Summers, the nationally renowned sculptor, who first joined Bruce up to CAFCA, by paying a sub for him, in 1995), but because he had a passionate love of art and artists. This was emphasised in his Press obituary (19/6/10, “Eccentric accountant’s life of humour and joy”, Mike Crean), which I will reproduce, as the best account of Bruce’s life. Unless otherwise indicated, all the below material within quotation marks is from that obituary. “Bruce Finnerty was a tax accountant who owned and ran a Christchurch consultancy. But he was no ascetic character with a fixation for figures. Rather, he was art patron and collector, poet and painter, traveller and photographer, yachtie and kayaker, cyclist and tramper, adventurer and fun-maker. Once a hippie, even a mild eccentric, from time to time a victim of ‘the black dog of depression’. Finnerty was loved by family, staff and clients. His life was rich in friendship, joy and humour. But his wife, Halina, recognised the brave face he put on as he battled with ’the heaviness that depression brought’” (Liz Griffiths’ notes, taken from the several speakers at Bruce’s funeral, said: “He was funky crazy over energetic people oriented chief party planner dresser upper picnicer mad cap always busy always aware of others loved mad art but carried a black dog…” Liz Griffiths, e-mail to Murray Horton, 7/6/10). “Finnerty died on June 1, aged 65. Three hundred friends packed a service to celebrate a life lived to the full by a man they called their mentor and inspiration” (Liz Griffiths said of the funeral: “Bruce's send off was to be envied - not many people will get a solid entertaining 2 1/2 hours of eulogy from a variety of people all claiming to be his most particular special friend with whom he spent masses of time. I sat there - fortunately sat there, many stood - and was stunned”). “The eldest of seven children of a Christchurch signwriter, he was raised in Waltham and attended the local primary school and Cashmere High. He embraced his ancestral links with Rakiura (Stewart Island) Maori. He visited his bach on the island often and helped at working bees. Finnerty started work for the Inland Revenue Department, which paid his way through accountancy studies at Canterbury University. He became a tax inspector, but was uncomfortable with the position. He found some of the decisions he had to make distasteful. When accountant Wayne Bailey suggested they join forces in private practice as taxation consultants, he agreed. “It Was Always Great Fun Being Around Bruce” “The firm Tax Matters (established in 1986) became a pioneer in taking tax on to the street. Finnerty later bought Bailey’s half of the company. As he neared retirement age, he sold it back to Bailey, who remained a close friend. Ann Harper, who worked for Finnerty for 24 years, says he had an ‘incredibly quick mind’ and could check calculations at a glance with amazing accuracy. Staff members ‘were in awe of his intelligence’, yet he never ‘lorded it over’ them. He made them feel valued, included them in decisions and instigated all sorts of fun in the office. Staff turnover was low. ‘He had no ego whatsoever’, she said”. (Liz Griffiths’ funeral notes said: “Always planning mad things to amuse and delight the staff – questionnaires to brighten life, a dummy on a couch with a hand he could pull when someone entered”). “His honesty and willingness to work with clients as a business adviser built a bond with them. Seldom did a client leave him. He established an art-trading enterprise as a sideline to his tax business, hanging paintings, mainly by Christchurch artists, in the company offices. He sold and leased art to clients. His regular customers came to include many artists. Bailey says Finnerty’s passion for New Zealand art was ‘almost a disease’. Friend Philip King says his business thrived but he kept it in perspective. He worked hard in bursts, usually in the mornings, allowing time for many other pursuits. “Finnerty began investing as a teenager. He bought land at 18 after scavenging and cleaning old bricks. He lived frugally. For part of his youth he led a hippie existence, hop picking and surfing in the Nelson district, while living in his Landrover. He later roamed abroad, surfing, swimming and sleeping on beaches. He travelled extensively in New Zealand and Australia, driving, cycling and walking. His diaries and poetry delighted all who read them. His favourite area was Central Otago. King says Finnerty would watch the news for hoar frosts near Alexandra and at the first indication would cancel appointments and head south to see and photograph the sight. Visiting the region on the shortest day one year, he broke the ice in a dam and took a dip. A lifetime mission was to re-photograph all the Central Otago landscapes in a favourite book, Robin Morrison’s ‘The South Island of New Zealand from the Road’. Finnerty painted many Central Otago scenes, mostly on stones and driftwood. King says the style could be described as naïve or folk art. A feeling of inferiority, from mixing with artists, restrained him from showing and selling his work, though he gave some pieces away. He held only one exhibition, putting 65 items on show to mark his 65th birthday. He invited 65 people but many more attended. The total collection sold, with the proceeds going to the hospice where his sister had died of cancer. Finnerty organised and curated exhibitions and identified and encouraged young painters. “Another passion was sailing. He loved to mess around in boats with a group of Governors Bay sailors. The bay became his second home, even to sleeping in his trailer yacht. He organised and led outings on the water and to bays and islands in Lyttelton Harbour. Governors Bay resident Morrin Rout says: ‘It was always great fun being around Bruce’. Auckland University Associate Professor of Art Peter Robinson ‘shared many enlightening conversations about art and life’ with Finnerty. ‘He will always be remembered for his humour, kindness and generosity’. Finnerty married Margaret Egan and, after they separated, remained very proud of their two children. Halina was the love of his life for the past 15 years”. I (quite literally) never met or knew Bruce Finnerty but he was one of us and from all accounts an all round good guy, one who was deeply loved by many, many people. He went far too soon but left behind a legacy of humour and joy (as his Press obituary was titled). Neither of those words is usually associated with tax accountants, and that in itself is an indication of just what a striking individual he was. Our deepest condolences to his wife, Halina Ogonowska-Coates, his two kids Christopher Finnerty and Kate Finnerty and the rest of his family and many friends. Bertha Allison - Murray Horton Bertha Allison, who died in May 2010 aged 94, was a CAFCA member from 1995 up until her death (which means that she was nearly 80 when she joined). She was both a keen and generous member throughout those final years of her life – along with her partner, Lloyd Whitten, she regularly attended our Annual General Meeting; she regularly included a donation with her annual membership payment and she also made several donations to the CAFCA/ABC Organiser Account, which provides my income. She paid a sub for one of her daughters because she thought that Watchdog would be of interest to her. There were personal connections too – she was both a Cashmere neighbour and friend of the Rosenberg family (my obituary of Wolfgang Rosenberg is in Watchdog 114, May 2007, http://www.converge.org.nz/watchdog/14/04.htm; and my obituary of Ann Rosenberg is in Watchdog 116, December 2007, http://www.converge.org.nz/watchdog/16/09.htm). Bill Rosenberg was at both primary and high school with her twins (the oldest of her three daughters). Her best friend Val Wisely (to whom I am indebted for nearly all of the source material for this obituary) wrote in her eulogy for Bertha’s funeral: “She had a generosity of spirit and a great respect for the rights, concerns and needs of others which was reflected in so many aspects of her life. A firm supporter of Amnesty International, the Red Cross and the City Mission, Bertha also participated in a number of peace marches and shared many of the views of friends such as Elsie Locke, Wolfgang Rosenberg (and others). For similar reasons her political convictions were somewhat Left of centre” (my obituary of Elsie Locke is in Watchdog 97, August 2001, http://www.converge.org.nz/watchdog/97/13.htm). Val Wisely told me that she remembers, in the 1990s, Bertha distributing to all her friends an article warning of the dangers of the then proposed Multilateral Agreement on Investment (MAI), which was defeated, fortunately, by a global campaign in which the New Zealand progressive movement played a leading role. And Val remembers attending various relatively recent public meetings with Bertha and Lloyd. The first thing to note about Bertha Allison is that her name wasn’t Bertha. She was born, in 1916, as Frances Rosalind Nurse but from the start was called Bertha (I gather it was basically a family nickname, courtesy of her father. I always wondered why her cheques to CAFCA were from FR Allison). The fourth of six kids, she was born in Kaikoura, because her father was farming in the region. Two years later he had to walk off the farm because of tight financial conditions and a severe snowstorm that killed most of the stock. He then moved his family to the Lakes Station (Lake Sumner) which he managed. It was an ideal outdoors environment for young growing children but education presented a problem. It separated the family for months on end because the mother lived with the kids in a Christchurch house during school term and they were reunited at the Lakes Station during school holidays. “They owned a car which was maintained by Bertha’s mother. She took a course in car maintenance to ensure their transport to and from the Lakes. She was an intrepid woman” (Val Wisely’s eulogy). This combination of city and high country life gave her the best of both worlds: “She enjoyed the city’s educational opportunities and the freedom and richness of the high country. She was an enthusiastic tramper, swimmer and horse rider, excelled academically and in sport and made many friends” (Press obituary, “Scholar fully committed in every sphere”, 29/5/10). Val Wisely wrote: “There was nothing she enjoyed more than good conversation and in-depth discussion with friends and colleagues and family members”. This was something which started early in life and as Val also noted: “Bertha’s father, however, was apt to say ‘would someone tell that girl to shut up and stop arguing!’” (Wisely eulogy, ibid.). Decades Ahead Of Her Time She was determined to go to university but the family didn’t have the money for her first choice, of medicine. “It seems that Bertha may have been influenced by her choice of a degree in biology as Professor Percival, who had been appointed to the Chair of Biology at Canterbury University College, had introduced himself to the Nurse family while doing field work in their area. He seems to have enthused the Nurse family members to take an interest in wildlife. Looking back, Bertha thought it likely that she had been influenced by these meetings with Professor Percival” (Wisely eulogy, ibid.). By 1940 she had completed a M.Sc. (Honours) in botany. She then decided to specialise in zoology, influenced by Percival whom she greatly admired as a teacher. “Meantime Bertha had also been attending lectures by Dr Karl Popper, an internationally known figure in scientific philosophy, who was at the time on the staff at Canterbury. ‘He had a tremendous influence on my research and approach to science’, she said” (Wisely eulogy, ibid.). She did an additional year of zoology papers and won a scholarship. Her first job was as a Demonstrator in the Department of Zoology in 1942 and 43. In 1943 she married Russell Allison, a chemistry graduate who was working at the Wheat Research Institute. It was around this time that Bertha and Russell first met Lloyd Whitten, who had moved over from Australia and who was to become a good friend of both of them, and Bertha’s partner for the last 30 years of her life (Russell Allison died in 1974). “The next important step in Bertha’s career in zoology came about when a staff member working with Professor Percival decided to go to Oxford for a year but then enlisted over there and so did not return. With Percival now the sole staff member in the department he offered an assistant lectureship to Bertha to share in the lecturing as well as the laboratories. She was reluctant to agree as she felt herself unprepared and said she was ‘scared stiff’ at the prospect and felt tossed in at the deep end. However, she rose to the challenge and accepted the offer and for the remainder of the war years Bertha and Percival were the only two staff in the department (there were six advanced zoology students, in 1943). She said she managed to keep just ahead of the students but must have done a good job as in 1947 she became a lecturer in the department which meant that she was then on the permanent staff” (Wisely eulogy, ibid.). In fact, she was one of the first women to be appointed to the permanent staff of the Science faculty. In 1950 she took a year’s study leave (now called sabbatical) at Oxford University, studying histology and histo-chemistry. That was her first trip overseas. It was upon her return to Canterbury that Val Wisely first met her: “I felt a little awed by her” (Wisely eulogy, ibid.). In 1951 Percival went away on sabbatical and Bertha became acting Head of Department, which was a considerable responsibility. She was also pregnant. “The climax of 1951 came in November when Bertha went to her doctor for a final check the day before the baby was due. To the surprise of both Bertha and her doctor a couple of heart beats announced that her baby was to be twins. Undaunted, Bertha – after the delivery of the girls – sat up in bed at Burwood Hospital marking the zoology students’ exam papers with the twins in their bassinets close by” (Wisely eulogy, ibid.). “She continued to work part-time with the help of her mother and a nanny. When the twins were a year old, she parented them on her own for two years while her husband completed a PhD in the United States (at the time it was not possible to study for a PhD within New Zealand universities), living with her mother and relying on her support. After her husband’s return their third child was born. She continued to work part-time until the three children were at school, when she returned to work fulltime. In the 1950s era of the homemaker housewife, she was frequently criticised for working. She even remembered one of her children saying: ‘Why don’t you stay home and make us cake the same as other mothers?’” (Press obituary, ibid.). “At the time of her retirement in 1980, Bertha recalled that she was ‘a loner’ in those days in having children and carrying on with her job (she had a supportive husband in Russell Allison and a very supportive mother). She believed that there was no other staff member of her time who accepted the responsibility of being acting Head of Department concurrently with incubating twin daughters. Bertha believed passionately that women should have the same opportunity to fulfil their potential in their careers and she wanted the same opportunities at the university for her daughters. She felt that her daughters benefited indirectly from having a working mother, for as they grew up, they were able to accompany her on field trips with students” (Val Wisely, notes for an obituary in the University of Canterbury Chronicle). “Bertha was a true ‘roll up your sleeves’ New Zealand feminist. Bertha believed in women fulfilling their potential in the true feminist sense. Her loving commitment to her family has always been absolute but she was also not afraid to go against the mainstream opinion of the times. She believed that women should be able to continue to work in their chosen careers alongside their family commitments if that is what they wanted. Fortunately she married Russell, who was supportive in these endeavours” (Wisely eulogy, ibid). If you want to appreciate just how unusual Bertha Allison was, I refer you to my 2007 Watchdog obituary of her longtime friend Ann Rosenberg, who was forced out of the workforce (and her job was in the public service) when she was seven months pregnant with her first child. Even the fact that Ann worked until she was seven months pregnant was, in her own words, “unheard of at the time”. Ann stayed out of the workforce for another decade and a half. I was born in 1951, the same year as Bertha’s twins – my mother certainly didn’t work; she was a stay at home housewife, dependent on my father for “the housekeeping money”. That was the norm in the 50s and 60s; the huge surge of married women and mothers into the workforce didn’t really gain momentum until the 70s and as a male worker at that time I can well remember the male reaction to it. Bertha Allison was decades ahead of her time. An Extremely Active “Retirement” “Allison taught at Canterbury for almost four decades. Many students recall her as an inspiring teacher, particularly in field work and research. She always practised Percival’s philosophy, that ‘biology is essentially functional and dynamic. Animals and plants do things in situations, they are alive in their environments and hence there is a need to study them in the field. A biologist must be something of a naturalist who enjoys nature and has a feel for it’. Allison joined the Australian and British parasitological societies and attended many international conferences. She instigated first an honours, then a third year parasitological course at Canterbury. She published 30 scientific papers between 1945 and 2007 and completed her last paper aged 92” (Press obituary, ibid). “In 1969 both Bertha and Russell went to England on study leave, taking Fran with them as she was still at school. They were away for seven months with the help of an Erskine Grant – Bertha working on parasitic worms at the Helminthological Institute in St Albans. In 1972 the Allisons had one last study leave together in India, visiting Indian universities. Russell died in 1974 and Bertha was on her own once more. This was a vey difficult time for Bertha but she did not give up. The following year she spent three months in Toronto University studying parasitology and forging new relationships with parasitologists. She also visited the Imperial College of London” (Wisely eulogy, ibid.). “Mrs Allison’s last major field trip was to Papua New Guinea in 1977 and she regarded this as her most productive venture. She did an intensive study on the parasites in birds’ blood, which are closely related to the parasite which causes malaria in humans. It is also related to the parasite found in the blood of the crested penguin of New Zealand, which can be transmitted to humans by the black fly, or sand fly as it is popularly called. The parasites can be used as models in research allied to malaria. In relation to this area of research Mrs Allison and colleagues made field trips to Jackson’s Bay and to Stephen’s Island in her latter years on the staff when the tuatara’s blood was also studied for parasites” (Val Wisely, notes for an obituary in the University of Canterbury Chronicle). By the mid 1970s Lloyd Whitten was both a widower and retired. “Bertha suggested to Lloyd that he had productive years left, and might enjoy applying for another appointment. He followed this up and was appointed to the Veterinary Department of the Pertanian University of Malaya at Kuala Lumpur. In his turn, Lloyd suggested to Bertha that, as her retirement from Canterbury was imminent, and there was a need for a lecturer in histology over there, she might join him in Kuala Lumpur. Bertha did a crash course in histology…and was eventually accepted for the position and spent the first two years of her retirement in a new field. She and Lloyd were active in the Malay Nature Society and made field trips into the surrounding jungle looking at the local fauna and flora, including looking for tigers, before returning to New Zealand by 1983” (Wisely eulogy, ibid.). “While teaching histology and embryology to veterinary students, she was responsible for substituting chick embryos for pig embryos, to make the course more acceptable in a Muslim society” (Press obituary, ibid.). “This was the beginning of the 30 years when Lloyd and Bertha were together in their retirement years – but the word retirement meant little to Bertha” (Wisely eulogy, ibid.). “After her full retirement in 1983 she made expeditions to Nepal, Mali, Trinidad and China, always with a naturalist focus. She immersed herself also in painting and printmaking. She became a volunteer guide at the (former) Robert MacDougall Art Gallery and was a volunteer researcher at the Canterbury Museum” (Press obituary, ibid). “The (Museum) staff member in charge of the volunteer programme was Dr Simon Pollard who, at an earlier period, had been taught by Bertha“(Wisely eulogy, ibid.). She worked at the Museum from 1995, initially for two days a week; then reduced that to one morning a week. She did many field trips, including one to Fiordland, aged 89, spending days on a vessel collecting mayflies. As already mentioned, she published her last scientific paper in her 90s. “In recent years when she needed cataract operations she was interviewed by hospital staff assessing urgency for waiting lists. When asked the no doubt standard question ‘how would your life be benefited by this operation?’ she replied ‘I expect it would make it easier to see down my microscope’. I think she was about 90 at the time. A couple of days later she received a phone call to say that there had been a cancellation and if she could be in hospital by 10 a.m. she could have the operation! It’s good that the staff recognised ‘exceptional’ when they came upon it” (Wisely eulogy, ibid.). Bertha was an active biologist for 75 years and her active interest continued until literally the last day of her long and extremely productive life. “During the last morning of her life her granddaughter had set up a radio in her room, so that Bertha could listen to the talk of her former pupil, friend and colleague of the Canterbury Museum researchers, Dr Simon Pollard” (Val Wisely, notes for an obituary in the University of Canterbury Chronicle). A Long Life Of Many Accomplishments Val Wisely summed up her best friend thus: “Bertha was an interesting woman – a no nonsense woman with a good sense of humour, a pioneer in many respects and certainly an adventurer…She could be very forthright, but she also had a soft side to her and it was this side in particular from which I benefited over the many years of our friendship…Life may throw at us only two or three real companions and for me Bertha has been a very dear friend. She shared with me her many interests, her wisdom and her extended family, particularly in my retirement years. She has always been willing to share her good friends and I will miss her greatly” (Wisely eulogy, ibid.). I knew next to nothing about Bertha Allison when she was alive, never met her before she was old and only ever saw her in the context of CAFCA AGMs and public meetings, plus the odd phone conversation on CAFCA business. From everything I’ve learnt of her since she died, I can say that CAFCA was privileged that she chose to include us in her incredibly wide range of interests and activities in the last 15 years of her long life. She was one very fascinating person and her list of accomplishments is enviably long. Our condolences to Lloyd, her three daughters and five grandchildren.
Mr Valiant-For-The-Truth Hugh Llewellyn Price: 1929-2009 - Brian Easton Hugh Charles Llewellyn Price, book publisher: born Wellington, July 13, 1929; died Newtown, December 28, 2009, aged 80. He is survived by his wife, Beverley Randell, and their daughter, Susan Price. This obituary is based on a draft manuscript of “Defender Of The Vulnerable: Tributes To Hugh Price 1929-2009” (to be published by Steele Roberts later in 2010), and complements Murray Horton’s obituary in Watchdog 123, May 2010, http://www.converge.org.nz/watchdog/23/15.htm, which focused on the CAFCA and Security Intelligence Service (SIS) dimensions of Hugh’s life. Fought For Oppressed All His Life If you drive down Glasgow Street in Wellington’s Kelburn, just before you turn left towards Victoria University, you will see a white wall where, often as not, there is a notice promoting some good cause. Modestly but firmly, like the Price family who live in the house above. The house is like them, holding the 20,000 quality children's books that comprise the Susan Price Collection which Susan donated to the National Library in 1991, with rooms that in their time held meetings of radicals and in which were produced books, a house with cubbyholes built by Hugh Price. His building skills were learned from his father, a Wairarapa woodwork teacher from Wales, but his mother was even more influential. Hugh was born with club feet. While he recuperated from a long series of operations to straighten them, his mother adopted a massage routine as part of his healing, using the daily sessions to read to him. Thus he entered the realms of gold where he stayed – and extended – all his life. His schooling experiences were, as Hugh’s wife Beverley Randell, describes them “Dickensian with echoes of Dotheboys Hall”; he was regularly caned by a sadistic schoolmaster for his refusal to play rugby. Towards the end of his life, he said he never “wasted a single moment of my life on sport”. The persecution he suffered there meant he fought for his the oppressed all his life. Yet, praise be, he had a couple of good teachers in his History and Art masters (Doug Bray and Stewart McLennan); history and design were lifetime pursuits. In 1948 he went over the hill to Victoria University College, boarding – oh so fortunately – with the Somersets: Crawford, a specialist in university extension (best known for his book “Littledene”) who became an Associate Professor of Education, and Gwen, (from the Alley family of Canterbury) a key player in the development of the New Zealand play centre movement. He joined the family; its two sons, in effect, became his brothers. “Seduced By Books” Later at Wellington Teachers’ College he came in contact with Vice-Principal Walter Scott – they were to work together in the Council of Civil Liberties years later – who turned the teacher’s college into one of New Zealand’s great centres of liberal (and Maori) education in the 1950s. At the university he was taught by John Beaglehole (another pioneer in the civil liberties movement). As Hugh recounts: “One afternoon, at the end of an MA seminar with Dr John Beaglehole, I noticed him pull some interesting looking papers from a shelf and attend to them closely. I asked him what they were, and found that they were proofs of his ‘Journals Of Captain Cook’ being prepared for publication. In no time I was learning an unfamiliar vocabulary: verso, recto, galleys, type faces, fonts, point sizes, colophons, ampersands. I found new and ringing names such as Perpetua, Clarendon, Baskerville, Caslon Bold, Bembo Italic. Dr Beaglehole talked about the problems of publishing scholarly books. As a young man already seduced by books I came to see that my calling would have to be that of a book designer and editor, preparing books for publication”. Beaglehole later told him that he was the only student who took a close interest in his preparation of the Cook papers for publication, and they met quite a number of times. While studying for his MA in History, there occurred the frequently recounted incident involving the Security Intelligence Bureau (SIB, predecessor of the SIS) over an amateur publication Newsquote, which consisted of extracts penned by reputable journalists and commentators from such illustrious newspapers as the Wall Street Journal, the Times and the New York Times, but which were not available in the local press. Nowadays it would be seen as a news-aggregater, and published electronically rather than by gestetner. Its content was not so much radical, as bringing attention of its readers to the world outside, in itself a radical thing in those days, one supposes. Perhaps the SIB paranoia was really about Hugh’s major involvement in the university Socialist Club, and their desire to stop anything before it happened (the story finishes near the end of his life, when the Director of the SIS admitted that its predecessor “misjudged” the publication; not quite an apology but an embarrassing enough admission. Hugh said he pursued the matter not for himself but to give peace of mind to his mother; he accepted the almost-apology but it came too late for her). After some teaching, Hugh took a job in the educational retail bookshop of Whitcombe and Tombs Ltd (now Whitcoulls) in Lambton Quay, and transferred to their London buying office in 1955. He studied print production and typography at the London (Camberwell) School of Arts and Crafts and at the London School of Printing and Graphic Arts, and worked on small projects for Penguin, Methuen, Hodders, Gollancz and the BBC. In 1957 he came home to manage Wellington’s progressive cooperative bookshop, Modern Books. While retaining its “Marxist” stock he extended its coverage by obtaining books from other foreign sources. His future publishing partner, Jim Milburn, tells a couple of stories which indicate Hugh’s commitment and his – shall we say – guile. One involves a meeting of friends in Modern Books where they agreed that each would put in a founding capital sum of £20 (about $850). A week passed and Hugh rang me and said “Jim, has anybody given you anything? ‘No’, I said, ‘Has anyone given you anything?’ ‘No’. And so it was Price Milburn was born, a partnership between Hugh and myself ... Hugh ... actually put in £25 to my £20)’”. But there was another partnership to be arranged. The Teachers’ College grouped their section (class) alphabetically, thereby including the R’s with the P’s. Jim Milburn again “One day the young Beverley Randell came into Modern Books. Hugh remembered her from having been with him at university and teachers college and he rang her saying that there was to be a reunion of her old section the following Friday and invited her to come. She accepted. Hugh then rang Barbara and me and said: ‘Of course there is no reunion, but I am going to bring her and have dinner with you two – do you mind – at James Smiths’” (Hugh had a delightful – impish – sense of humour often based on his modesty. Stories abound. He was a slight figure, as was Jim. They called themselves “the smallest publishers in Wellington”; their telegraph address was Mice: M(ilburn-pr)ICE). A Lifetime Of Publishing & Good Causes The partnerships were the foundations of the rest of Hugh and Beverley’s life, for her contribution to the success of the business was a series of readers for young children (another success for Wellington Teacher’s College). Initially it was a hobby business but in 1968 they received a US order of 1.7 million copies for their little reading books, and it became a full-time operation – and by all accounts an exceptionally happy and exciting business. Hugh was in Sydney when the order came in. Marriage and the arrival of Susan in 1960 had led him to give up Modern Books and to become an art editor at the School Publications Branch of the Education Department until 1963, when he became the founding general manager of the Sydney University Press. There were so many, it is difficult to summarise even the highlights of Hugh’s public life. Price Milburn was a success both from its “PM Story Book Series” – they once exported Welsh translations to Patagonia. – and publishing numerous important and scholarly books. In 1982 it was sold but the “PM Story Books” continues today with Cengage Learning, selling throughout the world. Hugh continued to publish books of his own under the Gondwanaland Press imprint which he founded. To mention something which it is often considered inappropriate, but is so important to shed light on the Prices’ contribution to society and their approach to the world. Continuing royalties from overseas sales of the “PM Story Books” helped the family became relatively wealthy. Unlike many of today’s rich, they did not show off their wealth but used it to promote the public good with quiet donations to numerous good causes. There is also a Hugh Price Collection of School Textbooks in the Alexander Turnbull and Auckland University Libraries and the Randell Cottage in Thorndon which provides rent-free accommodation for writers (who also receive a small stipend from Creative New Zealand or from the NZ-France Friendship Fund and the French government). The cottage was built by Beverley’s great-grandfather in the 1860s, and Hugh funded, planned and helped with much of the restoration. Hugh was involved in a wide variety of good causes. For many years he served on the Council for Civil Liberties (which, it will be recalled, was established in response to their outrageous suspension during the Waterfront Dispute of 1951). He was strongly committed to the ending of capital punishment; when courting he asked Beverley what she thought – she agreed, they married. From the time of the Sharpeville Massacre in 1960 he was a member of The Defence and Aid Fund which raised funds for apartheid's victims hauled before South Africa's courts (one of its successes was to prevent the execution of Nelson Mandela in 1963); he supported “No Maoris No Tour”, and he was a trustee of the Africa Information Centre in Wellington. In the politically turbulent 1980s, his house had the “boardroom” of the Kelburn Branch of the Labour Party which valiantly resisted the onslaught of Rogernomics; they lost then but contributed to the Party’s policy framework for the Clark administration. In despair he joined NewLabour. Later he joined Grey Power. There is hardly a progressive cause he was not involved in personally, as a financial contributor or as a pamphleteer and often all three. He wrote a number of books including children’s readers, pamphlets (“Know The New Right”), scholarly bibliographies (“School Books Published In New Zealand To 1960” and “Beverley Randell: A Check List Of Books Written By Her, Mainly For Children, Between 1955 And 1995”) and a couple of regional picture books based on postcards he and his daughter had collected. His most widely known work is “The Plot To Subvert Wartime New Zealand”, turned into a film, “Spies And Lies”, soon to be screened on TV. If the story, involving the first head of the Security Intelligence Bureau who made an utter ass of himself, was not such a farce, one might think that Hugh was getting his own back on the way the SIB treated him (Jeremy Agar reviewed “The Plot To Subvert Wartime New Zealand” in Peace Researcher 35, December 2007, http://www.converge.org.nz/abc/pr35-151b.html. Ed.) In a way, the SIB was right. People with progressive ideas like Hugh have to be clobbered when they are young, to discourage them from being strong and committed. They might progress their ideals. The Bureau’s oversight was that Hugh had suffered persecution at school; he was fearless against those who went for him in his adult life. Hugh was such a gentle and modest man that it was hard to see the steel that was in his soul. Vince O’Sullivan says the only significant mistake he made was that he thought of himself as ordinary; he was extraordinary. Civil libertarians would say we are all extraordinary; in which case Hugh was extra-extraordinary. Beverley captures him even better. Citing Bunyan’s “Pilgrim’s Progress” she recalls that the much loved song “Who Would True Valour See” was spoken by Mr Valiant-for-the-Truth who resisted his persecutors. That is why it was sung at his funeral; there was the source of the steel in his gentle soul. Public Acknowledgements For A Stirrer Towards the end of his life, public acknowledgements began to flow, including an honorary doctorate from his alma mater. Thinking about our universities’ statutory duty to be critics and consciences of society – a law more honoured in the breach than any since the 1976 Reserve Bank Act required the pursuit of full employment – I said to one of the University hierarchy “it’s great you are honouring a stirrer”. He looked shocked; there are hardly any stirrers on the University’s board of honorary doctorates. “We are recognising him for his contributions for services to publishing and for his contribution to New Zealand literature”. Fair enough; we would not expect the Establishment to honour public intellectuals even that if their laws says they should do. What perhaps escaped the eminent person was that publishers are natural stirrers, as argued by Milton’s “Areopagitica”, which Hugh studied at that university. You only have to look at what Hugh published and wrote, to realise his was a stirring record (don’t underestimate children’s readers; Hugh believed that literacy was necessary for civil liberties; he and Beverley believed that quality content in early reading books helped build that literacy). His other activities doubled those considerable achievements. The real honour for Mr Valiant-for-the-Truth is the affection and respect of his community. You will be able to capture a glimpse of the outpourings in “Defender Of The Vulnerable: Tributes To Hugh Price 1929-2009” (to be published by Steele Roberts later in 2010), but perhaps he would take greater delight in knowing that his efforts, and Beverley’s, helped so many young children to learn to read.
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