Mary McAlpine died early in the morning of Saturday October 7, 2000 in the Mary Potter Hospital, Christchurch, at the age of 81. Although she was not religious, her funeral on Wednesday October 11 was held in the Church of St Michael and All Angels, led by her longtime friend and political ally, Fa-ther Jim Consedine. At the start of the service, Vicar Peter Williams explained that it was an appro-priate place for Mary’s funeral, despite her beliefs, because her mother’s father, Henry Jacobs, had been the first priest of this church (later Dean of Christchurch Cathedral), and her mother had been brought up in the vicarage across the road, now Tiffany’s Restaurant, where the reception was held.

Deputy PM and Leader of the Alliance Party, Jim Anderton, left a Cabinet meeting and flew to Christ-church to speak at the funeral. He praised Mary’s devotion to others and her dedicated support of the Alliance. Despite her Christchurch Establishment ancestry (her grandfather was the first headmaster at Christ’s College, 150 years ago; her father was an Anglican Archdeacon), Mary was a staunch so-cialist all her life. She and her husband Bruce (see Bruce’s obituary, in Watchdog 72, March 1993. Ed.), and daughter Jacquie, were founding members of the New Labour Party when Jim broke with the Rogernomic betrayal of Labour Party principles. The McAlpines were dedicated grassroots cam-paigners in Jim’s electorate of Wigram.

Helen Mary Hewland was Christchurch born and bred, with a loving mother who singlehandedly brought up a family of six. Educated at St Margaret’s College, Mary then studied to be a dental nurse, and her first posting was to Rangiora, where she met teacher Bruce McAlpine. Shortly there-after Bruce refused the draft and spent the World War 11 years in detention, his courageous refusal to cooperate with the authorities making him a legend among pacifists. After the war Mary and Bruce were married, and when Bruce was barred from teaching, they moved to Northland to eke out a living on a 50 acre block near Kerikeri, in the Bay of Islands, most of their income coming from Mary’s dental nursing at a local school. After ten years of hard work, they decided it was not a good life for their three children, so they agreed that Bruce should follow Mary into the dental profession, and at the age of 36 he entered Otago Dental School, in Dunedin. For five hard years, Mary worked fulltime to support the family - fortunately for them, that was long before the crippling tuition fees dentistry students now have to pay!

When Bruce qualified, they moved back to Christchurch, where they finally had the time to participate in local political activities. They joined the Labour Party (later leaving it for New Labour and the Alli-ance) and were keen members of the Sumner Peace Group, Corso, Anti-Bases Campaign, the anti-nuclear movement and the anti-apartheid movement. They worked closely with the late Peter and Dulcie Stocker in all these activities (see Dulcie’s obituary in Watchdog 92, December 1999. Ed.). Mary had been a member of CAFCA since 1991, was a regular donor, and a generous supporter of the CAFCA/ABC Organiser Account, which provides Murray Horton’s income.

Because of their socialist beliefs and desire to forge friendly links internationally, Mary and Bruce joined a medical group to tour China in 1974, which awakened their passion for Chinese society, cul-ture and people. On their return, they joined the New Zealand China Society (as it was then called) and soon became members of the local committee, on which Mary served for 24 years, the last ten as vice-president. They also joined the NZ-Democratic People’s Republic of Korea Society, founded by Wolf Rosenberg and, together with the Stockers, Norman and Betty Roberts and others, visited North Korea in 1980. The McAlpines also toured Eastern Europe, staying with Esperanto-speaking hosts and establishing friendly links everywhere.

Mary went to China again in 1984 with a study group and later in a leaders delegation of the New Zealand China Friendship Society. She developed personal friendships with several Chinese who had stayed in their Balmoral home overlooking the estuary and across Pegasus Bay to the Kaikouras. One of these friends, Lu Wanru, stayed with Mary four times. Her tribute to Mary, read at the funeral, in-cluded these words: "She is not only a long standing dear friend of mine, but a true friend of the Chi-nese people. My stay with her and Bruce in Christchurch formed the most pleasant and memorable memories in my life. I will treasure their memory forever".

As well as her political activities, Mary was an accomplished artist, working in various media. One of her lithographs was included in a New Zealand exhibition in New York. Mary was also an active member of the Friends of the Robert McDougall Gallery, often guiding visitors to the gallery, and en-couraged friends to develop their artistic skills through workshops and drawing classes. She had a fine collection of paintings and pottery by New Zealand artists.

Mary leaves a brother in London and three children, Jacquie in Christchurch, Christine in Palmerston North, and John in Cologne, where he is a concert pianist. At the funeral, John played a piece he had written for her birthday some years ago. Not only they, but many Cantabrians will miss Mary’s rich contribution to community life, her talents, her dedication, her wit and her kindness.

New Labour Party

The New Labour Party formally ceased to exist by decision of its October 2000 Conference, with members simply merging into the Alliance (which has been the reality for a long time anyway). CAFCA never had any dealings with New Labour, as opposed to the Alliance, with whom we have had and continue to have, extensive dealings.

But it is appropriate for us to record our gratitude for the farsighted and courageous move by Jim An-derton, then the backbench Labour MP for Sydenham (now Wigram), to walk out of the Rogernomics Labour Party of the late 1980s, and strike out on his own. Such a move under the old First Past the Post electoral system was usually a one way ticket to oblivion. Jim was widely derided for it. Instead, he and fellow disgusted ex-Labour members (such as the McAlpine family), created the New Labour Party, and he retained the seat (against all precedents) as a New Labour MP. Then, of course, New Labour was derided as a one man band, Jim’s party. They proved them wrong on that too.

New Labour played a pivotal role in the creation of the Alliance, in the early 90s, consisting of it, Democrats, Greens, Mana Motuhake and Liberals. Today, the Alliance has developed its own entity as a party – the Greens declared independence and are in Parliament in their own right; the Liberals died; the Democrats and Mana Motuhake still retain their own branches and identity within the Alli-ance. But without New Labour, the Alliance would not have come into being, and would certainly not be in government today. It deserves recognition for that fact alone.

One World Books, on Auckland’s Karangahape Road, closed in late 2000. It was the country’s leading pro-gressive bookshop, and for years was the only bookshop which stocked Watchdog. It remained the only Auck-land bookshop to do so. Ed.

It's sad to see the end of One World Books, New Zealand's only remaining broad left movement bookshop. I was the shop manager between 1990 and December 7 1999, when overnight I disappeared to Parliament (as a Green list MP. Ed.).

I put a lot of effort into the shop for two reasons. Firstly, because I think it important that people trying to change the world and save the planet have access to the best literature to inform and motivate their campaigns. And secondly, because a progressive bookshop is an important "counter-institution".

I understood this as I was growing up in Christchurch, visiting and buying my books at Coop Books. It was almost sacrilege in our family not to buy your books there. If you were on the Left, you joined a union and you bought your books at Coop Books (or Modern Books in Wellington or Progressive Books in Auckland).

Progressive bookshops like One World Books have always been a meeting place, with activists feeling it as part of them, unlike commercial shops. This is not to say that other bookshops that re-main do not having that feeling, like the women's bookshops and some quality independents, and serve a progressive audience in particular niches.

But I think there is always a place for the broad progressive bookshop, relating to all the issues as they develop. For example, One World got into the environment, development, indigenous issues, globalisation, women's and gay issues in a way the progressive bookshops of earlier decades did not.

Why did One World Books fail? It was always running on the financial edge, and on too small a scale to make quite the impact on the market it could. And without that oomph that perhaps a bigger finan-cial backing would have produced it was hard to counter negative factors. These included the steep price of imported specialist books and the tendency of people to buy such books directly on the Inter-net. Also, we were a long way from resurrecting the past loyalty to Left bookshops, where a high pro-portion of movement people would go out of their way to buy at the progressive bookshop. We did get quite a good round-the-country mail order service going, but not enough to really underpin the shop.

All is not lost. Although we never fully utilised the Internet, I think in the future this will help progres-sive bookshops in New Zealand because having books both on the internet and in the shop will be a powerful combination. People in smaller centres ill-served by bookshops, will be an important mail order base for such a shop - as they were to a growing extent with One World.

In little ways people will miss the shop. For example, where will Aucklanders and people visiting Auckland get their Watchdog or Peace Researcher or Kapatiran now the shop is closed?