Watchdog 134 (January 2014, http://www.converge.org.nz/watchdog/34/13.html) featured my obituary of Bob Leonard – founder and leader of the Anti-Bases Campaign (ABC), long time Editor or Co-Editor of Peace Researcher, veteran CAFCA member, close colleague and dear friend for 30 years (not to mention being my paymaster – he was Treasurer of the CAFCA/ABC Organiser Account, which provides my income, for decades). In it I said that ABC intended to physically honour Bob’s memory. There is a precedent for this. During our January 2006 Waihopai spy base protest we planted a memorial native tree for Owen Wilkes, ABC and CAFCA founder, world renowned peace researcher and activist, who had killed himself the previous year. It was planted at the Onamalutu Department of Conservation camp that ABC used to stay at in Marlborough and was planted alongside trees planted in memory of Green Party Co-Leader Rod Donald who had also died, of natural causes, in 2005. Rod was, likewise, a leading ABC activist and an active CAFCA member.

We also resolved to get Christchurch the self-proclaimed Peace City to officially honour Owen, one of its most famous peace activists, in the form of a memorial plaque on a bench in Beckenham Park, the neighbourhood in which he grew up. This took a long time to steer through the City Council bureaucracy but it finally happened, the Council paid for it, and the then Mayor, Garry Moore, officially opened it in 2007; an event that was reported in the media (see Peace Researcher 35, December 2007, for my report on that, “Owen Wilkes Christchurch Memorial [Finally] Opened”, http://www.converge.org.nz/abc/pr35-155.html).The bench and plaque are still unscathed and resplendent in their beautiful setting despite thousands of earthquakes, not to mention regular floods of the neighbouring Heathcote River during Christchurch’s record rainfall of 2014.

In January 2014, during ABC’s Waihopai protest, we planted a native tree (a lemonwood) for Bob at the Whites Bay Department of Conservation camp where we have camped for the past several years. DoC gave us permission, as long as we only planted a tree indigenous to that area, there was no plaque and the planting ceremony did not disrupt things for the other campers (the same conditions had applied to the Owen memorial tree at Onamalutu). Steffan Browning, local Green MP and veteran ABC activist, took responsibility for supplying the tree. In a particularly nice touch he invited the kids who were camping with us to do the honours – that was highly appropriate, as Bob loved kids (as well as being a passionate defender of native forests). Bob had camped there with us during Waihopai protests, most recently in 2010.

ABC also decided to install a memorial plaque on a Christchurch park bench, in a place of significance to Bob. We chose Centaurus Park, which is within a stone’s throw of his Huntsbury Hill home, where he and Barbara lived for 29 years before the February 2011 earthquake wrecked the house and permanently drove them to Wellington (where Bob died in August 2013, aged 74). It was the park where Bob used to walk his beloved dogs every day. Things have changed vis a vis the City Council as a result of the quakes (to put it very mildly) and, unlike the Owen plaque, there was no Council offer to pay for Bob’s one. Faced with a cost of several thousand dollars if we had to pay for a bench to be made, as well as a plaque, we settled on getting it installed on an existing bench in that park. Bob’s widow Barbara generously paid for the plaque (she told us that she was happy to do so as Bob has no headstone – his family scattered his ashes in his native California). Given the choice of two benches - one facing away from, and one facing towards their former home - she chose the latter. It is very close to a kids’ playground which, once again, is very appropriate for Bob.

Event To “Open” Plaque

ABC “opened” the plaque on the first anniversary of Bob’s death, August 14th. How do you “open” a plaque, or a park bench for that matter? Simple, it was done just like the unveiling of a headstone – we draped the bench in a couple of ABC banners and declared it open by the simple expedient of removing them. 18 hardy people gathered in the park during an absolutely freezing southerly (at least it had stopped raining, and it didn’t hail, unlike the previous day) and we kept it short and sweet. Several people, including myself, spoke briefly and off the cuff – speakers included old friends, and former colleagues from Lincoln University where he worked for decades (it was pointed out that there is also a plaque for Bob at Lincoln). Mike Knowles, lead defence lawyer for the Waihopai Domebusters in their criminal trial acquittal, told how Bob had been a key component of the defence team, particularly via his expert witness affidavit. City Councillor Yani Johanson spoke about how Bob had been a mentor to him when he was a young half-American adjusting to life in Christchurch and getting involved as a political activist (Yani was on the ABC Committee for more than a decade). As a canine solidarity gesture, he brought his two dogs to the opening – but they are about 95% smaller than the greyhounds that Bob used to walk in Centaurus Park (and one of them is 100% less furry) Former ABC Committee member Melanie Oakley made a special trip from Ashburton to pay respects to Bob (she last saw him in 2000 before she left for years in London). Warren Thomson finished it off by calling for a minute’s silence.

Huntsbury is an area which suffered extensive land damage and Centaurus Park reflects that, with artesian springs coming to the surface and making it very wet and muddy after that record rainfall of autumn 2014. Not to mention the 37 million litres of water that disappeared into the ground in that area when the February 2011 quake split the floor open of one of the city’s major reservoirs, further up Huntsbury Hill. All that water had to go somewhere. So, if you’re coming to view Bob’s plaque, bring your gumboots (I’m not kidding. I had to wear mine to the opening. What wonderful Kiwiana!). It is actually within a short walking distance from Owen’s plaque in Beckenham Park. As for Bob’s nearby house, it has been unoccupied and overgrown since February 2011. ABC went into it in February 2013 and got out a whole lot of Bob’s papers. Barbara has been paid out by the insurance company and has bought herself a new home in Wellington. Life goes on.