OBITUARIES
GARRY ARTHUR
- Murray Horton
Garry Arthur, who died in September 2024, aged 88, first joined CAFCA in 1980 (when the annual sub was $3!). Apart from a couple of gaps of a few years each in the 1980s and 90s, he remained a member up until his death. And he was a generous one, regularly including a sizeable donation with his sub, as well as being a very generous donor, for more than 20 years, to the CAFCA/ABC Organiser Account, which provides my income.
Garry valued CAFCA greatly, and it was the only group mentioned by name in his Press obituary (10/11/24) by his daughter Susan Arthur: "Garry remained a 'Leftie' and believer in social justice all his life and was a long-time supporter of the group CAFCA, which opposes all aspects of foreign control of New Zealand". She wrote to me: "He was definitely a keen CAFCA supporter and there was usually a copy of your Watchdog lying close to hand in Dad's living room".
Veteran Senior Journalist
The really interesting thing is that, for the first decade of Garry's 30 odd years of CAFCA membership, he was a senior journalist and feature writer at the Press. In those days, the Press was the mouthpiece of the Canterbury Establishment and the old school one, at that. My Dear Old Dad was a National voter for a goodly chunk of his life but, despite that, he never subscribed to the Press, which he described as being the paper "for North Canterbury gentleman farmers".
So, that was the capacity in which I first met Garry, in the most unpromising of circumstances. One morning in the late 1970s I was reading the Press before going to work at the Railways. I was surprised, to put it mildly, to find myself on the front page, in an article about a national catalogue of Police malpractice (the case involving me had happened at the beginning of the 70s and remains the only criminal court case I ever won, out of more than I can remember). The Press hadn't contacted me and, from memory, there were some inaccuracies.
There was another feature to it, namely that it is standard journalistic practice that, in anything involving crime or court cases, the full name of the subject is used. So, there it was, on the front page of the Press - Murray Donald Horton. I know, from having once hosted a middle name party, that some people would rather die than reveal their middle name - let alone wear it on a name tag, as required at that party. I don't mind my middle name (after all, Donald is having quite a global moment right now) but it's not what I call myself. In those days everyone read the paper, even hard case Railways workers. So, when I duly arrived at work that morning, I was greeted by knowing winks and "hello, Donald".
Suffice to say that I was pissed off with the Press and rang them up to chew out the reporter who wrote it - that was Garry, who apologised and explained that he didn't usually handle court cases or Police stories (he later told me that the cop named in his article as being involved with my historic case took umbrage and threatened the Press with legal action, receiving a modest out of court settlement. The cop had seen the article as implying wrongdoing by him; I had always seen it as a typical Police cock up).
From that most inauspicious beginning, the relationship between Garry and I could only get better. Did it ever! I had a very active relationship with the media at that time. This was before the Internet, e-mail, mobile phones or even faxes. So, my regular output of typewritten press releases was distributed by dictation over a land line or by personal delivery to the various newspaper, radio and TV news rooms around town, quite often during my Railways lunch break, on my bike, in my work overalls and steel capped boots.
I became a familiar figure in those newsrooms, making good contacts among all manner of journalists, of whom Garry was one of the most valued (news room access became not so straightforward a few years later when the Press employed security guards to control visitors to the building. Nowadays it's all done electronically or via mobile phone. I haven't set foot in a news room in many years).
Wrote Regular Features On CAFCINZ/CAFCA
Throughout the 1980s, which was his last decade as a journalist, Garry regularly featured CAFCA and I in Press feature articles. I don't keep a scrapbook of old clippings but I don't have to - our old mates the Security Intelligence Service did it for me. As part of my research for this obituary, I had a look through the SIS files on both CAFCA and me personally. I found several features by Garry (ironically, I found no trace of his article that led me to first contact him). This gives a sample of his progressive journalism.
In 1980 he wrote a long feature on me and CAFCINZ (as we were then called), titled "Survivors Of 1960s 'Angry Men' Are Still Leading Protests". Here's the first couple of paragraphs: "Where are they now, those angry, self-confident, dare-everything student protesters of the late 1960s? Many have doubtless drifted into the comforts of suburbia, their main reason for protest - the Vietnam War - long over, and the glorious freedoms of student life replaced by the restraints of marriage, mortgage and career".
"But not all. Those who released the 'Comalco papers' last week are the remnants who have stayed true to the protesters' convictions, in deeds as well as words. They call themselves the Campaign Against Foreign Control in New Zealand - a mouthful which nevertheless sums up the nationalism and resistance to foreign involvement which has been at the heart of the protest movement from the beginning". The article was illustrated by a photo of a bearded and long haired me and one of our classic Ron Currie graphics of Comalco's Bluff smelter devouring New Zealand. It highlighted, in big type, a quote from me: "We side with the doormat - the New Zealand people".
Owen Wilkes
In 1981 Garry wrote another big feature titled "Secret US Report Reveals How NZ Was 'Lured' Into Vietnam War". This was courtesy of the indefatigable Owen Wilkes*, then working in Sweden for the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute, who had unearthed 1960s' US documents and sent them to CAFCINZ. I was quoted as saying: "It quite clearly shows aggressive interference in New Zealand's internal affairs by the American Government".
* My obituary of Owen is in Watchdog 109, August 2005. It contains the sequel to Garry's 1981 article: "When I made my second OE trip, all over Europe in 1984, he (Owen) told me that if I checked out a particular university library in Denmark, I would find fascinating stuff about recent US/NZ relations because that library collected the papers of all US Presidents".
"I duly broke my holiday to go there and came home with material so newsworthy about how the Johnson Administration had (unsuccessfully) tried to pressure the Holyoake government into committing more NZ troops to the Vietnam War, in the 1960s, that the Press stuck the 20-year-old story on its front page and on its billboard".
In July 1985, Garry recorded the start of what became a 24-year saga for CAFCA. His article was titled: "SIS Bound By Official Information Act But Its Lips Are Sealed". To quote: "One organisation which has been fobbed off with the 'neither confirm nor deny' line is the Christchurch-based Campaign Against Foreign Control in New Zealand".
"Its name cropped up in clippings which the SIS produced in court as part of the file material it held on Mr Don Carson, who was suing the Crown because he had been named on the former Prime Minister, Sir Robert Muldoon's, 1981 SIS list of 'subversives and radicals' involved in the anti-Springbok tour movement". CAFCA finally received our SIS file in 2009 (see my article "SIS Spied On CAFCA For Quarter Of A Century", in Watchdog 120, May 2009).
In August 1985 Garry wrote a feature titled "Seminar Honours Dr Sutch". To quote: "The Campaign Against Foreign Control in New Zealand is holding two memorial one-day seminars, to analyse Labour's economic policies and the second on the Security Intelligence Service. It says Dr Sutch was an inspiration to the organisation's founders" (see my article "Speaking Ill Of The Dead. The Vicious Smear Campaign Against Bill Sutch And Jack Lewin", in Watchdog 113, December 2006).
Philip Agee
In 1986 Garry wrote a feature titled "CIA Rebel Expects US Bid To Block Him Speaking In NZ". This was about the attempt by CAFCA (as we had now become) to organise an NZ speaking tour by "renegade CIA agent Philip Agee... CAFCA, which has campaigned against the New Zealand Security Intelligence Service, has invited Philip Agee to talk about his own life, and to tell what he knows of CIA 'destabilisation' campaigns, especially in view of recent evidence of CIA activities in the South Pacific".
The article centred on our fear that Agee would be denied a visa to enter NZ, because of US pressure and it quoted a letter that I had written, on behalf of CAFCA: "'It would be naïve in the extreme to imagine that the United States Embassy, the CIA, the SIS, etc., will take his visit lying down', said its letter to supporters. 'It is possible that organisers of his visit will themselves be harassed by the intelligence netherworld'...".
The issue was never put to the test. After I'd spent three years trying to organise an NZ speaking tour for him (plus coordinating with likely Australian organisers), Agee decided that he couldn't come, for personal reasons. My obituary of him is in Watchdog 117, April 2008.
I've quoted from these 1980s' Press features by Garry, not for reasons of vanity (well, not exclusively, anyway) but to illustrate the point that he rendered extraordinary service to CAFCINZ/CAFCA and to the various issues we were campaigning on during that decade. They also show that the Press, which was most assuredly not in ideological alignment with us (still true today) took itself seriously and was prepared to run material like this, at length, and give coverage to groups like us and people like me. In those days the reach and influence of a major paper like the Press was extensive, in stark contrast to today.
Nor was Garry's coverage of me confined to CAFCINZ/CAFCA. In 1987 he wrote a feature titled "Are Filipinos Better Off Under Aquino", in which he interviewed me about my first visit to the Philippines, which was an exposure tour (see my obituary of President Cory Aquino in Kapatiran [Solidarity] 32, October 2009).
Wood Carver; Good Friend
Garry quit the Press and journalism, in the early 90s, after decades of both. He told me that he quit when the Press computerised the news room. Then he commenced a new life, pursuing his other great love - wood carving, which he practised for decades until the cumulative adverse effects of the glues, etc., used in the craft got too much for him.
Throughout the decades that I knew Garry - as a journalist, a wood carver and then a retiree - we were good friends. We socialised together; we attended parties at each other's homes. He was a friend to my former partner and to my wife, Becky. There are several of Garry's beautiful wooden art works in our home, the most striking of which is a hand holding a light (which we have as a bedside light).
My favourite is a (literally) cheeky matching pair of buttock book ends - Garry told me they could also be used as letter holders, but only of a single letter each. As a wedding present, he gave Becky and I a luxuriant Old English rose bush, which has grown to a great size, with spectacular white roses. I see it every time I look out of my office window or that of our dining room.
In the late 80s I briefly brought Garry and I together with a couple of other guys, neither of whom previously knew Garry or each other (I was the one person the other three knew). All four of us were writers and Garry and one of the other guys were craftsmen. We all got together because we had those things in common and because we found each other interesting, to put it mildly. One of them was Mervyn Thompson, the famous playwright and a controversial figure in the turbo-charged sexual politics of the 80s (my obituary of him is in Watchdog 70, pages 73 & 74, August 1992).
The other one, Barry Thomson, was even more unusual - he was a cop, whom I'd met when I'd shifted his furniture, in the course of my Railways job (in 1981, that most fraught year for relations between protesters and cops). We'd become mates, unlikely as that may seem (I remember the surprise of friends when Barry came to a party at my place: "Is that big guy a cop"?).
Barry was skilled with his hands - he made the official crest displayed on the outside of the former Christchurch Police Station; he co-wrote the official history of the Christchurch Police District (my copy has a very touching handwritten message from him); and he had some wonderful, not to mention stomach churning, stories from his days as the national Police Museum Director and the constable assisting the Christchurch Coroner. The four of us got on really well precisely because we were so different.
Garry was married three times - I met his third wife, Jill Richardson, plus a couple of his earlier partners. In the case of one, I became a regular at her central city café in the 80s and 90s and got her to do the catering for my 40th birthday party. The other one I met, years later, was Maggie Leask, who died of cancer in 2012. Her funeral was unique, in my experience. She had two very different careers - as the popular host of a local TV gardening show, and as the civilian spokesperson for the Christchurch Police. So, her funeral was a mixture of TV people, gardeners and cops.
Highly Skilled Wordsmith
Garry was a lovely, friendly, very talented and very helpful man. He was a highly skilled wordsmith, with an eye for the unusual. He was the only person I know who used the phrase in durance vile when talking about a long prison sentence. He knew what he liked and what he didn't like. He once declined my invitation to join me at a particular central city café. His wife Jill explained "he doesn't like the flies", which only left me mystified until I remembered that this café has flies on their inside bottoms of its cups, which only reveal themselves when you've finished your coffee.
For the final decade and more of his long life, Garry was afflicted with Parkinson's disease (he told me his doctor diagnosed him simply by asking him to walk across the surgery). It manifested itself in all sorts of ways - he didn't speak at Maggie's 2012 funeral because it had damaged his vocal cords. When I last saw him, a few years ago at a local mall, he was on a walking frame and had a bad shake. It's a vicious thing.
Below is the eulogy by his daughter, Susan Arthur, which formed the basis of her Press obituary of him. It is wonderfully well written, so I'll leave her to tell Garry's life story. For my part, I'll say that I greatly enjoyed my friendship with Garry during the 40+ years that I knew him. He was a good friend, not only to me and mine, but to CAFCA and the broader progressive movement.
GARRY JAMES ARTHUR
Journalist and Artist
30 March 1936 - 13 September 2024
- Susan Arthur
Garry was born in Dunedin to Kath and Len Arthur in March 1936 and his early life was spent in the small West Otago settlement of Heriot. It was a time of much mischief with his elder sister Jill and many adventures, such as trying to parachute from the coalhouse roof holding the four corners of a large handkerchief and decorating an outside wall of the family home in a medley of colours with the scrag ends of various house paints.
Childhood Adventures
It was a time when milk came in bulk to fill the household's milk billy, meat was delivered in a van by a driver who always gave the kids a cooked saveloy, children's dress-up costumes were made out of old sugar bags, and Garry's father dug the "nightsoil" into the garden where he grew beautiful delphiniums. Garry had a busy inquiring mind and as a young boy, when the family moved to Christchurch, he continued to put it to experiments such as nailing a rough boat frame together, tacking sacking around it, boiling up tar on a fire in the backyard and painting it all over to build a boat to sail - well, actually to at first sink - in Dudley Creek.
Garry later wrote that it was a surprise they all survived these escapades. One was inspired by a story he read about a boy who made a diving helmet. Great idea, Garry thought. A friend and Garry found a kerosene tin about the right size for a diving helmet, and cut a viewing window in one side. They used some sticky black mastic to fix a bit of glass in the hole.
Finding some roofing lead, they heated it in the backyard and cast two heavy lead sandals and some weights to go around the waist to keep the diver down. Joined-up bicycle inner tubes were to supply the air from a hand-operated pump. They had just persuaded a smaller friend to be the guinea pig when word reached the adults that they were about to try the diving helmet out at the Shirley School pool. The project was firmly cancelled, wasting a lot of hard work and, as Garry said, leaving an entire avenue of practical science unexplored.
It was at intermediate school that Garry discovered the joy of shaping a piece of wood. Making a model yacht with its hull from a solid piece of kahikatea, Garry said he loved the way you could create a fair curve on the bow with judicious sweeps of the razor-sharp spoke-shave at the same time as creating beautiful swirls of shavings.
Garry described himself as an uncooperative member of Bible class at St Stephens Anglican Church in Shirley, despite being a choir boy and a confirmation ceremony performed by the Archbishop at Christ Church Cathedral, and he soon became a lifelong atheist. As Garry said; he had given religion a good shot and he still liked the hymns. Garry went to university but said he only had the vaguest idea of why he was there and threw in the towel after his first year.
He had also landed a job at the Press as a cadet reporter on the basis of his good English marks. It was the days of metal type and one part of his cadetship was a stint in the reading room to be a copyholder for one of the proof-readers checking for mistakes. Garry remembered following the court news with his mouth open in amazement as details were read of the Parker-Hume case - in which two schoolgirls were accused of taking the mother of one up to Victoria Park and killing her with a brick swung in a stocking. Reporters from all over the world were in town for the case (see Peter Jackson's 1994 movie "Heavenly Creatures". Ed.).
From Drainage Board Meetings To Famous Interviewees
Young reporters were sent out on jobs with no advice or preparation. It might be to a meeting of some local body such as the Drainage Board or to interview some visiting actor or businessman, armed only with the name and the vaguest idea of who they were. Garry remembered with gratitude the reaction of the famous pianist Arthur Rubinstein when he confessed that he knew little about him or indeed about classical music. "Now let me see," he mused in a kindly tone. "What can we think up for you to write about?"
Garry hated trying to interview more than one person at a time. The worst were the American pop group, the Beach Boys. They were in a crazy mood and none of them made any sense. The Beatles held a big press conference at the Clarendon Hotel where they were staying, and reporters were allocated one Beatle each to interview. Garry's was George Harrison.
Garry interviewed many interesting people, including Kiri Te Kanawa, Ben Elton, Jackie Stewart, Cliff Richard, Brian Brake, Ngaio Marsh, Sir John Gielgud, and the Duke of Bedford who was lampooned by Peter Sellers, but assured Garry that it was "better to be looked over than to be overlooked".
The Press editorial floor then was truly Dickensian, with its acres of old solid oak desks, its walls stained brown from years of tobacco smoke, and hung with dismal oil paintings of previous luminaries. A sub-editor who was an avowed communist and always wore a red tie was among the interesting characters who made a lasting impression on Garry.
A Socialist
Garry was interested in Leftwing ideas but was never attracted to the totalitarian idea of communism. He was a socialist, believing in a cooperative society, not a competitive one. Those were days of hysteria about reds-under-the-bed, and to have a real live one in the office was exciting. Garry remained a "Leftie" and believer in social justice all his life and was a long-time supporter of the group CAFCA, which opposes all aspects of foreign control of New Zealand. Another highlight of Garry's working career was being chosen twice to go to the Antarctic as a journalist, to McMurdo Sound, Cape Hallet Station, and the South Pole.
During these early years at the Press Garry married Lois Beckingsale and had two children Susan and Simon. Garry came and went from the Press many times as he pursued other paths, including a two-year stint at the Melbourne Herald and, after his marriage disintegrated, a year or two running the Sign of the Takahe restaurant with a friend. Garry married Linda Winskill in 1968 and said he was always grateful to her for taking on his existing small family, Susan and Simon.
Three Years In London
In 1970 Garry was chosen to be the London correspondent for the four main New Zealand daily newspapers. He described it as a plum job and his office was in Fleet Street. For most of their time in London Garry and family lived in a terrace house in Westminster, near the Tate Gallery. There seemed to be a steady stream of Kiwis and Aussies visiting and taking advantage of any spare bed or couch. The family's first holiday foray was to Ireland and Scotland in a Mini with camping gear tied to the roof but later graduated to a camper van to explore continental Europe.
After three years in London the family was ready to swap grey skies and seas for what Garry described as our birthright blue. Daniel was born in 1974 and Emily in 1976 - and in spite of the added responsibility, Garry decided to start a fortnightly publication, which he called Time Off, about what was on in town. It was hard work and not a business success, and Garry was relieved when the editor of the Press asked him to come back and write a daily column of short humorous or otherwise interesting pieces on any subject he liked. They called it Reporter's Diary and it became a popular fixture. Later Garry switched to feature writing.
Art Furniture
But woodworking became more demanding, and he abandoned journalism in the early 90s to work at home, making what the Americans call "art furniture". Garry made a seat in the form of two human hands, which led to other signature designs using hands as holding devices. Garry took part with a dozen other makers in an annual Alternative Furniture Show and managed to scratch a living, without getting rich.
He had some interesting commissions such as a very big mural for a new Wellington building which he made in the form of a fringe of native kahikatea trees like those on the shore of Lake Matheson. Another was a set of lamps held by giant hands in different poses for a Christchurch restaurant called Sticky Fingers. They were lost in the earthquake of 2010.
Garry scored one of the new craft studios at the Arts Centre and invited Tony Shatford, a highly skilled wood carver, to join him. They took turns at manning the studio, which was open to the public, and became good friends. They didn't make much money - there's an old saying that "carvers are starvers" - but they managed to keep afloat. Garry never really gave a toss about money. Or flash houses or cars and the like.
A second marriage break-down had left Garry single again, and eventually he partnered up with Maggie Leask, who was the Christchurch Police spokesperson, and presenter of a popular local TV gardening show. After ten happy years living in a historic house at Sandy Bay, in Governors Bay, they moved to town, only to suffer a terrible blow: Maggie was diagnosed with breast cancer, and after a long illness, she died in 2012.
Not long after, Garry married their lovely mutual friend Jill Richardson - just as Maggie had advised him to do. They lived in wedded bliss ever since. Jill took Garry on knowing that he was 17 years older than her and that he had Parkinson's - a progressive disease with the discouraging prognosis that you are bound to get worse. Luckily, its progress was quite slow.
Garry had given up woodworking by this time, but made some beautiful woodcuts and linocuts, and dabbled in some glasswork and stone carving. Garry was also a keen gardener, taking enormous pleasure from the cottage gardens he grew with Maggie and Jill. He particularly loved old-fashioned roses, and was a keen admirer of poppies and sweet peas. Garry also loved the New Zealand landscape and bush and was a supporter of Hinewai Reserve.
Kind, Well-Read, Humorous Man
Garry was not just a parent and grandfather; he was also a good friend to his children and grandchildren. He was kind, well-read man, and humorous. He did not criticise others, and gave his children total freedom to choose their life paths. Parkinson's stole agency and many of life's pleasures from Garry, but he was a stoic and never stopped trying to do things and to live his life the way he wanted as much as possible. Even in his last days he was busy writing a children's story, admiring the cherry blossom in Hagley Park and keeping an eye out for the spring displays of kowhai flowers. As the Chinese philosopher Confucius said: "We have two lives; the second begins when we realise we only have one".
JOAN HAZLEHURST
- Murray Horton
Joan Hazlehurst, who died in November 2024, aged 80, died on the day of the Christchurch launch of Maire Leadbeater's book "The Enemy Within" (elsewhere in this issue you will find both an extract from that book, and a review of it). The book is about Security Intelligence Service (SIS) spying on the Left (I'm in the book, as one of those spied on - along with plenty of other people well known to Watchdog readers).
Joan is mentioned in the book - I helped her get her SIS file in 2023. I paid tribute to her in my speech at the launch on the night of her death. People looked at me blankly, until I said that 50 years ago, they would have known her as Joan Wilkes, from when she was married to Owen (my obituary of Owen Wilkes is in Watchdog 109, August 2005).
Her funeral was a few days later. I spoke at the after party (billed as "Joan's Shout"). I took along the book and Joan's SIS file and quoted them in my speech. Afterwards I got a message from her brother, Ron Hazlehurst (whom I've known since the 1970s): "Thanks also for your comments on the new book and SIS documents - several of the younger family members were astonished at your revelations of her past".
So, what was Joan's past? Maire Leadbeater's book research included her (only partly successful) attempt to secure Owen Wilkes' SIS file. Reading those documents led me, in 2019, to straight away ring Joan (the exact 1976 date of their legal separation is recorded in the file) to inform her that she was listed in it as "Relative Of Interest" (i.e., wife) and was therefore likely to be the subject of her own SIS file. I urged Joan to apply for it.
SIS Spied On Her Because She Was Married To Owen Wilkes
She didn't do so until 2023, when she asked the SIS for what it had on file about her. And she duly received a small amount of material, in May 2023, which she promptly copied to me. The accompanying letter to her (15/5/23) from SIS Director, Andrew Hampton, says that she was never the subject of an SIS Personal File. Any material it held on her was in Owen's file.
There is one paragraph in Hampton's letter that cannot pass without challenge, in fact it is breathtaking. "As a high-profile peace activist during a period when the USSR sought to use the legitimate peace movement to further its own geo-political objectives, Owen Wilkes came to NZSIS attention (as did you, purely by association). Mr Wilkes was never, however, considered to be a threat to security" (my emphasis. MH). Which begs the question: If "Mr Wilkes was never considered to be a threat to security", why did the SIS spy on him for decades (and on people close to him, such as his then wife)? Why does the SIS still refuse to release the bulk of its file on him?
Then there is the not-so-subtle smear of the "legitimate peace movement" being used by the former USSR to "further its own geo-political objectives". That was an outrageous lie then and even more so in a letter written in May 2023. What was Director Hampton implying? For example, is the suggestion that those who successfully campaigned for NZ to become nuclear free (something that is so much part of the cultural furniture that it is used in beer commercials) were puppets of the Kremlin?
The SIS needs to explain why it spied on someone for decades who was "never considered a threat to security". And release his full file forthwith. And the SIS needs to apologise to the peace movement (not just the "legitimate" one. Was there an illegitimate one?) for still spouting tired old Cold War libels.
SIS Couldn't Spell Her Name Correctly
I'm not going to detail any of what is in it about Owen in that latest release. It's from so long ago (Owen and Joan were married from 1964-76) and is frankly trivial. Although I was amused to see him describe his occupation on one international travel document as "subsistence farmer". SIS Director Hampton wrote to Joan: "We consider it is appropriate to explain why the NZSIS holds historical information about you from 1966 through to 1990. Briefly, you came to the attention of the NZSIS because of your membership of the NZ-China Friendship Society (NZCFS) and your marriage to Owen Wilkes".
"During the Cold War the various communist parties were deemed subversive and also their influence in front and friendship organisations, and mainstream protest movements. The NZCFS was among such friendship organisations until 1984, when the Society was assessed as no longer being of security interest" (letter, 15/5/23, ibid.). The SIS devoted a lot of time trying to track Joan's international travels during the 24 years it was spying on her.
When she sent her SIS file to me, she wrote: "They seem to have missed my trip to China in 1975 with the Workers Tour which sparked my interest in the NZ China Friendship Society. And they would have found me easier to track if they could spell my name correctly!" (the SIS consistently spelled her surname as Haslehurst).
Long March
In 1974 Owen and Joan and I were amongst the contingent of 11 New Zealanders who took part in the grandiosely titled Long March, which was actually a three-week bus trip right across Australia, from Sydney, to protest at the huge US Navy nuclear submarine communications base at North West Cape, the westernmost point of mainland Australia. My God, that was an adventure - I wrote several articles about it in Canta, the University of Canterbury student paper (I was the Editor that year). Here's an extract from one (issue 12, 14/6/74):
"Owen Wilkes, a New Zealander, emerged as the major spokesman on any technical questions, and was the only person with any throughgoing knowledge of the topic. For instance, the Perth people didn't know that North West Cape has its own procurement office in Perth until Owen found out by looking it up in the phone book!".
That spokesperson/technical expert role made him a marked man for the uniformed knucklemen that comprised the various Australian police forces and he was one of a number of people arrested at an "illegal" protest in Perth, and charged with "creating a disturbance". He simply did not turn up in court, so the charge was dropped. A whole book could be written about the Long March and, indeed, it is the subject of a short 1974 film (which was not actually finished and released until 40 years later and can be viewed online).
The actual trip, let alone the protests, was an epic in itself. For example, we crossed the Nullarbor Plain, several hundred kilometres of it, before that highway was sealed. Here's what I wrote in Canta 13 (24/6/74): "I developed a special affection for the Nullarbor - sitting over the axle, bumping your guts out all day and night, ploughing through sheets of water, staring through dust-caked windows at twisted scrub right down to the road's edge, and then a horizonless vista of treeless plain".
Resistance Ride
The Long March was a hugely influential trip for the NZ delegation, which decided that we would organise our own equivalent. This was the 1975 South Island Resistance Ride (on which several Australians took part) and, instead of the usual ad hoc or short-lived committees that had been set up to organise our previous activities, we decided it was time for something permanent.
Thus, was born the Campaign Against Foreign Control In New Zealand (CAFCINZ), which later changed its name to the Campaign Against Foreign Control of Aotearoa (CAFCA, as it is today). Owen was a founder of this organisation and he and Joan and I were amongst those on the two-week long Resistance Ride.
"Although the purpose of this trip was for education - of themselves and for people wherever they visited - they were followed all the way by two policemen, nicknamed Tom and Jerry, who often had nothing much to do and went fishing. However, they did act as liaison, so that ten to 20 police turned up at times, plus a mobile command post which followed them everywhere. Besides revisiting Harewood and Mount John - where police, reporters and cameramen waited at the base of the hill just in case they aimed to get onto the road to the top - the Resistance Riders visited many places of environmental concern..." ("Peace People", Elsie Locke).
CAFCA finally received our SIS file in 2008 - we had first asked for it in 1985 - and, as far as I'm aware, CAFCA remains the only organisation to have received the SIS file on it as an organisation, as opposed to the SIS files on individuals within it, like me and Owen. "Indeed, the very earliest batch of reports in the file, relating to the period leading up to and including our foundation activity, the 1975 South Island Resistance Ride, indicates that there may have been more than one (spy within CAFCA), as those earliest reports include features such as complete reproduction of minutes of our meetings and the full two-page list of names, addresses and phone numbers of all Resistance Ride participants (including Australians)".
"At the bottom it reads: 'Please note: This list has been compiled from the original addresses given to CAFCINZ for the Resistance Ride...' The Resistance Ride was the subject of extensive State surveillance" (see my article "SIS Spied On CAFCA For Quarter Of A Century", in Watchdog 120, May 2009).
Actively Involved With Us At Very Beginning
Joan was one of those who typed the very first versions of what was to become Watchdog onto stencils for printing on a Gestetner. She was an active participant in the Christchurch protest movement in the 1970s and 80s. Watchdog 161 (August 2023) includes a photo of Joan and Owen (who is carrying their daughter Koa) on a 1971 march, in front of a big banner reading "Apartheid Stinks". The only photo I have on display in my home office is an enlarged Press one of a 1980s' protest at the (still operating) US military transport base at Christchurch Airport - Joan and Koa are among the crowd.
As mentioned above, Joan and Owen split in 1976. I was the insensitive male who used to approach Joan at parties in the following decades and talk about Owen. After some time, she got sick of that and reminded me that she was no longer Owen's wife and asked me to stop talking to her about him. So, that's what I did.
Daughter's Suicide
But they remained friends and they had a daughter (the only child for both of them). Tragically, Koa killed herself in 1990, aged 21. She died in Christchurch - he rushed down from Wellington and stayed with me for several days. So, I saw close up, the impact of a suicide on the people who were nearest and dearest (Koa's was the most gruelling of the many funerals that I have attended). Owen blamed himself for her death, saying that she had inherited his depressive genes.
(In my above obituary of Garry Arthur I mention Barry Thomson, the cop who ended his career as the constable assisting the Christchurch Coroner. The only inquest I've ever attended was that of Koa Wilkes, which was purely a formality. I was the only member of the public there. Barry Thomson was the cop on duty at the Coroner's Court. Christchurch is a small world).
In 2005, Owen also killed himself, aged 65. I rang Joan to break the news and she cried. As the years went by, her attitude towards Owen softened. A few years ago, she asked me to send her my obituary of Owen, as she had to give a talk to a group to which she belonged. In 2022, when "Peacemonger" (the book of essays about Owen) came out, she was one of the small number of people who attended its Christchurch launch. Warren Thomson's review of "Peacemonger" is in Watchdog 162, April 2023.
Joan told me that she came to the launch because she wanted to meet May Bass, who spoke at it, and who had been Owen's partner in the dozen years up until his death (May died just a couple of months before Joan. My obituary of her is in Watchdog 167, December 2024).
In the immediate aftermath of that launch Joan contacted me, requesting another copy of the book for a relative. I personally delivered it to her home and we had the longest and most detailed one-on-one conversation we ever had in the 50 plus years we knew each other. A result was that Joan decided that she did want to apply for her SIS file and asked me to help her get it.
Tony Fomison
During our 2022 conversation at her home, I mentioned that I was involved in helping the author of a forthcoming book* about the famous artist Tony Fomison (who was a CAFCA member for years until his 1990 death. My obituary of him is in Watchdog 63, April 1990). Joan told me that she'd known Tony and his family since childhood and she showed me a work that he'd gifted her when he was a teenager in the 1950s. * That biography of Tony Fomison, the first one ever, was published in 2025. Sadly, Joan didn't live to see it.
Owen worked on various Canterbury Museum archaeological digs in the days when Roger Duff was the Museum's Director and forged an unlikely but enduring friendship with Tony Fomison. They shared many harebrained adventures on Māori rock art digs (such as getting stuck together in a North Canterbury cave without any food), and in the catalogue that accompanied Fomison's posthumous exhibition which toured the country in the 90s, there is a sketch of Owen and Tony together on a dig.
To quote Tony, from my obituary of him: "I led an expedition to Lewis Pass to look at what I thought was a Māori war canoe; Owen identified it as a colonial period pig trough". Wilkes and Fomison were the most unlikely pair imaginable, starting with their contrasting physiques, but the friendship was genuine and long lasting. One related incident leaves an extraordinary visual image in my mind - Owen, on a bike, towing Tony on his bike, into a norwester, back into Christchurch after an especially disastrous North Canterbury expedition.
The friendship with Owen led the painter into politics. "I started to decide my sympathies were Left when I saw the poverty in London and Paris. I worked for Owen (in the late 60s, at Owen and Joan's Governors Bay tomato farm) and when he wasn't picking tomatoes, he'd be up to his elbows looking for Omega stations. I was impressed...". In the 1980s, Tony joined CAFCA because he found that Watchdog was the best way that he could keep up with news about Owen.
Life With Owen Wilkes: In Her Own Words
I asked Joan's brother Ron for help with this obituary and he sent me Joan's own fascinating notes about her life that she wrote for a couple of talks she gave to groups to which she belonged. They were recent too - 2017 and 2020, respectively. So here are some extracts, in Joan's own words: "I met Owen Wilkes as a 17yr old at a Capping Week party (neither of us were at university) and we married in 1964 when I was 19. Owen was then employed as an archaeologist working under Roger Duff at the Canterbury Museum".
"He had begun a degree in geology (which he never did complete) and was a keen amateur archaeologist. My adventures with him began when we left on a Canterbury Museum archaeological expedition to the Cook Islands. By boat in those days ...Our next adventure was to New Guinea" (now Papua New Guinea. MH).
"Owen had previously been in the Antarctic on a contract with Bishop Museum in Honolulu and they now offered him a position as an entomologist at their field station in Wau, in the north of New Guinea inland from Lae. It was such an amazing opportunity. The climate was pleasant as it was at a higher altitude away from the steamy coastal region".
"We were collecting insects and in particular trapping birds and small animals for their parasites. I quickly learned the major orders of insect life and supervised a team of local men who worked sorting and mounting the specimens we collected. I had a small printing press for making the labels for each pinned insect and I wonder if somewhere in Honolulu there are still drawers full of my work".
"To identify the host animals these were also sent off and I had to learn to be a taxidermist although not using lifelike poses but as flat specimens. Birds, rats and our largest was a tree kangaroo. We went on several expeditions off the station travelling to villages in the area always on foot. We hired porters to carry our luggage".
"In this mountainous area the villages were on top of the ridges and I remember curious villagers lined up to see us arriving, me always puffing and out of breath. ... Owen wrote a letter to the local paper complaining of their reporting on the Vietnam War and unfortunately it was headlined. It was not appreciated by our employer and he was dismissed. So, it was back to New Zealand after nine months away".
She details their life on the Governors Bay tomato farm and when Owen was a ski field caretaker. "Owen had become interested in researching the activities at the Deep Freeze base in Christchurch. While in the Antarctic he had worked at the American McMurdo Sound base and became aware of the military nature of the programme. Although he preferred to be a backroom person, supplying facts and information, he was thrust into the limelight as a leader and founder of the Anti Bases Campaign".
Peace Movement; Communal Life On A Farm
"While supportive of his activities I felt more passionate about the anti-nuclear movement. The Bertrand Russell Peace Foundation and its founder, Larry Ross*, were promoting nuclear disarmament which led to the launch of the Nuclear Free New Zealand campaign in Christchurch. My typing skills came in handy and I spent many hours turning the handle of the Gestetner machine producing literature" (* my obituary of Larry Ross is in Watchdog 130, August 2012. MH).
"All this activity of course attracted the attention of the Security Intelligence Service and we became aware that our telephone was being bugged while living in Allandale (Governors Bay).... My early life has been a subject of curiosity to the former police who I now socialise with as part of the Elmwood Park Bowling Club".
In 1973, Owen and Joan and Koa moved to Gricklegrass, the Oxford farm which was part of Christchurch's Chippenham Community. "The name Gricklegrass comes from the Dr Seuss book 'The Lorax'. For a city girl it was a challenge - hand milking our beautiful Jersey cow and making butter and cheese, caring for and raising pigs. I had a brief career as a shed hand working in shearing gangs around the area and we all contributed".
"Owen was a man of many talents and many connections. In 1972 the first edition of the New Zealand version of the 'Whole Earth Catalogue' was published in Wellington by Alister Taylor.... Under 'Survival' there was, for example, information on wild food and childbirth, under 'Communication' information on printing and guerrilla broadcasting".
"You could learn how to build your own dome as shelter, make flax sandals and my contribution was instructions on how to make your own soap - 6½ lb of fat, 1½ quarts of water and 1lb of caustic soda. We were looking for a simpler life and looking back now were ahead of our time. Global warming was not an issue but caring for your environment and sharing resources was something we cared about".
Work; China Society; Lots Of Travel
They moved from Canterbury to the West Coast and Joan details their life in a bus whilst building a house... "Living with a man saving the world proved not so easy and when Owen moved to Sweden to work as a peace researcher we separated and I moved back to Christchurch with my daughter". She worked in many office jobs, her main one being 20 years as Principal's Secretary at Hagley High School, from where she retired.
"I was involved in the women's movement and abortion law reform and was active in the NZ China Friendship Society, travelling to China three times as part of their delegations. There I was fortunate enough to have met Rewi Alley who then invited all visiting NZ groups to his home in Beijing. I remarried in 1994 an old friend from the commune days at Oxford and we travelled extensively throughout Asia, North Africa and India" (sadly, Fraser Burridge, Joan's second husband, died only a few years later, of cancer, in his early 60s).
"Since his death I have continued travelling, more recently to South America and Europe. Following retirement my time has gone into voluntary work. For the Labour Party, working in Tim Barnett's office and then with Brendon Burns (consecutive MPs for Christchurch Central. MH). I delivered Meals on Wheels in the inner city until the earthquakes closed my round and have been active in my local inner city neighbourhood group, I am currently Secretary of the Elmwood Bowling Club".
Primarily, throughout the decades, I met Joan at social occasions such as parties, which she loved hosting. I can remember her being one of the last to leave one of my parties, because she'd developed a fondness for my bottle of deer velvet liqueur (complete with a flake of gold). God, it was horrible but this was the 80s, the decade where taste went to die.
Joan Had A Lot Of Sadness In Her Life
She outlived, by many years in all three cases, both husbands and her only child. Two of those deaths were by suicide. Koa's death haunted her for the rest of her life - there was a large photo of her prominently displayed at Joan's funeral. During our long conversation in 2022 I asked her about the impact of Koa's death. She replied: "You get used to it, Murray, but you don't get over it".
Joan's death was sudden and a surprise to her family and friends. It came only months after Becky and I were among the guests at her 80th birthday party in early 2024. At that I asked her about her health. She said: "It's fine. I take one pill a month, and that's vitamin D". But it turned out that she had undetected bowel cancer that had spread and by the time symptoms appeared it was too late and she only lived a few months after diagnosis (she never went home again).
Joan was actively involved with what became CAFCA right at our very beginning. She made a very generous donation to my pay account as recently as 2023. She was part of my broader scene for half a century. She lived an interesting life, with many adventures, firstly with Owen and later with Fraser and then with friends (she was very proud of having visited every continent except Antarctica). She continued travelling right up until her final years. She was actively involved in a number of progressive causes, worked in responsible jobs, and had a very active retirement. She suffered more than her fair share of personal tragedy but didn't let that stop her living life to the full. Rest in peace, Joan, you've earned it.
MARY REILLY
- Marie Venning
Mary Reilly, who died in October 2024, aged 88, was a CAFCA member from 1994 until her death. For at least a decade, up until her death, she was a regular pledger to the CAFCA/ABC Organiser Account, which provides my income. She was also a regular donor to both CAFCA and the Organiser Account. In recent years, she had taken to ringing me now and again to tell me how much she appreciated the work that I do. She was representative of CAFCA's loyal and appreciative members and she was part of the broader Christchurch progressive movement for many decades. Rest in peace, Mary. Murray Horton
Mary Reilly was a gracious, charming, beautiful woman who loved caring for people, who was acutely aware of international and local issues. She also knew how to enjoy herself and excelled at giving lunch parties over many years (the late Father John Curnow* described Mary as having the "gift of hospitality"). She was intensely generous; sharing was natural to her. *Murray Horton's obituary of John Curnow is in Watchdog 68, October 1991.
A Passionate Woman
As well as the fun side of Mary there was a deep well of sadness especially for all the victims of racism. She had an especial affinity with Māori and "couldn't stand" superiority over any group. Above all else Mary was a passionate woman, which led to her being angry at times. Totally appropriately, I believe. She and her late husband Peter had a wide circle of friends and Peter was a loving support to Mary at all times. Their children Cait and Nick were loved with intensity, as were their grandchildren Jacob, Flora and Kamryn. Cait and Nick's respective partners, Lindsay and Tamsyn, were well-loved and appreciated.
Way back in the 1970s/early 80s Mary became a member of the Projects Committee of the former Catholic Commission for Justice and Development. The teachings of that time became part of her analysis of society here and in the world. She believed in and supported CAFCA and supported, if not physically, groups such as the former GATT* Watchdog, anti-apartheid, Palestinian justice and anti-poverty movements. Mary was a popular person, loved and grieved by many. She was great to talk, laugh and sob with. She was a brilliant friend. * GATT = General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade. Now the World Trade Organisation. Ed.
Watchdog - 168 April 2025
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