Fishing access restored at Bayswater breakwater... p3
July 18, 2025
Finals await North Shore rugby sides... p4-5
Interview: Museum man Alastair Fletcher... p22-23
Bishop involved after Holy Trinity parishioner exodus
Anglican Bishop of Auckland Ross Bay has stepped into the schism at Holy Trinity in Devonport.
The split has led to the church losing income and more than 60 members leaving amid clashes over vicar Rev Chris Murphy’s style, theology and future plans.
Numerous former members have contact-
ed the Flagstaff after stories in our 20 June and 4 July issues detailing the $60,000 deficit the church faced this year and the concerns of long-serving parishioners.
Some have issues with Murphy’s personal leadership style, which one described as “rigid, divisive and exclusionary, as opposed to the collaborative inclusive and
flexible leadership styles of his predecessors at Holy Trinity”.
When the Flagstaff contacted the diocese this month, it referred any comment to Murphy. However, by last Friday the situation had escalated.
When contacted for comment on the nu-
To page 2
Flying the flags for Palestine
Public protest... Local resident Margaret Taylor of Amnesty International (right) at the front of the Devonport Out For Gaza march on Victoria Rd last Saturday. More pictures, story pages 10-11.
Waterfront parking-meter plan shelved by AT
The proposed introduction of metered parking charges on the Devonport waterfront has been dropped by Auckland Transport (AT).
AT has also put on hold plans for residential parking permits, which along with charges for casual parkers were suggested after a parking study in early 2023 showed congested central Devonport streets.
The use of paid parking beside the ferry terminal had increased since the price was cut from $1.50 to $1 an hour, AT officials told a Devonport-Takapuna Local Board workshop this month.
Lowering the price in November 2024 aimed to encourage more use, rather than have ferry users parking on local streets, which were already congested. Usage was
Swimmers ready for pool opening
The upgraded Takapuna Grammar School pool will undergo a “soft opening” in term three, with use by students, then Devonport Swim Club.
The club last week signed a contract with the Ministry of Education to be a third-party user of TGS facilities and awaits the final go-ahead to start swim squads at the pool.
The club has had 200 expressions of interest through its website from people wanting to join the squad training.
It hoped to initially run three squads of juniors and two masters squads, club president Tom King said.
The masters would have two morning and two evening sessions and another on Saturday morning.
The club had been without a home after Covid precautions, and then safety and security concerns, prohibited it from using the Navy pool.
typically now between 75 and 80 per cent, up from 60 per cent.
“We feel like parking in the town centre should be prioritised for visitors,” an AT official said.
Monitoring on weekdays this year showed Queens Pde parking spots were still typically 99 per cent occupied and those on King Edward Pde as far as Church St were 98 per cent full.
AT proposed options ranging from doing nothing, despite some feedback gathered from residents last year favouring a permit system; to introducing permits for both parades while imposing parking charges on other parkers; or trying free but P180 time limits on weekdays along the waterfront.
“I don’t hear any issues,” said board member Gavin Busch.
Businesses had workers who parked on the streets and with the town centre “not exactly booming”, he thought charging shoppers or visitors was not a good idea.
Busch said residents appeared more concerned about the narrow section of Kerr St in the block below Devonport Primary School, where some people wanted parking stopped on one side of the road to allow for easier passage.
Board members were pleasantly surprised to hear AT was backing away from metered parking on the waterfront.
The suggestion had also been opposed by Devonport Heritage on visual grounds.
Cracker idea! Christmas celebration upsized to two-day festival
A two-day Christmas Festival is planned for Devonport in December.
A “Jingle in the Park” event at Windsor Reserve on the evening of Saturday 6 December will precede the popular Santa Parade on Sunday 7 December.
Santa Parade organiser Matt Hunt said it was hoped the new event from 5-9pm on Saturday would attract people from “the city side” as well as peninsula locals, providing extra customers for village bars and restaurants.
The aim was to attract families with a blanket and a picnic and to generate a “Carols in the Park” atmosphere. “We hope to have some top local acts,” Hunt said.
A stage set up for Saturday would stay in place to be used for the traditional Dance in the Park after the Santa Parade on Sunday. Planning was already well advanced for the event with a website established.
Information for potential performers and businesses who might be involved would be sent out soon.
Bishop ‘in discussion’ with vicar
From page 1
merous complaints it is understood to have received and asked what would happen next, Diocesan Manager Sonia Maugham said:
“The Bishop, Ross Bay, is in discussion
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with the Vicar, Chris Murphy, about the situation. Obviously, these are sensitive matters for people in the church and wider Devonport community which we will attend to carefully,” Maugham said. “We have no further comment to add at this time.”
Young fishers ready to reel after ban lifted
The boys are back fishing at the Bayswater breakwater, and their smiles tell the story.
After a safe-fishing rules sign went up at the breakwater entrance last week, young locals wasted no time getting back down there.
The Flagstaff met up on Saturday morning with four “keen as” fishermen who were delighted to return to the popular spot, which has yielded trevally, snapper and even the odd eel.
Fletcher Ansley said he would go fishing every day he could. “Two or three hours, four hours sometimes.”
The boys featured in the Flagstaff in May,
frustrated that fishing had been banned at the breakwater, even though the Environment Court had ruled the breakwater had to be reopened for public use.
It had been closed since December 2023, with Bayswater Marina citing health and safety concerns.
After the furore over the fishing ban, with concerns raised by parents, the Flagstaff and local body politicians, marina owner Empire Capital – after a meeting with North Shore ward councillor Chris Darby – came up with a solution that would allow fishing to go ahead.
Luke’s father Alex Harbour was delighted the ban was lifted, saying it was “great to get the boys away from devices and out into nature”.
The fishers were proud when they bought home catches that could be eaten by their families.
Harbour was pleased the marina owners had listened to public concerns and worked out a solution.
The pressure put on the marina to allow fishing was also a good example to the boys that speaking out could lead to change, he said.
The one that didn’t get away... Public pressure from young fishers including (from left) Finn Gibson (11), Kai Mesones (11), Luke Harbour (12) and Fletcher Ansley helped ensure fishing could resume on the breakwater
Shore eyes ‘threepeat’ after big semi-final win
North Shore Rugby Club’s premiers scored nine tries to one in a 60-5 semi-final trouncing of East Coast Bays on Saturday.
The green and whites are hitting their straps at just the right end of the season, with the win following an equally emphatic 50-3 victory over Mahurangi in the quarter-final the previous week.
Plucky East Coast Bays scored first and in an even first quarter was still leading 5-0 after 25 minutes. But the larger Shore pack started to dominate and a key moment came at around 35 minutes, when the visitors were shunted back five metres at a scrum.
Shore was able to increasingly dominate territory and scored two first-half tries, including an excellent individual effort by Tima Fainga’anuku, who dived through a ruck to score in a manner reminiscent of All Blacks Sevu Reece and Emoni Narawa. Shore led 17-5 at half-time and never really looked back.
As the sun streamed across the Vauxhall Rd grounds on a balmy afternoon, Shore started to run riot. Class throughout their line-up overcame Bays’ determination.
The forwards set the platform – typified by captain Donald Coleman’s driving try just after halftime.
Brad McNaughten and Cam Howell controlled the match beautifully from halfback and first five, and how many teams have the luxury to bring in a player as good as Oscar Koller outside Howell at second five?
Supplied with quality ball, the Shore backs began to cut loose. Great handling saw tries to Tyler Beary and Rory Taylor as the tiring East Coast defence began to falter.
At one stage, fullback Hunter Rice went on a weaving Will Jordan-like run during which he must have beaten eight players –
some of them twice.
Shore’s depth and fitness looks like it could win the club’s third successive championship.
North Harbour player Sam Davies came off the bench for a punishing second-half stint. As the score blew out, Shore even took the option to experiment with three kickers. Koller, Howell and then Rice all knocked over goals. It was that sort of day for Shore, where everything they tried came off.
Frightening fundraiser will benefit female-facilities project
An old villa in Cheltenham is being temporarily converted into a “haunted house” to raise money for a joint rugby and cricket women’s facility at the defunct Devonport Bowling Club.
The home at 10 Cheltenham Rd was in “very original condition” when it sold last month by Devonport Harcourts, one of North Shore Rugby Club’s major sponsors.
New owners, the Newman family, are planning a major renovation but came up with the idea for the charity event before work begins.
Harcourts manager Matt Hunt, who is Shore’s junior convenor, said the old, dark home was already “pretty scary” but will be further embellished ahead of the fundraiser on the evenings of 8 and 9 August, from 6-9pm.
Organisers planned to tap into community resources, including decorations used at Vauxhall School’s monster mash Halloween fundraiser, and have around 30 volunteers dress the property for the event.
The North Shore rugby and cricket clubs are turning the former bowling club premises into a facility for women players, including changing rooms.
• Tickets are likely to be $15, with $50 for a family pass for two adults and two children.
Spooky... The home at 10 Cheltenham Rd will be decorated as a haunted house, but is already said to be “pretty scary”
Super swerve… North Shore fullback Hunter Rice on one of his counterattacking runs.
Right: Centre Tyler Beary runs in one of Shore’s second-half tries.
Finals x3 should draw big crowds
North Shore Rugby Club’s top three men’s sides all won North Harbour championship semifinals at home on Saturday.
Spectators were treated to some champagne rugby from the premiers (see report, opposite) while the premier 2 and under-21 sides both beat Northcote opponents in much closer encounters, by 19-12 and 33-26 respectively.
This Saturday shapes as a massive day at the club, with junior matches from 8.30am until 12.30 pm, followed by the premier 2 final at 1pm and premiers at 2.45pm.
A crowd of more than 2000 is expected as Shore faces off against arch-rivals Takapuna in both finals.
Finals football continues at Vauxhall Rd the following Saturday (26 July) with the under-21s playing Massey in their final. Shore’s under-85kg team is also on the field that day, playing College Rifles in the first round of the national cup competition for their grade.
A premiers win would give Shore its first run of three championships in a row, following titles in 2023 and 2024. Wins by all three of its teams would be another first.
• One group of loyal Shore supporters hopes to watch the premiers final from the Waikato via live streaming. Around 65 Year 8 players will be on their “leavers” tour in Cambridge, playing games on Friday and Sunday and taking in the All Blacks-France test in Hamilton.
Fun times... With the premiers’ scoreline expanding, Shore’s Hairy Goat mascot (top) was relaxed enough to play some sideline football with Ava Parkes (6).
Right: Jake Coleman had a strong game at fullback for Shore premier reserves in their win over Northcote.
Below: Rory Taylor on the way to scoring in the prems match.
Every day this July, Linda Simmons is diving into the chilly ocean waters to raise vital funds and awareness for Kenzie’s Gift. This national charity, founded by local mum Nic Russell in memory of her daughter Kenzie (who sadly died from cancer at the age of 3), supports the mental health of young Kiwis affected by serious illness or grief. Join Linda on her daily swims or sponsor her chilly challenge to help ensure grieving Kiwi kids and their families receive the emotional support they need during the toughest of times.
Paved paradise ‘could kickstart regeneration’
When Devonport architects Julie Stout and Ken Davis look down from Fleet St to the basin of the supermarket car park, they see opportunity.
“We could put a lid on it and use the space [above] as a park or market square – or for future development,” says Stout.
Apartments and mixed-use buildings would bring in more people and help regenerate the town centre. So too opening up more laneways and enticing more businesses or educational institutions to set up in Devonport.
“It’s a numbers game,” says Davis. “Imagine 1000 people living and working here.”
Reimagining Devonport is the subject of an exhibition called Urban Adaptations – Devonport Tomorrow, which the pair have brought together, working with fourth-year architecture students at the University of Auckland.
Celebrating heritage is central to this, but so too looking to realise that urban environments inevitably evolve. “The big thing is building on what is already here,” says Stout.
The project has been run before, in 2017, 2019 and 2022, but this year is part of a wider programme of public talks and films. It partners with two other exhibitions about Devonport’s identity organised by the Depot Artspace, including Building (Under the Volcano) which takes a playful approach to exploring bland streetscapes (see page 37).
“We thought the time was right to do it again, with so much [political] pressure now on town centres to intensify,” says Davis. “We all think Devonport is at a crossroads as to how we develop as a village.”
Their aim is to start conversations, ideally leading to the creation of a community-led precinct plan for future development. “People so care about Devonport,” says Stout.
Both architects settled in the area around 20 years ago and are passionate locals. They want to future-proof the village’s charm while embracing the best contemporary thinking.
“It could be a model for future urban design in the small town centres of New Zealand, particularly Auckland” says Davis.
Stout hopes locals will come along and express their views: “The biggest leverage we have as a community is showing we care.”
The pair say an intensified town centre would help cater for downsizers and also the “missing” age bracket of people in the 18 to 30 range. Business would be boosted by having more residents than the 100 or so who live in the town centre currently.
“It’s about intensification done well,” says Davis. “The [students’] work is quite conservative, actually. There are no 30-storey buildings.” Stout: “Some spaces shouldn’t go higher, and some could.”
Back-street zoning currently allows for builds of up to 30m – typically allowing four storeys. Stout points out that the village sits in a basin, which would lessen the visual impact of potentially higher buildings on Clarence and Wynyard Sts.
Across the town centre, students have identified 18 sites of opportunity. These include ideas for more mixed-use and reconfigured buildings, offices and residential accommodation, including for students and backpackers. The exhibition includes a scale model of the entire town centre and individual models of some sections.
Suggestions include the setting up of a Navy maritime school or satellite departments of universities. Davis says yacht design, heritage studies or social anthropology might be good fits. Music studios could be joined by other creative enterprises or the likes of a cooking school or kohanga reo.
Key ideas are to enhance the maunga-to-harbour connection and internal village links. Laneways could better connect from Fleet St behind main street buildings all the way to the Esplanade.
To ground student thinking in community, they held a community conversation evening in March, involving around 50 people. This included representatives of the Devonport Business Association, senior Takapuna Grammar School students, local archaeologist and historian Dave Veart, Pita Turei of Ngati Paoa and Boffa Miskell partner and landscape architect Rachel de Lambert.
The diverse student group, including some from overseas, were
Reimagining... Architects Ken Davis and Julie Stout, pictured above the New World car park, believe Devonport is at a development crossroads. Below: A students’ model of mid-rise buildings in the village.
also asked how to bring a bi-cultural appreciation of place, and take into account ecological, environmental and sustainable thinking.
“The most sustainable building is an existing building,” says Davis. But he says the Victoria Rd heritage streetscape has never been fixed in time. It is already a mix of architectural styles through Victorian, Edwardian and Art Deco and buildings from later eras. “Our built environment changes all the time.”
The architects say they have already had useful conversations with Peninsula Capital, the company with local directors which has bought up a good chunk of the Victoria Rd heritage buildings and is taking a long-term view of development.
Davis says getting quality people and the community involved in design conversations is better than leaving it to the free market.
Auckland had plenty of poor intensification, but good examples in Wynyard Quarter, Hobsonville and Northcote, he said.
Stout hopes the exhibition and talks will “bring people into the conversation”. Like other locals she loves her home’s community, heritage and location. “You are in the environment of a village, with so much more to offer. It’s why we’re so passionate,” she says.
She hopes that when people visit Devonport in future they will still find a real neighbourhood.
“I’d love them to discover a whole lot more here than they realised – a layered environment and more activities.”
• Urban-Adaptations – Devonport Tomorrow is on at Depot 3 Vic Rd until 27 July. Public programme events begin on Saturday 19 July with the Provoking Architecture Devonport talk at the RSA. For programme details, including film screenings, see depot.org.nz/ event/urban-adaptations-devonport-tomorrow.
New concept designs for Woodall skatepark revealed
New concept designs for the proposed $1.1 million Woodall Park skatepark were revealed this week.
Plans for the 850sqm skatepark were presented to Devonport-Takapuna Local Board members for approval on Tuesday, after the Flagstaff went to press.
The skatepark would be located beside the park’s BMX track, near the Devonport Squash Club and Gym.
If approved, the project will move to full design and resource consenting in August-November 2025.
Construction is slated to begin between January and April 2026, a report to the board said.
Public consultation showed 71 per cent of respondents were supportive of the skatepark being built, council officers reported.
Key concerns of respondents included loss of green space, noise, antisocial behaviour and development on a flood plain.
The proposed concept design includes granite street features, a “flow-bowl” environment, mini ramps, shelter and seating spaces and edges – useable for skaters – to a raised platform.
Trees and shrubs planted around the edge of the facility will “soften the skate park’s inherently hard aesthetic”.
The board has budgeted $945,000 for the project, so it has a shortfall of $165,000, the report noted.
Ready to ride... Council images of the proposed skatepark (above and below) and a photograph showing its proposed location (below left)
Quirky cat’s disappearance leaves owner bereft
Darius the Cornish Rex cat loved a wander around Devonport village, making himself comfortable at bars, cafes and the Community House.
The distinctive-looking feline would return to his Clarence St home in the evenings after his daily jaunts. But six weeks ago the nearly three-year-old didn’t come back.
Owner Philippa Daniels and her neighbour, Barbara Atkins, have searched widely and put up posters as far away as Vauxhall Rd.
Since he failed to come home on 1 June, the women have fielded numerous unconfirmed sightings. They fear Darius may have died, been hit by a car or been stolen.
“But I wouldn’t be entirely surprised if he wasn’t on an adventure,” Daniels tells the Flagstaff.
The dark-grey-brown cat with a very long striped tail and legs and a ginger nose was a familiar sight near New World supermarket.
He often stopped off at the Community House its creche and local businesses.
Favourite beats included walking up the hill path from the supermarket to Calliope Rd and up and down Anne St, popping into various properties. “Anne St is one of his favourite locations,” Daniels said. “He especially loves the roofs down there.”
Darius was in the morning habit of patiently waiting for Daniels to get ready for work, then leading her down the drive. As she walked to catch the ferry to the city, where she works as a lawyer, Darius would trail along.
To deter him from continuing to the ferry terminal, she took to stopping off at Lily cafe in Wynyard St.
“I’ve put on at least six kilograms, because I have got to go to Lily before I go the ferry,” says Daniels, who moved to New Zealand from England in 2017.
The ruse worked, Darius would hang out for a while with her and the other customers before wandering back towards home.
From visiting Hammer Hardware and real estate offices to dropping by Tiny Triumphs
Missing moggy... Darius Making himself at home at Lilly (above and right) and at the Depot gallery (below)
bar, there was plenty to do about town each day. Sometimes he joined another neighbour on pest-trapping checks.
He returned home every evening until King’s Birthday Weekend.
“It is possible he’s got into someone’s car or a truck,” Daniels says.
But she doubts he would have willingly gone with someone who wanted to take him. As much as he loved being around people, he was averse to being picked up.
Daniels hopes members of the Devonport community can help her solve the mystery of what might have happened to him.
“He is really family,” she says.
A reward for his return is on offer. He is also listed on the Lost Pets Register online. “It’s interesting how many cats do come back,” she says hopefully.
Several possible sightings have been reported since Darius went missing, including at Tiny Triumphs and on Burgess Rd. But some of the sightings have been discounted, because they were of another Cornish Rex, Carlos, who lives on Calliope Rd and is related to Darius. Carlos, is similar looking but darker and is often seen at the Navy base.
Anyone seeing Darius is asked to contact Daniels on 021 08964150
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Pro-Palestine protesters bring message to main street
Call to action… Devonport peace activist Ruth Coombes (above) and Green Party co-leader Chloe Swarbrick at the microphone (above right)
Around 200 people marched in Devonport last Saturday in support of Palestine.
Pro-Palestine flags and placards draped on the band rotunda at Windsor Reserve as speakers, including Green Party co-leader Chloe Swarbrick and the people power manager of Amnesty International Aotearoa New Zealand Devonport local Margaret Taylor, encouraged the crowd to continue to fight for peace in the Middle East.
The Devonport Out For Gaza rally progressed up Victoria Rd to the Victoria Theatre, crossed the road, came down to the ferry terminal, then marched along the waterfront to the Navy base.
Swarbrick said the New Zealand government and New Zealanders couldn’t turn a blind eye to what was happening in Palestine.
The rally marked the 92nd consecutive week that a march has been held in Auckland in support of Palestine.
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Devonport… Amnesty International’s Margaret Taylor in full voice (above) before the march up and down Victoria Rd
By Rob Drent
Building and Construction Minister Chris Penk’s proposal that 1800-plus buildings in Auckland, Northland and coastal Otago be removed from earthquake-strengthening requirements is a move in the right direction for heritage preservation in Devonport. He says science shows those regions are less at risk from earthquakes.
Many in Auckland thought the earthquake strengthening measures across the country after the Christchurch quakes were overkill. Not only did they place an onerous and perhaps unnecessary financial burden on property owners in the lower risk areas, they also put the viability of many old brick buildings at risk. Owners simply could not afford to strengthen them, so some have fallen into disrepair. Why spend money maintaining a building when you have a massive earthquake-strengthening exercise hanging over your head down the track?
The need to strengthen Devonport buildings also meant a greater return would be required, increasing the risk of developments at the rear of sites and the threat of “facadism”, with only the street frontages of heritage buildings retained.
Penk’s plan, if it receives cabinet approval, will have a major impact on Devonport and its largest property owner, Peninsula Capital, which is working on plans for a major upgrade of the village centre and the 15 or so buildings it owns. Many are brick. Any reduction in the earthquake strengthening requirements will have massive impacts on the financial viability and architectural and engineering requirements of its project, and the speed at which it can be delivered.
A lot of the devil will be in the details. What, for example, of buildings such as the Victoria Theatre (perhaps Devonport’s most historic building) which draw crowds
to public events? Will it and other buildings like it be subject to a different set of rules and requirements?
Overall, I do feel a little sorry for Devonport property owners (like the Moughans who have recently been strengthening 69-71 Victoria Rd) who have done the right thing and restored their buildings to the standard required by the law. Has it been a case of costly overspeccing?
The upside is that they – and the general public – know a rock-solid, safer building is the result.
Strange as it may seem to embattled Holy Trinity vicar Rev Chris Murphy, the furore surrounding his leadership at the church is an outpouring of love.
Not for him personally, but for the church and all it represents to parishioners and the wider community.
Holy Trinity members had to expect a new vicar in a new country would put his own mark on the parish. But clearly Murphy has proved too radical a change for many. His stated move away from pastoral care and administration seems out of step for a suburban church leader in New Zealand today.
Certainly, it is a different approach from his predecessors Murray Spackman and Charmaine Braatvedt.
Some have said Murphy has taken a more conservative position, “including restricting the role of women in leadership and reduced acceptance of the LGBTQIA+ community”.
In Devonport, history runs deep. Maybe not as deep as in England, where Murphy comes from, but some of the members who have left the church are in their 60s and have been going to Holy Trinity their whole lives, as had their forebears before them.
Devonport, while a relatively high-income area, still retains a degree of social liberalism and a tolerance towards different ideas that harks back to the 1970s, when it was the first borough in New Zealand to introduce recycling, and the 1980s, when it was the first to declare itself nuclear-free.
Devonport residents are also prepared to fight for what they believe in – the Independent Devonport battle to keep the borough,
and the campaigns to save the Tamaki land from sale and keeping the Victoria Theatre open are examples of this.
So it was perhaps no great surprise that passionate members of Holy Trinity are prepared to fight for the church, through the Flagstaff and by lodging concerns with the Auckland diocesan authorities.
Now the Bishop of Auckland has stepped in and is having discussions with Murphy. The subject and outcome of the talks are at this stage confidential.
Some sort of mediation between the diocese, Murphy and the leavers who want to come back might be necessary. It may be a difficult road, with compromises required on all sides.
The long-term damage to church numbers is difficult to gauge. The Flagstaff understands some disaffected members have gone to other parishes, are spiritually settled and are unlikely to return.
However some new members will be attracted to Murphy’s arguably more traditional interpretations of his role and his particular grasp of theology.
The Maori concept of kaitiakitanga –guardianship – could usefully be applied at Holy Trinity, a Devonport institution for 150 years and hopefully centuries more.
Surely vicars are guardians of the church for generations to come?
Of course, not everyone has appreciated the Flagstaff coverage. We have been accused of promoting biased viewpoints and failing to appreciate positive attributes the church brings to the community
Far from it. Over the years we have carried dozens of stories about the church and its contribution to Devonport.
But 60 or so members of the congregation leaving dissatisfied is a news story if I ever saw one. It could not be ignored.
A great result for the young lads and other fisher-folk with the Bayswater Marina breakwater being reopened for fishing last week after a compromise was reached between the operators and the public. A sign outlining the protocols for safe fishing was closely read by a group of Bayswater boys when the Flagstaff caught up with them before they headed off for a session with bait and tackle. They were busily sharing classic fishing banter over who had landed the biggest catch from the breakwater. Heartwarming.
It’s mate against mate. North Shore Rugby Club’s prems and prem 2 teams take on Takapuna in Harbour championship finals at Vauxhall Rd this Saturday. Shore’s under-21s are also in a final. All three Shore sides could win championships, and if the premiers win it will be three in a row. Either would be a club first. Are we witnessing a golden era of Shore rugby and history in the making? See for yourself. Games start at 1 pm.
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More consultation before action on Vauxhall Rd safety
Stalled pedestrian-safety upgrade plans around the Vauxhall Rd shops will once again go out for community consultation.
The Flagstaff understands this has been triggered by the time lag since an earlier consultation, held by Auckland Transport (AT) in November 2022, when the project was expected to be built in 2023.
AT did not respond to a question from the Flagstaff about the cost of running another consultation on the project, which was initiated after community lobbying.
A spokesperson said it would bring revised designs back to the Devonport-Takapuna Local Board, probably in February 2026, after the looming local body elections.
“The Devonport-Takapuna Local Board were not fully supportive of the proposed design for changes to Vauxhall Rd and Tainui Rd, and Auckland Transport is now investigating alternative options,” the spokesperson said. “This will require some time and re-engagement with the local community.”
In February, the board voted in favour of the project proceeding. At the time, AT advised it had cut cost estimates from between $800,000 and $1 million to closer to $500,000. It said work would start this year.
The scheme it presented in February was to deliver a raised-table design across the intersection, build kerb extensions and a wider
footpath and install a pedestrian crossing across Tainui Rd.
Although board members queried design aspects, the resolution to proceed passed 3-2, with Gavin Busch and George Wood voting against.
Since then, AT has advised board members and Vauxhall Rd businesses that the project is to be looked at again.
Busch told the Flagstaff he was pleased a
newly elected board would get the chance to see revised designs. But he was critical of the time the project had already taken.
Busch said the majority of board members had wanted the proposal to go ahead to ensure “something got done”.
This followed AT staff saying in February that delay might jeopardise the project’s place on the 2025-26 work programme.
Busch hoped the project would be scaled back to something more in keeping with what a community group had originally proposed. This included painting coloured road markings to alert people to the Vauxhall Rd crossing and encourage them to slow down.
He believed installing a large raised table was excessive. Trialling cheaper painted interventions and go-slow warning signs would be better.
AT confirmed money had been allocated to fund design work. “Construction is scheduled for the 2026/27 financial year, but the total cost is still unknown as the design has yet to be finalised,” its spokesperson said.
• Busch also wanted to see a pedestrian crossing to the north on Vauxhall Rd as another way of slowing traffic near the shops and allowing people to safely cross the road to Bath St and Cheltenham Beach. The board backed this idea as part of its February resolution.
Local-board member Gavin Busch wants project scaled back
50–70% OFF EVERYTHING FURTHER REDUCTIONS
Cricket club eyes cafe opportunity
North Shore Cricket Club is looking at setting up a clubhouse cafe, allowing it to run a basic tuckshop-style operation from the building’s kitchen.
It took a request for a lease variation for its council-owned building on Devonport Domain to a Devonport-Takapuna Local Board workshop this month.
Chair Mel Powell later told the Flagstaff that board members were broadly supportive, although the matter would need to be formalised at a meeting after receiving advice from council staff.
“We’re just trying to enable these community groups to make some money so they can survive.” While groups had peppercorn rents, council policy changes meant they also faced a $1300 annual lease fee and maintenance charges.
The club’s request was to be able to sublease its small non-commercial kitchen to a caterer, with hours of operation from 7am to 3pm, primarily to service members and visitors, but with the public able to drop in. It also wants the ability to open for longer hours during the cricket season.
Lights return with TGS performers
Takapuna Winter Lights has grown so popular that the free festival has this year switched to a ticketed system to gain entry to the town square and Hurstmere Rd venue.
This will allow numbers to be better spread across the festival’s four-evening run from 24-27 July, after last year’s festival drew a total of 50,000 people, most of whom attended on Friday or Saturday.
Organiser the Takapuna Beach Business Association said allocating session times each day would help manage crowds.
A total of 48,000 free tickets are being allocated for what has grown into the North Shore’s biggest community event.
Grammar School Performers. In a festival first, there will also be a special guest professional musician. Fazerdaze, who won Album of the Year at the Aotearoa Music Awards in May, will perform on Friday evening.
The singer and multi-instrumentalist has also curated a soundtrack for a “silent” disco being held on all four evenings, for which participants will book to don one of 150 sets of earphones. Festival-goers are encouraged to wear colourful clothes to brighten the streets with the theme: Dress Up – Be the Art. All-abilities early evening Shine tours are also part of this year’s event.
• For details, tickets and disco bookings visit winterlights.nz OLD POST OFFICE ARCADE, 10 VICTORIA RD, DEVONPORT TUESDAY ~ SUNDAY | 9.30AM ~ 3.00PM
The festival will again showcase Takapuna
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Going halves... Bayswater Park’s sports facilities comprise wooden clubrooms (left) and a concrete changing block. Under a new plan, the concrete block will replaced by council and North Shore United will repair the other side.
United ready to spruce up Bayswater building
North Shore United football club is stepping up to renovate one half of the rundown Bayswater Park facilities it leases from council.
The club reckons with volunteer labour from tradespeople among its members, it will be able to spruce up the wooden clubrooms building (pictured above) over summer.
Essential maintenance is planned soon on spouting and window frames. Further improvements will follow to upgrade the building, currently used for changing rooms and storage. Cash reserves, fundraising and grants will help fund the work.
“We think we can get a very, very usable facility,” said club committee member Phil McGivern, who has been discussing upgrades with Auckland Council for years.
An asset transfer of the clubrooms to NSU has been approved in principle by the Devonport-Takapuna Local Board, its chair Mel Powell told the Flagstaff this month.
The out-of-action concrete block building next to the clubrooms will be demolished by council, following board approval in May. It will be replaced with a new public facility, with two changing rooms, including toilets
and separated shower cubicles to cater for female players. The building will be similar to that already in use by footballers at Greville Reserve in Forrest Hill.
McGivern hopes the club and council works will align, so both buildings can be in use for the next winter football season. He is relieved an earlier council proposal to replace both buildings with a temporary prefab for toilets and upgraded changing rooms did not proceed.
A prefab would not have offered adequate storage for gear, raising the possibility of needing a storage container dropped on the park.
The clubrooms originally belonged to North Shore Albions rugby league club, which became defunct in the early 2000s. The building was then vested in council and leased to United with the concrete block building when football made the park a main training and playing base around 2009.
“Council was not interested in the wooden building, it falls outside their mandate, but for us it’s a very useful structure to have,” McGivern said.
Aside from jointly funded work retrofitting changing facilities into the building in 2016, little had been done to it. Soaring costs had also plagued council plans to fix the smaller concrete block.
Stage two of the club’s plan is to rework the interior, adding an office for the director of football and a team meeting area, while retaining changing and storage space. Insulation and heating will be added. Some of the work will require planning consents, including replacing cladding. With the deck included, the clubrooms have 175sqm of space.
“Instead of parents doing a drop-off [for training] and coming back an hour later, they could stay down there and pull up a seat,” McGivern said.
• The football club’s longer term goal is to win upgrades to the grounds at its premier club pitch, Allen Hill Stadium, the site of its main clubrooms. A workshop with the board and council staff is planned next week. On the agenda are improvements to the pitchside railing and paths and a possible second entrance to the ground.
Catholic Church creates new dead centre of Devonport
Construction work has begun on an ash re pository at St Francis de Sales and All Souls Catholic Church in Devonport, to house the remains of deceased local parishioners.
The facility, known as a columbarium, is already attracting plenty of interest among Catholic parishioners on the peninsula and in Takapuna, who have so far taken up 24 per cent of the 308 niches on offer. Advance allocations are helping fund the project.
Each niche in the columbarium wall can hold two sets of ashes. Options are to buy a niche for one person’s ashes for $3000 (plus GST) or to house two sets of ashes for $4000.
Parish secretary Kath Petrie, who is among those who have signed up for a niche, said the attraction for her and others was the location close to home. “We knew there were people who had ashes of people who had been cremated sitting in a cupboard – and we had land,” she said.
Discussions about building a columbari um at the historic site at 2a Albert Rd started about five years ago. They have involved church hierarchy and gaining permission from the Tūpuna Maunga Authority due to the church’s position on the side of Takarun ga. A survey and archaeological assessment was also required.
An on-site blessing was held on 29 June by Manuel Beazley, vicar for the Māori Auckland Catholic Diocese, with parish priest Father Neil Darragh and others in attendance to hand over the site to contractor Glll & Gundry. Since then earthworks have proceeded on the western side of the church. Once the columbarium is installed the area will be landscaped with seating to provide a peaceful space. “It’s a place of prayer,” Petrie said. “We want people to be able to come and pray for the dead.”
She said the church hoped the columbarium would be opened on 2 November to coincide with the feast day of the parish. Columbariums are common in South America, parts of Europe and countries such as the Philippines. In New Zealand, remembrance gardens are more common, along with some memory walls at crematoriums.
Petrie said when the church approached the diocese to gain its support, the matter was referred to New Zealand’s Catholic bishops, who saw the need to develop a national policy. Seed money for initial planning and design costs came from a donor in the parish.
The parish council was relieved the site survey did not reveal any human remains, the maunga having had not just a long Māori history, but having also been the site of colonial burials.
The beginnings of the church in Devonport date to an 1862 land grant made by the crown to Bishop Jean Baptiste Pompallier, to allow burials to take place. In the settlement then known as Flagstaff, masses began the year after. A wooden mortuary chapel on the site
Urning its keep... Advance allocations have helped fund the St Francis de Sales and All Souls columbarium, shown at right in an artist’s impression. Below: A blessing was led by Manuel Beazley (at microphone), vicar for Maori for the Diocese of Auckland, with parish priest Neil Darragh looking on. Janet Monga (left) was the first to buy a niche while Maggie Gundry represented the contractors.
was replaced by the brick church in 1919. Petrie said earthworks had uncovered the original western entrance steps. These had been covered by a ramp for disabled access. A new ramp will be at the eastern entrance.
St Francis has a closed graveyard at its rear. To the east, an historic Anglican graveyard is now council managed. Presbyterian
plots are also nearby on the maunga.
To recognise those buried in the Catholic graves, names will be displayed as part of the columbarium project. Petrie said this would be helpful for people wanting to track and remember ancestors.
Should the columbarium be filled the wall could be expanded in future
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Museum stalwart leaves history you can touch
Stepping down as Devonport Museum president, Alastair Fletcher takes satisfaction from having given visitors more interactive experiences. Helen Vause reports.
When Alastair Fletcher arrives at the Devonport Museum, a place that’s like a second home to him, he always checks the old typewriter and the wind-up gramophone.
The 78-year-old reasons you have to be his age to know how to keep these things running smoothly, and keeping the museum in working shape as a hands-on experience for visitors is a must.
Fletcher recently stepped down as president of the museum, a role he has been in since 2009.
His involvement pre-dates that, and he is remaining part of the team that has made the museum what it is today.
Fletcher is very proud of their achievements. In his time at the helm, the museum has seen steady expansion. The opening hours have incrementally extended, the team has grown, and the networks into the community have multiplied over the years since the organisation came into being nearly 50 years ago.
The offering for visitors has far greater depth and variety than the books, papers and photographs that might once have satisfied them.
Like other museums of its type, Devonport’s is now a more interactive place, with
objects to touch and feel, and to see working as they would have in a past age.
The typewriter might have been used in the living memory of the baby boomers, and the gramophone in the time of their parents, but the point is that they are still working and carry rich local stories.
Fletcher points to a little metal bucket and spade that his elderly neighbour used to take down to Cheltenham Beach with her, well before Fletcher’s time on the same beach.
The objects that are easily spotted on walking around the interior are dear to his heart but the whole picture, right down to the back corners of the cupboards, all add to his sense of achievement for himself and all those he’s worked with over the last two decades.
He jokes that his own connection to Devonport dates back to 1842 when the Duchess of Argyll, a ship carrying a couple of his forebears, went aground on a sandbank in the Waitematā Harbour.
He was a North Shore boy at heart, but didn’t have his own patch in the village he loves until he moved back here in 1984 with his wife Gail and their young daughter Amber.
Fletcher was born in a nursing home
in Khyber Pass in the city in 1947. His father, who was invalided home from Italy in 1943, had rehabilitated on the North Shore, earning his living rewiring ships at the dockyard.
He was, says Fletcher, one of the many “quiet dads” of the era with similar war scars that would impact the lives of their wives and children.
Fletcher’s mother was a nurse and for some time worked at the Wilson Home. She was a strong role model, with a commitment to supporting the community groups that were growing around the North Shore.
The family home was built near Hauraki’s Northboro Rd in 1948, when Fletcher was an infant. He remembers a childhood running free over paddocks and mudflats with the children from other post-war families.
He went to Belmont Primary, then later the closer, brand-new Hauraki Primary School, where the inaugural pupils included kids from families like his, some from Navy housing and a number of post-war immigrants. He moved on to Belmont Intermediate and to Takapuna Grammar.
In his teens Fletcher, with his deep, resonant singing voice, found a love for song
Like yesteryear... With Alastair Fletcher at the helm, Devonport Museum has offered more objects to touch and see operating as they did in the past
and dance, and a spot for himself in the local Scouts gang shows. More recently, he’s been a stalwart of the happy singing seniors who perform often at the Rose Centre as the Rose Singers.
It was when he headed off to the University of Auckland that he really developed a love for Devonport. A student job in the summer of 1966 had him working at the old Devonport Borough Council depot at Mt Cambria. There he fell for the charm of the heritage village he was discovering all around him.
At university, he gained a Bachelors degree in Education and Social Anthropology, equipping himself for a long career in teaching and education.
He met Gail Carran in 1969 at North Shore Teachers College and they married in 1971. Forty years in education took him to a variety of multi-cultural Auckland’s primary and intermediate schools, including a stint as deputy principal at Belmont Primary.
In 2009, Fletcher retired from his role as principal at Blockhouse Bay School.
Before taking the leadership at the museum, he had been a volunteer, doing what he could around his day job.
Gail shared his interest and for decades has been associated with working in the gardens.
Surveying the museum and all that lies within, Fletcher talks about how it evolved and some aspects of what it is today. He does like things to be working and for visitors young and old to be able to learn something from what they see.
“It’s the teacher in me. People love to know about these things from other times, what they were for and how they are used.”
Within easy reach there’s a set of simple old-school board games, the sort enjoyed by Kiwi families around the fire on many an evening. He’s been delighted to see different cultures and generations playing Snakes and Ladders together, their laughter breaking out to the quieter corners. Those simple games bring pleasure to many, he says.
In what was an awkward corner there is now a small “villa room” set up, thanks
to the imagination of Fletcher’s team, who found what was needed and had the practical skills to pull them together. Maybe somewhere near the old fire surround uplifted from Tainui Rd, Fletcher will find a place for a recently acquired old walking staff to lean against a wall.
He’s proud to say there’s no plastic in this little space and plenty of materials to tell visiting school children of the way things were for earlier generations.
Every new day can take a museum man back at a moment’s notice to any time and place in the history of his neighbourhood –because you never know what could be out there as heritage ripe for a new life in the museum’s collection.
One day when Fletcher arrived to mow the lawns, he found a pink wooden box left on the doorstep. In it were cannonballs that had in another time been dug out of the cliffs in Stanley Bay.
When heritage, and the stories of our early life and forebears, are in your blood, your eyes and ears are ever alert for items yet to be unearthed that would be of interest to the museum’s visitors.
Fletcher maintains connections in the community and the institutions of the region, and the networks keep turning up fresh pickings. Such as when he had a phone call from a contact as the near-original house at 10 Cheltenham Road went on the market this year.
Fletcher was called upon to run an expert eye over a lifetime of family memories – a box of photos and paperwork amassed by the family and descendants of Arthur and Agnes McArthur since they bought the house new in 1912.
The box now at the museum held a treasure trove of over a century’s images and stories.
His own memories and stories are too many to recall as he steps down as president, but the highlights are plenty he says.
Working with a talented and committed team with many skills between them, and continuing to collect materials from a community with a rich heritage to be shared has made for good memories, he says.
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Blast from the past... Fletcher with a box of cannonballs left on the museum doorstep. They were dug from the cliffs at Stanley Bay.
Thank you John Ashton for your service and generosity
I would personally like to thank John Ashton for his 25 years’ service running the Devonport New World for the Devonport community. It was on a sad note that I heard he was retiring.
I would like to thank John for many things, including great conversation on dozens of early Sunday mornings when I would find him packing his shelves or organising staff. I would like to thank him for every time I have asked him for something he has replied “it is my pleasure” and carried out his agreement on the set day at the set time. In the 25 years he has been there I have asked him for so many things. Raffle prizes for dozens of Seagulls’ Luncheons I have been involved in organising, and sausages, bread and onions for the North Shore Rugby
Club juniors on so many occasions I have forgotten. I have asked him for raffle prizes for prizegivings for the senior rugby club. I know that he has been asked and delivered many times for the Devonport Yacht Club, the Calliope Sea Scouts, the Wakatere Boating Club and all the schools in the peninsula area for various goods to help them with so many fundraising efforts. He has given hugely generously over his 25 years.
I would like to thank him for keeping the Devonport community with a wonderful supermarket. I would like to thank him for employing all of my six children at various times in their early years when they were looking for enlightenment and holiday employment, as he has done with so many of our community families.
Holy Trinity vicar Chris Murphy is a brilliant teacher
Church is a place to worship God, to pray, reflect and seek guidance. My wife and I have lived in Devonport for many years and had been looking for a church we felt “at home” in and one with teaching that was clear and understandable, relating the Bible to our personal lives. Until recently we had been travelling into central Auckland. Not now, because if you want a brilliant teacher ,then Chris Murphy is the pastor for you. Holy Trinity is for us a place of wonderfully articulated religious teaching and we are learning and understanding clearly how faith applies to everyday life and growing personally in our walk with God. Combine this with the fact it is such a warm welcoming church, and that is the reason we now attend as do many others.
Your other writers, whom I never met or knew, are correct, every church is different:
the pastor and their sermons on the Bible, the congregation and how welcoming they are and the church itself in its architectural and spiritual presence. We are human beings and every one of us has different needs so I understand change and the impact it has on people, and if Holy Trinity is not for them, they will find another church that meets their spiritual needs, just as we found Holy Trinity met ours.
But if you do want great teaching, a place to pray, reflect and worship God, to be part of a community with shared beliefs and values and build friendships then give it a try. What have you got to lose other than a couple of hours of your life?
If you don’t push the door on Sunday at 9.30am then you don’t know what is behind it.
Andy Nock
No respite from RBNZ
Seems a shame the RBNZ held the cash rate (OCR) at 3.25% last week rather than lowering another 25bp, given the state of the domestic economy, as many businesses can’t recall such a depressed market particularly in retail, construction, employment and potentially property - hence we are seeing the enormous migration to Australia for many younger mobile people looking for work and opportunity. The conservative approach seems to be based on waiting for tariff impacts (not really showing up), slightly higher domestic inflationary expectations (yet interest rates don’t impact oil, rates, insurance etc) and even for the USA to move first (yet Fed Chairman J Powell is clearly not a Trump fan) - better they go and speak to businesses because without further rate cuts it’s hard to see what catalyst there is for an economic boost in NZ.
There is still activity for property and borrowers but prices are pretty subdued – let us know if we can help with any funding we can invariably help.
So many times, when I have had overseas people stay with me, they have ventured into the supermarket and have come back praising the state of New World. When I say praising it, I mean comparing it with many of their supermarkets back home, usually in the United States or Britain. Thanks, John, for keeping your standards high and our cupboards full over the past 25 years. I know it hasn’t been easy at times, especially during those dreadful Covid times. I will personally miss you when you finally retire in August, as I know so many in our community will. Enjoy your retirement, travel safe and explore those places you have only read about. You have well deserved it.
Simon Gundry
In the context of the Anne St trees, Christine Rowe of Burgess Rd writes of damage to the pavement from street trees. I have visited both streets and agree with her that the pavement on Burgess Rd (blessed with mature street trees) is indeed disrupted, in places quite severely, by roots.
However the pavements at both Anne St trees seemed to me quite flat. In any event, pavement problems are not solved by cutting down mature trees (the pavements would remain uneven!), but by modifying the pavements to accommodate both the trees and residents with mobility issues.
Perhaps the local board would care to reallocate the budget for destroying the Anne St trees to improving the Burgess Rd pavement, where I suspect the “safety” concern is more plausible.
Charles Palmer
Yellow ribbon protest
I decorated the two Anne St ‘umbrella’ trees with yellow ribbons to protest about their possible demise..
This action is to bring to attention to the plight of the trees due to resident complaints. The trees have no voice and they have been in the street for many years.
The complaints from residents are due to debris from the trees which I understand causes the residents’ concern.
Is this a reason to do away with the trees? I think not.
Carol Wegner
Letters to the Editor
We welcome letters on local issues that are not overly long. Noms-de-plume or unnamed submissions will not be printed Email to news@devonportflagstaff.co.nz or post to Devonport Flagstaff, PO Box 32 275, Devonport
20 years ago from the Flagstaff files
• A survey is under way to establish Devonport’s public transport usage after shock changes to bus routes.
• Former All Black captain Wayne “Buck” Shelford features on the Flagstaff front page in North Shore colours, as the club’s Dad’s Army team take on the Barmy Army from Britain, who are touring New Zealand as supporters of the British and Irish Lions. The teams draw, four tries all.
• Devonport Primary joins in the Lions tour mania with its playground decorated in red, black and white balloons before the final test. Pupils dressed in either red or black and painted their faces, and the school’s haka group performed at a special morning assembly.
• Tim Finn, one of New Zealand’s most famous musicians and a founding member of Split Enz, moves to Devonport, settling in Grahame St.
• North Shore Rugby Club’s premier side fails to make the North Harbour championship playoffs for the first time in years after a humiliating 38-7 loss to Mahurangi.
• Takapuna Grammar School students
Katie and Claire Braatvedt are pictured in designs that will be modelled at a fashion event at the Victoria Theatre.
• Text messages are sent to parents to track down absent students in a radical new automated system being trialled by Belmont Intermediate.
• The former Salvation Army Citadel in Hastings Pde is sold for $615,000.
• Dr Jonathan Simon talks about the need for a complete overhaul of the New Zealand health system in the Flagstaff interview.
• Film-maker Steve Hart is working on an historical documentary on the Victoria Theatre.
• Four Devonport photographers – Karey Walker, Joan Titchener, Diane Baudinet and Karen Williamson – hold an exhibition at the Depot titled The Collective Eye
• Friends of Cathy Gunn hold an exhibition at the Depot to coincide with her 50th birthday.
• TGS student Alyx Hodgson will compete in the 400m at the world under-18 athletics championships in Morocco.
Pianist clocks up 20 DCO performances
The Devonport Chamber Orchestra’s next concert will mark the 20th occasion Paddy Cornfield has performed with the DCO. He will be the piano soloist next Sunday 27 July in a programme featuring the first movement of Schubert’s Symphony No. 8 (unfinished) and Saint-Saens’ Piano Con-
certo No. 5 “Egyptian”.
The concert, conducted by Warwick Robinson, begins at 2pm at Holy Trinity Church, 20 Church Street, Devonport.
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Sir Stephen Tindall Pool to open
After a major transformation the newly upgraded Sir Stephen Tindall Pool will be in use this term. Thanks to donations and Sir Stephen Tindall’s generous support, the pool now includes floodlighting, a state-of-the-art filtration system, and is 70 cm deeper to accommodate water polo and training for other sports. The pool is heated so will be used year-round. It will save hundreds of trips each year for water-polo teams who would normally travel outside the area. The pool will also be used by the Devonport Swim Club and improve safety education for over 10,000 local students over the next decade. Principal Mary Nixon said the school looked forward to seeing students enjoy the fantastic, revitalised facility.
Calling all alumni - plans for Centenary underway
The school is getting ready to celebrate its 100th year in 2027 and wants all alumni to be part of the milestone. Former students are invited to register on the newly created online hub where alumni can reconnect, share memories and photos and stay informed about upcoming celebrations.
Events and Alumni Manager Mel Weeks will be posting regular news and updates on the hub.
Wet and windy golf win
TGS student William Mutch has claimed victory at the Northland Junior Open U16 boys, held at Mangawhai Golf Club on July 9–10. Despite battling through wet and windy conditions, Will, playing for Waitematā, delivered impressive rounds of 75 and 74, securing the win by a single stroke.
The tournament, hosted by North Golf, drew junior golfers from across the region. Fellow student Dillon Davidson also performed well.
“Planning is underway for the school’s Centenary in 2027 and I’m really looking forward to sharing further details of what we’ve got in store,” Mel said. “We’d like to see as many of you as possible at our celebrations in 2027 as we celebrate 100 years of our school’s history.”
Register here: https://takapuna.alumnly. com/ If you have any issues registering please email alumni@tgs.school.nz
Some of Aotearoa’s top comedians will take the stage in Te Poho at the PTA Comedy Night, hosted by award-winning comedian and 7 Days writer Nick Rado. Joining him are Billy T Award winner Justine Smith, Scottish comic David Stuart, and cult favourite Wilson Dixon (aka Jesse Griffin), known for his dry cowboy humour. The R18 event also features an auction with a weekend getaway, ceramics by Belinda Marshall, and art from Salt River Gallery. A standout item is “Bold Blue Day,” a striking painting by celebrated local artist Greer Clayton. Measuring 900 x 1000mm, the piece is reminiscent of islands with a coastal feel. Clayton’s work is internationally sought-after. Tickets are available individually or by table via the QR code or through Kindo.
Medical man had expertise across many fields
Emeritus Professor Des Gorman, an international expert in dive medicine and a former head of the University of Auckland’s medical school, died at his Devonport home from cancer on the 2 July, surrounded by family.
Gorman, was an advocate for public health reform, and nationally known as an independent voice not afraid to challenge the status quo, speaking up for the disadvantaged, including questioning the government’s Covid response.
He was the eldest of four, growing up in a working class family in Ōtāhuhu. His father Vincent was from Queensland; his mother Mary Blucher was a nurse of Ngapuhi and Ngati Kuri descent. He attended Ōtāhuhu College, where he was dux, and a top sports person who excelled in both swimming and rugby.
Gorman was accepted into medical school in 1972, but recalled his humble background was no better reflected than when he couldn’t answer a question in his interview on who were New Zealand’s leading artists of the time?
He graduated top student of his year, and already having an interest in dive medicine, used his dual citizenship to join the Royal Australian Navy in 1980. He became an expert in gas embolism and was later frequently called as an expert
in court cases involving diving accidents. Tragically while he was becoming a dive medical expert, he lost his younger brother Greg to a diving accident while a student at Otago University.
Gorman played rugby for Australian combined services and he and wife Christine started a family in Australia, with daughters Anna, Sarah and Emily born there.
He joined the New Zealand Navy in 1989, serving until 1995. He helped establish the Slark Hyperbaric Unit recompression chamber which is still in operation today.
After leaving the Navy, he continued as a consultant to the Defence Force in diving and hyperbaric medicine and worked as a consultant, travelling the world advising on health system reform, dive medicine and training doctors.
Gorman forged a special relationship with Oman. He first set up a hyperbaric chamber there, but over time his work extended to include health policy and management. He worked with the Omani health minister and helped oversee Oman’s medical education.
While continuing work as a medical doctor, Gorman completed two PhDs. In 2005, he became the head of the School of Medicine at the University of Auckland, the first person of Maori descent to hold the position and the first graduate of the school to hold the role.
A highlight for the family was when his daughter Emily enrolled at the school in 2009, mirroring her dad by becoming top of her class, when her father was still its head. Due to his excellent presentation skills, quick wit and humour, Gorman was often voted best lecturer during his time at the med school, which he left in 2010.
Throughout his life Gorman was a prominent and prolific academic, authoring or co-authoring hundreds of reports and studies which appeared in journals in New Zealand and overseas.
His work expanded from diving medicine to health systems and health reform. He contributed to the Harvard University ThinkTank and its leadership programmes and eventually began travelling the world, helping transform health systems.
Colleagues remembered him as an inspiration, a mentor, a problem-solver and someone able to speak truth to power – especially pertinent in his later years.
He was an independent commentator during the Covid-19 pandemic, speaking up on behalf of those who were badly impacted by strict lockdowns, such as women giving birth without wider support and those dying without their loved ones allowed to be present.
While he lived for many years in Albert Rd, Devonport, Tutukaka was a special spot for him, with summers spent kayaking, swimming and diving with his family.
He is survived by wife Christine, daughters Anna, Sarah and Emily and eight grandchildren.
A lifelong contribution to public health…Des Gorman
Former teacher influenced many Shore lives
By David Slack
Paul Beachman was a good person to know. He and his wife Bernice have been good friends since the day I came home to a message from Bernice introducing herself as a publisher at Penguin and wondering if I might like to write a book. She changed the direction of my life with a phone call.
Paul surely influenced the direction of countless lives. He taught more than 7000 North Shore high schoolers over 45 years.
You would hear it from people if ever you mentioned his name: He taught me at Westlake; He taught all our daughters at Northcote College.
I knew all this, I knew him to be a very memorable, very admired teacher. But I didn’t know the half of it.
He was known by most everyone here in the village who ever went out walking or ever came to an occasion at the Devonport Library.
I realised today as I reached the stretch of road where we would meet, just how often that would happen, but always with Paul there would be something fresh to talk about.
He grew older but his outlook never did. His eyes would dance as you spoke. He’d say, I thought of this event we could have at the library, would you be interested?
His politics were progressive, but he was no follower of the herd. He happily and readily challenged, he remained fully alive to the last.
I didn’t know the half of it, because
that’s how it always will be at a funeral. No matter how well you knew a person, there will be dimensions you didn’t see, days you weren’t there.
I call it a funeral but it wasn’t that. A private cremation earlier in the week, then a gathering with drinks and speeches at the Devonport Yacht Club, no casket, no undertaker whose helpful presence can nonetheless stiffen the whole mood of things. It was Paul’s request: informal, warm. Such a good way to say goodbye.
There were plenty of eulogies, all of them very good, but most especially there was Vicki Barrie, the last of the half dozen principals with whom he taught at Northcote College.
She described a marvellous teaching career capped by a letter that came to them unsought from senior school leavers about how they might make the school better –half a dozen suggestions and then this one: Clone Mr Beachman.
There was so much more, about how much those students prized him, about his imagination, about the way he formed real and lasting connections. It reminded me of something I wrote last year about my Uncle John – the way he always wanted to hear from young people about what was new, what they were studying, what they were planning to do.
An eye forever towards the future, with enthusiasm, with a genuine interest in and care for others.
• First published by David Slack on Substack, go to substack.com/@subslack
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Explore what makes Amaia a truly exceptional place to call home Whether you’re a serious buyer or just curious, this is the perfect opportunity to take a closer look at the now completed apartments
The Wallace team looks forward to showcasing these stunning apartments to you - see you there!
Local residents asked to dig deep for food drive
The Devonport peninsula community is being asked to support a major food drive for struggling local people.
The Community House in Clarence St has signed up as an official collection point for donated goods for the Shore Winter Food Drive. Among those giving already are parishioners at Holy Trinity Church.
“We know there’s an unmet need,” says Sophie Gray of the Good Works Trust. She says this is widespread and often hidden from the wider community.
Among those affected are the elderly and families, along with individuals dealing with challenging circumstances.
Her organisation is one of the assistance providers for referred clients who will benefit from the food drive. “It will help us survive,” Gray says.
The second annual drive has grown to have 16 official collection points across the North Shore.
Gray urges people to give non-perishable food and to also keep an eye on their neighbours, steering any in difficulties towards organisations that can help with referrals for aid, such as the Citizens Advice Bureau (CAB), which connects people to food banks and budget advice.
The drive throughout July and August is being run by the Food Security Network and the Auckland Churches Network, with Takapuna-based environmental group Pupuke Birdsong Project (PBS) providing administrative management.
The Food Security Network, set up last year, involves multiple groups working together to make a difference on the North Shore. PBS’s Grace Samuelson says the network helps coordinate approaches and give an overview of resources. These range from pātaka kai (community food cupboards) and gardens to community dinners, such as those
that have been held in Bayswater to strengthen connectivity, and emergency providers. Working together helps with tackling need and avoids duplicating resources, says Gray.
The North Shore has around 10 food banks, which Gray believes is too many. Emergency food banks do not receive
government assistance and some in Auckland have folded as demand grows while gaining access to supplies and funding becomes more difficult. Kiwi Harvest food-rescue group is a key supporter.
Gray says the politics of food aid are complex.
While there is a plenty of real need, there are also “frequent flyers”, she says, people who go from food bank to food bank and clear out community food cupboards. “We are having to be tougher,” she says.
She emphasises need is real for most people seeking help, who have often exhausted welfare grants or find their family budgets don’t stretch to cover regular costs. She points out that the North Shore has just one school that qualifies for the government school-lunch programme, but 20 per cent of Aucklanders have household incomes below $50,000 a year, equating to 24,000 households on less than half the median Auckland income.
To better target its aid, the trust works with referred clients only. As well as supplying crisis food boxes, it also runs a social supermarket, where clients can access a wider range of foods on a koha model.
Crisis aid is usually simple tinned goods and familiar food like baked beans and bread, because clients often have access only to a single heating element or microwave.
Wrap-around support and upskilling is vital, says the former food editor who went on to build a profile as the Destitute Gourmet, offering budget recipe advice, before joining and expanding the work of the trust.
• Food-drive donations can be dropped at the Devonport Community House. Items wanted include non-perishable foods, household cleaners and personal-care goods. These will go from the collectors to providers for distribution.
Meeting a need... Sophie Gray of the Good Works Trust
When houses of God turn into prime real estate
St Margaret’s Presbyterian Church in Belmont is the latest of many churches on the Devonport peninsula to be sold off as traditional religious observance declines, leaving them surplus to requirements.
Six have been sold or demolished in the past 20 or so years.
These include:
• The Salvation Army Citadel in Hastings Pde – sold in 2005 and now a private residence.
• St Paul’s Church (Presbyterian) and hall on Victoria Rd – sold in 2012, becoming a chess centre and later a private residence.
• St Augustine’s Church (Anglican) on Calliope Rd – sold in 2017, becoming a private residence.
• St Luke’s Catholic Church in Bayswater Ave – sold in 2021, demolished, with 31 townhouses built on the site.
• St Michael’s and All Angels (Anglican) on Bayswater Ave – sold around 2013 and now part of Danny Watson’s marae complex.
Earlier, 10 Calliope Rd, a gospel hall for an Open Brethren church, was sold into private ownership in the 1970s and converted into a home.
The remaining churches in Devonport are: Holy Trinity in Church St (Anglican); St Francis de Sales and All Souls on Victoria Rd (Catholic); the Devonport Methodist Church on the corner of Lake Rd and Owens Rd;
Formerly houses of worship… (clockwise from above) St Michael’s, Bayswater Ave; Open Brethren gospel hall, Calliope Rd; St Paul’s, Victoria Rd; St Augustine’s, Calliope Rd; sites of St Luke’s, Bayswater Ave; and Salvation Army citadel, Hastings Pde
Connect Church on Victoria Rd; Belmont Baptist Church on Lake Rd; the Chapel of St Christopher at the Devonport Naval Base; and the Takapuna Bible Church on Jutland Rd.
For sale… The last service at St Margaret’s Presbyterian Church in Belmont was held in January
A new outreach minister for the Presbyterian Church will serve the Devonport peninsula, partially filling the hole left by the closure and sale of St Margaret’s Presbyterian Church, Belmont.
Funds from the sale of the church property will go towards financing St George’s Presbyterian Church, Takapuna, and to undertake a new outreach ministry in the lower North Shore area, the church’s Northern Presbytery executive officer Rod
Watts said.
“This will be led by a full-time outreach minister. St George’s are close to appointing someone to this role.
“In the meantime the presbytery has continued to support the members of what was St Margaret’s, such as allowing them to continue to worship in the church,” Watts said.
The Northern Presbytery decided to close the church after appointing a com-
mission to review its future.
Its last service was January this year.
Reasons for closure included low numbers attending and the state of the building, Watts said.
The Northern Presbytery refused to release the commission report, saying it was confidential.
St Margaret’s was established in 1910 with the assistance of the Devonport Presbyterian Church.
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Stuffed: Once-proud North Shore paper coldly binned
As a community news journalist for the greater part of my life, I’m pretty sad about the closure of the North Shore Times. Not for the skeleton of the paper it is now, but for the great paper it once was.
When I worked for New Zealand News in 1987, the Times was published three times a week – with up to 64 pages an issue. Turning it into a daily paper was under serious consideration by its then bosses.
The paper’s journalists lived locally and had real community engagement – no better exemplified than by its long-time editor Pat Gundry, a Devonport local.
Gundry was with the Times for 25 years from 1959 to 1985, building it into the most successful community newspaper in the country.
Such was its connection to the community, it even had a signwritten caravan it lent out to community groups for events and fundraisers.
The paper’s decline had been gradual, with some of its community connection weakened as the Shore grew, but accelerated over the last two decades, with owners Fairfax and latterly Stuff emphasising digital.
I remember sitting in a Devonport-Takapuna Local Board meeting a decade ago
Briefs
Candidate drops out
One of the candidates selected by Communities and Residents – North Shore to stand for election to the Devonport-Takapuna Local Board has withdrawn. Devonport banker Phillip McGivern said a new work role meant he would no longer have the time to serve on the board if elected. C&R is expected to add a replacement for McGivern to offer a full six-strong ticket.
TGS runner in NZ team
Asha Edwards, a senior Takapuna Grammar School student, has been selected in a national secondary schools cross country team for the Australian All Schools Cross Country Championship on the Gold Coast in September.
Braunias speaks
The Polkinghorne court case will be discussed by reporter and author Steve Braunias at a Devonport Library Associates event on 23 July at 7pm. Braunias has produced a book on the trial of Philip Polkinghorne, who was acquitted of murdering his wife. Koha entry. The event will be preceded by the library group’s AGM at 6 pm.
alongside a Times reporter busily working away on her laptop. Numerous contentious issues were going on at the meeting but the reporter was filing an update on a cat injured by a car. The story was getting a lot of clicks, so the reporter was filing multiple updates
over the course of the day.
In recent years, the Times has had no North Shore office and then no dedicated Shore reporters at all.
A couple of years ago I kept a log and counted three months of issues which didn’t have a picture of a local person.
When I’ve asked North Shore residents what they thought of the Times, they would universally say “there’s nothing in it”.
The Stuff announcement this month about closing a number of its community titles across New Zealand, lumped the North Shore Times in under the banner of “Auckland Community Newspapers”.
The Times began in Devonport in 1949, merging with a Takapuna-Milford paper in 1966 to become the North Shore Times Advertiser
To consign a once-excellent paper with a 70-year record to the dustbin of history without even mentioning its name is an insult to those who worked there and its journalistic record.
It also doesn’t augur well for any community connection by Stuff to the North Shore, no matter how loudly it trumpets its good intentions online.
Rob Drent, Managing Editor
Conjuring our more colourful past
Shaking up the beige brigade is the ambition of two academics who are combining with tertiary students to present a more colourful take on Devonport’s streetscape.
To aid their vision they put out the call to locals to donate surplus house paint for an exhibition called Building (Under the Volcano) which finishes at Whare Toi on Kerr St on Saturday.
“Hopefully we’ll end up with something that feels like people’s houses,” artist and Massey University creative arts lecturer Richard Reddaway told the Flagstaff before a large painted structure of corrugated cardboard had been created for display.
Architectural historian Kate Linzey, who grew up in Stanley Bay and attended Takapuna Grammar School, is driving the conceptual sculpture project with him. Architect Matt Liggins and architecture students from Auckland University are also on board.
Linzey remembers a more colourful working-class Devonport in the 1970s and 80s.
Navy houses were grey, she says, but the community also had a pronounced artistic, hippie side, with its villas not uniformly “tastefully” painted.
It is the art-architecture crossover that interests Linzey. She completed a PhD at the University of Queensland looking at the architectural scale and art proposals of Len Lye. She has also researched the colour beige and says there are 42 different names for the shade.
Variations on the theme are common for Devonport homes.
Tēnā koutou. We’re excited to showcase a host of exhibitions, workshops and events, including our annual Matariki exhibition, an architechtural exhibition series and a Maker of the Month in the DEPOT Shop | Toi Toa. Read on to find out more!
DEPOT Artspace
In support of DEPOT Artspace’s current Matariki exhibition, ‘RuaruawhetūWeaving Design Celebrating the Stars,’ we are hosting several raranga (weaving) workshops.
Featuring work from 17 artists spanning individual and collaborative raranga, this exhibition is on until 26 July so be sure to stop by for a visit, and visit our website to register for a workshop!
DEPOT
3 Vic Road
Cultural nuance is fascinating to Linzey. Her local connections are still strong, with her parents here and a sister in Bayswater. The pair, who are a couple based in Wellington, want to provoke debate.
Reddaway chips in: “When you go to Mexico all the buildings are really colourful, but you come back to New Zealand and it’s all these shades of beige.”
Reddaway has organised similar installations previously and says as well as encouraging students to think about what colour conveys, he asks them to respond to location.
Look out for tunnels in construction.
• Building (Under the Volcano) at Whare Toi, 2a Kerr St, ends on after a Meet the Makers Korero between 2-4pm on 19 July.
DEPOT 3 Vic Road’s upcoming exhibition, ‘Urban Adaptations - Devonport Tomorrow,’ opens 16 July, 6-8pm and shares creative propositions for the future development of Devonport Village.
‘Takarunga: A Natural History’ by Tate Agnew opens 19 July 10am-12pm, and delves into the ecological and social history of Takarunga through a series of paintings.
3 Vic Road visitors can also browse the DEPOT Shop | Toi Toa Maker of the Month for July - Hawaiiki Pēpi, showcasing a range of Māori designed products and blankets for babies.
Visit depot.org.nz for more info and stay up to date by subscribing to our e-news!
Ngā mihi nui, Amy Saunders
Director | Kaiwhakahaere, DEPOT amy.saunders@depot.org.nz
Not beige... A playful cardboard structure created to suggest a more colourful Devonport streetscape
Provoking debate... Richard Reddaway and Kate Linzey
Former criminal freed by art that’s ‘meant to be’
Simon Kerr says if it weren’t for art, he would still be a criminal. Notorious for once leading the Hole in the Wall Gang and his jail escapes, the 64-year-old proudly retains a renegade spirit, seen in his powerfully raw paintings.
But it’s been years since his last spell behind bars, which he puts down to his decade-plus obsession with making art.
“I’m still an outlaw, but not a criminal outlaw,” he maintains. “Being a criminal is a very selfish existence, but not as selfish as being an artist.”
These days, he gets by from selling his paintings rather than by safe-cracking and uplifting ATMs. “All I’ve done is paint.” It gives him a feeling of freedom.
Kerr’s latest exhibition, Outlaw – Rust Never Sleeps, is on at Satellite2 gallery in Devonport. It renews a connection with owners Lynn Lawton and Linda Blincko, who hosted his first show in Rawene in Northland in 2014 after he took up painting while serving time at Ngawha Prison. A year later he exhibited with them at the Depot in Devonport, which marked a return to an area he was familiar with.
During what he describes as a chaotic childhood, North Shore-born Kerr had a spell at Vauxhall School. Takapuna Grammar was the third high school he was expelled from.
There was an inevitability to how things turned out, he reckons, but also to how the way he has lived and what he has seen feeds into his art. “It’s like a sketchbook of the world and created by the environ-
ment,” he tells the Flagstaff. There’s no excuse-making about his past, rather a hard-won self-acceptance. Other than a three-month sentence for a parole breach, he has been out of jail since 2015. But there’s been an ongoing cost – drinking and broken relationships included.
“Art is literally all I’ve got left.”
It is an unhappy paradox born from an anarchic life, he says, but also a saving grace.
Spells in solitary – when prisoners were
“Being a criminal is a very selfish existence, but not as selfish as being an artist.”
allowed just two books, one being the Bible – had an impact too, with religious imagery figuring in his work, but not as a follower.
“I’ve experienced growth and it didn’t come through religion,” says Kerr.
He is energised by creating and says he often works frantically at it for hours on end. “I want to be rich and famous,” he says intently
Although his works in acrylics and ink reference those of other artists, including Sydney Nolan’s Ned Kelly portraits and Colin McCahon’s use of icongraphy and type, it is Jean-Michel Basquiat that most
impressed him, when a guard gave him a book featuring the American graffiti artist turned art-world darling. He says he soon set it aside, determined to develop his own imagery. Having grown confident in this, he says in the last six months he has taken to watching art documentaries.
But he has little time for art-world interpretation of his own paintings, saying people are apt to read things into the works. They see wordplay in words he has simply misspelled, due to being “semi-literate”.
He’s turned down some would-be buyers, but also has repeat collectors. “My story is not open to interpretation, but if you can identify with the story or some sort of analogy...”
He also dismisses any notion of art as therapy. “It’s much more than that, it was meant to be.”
Perhaps it was always in the genes. His father, who left when he was four, was a photographer. His mother, Raewyn, painted mannered watercolours. Once he presented her with a painting of a rampant bull. She asked if one day he might paint something nice, he rejoined: “When are you to paint something not nice mum, something true?”
The bull painting was kept in her garage. But before his mother died a couple of years ago, she told her son she was proud of him. He has professional validation too, with sales in New Zealand and Sydney.
“You’re not going to survive over a decade now and sell a lot of paintings with just a back story,” he says.
• Outlaw – Rust Never Sleeps, Satellite 2 gallery, Devonport, until 3 August.
Artist Simon Kerr back in Devonport for a show that challenges stereotypes
Young artist inspired by Takarunga
Takarunga loomed large in Tate Agnew’s teenage years and is now central to an exhibition informed by the 20-year-old’s university science studies and developing art practice.
Agnew’s paintings are on show from this weekend as part of three Depot Artspace exhibitions exploring place. “I hope my work inspires people to look deeper into the natural spaces they may take for granted,” the artist says.
The landscapes (including Ascension, pictured right) feature trees and vistas, but also focus in on the detail of moss and lichen, an interest that spins off from Agnew’s studies in ecology at the University of Otago.
They seek to recognise the cultural identity of the maunga as well.
Agnew (pictured, inset) was raised in Los Angeles until a family move to Belmont at age 15, and spent the final years of high school at Takapuna Grammar.
Takarunga was one of the first places she visited. “This was when I discovered that my ancestor, Eruera Maihi Patuone, was buried in the cemetery on the maunga.
“My time at school always seemed to centre around the mountain, meeting on the top with friends, having picnics, attending folk evenings, etc. It was an urban sanctuary for me.”
The move from a hyper-urban environment was something of an awakening that she thinks can be taken for granted by New Zealanders who are lucky enough to dwell with nature.
“I feel inspired, as you can see from my art.” Her science focus influences her approach to art, especially in this show. “I wanted to inspire a passion for science even within non-scientific communities by sharing the beauty that I have found in it.”
The self-taught artist has previously shown in 10 group exhibitions, been commissioned to paint a mural for Auckland Council and illustrated a children’s book, A Fairy Farm Family
Book illustration is something she is keen to do more of. She will be back home this weekend for the show’s opening from Dunedin, where she is in her second year of BSc studies. It couldn’t be more appropriate that it is at Depot 3 Victoria Rd gallery, with Takarunga up the road.
“Without the maunga, Devonport wouldn’t exist as we know it today,” she says.
“It has been integral to the area’s history as a nature reserve, a pa, a military base, and as a community centre through schools, churches, and just offering a good view.”
• Takarunga: A Natural History runs until 23 July.
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