February 28, 2025
Local-board balance unclear after chair’s exit... p2
Folk in the Park picture spread... p6-7
Interview: Author Vivienne Lingard... p22-23
Marina goes to court to keep public off breakwater
The breakwater at Bayswater Marina remains closed to members of the public as arguments over its reopening head to court. Under its resource consents, Bayswater Marina Ltd (BML) was meant to keep the breakwater open to public access. But it has been closed since December 2023, following a drowning in the area and BML citing concerns over public safety.
A hearing is set down for 10 and 11 March.
• Four-storey boat storage facility planned on reclamation, page 5.
Auckland Council has issued an abatement notice requiring the marina company to open the breakwater, but BML has lodged an appeal to the Environment Court.
Tearful Toni bids mid-term farewell
Emotional goodbye... Departing Devonport-Takapuna Local Board chair Toni van Tonder was brought to tears during a farewell from community groups. She resigned from the board last week as she and her family have moved to Brisbane. Story, more photos, pages 8-9.
Cinema pumps up the volume
People with hearing difficulties will have an improved experience at the Vic with the installation of a new system for the hearing-impaired in the main downstairs cinema.
The system will be in addition to one in Cinema 2.
The infrared, wireless system includes four headsets that can be used by people with or without hearing aids.
Moviegoers can ask for a headset when they buy their tickets at no extra cost.
The Victoria Theatre Trust received $5228 from the Pub Charity towards the system.
Club gives juniors a taste of rippa rugby
Every junior primary school pupil on the Devonport peninsula will be offered a taste of rugby in a series of Give It a Go “rippa” sessions starting at schools this week.
North Shore Rugby Club plans sessions for Years 1 and 2s at Vauxhall, St Leo’s, Belmont, Hauraki, Stanley Bay, Devonport, Bayswater and Takapuna primary schools. In each session children will be divided into groups and taken through a range of activities at various stations on the school fields.
All will receive a participation certificate and be given details about the club.
Shore will be playing Rippa rugby on Friday nights this year, to allow kids to take part in multiple sports.
Death after rescue
A woman was rescued from the sea at Cheltenham Beach last Saturday at around 2.50pm but died at Balmain Reserve despite resuscitation attempts. Police refused to release her age, occupation or where she lived.
Board-chair hopeful could face contest
Mel Powell is poised to be nominated as Devonport-Takapuna Local Board chair, but the board must first decide whether to fill the vacancy left by the resignation this month of chair Toni van Tonder.
If the position is filled, a rival candidate for chair could emerge.
At its upcoming March meeting, the board can either opt to appoint a replacement or continue with just five members until the local body elections in September-October. Council staff advice on procedures is that a vote on the chair would then take place.
Member George Wood says he would be very disappointed if the highest-polling unsuccessful candidate from the last election, Mike Single, was not appointed.
Single, who stood on the Community and Residents (C&R) ticket with Wood and member Gavin Busch, is keen to take up the seat. The Kaipatiki Local Board this month voted to fill a vacancy when a member resigned, Wood noted.
Should the board decide in favour of bringing in a new member, it is expected the seat would be filled from the April meeting.
If Single is appointed, Wood said he would seek to have the vote on the chair delayed until April. If the board then divided 3-3 between the C&R members and those elected as part of van Tonder’s A Fresh Approach ticket in 2022 (Powell, acting chair Terence Harpur and Peter Allen), Wood thought a coin toss should decide who got the top role.
Harpur, Powell and Allen would not be drawn on whether the board vacancy should be filled. Harpur said Wood was speaking out for media attention.
Harpur plans to nominate Powell, a firstterm member who lives in Sunnynook, to be chair, and she told the paper she would be happy to accept his nomination. Harpur, the board’s deputy chair since 2022, told the Flagstaff: “For myself the time is not right.”
Keen on the job… Mel Powell says she would accept nomination to be the next local-board chair
He is also the full-time chief executive of the Takapuna Beach Business Association. Rules allow for a dual role, provided any potential conflicts of interest are managed. Powell said she was keen to continue with what had been a collaborative and effective board under van Tonder, who has moved to Australia. “I have a similar leadership style and want to finish this term continuing the benefits of working together.”
Van Tonder was farewelled at the February board meeting last week and flew out the next morning to rejoin her family in Brisbane.
Harpur, Powell, Wood and Busch have indicated they will all stand again for the board later in the year. Allen is yet to say.
Powell has been an advocate for flood victims and said pushing for big long-term projects to mitigate risk in Sunnynook and Milford would remain a focus as would the environment. “We live in paradise. Let’s keep it that way.”
• Van Tonder bids farewell, pages 8-9.
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YOUNG PLAYERS
‘Mate vs mate’ match will boost cross-code project
A ‘Shore Smash’ code-battle cricket match will be held at the Vauxhall Rd rugby grounds on 5 April to launch the joint venture to revamp the former Devonport Bowling Club premises to provide women’s facilities.
InThe North Shore Rugby Club and North Shore Cricket Club, which have been granted a council lease on the former bowls club rooms, have set up a joint-venture committee to steer the development.
Their rugby-versus-cricket T20 match will contribute to the project, which will receive the profits from the rugby club bar during the event.
The game will run from 3pm to 8pm, after a junior open day at the club from 11am. “We’re aiming for a big day down at the club and hoping it will be something the whole community will enjoy,” said North Shore Rugby club manager Callum McNair.
Grant McKenzie, a former Northern Districts cricketer who works in marketing with the Blues and Auckland Rugby, has been confirmed as the coach of the rugby side, while well-known local sports identity Murray Scott is the coach of the cricket side.
Richard Jones, a former Black Cap who played rugby for Shore for several years, will captain the rugby side, while former All Black Ian Jones will captain the cricket team. It’s likely current Auckland Aces and Hearts players Jock McKenzie and Rishika Jaswal, and North Shore rugby players Donald Coleman and Lockie McNair (both of whom played cricket for Takapuna Grammar) will feature.
Callum McNair said the Shore Smash teams would include a mix of men and women from each club along with celebrity participants. It was hoped the match would become an annual event, he said.
• Keep an eye on future Flagstaff issues for stories leading up to the event.
2003 Stu Mather took over as the head coach of the premiers. Richard Jones assisted with the backs when his cricketing career permitted. That year Richard established himself as an international cricketer. He was selected for the 2003 tour to Sri Lanka in April and May so was away for most of the rugby season. He was also part of the NZ one day team for a five match tour of Pakistan. Richard played in the first test in Wellington against Pakistan in December 2003. He returned to Auckland in 2004 and finished in 2010 at 36, bowing out with an unbeaten 170. He played five One Day Internationals for the Blackcaps and just the one test. Richard was a gifted sportsman, a regular fullback for the seniors and reserves from the mid 1990s.
In the likely lineup… (clockwise from top left) Jock McKenzie, Rishika Jaswal, Donald Coleman and Richard Jones
By Rob Drent
Farewell this month to one of Devonport’s quietest achievers – Hilary Worsfold, the unassuming dynamo behind the Devonport Folk Music Club and The Bunker.
Hilary was club secretary for many years and partner of the larger-than-life face of the Bunker, Roger Giles.
After Roger died in 2020, Hilary, who lived two doors down from us, continued to walk their dog, Jess, twice a day, though the pace of both Hilary and Jess slowed as age inevitably took its toll.
I was so lucky to interview Hilary last December to mark her retirement from the folk club. She was very unwell and had lost a lot of weight but was still optimistic that positive test results would see her back at her beloved folk club seeing acts in the New Year. Jess had died, she told me – another link to her beloved Roger gone. She still had a twinkle in her eye as she recalled the folk club memories and the more printable tales of Roger’s many shenanigans.
Hilary died on 10 February, just days before the annual Folk in the Park Festival was to be held at Windsor Reserve. It was an event she and Roger did so much to foster and keep going.
It seemed strange to be there and have neither of them in attendance, enjoying the music and bonhomie. In a world where people’s lives and achievements are trumpeted out online, there was something of the quintessential old-style Devonport about Hilary: kind and neighbourly, but principled when and where it mattered.
Our community needs more like her.
In the wake of Toni van Tonder’s departure as Devonport-Takapuna Local Board chair, it seems Mel Powell will be nominated as the successor.
Current deputy chair Terence Harpur said the time wasn’t quite right for him.
The Flagstaff had earlier checked if he was able to put his name forward for selection, given he is also the chief executive of the Takapuna Beach Business Association, which receives Auckland Council Business Improvement District (BID) funds.
Here’s the response from Auckland Council’s governance team:
“Simple answer is yes he can fulfil both roles. There are other members who are also representatives of BIDs. This does create a potential conflict of interest, which we
would expect members to manage through the usual processes. (A guide is included on the Auckland Council website.)
“It is worth noting this point: conflicts of interest are natural and unavoidable; they will inevitably arise from time to time in a country as small as New Zealand. The important thing is to manage them effectively.”
The lack of banking facilities in Devonport is forcing the village towards being a cashless society it seems. The Flagstaff is a regular at Chiasso coffee roasters, who had difficulty giving us change for a $20 note the other day.
It’s simply too difficult to make the trip to Takapuna on a regular basis to process notes and coins and have a reliable stock of change.
This is totally understandable for Chiasso and no doubt many other businesses in Devonport, given the congestion on Lake Rd and the time required for what was once an easy trip round the corner to the bank.
But given the amount of scamming going on in the banking world, I’m not so sure people want to give up on cash just yet.
A reader contacted us with a disturbing story about abuse directed at a bus driver on the Takapuna-Devonport route. A man who boarded the bus about 3pm near Bardia St loudly abused the driver and other passengers for around 10 minutes, using a stream of expletives before the driver let the man travel to Devonport for free. The man was agitated that “the system” had failed him. Although most of the 12 or so passengers sat through the tirade in silence, trying not to inflame the situation, one woman offered the man $10. Our reader contacted Auckland Transport (AT) about the incident and was told it could do little about it. She was most shocked by AT saying “the bus drivers are used to it.”
Given the threatening nature of the behaviour, I suggested she lodge a complaint with the police.
It’s a great shame bus drivers on any route should be subject to this behaviour, but a reminder that although we live in the “Devonport bubble”, we are part of a city, with all its ills.
Four-storey boat storage planned for Bayswater
Stacked... An artist’s impression of what the boat storage facility on the Bayswater reclamation would look like (above). Below: How the boat storage facility would fit into the overall development.
A four-storey boat storage facility has been proposed for the Bayswater reclamation as part of housing and commercial/marine activities at the site.
The boat storage/stacking building would accommodate 156 boats over three levels, with car parking for 20 car and boat trailers, 18 berth-holder car parks and 10 visitor car parks at ground level.
Nineteen pōhutukawa would be removed as part of the proposal but “will be replaced by similar trees elsewhere on the site”, Bayswater Marina Holdings Limited (BMHL) said in its application.
The company has submitted the application should not be publicly notified as its effects are “less than minor”.
BMHL was granted consent in 2023 to redevelop the reclamation site including:
• 78 dwellings (60 terraced dwellings and 18 apartments in two buildings.
• 615sqm non-residential floor space including a ferry waiting room
• 88sqm berth holder facilities
• 332 car parks (310 for berth holders and 22 visitor spaces)
• 20 car and boat trailer parks
• 7850sqm of public open space.
• A unit title subdivision to create principal units, common areas and an esplanade strip.
• An area set aside for boat storage.
The current application for “PU100” , covering 4800sqm, allows for the boat storage and also the car-parking envisaged for the area.
The height of the proposed building will be a maximum of 14.7m above ground level and include a “saw-tooth roof” which is seen by designers as looking better than a flat roof. The storage bays will be between 8.5m and 12m in length.
The boat storage/stacking facility will be stage one of the project. Stage two will see the building of 5271sqm of commercial tenancies orientated towards marine-related activities constructed over four levels abut
ting the boat and storage building.
Bayswater Community Committee member Brianna Parkinson said: “I think there are some persuasive arguments for public notification. However, it is not something that BCC will push for.”
The committee has a memorandum of understanding with BMHL (from the last hearing) “which we are satisfied will provide for community inputs into the development”, Parkinson said.
“Boat storage is one of the activities that
BCC supported retaining at the hearing. And it’s consistent with the underlying marina zone.”
The PU100 area was carved out of the residential development given consent at the council hearing – and the current BMHL proposal “doesn’t appear to affect the public access to the coastal marine area”, she said. The Bayswater Marina Berth Holders Association was still digesting the application but felt it should be publicly notified, spokesman Paul Glass said.
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Late folk-club stalwart fondly remembered
Long-time Auckland folk music stalwart Hilary Worsfold was fondly remembered at Folk in the Park at Windsor Reserve on Sunday 16 February.
Worsfold, who was secretary of the Devonport Folk Club for 30 years and organised the festival for more than a decade, died in the week leading up to this year’s event.
Folk club president and festival MC Terry Free paid tribute to her contribution, as did the performers, such as Sonia and Nigel (Sonia Wilson and Nigel Gavin) and Diane Ponzio, who performed in front of the reserve’s band rotunda.
More than 200 people attended the festival.
• Hilary Worsfold obituary, page 35.
Locals... (from left) Julie Irving, Tamsin Worsley, Lisa McCloskey and Paul McCloskey
Master of Ceremonies... Terry Free, president of the Devonport Folk Music Club
Familiar faces... Diane Ponzio (centre) with bandmates Marika Balzat (left) and Helene Piper
at laid-back Windsor Reserve music festival
Rates heading lower...
Interest rates are heading lower following the RBNZ cutting the OCR to 3.75% and signalling a couple of 25bp cuts in the next few months - banks have immediately reduced their floating rates by @50bp but they are still near 7% - the real value is further out the curve where we are seeing 2 and 3yr fixed rates at 4.99% - which seems a pretty good rate given the uncertainty with global [tariff] inflation and bond yields which impact our longer term interest rates... so speak to us about any fixed-rate rollovers coming up.
We are seeing a bit more mortgage inquiry from both first-home buyers and investors as property activity is picking up although prices remain pretty flat - bank approval times are still slow at 5 to 10 business days so get in touch early to be sure of any finance required.
Big day out... (clockwise from top left) Joe and Susan Hulsdouw; Isaac Francis-Bidwell with mum Carol Bidwell; Celtic Ferret; and Nigel Gavin and Sonia Wilson
Van Tonder bids farewell to community groups
Local community groups gave departing Devonport-Takapuna Local Board chair Toni van Tonder a heartfelt farewell at the native nursery she helped establish.
Surrounded by thousands of plants which will be planted at Restoring Takarunga Hauraki (RTH) regeneration projects on the peninsula, the environmental group’s co-facilitator, Anne McMillan, said it had been van Tonder’s suggestion the nursery be sited in an unused space next to the North Shore United football ground.
Those at the event included Geoff Allen from the Rose Centre, Amy Saunders from the Depot, Abby Jones and Gemma Dickinson from the Devonport Community House, along with Zane Catterall and Lance Cablk of RTH.
Van Tonder was presented with a kete as a mark of appreciation for her work. It had a star design: symbolising a pathway and voyage. “One day the stars will bring her home,” said Terehia Walker of the Depot. The weaving reflected how van Tonder had woven peoples lives and a community together.
Kaumatua Danny Watson said the local people had been privileged to have been van Tonder’s “dance partner” in recent years.
Van Tonder was like a puriri tree – strong, resilient and nurturing, he said.
Van Tonder was moved to tears. “I have only cried three times in my life – when my babies were born – and I wasn’t wearing mascara then,” she said.
She felt “blessed” to live in such a community. She was from Tokoroa and went to Christchurch when she was young. But her children had been born in Devonport, which was home. She was only able to do her job as a local board member and chair with the support of her husband and the wider community.
She paid tribute to those who had taken her children to sports practices and other events while she was working. “I’ve outsourced my children to friends for the last five years.”
The best part of her job was connecting with the “people on the ground who do the work” –volunteers in the community, she said.
While it was a difficult decision to leave Devonport, it was time to “be there for my husband”, an architect who has landed a job building infrastructure in Brisbane, where he has family. She was confident she left behind a highly functional team: “a good board”.
Departing chair ‘took constructive approach’ to issues
North Shore councillor Richard Hills acknowledged van Tonder’s work in the community before she was elected to the board in 2019, and how as chair from 2022 she had led on environment, climate, flood mitigation and mana whenua issues, including achieving good outcomes on Takarunga tihi improvements.
Van Tonder had won respect from city hall for taking a positive and constructive approach to dealing with tough budget is-
sues, he said. She had also helped convince the Mayor and councillors to ensure a shift to equity funding of boards was staged, rather than being introduced in more savage chops.
Relationships with the board had improved under van Tonder. “In the past some managers would not send staff here because of certain behaviours,” he told the board’s February meeting
“Big thanks from me and the Mayor and others around the table.”
Councillor Chris Darby said she was “a gem”, who as a leader in a tough role in taxing times had kept her eye on the ball rather than following the populist rhetoric line. “The ball is improved outcomes for our community”
The whole board under her leadership worked in a collaborative manner, even if opinions differed. “Never have I heard a word of combat.” Darby said. “You’ve cut a new cloth for the board.”
In appreciation... Restoring Takarunga Hauraki’s Anne McMillan (right) presents Toni van Tonder with a kete. Below: Van Tonder with Depot general manager Amy Saunders.
Familiar faces... Van Tonder with the community figures who turned out at the Restoring Takarunga Hauraki nursery to farewell her earlier this month. Below: Local kaumatua Danny Watson was among those who paid tribute to van Tonder for her contribution to the area.
Van Tonder happy board avoided politicking
Toni van Tonder says at her first meeting as chair in 2022 she pledged to bring good governance, respect and strategic thinking to the Devonport-Takapuna Local Board and she leaves thinking she stuck to her word.
The board had been willing to leave politicking behind, she said.
While sad to be going, she was excited about the future of Devonport. Investment in the town centre by Peninsula Capital, with its heritage savvy architects, would be a catalyst for change, helping businesses bounce back from Covid.
Work on the tihi of Takarunga was progressing well and was something to be proud of.
One disappointment was not being able to deliver the proposed Francis St-Esmonde Rd pathway, but she hoped one day it would be built.
Van Tonder was confident controversial plans to be revealed in a month would ensure Takapuna’s proposed library overhaul, adding community services, would produce a hub as loved as Devonport Library.
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Visitors cruise in for croquet as club marks 120 years
Cruise ship passengers will play the final round of an around-New Zealand croquet competition at the picturesque North Shore Croquet Club in Devonport next week.
The revenue-raising visit is just one of the events being held in a big year for the club, which is celebrating its 120th anniversary.
Two days before 34 mainly Australian passengers on the ‘Sailors Cup Croquet Cruise’ aboard the Crown Princess arrive at the lawns on Wairoa Rd to play their final and socialise, local members, family and friends will gather for their annual garden party on 2 March. More than 100 people are expected.
Club president Michelle Templeman said the cruise ship visit was a boon and reflected the appeal of the club for events.
With its heritage clubrooms – once the jockey rooms when Waitemata Golf Course was a racecourse – and park-like setting, the club was increasingly becoming a drawcard.
The cruise ship company first came last year and has already made a booking to return in 2026.
“They clearly want to make it part of their [regular] itinerary for New Zealand,” Templeman said.
Passengers who are keen players are bussed from the ship to clubs at different ports of call.
But after experiencing Devonport’s hospitality last year, the organisers upgraded the local stopover from being a round competition to be the showcase final.
Club members set up the equipment and provided catering. “For us it was very experimental,” said Templeman, but it had worked well.
The clubroom exterior has been repainted this year as part of a programme of upgrades which will include replacing wire fencing around the Wairoa Rd perimeter next month.
Templemann said the wire was erected after a tornado-like squall tore across the golf course in 2013, flattening the club’s old wooden fencing..
The new fencing, which has been donated, would still allow passersby to see into the club, which neighbours had told her they enjoyed.
Members also enjoy the views from their verandah out across the four croquet lawns and one petanque terrain.
Inside, the clubrooms feature a modern kitchen, put in after an old boiler blew up. But the heritage character is retained, and enhanced by old photographs on the walls and the preservation of wooden lockers once used by jockeys.
Templeman said hireage for events and tournaments were important for revenue.
The club hosted Devonport-Takapuna Local Board members and staff for their Christmas gathering.
Businesses also make bookings, typically paying around $300 for instruction on cro-
quet from club members, social games, and use of the facilities to socialise afterwards.
In return, the club likes to use local suppliers for its maintenance work.
Subscriptions are the other big earner, with some money also coming from donations or grants.
Membership – costing $385 a year for each player – stands at 94, up by more than 50 per cent over five years, with a healthy waiting list of mostly retired locals.
The club’s longest-standing member is Charlotte Millar, who joined in 1990, and is a previous club captain and now life member. She says she comes for the exercise, fresh air and company.
“It’s the only sport I’ve played willingly in my life.”
Millar says she is holding out for 2031, when the club will celebrate 100 years on it current site.
Play was originally at the old Devonport Bowling Club site in the Domain, and dates back at least to the 1880s, with the North
Shore Croquet Club officially set up in 1905 – hence the anniversary this year.
The club was originally for women, who were not allowed to join the all-male bowling club, but it has been mixed for many years, with an around 60-40 split.
Templeman has only been playing for five or six years and has been club president for three.
She was encouraged to join by her husband who was a very competitive player.
The mix of banter, competition and socialising is what appeals.
She says noted Devonport writer Kevin Ireland, who died in 2023, summed it up best, when he wrote of croquet:
“There is nothing nice or genteel about croquet. It’s gratuitously offensive, though luckily it’s mostly played only by calm and fairly stable people... it may appear gentle and many would pass it off as too soft to be taken seriously, but this is a grave underestimation. It’s ugly and unfriendly and great good fun!”
Sporting heritage... North Shore Croquet Club president Michelle Templeman outside the club rooms once used by jockeys
Giant Pak’nSave store planned for Fred Thomas Dr
Foodstuffs plans to build a Pak’nSave supermarket of more than 6000sqm on land opposite the Lake House arts centre in Takapuna.
The company lodged a consent application to develop the corner site at 6 Fred Thomas Dr with Auckland Council late last year. Planners are yet to make a decision.
The application includes a request to attach sizeable signage, including two 12m-by-6m digital advertising screens on the west and south sides of the proposed yellow-and-black box-style building.
Around 900 vehicle movements an hour are predicted during weekdays and peak periods of Saturdays, which the application said could be absorbed by the road network.
The supermarket is expected to create 150 jobs.
It will have 197 under-cover, ground-level car parks accessed from two entrances on
Work and income moves
Work and Income’s service centre in Takapuna will close for four work days to allow for an office shift away from Lake Rd in the town centre to 41 Barrys Pt Rd.
The Ministry of Social Development’s Auckland North-West Regional Commissioner, Dan Brunt, said the new space would be more welcoming, with improved privacy for clients and staff and better security. But the paper has been contacted by a resident concerned it will be more difficult to get to.
The Lake Rd office closes at 5pm on Wednesday, 26 February, with the new office open from 9.30am on 5 March.
Website and phone inquiries will be available during the closure.
Fred Thomas Dr and one on Des Swann Dr. A drive-in click-and-collect area would be included.
The building’s total floor area would amount to 6093sqm, with a lobby leading to an upper level providing 4626sqm of retail space, along with back-of-house storage, plus a plant room on a mezzanine level.
Earthworks would be over the total 9826sqm land area and to a volume of 4495sqm – all amounts that require a restricted discretionary activity consent.
Setting up the supermarket itself is a discretionary activity under the Auckland Unitary Plan in the Business - Mixed Use Zone.
Foodstuffs North Island wants the build to proceed as a non-notified application.
Its consultants, Bentley and Co, who submitted the application, said the development’s impacts would be less than minor.
The application noted the proposed
supermarket was on a floodplain and with overland flow paths. The plan was to raise ground levels by more than 300mm, it said.
The mostly flat site was once part of the Barrys Pt landfill, which closed in the 1970s, but is still monitored for seepage. To the south is a Mercedes-Benz dealership, and to the east a mix of light industrial and commercial activities, off Barrys Pt Rd.
Permission was sought to infringe construction noise standards, stockpile soil, and to drop the required seven accessible car parking spaces down to five.
The application noted Fred Thomas Dr was a recently upgraded arterial road. A roundabout had been made safer for pedestrians with the addition of refuge islands.
A thin strip at the road-side of the Pak’nSave block is owned by Auckland Council, due to its use for a sewer line. This would be vested as road reserve.
Big reach but low impact – report
The trade impact on local businesses of a new Pak’nSave in Takapuna is downplayed in the Foodstuffs planning application.
Competitor Woolworths has a large supermarket close by on Barrys Pt Rd, another in the Milford mall and a small Countdown supermarket in Hauraki.
It is also setting up a pickup-only facility in Devonport.
Foodstuffs has large New World stores in Milford and Devonport and a small New World Metro in Shore City mall, Takapuna.
The nearest Pak’nSave is in Wairau Rd.
An economic assessment by Formative consultants identified a “main trade area” for Takapuna Pak’nSave from Milford to Devonport, taking in Northcote, Birkenhead and Herne Bay.
This wider area has 16 supermarkets.
The report said supermarkets in town centres, including those in the “large, relatively wealthy market” of Milford and in Takapuna, benefited from serving strong community catchments drawn to activities in those centres.
Hauraki Woolworths also had a strategic position, it maintained, and although a relatively low reduction in sales was forecast, it was unlikely to close. Even if it did, the local shopping centre would still draw customers.
“The proposed supermarket is just a supermarket with no other retail or service activities proposed, meaning that the Pak’nSave store has limited ability to draw away other types of retail spending,” the assessment said.
Derelict council buildings slated for demolition
Two decrepit Auckland Council buildings off Lake Rd will be demolished.
The buildings are next to the Claystore and near the North Shore United football club fields.
Panuku confirmed last week that the two buildings will be “deconstructed” and a retaining wall installed to stabilise the land.
Because they are on an archaeological overlay under the Unitary Plan and a landfill, “an archaeological impact assessment, ground contamination report and retaining-wall investigation and design are under way before the structures can be removed,” said a spokesperson for council property arm Panuku.
The assessments will be completed “in the next few months, after which we’ll begin a tender process for the deconstruction works and retaining wall construction.
“In the meantime, the buildings have been secured to ensure no unauthorised access prior to their removal,” the spokesperson said. It is understood some interest had been expressed in taking over the buildings but Punuku said it was not looking to lease them.
Once the site has been cleared and the retaining is in place, the site will be maintained largely as it is, the spokesperson said.
“There are no current plans for any alternative use.”
Worse for wear... The two council buildings due to be demolished after archaeological, contamination and retaining-wall reports
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Pretty good result as Ugly’s car recovered after theft
One of Devonport’s most distinctive vehicles is back in the community in one piece after being stolen and going on a scenic tour across Auckland.
Justin Burke, who runs Ugly’s Community Pantry, woke up on 15 February to find his trusty 1997 Toyota Corolla missing from its usual parking spot on Clarence St.
He filed a police report, thinking not much would come of it, and also posted on social media asking residents to look out for the vehicle, which he uses for food pickups.
It wasn’t long until he got a response: two people had seen it parked in New Lynn.
Burke drove there the next morning finding the car in perfect condition with no damage or items in it stolen.
The offender “hadn’t even used much petrol”.
Burke said it was “amazing” that the car was able to be found through social media.
He suspects a homeless man who sometimes visits Devonport stole the car.
A week before, on 7 February, people observed him acting suspiciously around
the time the keys were stolen from Burke’s Clarence St home.
After the keys went missing, Burke put a lock on the steering wheel for the first few nights but wasn’t doing so by the night of 14 February, when it was taken.
“It’s my fault partly – I’m a bit blasé about the car.
“Sometimes I even leave it running while I’m in the bakehouse or something.”
Now, however, he is keeping the steering wheel chained when the car is parked, as the keys are still missing.
Steering locked… Justin Burke is taking greater precautions with his trusty Toyota
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Centre luminaries mark 20 years of residencies
Twenty years after the founding of the Michael King Writers’ Centre, with close to 200 residencies awarded, supporters of the initiative gathered to celebrate last week.
Nearly 40 people, including local authors and politicians, gathered in the Devonport centre’s back garden on Takarunga last week, exchanging stories of early days rat-trapping, painting and fundraising.
Centre patron Rachael King, who was unable to attend, sent a message of thanks for all that had been achieved to remember her father after he and his second wife, Maria Jungowska, died in a car accident nearly 21 years ago. “It was amazing how quickly this all came together.”
People still assumed the place had been her childhood home, she said. But what emerged in speeches was a story of how locals and literary luminaries largely drove the centre’s establishment as a fitting way to remember the historian.
Many of those responsible for its founding were at the 20th birthday party, including trustees such as Devonport journalist and author Geoff Chapple. Chapple was also the first writer-in-residence, and with partner Miriam Beatson helped paint and provision the place.
Long-serving administrator Tania Stewart spoke of how the first administrator, Karren Beanland, who was appointed in 2007, had braved the then chilly house, furnished with little more than rats. Grants-chasing and gardening were early duties the women went on to share.
In her 17 years, Stewart has seen the place transformed into a welcoming home away from home for authors. He tangata, he tangata, he tangata, she said of the workers, trustees and writers involved.
The centre has granted 179 residencies, allowing for author stays of between two to eight weeks, along with 16 international exchanges.
Among the residents have been Booker Prize winner Eleanor Catton, who worked on The Luminaries during her stay; recent Ockham winner Whiti Hereaka; three Poet Laureates in Ian Wedde,Vincent O’Sullivan and David Eggleton; and top-selling thriller and crime writers Rose Carlyle and Josh Pomare.
Around 200 other authors have been hosted in rooms the centre rents out to raise funds. Many visiting authors patronise local cafes and speak highly of how the tranquil setting is an ideal place to work.
Particular tribute was paid to Dame Christine Cole Catley, who was instrumental in driving the setting-up of a centre.
Former North Shore Mayor George Wood told the gathering her determination paid off, with council granting a lease.
Devonport Library Associates chair Lynn Dawson recalled how on hearing Catton’s
In at the beginning... Devonport couple Geoff Chapple and Miriam Beatson with former Penguin Publishing managing director Geoff Walker. All were involved in setting up the Michael King Writers’ Centre 20 years ago – with Chapple its first writer-in-residence. Below: Centre administrator of 17 years standing Tania Stewart with author Graeme Lay; and Devonport Library Associates chair Lynn Dawson, with Devonport-Takapuna Local Board member George Wood, who was North Shore Mayor when the centre was founded.
draft was over 700-pages, she told her: “I don’t read door stops.”
Nevertheless, they became friends during her stay and Dawson passed on Catton’s good wishes for the 20th from her home in the United Kingdom.
The latest resident, Sam Orchard, who is penning a history of queer comics, attested to the home’s creature comforts. He under lined how in these times “it’s such a luxury to have time and space to write.”
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Devonport writing group helps hone author’s output
Once an artist and illustrator, Vivienne Lingard is launching her third work of fiction. She tells Helen Vause how she draws support and inspiration from fellow writers.
Vivienne Lingard’s creative life was at first rooted in art.
From the Wellington School of Design, she went into her first job and started making her living as a working artist and illustrator.
Writing came years later – she began writing fiction at the turn of the century. These days, words and pictures have merged somewhat, and will be on show in her next publication, a graphic novel.
Three books have been finished in Devonport, where she and her husband, Kerry Chamberlain, a semi-retired Professor of Social and Health Psychology, are coming into their eighth year in their apartment in the heart of the village.
Lingard says it’s a way of living and a home they’ve come to love after moving from a house in Albany surrounded by bush and a lot of land.
The lock-up-and-leave option, the location and the airy home offices are just right for this latest iteration of their busy, productive lives.
Having been to art school, it was when Lingard moved to Palmerston North she began to realise she might want to broaden her career scope through education. She says she saw women her age, and who had children like herself, opening up fresh opportunities and heading off to university.
Lingard thought “why not me?”, and later enrolled at the nearby Massey University to study for a Bachelors in Education.
After graduating, she gained a qualification in teaching English as a second language which gave her the skills to head for Japan, aged 53, to find work teaching English in 2001.
This was when she also took her earliest steps into fiction writing.
On main street... Vivienne Lingard writes in an apartment in the heart of Devonport, at a desk overlooking Victoria Rd
She came home 18 months later and took up more study at the University of Auckland, completing a Master’s in Creative Writing.
Returning then to Massey University, Lingard took further courses in creative writing, studying travel writing and short fiction.
For her talents in short-story writing, Lingard was selected to join a five-day
masterclass workshop in San Francisco run by writer Tom Jenks, a former editor of Esquire magazine and the literary magazine Paris Review.
Lingard says this experience gave her a deeper understanding of the craft of writing.
In Devonport, Lingard (77) leads a five-person writing group, drawing support
and some inspiration from regular gatherings in her living room. There, ideas flow and the members take inspiration from each other.
“We are a committed group. I want people to be serious about their writing.”
She says the participants helped her produce her latest novel, Mrs Forsythe, which is set in 1970s Wellington and features reluctant wife and mother Marjorie Forsythe.
“These people helped to grow this book and with them the possibility has already been raised that Marjorie Forsythe is a character who could be revisited. Another book perhaps.”
Forsythe, says the book blurb, has yearned for the time she can be on her own, and finally the day has come. Wellington beckons her to explore a different life, where her options and choices are based on her talents and intellect rather than on societal norms.
But will Marjorie’s brittleness with family and friends soften when she finally has, as Virginia Woolf says, ‘a room of one’s own’, and opportunities arise to be more than a mere housewife or mother? Will she ever be able to give and receive that love she needs and others wish for?
Creating and writing the story of Marjorie’s life and times took Lingard two and a half years.
Talking to Lingard about the process of writing Mrs Forsythe reveals an interesting professional struggle to ‘get’ Marjorie to be who the author wanted her to be.
Looking back at her days at the keyboard (and well beyond), Lingard laughs at the memory of wanting to make sure that Marjorie wouldn’t be “too much” for the reader, that people wouldn’t be put off by her and, worse, stop turning the pages.
But she does hope readers will understand Marjorie, and want to stick with her later-life tale.
Very early on in her story there is a taste of her character – the woman who loves to regularly fire off an indignant letter about things
A woman in Wellington...The cover of Vivienne Lingard’s latest novel, which tells the story of reluctant wife and mother Marjorie Forsythe
she takes exception too. A fall on a footpath and a resulting sprained ankle prompt her to reach for pen and paper.
“The possibility has already been raised that Marjorie Forsythe is a character who could be revisited.”
Writes Lingard: “A slight shudder of joy ran through her as she made the first downstroke.”
Setting is very important, Lingard says.
She spent time in Wellington, revisiting the unique environment of the capital, the hills and the near-relentless wind, on some days much wilder than others.
Lingard recalls a memory that would resonate with many a girl who grew up in Wellington: “A neighbour had to come over and show me how to peg the sheets on the clothesline so they’d stay on.”
The streets Marjorie walks, the sharp steps and shortcuts, the beaches she visits all had to be refreshed in Lingard’s mind and accurate to the sharp-eyed reader.
So too the sort of clothes she wears, and just what a woman like her might be doing on her way through to Lyall Bay, or heading down to the dairy in a southerly.
“My stories came from places I’d visited, people I’d known, or behaviours I’d observed. These are adult protagonists and children and varied settings from capital cities to New Zealand countryside. I let my imagination run wild.”
She published her first novel in 2020 – The (almost) True Story of a Man Called Jack, a fictionalised memoir about her father.
Her collection of short stories Pocket Money & Other Stories (2022) was selected from the many she had written over the years and had decided to revisit for publication before starting work on a novel.
These often funny and colourful stories from a relative newcomer to the country’s book scene were very well received and boosted her profile with readers and book sellers nationally.
When she’s not at her desk with an eye out over the passing scenes on Victoria Rd below, Lingard is an outdoors and travel enthusiast, often exploring the countryside and the world with her husband.
With Marjorie ready to be launched, the writers’ group will already be rolling the next work around in their minds and Lingard will be further showcasing her skills, this time as an illustrator.
Cheltenham turns back the clock for Steinbeck classic
Vintage cars, horses and gigs and film extras in early-20th-century costume were part of the action on a gravel-covered Cheltenham Rd from Tuesday to Friday last week, during the filming of a Netflix-series adaptation of John Steinbeck’s East of Eden, which attracted clusters of spectators each day. Location workers on the set told the Flagstaff that locals seemed to have been happy and excited about the production. One interested observer was Northcote resident Mike, who didn’t want his last name to be used, who came to every shoot day, and even on Monday when the gravel was laid on the street. The scale and quality of the production were “really impressive”, he said. Large equipment trucks were parked around the Devonport Domain on Cambridge Tce and Cheltenham Rd, while roads were closed at Oxford Tce, Cheltenham Rd and Tainui Rd. Balmain Reserve was used as a parking space for the vintage cars.
Quick studies... Devonport artist Tony McNeight captured some of the vehicles and people involved in the shoot
20 years ago from the Flagstaff files
• Two girls almost drown near the newly opened Torpedo Bay Wharf – prompting safety concerns at the popular swimming spot.
• Cameron Jackson (14) dies after crashing into a car on Seabreeze Rd, a kilometre from his home, while riding a Honda 250 motorcycle.
• More than 300 locals and wider Auckland residents turn out for open days at the Victoria Cinema.
• Devonport mum Andy Crawford is so tired of losing a battle with head lice that she peroxides the hair of children Harry (8) and Allanah (6).
At the double: Candidate keen on board job
I note the resignation of Toni van Tonder from the Devonport-Takapuna Local Board.
I confirm I am available as the nexthighest-polling candidate at the last election to fill the vacancy.
I was on the Takapuna Grammar School board for 12 years, and worked as a director in the mental health, agedcare and tourism sectors.
I am available, have been briefed regularly by [successful C&R candidates] George Wood and Gavin Busch, and am comfortable with getting up to speed.
I will ensure that attention is given to local issues such as the Bayswater Marina, drainage, tree management, the Lake Rd review and improved coordination of projects (do it once, do it all).
I note Kaipatiki Local Board have appointed the next-highest-polling candidate in the same circumstances and look forward to working with the board to improve our community. Mike Single, C&R Candidate
• Anna Anderson is the new Devonport Community Constable
• Around 11,000 people attend The Devonport Food & Wine Festival over two days. Numbers are down on previous years due to competition from other festivals and organisers charging a $20 entry fee. More than $85,000 is given to charities and community groups.
• Around 100 artists donate works to a Depot auction to raise funds for victims of a recent tsunami in Indonesia.
• A three-bedroom home in Wicklow Rd, Narrow Neck, is for sale for $478,000.
• The Fort Victoria disappearing gun
Letters
restoration is opened by North Shore City deputy mayor Dianne Hale.
• The North Shore premier cricket side battles to avoid relegation.
• More than $300,000 is being spent upgrading North Shore Rugby Club’s fields on Vauxhall Rd.
• Belmont Intermediate School students take part in a Bike to Work Day promotion.
• Historian Rod Cornelius writes on the history of scouting in Devonport dating back to 1908.
• Computer programmer Angela Brett is the Flagstaff interview subject.
Takarunga tennis courts plan seems overblown
Re your story on the proposed development of the tennis courts on Takarunga / Mount Victoria. The plan sounds flawed and also... why?
We’ve played tennis on those courts – it’s a magical spot. Yes, they could do with a refresh, but there’s something timeless and charming about the simplicity of what’s there.
Making a combined tennis and basketball court is a terrible idea for a couple of reasons.
Firstly, multiple marked courts don’t really work – it will be a pretty inferior experience to try to play tennis on there. If it becomes a second rate place to play tennis I can imagine the tennis slowly falling by the wayside and then being consigned to the dustbin of history.
Secondly, has anyone considered the impact of the thump, thump, thump of basketballs on the writers working in the Michael King Writers Centre cottage?
When you’re trying to concentrate, the sound of bouncing basketballs is extremely irritating – it’s a resonant sound that carries.
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(Tennis doesn’t have the same impact or cadence.)
The whole plan seems overblown and generally deleterious to the pleasant heritage vibe of what’s there. Which for probably a fraction of the $2.2 million (!) pricetag could be refreshed with new markings, nets and repaired fencing.
Also, the children’s play area? Why? There are all manner of play areas right next door in the school.
And if kids are visiting from out of the area and going up the mountain, let them enjoy the whole thing as a play area, including the ‘mushrooms’ at the top, which kids love.
Why do we have to create an artificial play area for them – and also another source of irritating noise for the writer in residence at the cottage?
If change must be wrought – and this partly feels like change for change’s sake –perhaps a better, simpler, potentially more popular and synergistic option would be to repurpose just one of the tennis courts with pickleball courts.
Michael Lamb
A tidy-up of the Devonport Town Centre is planned in March after a letter from a Flagstaff reader complaining about weeds and general tattiness struck a chord with the Devonport Business Association.
Jean Pegler wrote to the Flagstaff in December asking, “Where’s the pride in Devonport? It’s an embarrassment. Take a walk around our village and see the eyesores for yourself,” she said.
DBA co-chair Bruce Grant said a tidy-up was likely in late March.
Grant has been canvassing sponsors to help fund the work locally.
Old times recalled as squash club marks 50 years
Around 50 past and present members of Devonport Squash Club attended the club’s 50th Anniversary last Saturday.
Past members came from around New Zealand and Australia for the celebration, which included a dinner and exhibition matches.
The club at Wairoa Rd was known as Vauxhall Racquets until the early 1990s, having started almost 100 years ago as a tennis club.
Life member Sylvia Breen said in 1991 the club had a large mortgage, at a 26 per cent interest rate, which was crippling.
A deal was struck with the North Shore City Council whereby it took over the tennis courts. Devonport Squash Club as a standalone entity was born.
Membership numbers were low, which meant fundraising was required. In different times, it included stripper and casino nights.
Breen recalled on one gambling evening, when she was dressed in a bunny girl costume, she had to go to North Shore Hospital as her father had died.
Massive family bonfire nights were held, when the blaze often threatened to spread to trees on Waitematā Golf Course.
Coal drives were also a popular moneymaker, but not without difficulties.
Prominent 1980s and 1990s player Paul Godfrey remembered two truckloads arriving with rain imminent. A club member had the bright idea to load it all into court one.
“It took three years to get rid of it (the residue),” Godfrey said.
As at most clubs, membership has ebbed and flowed. In recent years it has incorporated a popular community gym.
The club’s most successful year in squash terms was 2001, when it won five senior championship pennants, the most by any club in Auckland that year.
Squashies… life members (from left) Diana Bennett, Paul Cornish and Sylvia Breen. Below: Former players Gary Ellis, Hiram Ryan and Percy Young.
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TGS Prefects of 2025
The school would like to extend its congratulations to our 2025 Prefects, who were elected by their peers and teachers late last year. On Wednesday, 19 February, these students were formally recognised in a special ceremony, where they received their ties and badges in front of their whānau and the Year 13 cohort. We are excited to watch these young leaders continue to build confidence, embrace their responsibilities, and lead the next generation of senior students through guidance and role-modelling.
Junior House Sports Day
Last week marked the highly anticipated annual TGS Junior Sports Day, a day that is always filled with friendly competition and incredible team spirit. Students participated in a variety of both competitive and friendly challenges, including tug of war, netball, and the three-legged race, all while representing their respective houses. KAHA House emerged victorious, securing first place, with WEHI and MANA following closely behind. The entire school gathered for the House relays at the end of the day, where KAHA once again claimed the top spot. A big congratulations to everyone who participated and demonstrated not only their house spirit but also their pride in our school!
Alexandre Berrux
Hugo Chapman
Claudia
Harmony Wilson-Ngata
Zara Ahmed Rich Kitto
Luke Allen Zen Lamb
Yash Arora Orla Langdon
Frida Besier Hyemee Lee
Ethan Cash Audrey Melhuish
Zoe Chuang Jude Millar
Oscar Cordner Neave Murray
Raymond Dai Leo Palaita
Ben Drew Victor Peters-Davidson
Asi Fale Heloise Phillips-Smith
Harry Figgins Anastasia Radevska
Maddie Franklin Bill Sha
Danny Glass Niamh Shanahan
Abigail Goosen Holly Sherlock
Barney Gould Nina Sinclair
Thomas Green Molly Walker
Mischa Grotrian Daniel Wang
Mio Iwai Wong Hurley Wong
Ruby Jacobs Gavin Wu
Raiha Jeory Reynolds David Xie
Freida Jewell Oliver Yeung
Halena Kearns Zeph Zhong
(HB)
Pearce (HG)
(DHB)
(DHG)
BIS swimmers head to Birkenhead for school races
Going for it... Year 7 student McKenzie Burrows takes a breath during a freestyle heat. Below: Year 8 students Fin Kelly and Phoenix McQuoid.
Sixty-two Belmont Intermediate School students visited the Birkenhead Pool and Leisure Centre for the school’s swimming sports last Tuesday.
The winners:
Freestyle: Year 7 boys, Ezra Meredith; Year 7 girls, Chloe Nicholls; Year 8 boys, Kash Baskerville; Year 8 girls, Arna Tripodi.
Backstroke: Year 7 boys, Miller Jewell; Year 7 girls, Ida McAlpine; Year 8 boys, Kash Baskerville; Year 8 girls, Indigo Burrows.
Breaststroke: Year 7 boys, Shay Legarth; Year 7 girls, Ida McAlpine; Year 8 boys, Erik Havrenak; Year 8 girls, Ruby Stewart.
Butterfly: Year 7 boys, Finn Gibson; Year 7 girls, Chloe Nicholls; Year 8 boys, Kash Baskerville; Year 8 Girls, Charlie Keane.
House Relay: 1st, Brett; 2nd, Cuvier; 3rd, Pencarrow; 4th, Tiri.
Poolside... Among competitors at the BIS swimming sports were (above, from left) Isabella Fan, Maeva MacKenzie, Mila Hamilton and Juliette France; and (below) Jake Tuck, Kash Baskerville, Zac Ainsworth, Albert Zheng and Dean Zhang
Tēnā koutou, welcome to March, and with it a host of exciting events, exhibitions and creative news to share!
DEPOT Artspace
Opening on Saturday 22 March at 2-4pm, DEPOT Artspace is proud to present ‘Self-Care for Aliens’ featuring the work of Natasha Munro Hurn and Ezra Munro.
March also sees the return of our wildly popular First Thursdays event series. Check out depot.org.nz for info on our upcoming workshops for full details!
DEPOT 3 Vic Road
Opening on Friday 14 March at 5-7pm, DEPOT 3 Vic Road’s second exhibition of 2025 features local multidisciplinary artist Sarah Morrah’s works in ‘Neural Bloom’.
Visitors can also browse the DEPOT Shop | Toi Toa collection at 3 Victoria Road, including our Maker of the Month for March - Shaw Road Ceramics.
DEPOT Sound
Since flooding severely damaged the studios and our beloved gear last year, Studio Manager Noah Page has been getting Studio One ready for a serious glow-up – soldering, fine-tuning, rigorously testing, and locking in the perfect setup.
The studio is fully functional while new gear keeps rolling in, and we’re almost there. Book a recording or rehearsal session on our website today!
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
Cheaper Vauxhall plan wins approval
Road safety improvements at the Vauxhall Rd shops will cost half what Auckland Transport (AT) originally estimated, but fears of impacts on local businesses left the Devonport-Takapuna Local Board split on signing off the project.
After lengthy debate, the board voted 3-2 for the safety work to proceed.
But it also called for AT to look again at whether a full raised table is necessary for the intersection at Tainui Rd. It also wants more consultation with businesses over the work’s timing.
AT has warned that delay might jeopardise the project’s place on the works programme for 2025-26
The project was originally estimated to cost between $800,000 and $1 million, but AT last week reported a revised estimate of between $520,000 and $530,000.
Member Gavin Busch queried if this was realistic, saying the crossing on Victoria Rd by St Leo’s Catholic Primary School was $500,000.
He was concerned the proposals were still an “overworking” of what residents had wanted.
Four of the five members at the meeting expressed frustration at AT. Some said questions raised at a project workshop in December had not been fully answered in the report received last week.
Busch wanted to know why suggestions from locals to install speed bumps near Grove Rd to slow traffic heading towards the shops was considered out of scope. AT said the Grove Rd suggestion could be looked at separately later.
Deputy chair Terence Harpur wondered why the project was not being done in winter. “Many of those businesses are struggling, but it’s the quietest time.” AT
“I am offering a regular, reliable service at a genuinely affordable price, using quality products, following infection-control protocols and salon standards of sterilisation. Benefits include improved circulation and vitality with a
says weather conditions are likely to delay work during winter and has suggested next January, when some of the shops are closed.
Busch said a summer shutdown could be catastrophic to the viability of some shops..
The construction time is estimated at between one and two months, during which time buses will be diverted.
Harpur asked why AT wanted a raised table for the whole intersection. “It may be complete overkill.”
An AT engineer said the existing Vauxhall Rd crossing was too narrow and an area-based approach was better for calming traffic than just doing crossings in what was a busy pedestrian zone.
“A table helps, it’s very visible and changes driver behaviour.”
Closing a section of road would be required whether the work was to install a raised table or crossings. Later in the meeting, he said raising the Tainui Rd crossing, but not the intersection, was likely to pose problems for buses.
Member George Wood wanted to be assured stormwater problems that occurred with crossings built on Victoria Rd would not be repeated. He was told the Vauxhall Rd intersection had been looked at for flood safety.
Busch and Wood voted against the motion, with deputy chair Terence Harpur and Peter Allen supporting recommendations from chair Toni van Tonder for the work to go ahead. She did not want the can kicked further down the road. Board members were not traffic engineers and locals had called for safety work for years, she said.
Allen said he was frustrated members had been pushed into a corner, but he voted yes because he feared the funding would be lost and nothing would ever be done.
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Hilary Worsfold, a driving force behind the Devonport Folk Club and Auckland Folk Festival for 30 years, has died.
Music – and, more specifically, folk music – became Worsfold’s focus after she emigrated from the UK to New Zealand in 1967.
With the end of six o’clock closing, pubs had begun having live music, including folk artists playing songs she remembered from her school days.
The Devonport Folk Club had been established in a bunker on Takarunga in 1966. Worsfold, who was living in Balmoral, started attending its Monday night sessions regularly from the mid-1970s.
“I enjoyed it immensely. Someone nominated me [as secretary-treasurer] – I was terrified.
“I’d never been secretary of anything before,” she told the Flagstaff on her retirement late last year.
She found herself working closely on administration with the larger-than-life club and Auckland Folk Festival president Roger Giles. The pair became friends and in the 1990s he asked her to move into his Cowper St home. They never married: “We were like hippies really. Why muck everything up?”
But they were together until Roger died in 2020. With Roger around, dull moments were few and far between. Folk singers from all parts of the globe would often stay at Cowper St when playing at the Bunker.
Worsfold remembers a particularly memorable night when Roger and Irish folk singer Andy Irvine were “dancing around the kitchen in their underpants”.
A highlight was the club’s 50th anniversary in 2016, attended by folkies from around the globe.
Worsfold was also a top tiddlywinks player winning the club’s tiddlywinks cup three times.
In recent years, she was keen that Giles’ legacy continue. “When Roger died, we had to keep it going. I was determined not to drop the ball.”
• Hilary Worsfold died on 10 February after a short battle with cancer.
At the Bunker…Devonport Folk Club mainstays Hilary Worsfold and Roger Giles
Smash hits: golf and music fundraiser marks tennis club 90th
Belmont Park Racquets Club 90th birthday is being commemorated with two fundraising events: an annual golf day at Waitematā Golf Club on 6 March, followed by a music night at the club on 8 March.
The club’s resident band, Plight of the Wrong Chords, will headline the music night, on a bill also including club musicians Konidipa, Josh Lake, Luke Bodle, Stan Malcolm, Simon Lynch and Kiana.
The club has consent to build three new tennis courts at Bayswater Ave and is currently raising $450,000 to help get construction under way in early 2026. With a total cost of $650,000, these will be the first new tennis courts built in the Tennis Northern region for many decades.
Club president Graeme Norman said the three new floodlit courts were desperately needed to cope with increased membership and use over the last decade. “We have 57 junior and senior tennis teams playing interclub, the most of any club on the North Shore. In addition, our annual tennis club championships attract nearly 250 members entering various events across junior and senior championships.
“During our peak-use period of 4-9pm on weekdays, the courts are booked nearly 100 per cent of the time – leaving almost no courts available for members to play casually.”
To add to the pressure, housing intensification was also likely to drive up membership, Norman said.
Coaching programmes are well attended and junior membership is growing.
More fundraising events are being planned for later in the year.
Anyone interested in playing on the golf day, or in attending the music night, contact the club on admin@belmontracquets.co.nz for more information.
Vic Rd artists recognised in national art-prize show
Three Devonport artists are celebrating success in a national art competition, and looking to help build the village’s profile as a creative hub.
Works by Mickey Smith, Anoushka Coulter and Robyn Gibson were chosen from 538 submitted pieces as finalists in the country’s longest-running arts prize, the Molly Morpeth Canaday Awards. Smith and Coulter were then named among the 12 individual award winners.
The trio, who have studio space above the Depot Artspace’s gallery at 3 Victoria Rd, entered the awards separately.
All three were at a Saturday opening at the gallery early this month, after which first-time entrants Smith and Coulter made the five-hour journey to the awards ceremony in Whakatane.
Smith took her husband and her mother, who was visiting from the United States. She won the $4500 Merit Award, having had no expectations of success, thinking winners would have been given a heads-up to attend.
Coulter, aged 26, travelled with her flatmates and boyfriend and was also surprised to be recognised when she secured the Youth Award, worth $2500.
Depot director Amy Saunders hailed the achievements of all three women, explaining the Molly Morpeth Awards had significant standing.
“It is incredibly rare that three artists from one community would be finalists in these awards, let alone two winners.”
The works of the 50 finalists, all done in 2024, will remain on show until 29 March at the Whakatane Library and Gallery.
Morpeth was a New Zealand artist who married and moved to the United States in 1932, where she was influenced by modern art movements.
Her expressionist paintings are in a number of collections, including the National Gallery. After her death in 1971, her husband, Frank A Canaday, funded the awards in her memory. He contacted his wife’s cousin, who happened to live in Whakatane, to set up a trust to ensure they endured.
The works of both Devonport award winners were bought at the exhibition.
Coulter, a Whitecliffe arts school graduate who came through Takapuna Grammar School, says the award will help secure future exhibitions. “It’s super-affirming.”
Generally an oil painter, she received the award for a watercolour of a cat with a frame of white fake fur.
Smith, who is known for her striking large-format photographs of book covers, was delighted that the first curator she met upon moving here from the US 13 years ago bought her piece.
“It’s been hard for me to be accepted as a
New Zealand artist, but that just fell away. It’s a really nice acknowledgement,” she said of the award.
Smith already feels a welcome part of the Devonport arts community and has been a leading voice in pushing its main street presence and First Thursdays evening arts events to help widen audiences.
She sees the gradual town centre redevelopment as a great opportunity to further ensure the arts are very much at the centre of Devonport.
Gibson, who has lived in Devonport for
nearly 30 years, says having central studio space for artists to work in puts a welcome support structure in place.
Coulter endorses this, having already grouped together with other young artists as the Pigeon Collective to search for affordable space, before they found a home when Depot leased the old council building. Along with fellow collective member Jack Valentine, she will run a ‘how to paint in oils’ class for the April edition of First Thursdays.
Talented trio... (from left) Anoushka Coulter, Mickey Smith and Robyn Gibson. Below: The works by Coulter (left) and Smith which were among the winning entries in the Molly Morpeth Canaday Awards.
Maunga inspire local artist’s colourful works
A lifelong fascination with the maunga of Devonport has led a local artist to a colourful imagining of what lies beneath.
Darnelle Louie is a fifth-generation resident who grew up sliding down Takarunga on flattened cardboard boxes and watching yacht races from atop Maungauika. She grew up hearing tales of tunnels linking the two landmarks.
In an exhibition at Satellite2 gallery opening today, she shows their volcanic underbelly in abstract landscapes painted in acrylics. “It’s about what you can’t see, what’s beneath the surface,” she says.
Louie says showing her 15 works in the shadow of Takarunga on Victoria St seems fitting. “It’s been a constant in my life, since I was a child.”
The artistic child’s curiosity was fuelled further when an uncle worked as a set builder on the 1981 television series Under the Mountain, creating fibreglass tunnels to depict author Maurice Gee’s subterranean volcanic world inhabited by alien creatures.
The story was later made into a film, with Lake Pupuke in Takapuna the setting for the scary Wilberforce characters. “It fuelled my imagination,” says Louie, who grew up in William Bond St.
Her forebears, the Watsons and Letts, were early European settlers to the area.
Louie had a darkroom as a child and remembers making rudimentary cameras from golden syrup cans. “I rolled them down the maunga to try to capture images.”
Rather than heading to art school, she became a photolithographer, learning a trade made redundant by digital publishing.
She briefly published a children’s magazine and for a time worked as a consultant at Resene in Devonport, which tapped into her love of paints.
Then she joined her husband in his civil construction business.
The couple have an adult daughter, Olivia, who went through Vauxhall School and Takapuna Grammar School.
During an art class at Mairangi Bay Arts Centre, a tutor urged Louie to develop her art by “finding something I connected to”.
That sowed the seed for her maunga paintings. Collage had been a previous medium.
She exhibited at the Depot in 2018, then under the creative direction of Satellite’s co-owner Linda Blincko.
When Louie popped in to see Blincko for an opinion on her latest paintings she was thrilled to be offered a show.
Louie, aged 54, decided to take the plunge into focusing on her art several years ago, after the death of a friend galvanised her into realising time was marching on.
The way her art connects with her sense of place, also taps into memory.
She recalls her grandfather talking about
cannons being hauled up Mt Victoria, with, she says, the scars from this still evident behind Devonport Primary School.
Of the various theories of planes and ammunition stored in sealed-off tunnels on North Head, she gives greater credence to
UNSEEN WORLD
the latter. “I wonder about the ammunition – that makes me worried.”
Nevertheless, she likes to cycle up Maungauika and walk on Takarunga. “There’s something spiritual about Mt Vic and North Head,” she says.
Connected... Artist Darnelle Louis is a fifth-generation Devonport resident who slid down Takarunga as a child.
Darnelle Louie
Orchestra brings Beethoven quartets to Holy Trinity
Auckland Philharmonia is bringing a concert of Beethoven quartets to Devonport next month.
“We’re excited to be taking this series to Devonport this year and look forward to sharing our passion for orchestral music with this community in the beautiful setting of Devonport’s Holy Trinity,” said the orchestra’s chief executive, Diana Weir.
The concert on Friday, 7 March, at 6.30pm will feature Ashley Brown (principal cello), Andrew Beer (concertmaster), Minglun Liu (principal second violin) and Robert Ashworth (principal viola).
Beethoven wrote 16 string quartets. Brown said it was exciting to be playing two of these dramatic masterworks from the leading exponent of the medium.
The lively String Quartet No.6, written between 1798 and 1800, includes a dramatic final movement, ‘La Malincolia’. The other piece, composed in 1809, was String Quartet No.10, nicknamed the ‘Harp’ as it included sections where the string instruments were plucked, sounding similar to a harp.
The concert is part of the regional orchestra’s In the Neighbourhood programme, aimed at making it easier for Aucklanders to enjoy professional musicians outside the city centre, with perfor-
mances staged in various smaller, more intimate venues.
Tuba Tones, a second concert from the outreach programme, will be held at Holy
Trinity in August.
Tickets are on sale at aucklandphil.nz for $30 (adults) and $15 (students and children).
WANTED:
A reporter with several years’ experience to join the team at the Devonport Flagstaff and Rangitoto Observer fortnightly newspapers.
You will produce general news stories, as well as reporting on sports, arts and local-body politics, writing longer features, taking photos and generating news leads from community contacts.
Excellent opportunities exist to build on these skills to take on an editing, layout and management role.
Send CV and covering letter to Managing Editor, Rob Drent at rob@devonportflagstaff.co.nz
SHOWING NOW
Tinā (M)
Bird (R16)
Neneh Superstar (M)
Bridget Jones: Mad About the Boy (M)
Captain America: Brave New World (M) 119min
September 5 (M) 95min
Widow Clicquot (M) 90min
Becoming Led Zeppelin (E) 121min
COMING SOON
The Substance (R16) 142min 27 Feb & 4 Mar
The Last Journey (M) 95min 28 Feb-2 Mar Flow (G) 85min 1-4 Mar
Black Dog (M) 110min 6 Mar
Every Little Thing (E) 93min
Mar Mickey 17 (R16) 135min
(M) 95min
First Thursdays: McQueen (2018) (M) 111min 6 Mar
For more titles & special screenings check our website
Take a bow... Philharmonia quartet members (from left) Ashley Brown, Andrew Beer, Minglun Liu and Robert Ashworth
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