Monthly Report - June 2015

Gifford Cousins in childhood pose – Simon, Lynne, Jo, Me, Rachel, Rob, Jane and Emma

(Jonathon and Adam missing)

All of my family of girls made it across to spend this time with all of their greater family and the legacy of relationships my father had made fast through his lifetime.  I spoke with my cousins and relatives who I had not seen for many years; I caught up with friends from my school and junior squash days, and at all times was genuinely touched by all of their stories and their strengths.  The funeral went to a schedule set by my father, even the humor seemed prompted by his guiding hands, and we buried him in a cemetery amongst his friends and kin looking towards the Kaimai Mountains and surrounded by those fertile paddocks that make his town of Morrinsville a unique spot on this earth.

My father lived a life.  He had farmed, became a builder by trade, sold farming properties, and worked for NZ Squash and the local council.  From 1964 when a squash club was built in Morrinsville he committed himself to the sport.  From his home club, to the Waikato region, and then throughout New Zealand, he played significant roles.  He was so integral to the growth of the sport he became a life member at all levels by the time he was 55 and I would have as a guess he was a volunteer for nearly every event he attended up to that point.  At the start of June, Butch was awarded the Queens Service Medal (QSM) in recognition of his achievements in Squash Administration – a fitting tribute that my mother will collect posthumously later in the year.  He’d shared the QSM secret with us back in May, and in our way the family laughed and joked about it but at the same time took note that he had made a difference, a large one.

Butch was a charismatic guy and was at ease in a room full of suits as much as the front bar of a local pub.  He accrued friends easily and in his home town he could not walk down the street without raising his hand in a metronome type motion to passing traffic and fellow pedestrians.  Both he and Mum also had several Swedish and Finnish girls come through and live in NZ with them after we kids had fled, and they became their second family with many trips to the frozen North to see this family flourish.  Home is now filled with reindeer and snow images through these tempered links.  He was intelligent and he was strong willed, and he could talk the leg off a table without skipping a moment’s interest from an audience.

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