A southern Wren called ‘Cookie’
Among those to farewell Gwen Robertson in Invercargill this week, amid a host of family, friends and neighbours at Frasers Chapel, was a small group of elderly women whose friendship with Gwen - they called her ‘‘Cookie’’ - had lasted for 75 years.
They had been friends with each other and 22-year-old Gwen Cook when they all became Wrens, joining the newly formed women’s helping arm of the Royal New Zealand Navy, replacing naval ratings called up for active duty in the world at war in 1943.
Gwen worked as secretary, did radio transmissions and identified aircraft, wearing the beautifully tailored uniform that was a hallmark of the Wrens, who took pride in wearing it well.
Gwen was working in the office at John Edmunds in Tay St when the word went out about the Wrens.
She admitted she liked the look of that outfit and it did become her.
Every day the southern Wrens left their Wellington hostel in the leafy suburb of Thorndon and went by bus and launch to Shelley Base.
All these years later they talk of those days and their home, now the home of the French ambassador to New Zealand.
And every Anzac Day, the former Wrens place a wreath at the base of the Cenotaph commemorating lives lost in both world wars.
Over the years, late association members Joyce Sproat, Anne Davidson and Vera Chisholm have made and placed the flowers.
Next week, Yvonne Alsweiler may be the one.
Their ranks have thinned like those of the old soldiers, but the friendships forged between these women have lasted lifelong.
When Gwen’s Ian Anderson returned home from the Middle East, the couple married and a year later the first of their four children was born.
Son Neil arrived, later Russell, Brent and finally Maxine.
Gwen, who was born in Gore in 1921, was the sixth child of Dave and Lily Cook, with three more to follow.
The big family moved into a roomy home at 46 Avenal St, their dad going on to build the original Glade House at the head of Lake Te Anau and the holiday camp at Omaui.
Gwen remembered hers as a happy childhood with school at Waihopai and Southland Technical College, where a commercial course led to a good first job at hardware firm J Edmunds, and to a good stint in the Wrens.
Ian Anderson died in 1982, and her second husband, Arthur Robertson, in 2002.
Her family recognised these times of loss and sorrow in their mother’s life and are grateful to the loyalty of lifelong friends like Dorothy Forrest and good neighbours like Hellen Giles, who brought joy back. Golf too. Their mother loved it. She leaves her children, beloved grandchildren and three precious great-grandchildren, Marco, Oscar and Imogen.
And the Wrens - they and we remember her.