Actor, eccentric, and protector of Thorndon’s past
Tony Burton
actor/heritage campaigner b 1942 d January 17, 2020
Critics called him the despotic watchdog of Thorndon.
Tony Burton used to carry a photo in his wallet, of the rows of carrots in his parents’ New Plymouth market garden. It had been his childhood job to weed them, and whenever he needed to remind himself of the virtues of patience and perseverance – or explain real monotony to someone who complained of being bored – he would whip out the carrots.
It was 40 years of that dogged persistence that secured Burton’s legacy as a saviour of one of New Zealand’s oldest suburbs and most significant clusters of early settler homes.
Burton moved into the Wellington suburb of Thorndon in 1978, with second partner Dinah Priestley. They were drawn to old houses and, when 1890 stately home The Anchorage came up for sale, they saved it from a developer with pockets full of cash and nefarious intent.
In the 1970s, Thorndon was decrepit, scoured out by the new motorway, which removed 400 houses and 1000 residents. But outrage over the road’s destructive path had galvanised community support to preserve what was left of its steep, storied streets. The Thorndon Trust was formed to buy and restore old buildings slated for demolition, and the Thorndon Society was founded to take on city planners.
Burton was a man who liked a fight. So he quickly joined the Thorndon Society and got to work. For four decades, he defended heritage on multiple fronts. He opposed commercial creep, which would have destroyed the suburb’s residential character. He made friends with bulldozer drivers, who would warn him of impending demolitions so he could organise a human barrier to stand in their way.
In 1984, a councillor described an old cottage at 297 Tinakori Rd as worthless, pointing out its holey roof and decaying cladding. Burton reached into his wallet and pulled out a note: ‘‘I’m giving you a dollar for it.’’
He, Priestley, Bernie Grice and his wife spent thousands strengthening and restoring the cottage and gave it a name – the Quoin, meaning the keystone. They worried that allowing one house to fall would create precedent for a clearout.
As head of the society’s town planning group, Burton honed the skills of a bush lawyer – detecting hypocrisy and learning to navigate the maze of council. He would not be cowed by ‘‘experts’’. When he lost his place while delivering an appeal, he silently turned the pages of his papers, unruffled. The judge got increasingly exasperated, before calling him a barbarian and ejecting him.
He was also unmoved by the critics. They called him the Thorndon mafia and painted Kill the Thorndon Society on the fence of the prime minister’s residence, Premier House, which at one stage was also set for demolition.
Renowned architect Roger Walker accused the society of wanting the suburb turned into ‘‘a bloody museum’’, with its support for draconian restrictions on building style and materials. They were entitled to their opinion, Burton said, but they were wrong.
In 1995, he campaigned with Roland Sapsford against the city council dropping its Lambton ward, fighting for a voice for the city heart. They lost, but the argument must have stuck, because the ward was returned at the next election.
More than anything, Burton just kept at it longer and harder, as heritage architect and fellow Thorndon preserver Chris Cochran points out.
‘‘He was very dogged and determined. He just stuck to the campaigns in a way that very few others did. And for a long, long time. He’s had a big impact on saving Thorndon.’’
When Burton died on January 17, aged 77, it was his second death. In the 1970s, kids would yell at him in the street: ‘‘Hey, you’re meant to be dead.’’
A teacher by trade, Burton had got into acting at New Plymouth’s Little Theatre, partly to overcome a stutter. Appearing in a drama about gay life, The Boys in the Band, he was spotted by a scout for new Kiwi soap opera Close to Home.
He landed the role of evil Mike Laughton. It was on set that he met actress and artist Dinah Priestley – she was struck by his Peruvian looks, long legs and Heathcliff-esque dramatics. It was her character who caused Laughton’s watery death. In real life, though, it was the beginning of a new life together.
Naturally theatrical, Burton’s television appearances included roles on Shortland Street, Crime Watch, Mercy Peak, Cover Story and playing a particularly dastardly Enid Blyton villain. He loved to play baddies and once joked he’d have made a good career criminal.
He was described as both a renaissance man and a bit Victorian. When Priestley took up batik painting, he learnt to prepare and apply the dyes. When she tripped around the country sketching or studying regional accents he offered to drive, and cook the meals. But as father to five daughters – two from his first marriage to Janet Hinton and Dinah’s three daughters – he also had to be ‘‘King Rat’’.
Burton also used his carrot-weeding persistence to cultivate rare ferns and nikau palms.
He was a slow swing bowler for Eastern Cricket Club from 1977 until the age of about 70. He was known to register dissent by turning side-on to cast a look of scepticism over folded arms. That was Tony: milking the theatre of the moment, fellow cricketer Lloyd Jones recalls.
His greatest achievement was probably district plan change variation 14, in 1998, which finally made it illegal to demolish pre-1930s buildings without a resource consent. That gave him warm fuzzies.
‘‘It’s the feeling you get when you see something that is in great danger of disappearing suddenly shining forth looking like the day it was built,’’ he said of the milestone. ‘‘And you realise, well, it’s all set for another 100 years now. It’s a good feeling.’’ – By Nikki Macdonald