A life of rugby, racing and family
The large number of people attending Tom Cunningham’s funeral was testament to the high regard he was held in his longtime Upper Hutt community.
Tom, 84, died suddenly on August 1. With a career in the car manufacturing industry and decades of contribution to rugby as a player and administrator he lived a busy and positive life to the full.
With Grace, his wife of 63 years, he was a supportive and loving figure to their family of three children (Lindsay, Jan and Jason), son and daughter in-laws and four grandchildren.
The couple first met at a Petone boarding house run by Tom’s parents where Grace’s cousin was lodging.
They were married in Petone in March, 1954, with Tom aged 21 and Grace 19.
A Hutt Valley man all his life, Tom was born in Petone on August 6, 1932, the third of seven children.
He was a student at the Wilford and Hutt Central schools before going to Hutt Valley High where he readily accepted he was no academic. He worked at the Ford Motor Company and than General Motors at Trentham where he stayed till retirement at 55.
‘‘With little in the way of training, Tom worked his way up the motor industry from storeman to truck driving and then on to warehouse manager in Upper Hutt,’’ attendees at the August 7 service learned.
‘‘From there Tom moved into the field of industrial relations for General Motors, although given those difficult years we should perhaps refer to it as a minefield,’’ celebrant Don Manning said.
There, as elsewhere, Tom revealed the strength of his personalty and perseverance.
Sport, rugby and horse racing in particular, were always important in Tom’s life, the last decades of which were spent on his Whiteman’s Valley lifestyle block.
A rugby lock or number eight, he played more than 100 games for the top Petone senior side, earning the nickname ‘‘the Gentle Giant’’.
A regular Wellington B player he ‘‘warmed the bench’’ for the As but never made it onto the field, son Lindsay said.
‘‘He had a couple of All Blacks ahead of him and never got the chance. Dad was six foot four which was tall for the time and he would have weighed about 95 kilograms. He did a lot of road running, 15 miles or more daily and I think he would have been super fit.’’
Tom also served the national game off the field. He was an elected representative to the Wellington Rugby Football Union for seven years to 1977 and then was on the NZRFU as a representative of the Wellington and Taranaki unions.
National rugby involvement, in reduced roles, continued until a couple of years ago, and more than a decade after his receiving a Lifetime Contribution title at the Upper Hutt Sports Awards.
Tom had served as club president for both the Upper Hutt rugby and squash clubs and was an unflagging driver in raising the money needed for the building of the grandstand and clubrooms at Maidstone Park in the 1970s.
A long time Wellington Racing Club member he was part-owner of Pontiac Lass, which raced in the 1991 Melbourne Cup.