Ardent, tireless advocate for region
NORTH Otago lost one of its most passionate advocates on May 28 with the sudden death of Helen Florence Brookes, aged 81.
The wide crosssection of the local population, plus those from much further afield, at her funeral attested to the huge influence Dr Brookes had on many facets of life.
Her exceptional intelligence was matched by her sense of fairness and her kindness to others. These three attributes were a powerful force that Dr Brookes never failed to put to good use.
She was born in Tapanui in 1940, the eldest of Frederick and Lillias Crawford’s four children. Her name was chosen in honour of Helen of Troy and Florence Nightingale, and she was proud to be the fourth Helen in her family line. Her forebears had arrived from Scotland to farm in Dunedin’s Tomahawk area.
When she was just 2 years old and her sister Barbara was a baby, her father went off to fight in World War 2. Upon his return, the family grew to include her brother Ian and sister Lorraine.
In a talk given to the Oamaru Coffee Club, Dr Brookes recounted her formative years in Tapanui. The streets were gravel with no footpaths and the population was largely elderly people, returned servicemen and workers, and single women.
Young Helen would watch her elderly neighbours bake, make pickles and grow vegetables. She was always inquisitive, seeking out anyone who could teach her something new.
Compassion was also a constant. As a 6yearold she would take meals and baking to people in need in the community. While visiting the elderly, she would marvel at the stories they told of the olden days. Her family said the genuine interest shown by the bright little girl would have warmed many hearts in tough times.
In the postwar years, when Tapanui’s roading and infrastructure was being developed, she followed the workers around to find out how and why they plied their trades.
A love of the outdoors was fostered from the outset. Dr Brookes and her sister Barbara went on numerous adventures in the Blue Mountains. When Ian was 9, they took him on an expedition that ‘‘almost killed him’’ with its length and rigours, his eldest sister admitted later.
Between the ages of 11 and 12, Dr Brookes and her friend Nola Lane would spend all day on 10km treks across the top of the mountains following hunters’ tracks.
Having taken up tennis at school, Dr Brookes dug potatoes in harsh winter conditions to earn money for a racquet. She would remind her own children of this whenever they showed signs of giving up on a goal.
She excelled in the classroom but the school in Tapanui only went up to the fifth form. Her father insisted she was too young to be billeted in Dunedin to continue her education.
So she worked fulltime at the
Tapanui College Hospital between the ages of 15 and 16, building on the experience gained on Sundays and in school holidays for the previous three years. As an adult she reflected on the life and death she witnessed there.
At 17, Dr Brookes went to Dunedin to attend Teachers’ College before spending eight years teaching at Port Chalmers School. The rapport she developed with her pupils was founded on seeing them as her equals, with age and knowledge the only differences. Some remained lifelong friends.
‘‘The fact that I get paid for doing the work I do is a bonus,’’ she would say of this time.
She met her husbandtobe Don Brookes at a party. The couple had two sons, Grant and Jaime.
With Dr Brookes’ full support, her husband followed his high achievement as an amateur tennis player by becoming a coach. After gaining his accreditation in Australia, he became the first professional tennis coach in Otago.
The family loved outdoor activities, including hiking along the wild Wilkin River for eight hours and winter holidays at the Otago Ski Club huts on Coronet Peak.
Mr Brookes died when the boys were aged 11 and 10. Their mother absorbed the ensuing pressures to keep her sons’ lives stable, encouraging them to spend time with their father’s family and refraining from having personal relationships herself.
‘‘Grant and I are very grateful for the dignity, courage and strength she showed through that time,’’ Jaime said at her funeral.
Dr Brookes pursued further education from when the boys were little. Her philosophy studies at the University of
Otago led to tutoring in moral philosophy when the Springbok tour divided the country in the early 1980s and when
abortion debates raged.
She graduated as a doctor of philosophy in 1987, and also with a master of psychology degree through credits gained from wider interests along the way.
Her doctorate focused on the genetic basis Charles Darwin used for his theory of evolution — ‘‘debunking established academic views with clear reasoning and a strong mind’’, Jaime said.
That was also the year when Jaime finished school and Dr Brookes allowed herself to be open to a relationship. She met and married Terry Fowler and moved with him to a lifestyle block at Georgetown, in the lower Waitaki Valley, in 1992.
‘‘Grant and I are very pleased Mum had this time — her time — to draw back on her early knowledge of gardens, baking and pickling in peace, removed from the pressures of the past and able to look forward and create something special together with Terry, and in their own way,’’ Jaime said.
Dr Brookes commuted to Dunedin to continue lecturing at
the University of Otago for a few more years, then chose to concentrate instead on local issues and expand the orchard she and her husband were growing.
Dr Brookes served on the Waitaki District Council from 1998 to 2001 then was runnerup when standing for mayor.
‘‘Not being one to muck around, she had reached a point during her council tenure where she would either lead the team or refrain from council matters altogether, and after coming a close second in the mayoral race she turned her attention to other things,’’ Jaime said.
In 2003, Dr Brookes was a founding member of Waitaki First, an organisation set up to fight proposed Project Aqua hydroelectric developments on the Waitaki River.
Jaime said it was a ‘‘a huge commitment that, when visiting, simply amazed me’’.
‘‘The phone would start ringing at 7am and sometimes not stop into the night.’’
Dr Brookes brought an array of influential experts to Oamaru to speak at a series of forums, presenting the case for
cancelling Project Aqua. It was eventually called off.
Meanwhile, Dr Brookes initiated Vanished World, a network of internationally important geological sites across the district and a visitor centre in Duntroon. She called upon her university contacts and worked with farmers to secure access for the heritage trail, which is is now the foundation for a bid to gain Unesco recognition as the Waitaki Whitestone Geopark.
‘‘One of my proudest memories of Mum came when I was invited to join a bus group from Timaru around many of the Vanished World archaeological sites,’’ Jaime said.
‘‘The leader of this group at the end of this trip first acknowledged the significance of the Vanished World project as an internationally renowned ecological venture, and then proceeded to say that ‘the really amazing thing is that right now we would be under 30 metres of water if she had not continued in her work to oppose Project Aqua and further damming of the Waitaki’.’’
Dr Brookes secured no less than former prime minister Helen Clark as patron of Vanished World.
As chairwoman of the Georgetown Cemetery Trust, Dr Brookes hosted Miss Clark when she visited her greatgreatgrandparents’ graves there.
Dr Brookes also chaired the Awamoko Rural Water Scheme.
A cause that she espoused from 2002 until her death was the Waitaki Power Trust, ensuring it worked for the benefit of electricity consumers in the district.
Not only that, she rewrote constitutions for Waitaki and other electricity entities, using her intellect to clarify and safeguard public interests.
So highly esteemed was Dr Brookes that Energy Trusts of New Zealand chairwoman Karen
Sherry travelled from Auckland to attend her funeral.
Longserving Waitaki Power Trust trustee Herb Tonkin said many other trusts from around the country had acknowledged Dr Brookes’ contribution since she died.
‘‘I don’t think we’ll ever be able to replace a lady like that,’’ Mr Tonkin said.
Even on the Georgetown smallholding, Dr Brookes made superb use of her nous. She and Mr Fowler bred a new variety of peach tree from one that had grown from a stone in a flower bed at the end of their carport. They gained Plant Variety Rights from the Intellectual Property Office for their ‘‘Sweet Perfection’’ peach in 2018.
Mr Fowler said they sold their orchard fruit to a supermarket chain at first, then realised it would be more economic and satisfying to sell it from their property. They enjoyed meeting all their customers and would often share their knowledge of how to grow feijoas or citrus in the local climate. There was no fear of customers becoming rivals — just the ongoing pleasure of spreading sound information with goodwill.
‘‘She was very taskoriented,’’ Mr Fowler said of his wife. She would not come in from the orchard until she had completed the chores she set herself for the day.
He is thankful they moved into Oamaru in January — a task he would have found daunting on his own.
Dr Brookes is survived by Mr Fowler and his family, her sons Grant and Jaime, and her grandchildren Tama and Rosa.
‘‘If there is any sadness today,’’ Jaime said at the funeral, ‘‘let it be for what Mum would have been up to next. Her largerthanlife, invincible persona would have continued to break ground, be the voice of reason and fairness — all with a warm, sincere smile.’’ — Sally Brooker