Barrie BELK Obituary

Barrie Belk Funeral Tribute 8 July 2016
I want to thank you all for coming I know that many here will be thinking of their own parents of deaths recent and more distant. The loss of a parent an inevitable part of our shared humanity and I thank you for coming to be with us as we mark one of our own transitions as a family.

When I think of Dad its his hands that feature in my earliest memories of him as well as the very last. The first memory is from a trip to the zoo when I was a little girl of about three. There's a photo of me holding Dad's hand - I'm looking up to him up there and there's me way down here. At some point in the day grasped his hand again and looked up to my horror I was holding a stranger's hand, not my Dad's. I was quite safe, and the adults were amused, but the memory was an acute one. It signifies, I suppose, the power and protection of parental hands something which metaphorically continues well into adulthood until, perhaps, the strength and protection needs to go the other way.

The last memory comes from Dad's last day of life when I was covering for Mum at least four sets of doctors asked Dad to touch his nose or ears with his hands, and so on ending with asking him to grip theirs they were obviously surprised at the strength remaining and rather hurriedly said he could let go! Because those hands were immensely strong throughout his life there wasn't a nut or bolt or screw that didn't ultimately yield to the strength of Dad's hands. They were also capable of delicate work the dismantling and construction of minute objects.

Dad's hands didn't serve him quite so well in recent years on the computer while he certainly mastered the computer, those large blunt fingers all too frequently hit key combinations that altered settings and stopped things working in the ways he was accustomed to. His grandson Brett, the only other person to use the computer, usually copped the blame for mucking up the computer'!

A tribute such as this usually canvasses the outline of a life. As a historian I see Dad as an archetypal 20th century New Zealand man (minus the interest in rugby, and with no great liking for beer). He was born 29 November 1927 to Maud and Avery Belk and had one older brother Charles Charlie. He was born two years before the start of the Great Depression a child of the depression years this always affected his attitude to money and, dare I say it, on-going surprise at the cost of things. Avery was a self-employed mechanic whose shed, or workshop was at back of house. The income was none too secure Dad had memories of walking to school in icy winters without shoes, though he was not alone in this, judging by school photos. Still, the Belk family was at the less affluent end of the Feilding scale, and this affected Dad's outlook as well. He carried an awareness of social disparities throughout his life.

But Dad also a child when Labour's welfare state was inaugurated. It held out the promise of free secondary education as an avenue to self-betterment and this is where Dad felt cheated for the rest of his life. For Dad's youth also overlapped with the Second World War he was eleven when the war broke out, which made him too young to go and serve, though he was in the Air Training Corps by its end. Dad anticipated going to high school. His story, endlessly told, was of doing jobs to purchase textbooks and starting at the Technical School in Palmerston North, with a sense of pleasure and anticipation. But war brought with it labour shortages and as men went overseas young apprentices were in high demand. An approach to Dad's parents saw him taken out of high school after six weeks to be apprenticed as a motor mechanic one can see a bright boy reluctantly giving up his chance at secondary education and the betterment that it represented.

Nonetheless Dad was a good mechanic and the job gave him a chance to mesh his skills with his life-long love of motor bikes, and cars, including vintage cars. Dad worked on cars for rest of his life voluntarily, very often, for others. As a little girl words like diff and fan belt and valve grind and master cylinder and big ends became part of my vocabulary even if I didn't know quite what they were. And in the days when vehicles were less reliable than they are now, on car journeys there was always the you kids in the back be quiet your father's listening for a noise!' Even now I sometimes find myself listening out for pinking' noises when I drive and worry about any minute change in the sound of an engine.

Dad and Mum married in September 1949. They seem so incredibly young he was only 22 in those photos, and took on the responsibilities of parenthood when 25. But it was a marriage that lasted more than 66 years. Most of it spent in the home that he and Mum built with a State Advances loan, sheds built and concrete poured with Mum labouring alongside him again another pattern which made Dad a man of his era. Mum to the end was a wonderful support for Dad providing him with immense domestic backup, and in his last years careful attention to his morale, comfort and wellbeing. She enabled Dad to maintain his social contacts, dignity, and smart presentation to the end. He was very dependent upon her strength.

Dad could, it seemed, make or fix anything. David and I benefitted from this Dave's red go-cart was made out of metal piping and eventually fitted with a motor which, I suspect, nearly drove the neighbours spare as he drove it round and round the house! Dad not only fixed things but took them part and put them together in an improved way that meant they never broke down again. We heard the story of Mum's washing machine which was one of those old wringer models at a time when the neighbours were all getting automatics. The repairs done to the highest of Dad's standards meant mum's washing machine seemed destined to go on forever. One day Mum appeared looking very smug - I've done it now, she said, I've blown the motor but no! Dad had a spare motor in the garage and Mum's automatic washing machine was postponed yet again.

And my first car was a Morris Minor made by Dad out of 25 written-off car wrecks. It had lightly dented steering wheel which Dad confided, had been through someone's chest (rather too much information here, Dad it's no wonder I'm still a nervous driver). But while Dad seemed multi-talented, in the last couple of years we somewhat dreaded him taking things apart to fix them. He'd nonetheless sit doggedly for hours until he'd put them back again, even if he had, ultimately, take them to an expert to repair.
I mentioned accident write-offs because in early 1960s Dad moved from the Farmers Garage to become motor vehicle insurance assessor in terms of census would have moved from blue collar to white collar status and because he worked for the State Insurance Company, he became a public servant. We as children certainly had a sense that this was a step up in the world for the family. Dad worked at the State' for some 28 years before his retirement at age 60.
He had a rewarding retirement, still using skills in his second workplace THE SHED'. Here he had his lathe and all his tools, everything kept neatly in its place. He also continued to travel. They may never have made it beyond Australia, but over their time together they were intrepid explorers of the entirety of their own country, in varying degrees of comfort. When they were young they did this on a motor bike, tent equipment packed in pannier bags, while later they travelled in a caravan (made by Dad), and finally the red camper van. In retirement Dad also gave practical support to his family and friends this represented a donation of time and increasingly rare skills to others.

Some of this practical support was given via organisations practical men like Dad were one of the key supports of civil society organisations. In his youth Dad belonged to motor bike clubs, later he joined Rotary, where he was one of the hands-on blokes pouring concrete and constructing playgrounds (he wasn't just one of those who turned up for the newspaper photographs afterwards). He went to church with Mum, helping her out making models and suchlike for the annual Christmas decorations. His longest and, I suspect, most meaningful membership was of the Freemasons. On his last day he somewhat wistfully commented well, I don't suppose I'll make it to Lodge' and I said, not knowing how true it would be, I don't think so, Dad.

Dad was always quite proud about how long he'd outlived the last of his own parents he was part of the twentieth-century extension of lifespan, and his health was, with the exception of three or four periods, including a very nasty one with polymyalgia, very good. But Dad been up and down for some months, sometimes unstable on his feet, forgetfulness occasionally merging into confusion. On last Thursday he became increasingly unsteady. We shared in an extended family mid-winter dinner last Saturday, which included his great grandchildren. We had no inkling that Dad would leave us so soon, but it was a lovely night. He was sent to the Public Hospital emergency department Monday, and died early on the morning of 6 July, on his second night in hospital and on Mum's birthday. We hadn't really expected his death so soon, but are hugely grateful for the mercy in this the alternatives, given his deteriorating condition were so much worse. His end was a kind one, with his body largely pain free and his personality still intact.

We are so lucky that we had Dad in good form for so long. He wasn't an effusively demonstrative man, but he showed his love through the practical use of those strong hands, and that clever, problem-solving brain. We'll miss him and remember him, but we have a warm sense of a long life ending as it should and the life's cycle continuing the transition to his grandchild Brett and great grandchildren, Amelia and Ethan.

To the Belk family,
My sincere condolences go out to you for your loss of a great man, husband and Father. I have some fond memories of when I was married to John Bould, and the two families would get together.