Fauntleroy A Fenton (Hip) - a pen picture

Fauntleroy Aldershot Fenton was born on 21 February 1919. He was known as Hip with his christening name of all the others including Waitarore. A man of many names. Registered as Fauntleroy, a mis-spelling from the French village which was associated with his Uncle Arthur during WWI. Christened as Fontleroy at St Saviours Church, Waitara. Called Hipi, later Hip, after reference to a sheep in Maori. Known as Bill during service in England during WWII. Known as Fonty to school mates. He married Ramona Keenan, born 15 January 1930, at the Waitara Methodist Church in March 1948. They had three children: Margret Helen, Roger Alan and Val-Jane. Hip died on 12 August 2005 in the Rhapsody Rest Home, New Plymouth, his home for 5½ years. He enjoyed the Fenton reunion at Owae, Marae. Dad's tangi was held at Hungaririki Marae, Kairau Pa, Matarikoriko Road, Waitara. He was buried at the RSA cemetery in Waitara.


Anecdotes: Wife, Ramona, aka Mona, was honoured when the New Plymouth District Council gave her "The Citizens Awards" in November 1994, 'to honour very deserving and unselfish individuals in recognition of their outstanding contributions to their local communities. She served as Treasurer of the Waitara branch of the Maori Women's Welfare League, committee member of the Pukerangiora, Whakapakapaka and Tu Kotahi trustees, a life member of the Te Atiawa Kaumatuas, Waitara Darts Association and the Waitara RSA Golden Oldies, RSA Ladies Committe

RECOGNITION BY THE NEW PLYMOUTH DISTRICT COUNCIL: Hip received notification that he was to be awarded the Citizens Award for his service to the area, a ceremony that he wanted to be acknowledged 'without anybody knowing'. The whole Waitara whanau turned up.

GROWING UP ON THE FARM: A boy who loved to play the bugle and his cousin, one of the Pirikahu boys who lived way down at the Waitara West beach area ,could hear him. A little boy who ran away from home often and tried to stay with his Aunty Polly Billy (Polly Pirikahu, maternal aunt); a little boy who hid and slept in the P&T tents covering trenches. A little boy who met the long arm of the law of Constable La Pouple told him' you have to go home, boy' when the brand new present of a writing pencil was lost and Hip feared a hiding. The growing up stories he wrote of called Granddad's Tale held in archives at Massey University (Palmerston North).

WORLD WAR II: In England, stationed variously at Portsmouth, under HMS Vincent or HMS Daedelus. Fleet Air Arm wasn't the right spot and Hip enrolled in the Royal New Zealand Army. His enlistment took place in London where his occupation in NZ was Engineer and listed his mother Laura as the next-of-kin. Very reticient to share his war experiences, it is known that Hip was stationed in Egypt. He served as a Don R, a Dispatch Rider, a veritable at-the-front conveyor of signals, messages from NZHQ to field divisions. Adventures took place in Tunis, Italy, climbing in the Dolomites. He was once attached to his brother Jack's RMT division in Italy. Swimming in Trieste harbour towing a one-man rubber dinghy and doing illegal dives to a miniature German submarine and bringing home the magnifying glass from the periscope which we kids used to light fires with.

ST JOHNS, BEING A ZAMBUCK: In October 1989, the NZ Herald reported the Order of St John ceremony and Fauntleroy Aldershot Fenton, Waitara was made a Serving Brother. Wearing his WWII medals and the Coronation ones his chest nearly ran out of room with the new one. the Waitara and Inglewood Press, April 1989, wrote: 'Hip Fenton has been made a serving brother of St John for 26 years of service to the Waitara organisation, and to the community. He has done a lot of work with young people on the gymnastics, swimming and wrestling scene, and is currently a member of St John as well as having an interest in the NZ Transmitting Association.

WRESTLING: Amateur wrestler during the late 1940's and West Coast, North Island middleweight champion. Vice-President NZ Amateur Wrestling Association and Life Member; judge Christchurch Commonwalth Games and at Brisbane. Manager, Hands-Across-Sea tour to Oregon 1969, manager to World Games tournament at Joliot, Chicago.

CORONATION CONTINGENT: The expectations of Hip was to apply to be a member of the Royal New Zealand Army contingent to Queen Elizabeth's Coronation being held in London in 1953. As he was now serving as a BSM in the West Coast, North Island Territorial Regiment, he sought the opportunity. He once said that his winning talent was to lay a communicationsline over terrain at Waiouru that gave him the edge over others. In charge of Guard at St James' Palace - brother Ike, Captain the of Guard at Buckingham Palace.

THE WORKS: Working at 'Bothwicks', Borthwicks, Uncle Tom's, at the works since his return to NZ in 1959, Hip worked on the black squad as a leading hand fitter and turner. He preferred this level of leadership. He had adventures within the works, leading diving teams to check the blocked fat drains which lead into the river. He lead the inaugural search and rescue team and the works' fire engine was often seen getting the battery charged by being driven around the pah sites. Dad's father, Eugene was a worker in the cannery about 1920's, he is in photos of the workers.

SEARCH AND RESCUE: Search and Rescue played a major part of his non-working life as his amateur radio status, as ZL2ANB, joined SAR missions. The 1975 flood in Waitara was a big affair, and I helped him with typing some message notes, even carried a very, very heavy battery through the flooded streets from Owen Wood's garage which was given for use at the Waitara Memorial Hall before that, too, was evacuated to Waitara Central School.. The day the flood was declared was when I was with Dad at his post situated up at the lookout. The NZART were having a competition day and Dad, as usual, wanted the best signal strength.

RADIO HAM: ZL2ANB and ZM6AS (Samoa). "calling CQ, CQ, CQ, this is ZLAble Nan Baker, from Y-tar-ray, the Land of Milk and Honey ...Keen DX-er. Often a patch for those wanting calls to locals; eg Father Moran of Katmandu with messages to Edmund Hillary; contacting SAR about numerous yachties in distress; long-path Europe; trained Darryn, who has his own callsign, and now has ZL2ANB registered as his.

THE EARLY 1960'S:GOKARTING: Stan Jones, who lived up the road, a local mechanic, introduced Hip to this sport. Hip mainly acted as Stan's pusher as he stormed around the grass tracks, until he bought two chainsaws and a twin-Mac arrangement on his own machine and travelled to Taupo, Napier, Tauranga and Auckland to compete as well as taranaki venues. BOATBUILDING: The long front lawn of 27 Blake Street had one entrance and it was surrounded by one half in open drain. Hip decided to build Noah's Ark. He subscribed to Seaspray magazine, he bought thin wooden panels for lining the boat, he bought beams for the keel and wood for the ribs. For years, the section stunk of creosote as we climbed through, around and over the skeleton with its huge concrete slab in the keel.

TELEVISION: In the very early 1950's Dad had made the home refrigerator and it worked for 30 years. So, when tv crawled into Waitara, and we went to Hine and Charlie Bailey's Pennington Road home to watch snowy tv, giving up on Dad making 'our own'.

THE WORKS: It was quite normal for the phone to ring late at night or early morning with a request from the Chief Engineer or the Nighwatchman as to a problem at the works and we would have to wake Dad up from a well-earned sleep.

GYMNASTICS EQUIPMENT: Roger was a skilled gymnast and Dad a clever fitter and turner made a set of Roman Rings, horizontal bar, climbing rungs. Roger was expected to excell at these skills and having 20ft Roman Rings was a unique piece of equipment. He made calisthenics equipment for swimming coach, Duncan Laing, to use, for later Olympic and Commonwealth Games competitors. In later years, as his sports interests concentrated on wrestling, Mum's clothes washing decorated the rungs and bar.

MAORI HISTORY IN NORTH TARANAKI: Changing needs, compounded by redundancy when the works did commit towards closing down their mighty empire, and Hip began exploratory walks around the Karaka Flat, the by-pass, up past the methanol plant, up where he once lived. He made contributions to the hearings of the Waitangi Tribunal at Owae.He worked diligently on his research and joined in the project of Professor Belich when the documentary The New Zealand Wars was produced. He can be seen in Episode Two. He is mentioned on the Massey University website for history.