At the beginning of February, New Zealand OPs and their spouses met for lunch at the Tieke Golf Club in Hamilton in the Waikato area, south of Auckland. The lunch was organised by Graham Jex (1967-71), NZ OP Rep with Robin Paine (1955-58) and his Kiwi wife, Sandra, making a guest appearance on a visit from UK.

It was a very happy occasion, with excellent food and service in beautiful surroundings. Graham had hoped for better numbers but pointed out that the relatively small OP population was scattered far and wide across New Zealand and the cost of travel for a day trip was more or less prohibitive. Among those who couldn’t attend, Tim Le Couteur (1967-71) was away sailing, Simon Marriott (1964-68) and Caroline had retired and moved to Blenheim, and Georgia Paine (2014-2021) had just started her first job after university in Christchurch. After lunch the gathering moved on to Charlie Fowler’s palatial residence nearby for coffee.

Most of the assembled company were retirees, other than Fran Crowther and Charlie Fowler, who having left the police, is now chief security officer on one of the Princess Cruises ships.

Charlie will shortly be taking over from Graham as the NZ Rep.

From left to right in the photograph:

Simon Crowther, Graham Jex (1967-71), Maree Jex, Robin Paine (1955-58, Sandra Paine, Fran Crowther nee Pearson (1994-96), Charlie Fowler (1985-90) Jane Luton, Tim Luton (1973-77) and Nikki Fowler.