Eric Claude Whittington

My Dad was born on 5th June, 1934 in Christchurch, New Zealand.

His parents were Maurice Leslie Whittington (b. 4/12/1906, d. 1/8/1960) and Elsie May Boundy (b. 29/4/1909, d. 2/10/1990), who were married on the 7th January, 1931. View his father and grandfather.

Dad was the second child in a family of nine children. Keith, Eric, Maurice, Peter, Denis, Joy, Tony, David and Christine. He went to school in Christchurch in the South Island.

He married Mary (my mother) in Palmerston North, New Zealand on the 26th of February, 1957.

He had three children; Neil (that's me!), Alastair and Sara, and brought us up in rural New Zealand.

Dad left school at fifteen and came up to Taranaki in North Island to begin his first job as a sheep farmer, working for a relative. He went to Waiouru for two years of compulsory army training, then moving to Palmerston North in 1955 to begin working in the dairy industry as a herd tester. He was also involved part time as an "AB" technician - the artificial insemination programme for dairy herds. About 1962 he began working as a motor mechanic at a service station in Ashhurst. He and my mother built our family a brand new home in 1963. I still remember the smell of the new paint - and the clip round the ear I got for shutting the freshly painted cupboards! In 1968, Dad shifted the family from Ashhurst up to Edgecumbe in the Bay of Plenty to go farming again. From there we moved to Thornton in 1970 and then finally to Taneatua in 1976.

Dad enjoyed fishing, particularly fly fishing and surf casting. He was a dab hand with the "kon-tiki" - a contraption that had an inner tube as the main floatation device, a mast and sail, a number of plastic containers for balance and pieces of wood and wire to hold it altogether. This thing would be carried way out to sea on the breeze, dragging Dads fishing line (complete with a truckload of baited hooks) behind it. The sail was held up by a piece of fishing line that was tied to a barley sugar - when the barley sugar dissolved, the line was released and the sail would drop. Dad could then drag the thing back in - and boy did he pull in some fish!

In his forties, with most of his life before him, Dad very suddenly and tragically died of a heart attack on the 5th of September, 1979.

The time that we had with him is treasured and the memories are precious. He was a great Dad and we all miss him.