In Memoriam

Elwin Robert Jamison

14 April 1941 - 6 November 2010

adapted from an obituary published in the
NZ Morris Sphere

 Dear Elwin,

You used to say that you were a Jack-of-all-trades and master of none but it seems to me that you mastered everything that you set your mind to. Whether you were blowing up your mother’s new table top, or crafting a harp; improving effluent treatment systems or restoring a boardroom table and chairs; teaching yourself to play your father’s button accordion or baking a chocolate cake.  You even mastered the difficult  keying 
of Jenny Lind on your melodeon a few days before you died. You’ve shown me your grandparents’ house in Bridge St, Buckingham, where you  were born, while your father was serving with the Fleet Air Arm in the Middle East.  You didn’t meet one another until you were three years old.  After a few years in Felixstow, your growing family moved closer to aunts and uncles in Oxford and bought a house in Crotch Crescent. Your father worked

as a panel

beater on the production line at the Morris Motor Co. in Cowley, and you grew up with three sisters. I read your eight-year-old school report from Copse Lane Primary School while preparing for your funeral, and was surprised to see that you were not very good at maths. You wanted

 me to see the beauty in

mathematics and showed me

how to solve real life problems with algebra.  You’ve told me about the art prize you won for a drawing of a lightning-blasted tree, but by the time you entered secondary school, Art had been knocked out of you by a teacher who wouldn’t accept your detailed depiction of every brick in the wall.  Thankfully Music didn't suffer the same fate and you began collecting instruments and teaching yourself to play them; never reading music enough to spoil your playing, as you often joked. Your years at The City of Oxford High School sound like arbitrary exposure to some exceptional teachers as well as some drunken duffers, and a good measure of intimidation.  Undaunted, you discovered your strengths in Physics, 

Chemistry and Maths and went straight from school to work – in 1958 - with the

 UK Atomic Energy Authority. “Top Secret” was what you said when you first wanted to impress me, but years later (and it wasn’t even pillow talk) you mentioned researching radiation-strengthened wood for the heels of women’s shoes. At about this time you survived a horrific motorcycle accident, which damaged your eye socket, but not your eyesight. You went on to gain a B.Sc (Hons) in Chemistry at the University of London, and managed this while working and raising Tina and Lara with Barbara - your first wife, between 1962 and 1968.

 Jobs during this time, in research

and development and technical services at Associated Lead Manufacturers and Wiggins Teape

Paper Manufacturers laid down an understanding of textiles, paint production, printing, and paper qualities that has continued to inform our family’s daily lives.  In 1969 you emigrated to South Africa with your first family, to work for Shatterpruf Safety Glass Co, but this job did not last long, quite possibly because you were about to expose the theft of gold washed out in a processing operation. How you excelled at industrial washing – wet processing – the pumps and the plumbing, the efficacy and extraction of waste.  It was a surprise to me to discover after your death, that Esso recognised your design for a mini-bowl scouring system with an industrial award while you were working for the South African Wool Technical Research Institute in Port Elizabeth.  As liberal English, folk- music playing residents, you and Barbara began to feel unsafe under South Africa’s apartheid system

 and in 1973 returned to England: to a nation on strike; to the three-day week; to unemployment and despair. Meanwhile, Wool Research New Zealand had heard about your mini-bowl design – and since SAWTRI had 
not developed it, WRONZ saw a golden opportunity. So you were head-hunted! And in 1974 emigrated again, to New Zealand to work at Lincoln, and to live in Christchurch.  Your mini-bowl wool scouring system, using less water for a cleaner wash, took off; took you around the world to market it in fact, and featured in 1983 on a NZ stamp. You also joined Bob Crowder's revival Morris dancing side, Erewhon Morris.

When your first marriage ended, you optimistically joined a women’s morris dancing side, and in 1986 we both got lucky in love !  But in spite of your success in wool research, you had reached the pinnacle of your career and could see the writing on the wall for research and development in NZ.  We were both ready for a big OE.  Family-back-Home-in-England, challenge,

adventure, Narrowboat Ben, marriage… morris dancing, music. Four years of gadding about, but we wanted to make a baby, and you didn’t want to bring a child up in England, so we booked one last adventure  and travelled by truck across Europe and into Arabian Nights territory: Turkey, Syria, Jordan, Iran, Pakistan India, Nepal. The stench of sewerage, the perfumed garden, the savagery and the generosity of unworldly tribespeople, the thrill of ancient places, and appropriate technology. All these things we shared as well as debilitating sickness.  And then we were home in New Zealand; back to reality, a house of our own and time to think about work.  You had become

more and more interested in alternative technologies, and in healing, particularly the healing power of the mind. While you worked as an odd-job man for a year, we talked around possibilities: return to Britain to work at Machynlleth, The Centre for Alternative Technology, or return to university to study the Placebo effect. Naturopathy won the day and you began studying towards a Diploma in Naturopathy at the Canterbury College of Natural Medicine two weeks before Bryony was born. I remember then how much you wanted to become a midwife.  Once again you were studying and supporting a young family, and how well you did it too.  You were always meticulous in your research and presentation, and excelled at therapeutic massage. I know that if you had chosen to continue along the metaphysical path, you the grandson of a wart-charmer,

 would have made a superb Reiki

 practitioner.  I know this, because you were my Healer. You also had a talent for insightful counselling both in your professional practice and personally amongst family and friends.  Since your death, I have been surprised by the number of Rangiora people, who have come to me with their

stories of visits to your clinic. After all you were an outsider come into my world here in North Canterbury, but you certainly earned the respect and admiration of many local people during the seven years that you practiced as Elwin Jamison, Naturopath,in the Rangiora High Street. In 2004 your unusual combination of BSc and Dip Nat earned you a job with the Ministry of Health as Natural Medicines Advisor, and with Kitty and Bryony we moved to Wellington for two years. You were so excited about the possibilities of bringing complementary medicine into mainstream use, but the change of government and collapse of the Trans Tasman accord diminished your role, and in your latter days your work

 included the banality of advising

on sticking plaster and Viagra. Still your rigorous research standards were highly regarded and gave weight to Ministry dialogues when dealing with sceptical international authorities.You passed retirement age but never retired and in the last few months

of your life you did so much. 

After a year of preparation, we travelled

together as a family with Unlimited School's Project Iva to deliver supplies to Iva School in Samoa, where you formed a special raport with the village matriarch. 

You also completed the first module of  a new Steam Certificate course and came home enraptured after hands-on experience with Shantytown's working steam engine. And you never stopped making music. From Skiffle through Jazz and Folk: you played guitar, mandolin, banjo, but especially bass with various Canterbury bush bands, as well as button melodeon for the Morris. 

You were enjoying frequent touring with Bantam of the Opera English Country Dance Band, with bookings entered in your hand well into this year's diary.  How much I took you for granted, my very own Morris musician. How much I miss you now

 - laptop music doesn't measure up. 

You played one last Shepherd's Hey for me to dance my jig to, when the Tussock Jumpers visited Telegraph Rd, to have a look at the three metre Earthquake kink running across it. We drove home that sunny Halloween evening last year planning our next Honeymoon... 25 years this March - it was time for another wedding.

 You leave me with so many memories, some of them difficult, many of them happy, you who knew how to say sorry when it really mattered, you who loved dressing in drag… or less, you who could pull my leg and nearly get away with it, and whose fascination with how things worked was matched with the ability to make things work, you who adapted to raising two more daughters after a generation of change in child-raising attitudes, you who told me the day before you died how lucky you were to have me as your wife: You showed me our future and made dreams come true.

                With Love and Gratitude from Jeneane