Lawrie Philpott: 29/08/1925 - 5/09/2005
Lawrie Philpott was a colossal figure in the “police family” in New Zealand and all over the world, and with an “amazing” 56-year marriage behind him, his wife Rita must take some of the credit.
Not that she’d want to, mind you. Entering their cosy, “working-man’s” home in Lower Hutt, I was struck by the sheer presence of Lawrie coming at me from the walls and shelves – photos, trophies, mementos, and pictures of Lawrie cross-stitched by Rita’s own hands. These tributes to her husband were comfortable there - they had obviously not just been thrown up after Lawrie’s peaceful death last September, a week after his 80th birthday. “Quite a looker, wasn’t he?” Rita pointed out a photo of a dashing young Lawrie in navy uniform. I enviously agreed.
I asked Rita who Lawrie’s best friend had been. “I am,” she replied, once again forgetting he was gone. She had been doing that a lot lately, she said. “It’s the small things that hit you – he used to make my breakfast.”
Lawrie and Rita had been true best mates, in a phenomenally active and community-filled life together. “He didn’t make close friends - maybe it’s because he was the youngest of nine. We were too busy to have friends anyway.”
As their second son Gregory put it at Lawrie’s funeral: “He was a pillar of the community…yet a very private man.”
Lawrie had obviously shared Rita’s deep sense of history and memory. As if 33 years in the police were not enough, on his retirement in 1985 Lawrie threw himself into working for the Wellington Retired Police Club, serving as both president and secretary/treasurer. He was made one of only four life members in the history of the club, as well as a life member of the IPA, which he had joined in 1980. He was secretary general of the New Zealand IPA for six years.
Lawrie was a legendary recruiter for both these organisations. “He’d always have a pamphlet ready,” Rita said. Lawrie worked hard to keep the police’s history and present day community alive. Among other things, he set up plaques and memorials, contributed to radio programmes about the police and, fittingly, it was his job to read out the names of deceased police officers at the annual police college Remembrance Day.
NZ IPA president Senior Constable Bruce Hutton, who followed in Lawrie’s footsteps as a forensic photographer, said Lawrie was a “mentor” to him. “He’s why I’m where I am today,” he said.
Bruce said Lawrie had a great compassion for people. “He was a good Wellington cop - he could speak to everyone.” This was particularly evident when they travelled overseas together on IPA work: “He was very well respected all over the world and he was great with people.” Lawrie and Rita also travelled the world extensively together with the IPA. “We were looked after. Police are the same the world over - they can relate to each other,” Rita said.
If they had wanted to, both Lawrie and Rita could have boasted a formidable list of community organisations they had belonged to. But they probably wouldn’t have bothered, preferring instead to just get on with the job. As Rita said, “If Lawrie saw anything needed doing he’d just do it.”
At 78, Rita is the secretary of the Federation of Women’s Institutes of Lower Hutt. Both she and Lawrie were on every school committee of every school ever attended by their children, Kevin, Gregory, Christine and Helen. Lawrie also belonged to (partial list!): the Ship and Marine Society, Toastmasters (Hutt Valley toastmaster of the year “sometime in the ‘70s. He could speak on his feet”.), RSA (committee member), Girl Guides, and Scouts (committee member of both). He also coached girls’ cricket at Lower Hutt Sacred Heart College, was the president of the Wainuiomata cricket club, and the secretary of the rugby club. Senior Constable Philpott also served his time as Father Christmas at many police children’s functions.
His deep, balanced and extremely capable nature allowed him to take on so much and yet remain loved by so many people. “He never lost his temper. He was a deep thinker, quiet and very kind. He was a brilliant mind with a phenomenal memory,” Rita said.
Retired police college education officer Valerie Redshaw had a lot to do with Lawrie over the years. Apart from Lawrie working “relentlessly” for the police, she said he was “very caring” and often visited the sick in hospital. His family was overwhelmed by the number of visitors who returned the compliment to Lawrie when he was in hospital. “He was a gentleman - an old school person,” Valerie said.
Rita also noticed his old-world habits: “He always carried a comb, a hanky, a piece of paper and some money. When we were first married he carried money in his socks.”
But Lawrie, who according to son Gregory, was a lover of the Goons and a wearer of embarrassing “safari suits and silly hats”, was an effective and authoritative police officer, who in his work was surrounded by death more than others. As a police photographer he had to “pick up bits of people from the Woburn railway over there”. He also worked with the coroners on disasters such as Erebus and Tangiwai. But Lawrie was one of those “special” people who could switch off and cope with this work. “He never brought his work home, which saved us,” Rita said.
Lawrie may have gained some of his seeming calmness around death from witnessing the horror of Japanese death camps first hand. As a 19-year-old radar operator with the British Navy in the Second World War, his ship, the HMS Bermuda, was involved with the liberation of allied prisoners - “barely alive skeletons” - from the infamous Kinkaseki camp in present day Taiwan. In a recent Dominion Post feature about his experiences there, he described this as “a vision of hell”.
Lawrie was an inexhaustible reader and writer with “perfect English”, and a contributor to various police and maritime magazines. He recorded his naval exploits in his as yet unpublished “The Murmurings of a Merry Meandering Matelot”.
A Wellingtonian born on 29 August 1925, Lawrie was brought up with his eight brothers and sisters in the inner city suburbs of Newtown and Aro Valley. After secondary schooling in Geelong, Australia he joined the Royal Navy in 1943. He was on active service until the end of the war in 1945, after which he did an apprenticeship as a fitter and turner for the Ministry of Works.
Lawrie met Rita at a dance after the war. “We loved dancing…even if we had to be home at 10 o’clock,” Rita said with a twinkle in her eye. After an 18-month engagement they were married in 1949. Lawrie was ready for a career change in 1953. “It was either the police or the navy, and I wouldn’t let him join the navy,” said Rita, who feared she would miss him too much. That year Lawrie joined the police as a driver, on a temporary basis. The rest is history: he stayed with them for the rest of his working life, and with his IPA and RPC memberships, till the day he died.
Lawrie spent his entire police career working in the Hutt Valley, and he and his family lived in Wainuiomata.for 50 years. He was a much loved community constable there for some years. As well as Rita, Lawrie leaves behind his four children, eight grandchildren and one great granddaughter.
By Dan Poynton