While he contracted polio as a 15-year-old, and as a result ended up with one leg shorter than the other, he was still able to join the Royal NZ Navy at 18 as a stoker.
Esther Ashby-Coventry 16:05, Jan 12 2022
A loving husband, father and grandfather, keen whitebaiter, home brewer, and vegetable gardener, former Navyman Hank Cowan has been remembered as someone who was “humble and engaging’’.
George Bryce ‘Hank’ Cowan died at Hospice South Canterbury on November 26, aged 88.
While he contracted polio as a 15-year-old, and as a result ended up with one leg shorter than the other, he was still able to join the Royal NZ Navy at 18 as a stoker.
His parents always called him Bryce but when he joined up, it was automatically changed to Hank as that is what the family nicknamed everyone who went to sea, and the name stuck.
Carole, his wife of 64 years, recalled the first time she met her husband to be, at a dance in Christchurch in 1954.
At the end of the evening he asked where she was going for Christmas, and she said Timaru. Off the cuff, he replied he would ‘’see her there’’.
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“At the midnight dance [on New Year’s Eve] he was the first person I saw at the Caroline Bay Hall. Later we went for a ride on the Octopus [a carnival ride], he hated it,” she said.
Their relationship grew long distance as he was based in Auckland and in the Navy, and she was still living in Christchurch.
They wrote letters, got engaged in 1956, and married a year later and went on to have three children – two boys and a girl.
He was at sea for months working and was on the HMSNZ Pukaki, operating around the Christmas Islands during the British nuclear testing in the late 1950s.
“He saw every bomb go off,” Carole said.
Being part of Operation Grapple (testing atomic and hydrogen bombs), Hank believed had impacted on their son Tony’s health.
Tony became sick at the age of 13 with the rare diagnosis in one so young of sclerosis of the liver, which went on to affect his lungs and heart. He died in 2000, of cardiac arrest, aged 31.
“Hank always blamed himself,” Carole said.
The Government contributed $250,000 towards research into the effects of the testing but did not really acknowledge the harm, Carole said.
“NZ Nuclear Veterans Association joined with the British equivalent and took it to court in England, but it never came to anything despite the men and their children dying early of unusual problems.
“Though they did recognise a list of illnesses they would accept and pay a pension to them comparable to going to war.”
In retirement, he and Carole visited the Christmas Islands on one of the cruises they went on.
“He was shocked there were no manta rays or sting rays – there was nothing left.”
Linda Moore, the Cowan’s middle child, said doctors couldn’t explain Tony’s condition but could not rule out the potential of chromosome damage caused by the radiation Hank was subject to.
While at the islands during testing some men would fish on their shifts off and eat what they caught or go swimming but Hank never did.
“He didn’t know why, he just felt it wasn’t right,” she said.
He left the Navy in 1959 and the family moved to Timaru where Hank started working at the freezing works at Smithfield and Pareora.
He became a watersider four years later and remained on the wharf until his retirement.
Moore remembers her dad as being a great whitebaiter and family man. His favourite places were the Opihi River mouth and Smithfield during whitebait season.
“[My parents had] an extremely happy and loving marriage and I learnt through Dad’s actions, very early on in my life, how a man should treat a woman.
‘’Dad set the bar unbelievably high when it came to me choosing a life partner,” Moore said.
Many days he would take her to swimming at 6am and read the paper as she trained before he went to work and she went to school.
When he had time to relax at home he would make home brew beer which he shared with friends and family.
“He was humble, engaging and everybody liked him. He was welcoming and smiled a lot,” Moore said.
A celebration of Hank’s life was held on December 2 at Betts Funeral Services.
He is survived by his wife Carole, children Allan and Linda, and grandchildren Annabel, and Jack Cowan, and Patrick Moore.
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