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Issue No. 380 May 2014

Half-centurions roll back the years

Half a century after they first gathered at Trentham, members of the No 25 Macdonald Brown Recruit Wing met up again for a reunion at Napier.

The assembled members of the No 25 Macdonald Brown Wing including Jessie Shirtliff (front row, fifth from left).

The 41 members and their partners who travelled from all around New Zealand - and from as far away as Australia, Vietnam and San Francisco - represented more than 500 years of combined service.

Their guest of honour was Jessie Shirtliff, daughter of the wing patron, Chief Superintendent Macdonald Brown QPM.

Jessie gave an account of life in a Police family in the 1930s and touched on cases her father had been involved in, including the murders of four colleagues at Kowhiterangi in 1941, and the murder of Honorah Rieper in Christchurch by her daughter Pauline Parker and her friend Juliet Hume in 1954.

"Although our average age would have to be in the mid seventies, or worse, we all felt like we were young police recruits again," says Eddie Woolman, who organised the evening with Terry Mortensen.

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