defied odds

The Pope sent best wishes as well, and politicians visited her central Takapuna home.

Born on 2 October 1913 on Guernsey in the Channel Islands, Connie started a new life in Christchurch with her mother and sister when she was at primary school. Her father, whom she could not remember, had died in World War I and her mother remarried a New Zealand solider. The family ran hotels, in which Connie helped, before working as a hairdresser and milliner.

Stylish and petite (standing at just 145cm or 4ft, 9in), Connie married twice and was twice widowed.

To first husband Walter, she had daughters Sandy and Robin, who lives in Ashburton and she had five grandchildren and 11 great-granchildren. Although she did not need to work, she convinced Walter to let her become involved in his clothes-manufacturing business because she was bored and liked a challenge. The talented home clothesmaker soon proved her worth by stepping in to help draft patterns. She showed a natural businesswoman’s flair for economical use of material.

An eye for design led to the setting-up of her own label, Konnie Kase, and a shop, which offered smart daywear in the 1950s and 1960s. The designs ended up in competition with her husband’s offerings.

The couple enjoyed attending big dress-up race meetings, which was a tradition Connie continued with her second husband, Tom. He brought her north to Auckland, via a few years in Wellington. They settled on the North Shore around 50 years ago.

“I’ve had a very full life,” is how she liked to reflect on it.

Until her 90s, Connie had few health issues, but then some sight and hearing degeneration set in. But she worked around this, with eye injections so she could keep reading and hearing aids to stay up with conversation. She mastered computers and mobile phones.

A scare came last year, when Connie was in North Shore Hospital for treatment on her leg and picked up Covid, but she recovered.

A large-screen television at home allowed her to keep following racing as outings to the track became less frequent.

The judicious punter was honoured to be in attendance when races named for her were run at Ellerslie for her 91st and Cambridge for her 95th. When this occurred again at Alexandra Park, with the Connie Trewern 102nd Birthday Mobile, she was interviewed on Trackside, her favourite channel.

The presenters found it hard to credit their quick-witted subject was a centenarian. Always beautifully groomed, she never smoked or sunbathed, but did not say no to a birthday tipple.

Parties were always celebrated with gusto. She wore a houndstooth jacket Sandy bought her in Harrods to her 100th in Devonport and held a hat party the year after.

For her 107th enjoyed with family and friends at the Spencer on Byron hotel, she cheekily urged her guests to to see if the purple parfait amour liqueur she had liked in her younger days would “strike a light”.

North Shore artist and Westlake educator

Well-known North Shore artist and teacher Dugald Page has died, aged 86.

His work lives on at Westlake Boys High School, where eight large stained-glass windows he designed have pride of place in the school auditorium. These were completed for the school’s 50-year anniversary in 2008.

Page (right) worked across the artistic spectrum, including painting, sculpture, ceramics, glass and print-making. He held exhibitions across New Zealand. In Devonport, where he lived, a career retrospective was held at the Depot Artspace in 2014.

After growing up in Palmerston North, Page studied fine arts at the University of Canterbury. He became an art teacher and from the early 1960s formed what was a long association with Westlake Boys High School. He later taught at teacher training colleges on the North Shore and Auckland, and at Whitecliffe School of Art, before returning to Westlake Boys in the 1990s.