Mr A. R. Blank Was Noted Teacher And Sportsman

Press, Volume CII, Issue 30130, 14 May 1963, Page 12

Mr A. R. Blank Was Noted Teacher And Sportsman

The young people of Christchurch lost a firm friend yesterday, with the death of Mr A. R. Blank. He had three compelling interests—teaching, local body affairs, sport—and whichever of them might engage his attention, the strong probability was that he would be planning something to encourage the development of healthy interests among the youth of Christchurch. His energy and his enterprise were boundless; they were born of a simple love of children which he took with him in whatever he did.

Mr Blank’s professional career in teaching was as distinguished as his achievements in sport. He spent 45 years in Christchurch district schools including three years as headmaster at Harewood. But it was at Fendalton that he made his name. He was headmaster there for 28 years until he retired in May. 1949. He will be remembered as one of the founders of the open-air classrooms there, the first in this country, for which he personally subscribed £lOO of the £397 cost of the first unit. Generations of pupils, teachers and administrators recall him as possibly the most dynamic master of his time- He was an individualist and a forceful one who won respect from the young.

Scores of New Zealand and provincial winners of academic and sporting success gained, their first inspiration and training from Mr Blank.

Many of the country’s leading teachers still speak of Mr Blank’s help in their early days and his championship of justice and opportunity for young trainees even if regulations had to be bent. Administrators found him a doughty advocate. If

he wanted something for his school or hiic profession, he would not let go until he got it. Shortly after bis retirement, Mr Blank was awarded the M.B.E. Local Body Work Mr Blank was a member of the Waimairi County Council from 1953 until last year, when he did not seek re-election. He was the county chairman for a term and chairman of the council’s works committee for many years.

The provision of recreational areas within the county was Mr Blank’s main interest. pursued with characteristic vigour. He was the mainspring in the formation of Jellie Park, and a triumphant advocate of Burnside Park. He opposed any suggestion that Fendalton or Waimairi. should be amalgamated with Christchurch.

The council, after his retirement. named a new park in its Maidstone road subdivision the Ray Blank Park in recognition of his untiring work.

“Mr Blank was a publicspirited man. His death comes as a deep shock,” said the Waimairi County Council chairman (Mr J. I. Colligan) last evening. Mr Blank was a member of the Canterbury Progress League for many years, both as the Waimairi county representative and a private member. He strongly advocated the opening of the Lake Sumner area as a holiday and sporting resort.

He was also a staunch supporter of the Christchurch airport and an advocate of increased irrigation on the Canterbury Plains, a bridge over the Estuary, and was an active worker when the league sponsored Tow’n Hall Promotion.

Versatile Sportsman It is doubtful whether Canterbury has ever had a more versatile sportsman than Mr Blank. He played nearly everything well. And if he was best-known in the last 40 years of his life as a golfer, he was always a firm advocate of team games for youngsters.

He was a member of the University Rugby Club for 58 years, and a senior fiveeighths from 1906 to 1912 and in 1915. In 1911 he toured Australia with an unbeaten New Zealand University team. From 1915 to 1917 he was on the Canterbury Rugby Union, and had a term as treasurer.

A senior cricketer from 1906 to 1930, Mr Blank scored 4500 runs in the «enior grade, played for Canterbury elevens, was elected to the Canterbury Cricket Association, and later did broadcast commentaries from Lancaster Park.

Perhaps hi« chief contribution to cricket was his coaching at Fendalton School There he had scope for full expression of his enthusiasm for sport, and he brought on an extraordinary number of youngsters who went on to represent Canterbury and New Zealand. In one period of 12 years, neither of Fendalton's cricket teams lost a match.

Diversity was, however, the keynote of Mr Blank’s sporting interests. He rowed for the Canterbury club, he founded the Ascot Tennis Club in New Brighton (in 1910), he ran the mile and in hurdle races for his university, he even played a little polo. He was a scratch swimmer and a fervent supporter of the surf life-saving movement. When he was 18, Mr Blank was awarded a certificate by thq Royal Humane Society for saving life at New Brighton. He was a founder of the Canterbury Surf Life-saving Association, and he founded the Waimairi and North Beach clubs. As a competitor and administrator, he gave, as usual, of his best. He was

president of the Canterbury Council of Amateur Sport. It may be as a golfer that Mr Blank will be best remembered. He won Canterbury titles repeatedly, he was a Canterbury selector, a president of the Canterbury Provincial Golf Association —which he was largely responsible for founding. He was a life.member of the Harewood. Waimairi, Waitikiri and Windsor clubs—all of them among the many golf courses he designed and laid out.

The idea of inter-club golf came from him, between the times he was putting down new courses or creating new course records. All this, although he did not start playing golf until 1923, when he was 36 years old. And perhaps the proudest moment he knew in sport was his election, in 1955. as president of the New Zealand Golf Association.

His work tor golf was immense. During the war. the membership at Waitikiri shrank to a dozen or two, and the club would probably have been dissolved had Mr Llank not decided it should survive. He watered greens, and cut them, mowed the fairways, and the club lived. It was this spirit, which led to what was probably the greatest contribution he made to sport—the Harewood Young People’s Club In 1923. six months after starting to play golf, Mr Blank started the Hare wood club, designing the course, working on it, making it one of the best winter courses in the country, with greens of particular quality. But with the war. some of the course was taken in to the aerodrome at Harewood, and the club was dissolved, after Mr Blank had looked after it for 17 years. But in March, 1957. he started the first golf club for young people ai Harewood. Mr Blank was on crutches, after breaking a leg. when he called a meeting of interested parents, and from there the scheme went forward, hand m hand with Mr Blank s organisation of Golf Foundation coaching classes. Now, after six years, the young players who joined when barely in their ’teens are becoming more and more prominent in Canterbury golf. Mr Blank, who was 76. is survived by his widow, two sons and two daughters