Obituary Miss Doreen Brown

Press, 19 July 1989, Page 29

Obituary Miss Doreen Brown

A lifetime of outstanding service to the aquatic disciplines ended with the death on Saturday of Miss Pearl Doreen Brown. She was 86. At the national level she served as secretary of the New Zealand Amateur Swimming Association from 1960 to 1965, and continued to play ■ a big part in the sport’s administration as a member of the national council. In 1962 she managed a small but highly successful New Zealand team in Australia. Two of the swimmers, Vivien Haddon and Alan Seagar, won Australian senior titles, and Margaret Macrae gained junior honours. Her interest in competitive swimming led to her attending the national championships every season for about 50 years, until the mid-1980s. But perhaps her proudest achievement was her record 51 years in office as secretary of the Canterbury branch of the Royal Life-saving Society. In that half-century of service she won most of the honours the society gave out.

She was one of the first three women to receive the diploma, in 1926, won the service cross in 1949, and was made an honorary life governor in 1956. She was appointed to the panel of the society’s examiners in 1924, and continued her activities in that sphere until her retirement in 1985.

Long and dedicated service came easily to Doreen Brown. She accepted the post of secretary of the now-defunct Christchurch Ladies’ Swimming Club when she was aged 16, and continued as the life and soul of the club for about 40 years. She was also secretary of the Canterbury centre of the N.Z.A.S.A. from 1937 to 1945, and again from 1949 to 1960. She was honoured with life membership in 1956.

Miss Brown learned to swim in the old Tepid Baths in Manchester Street, and won her first life-saving awards in 1921. A year later she accompanied her mother, “Aunty” Brown, to Hawaii when the New Zealand women’s freestyle cham-

pions, Gwitha Shand and Pauline Hoeft, competed in a series of "tank meets," as the competitions were called. Miss Brown’s mother, who become: the Canterbury centre’s first life member in 1944, acted as chaperone for the New Zealand swimmers on the trip. Doreen Brown’s inherent love of swimming and her proficiency at clerical work were blended harmoniously in her administrative tasks in life-saving and swimming. She also made a considerable impact on the world of netball. Throughout the 19 years in which the New Zealand Basketball Association (as it was then known) resided in Christchurch, from 1949 to 1968, Miss Brown was a member of the executive and delegate to the national council meetings. Recognition for her sterling efforts in the form of life membership came from the national bodies in both netball and swimming. She was awarded the M.B.E.