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The Christchurch Civic
Creche Case |
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Frank Haden once claimed he never
made U-turns on his views. "I spend a lot of time
saying, `I told you so!' after being proved right," the provocative
newspaper columnist added. Haden's writing thundered from a
string of New Zealand newspapers, including The Press. His career in
journalism stretched over more than 50 years and scaled the heights to
assistant editor and editor. He drew, but denied, claims of sexism and
racism. He was not bigoted; he was simply right, he said. His views, so vehemently expressed
on topics from parole board decisions to euthanasia, will be heard no more.
Haden died in Wellington this week, nine years after developing prostate
cancer. He was 77. Friend and fellow journalist Karl
du Fresne says Haden died comfortably in his sleep, at the Home of
Compassion, Silverstream, Upper Hutt. Gentle strains of Bach accompanied
his last moments. The strident and opinionated opponent of falseness and
pomposity loved classical music. A close friend, Professor Denis
Dutton, of Canterbury University, says Haden would "tool down the highway
with Glenn Gould's bracing recording of The Well-Tempered Clavier streaming
from his car stereo". To Dutton, this indicated Haden's
complexity. It was no use reading him merely to reinforce your prejudices.
"Frank was too unpredictable," he says. "He wrote exactly what he
thought, without the slightest care to how anyone might be offended." Dutton calls this "the
highest quality a columnist can have" and says Haden had it in full
measure. Many readers felt the same -- but not all. Letters-to-the-editor
pages of newspapers that ran his columns were frequently choked with
responses, as many vituperative in their damnation as generous in their
support. It may be charitable to say Haden
polarised people. A journalist whom he mentored, Helen Bain, described him in
a 1999 feature article as "cantankerous". She added, though, he was
"a mere shadow of the tyrannical Frank of 30 years ago". Haden was a product of the
Depression and a Catholic high school that reinforced his sense of family
duty. He was born and raised in Christchurch, the eldest of six children
whose father died suddenly after the collapse of his motor-cycle agency and
struggles to provide for the family from scraps of book- keeping work. His mother could barely keep the
family together on her meagre benefit, so Haden helped out with labouring
jobs in freezing works and a brickyard while attending St Bede's College.
Leaving school (and religion) behind, he worked in a law office to put himself
through a law course at Canterbury University. The lure of law quickly faded and
Haden crossed Cathedral Square to ask the editor of The Press for a job. He
was taken on as a reporter and immediately fell in love with newspapers. Regardless what fame, or infamy,
attached to his years as a columnist, he said his favourite and most
satisfying time as a journalist was spent roaming the world's trouble spots.
He thought his reporting of what was really going on for readers who had been
fed sanitised news was the real stuff of journalism. He believed passionately
in the importance of information to the democratic process. Haden showed fearless devotion to
duty. He admitted he was lucky to have come out of some tight situations in
places such as Vietnam, Bosnia, East Berlin and South Africa. In New Zealand, he felt a sense of
mission to expose corruption and cruelty in institutions. He showed courage
in tackling mental health and prison issues. The same courage led him to take
decisions as an editor, which some readers regarded as outrageous. These
included publishing the first full-frontal nudes, female and male,
photographs in a New Zealand newspaper (the Sunday Times in the 1970s) -- an
action that had a sequel in court. Equally eye-catching was the headline he
coined in an Australian paper for a story about Serbs pelting their Croat
neighbours with rocks -- "Stone the Croats". After The Press, Haden worked on
the Dominion, the NZ Herald and Sydney's Daily Telegraph. He set up a
television news service. He became editor of Sunday News, Sunday Times and
the Auckland Star. He was 61 when proprietors asked
him to take over the Auckland Star, in a last-ditch attempt to save the
failing paper. It was in vain and he later admitted evening papers had no
future. So it was back to Wellington, but
not to retirement. Although unwell from years of
overwork, which had brought on a bout of pneumonia and left him with shadows
on his lungs, Haden would not brook the idea of retirement, a state he once
described as "the poor man's way of dying". He continued writing his columns
on issues in the news and on current uses and abuses of the English language,
until late last year. The progress of his cancer from
last November alarmed and distressed him. "My whole world came crashing
in on me," he said. In an interview with The Press at
that time, he looked back with pride in having debunked many faulty notions
and for having maintained an enthusiastic scepticism. Denis Dutton says Haden was a
long-time and active member of the New Zealand Skeptics. Not surprising for a
man who once claimed to "doubt everyone with gusto". Many prominent journalists were
admirers of Haden, and Rosemary McLeod says she learned more from him about
the craft of writing than she did from anyone else. * Frank Haden, born Christchurch,
1929; died Wellington, March 5, 2007. Survived by wife Merle (nee Conway),
daughters Rosemary, Genevieve, Sylvia and Juliet and seven grandchildren.
--Mike Crean |
