John Edward Jones is my great grandfather and he was born on the 11th of april 1913 in Taumarunui. John (or jack as he was known to family and friends) was one of 14 brothers and sisters, 7 of which were half siblings.

John's mother left him, his dad and his brothers and sisters to live a new life in Australia and that is where she had 7 more children (John's half siblings) she funnily enough named them all the same names as her first 7 children. John's father struggled to look after 7 children on his own and at age 11 John was sent to live on a farm to be a labourer. Times were hard for John and he often had to sleep on potato sacks as a bed. He left the farm at age 14 or 15 and he met my great grandmother Thelma and they moved to Te Kuiti and got married in 1932 when he was 19 years old. John had lots of different jobs in his younger years including truck driving,taxi driving, working for Masport and Anglo engineering.

He was a union rep at most places he worked and a passionate labour party supporter, later on becoming friends with Phil Goff when he was a Labour MP.

In 1942 John was called to war. He was meant to be going to Egypt. Brigadier Dove lost his driver and John became his new driver and they went to war in New Caledonia.

When John returned from war he was working in a sheet metal factory and made lots of tables,vases and decorative pieces out of wood and empty bullet shell cases.

John was very much involved with boxing and was one of the early members of Boys town boxing in Parnell. John and Steve Donahue were boxing trainers of the famous New zealand boxer Tuna Scanlan who was once the lightweight champion of New zealand.

An interesting fact about John is that he was the nephew of Queen Salote of Rarotonga.She was the Queen for 48 years

John’s hobbies included golf, fishing, going to the trots and horse racing. He was also extremely creative, loved painting,drawing and was an avid gardener who loved tree sculpting. My nana said he used to sculpt trees to look like all sorts of things including animals and even cup and saucers.

Unfortunately, at aged 77 John passed away after battling emphysema and having a stroke.he was survived by his wife Thelma and his 4 children - Terry, Maureen and Lee who is my Grandmother