A.G.M. Holms 1911-2011

Grant Holms was the first-born child of six siblings on the 18^th February 1911 in Featherston, the son of Archie Crawford and Euphemia Gordon Holms, emanating from an early New Zealand pioneering family in the Wairarapa.

Leaving Levin District High School at 14 years of age, Grant entered the New Zealand Post Office working as a telegram delivery boy in Eketahuna, in the Tararua/Manawatu District.

Playing club rugby for Eketahuna, Grant played Sub-Union matches for the Bush Rugby Union before representing the Bush Rugby Union in first class matches in 1932. Some of his team-mates included All Black Athol Mahoney, New Zealand Light-weight Boxing Champion Harold Reeve and notable broadcaster, Winston McCarthy of “it’s a goal” fame.

The following year Grant was sent on a Post Office bursary to Victoria University to study economics, becoming a foundation student at Weir House in Wellington. It was there that he became friends with future head of the National Library School Ron O’Reilly and NZ High Court Chief Justice Sir Richard Wild. Ron O’Reilly, a keen artist himself, would be responsible for promoting artists Toss Woollaston and Colin McCahon while Head Librarian at Christchurch Library with a lending of art installed at the library.

Grant and his younger brother Bobby Holms would join “Wilders Mounted Rifles” in the early 1930s before Grant would earn a commission in 1937 as a Signals officer.

With the outbreak of war in 1939 Grant Holms would sail on the troopship Dunera with the First Echelon Divisional Signals to the Middle East while his two brothers Sgt Bob Holms and Pte Ian Holms would sail with the Second Echelon to the United Kingdom with the impending fall of France in 1940. Ian Holms would become the first casualty Killed in Action while serving with the New Zealand 22nd Battalion in England during the Battle of Britain.

Returning home in 1941 having contracted tuberculosis, Grant after recuperation at the Waipukurau sanitorium resumed duties with the New Zealand postal service.  Having served as a house master at Huntley Prep, near Marton, Grant became interested in the teaching profession and after receiving a medical clearance he entered Wellington Teachers College in 1947. His brother Bob Holms having survived the full duration of the War would follow suit the following year.

In 1948 Grant married Pamela Stratford, a Wellington librarian, daughter of a Gallipoli veteran and a great-grand-daughter of a settler arriving in Wellington prior to the Treaty of Waitangi on the Cuba, 1840.

Initially teaching in the Poverty Bay region and not attaining a full-time position, Grant and his wife moved to Auckland where he taught at Otahuhu College. Having gained four units(equivalent of 8 papers) towards his university degree part-time, and disappointed at not receiving a full-time bursary the following year to complete his degree, this became his fuel to enter the political aspects of the teaching profession. As president of the Auckland Assistant Masters Association in 1956 and then President of the Auckland Educational Institute in 1960, Grant came to the fore advocating for smaller classes and better resources for teachers.

As an up-and-coming teacher and prospective headmaster, Grant was selected to participate in the first professional development course held at Kowhai Intermediate School’s Walters House in 1960. Amongst his colleagues attending the course, still living as of 2024, 102-year-old Arch Jelley, WW2 Russian Convoy veteran and athletic coach of John Walker, Rod Dixon and the late Dick Quax.

Upon appointment at Victoria Avenue School as Head Teacher, the school roll grew to the point where an extra classroom prefab was added, and he became an office bound Headmaster. Retiring in 1969 after forty years Government Service, Grant still involved in part-time teaching, devoted his energies into acting as the Auckland Principal’s Association liaison with the Parent Teachers Association. Ultimately taking up the role as Auckland secretary, Grant helped contribute to the NZPTA becoming a force for change, including it might be fair to say one of his Otara Intermediate School students, Prime Minister David Lange introducing “Tomorrow’s Schools.”

With concern for his wife’s life-long health issues, he and his wife moved to the warmer climate of Hervey Bay in Queensland where he took up residence.

It wasn’t long before he became involved in the local rugby union scene where-upon donning the boots he played for the Hervey Bay “Golden Oldies” club side against a visiting Japanese team, making national headlines as the oldest rugby player in the Southern Hemisphere and continuing to play for them, received an Australia Day Award.

The oldest World War II veteran on parade in the Wide Bay on ANZAC Day Grant passed away in 2011.

Grant Holms is mentioned in Bob Howitt and Dianne Howarth’s book “Rugby Nomads”

His family’s history is covered in the book “Not Just Ordinary Blokes” by JGM Holms available through Wheeler’s Books NZ and available for reading through the Auckland Public Library.

A niece Rosemary Falloon, daughter of his sister, married the late John Wright of Hugh Wrights Ltd, living as they were in Eastbourne Road, Remuera.

Peter Stratford, October 2024