How jandals got their handle

ROGER MORONEY
It was 1957, just 12 years after WW2, and memories of the conflict were still strong.
Too strong for many people, who frowned on or turned their backs on anything associated with Japan. Which initially put the kibosh on John Cowie's plan to export what he saw as a great idea for casual footwear into New Zealand.
English born, he ran a business called John Cowie and Company out of Hong Kong in the 1950s - a time when the far east was still recovering from the ravages of war and when the Union Jack still flew over the colony attached to the Chinese mainland.
Cowie's daughter, Ann Evans, who lives in Hastings, remembers the Hong Kong years of her childhood but more than that, remembers the unusual footwear her Dad designed after being inspired by what he saw swimmers wearing during a business trip to Japan. It was at a swimming competition, and they wore what appeared to be easy-to-slip-on sandals.
Mrs Evans said her father was an intelligent thinker - well educated, brilliant at languages and full of ideas: "He was well known for his skills with language. He was a Greek and Latin scholar."
But at that time he was more intent on making a success of his import-exporting business, and the plastic sandals looked a winner.
Mr Cowie sat down with Morris Yock, an importer of goods into New Zealand, and they agreed the sandals would be a hit in summer.
But calling them Japanese sandals was unlikely to go down too well in some Kiwi quarters, so they needed another name.
The man of words, Mr Cowie, got it. He blended "Japan" with "sandal" and came up with ... jandal.
"They're called flip-flops or thongs everywhere else, but here they are jandals," Mrs Evans said.
She said she and her three siblings always took it for granted that their Dad invented the jandal, which had gone on to become a Kiwi icon.
Today they are justifiably proud and yes, they all have jandals, as do their children.
When the family left Hong Kong for New Zealand in 1959 they settled in the Waikato, but Mrs Evans later moved to Hawke's Bay, as did her brother, David.
After a visit here in 1989, their parents settled at Te Awanga, by the sea, which Mrs Evans said suited her elderly father. He loved the sea, and had supported surf lifesaving in Whangamata, where he was a surf club member. Which, Mrs Evans said, was especially fitting as yesterday's "jandal day" was in support of surf lifesaving.
Dad would have greatly approved.
Mr Cowie died in 1993 but he enjoyed his last years.
"He was by the sea and he could walk the beach ... in his jandals."