Street celebration

Browns Bay is honouring Stan Wilk by naming a road after him. Rebecca Lewis reports
Stan Wilk will always be remembered on the North Shore as a dedicated, hardworking volunteer at the Browns Bay Red Cross.
Even the day before his death, he was fixing the steps of the place he loved so much.
And 10 years after his death, his admirers now have a more obvious way to remember the Torbay character - with a street name.
Glencoe Rd, where the Red Cross is located, is being renamed Wilk Lane after Stan, thanks to a suggestion by one of the local volunteers. Glencoe Rd is often confused with Glencoe Close - just one street up - so the idea for the name change was welcomed by the North Shore City Council.
Stan's daughter, Anne Wilk is delighted to see her family name celebrated in the place she has grown up.
"I actually have no idea who suggested the idea to the community board but I am so delighted about it," says the Torbay resident, who lived next to her late mum and dad until they died in 2006 and 1998 respectively.
"Everybody loved my father," she says.
"He had a great heart and would do anything for anybody, but he didn't like being the centre of attention.
"Dad was always doing things and making a difference but it was always from the background."
And it was from the background that Stan did his best work - helping establish the Red Cross in its current location, fixing the roof of the then dilapidated building and spending his final years working hard to raise money through the Red Cross' annual appeal.
For his efforts, he and his wife Mary - who also volunteered at the Red Cross - were granted numerous awards for their hard work.
One award, the Queen's Commemoration Medal, was awarded to Stan in 1990 'except Stan didn't even know about it at the time. In an administration mix up, Stan didn't hear about the award until MP Murray McCully knocked on his door in 1992.
"He was pretty shocked, I can tell you that," says Anne.
Stan, who moved to Torbay from England with his wife in 1963, was also awarded the Northern Region Shield of Merit for his contribution to the Red Cross. Both he and his wife were given North Shore City Council's Civic Award on other occasions for their community contributions as well.
Anne, who is an assistant to the principal at Long Bay College, says she hopes to follow in the "humbling" footsteps of her parents when she retires. "I'm so proud of both my parents. It's really humbling to know how much they did and I'm so happy they will be remembered with a street name.
It has not yet been decided when the signs will be changed to Wilk Lane.