Letters: Memories of former mayor Noel Pope

Noel Pope, former mayor of Tauranga. Photo / File

Most people knew Noel Pope as a businessman and his 27 years in the Tauranga City Council with 12 of those years as mayor.

Warrant Officer Class Two Noel Pope also served with the Hauraki Regiment in the CMT era, with the appointment of Company Sergeant Major.

Noel Pope was a strong supporter of the 6th Battalion (Hauraki) Regimental Association Museum and the Tauranga Cadet Forces.

I wish to share one of his quotations held in the museum.

"Till the day I die I will value those six or seven years I had in the army. There's been nothing since that could replace it, both in terms of a formative experience or a wider perspective on the world and life."

"Whaka tangata kia kaha."

Des Anderson
president
6th Battalion (Hauraki) Regimental Association

Women and choice

A prominent photo appeared in your opinion pages recently. It depicted women carrying signs indicating that if they are pregnant it is their right and their choice to dispose of the life they are carrying within them.

Surely they had a choice whether or not to indulge in the activity that made them pregnant in the first place.

If, further down the line, they discover that they made a bad choice, why should another defenceless human being pay for that with their life?

Ian Young
Pāpāmoa

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