“I'm pretty sure it's still there, in a glass cage. But a lot of older people ask what happened to the Daimler.”
A 1939 Wolseley was the funeral services' first motorised hearse. To meet client needs though, the car was elongated to accommodate a coffin and the chassis was reinforced to take the weight.
A sporty but royal Daimler was the third hearse out of the ranks at Evans Funeral Services. The Daimler was brought to New Zealand in 1953, courtesy of the Queen of England. The sleek black car was part of a fleet brought here by The British government for the Queen's coronation tour. A car was sent to each town on her itinerary, including Gisborne — where she stayed at the Masonic Hotel — so a vehicle would be waiting when she got there.
Jim Evans, who in 1945 bought the business from Tom Haisman who founded it in 1908, bought the only convertible in the fleet. The late Gordon Bowman, a panel beater, converted the car into a hearse by putting a roof on it. The Daimler reigned from 1954-1971 when Jim replaced it with an imported, left-hand drive, 1971 Ford Customline. The Daimler is now in Australia.
“It was in a museum but the museum caught fire and the back of the car was burned.”
The owner contacted David a few years ago to ask after parts.
“He wanted to turn it back into the original convertible.”
Foster and Tyler founder Robin Foster, who serviced the Daimler, told Jim to get rid of it.
“He said it's not reliable. It had no power steering, no air-con, and it kept blowing the differential. It finally blew a diff taking a body out to Waerenga-a-Hika.”
The nature of David's business means travel is largely confined to certain locations around town, and up the Coast. When he sold the Ford Customline in 2018, the hearse had clocked up only 45,000 miles.
The days when drivers would pull over when a funeral procession passed, when pedestrians would stop, and even raise their hats, are, with few exceptions, long gone, says David.
“The last person to take off his hat was about eight years ago. He was a Fulton Hogan machine operator. He stood up, faced the road and took his hard hat off.”
Evans Funeral Services' next hearse was a custom-made SUV 6 commodore Ute, imported from Australia as a support vehicle, says David. To stretch the car, its frames were removed so the wheel base could be extended by adding an extra metre to the middle. The car took two years to build and was in service for three years.
Another sign of the change in the times happened during a service at St Andrew's Church in the mid-1980s.
“I moved the hearse to the front of the church and into the driveway,” says David.
“The keys were in the ignition. I lifted the tail-gate just as they were singing How Great Thou Art. By the time I went in they were into the second to last verse. I turned around and the hearse was gone.
“The family was mortified. I went in a side entrance and brought a trolley out while someone went to get another vehicle.”
Because there were only three ways in and out of Gisborne, the police alerted the country police.
“The country cops alerted the Te Karaka cop who found it in a paddock by the Kaitaratahi Freezing Works with the young driver behind the wheel.”
The incident featured on the midday news on radio.
“I also made UK Today and the New Zealand Herald front pages — all for a couple of litres of petrol.
“Jim Osler sent me a whistling key ring. You whistle and the key makes a noise so I would always know where my keys were.”
David was 14 years old when the Parker family moved from Wairoa to Gisborne. Rugby was his passion and for some reason his mates nicknamed him Stiff.
“Some people don't even know my real name. People still ring up and ask for Stiffie.
“One time, there were two old ladies at a service. The coffin was put in the back of the hearse then one of the old ladies said ‘see you later, Stiff'.
“Her friend was horrified.”
