Obituary: Tanuvasa Yandall

Tanuvasa Yandall, QSM, community leader, Auckland City councillor. Died aged 81.

TANUVASA James Alfred Yandall of Grey Lynn was by habit a man invariably to be found helping people in community and church affairs.

The Samoan leader and watersider arrived in New Zealand on the ship Matua in 1946 with the odds of a good family life stacked against him, having left school at 14. Forty years later he was given a Queen's Service Medal for all his community work. The award came as a surprise.

"I did not think anybody was taking any notice of what I was doing," he explained in 1986. "Helping people is part of my life. But my wish has always been to remain behind the scenes and help. I get my glory that way."

Tanuvasa Yandall was born in the village of Malaela, in the area of Aleipata, then Western Samoa.

In New Zealand he raised a family of nine children with his Samoan wife, Nova, whom he met at the Beresford St Congregational Church in 1947.

He worked variously at the Westfield Freezing Works and the Hellaby's meat plant. Then he worked at the Bycroft biscuit factory until becoming a waterside worker in 1951.

That job lasted 35 years during which time he became a keen member of the Labour Party and with other Samoans formed the Pacific Island branch of West Lynn.

This allegiance had its entertaining moments, none less than in 1987 when he found that his three daughters Adele Mary and Pauline, who formed the popular Yandall Sisters group, were a supporting act for Jim Bolger's National election campaign singing: "We're voting for Bolger and don't it feel right."

In fact they had checked with their parents before taking the job and off-stage had been doing their share of canvassing for the Auckland Central Labour MP Richard Prebble.

"My daughters have to live - it makes no difference whether the National Party pays for it or someone else," said their father who was then serving a three-year term as a Labour Auckland City councillor.

Tanuvasa Yandall, who held two chiefly titles, Tanuvasa and To'oto'ole'a'ava, was one of many Pacific Islanders of his time who spent their lives in Auckland's inner-city suburbs. His last home of 46 years was in Dryden St, Grey Lynn.

He was one of the 10 founding members of the Pacific Islanders Congregational Church in 1949, now known as the Pacific Islanders Presbyterian Church in Edinburgh St, Newton.

He was on many school and sporting committees. His wife, Nova, died in 1998. He is survived by his children, 22 grandchildren and four great-grandchildren.