Genevieve Cameron pictured at the sea's edge in Mt Maunganui today. This weekend will mark 40 years since her brother Patrick Cameron was lost at sea just a bit further up the coast at Whangamata.
Genevieve Cameron pictured at the sea's edge in Mt Maunganui today. This weekend will mark 40 years since her brother Patrick Cameron was lost at sea just a bit further up the coast at Whangamata.
Losing her brother at sea 40 years ago created a void in Genevieve Cameron's life that was always cruelly accentuated by the absence of a single photo to remember him by.
That changed just three years ago, when Genevieve discovered a black and white negative of Patrick Allan Cameron takenjust a few months before he vanished off the southeast coast of the Coromandel Peninsula.
Patrick ventured into Whangamata Harbour on a small speed boat named the Pressed Rat on October 21, 1979, with three other Hamilton friends.
The 25-year-old, together with Donald Bruce Hine, 21, Renee Pearl McCullum, 16, and Susan Florence Godfrey, 18, were never seen again after that Labour holiday weekend and their bodies have never washed ashore.
Yet the photo of Patrick that Genevieve retrieved from a storage box now sits framed on her bedside table with a Hail Mary printed on the back.
She recites it to her younger brother's memory every night.
The only member of the Cameron family who has ever spoken on the loss of her only sibling, is open about the "rawness" that persists on the four-decade anniversary of his disappearance.
"Only in recent years have I even entertained the fact that my brother's dead," Genevieve said.
"The other families as soon as they went missing had a memorial. We didn't want Pat's name on that memorial.
"We probably thought he was missing for a very, very long time. It may be silly, maybe just in denial.
"I mean it ruined my father's life. People just don't get over it do they."
This photo of Patrick Allan Cameron sits in a frame on the bedside of his sister Genevieve. Patrick was never seen again after venturing out to sea from Whangamata on Labour weekend in 1979.
The loss is made more difficult by what the Cameron family has always considered a flawed air and sea search for the four friends following the disappearance.
The Pressed Rat was last seen around 2pm on Sunday, October 21, 1979, and after it was reported overdue later that day a search was mounted.
A Herald report at the time said that "conditions worsened on Sunday afternoon with waves running high".
Police believed at the time the boat had no life jackets, although Genevieve disputes this, and says she saw them on the boat.
On October 22, seven boats were sent into the calmer conditions off Whangamata Harbour, and 40 men engaged in shoreline searches as far north as Ohui, and down south to Whiritoa.
An Air Force Orion aircraft from Whenuapai joined at midday and conducted a search of 1200 square miles, 80km out to sea, until dark.
The Pressed Rat was the speedboat on which Patrick Allan Cameron, 25, Donald Bruce Hine, 21, Renee Pearl McCullu, 16, and Susan Florence Godfrey, 18, ventured out into the Whangamata Harbour.
However, that was the sole day the Orion was used in the air search, despite police searches along the coast for several days.
Genevieve Cameron's father continued the hunt after that, raising extra funds from donations to pay for helicopter searches of the coast.
Pat Cameron Snr even wrote a letter to Prime Minister Robert Muldoon calling for an immediate inquiry to "correct the obvious failings" in the Whangamata search.
"You felt just powerless, you didn't have any rights, and you were told to stay away," Genevieve says of her memory of the 1979 search - when she was 26 years old.
"In the end my father ignored it and we were begging the Prime Minister to let the Orion go up for another day, and they didn't. They gave up so quick on four people.
"The police's theory was they were taken by a wave and nosedived. When a boat nosedived the pressure would take the four bodies with it, and suck them down into the sea."
Genevieve Cameron, holding a photograph of her brother in Mt Maunganui, in October 2019. This weekend will mark 40 years since her brother Patrick Cameron was lost at sea further up the coast.
Genevieve is still searching for answers on what happened.
"It's still very raw. Strange, but it is," she said.
"I'm hoping there must be people that have information and we've probably left it too long.
"People say what the sea takes, it spits out again. But that never happened."
The official search was called off within a week.
The impact of Patrick's disappearance on the Cameron family in the years that followed has been profound.
"My brother had two children, Tamara and Patrick, who never knew him. At the time he was a rigger in Australia and they were just little ones," Genevieve said.
"My father had a couple of really bad strokes young. It was probably the stress. We haven't done it yet but my father wants his ashes at Whangamata."
"The years following have been heartbreaking for my parents - my mother Dawn who is still alive.
"I'd just like a little bit more closure. I just don't know whether it's possible or not."
Despite the slim chance of answers, Genevieve's photo of her brother - discovered in a box "accumulated" in her house over the years - provides some consolation.
"I think about him all the time, definitely every Labour weekend," she said.
"He was lovely and he was extremely clever with science and maths. He was gentle and kind.
"You're so busy that it's only in the still of the night when you say goodnight that you remember.
"It comes to mind now every night now that I've got my decent photo of Pat next to my bed. I often say a Hail Mary.
"It's the fact he's not here and God bless him. I want him to be safe."
One of the only remaining photos of Patrick Allan Cameron who went missing on Labour weekend, October 1979, aged 25.
