KEY POINTS:
The Rev Canon Gerald J.J.A. Hadlow of Rotorua. Died aged 79.
Gerald Hadlow, for many years a writer of both articles and letters to the editor of the Herald and other newspapers, has died tragically with his wife in a car accident.
Hadlow and his wife of 52 years, Sheila, died instantly when their car collided head on with a bus of Korean tourists near Rotorua on November 15. The Hadlows' dog, Benji, also died.
Gerald Hadlow was ordained in 1965 after training at St John's College in Auckland and was variously an assistant curate at St Matthews-in-the-City in Auckland, vicar of Tuakau, Morrinsville and Rotorua and Archdeacon of Piako.
Canon Hadlow was working in India as a tea-taster and his wife was nursing when they were introduced by mutual friends in a Calcutta cafe.
His newspaper columns were wide-ranging on the values and problems in society from suicide to broken families.
He observed that while modern technology could solve many problems "we have been trapped into the idolatry of modernity, which encourages us to believe that the past has nothing to teach us".
And he believed the disintegration of family life, not the shortcomings of one [Maori] culture, was to blame for the epidemic of abuse and neglect of children afflicting New Zealand.
Hadlow himself had part of his upbringing in the colliery area of Durham which suffered appallingly in the 1930s Depression.
"In that situation, as in ours now, unemployment and poverty creates [a] world that limits vision and forces people to exist in the narrow confines of frustration and anger," he said in 2000.
Gerald Hadlow in retirement was chaplain to the Rotorua police. He also wrote a column for the Daily Post in Rotorua called "Loose Canon".
Mr and Mrs Hadlow are survived by two children.