By Robert Axford on 3/22/2010 12:26 PM

My father passed away on Saturday 13 March 2010 in Napier after a long illness. We had a private funeral at Wharerangi Lawn Cemetery.

There have been plenty of obituaries and articles published during the week and as they already contain good information, I'll simply link to some of them here. I'd like to thank all those who have gone out of their way to write and publish these items.

I will have some photographs and other information posted on this website after the memorial service.

Ian's email account will remain active as long as it receives email, but for any enquiries, please contact Joy or one of the kids.

• Wikipedia
• NZ herald
• Stuff - Extended information
• Victoria University
• Board of the Ian Axford (New Zealand) Fellowships in Public Policy
• Government pays tribute to Sir Ian Axford - Release
• Hawke's Bay Today
• The Royal Society of New Zealand - Release
• TV3 News
• Peter Griffin kindly scanned some printed obituaries
• And linked to a clip about Giotto
• Dad's cricket stats - Who knew?
• Jim McKenzie has written an excellent article

 

By Robert Axford on 12/10/2009 4:31 PM

My friend Ian Hopkins took his life recently after an extended battle with depression. I spent a long night before his funeral looking through old films and produced a brief photo story as a tribute. I've made it available here for friends and family to download and view.

• Play on mobile device - 12Mb Windows Media
• Play on PC - 20Mb Windows Media
• Play on PAL DVD - 40Mb Windows Media
• Play on NTSC DVD - 40Mb Windows Media

A copy has been placed on YouTube for immediate viewing below. It is often best on YouTube to pause playback at the beginning and let it load for a minute or so, in order to avoid unwanted stops and starts.

The music used includes a song titled Greenfields; written and performed by Luke Hurley and recorded as the title track of an audio tape that Ian and I produced for the "Fun & Frets" tour we staged in the early 90s featuring Luke, Dave Murphy and Alex Staines. Ian and I listened to Greenfields over and over again on our travels, wearing out more than one unsold copy of the tape.

All of the photos but one were taken by me over many years. The section where Greenfields begins takes place at Autumn Farm in Golden Bay. We were both at crossroads in our lives... a place Dave just happened to be singing about on the flipside of the same tape.

I'll miss you Ian.

By Robert Axford on 8/21/2008 12:34 AM

The new header graphic for this site shows the location of asteroid Axford and nearby planets on Ian's birthday in 1933.

I lifted information from the t-shirt made by Paul and displayed here. He traced the image in Autocad off a fax sent by Asoka. I combined it in Xara and Photoshop with data taken from JPL's entry on the asteroid to create the graphic.

I still have my t-shirt. Who else has theirs?

By Robert Axford on 7/13/2008 12:57 AM

I've pulled several Axford-related web sites here under this one hosted on my WonderWebs system. Domains directed here include axford.org, axford-russel.com and robertaxford.com.

A blog is available for each family member and photographs can be posted to the Photos page - simply ask me for access. The Axford family genealogy is displayed here as well.

Links to a few other family websites are here on the right as are email links for all.

Have fun!

Rob