Leading from the front issuu

LOVE OF ECOLOGY AND PEOPLE
– PAT IS AHEAD OF HIS TIME
PAT CERTAINLY HAS THE
COMMON TOUCH AND SPEAKS
TRUTH TO POWER
Although I grew up in Hawke’s Bay in the ‘50s and ‘60s,
I never actually met Pat Magill until I returned to Heretaunga
to live in 1995 after more than 20 years absence.
It was soon after that that I joined the Probation Service
and my work in the social justice field inevitably led Pat
and me to meet and become firm “shipmates” to use
Pat’s common turn of phrase.
One of my abiding memories of the unique man that
Pat is, was the day I left my job as a probation officer after
seven and a half years. I had resigned as service manager
at the Napier Office after less than a year in that
role, aware that I no longer fitted into the box-ticking,
template-focussed compartments that the Probation
Service had increasingly become. Pat had heard that
there was a farewell morning tea and he and his lovely
companion Helen Lloyd arrived at reception with a huge
bucket of wild flowers that they had picked that morning
on their daily walk around the Ahuriri Estuary. What
tugged at my heart strings and reduced me to tears was
the thought that had gone into picking those flowers for
me! No $60 bouquet ordered from a local florist, which
is how people are often farewelled from Government departments
— instead their taonga to cheer me up was
the result of their morning ritual walking around one of
their favourite natural places — no doubt picking up rubbish
as well as garnering the wild flowers.
Pat has been a staunch supporter of Restorative Justice
for decades. When Restorative Justice was just getting
off the ground in Hawke’s Bay in the late 1990s, a
group of us from the area travelled up to Auckland for
one of the first national Restorative Justice conferences.
We stayed at Muriwai at the beach home of Helen Bowen
and Jim Boyack — two of our early Restorative Justice
mentors and trainers. Unlike the rest of us, Pat insisted
by marilyn scott
“If you can
talk with crowds
and keep your virtue
or walk with kings
nor lose the common
touch...” Rudyard
Kipling
on sleeping on the large deck outside “under the stars”
snuggled up in his sleeping bag where he could reflect
on the wonders of the universe and no doubt think about
his next community project or plan of action.
For decades before many of us were even born, Pat
had been busy pioneering social justice initiatives and
promoting Restorative Justice principles and practices.
He has always been an ally and a champion for the disenfranchised
and those on the margins of society but
what is particularly special about Pat, is that he not only
cares for people, but he also cares deeply for the environment
and his life-long actions have shown his passion
and commitment to both. For years he has attended
the Napier Court weekly to offer support and encouragement
to those who find themselves on the wrong
side of the law. His Napier Pilot City vision and his international
trips to ICOPA (International Conferences on
Above: At his Maraenui ‘office’, Pat with Marilyn Scott and artist John Ruth, whose beautiful paintings appear throughout Leading
From The Front.
Restorative Justice – for an unjust justice system 181