Harry Lawson still working on Napier projects in retirement

A grafter and battler as a local body politician, Harry Lawson is merely undergoing a change of scenery as he enjoys his first few days away from the Napier City Council seat he occupied for 22 years.
"I think I've had a good run," he says, still wondering to some degree how it was that he was ever talked into first giving it a go back in 1986.
That was to be the only time he'd fail at the polls in nine attempts.
"It's a bit surreal, because I'm actually still working on three projects promoting Napier ... and I'm not on the council any more."
It's the Napierite in him, about half-a-century of his 68 years which goes back to when he first arrived with mum, dad, and three sisters on the Captain Cook in 1953, emigrating from Scotland.
They'd had other options, he said. "We were within a knife-edge of going to Southern Rhodesia. Today, that's Zimbabwe. I think they probably made the right choice."
Napier appealed because two uncles were already ensconced there, and after about four years his own continuance down under was somewhat settled when he started work as a 15-year-old building apprentice, the first step in residential property, which eventually included building a home on Hospital Hill.
Although he did live in Britain again for several years in the 1960s, Napier had its own appeal, and he felt somehow compelled when councillor and fellow Rotary club member Sefton Mannering approached him before the 1986 elections.
"You've been chewing my ear all these years," Mr Mannering said, waving a nomination form. "Now sign this."
Wife Wendy surprised with her consent, but he had his own misgivings, and recalled: "I hadn't been a great fan of bureaucracy, I'm afraid."
He polled 13th, just missing out, and was catapulted to the council table in a by-election 18 months later, and impressed Napier Daily Telegraphcity council reporter John Cousins, now a veteran civic roundsman and journalist in Tauranga.
"He was hard working, he was a real grafter, and you always knew where you stood with him."
Mr Lawson, who has had a special interest in the sister-city arrangements on which much of Napier's imported student industry is based, and learnt Japanese with fluency to effect the role, recalls coming to grips early with the value of the council's Municipal Electricity Department, and seeing it sold for several times what the council was first prepared to ask. It helped reduce a debt level which has become a feature of the civic operation.
Chairman of the Works Committee for nine years among several roles, he had a long service with the Omaranui Landfill Committee, the last two years as chairman and culminating in formal commendation by the Hastings District Council last month.
Of course it takes more than one body to move a council, and he claims no specific momentous achievements, although he does list the comparative failure of not having been able to convince the rest to "buy a dolphin" and keep Marineland going.
So what does a guy get out of 22 years on council? On polling day he endured six sets at tennis, and a few more in the days afterwards. A handy judoka in his day, he'd never played tennis until civic duties had him opening a tennis club. He took it up, at the age of 60.