The lockdown at the time meant her funeral was a very small family gathering.
As a governor-general, she could have opted for a state funeral, but she chose a free concert featuring the Auckland Philharmonia, an orchestra Cath had actively supported over many years.
I met first Cath in 1982 when I became a party organiser in Auckland.
There were just two Labour councillors on a 21-member Auckland City Council. This reflected the then boundaries of the city which consisted mostly of solidly National voting electorates.
Despite finding herself in a tiny minority, Cath was elected chair of the council committee responsible for the city’s arts budget. The superb Auckland City Art Gallery flourished under her patronage.
Between 1976 and 1885 Cath starred in Beauty and the Beast, a popular television talk show which gave her invaluable positive exposure.
Cath ran for mayor of Auckland in 1980 and came second in a three-way split when Colin Kay defeated former mayor Sir Dove-Meyer Robinson.
In the 1983 Auckland Council elections, having studied the voter turnout numbers in 1980, I agreed to manage Cath’s mayoral campaign.
I use the term “manage” in a loose sense as Cath was very much in charge of her own push for the mayoralty and my job was to raise the necessary money, place the advertisements and get significant numbers of Labour Pary members to vote and bring a couple of supporters with them when they did.
In a crowded field, Cath ran as a Labour Party candidate and won the Auckland mayoralty with 34 per cent of the vote, the first woman to reach that peak in local government.
An upward twitch in voter participation was what made the difference and gave Cath the win.
With the able help of former Hawke’s Bay Regional councillor Peter Beaven, I managed two more of Cath’s mayoral campaigns in 1986 and 1989 while her support grew dramatically to more than 70 per cent of the vote.
I don’t know of any other politician, local or national who has gathered support in that quantum, and this reflected Cath’s ability to engage those who would normally oppose a Labour candidate.
A lasting memorial to Cath is the Aotea Centre, a large auditorium in central Auckland and a project complicated with delay and cost-escalation. Cath ended up involved in a lawsuit about the project which was to weigh heavily on her for some years.
Cath possessed a personal warmth and a great sense of humour with a roguish streak.
I recall one public meeting when Cath used the ****wit word to describe critics of one of her local government friends. This largely went unnoticed and the criticism I might have expected never eventuated.
In 1990 Cath was appointed our first female governor-general by Queen Elizabeth and applied her down-to-earth qualities to that role, abolishing the practice of her staff bowing and curtseying to the governor-general.
Cath was a great storyteller.
When Queen Elizabeth and the Duke of Edinburgh visited while she was governor-general, she was informed of the Queen’s intention to award her a third damehood. She asked, “can I be three times a dame” to which the Duke of Edinburgh chortled and replied with a pun – “it can’t be three times a (k)night”.
Cath was ultimately appointed to four damehoods, an extraordinary achievement and, as far as I know, unmatched.
In 2011, Cath became patron and a board member of the New Zealand Howard League.
Her involvement was active and her participation in the league enabled us to achieve charitable status. This has been of great value.
Despite her advancing years, Cath attended the many prisoner graduations from our literacy and other programmes. She spoke well on each occasion.
My last memory of Cath was a graduation at Mount Eden Jail.
We arrived early, and I left Cath with the assembled visitors while I got authorisation to enter the jail.
The majority of the visitors, reflecting the make-up of the prison population, were Māori and Pasifika women and their kids.
When the meeting was finally cleared, I returned to get Cath. She was nattering to a group of surrounding mums with a snoozing baby on her shoulder.
* Mike Williams grew up in Hawke’s Bay and is a former Labour Party president.
