Champion piper
Died aged 75.
Lewis Turrell, a lover of all things Scottish, was the first non-Scot to win the premiere prize for classical piping.
Lewis Turrell grew up a lover of things Scottish. Most of all, he loved to play the bagpipes.
And it's a matter of proud record that in 1958 he won the premiere prize for solo piping, the Highland Society of London Gold Medal for Piobairreachd.
But there were two things notable about that gold, not least that it involved playing the classical music of the Highland bagpipe, an unlikely pastime in most homes.
Certainly not in New Zealand where Turrell, a fourth generation New Zealander, was born, lived, achieved many distinctions and taught music.
In winning that 1958 gold medal, he became the first non-Scot to do so.
Turrell's success led to many other things, including leading the award-winning City of Wellington Pipe Band at Edinburgh Military Tattoos and being appointed personal piper to the Queen during some of her visits here.
Turrell's great friend, Allan Cameron, whom he asked to deliver his eulogy, said there were no particularly strong Scottish influences in the family history. Nor was he subjected to parental or peer pressure.
He recalled "probably a wee bit of a family legend" that the piper was first attracted to such music jigging in his pram to a pipe band in Wanganui while his twin brother slept on.
But Turrell certainly started early and clearly had some good teachers as the family followed his father's railways job around the country.
At age 12, he found himself piping Scottish-born Prime Minister Peter Fraser into the debating chamber at the State opening of Parliament.
Cameron said everything Turrell did "was underscored by pride and dignity... but a pride tempered by the dignity of the common man".
In later life, he used his retail experience to open the first of the House of Scotland locations in Auckland's Mt Eden in 1988.
The ground-floor shop, selling all things Scottish, was sandwiched between his piping school upstairs and The Haggis Lair restaurant in the basement. Ideal really, for one who loved Scotland so much.
Lewis Turrell is survived by his wife, Kaye, and extensive family.
