Obituary: Noel Olliver Yorke

Noel Yorke and his wife Diane marked 65 years of marriage on Anzac Day last year. The couple both died within weeks of each other this month. Photo / File

A World War II veteran who survived the 1931 Hawke's Bay earthquake and met the great Mahatma Gandhi has died just weeks after his wife.

Noel Olliver Yorke passed away peacefully on the evening of January 24. His wife of 65 years, Diane Isabell Yorke (nee Rogers), died on New Year's Day.

He was born in Hastings in 1924, survived the 1931 magnitude 7.8 Hawke's Bay earthquake which killed 256 people, and lived through the Great Depression "often making do with a cup of soup a day".

He served in the navy in World War II and managed to escape unscathed when his ship was bombed.

Mr Yorke joined the navy in 1944, at the age of 19, and served on the HMS Silvio. During his service in the Indian Ocean, he met Mahatma Gandhi before he was discharged in 1946. After returning to New Zealand, he worked in forestry in the Bay of Plenty and met Diane when she was 15. The couple married at St Michael's Church and had five children, 11 grandchildren and seven great-grandchildren.

Mr Yorke and some of his family spoke to the Rotorua Daily Post on Anzac Day last year, when the couple celebrated their marriage milestone.

At the time, his daughter Noelene said her father worked in the forestry industry for more than 50 years, earning a road named in his honour in the Kaingaroa Forest, before retiring and donating his time to various charities in Rotorua.

"He spent a lifetime providing for mum and for all of us.

"He is the most honourable man I ever met. A real Kiwi with a love for his country and a caring nature. A man of few words but deep thoughts. One of the last of a generation that kept us free and helped protect the freedoms we enjoy," she said. Grand-daughter Gemma van der Vlugt said her grandfather was one of the kindest people she had ever met.

"Someone who would give his last dollar to buy us grandchildren an icecream and, before that, his life for his country's freedom. He grew up in the Great Depression, he never knew the internet or had a credit card, everything was about hard work and family. With these veterans we will lose a generation of better people."

In his death notice, his family thanked the nurses and carers of Garland Wing, Cantabria Hospital. The couple are buried in Kauae Cemetery after a funeral service was held for Mr Yorke on Tuesday. Matthew Martin