Passed away peacefully at home at Arahura Valley, on Friday, September 10, 2021, aged 78 years. Dearly beloved husband of Lorrayne (nee Ross), dearly loved brother and brother-in-law of Jan and Fred (deceased) Sanders, Bryce (deceased) and Carol, Donald and Ivy Ross, and Elizabeth Kempthorne (deceased), special friend of Karen Waller and a loved uncle, cousin and friend. Messages to 210 One Mile Line Road, Arahura Valley, Hokitika 7882, or can be left on Bevin’s tribute page at www.thompsonfd.co.nz. Following Bevin’s wishes, a private cremation has been held.
Bevin Wallis Alexander
Dear Lorrayne,Accept our very deepest sympathy at this very sad time.Big hugs from Lyn and Erl Robinson,also Brent and Sharee and families
Lorraine,
Devastated to hear of your loss. Take care girl and know my thoughts are with you.
So sorry for your loss Lorayne, thinking of you.
Sincere Sympathy and Kindest thoughts Lorrayne, in your loss of Bevan.
Dear Aunty so very sorry.
A few memories of Uncle Bevin
On payday you gave us 10c each from a leather pouch clipped to your belt. You had big muscles and a tan from working shirtless on the roads. You bit holes in luncheon sausage and placed it on your face to make us laugh. Nanny told you off each time for awful manners. You taught me the word biodegradable when I was 5 and I used it whenever I could. Honey was your favourite food but you gave it up for the love of bees. We strung blue wax honey pots together and you taught us how voice vibration travels along a taut string. You rode a motorbike and listened to Johnny Cash you loved the Folsom prison blues and the man in black. You believed in zero population growth and wrote letters to the editor. Aunty Lorrayne had a poster of a pointing finger behind the bed that said ‘did you take your pill today?’ You gave me a book of banjo Patterson’s poems and I recited Mulgar Bill’s bicycle to you. You returned from Canada with a perspex clock encasing coin currency and taught us about the silver dollar and the Rocky mountains. You believed in the right to bear arms and had a golden Winchester that had never been fired under your bed. You taught us that all creatures had the same right to life as us and that we shouldn’t destroy their habitat for our own gains. You took us tramping along the banks of the Taramakau to a landlocked block you bought just for the birds. You showed us rare mosses and fungi in the old growth forest and bemoaned the lucrative sphagnum trade. You showed us the damage gold mining had done to the rivers and explained the soil contamination at the Hokitika gas works. You helped DOC breed kiwi and spent your life saving injured birds. You took up a plant based diet in the 70s and influenced us to do the same. You were a true Totara who made us all better people. Aroha mai I didn’t get to say goodbye and cannot see you off loved Uncle. We will try to do your work.
Lorraine, I’m so sorry to hear of Bevin’s passing. You’ve lost your soul mate. I’ll remember Bevin as a quiet but time generous man who was so knowledgeable and learned with a real and genuine heart. A man of extreme mana. Please know we are thinking of you.
RIP Bevin
ALEXANDER Bevin Wallis. On September 10, at his home in the Arahura Valley. Dear, treasured brother and brother-in-law of Jan and the late Fred Sanders, much-loved and admired uncle of Brett, Gina, Aaron and their families.
May we raise children
who love the unloved
things – the dandelion, the
worms and spiderlings.
Children who sense
the rose needs the thorn
and run into rainswept days
the same way they
turn towards sun…
And when they’re grown and
someone has to speak for those
who have no voice
may they draw upon that
wilder bond, those days of
tending tender things
and be the ones.
~Nicolette Sowder
Gina Sanders
September 11 at 5:24 PM •
We lost our treasured uncle, brother and friend, Bevin Alexander, last night. He fought a brave battle against cancer, but this overwhelmed him in the recent difficult weeks. A dedicated and true gentle-man whose steadfast love for his wife of 51 years, his extended family (including his cats and dogs), his birds, his passion for nature and the animal kingdom are his greatest legacies. His death leaves a massive hole in our lives, and we will miss his profound knowledge of ornithology, bush, soil and water, his passion for the underdog and his commitment to truth and honesty, his wicked sense of humour – and his prescient wisdom.
“Afterwards” by Thomas Hardy is a poem that is fitting for our extraordinary Bevin.
The only part that is not quite right…. “he could do little for them”. Although Bevin would humbly state this to be so, he and his wonderful wife, Rayna, saved literally thousands of birds, nursing injured keas, kiwis, penguins, wekas, tuis, swans, ducks, crows, peacocks – any feathered creature. These birds were often close to death, but the astounding persistence, patience and 24hr care provided by Bevin and Rayna saw them save nearly every single one. They hold the record for the longest-surviving injured kiwi in captivity – one upon which others had given up hope.
Soar high, beloved Bevin.