Brian SWALE Obituary

I am sad Brian has passed away.i hope he has gone to a better place.i will miss him very much.kind regards.peter wardill

My heartfelt feelings to you all. I'm sorry for your loss, and will be thinking of you.

I was saddened to read of the death of my old forestry colleague Brian. We first met in 1958 when we studied science at Victoria University and we flatted together in Kelburn with other Forest Service trainees until 1962. Brian was good at botany and later excelled in and wrote about ferns in particular. We overlapped again at Forestry School in Oxford and "BJ" helped me join St. Catherines College after the Forest Service messed up my enrolment. Brian was awarded the School's Jubilee Prize in 1963. Much later we were both Foresters on Kaingaroa Forest and were there when the NZ Forest Service was demolished in 1986. He wrote passionately about that and later wrote frequently about the importance of forestry generally. I will miss our forestry reminiscences and offer my sincere sympathy to Brian's family. David Field , Rotorua.

We too are sorry indeed to learn of Brian´s passing. We remember him for unfailing generosity of spirit, his unflinching sense of duty to family and cause, and his unflagging intellectual curiosity. We had known Brian over very many years - 67 and 55 years -respectively and maintained contact with him. Special gratitude is owed him for his effort and self-sacrifice in producing a book review on `The Domestication of Radiata Pine" in the New Zealand Journal of Forestry. His interest in forestry and conservation never abated. It was good to think of him living in Central Otago in his latter years, close to his Southland roots.

Our heartfelt condolences to his family.
Rowland and Mary Burdon

We are sorry to learn of the death of Brian who we recall from our student days at Victoria University of Wellington was a gentle, kind, cheerful and considerate person, and often had a twinkle in his eye. Brian showed boundless curiosity concerning the natural world and was always keen on the botany and ecology of forests. It was his enthusiasm for these topics that led to Brian being awarded a scholarship to study forestry at the Commonwealth Forestry Institute at Oxford University and it was here that his deep interest in sustainable forest management developed. Brian was a loyal alumnus and benefactor of St.Johns College at Oxford.

Very sorry to hear that Brian is dead. I remember his great kindness when he donated a photo to be included in the Central Otago Environment Society 2007 fundraising calendar. It was a beautiful shot up in the tussock on the Nevis.
I have another photo of his up on my wall in Nelson right now, and it has been treasured since 2007, even more so now, as a memory of Brian.