Alan Stanley Chisholm b: 20 Sep 1911 in Wellington to parents Amy and George Chisholm ; he d: 4 Apr 1986 in Wellington Crem. Karori

Alan was fortunate to spend his childhood, living almost on the seafront, and to have the stability of attending only one school - Island Bay Primary - before progressing to Wellington College, where his life was not so successful. His father, being a businessman, believed it would be more useful for him to go into a commercial class, rather than an academic class. This put Alan into a stream of boys not expected to pass matriculation, and so without adequate preparation for the examination, he failed in 1927.

With the situation at home tense, and shortage of family finances, Alan left school and took up an apprenticeship in an engineering firm, operating a simple car number-plate punching machine, and sweeping the floor - but he had the motivation to go to night classes at the Technical College, and easily passed the Matriculation examination, when he resat after being at work one year. His apprenticeship year then, had not been completely wasted but he was pleased when through his mother's contacts he secured a new job in the Census Office. This office actively encouraged their junior staff to do university work and so Alan was able to start and successfully complete a B.Sc. degree part-time at Victoria University College in Wellington. He later qualified in Radio Mechanical Engineering, and with this, was able to get a job with the NZ Broadcasting Service as an engineer.

Alan, spent his weekends in the Artillery section of the Territorial forces, so that when war did break out he start his wartime career as a Second Lieutenant in the Army in Artillery. In the second year of World War 2 he switched to the Air Force, reported to the Ohakea Air Base just before Christmas 1940.Less than a week later, Leading Aircraftsman Chisholm was part of an attachment of thirty- two men, seconded to the RAF, and embarked on a ship to England, in "Radar Mechanics" as his speciality was then called. Les Gandar, who was later to become a Minister of Education, as well as Alan's lifetime friend, was in the same contingent.

A year's training and working followed, which involved setting up and operating Radar Location Stations in different parts of Britain. Alan, still with friend Les Gandar, received their first overseas posting outside Britain as part of a RAF contingent - they spent a tedious uninteresting period in Basra, Iraq before being appointed to the Desert Air Force in Egypt. As the Allies swept into Italy, the Desert Air Force followed. Alan had two years in Italy, mainly operating mobile radar stations, before returning to Britain and the RAF at the beginning of 1945.

It was then that Alan met the woman he was to marry - Hope Parry, who had been born 20 Dec 1920 was brought up in a Yorkshire vicarage She became his wife on the 4 September 1945 in Calder, Yorkshire. Hope was a Wren, and had spent several years at Bletchley Park, the secret centre for breaking the German Enigma military codes and decoding the messages. Hope was able to accompany Alan on the "Stirling Castle", when he returned to New Zealand, disembarking in Wellington on 27 February 1946. They stayed first with Alan's mother and bought a house at 169 Barnard Road, Wadestown, two doors away from Alan's sister Joyce, and it was here their two children, Anne and Paul were born and brought up. It took Alan till June 1946 to gain his discharge from the Air Force and returned to his pre-war work in the NZ Broadcasting Service. He rose to the position of Engineer-in-Charge of the Wellington district, which stretched from Taranaki to Marlborough. Later as part of his work with the Service Alan was involved in the introduction of television transmission to this large district - responsible for choosing sites for the transmission towers.

Alan took early retirement to enable him to have more time with Hope and found less stressful work for several years as a consulting engineer with the Canadian High Commission, before spending two years doing administration work for the Royal Society.

In her early sixties, Hope developed terminal cancer -she died on the 8 January 1986. Alan lived on alone but died soon after on 4 April 1986. His ashes were scattered in the Rose Garden at Karori