J. C. Simpson

Jack Simpson was born in Christchurch on 14 January 1922 and had his schooling at Redcliffs Primary School and Christchurch Technical College. He left school at 15 and went to work in the wool industry but when the Second World War intervened he joined the army, initially, then switched to the air force. He trained as a bomber pilot and served in Europe flying Lancasters with 195 Squadron. He continued in the wool trade after the war then in 1951 took up a position at Lincoln College as an Instructor in Wool Handling.

Simpson and the man he succeeded, JH Drake, are described in Dr Ian Blair's college history The Seed They Sowed as "practical men, excellent instructors, well-known throughout the industry and highly regarded as personalities by students and other wool men".

From his initial position as an Instructor in Wool Handling for students on the Diploma in Agriculture course Jack eventually reached the rank of Senior Lecturer, teaching at degree course level. His main area of teaching was, however, the Diploma in Wool Technology course, and he was closely associated with it from 1975 until he retired in the mid-1980s.

Fellow lecturer Dr Pat Campbell says the course was intensive and highly successful.

Jack served on the Association of University Teachers for many years and is remembered as an effective advocate. Outside of the classroom he was a stalwart and long-serving coach of the Lincoln College rugby club.

As a bomber pilot during the war years Jack flew a full tour of 30 operations showing skill and steadiness in surviving many anti-aircraft barrages on raids into Germany. He and his long-serving crew were a solid unit, and one later remarked about a particularly sticky incident that "if it wasn't for Jack we wouldn't have got home". After his "tour" he served with Transport Command flying Dakotas.

A Lincoln staff member who was a mate and contemporary of Jack's, tells a wartime story that sums him up perfectly.

An English RAF type serving alongside Jack and the New Zealand aircrews in Bomber Command was so impressed with the cheerful camaraderie and rock solid reliability of the colonial airmen that he was overheard saying to a fellow Pom: "Gee, I wish I had been a Kiwi. All the Kiwis are such bloody good blokes!"

All who knew him will agree that Jack Simpson was certainly one of life's "bloody good blokes".