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Remembering Derek Evennett, a lover of Bridge.

Derek passed in late April 2024 not recovering from a major stroke. He was 78. Derek is survived by his wife, Sally, his 5 children, 10 grandchildren and the other very important family member, the family dog, Richie. Derek loved his extended family, dogs, British cars, travelling, cricket, English football, playing the piano and bridge. His good friend of 40 years, Colin Carryer, added to the list “a love of life”. He came from England in the 1970s and had periods in Hamilton, New Plymouth, where he met Sally, and finally settled in Auckland.

He not only loved the game of bridge but was a great contributor through his roles as International Chef de Mission and Chairman of the New Zealand Bridge Foundation.

Among his first bridge partners was Martin Reid in their Hamilton days. Martin remembered Derek as a Pairs specialist, “a handy declarer who enjoyed bidding and playing 3NT. It may not always have been the best contract but we usually got a good result”!

Both local and international cricket were real passions of Derek. At one stage he created what friends called "Derek's Folly".  He developed a first class cricket ground out at Coatesville just north of Auckland with the intention of it being used as a first class venue but it all became a little bit too difficult and was eventually sold. For a few years he poured his heart and soul into it.

 

Cricket also influenced the naming of family dogs. He loved Golden Retrievers and named them after famous cricket players he liked. His last dog, Richie, was in memory of the Australian, Richie Benaud.

 

As well as the cricket connection, Colin Carryer remembers Derek’s love of British cars. “He loved these cars old and new. He owned numerous classic cars over the years including a couple of Aston Martin's, little Mini's from the 60's and even recently purchased a 1954 Rolls Royce which he drove up from Christchurch via New Plymouth to show me and then on to home in Auckland.  He loved that car!”

 

Derek was a frequent visitor to Taranaki and especially Mokau where he and Sally had a holiday bach. Colin recalls: “Helen and I shared holidays at the Mokau bach over the New Year period with Derek and Sally for over 20 years and we just loved listening to the cricket on Sports Round Up on the radio. Derek decided he needed Sky so we could keep up with all the other sports in between snoozing, eating superb meals cooked by the wives, boys on the BBQ and some maintenance on the bach and the surrounds and of course some lovely wine - all the best emptied bottles ended up on a dwang in the outside toilet where there a few Penfolds Grange, Coleraine to name a couple.  We always imbibed very well.”

Derek’s English football team was West Ham. Colin, an Arsenal fan, once bought Derek a West Ham mug which had the wording: "West Ham mug - this mug is mostly used to prop up the bottom of the table!".  Derek just said “cheeky bugger” when given it but he kept it at all times. 

 

An accountant, he spent a considerable amount of his working life owning the very successful Clearlite Industries, a bathroom company on Auckland’s North Shore. He still found time for the other passion of his life, bridge. In the 1980s and 1990s, after playing initially at Howick and at the Northern Bridge Club, he paired up with Bob Grover.

Bob described Derek as a  “ good 'seat of the pants' natural bidder when I first played with him.  We applied a fairly tight harness since I think we were probably the first to play a Mini-Precision system and some fairly innovative bids including our 9-12 vulnerable 1NT opening which was a transfer to Clubs until the NZCBA outlawed it together with our 9-12 Roman 2 opening. He of course had a great nose for the place to play, which was often his beloved no-trumps, and very much enjoyed the more than occasional psyche.”

Bob and Derek’s major success was in winning the 1989 North Island Pairs. Derek reported a very risky opponent’s action from this event:

 

Derek commented in his article about the event that bridge is a game of mistakes. He said he and Bob did not do anything brilliant to win the event but made less mistakes than their opponents. They took this ugly contract 6 down for +1400 when they could have scored 1440 for making 6NT. They could have got one more trick had Bob not cashed A. 

 

Derek and Bob with the Campoli Cup, as winners of the 1989 North Island Pairs

 

Bob recalls that Derek always liked to declare the first hand of a session and was not the best dummy in the world since he never relaxed and always played every card!

 

Derek took a break from bridge mainly for family reasons. When he returned, he found a new partner in Judy McLeod. They represented New Zealand in one of the Seniors’ teams at the 2011 Asia Pacific Bridge Federation Championships in Kuala Lumpur and later that same year in the Seniors Bowl at Veldhoven.

 

Those experiences must have given Derek a taste for international bridge as in 2013, he became Chef de Mission for our international teams and travelled overseas in that role and as npc of the Open Teams through to 2019. He retired from the Chef role in 2022.

 

As npc, he would have enjoyed the experience of being involved and, naturally contributing to the success of the Open Team. One of his fellow npcs, Kris Wooles, penned the following tribute:

 

“Derek was a good friend and we shared a lot of bridge experiences together over a decade as selectors and non-playing captains for NZ teams overseas. Derek was Chef de Mission for most of that time and when he retired, he maintained a strong interest in what was happening and we would often FaceTime for a catch up. 

 

In 2016 in Wroclaw Poland, at the World Bridge Games,  Derek not once but twice had problems with the seating at the bridge playing venue and ripped his trousers. My Christine found a seamstress to get them repaired. The seamstress did not speak English and Christine struggled to make herself understood. She did get them repaired and then a few days later it happened again. Christine dutifully trotted off to the same seamstress who she said looked bemused no doubt because here was a foreign woman twice bringing back ripped men’s trousers for repair. No doubt the cause of much speculation. 

 

On that same trip we were sitting having lunch before the last of the round robin matches in the event. This was a red letter day for both our Open and Women’s teams who were set to qualify for the play-offs for the first time. Our premature celebrations were interrupted when I got a call from Susan Humphries who told me that Jenny Wilkinson had fallen over and cut her head and there was "blood everywhere". I rushed to the scene to discover that Jenny had indeed cut her head and had largely bled onto her white top which was then part of our official uniform. Shirley Newton her partner took her to hospital and all ultimately it all ended well. While our Women’s team then lost to the eventual winners Sweden, our Open team won through to the quarter finals before dropping out. 

 

Certainly in the later part of Derek’s  time at the helm, the Open team which he captained had excellent success. The team made the quarter finals in Poland and in the following year at the World Team Championships in Lyon France they reached the semi-finals. In the APBF in Singapore in 2019, the team had a great finish to end 2nd after being 7th at the half way point. This was Derek’s last event in charge overseas as he had already made the decision to stop. His parting words in his NPC report  for that year were “I wish my successor and the Team all the best in Wuhan. I will be watching the results closely."

 

For me Derek was a true gentleman and an excellent companion and I will truly miss our catch-ups.”

 

Allan Morris, Chair of New Zealand Bridge, commented he met Derek in 2017. “In the short time I knew him he was always very interested in what was going on. We regularly had coffee in Milford and just chewed the fat. Derek was a generous man foregoing his honorarium in favour of supporting some of our young international players.”

 

In August 2018, Derek took on the role of Chairman of the New Zealand Bridge Foundation. This role suited Derek who was always keen to help and support our game whereever he could. He held this position up to his death.

 

In more recent years, Derek and Sally both played at the Orewa Bridge Club.

 

Finally, though, to an event which gave him immense pleasure, at this year’s Gold Coast Congress, where with Judy McLeod, he won the Reg and Joan Trophy for the Monday Butler Open Swiss Pairs, a fitting finale to a bridge partnership which both really enjoyed.

A lover of life, of the game of bridge, with that lovely smile showing above. Derek enjoyed and contributed to our game heaps.

Richard Solomon

Thanks very much to Colin Carryer, Bob Grover, Allan Morris, Martin Reid, Alister Stuck and Kris Wooles for their contributions to this tribute. 

 

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