Newspaper Article 2015 – Mum sought healthier lifestyles for all

Mum sought healthier lifestyle for all

OBITUARY

By Patrick O’Sullivan
[email protected]

Mother, company director and community worker Vicky Bostock is farewelled today after a battle with cancer.

She was born Vicky Glazebrook in 1957, to Derek and Dinah Glazebrook of Napier. She was sister to Mike, Sarah and Bill.

A pupil of Maraekakaho School, Queenswood School (now Taikura Rudolf Steiner School) and Woodford House, she completed a degree in early-childhood education at Massey University before teaching at Flaxmere and Havelock North kindergartens.

She met her husband John Bostock at a tennis party in the Tukituki Valley.

Her best friend Jane Shearer said she was “smitten”.

Four years later, in 1983, they married and had children Ben, George and Tom.

John Bostock said her teaching experience put her on a path.

“She was passionate about improving parenting, diet and health,” he said.

“She was really keen to help the community help itself – to work as a proper community. She didn’t necessarily believe the state could make a difference, it was all about parenting and nutrition to make a difference.

“It is really unfair she got cancer, she led such a clean and pure life.

“She didn’t really drink. She was the only person I’ve known to have a New Year’s resolution to drink more. She didn’t fulfil it.”

Her passion for food led to directorship of Downs Orchard and ice cream business Rush Munro’s.

John Bostock became one of Hawke’s Bay’s major growers and exporters.

“She was a rock behind our business providing advice, guidance and direction. She was the smartest and most intuitive person I ever met.”

She was a driving force of Te Aranga Marae community’s 5.3ha vegetable garden in Flaxmere, built in 2009 to supply fresh produce and teach life skills to the community.

Friend, Hawke’s Bay regional councillor and fellow U-Turn trustee Rex Graham said she was a “genuinely passionate person”.

“People like that come along rarely in life.

“Vicky was our garden – she was the guiding force.

“Everyone loved Vicky – I don’t know of anyone ever having a bad word for her.

“But she could be tough – she was a very strong person. The very fact she fought cancer for four-and-a-half years – every day she fought it. She was not going to give in and she didn’t give in, which is classic Vicky.”

“She was really keen to help the community help itself.”
John Bostock, husband

He said she had a great affinity for the people of Flaxmere.

Eldest son Ben said she was an extremely loyal and dedicated mother.

He often fielded questions from Flaxmere residents about how she was doing, once they found out he was her son.

“They don’t know Dad,” he said.

She loved animals, especially her dogs, donkeys and horses. She encouraged Bostock New Zealand’s substantial sponsorship of the Horse of the Year Show and the Hawke’s Bay Racing Club.

She passed peacefully away, surrounded by family in the house she made a beautiful home.

A service to celebrate her life will be held at St Luke’s Anglican Church in Havelock North today at 11am.

In lieu of flowers donations to the Malaghan Institute of Medical Research may be left at the church.

SPIRITED: Vicky Bostock was passionate about parenting, animals, community and nutrition.
PHOTO/SUPPLIED