Simon Stamers-Smith - Powder, Politics and Prosecutions

He may have been born in South Africa to a Kiwi mum and a Bermudian dad, but retired Queenstown lawyer Simon Stamers-Smith’s family heritage is steeped richly in Queenstown.

The great, great grandson of Queenstown’s second mayor Bendix Hallenstein (1869-1872), who founded Hallensteins retail clothing store, Simon has Queenstown ties dating back to his earliest childhood memories.

A well-known lawyer in Queenstown, moving here from Christchurch in 1984, he followed his great, great grandfather into local and national politics, serving as a Queenstown Lakes District councillor for two terms from 2010 until 2016. Never afraid to speak out on issues of importance, Simon, then living in Christchurch, was also selected as the National Party candidate for Lyttelton in 1981, unable to knock incumbent Ann Hercus off her perch.

A strong skier, the lure back home to his mother’s Hallenstein family roots with his probation officer wife, Mary, saw them both hauled before Judge Joe Anderson in his chambers upon arrival at the Queenstown Court. “He said, ‘What’s this? You on one side of the courtroom and your wife on the other,” Simon grins. “We assured him: ‘Your Honour there will be no pillow talk.

“There were only four lawyers here then and Revell Buckham was working here with Alastair Watson, who was retiring and had suggested I move down, so I started with Revell in 1984.”

Skiing since his early childhood, Simon had holidayed regularly in what was a sleepy little hollow back then.

“We’d walk up to the Strawberry Gardens in Fernhill and before that they were where Queenstown Primary is now.”

At about 10, Simon was paid a shilling an hour to help launch the tourist row boats downtown.

“We’d go for picnics with our cousins, the Brasch family, in the gooseberry patch where Homestead Bay is now below Jardines. There were no houses at Frankton, only a few cribs by the lake.”

Born in 1942 during World War II, Simon’s parents had been living in Ceylon (now Sri Lanka) when his mum was sent, heavily pregnant with Simon, to South Africa to give birth. “The Japanese Army was coming down through India, and it looked like they would invade Ceylon, so they sent her on a boat for the birth.”

Simon’s father was a world surveyor from Bermuda who surveyed the borders of countries.

His earliest memory is riding an elephant in Ceylon on his third birthday. That year- 1945, his mother moved with the three children back to North Canterbury where they lived with her father for a few years.

“We first came to Queenstown in 1949 or 1950 when Harry Wigley (Mount Cook Company) was setting up Coronet Peak Skifield,” Simon says. “We stayed in their family bus parked up on the skifield.” It was a two-day trip south back then via the Pig Route, no Lindis Pass through the Mackenzie Basin.

By eight, Simon was sent to boarding school – St Peters in Hamilton, travelling by steamer from Christchurch to Wellington, initially with his older brother, then on the train to Wellington. Proficient at viola and a keen sportsman, he was a house prefect before finishing there in 1955. It was then back home to Christ’s College – 10 of Simon’s class just holding their 70-year reunion recently. Tragically, while a pupil there his well-known Christchurch brother was killed in a climbing accident on Mount Arrowsmith, aged just 22.

While studying law at Canterbury Uni Simon made the NZ Universities Ski Team, and and he did well in the National Universities Downhill Championships, having already clocked Wakatipu Ski Club titles.

He finished his degree at Otago Uni. “We skied against the Australian University Team, staying at the Arthur’s Point Hotel. When we got up to race no one was feeling well, but we beat the Aussies,” he grins.

Skiing in Europe on his OE with mates Anton Coberger (Nils’ dad), Dickie Owen and Annie Latham, they entered a race series in Switzerland then headed to St Mortiz to watch the 1962 Commonwealth Games.

“We discovered there was no one skiing for New Zealand so we told the organisers we had a few championships from home and asked if we could enter,” Simon grins. “They let us! It was a nice prizegiving but none of us won.” However, they returned home with a medal each to show for it.

Simon also hitched to the top of Norway and over to the Coast. “But I got on the wrong boat. It was meant to go south but it went north, and I ended up in the Arctic Circle with no money!” Luckily, a nice English couple came to his aid.

He’s eternally grateful to the Canterbury farmer who saved his life at 22 after he crashed, having fallen asleep at the wheel. “The car caught fire and the farmer behind me was carrying a fire extinguisher otherwise I wouldn’t be here.” Six months in Burwood Hospital and serious plastic surgery followed.

Simon married Mary in 1969, several months after her return from her OE.

He quickly became a partner at Wynn Williams in Christchurch before the move south, their teenage kids staying on as boarders in Christchurch.

Locally, Simon’s best known for his years of voluntary legal work negotiating the lease for the river side of the Arrowtown Golf Course – club president for three terms, and for his involvement in the Wakatipu and Rocky Gully Ski Clubs. He’s been involved with many community committees and fundraisers, including the Porter Heights Establishment Committee. A former vice president of Christchurch’s Society of Arts, he was an original on the Arrowtown Creative Arts Society Committee, a long-time Lakes District Museum Committee member and now Life Member.

Now married for 57 years, Simon and Mary are happily retired at Arrowtown Lifestyle Village.