Victor (Vic) Petrie was a numbers man.
Victor Petrie
He gave 46 years to education, and during the 27 he spent at Cambridge Middle School (Cambridge Intermediate in his day), he was as tenacious about teaching the times tables as he was about respect.
He used numbers to explain… and sometimes distract. When his young son trembled during a lightning storm, he calmly offered a numbers-based solution.
“He told me to assume light travels instantaneously (186,282 miles per second), and that sound travels at 760 miles per hour,” he said. “I had to note the time between lightning and thunder, multiply that by five, and that was the number of miles away the storm was. Then I had to tell him if the storm was coming closer or getting further away. I went from screaming and crying to waiting impatiently for that next bloody bolt of lightning.”
Vic Petrie died on December 14, four days before his 96th birthday. His school-based farewell was packed with family and former students. Among them was Cullen Geurts, a proud grandson who now teaches at the same school, just two doors down from Vic’s old classroom.
VICTOR PETRIE: 18.12.1928 – 14.12.2024
Honoured to be teaching where his grandfather did 31 years earlier, he said: “people would say he was the strictest teacher around, but would also say they thought highly of the positive impact he had on their lives.”
One of five siblings, Vic was born in Granity, north of Westport, where a 4km walk to school and a few tough early jobs set in him a strong work ethic. At 17 he took a job with the Stockton State Coal office, then trained as a teacher in Wellington, working at Taupiri and Ngāruawāhia before returning to the West Coast.
His marriage to Cath Ladner in 1958 produced three children, Richard, David and Leeanne. The family moved to Cambridge in 1967; Vic started at Cambridge Intermediate, later filling the role of acting principal at Hautapu School for about 18 months.
Tributes described a dedicated, hardworking man, a gentleman with a wonderful sense of humour, a man with a deep connection to family… his children and grandchildren were everything to him.
To his students, he was ‘strict Vic’, but fair. Those who feared entering his class at the start of a year ended up being grateful for it. He believed no student had the right to prevent another from learning.
Still there was fun. One son remembered he and his fellow students creating a ‘death scene’ in the art block… boys lying on the floor with what looked like chisels sticking out of their chests. When Vic arrived, he quietly stepped over the ‘corpses’ and said absolutely nothing.
After retiring from teaching Vic helped in his daughter and son-in-law’s horticultural business and relaxed in the Cossie Club.
Cath died 33 years ago, and Vic, active to the end, lived in his own home before moving into independent living at Cambridge Resthaven just six months before he died.
Vic Petrie with his grandson Cullen Geurts, who now also teaches at Cambridge Middle School, formerly Intermediate.
