Budgie - Wheeler dealer with the big heart
Paul Desmond (Budgie) Jacobsen b15-12-1944, d 4-10-2022
Married Lynnette McIlvride 20-05-1964
3 daughters (Donna, Michelle, Mary-Jane), 1 son Brendan.
Paul Desmond (Budgie) Jacobsen was the son of Wadestown grocer Russell Jacobsen and his wife Edna (nee Nunns).
He was groomed to become a wheeler-dealer very early on in life by his father who lived by a shop shelf salesmanship motto of ‘stack them high and let them fly.’
When Budgie turned up on the asphalt carpet at the Marist Thorndon Primary School he found himself in the company of three McGuinness brothers Jim, Peter and Brian.
Speaking on behalf of the Marist St Pats club at Budgie’s St Mary of the Angels funeral service in Wellington this week Brian recalled how Budgie had the flashest bike in the Thorndon school.
“It had a big black radio (a crystal set) on the back with a big aerial. This was to set the tone of Budgie’s style and future aspirations,’ Brian McGuinness said.
The three McGuinnesses and Budgie all had paper runs to do after school but here too Budgie stood out from the crowd.
‘’Budgie didn’t just have one but about four (paper runs) and sub-contracted half of them out. Even at that stage he was a deal maker,’ McGuinness said.
From Marist Thorndon Budgie made his way to St Patrick’s College, Cambridge Terrace. He lasted two years there and left school at 14 to begin the career in his father’s grocery shop.
1963 saw Budgie turn out for a Marist age-grade team in Wellington.
In the front row of this Marist side were hooker John Thompson, props Peter Jacobsen (Budgie’s brother) and Gerard Curry.
Budgie of course was the vociferous halfback and his coach that year was 1949 All Black Ray O’Callaghan.
Also in the side was Jim Blake and Lindsay Knight who was embarking on a career in journalism which would see him assume the sports editorship of The Dominion newspaper.
Prop forward and future lawyer Dr Curry too would later go on to represent Rainbow Warrior bombers Alain Mafart and Dominique Prieur following the Auckland Rainbow Warrior bombing in 1985.
So from an early stage of his rugby career Budgie was building a network of friends in the right places.
In 1964 the arrival of Canterbury rep halfback Brian Coulter on the Marist Club’s Hataitai Park training grounds put paid to Budgie’s hopes of replacing Paul Tindill as halfback in the club’s Jubilee Cup winning team.
Enough was enough as far as The Budgie was concerned. There were earnest, not entirely amicable discussions with Marist club captain Hec McDonald and the result was Budgie placed himself on the transfer list.
He was welcomed with open arms by the St Pat’s Club for the seven years prior to amalgamation in 1971.
Budgie played about 10 Senior A games for the old St Pat’s Club during that period with his most memorable outing in the blue and white jersey being the day he opposed Wellington representative halfback Coulter in the ‘battle of the Irish’ on Athletic Park.
Budgie recalled:-‘if we did nothing else at least I managed to out-talk him.’
He further recalled vivid nightmare memories of one run in this match by ‘The Fox,’ Mick Dennehy, who bumped and crashed his way through numerous St Pat’s players.
‘I watched him bounce our forwards. It was like the parting of the Red Sea and by the time he got to me I thought to myself, right this way Mr Dennehy Sir, the tryline’s over here.’
Budgie’s talking was to get him into trouble in June 1966 when the St Pat’s Senior 3 team was playing Stokes Valley in a competitive match.
John O’Regan, the club’s long-serving solicitor for many years recalled:
‘I was the captain and the referee at one stage called me over to say that if I did not shut Budgie up he would send me off.’
John O’Regan said what followed was a case of good news and bad news.
‘The bad news was that my constant admonition ‘ shut up Budgie’ went completely unheeded.’
The good news for John was that the referee gave Budgie his marching orders - not John.
Budgie had to appear before the judiciary on the Monday where the referee laid out his case that the game had degenerated into disarray.
Budgie then gave the referee a serve saying he had lost control of the game and was not up to it.
Budgie was suspended for a week for bringing the game into disrepute.
In 1970 the main item on Wellington’s dual Catholic rugby club agenda was the possible amalgamation between the Marist and St Pat’s Clubs.
In these early years of his playing career for the old Marist and St Pat’s clubs Budgie, by sheer force of personality ensured no one – but no one – could ever ignore him.
He was a character and a vociferous few in the old Marist club in particular loved to ridicule.
Such people, in the years immediately preceding amalgamation in 1971, stated in tongue-in-cheek fashion they did not want Budgie back in a possible amalgamated club’s playing fraternity fold.
Budgie himself was quite relaxed over amalgamation prospects.
‘We went to the Assembly Hall in the old (St Patrick’s) college…there were three things to vote on – amalgamation, (jersey) colour and name,’ he told me in an interview three years ago.
He voted for the retention of the old St Pat’s blue and white jersey.
‘It was a better colour than the green and white of Marist.’ He also voted the newly amalgamated club be called Marist Old Boys rather than Marist St-Pat’s.
At the 77-year-old’s funeral this week even his most ardent Marist opponents from those days over 50 years ago had clearly changed their tune on Budgie.
They all agreed nobody had unofficially and voluntarily done more for the club than he.
Fundraising was his area of expertise, particularly the sale of the club’s $100 raffles.
The transport company he owned and ran for 34 years – Paul Jacobsen Carriers – specialised in delivering Lion Brewery aluminium kegs to bars and restaurants throughout the Wellington region.
This gave him the perfect platform to manage sales on the twice yearly $100 MSP raffles.
People were given tickets to onsell and purchase. It did not matter if they wanted them or not.
His son Brendan, also a halfback, played Premier rugby for MSP in the 1980’s and worked alongside him in the delivery business for years.
By his own estimates, working initially alongside Lou Newman and later Terry Robinson, Peter Woods, Andy Bell and Joe Greco he had raised over $500,000 for the club over a 50 year period.
Players from the MSP club’s 14 Jubilee Cup winning teams over the years too were also on the receiving end of his generous hospitality largesse.
Budgie’s ‘Beat the Budgie’ fundraising endeavours, raffle ticket selling and Jubilee Cup player winning entertainment skills were indispensable to Marist-St Pat’s over the past 50 years.
Budgie was a big fan of the 80/80 grade. He donated the trophy for the best 80/80 player first won by Kevin Woods who travelled from Australia to attend Budgie’s funeral.
Budgie briefly served on a committee under David Gray in the 1970’s but committees were not really for him.
In an interview he said: -
“I never considered myself a President or a committee man. I made that decision for the betterment of mankind.
‘Being outspoken as I am. When I am a free agent I can actually walk up to anyone and say what they have done wrong and put them on the right track.’
Budgie initiated a “Beat The Budgie” promotion in 2012 to encourage people to attend the Clubrooms. He put up the $1000 but you had to be at the Clubrooms to collect it.
Winners would not only get the Jackpot but also one of Budgies special scarves with “Budgie the Legend’ embroidered on it. There was not a retiring bone in his body.
He was always shouting teams and engaging with players and coaches and was genuinely interested how each team was performing. His mood depended on the fortunes of how MSP were travelling.
He was awarded Life membership of MSP in 1978 in recognition of his amazing fundraising efforts - he was just 34 at the time.
As a coach Budgie was the complete package. Some say he taught them everything there was to know about life, rugby and business.
Coach Budgie’s Junior First side, captained by Brian McGuinness, won its grade in 1973.
In this team the record shows loose forwards Billy Dunn, Barry McBride and Pehi Wilson – a fine product of Karioi, Waimarino country beneath Mt Ruapehu - were a constant source of embarrassment to opposition sides.
Given Budgie’s outspoken ways it is difficult to imagine there could be anyone in Wellington whose example The Budgie followed. Not so.
In latter life prior to his death a decade ago Budgie’s uncle, Nelson Francis Joseph Nunns, was the owner of Ellmers Mowers in Upper Cuba Street.
He was the man who christened Paul Jacobsen ‘Budgie.’
Like Budgie, Nelson Nunns, the unofficial mayor of Upper Cuba Street, was one of those entrepreneurial extrovert types who never felt comfortable working for anybody.
Nelson incidentally was a brother of Budgie’s mother Edna Nunns.
Budgie’s father Russell Jacobsen and Nelson Nunns were partners in the operation of the grocery store in Wadestown when Budgie was growing up.
They gave Budgie his first job when he left St Patrick’s College, Wellington, aged 14, stacking shelves in the grocery shop.
Budgie’s parents, Russell and Edna, were both great talkers and marketers in the grocery business.
Budgie inherited his father’s wit and way with words.
In 1967 Nelson Nunns, a straight-up, charitable man similar to his nephew in philanthropic outlook, purchased a grocery shop at 91 Constable St, in Newtown.
This acquisition proved invaluable to The Budgie.
For there was a strategically placed fireplace in the backyard of this Newtown grocery shop which Budgie used for permanent storage of his sideline business records.
For many years he ran a second generation book business specialising in the equestrian area.
Unusually that place of business operated out of the corner bar of the Dominion Tavern on Tory Street.
The business had excellent cash flow but did run into some compliance issues from time to time as Keith Quinn recalled.
His brother Harry Quinn, a Police sergeant, decided to detain Budgie while MSP were playing Petone in a Jubilee Cup final on a Saturday afternoon.
This particular Budgie did not enjoy being caged.
At 3pm a major commotion came from the cell suggesting progress scores and a cup of tea be provided.
‘You’re not at the Ritz now mate,’ the Budgie was told.
He regained his liberty at the end of the game.
Budgie dined out on that story for many years. He was a frequent guest on talkback radio and racing programme shows.
Amidst it all diligence, generosity, discipline and his commitment to hard work were lifelong characteristics exhibited by The Budgie. There’s no doubting he knew how to make money and once his family had been taken care of, funds left over went to a variety of charities.
The Budgie was indeed a beloved, loquacious son of Wellington in whom the people of the city and MSP in particular, were in the main all very well pleased.
With the street-smart Budgie there were no in-betweens.
He was buried at the Makara Cemetery. Fr Barry Scannell SM officiated at his funeral service and Makara Cemetery burial
He was indeed the MSP club’s front of shop fundraiser extraordinaire – a legend in fact.
Tim Donoghue
Sources: Brian McGuinness, Lindsay Knight, Pat Martin, John Thompson, Jacobsen and Nunns families.
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