DAVE DOBBYN'S 'THIS TOWN' # Look how long it's taken you # to arrive in this town. # From the dawn into the dark, # I will hold you deep in my heart. # Look how long it's taken you to arrive in this town. # Copyright Able 2015. SEAGULLS SQUAWK 1957, I came down here for the first time, aged 4. My parents built a bach here, and I've been coming here every summer holidays, and in 1975 I moved here with my young family. I make surfboards for a living. Being a surfer, I came here because the waves were absolutely perfect. The Whangamata Bar is like a machine, and if you catch 40 waves in the surf, you've caught 40 perfect waves. The core of a surfboard before it's made is called a blank, so that's basically it. It's blank. And from that, you sculpture it, and then it becomes an extension of your personality. People interpret the wave differently; what I do is custom surfboards so they can do their dance on the ocean. No surfboard's the same. My philosophy now is I make totally individual product. I went into the forest and cut down the tree; I made the stringer; I make the foam core, make the fins. It's labour-intensive, but at the end, you've made the whole thing. It's your whole soul. All your skills have gone into that piece-of-art sport equipment. It's a buzz. 1965, my elder sister talked my dad into buying a Pacific Surf King ` 9'6" surfboard. She bought it to impress the boys. Even though, she was quite a good surfer. So a lot of the time it lay on the beach. So that was` I was in. Me and my cousin would grab` he would grab the nose, I would grab it down the tail, and then we'd be in the water. There is a saying, 'Only a surfer knows the feeling'. You're in heaven. It's fantastic. And that was it. I was on my way. It's a sport that lasts from birth to death. You can play until you can play no more. Oh, I'm gonna be doing it till I pass. Some 91-year-old guy's still out there surfing Sunset Beach. And you can bring your children through. I do it with my daughters, my younger brother and my sister. Now hopefully I'll be bringing my granddaughter through in another five years. You know, families that play together stay together. You just become tight. I like making my surfboards, and I just love surfing. I just absolutely love surfing. GENTLE GUITAR MUSIC SEAGULLS SQUAWK I love Whangamata. When I was little, my parents had a bach. When they retired from farming, they moved down here. I live in Whangamata now because I had a marriage split up, and now I live here with my two children. I'm a mum, first of all. Lucas, he's a pretty busy kid. He's kept me on my feet for 12 years. Lucas and I start our day off pretty cool. We generally talk about what's going to happen through our day. Pumba and I bike on to Mum and Dad's just around the corner. Pumba is a Staffie-boxer-ridgeback South Auckland special. She is special. Mum is Dawn, and I work for Dawn's Lawns. My mum will retire from mowing lawns when she drops off the mower. They'll carry her out on the lawnmower, I think. Dad does the mechanical side of things, and he tends to fix anything I break. My mum and dad have been married 50 years ` that's telling ya something. We have played together, worked together all of our married life. We loved each other, and the whole lot mixed together was a bloody good life and still is. So that's how we cope with 50 years. BOTH CHUCKLE Well, she tells me I'm the boss, does Tracey. We really get on pretty well. I don't suppose would've stayed together mowing lawns if we didn't. And I'll keep going until I really can't go any more, and then I guess Tracey will have to, um, handle the load. (CHUCKLES) Have a good day. All right. Hope it` Hope it doesn't rain. < See ya. My dad, Russell, is the local weatherman. For some reason, he is obsessed with weather. I have kept records for some years just for my own personal information ` the rainfall, the minimum-maximum temperatures. I find it very interesting to be able to go back on records which I have kept since 2003. I see in February that we've had, uh, only 22.3mm, which is a very small amount. Every Wednesday morning, we have a little short interview with a local radio station. RADIO: Very good day to you, listeners. It's time to go to the telephone line. We're gonna catch up with Russell Blake, our local weatherman here on Cool FM. Bit sticky over the last few days. Oh, don't complain. It'll get cold quick enough. Well, we had a couple of lower ones there ` around 10.6 degrees on the 6th. Four seasons in one day, I think. (CHUCKLES) Yeah. That's our hinterland. We have about a hundred or so clients that we mow lawns for. Whangamata is a... pretty much a tourist town. We have a lot of holidaymakers and holiday baches, so they employ us to mow their lawns. Pumba comes to work with us every day, and she has special people that love her. She loves to go and see those people, especially the elderly. A lot of our elderly clients don't have a lot of visitors. Part of our day is spent talking about their day and their roses. She makes big fusses over them. When I'm feeling down, she picks up on it. I suffer from depression, and my family have got me through some really tough times. There were days that I couldn't get out of bed, and being surrounded by my family, Mum and Dad and my two kids, I don't fall as often. GENTLE GUITAR MUSIC I'll mow lawns until my mum and dad decide to sell, because they've done so much for me through my life that this is for them now, so I mow lawns because that's what my mum wants to do. We have a really tight family unit ` me, Mum, Dad and the kids ` the five of us. We are so lucky. I treasure the fact that we live close. We see them all the time. I could not do without my dearly beloveds. We've been very lucky to be able to take part and watch them grow into the kids they are today. We wouldn't be the same people without having had that to live for and enjoy. Family is what pulls you out of your troubled times, what makes you happy, what makes you sad. Family is life. If you haven't got a family, well, you're a bit stumped, really. Family are the people that you choose to be around. Seg 2 ETHEREAL MUSIC I love going to a place like Whiritoa. There's something about that open space out there, with nobody else around, that's just` It's hard to even put it into words, but it's nice to do ` just see things that you know that not many other people are seeing right now cos they're still asleep in bed. There's nobody there. That's the bit that I love. There's just nobody there. In the morning the light changes so much. I love being down in the ocean. It's my little` what I call my place of calm. It just sorta grounds me. It sounds weird, but it's like` I take a photo just to see what it looks like, not thinking about, 'Can I sell it? Can I get an award?' or any of that sort of shit. I just take a photo simply because I wanna see what it looks like. You know, I` I just can't wait to get home and have a look on my computer and say, 'Wow. That's awesome. When can I get out there again?' That's what I get excited about is that whole sense of motion, and that's one thing that I just get a lot from in the ocean. First photograph I ever took, a surfing photograph, with my mum's little Minolta Instamatic, I think it was, and because the camera was a little bit slow, it just had a bit of blur and a bit of movement, and it'd` it'd basically hooked me right then. It hooked me to the point where I, sort of, probably didn't even know it'd hooked me until, um, buying a camera later on and thinking about that image quite a bit. Yeah. I live in Waihi, just on the outskirts, on a farm. We moved to Waihi Beach when, I think, I was about 8 or 9. I had a very different home life to most, I suppose. Um, both my parents, by the time I was 15, 16, were in prison, so, um, my childhood was more about the fear of my, um, parents being locked up, watching cops come in and out of your house, ransacking it. The normal childhood of having your mates around, that wasn't really there; it was not wanting people to find out that your parents are less than desirable at the time. Through my teenage years, even into my 20s, I was just an angry, upset, confused individual, but I'd gotten into surfing, and surfing and spending time in the ocean basically saved my life. Going out to the ocean and being in nature's care, I suppose, that sort of just keeps your mind in a` a good, safe place ` not thinking about yesterday; just really enjoying the present. You're actually being yourself. You know, I fell in love with my camera again. Just stopped being angry at the world. That's the answer. That's simply it. You need to be present and just go forward and enjoy yourself. One of the things with doing photography, for me, is that I don't do Photoshopping ` no retouching, no slimming. If you're the type of person that bitches and moans about your weight, about your wrinkles, about anything like that, then you're not the client for me. I'm a big guy. I'm happy with who I am. I've got two girls, Aaliyah and Chilli, and I want them to know that it's` it's OK to be yourself. I'm not` I don't want them to be retouched ever. I like all their little bits of differences. CHILLED MUSIC I wasn't ready to be a dad. I thought, 'Man, I'm not responsible enough to be a parent,' and I` I sat in the delivery room, and I thought` I was still thinking, even before Chilli was born, I was thinking, 'I can't do this. I'm not a Dad.' And then, um, Chilli, I` I held her in my arms, and it just... it was just different. GENTLE GUITAR MUSIC It's like everything that you thought that love was just got redefined in one moment. It's` You realised what it was, and every day you learn what life's about, with kids, and it's just made me a better person. I used to be exceedingly shy, could not talk to people, um, and through having my kids and just forgetting about what everybody else thinks of you, trying to fit in in the world... Kids came along, and that just redefined everything. My girls paint my nails pink, and I go to weddings, and I don't give a shit what anyone says. You know what I mean? That's` That's who I am, and I get so much joy outta just hanging with my kids and learning from them that I forgot` I` I just end up humiliating myself on a daily basis, and, um, I'm OK with that. It's cool. Yeah. That's where I'm getting most of my teachings from about being in the present, living in the moment ` is with my two girls. Kids live in the moment. Could stem from my childhood a little bit, I suppose, but my biggest thing as being a parent is to be there for them when they need ya. Yeah. I decided that instead of working the weekends, I'm just gonna do weddings during the week and spend more time with the people that I love, and it's worked. Photography, for me, it doesn't feel like a job; it never has. I still wake up and think, 'This can't be real.' It's` It's just something I love. That's what I love about photography. That's what I love about life now ` is just slowing down. Don't have to be busy. Busy's just a crock of shit, to be honest. I don't know. I'll leave that to the suits. LIGHT CLASSICAL MUSIC I would spend three or four hours a day out in the garden. In the heat of the day, I'd come inside and do other things, and then I go back out in the evening. I enjoy the` the colour and things like that that you get in the garden in the different seasons. It's something I've always enjoyed, yes. I like getting my hands in the dirt. (CHUCKLES) My dahlias ` basically, I grew up with them. My mother loved gardening. I've got photos taken of me when I was a little tiny one, picking flowers in the garden, in the veggie garden, things like that. Mum and I were very close. I was born on her 21st birthday, and we had the same sort of tastes. We did a lot of hobbies together. My mum and I got a lot of thrills out of growing the dahlias together, and` Yes, and I` When I'm out with the dahlias, I think of Mum and what we did. It is nice to have memories. The dahlia shows start in January. The Waihi show is always the first one, and we go crazy for about six weeks while the dahlias are at their height. There's, um, seven different varieties of dahlias, and I like to grow mainly giants, cos I like that challenge. Before the competition, we are all on the razor edge, watching the weather and things like that. The challenge to be able to get your flower up to the size it's gotta be. And the winning part. I always like to win. (CHUCKLES) I'm very competitive. (CHUCKLES) At the Auckland show, I ended up coming home with the Champion of Champions of the show. This is the Merrick Challenge cup. I won that at the national show. I have won, um, 14 champions all up this year. It's great to get your name on a cup, and you see all the great people that have been before you. That's how I know that I'm still hanging in there. (CHUCKLES) I've travelled basically all over the North Island, showing dahlias. The Hamilton show is the last show in our, sort of, circuit, if you like to call it that. It'll be a good day. Yeah. That` That could go a long way tomorrow, I hope. Yes, I've got high hopes for a couple of these. I'd like to finish the season off well. We all have the ambition of beating this man from Wellington. His name is Phil. He just gets them up there like that, and they are beautiful. I don't know how he does it. But, sadly, he won't be there tomorrow. We're all trying to get his secrets. (LAUGHS) Yeah. Look out, Phil. (CHUCKLES) LIGHT CLASSICAL MUSIC Especially now that I'm a judge, you know what to look for when you're picking your own flowers, so, literally, you've judged your flower before you even take them to the show, sort of thing. We're very short on judges in the North Island. At the different shows, you're appointed to, um, judge, and you can put your flowers up, and what we do is that if we have a flower in that class, we step aside, and one of the other judges will come and do it. LIGHT CLASSICAL MUSIC CONTINUES This has got bruising on it. It's also a bit lopsided. Lopsided. It's very hard standing back watching them judge your flowers. Those petals are... That petal there is twisted. But that's how you learn. It's not round either. This is... (SPEAKS INDISTINCTLY) It looks as though it's going to sleep. (SIGHS) I've got four premiers. They've made the premier table. It's nice to get a good win, but if you get beaten by a better flower, well, that's it. I mean, most of us grow the same flowers, and it's just the best flower on the day. This here is Champion of the Show. I'm happy. I didn't get the champion of the show, but to get four up... is a good day. (CHUCKLES) So, next year. Next year. yes. I'd just like to keep doing what I'm doing for as long as I can. I'm not a person to sit still ` never have been. I can't sit down and just read a book. I'm enjoying what I'm doing. I've just known dahlias all my life. That's it. (CHUCKLES) Seg 3 LIGHT JAZZ MUSIC Most Sundays, an informal group called the Waihi Model Boat Group congregate here, and we're just a bunch of guys that like boats. It started off as a once-a-month thing in summer. It's grown to where pretty well any Sunday you'll find people down here with boats of some sort. Oh, it's the usual story, I think. It's, um,... a bunch of old fellas going back to their childhood and, uh, playing with the toys that they had as a youngster. I remember as a 10-year-old or 12-year-old being helped by my father to make models. I was at an antique fair one day and saw a kitset of the boat that I had as a young fella. I swooped on it, and that started things off again, and I've got, I suppose, six or eight boats now. But, uh, the old-fashioned steam-powered boats are my main interest ` bit more engineering involved. That's why I've chosen to` to play with steam boats. BOAT CHUGS Being able to sail a model yacht has a sense of freedom ` being able to get outside and just be able to be competitive again. Since my injury 16 years ago, I haven't been able to get involved with any sports. I was really into my sports before my accident. I was on a mountain bike and doing some stunts with my mates and came off my` my bike and injured my neck. It can be very difficult at times. It's just something you have to handle. Most of the guys here have been sailing for a good 40 years. They're a hard-case bunch of guys. I've been sailing for about four months, so I'm quite a novice. I never realised that it was something that I could take part in. I was quite stoked when I found out I could do that. I came here three years ago, saw them racing the boats, and one of the guys here said, 'Would you like to have a race?' Never raced a boat before, and from then on, I was hooked. Uh, it's just like having a` a toy. (CHUCKLES) A big boy's toy, I guess they are. And I have the fun of building them, and that's` For me, that's a big thing, being an ex-boat-builder. All the extra little pieces, you have to make. This is a` a toilet-seat grommet. This is a bead. That's a knitting needle. The gun on the front here's made out of pieces of Meccano. These are just, uh` shish kebab skewers. So, yeah, it's just thinking outside the square a little bit. STEAM WHISTLES JOLLY MUSIC Oh, I come here because I enjoy sailing my boat but also come for the camaraderie, the` the friendship, and a little bit of nostalgia too. Nothing wrong with that. My mobility is quite limited. It still doesn't stop me from getting out and enjoying life, catch up and, yeah, just have fun, really. I wish I had done it 10 years earlier. (CHUCKLES) Getting more and more people just coming down, enjoying the lake, yeah, having a great time. REFLECTIVE PIANO MUSIC (BARKS) KNITTING NEEDLES CLICK I'm knitting what they call Peggy squares. Buggered if I know why they call 'em Peggy squares. I'm gonna make a, uh, cot blanket. That's all I knit these days, cot blankets, and I give 'em away. It's good to do it while you're watching telly. I like most animals, but, yeah, I don't know, there's just something about a wolf that I like. When I was younger, at home, I was mad keen on horses. Never had a horse, but I was mad keen on 'em. But now I really like wolves. A cousin of mine over here, she reckons a wolf could be my spiritual guardian. So, I dunno, maybe she's right. Would've been my 36th wedding anniversary today if Tom was around still. You can't really celebrate it by yourself, can ya? I still miss him. I mean, it is 10 years. I was in the Australian army for three years, and I came over and joined the NZ army. I met Tom at a drunken bash,... (CHUCKLES) and then, um,... that was it. We just... Yeah. Nobody could ever live up to him for me. There you go. He served in Vietnam, and that's where, um, he'd been with the Agent Orange. They just sprayed it over everything. HELICOPTER BUZZES He said you could feel it on your face. He said you` it was in the water. You were washing in it. Uh, you couldn't get away from it. It was` It was just everywhere. (SCOFFS) Idiots. Absolute idiots. ALL CHANT: One, two, three, four. We don't want your bloody war. That was the worst thing ` they didn't want to know them when they came back from Vietnam. When they got off the plane, they were told to just get on a bus, go home and keep your mouth shut. Don't talk about it. No support whatsoever. It was hard. It was really very hard on them, on the guys. We should never have gone into Vietnam. We knew he was dying. It was a soft-tissue cancer from Agent Orange. Yeah. Life sucks. It was different when I was with Tom. He was` He was, really, the outgoing one, you know? I just stood back. Tom had been gone about four years, I suppose. I just had to pull myself together. I just decided that I was going to... get a tattoo. I don't know. I've always been sort of interested in getting a tattoo, and it was a little dragon. I thought, you know, it'd be a one-off, and I got hooked. A bat, a dragon, a gecko, an owl. Wolf on the back, howling at the moon. Love that one. For Tom, wolves... I've become addicted to it. I got a rabbit on my ankle ` because I was born in the Year of the Rabbit ` a crab on the other ankle, the names of my pets, and a turtle. Now I'm going to get a` a moon above the owl, and I'm getting another wolf's head. (CHUCKLES) I got my first tattoo when I was 68 years old. I'm now 75. Good boy. People are gonna see 'em. I don't hide 'em. Deane, he's done all my tattoos except one. Oh, he's a terrific guy. Got a good friendship going there. Anybody that's that type of age that walks into our studio, I actually think they're in the wrong place looking for somebody else. She came into getting tattoos very late in life, and she's getting a collection. Maggie does keep coming in for more, so she obviously really enjoys them, or she just enjoys our company ` one or the other. Hey, Andrew's getting another tattoo. Is he? Oh, well, that's` that's a nice tribute to his dad, isn't it? We` We've really become friendly with her. Yeah, no, Maggie's a really good person and fun to be around. TATTOO GUN BUZZES Getting tattoos ` people always used to say how it` it hurt, but then I didn't really feel it. If it'd hurt, I would've left it at one. I'm old, but I'm not an idiot. As soon as the needle comes off your arm, it stops. It's just like sunburn, that's all. I keep saying I'm not getting any more,... TATTOO GUN BUZZES ...but now I've got` getting the wolf up there, I gotta get some round that now ` a dreamcatcher or... I don't know. (CHUCKLES) TATTOO GUN BUZZES I don't really know what Tom would think about it. He's probably not very amused. Um, and, of course, now I'm dyeing my hair, aren't I? (CHUCKLES) I don't know what he'd say about that either. He was cremated. I often think of him... whirling around like a snow globe at some of the things that I'm doing. Either that or he's saying, 'Go for it, girl.' (CHUCKLES) Yeah. I reckon he could be saying, 'Go for it, girl.' (LAUGHS) PEOPLE CHATTER RELAXED GUITAR MUSIC Waihi's quite a quiet place, but you can get up to a few fun things. We're doing one of the main fundraises for the Waihi Scout Group. There's three slides. My favourite one's the one with the hole at the end ` with the water. You get a bit of a wash-off and get a bit dirty as well. Today's the Mud Slide Day. My favourite is the big mud puddle. You can go manus. There's heaps of different techniques ` go on your tummy, go on your back, be a torpedo ` heaps. My favourite is going down as a torpedo. We got an obstacle course, where you gotta go through all the mud, and there's cooking over an open fire, where you can cook some sausages and some marshmallows. You need mud and water. There's three fire trucks here today just for this. I love mud. Being a scout is really fun, doing stuff outdoors. We get to pitch tents and just play with fires. But we're safe... (CHUCKLES) most of the time. RELAXED GUITAR MUSIC CONTINUES CHILDREN CHATTER IN BACKGROUND Yes, we've got mining. That's a big thing about Waihi is mining, but there's also a part of the culture of Waihi that it's always had ` a lot of house-truck people here. I came here in my hippy days in a bus, yeah, and just, basically, fell in love with the place, and, um, before I realised it, I lived in Waihi. And, uh, I work as a sculptor ` public artworks, corporate art, that type of thing. I also carve one-off hand-sculptured headstones. Headstones turned out to be the main thing. Every stone that I do, the different components to the` to the pictures, there's` there's a reason why they're there, and there's actually story, a family story, to it all. This one here, the flax flowers, represent the kids. They saw themselves as a pair of swans. Swans, apparently, mate for life. I think that's quite cool for them. This is the last thing that the family can do for the loved one that's passed. You've really got to get it right. We're not just dealing with a` a piece of granite with your name and that written on it, you know? There's all these individual little pieces there that actually mean something, you know? And so when you take your grandkids along to see nana's headstone, for argument's sake,... 'Oh, that's me, and that's your uncle, and that's your auntie,' you know? And it puts that personal thing there that helps them to connect to the stone and connect to that person, and a headstone should take on a journey. Put it that way. At the end of the day, it's their thing for their loved one. They've gotta be perfectly happy with it, you know? My late wife, Pam, used to do most of my design work. I see myself as a good craftsman. Pam was the true sense of an artist. Most people would turn up here with a bit of paper with a whole lot of stuff written on it. Yeah, and all of a sudden, Pam's just doodling away down at the end of the table, and she'd go, 'What about this?' and she'd turn around, and she had this amazing picture, and everybody would go, 'Wow.' (CHUCKLES) Like, you know? Man, I'd love to be able to do that kind of stuff, but just` she just really had it, you know? She used to do a lot of fabric art, a lot of applique, um, and she made all the kids, when they were little, made them all these psychedelic jackets. You always knew where your kids were cos you'd see these multi-coloured little kids roaring around everywhere, and they were all a bit wild and woolly... (CHUCKLES) and what have ya. And, um, yeah. Yeah, she passed away recently with, uh, cancer. Yeah. The relationship, the` the 28, 29 years that me and Pam were together, yeah, we were able to laugh and always had, you know, all our kids around us, and they were all happy and what have ya. Mm. When I first met her, best way to describe her is bright red hair, shining in the sun, and, um, I thought, 'Ooh!' And I said to my friend, 'Well, who's that?' 'Oh, that's my friend Pam.' I said, 'Oh, OK.' (CHUCKLES) And, uh, so I'd` I'd noticed her. (CHUCKLES) Put it that way. We just got along like a house on fire. Together, we kind of became quite a strong force. Yeah, when I got here, I was living in a bus, travelling around. Got into the hippy, sort of, um, element of my life. (CHUCKLES) We came to, uh, the first two Nambassas out the back here. I suppose it was the Nambassas which really kind of opened my eyes up to the place. One of the` the golden things about Waihi is that if you're a positive person, putting your best foot forward, this community will accept you ` doesn't matter what you look like or what you're seen as, you know? The house-truck thing was really common all around Waihi. Last week I had a friend from Hastings coming through here, and it's no longer a house truck; it's a great big flash $100,000 camper-van thing. (LAUGHS) So, yeah, um, all these hippies have got a bit flasher. (LAUGHS) As a kid, I was creative. That's the way I'd like to put it. I think others would have other ways of putting it. Most of my childhood was in Haumoana and had an absolute ball there. We got up to all sorts of cool things. I've always had a thing for militaria. As a kid, I was always drawn to it. All my mates had stuff that grandad or their dad's given them ` bit like bayonets and badges ` but they weren't drawn to it, you know? There I was, like a` a magpie to shiny things. Out of all of us, I was always driven about this stuff, always had a real passion for it. I'd go to school with a helmet on... (CHUCKLES) and jackets and stuff. Oh, I think all the locals would think, 'That kid, oh, he's a bit of a nutter, I think.' (LAUGHS) Um, just having the item is only one part of the` the buzz. I often look at the stuff and hold stuff, and I think, 'What did this guy go through?' You know, like, here he was in war, miles from home. There's so much emotion there and stuff like that. What those people went through was just absolutely mind-blowing, you know? Like, that's something that's come from that time, that's come from there, you know? This guy sent me a little package of bits and bobs that he'd dug out of the mud, sort of thing, and there was actually a wedding ring. You actually start thinking about who it was and thinking about that person who wore it and what` what their lives were like, and it kind of sends you on a little journey, you know? What it must have been like for him, and that's` that's the lot of it, I think, yeah. Well, for me it is, anyway, you know? We have certain lessons, you know? Death is one of those things that we have to cope with. It's, um` It's the` the hardest thing. Um, this is Pam's headstone. One day I, sort of, said to her, 'Oh, hon. Cor, you better hurry up and bloody design your headstone. 'You haven't got that much longer to go.' 'Nah, nah. You can` You can design it.' I thought, 'What? Me?' (CHUCKLES) 'You're the designer, not me.' 'Oh. Oh, OK. Um, um, um. Oh great (!)' (LAUGHS) 'Thanks.' That's where John's painting of Pam inspired me. I thought, 'Ah, yeah.' Pukekos were really big for her. There'll be, um, two adult pukekos ` me and her, sort of thing ` and there'll be seven young pukekos in between ` which are, of course, the kids ` and her taniwhas. Taniwhas have always been a big thing with Pam. And there'll be one of her suns. I've had this idea in my head for quite a while. It'll be good to get this one done and get that out there for her. Most of us do have some sort of spiritual belief at some level, you know? Where she's gone is a really cool place to be, you know? And she deserves to be there, you know? I know that she's happy. I know that she looks down on all the kids and stuff like that. I believe in karma ` don't hang on to the negative; find the positive and go with that. That's very much Pam. You get what you give. It comes back to you, put it that way. Yeah, I suppose I'm just an upfront, pretty happy sort of dude,... (CHUCKLES) I suppose. Seg 5 LAID-BACK GUITAR MUSIC Born in Paeroa, grew up in Ngatea and currently work for Goldfields Railway, operating the train between Waihi and Waikino. BIRDS TWITTER The railway line was built in 1905 for the gold mine. The Kaimai Tunnel, dug in, uh, 1978, caused the line to become redundant. It was saved by a` a group of volunteers, and it's lived on from there. TRAIN CHUGS It's a volunteer position. I` I don't get paid. I` I get reimbursed for costs like petrol. Apart from that, no. It's a large commitment. Sometimes it's six days, and occasionally it stretches to seven. My first memory of trains was with my parents heading to, uh, Waverley on the train. I remember doing that a couple of times with` with Mum. They were steam in those days. I remember getting out by the loco. They were` They were big beasts. You'd see a` a big train, and it was something that you wanted to get close to. Steam was king in` in my early days. They were a power of their own, virtually. Well, I'd yearn to steam. Uh, that'd be my favourite. But, uh, it's` it's a yearning only. (CHUCKLES) Hopefully at Goldfields Railway, we'll get steam back again. My wife and I were looking for greener pastures. We live at Waitawheta, halfway up the Waitawheta Valley. LAID-BACK MUSIC TRAIN ENGINE HUMS, WHEELS CLATTER Sandra and I first met 17 years ago, uh, while I was still working in Ngatea. We eventually got married ` actually got married on the Goldfields train. Well, I was envisaging a garden wedding. There was a` There was a toss-up between the Hamilton Gardens or on the train. Uh... And guess who won. The train won. She was given the opportunity to marry me or jump off the Waitete Bridge. Luckily, she didn't jump, cos she's still here. (CHUCKLES) Yeah, he's, you know, been involved with trains from, yeah, the time he was a child. I guess I was aware that there was gonna be a certain amount of it ` probably not quite as much as what it's turned out to be. Uh, we have a train upstairs, and we have a train downstairs, and it actually has a lift. It's more to enjoy. When I was about 8 or 9, my mother brought me a clockwork Hornby train set. Uh, that` that was my introduction to` to toy trains and` and the real ones. It was played to death, I tell you. When I was in my teens, I acquired a second-hand Marklin set with a loco and a couple of cars and a circular track, and like top seed, it grew. The railway in the garden comprises a figure eight over two bridges, through a tunnel and a loop into the native forest. They all seem to think it's a lot of fun. Adults probably even enjoy it more than small kids, I think, sometimes. We had a busload of 80-year-olds here, and they were fighting to get on the train,... They were. ...pushing and shoving one another out of the road. It was quite a spectacle. BIRDS TWITTER If volunteers don't keep these iconic things running, they will disappear, and they won't be around for the next generation. This loco will cost a wee bit to restore. It's, uh, quite a` quite a major undertaking. You just get stuck in, and you just get into it. Without dedicated input, the railway may not survive. Age is sort of slowly catching up with me. I'm still reasonably fit, reasonably healthy, and I'll do it as long as I'm able to do it. What a world it would be if there was nothing old. Too much of our heritage has already been lost. SEAGULLS SQUAWK '60S ROCK 'N' ROLL MUSIC I went to school in Thames, so I've been on the Coromandel for most of my life. I flew the coop and spent eight years in Auckland and, uh, headed back down and fell in love with Whangamata, and I've been here 22 years now. Love it. I` I was born in '64, so... I can, as a 5-year-old, you know, remember my mum's hairstyle, like, the beehive kind of thing, and, you know, the music that they were listening to. I was born in the wrong decade, cos it was` it was` it was a fun time ` the old cars, you know, the way they looked,... HORN TOOTS ...you know, the smell of the leather, the big steering wheel, and when you drive them, you just get this real buzz. It takes you back in time. It's just so much fun. UPBEAT '60S MUSIC With the Beach Hop, which is a` a big rock-and-roll festival we have here in Whangamata every year at the end of March, I'm part of the team that puts that together ` probably a pretty key role. It's grown so much. About 110,000 people were here in town. We had two or three different car shows, and we had 1000 cars enter in 24 hours. Just insane. I'm totally obsessed with` with hot rods and classic cars. It's not just a hobby or a sport or anything like that. You know, you` you eat it, you breathe it, you know? You think about it all the time. You're thinking about your next project. You're thinking about your own cars. It's really exciting. When I was a kid, one day my older brother took me to the drag races at Meremere. That night I got home, and my ears were just ringing, and I thought, 'Wow, that was something pretty special,' and ever since then, I used to mow the lawns and get 50c a week so I could, uh` could buy the Hot Rod magazine every time it came out and collect them ever since I was a 10-year-old. You know, I used to draw pictures of hot rods on all my schoolbooks, and my bedroom walls had posters and pin-ups from the Hot Rod magazines all over the walls. When I was, like, 14, I looked at my pushbike, and I thought, 'Man, this could be my hot rod,' so I` I chopped off the forks here, and I` I made all these brackets by hand, put a banana seat and sissy bar, ape-hangers on it, and people used to go, 'Man, that's a cool bike,' and I said, 'Yeah. It's my hot rod. One day I'll have a real one.' When I was, you know, at high school, I drew a picture of what they call a T-Bucket, and, um, when I got my first pay packet, I got the chassis built, and over the next seven years, I pieced that car together, and, um, you know, it was my dream as a kid to get it on` in the Hot Rod magazine, and I got the centre spread. I even got on the cover and won national trophies with it. I've still got the car today, and that's the great thing about, you know, hot-rodding ` there's no other one like it in the world, because they've been made by these hands. I love them. I dream about them every day. Whangamata's really changed over the last 15 years that the Hop's been going. You know, I moved here just over 20 years ago with my hot rod. Maybe there was another half a dozen cars in town. Now there's over 200 cars that are owned by a resident or a ratepayer. I don't think there is anywhere else in the world that would have that saturation of classic cars in a small town. You know, traditionally, it's been a surf town, but surfing and hot rods, Beach Boys, it all fits together really well. We haven't got a club, but every Friday we get together, and we have a beer down here at the workshop, but it's more about, you know, the bonding, the socialising, telling a few lies. We're all very supportive, and if someone wants a hand with a car, text goes out and, bang ` the crew will turn up and help do the job. And that happens all the time, and, uh, really, I mean, that's the biggest part as well is those friendships which have evolved, you know, over a beer on a Friday night. Trying to make it go faster. Vroom, vroom, vroom! < Hope it sounds better than that when we fire it up. It will. LAUGHTER, PEOPLE CHATTER OK, all the Fords on this side, all the Chevys on that side. No one. I'm the only one. ALL CHATTER With the Beach Hop, we wanna spread the` the Beach Hop love to other local communities, so the first three days we visit other towns. We take about 300 cars from` from Whangamata through to Waihi. It's about showing and sharing the` the wonderful enjoyment that you get out of cruising in your old car. To me, modern cars are just so boring; they all look the same, where the old cars have got so much style and class. I lo` I love the lifestyle of hot-rodding that it gives me, and, you know, it's a` it's a great life. Um, I'd rather be happy than sad, and I focus on all the happy things in life and surround myself with happy things. The Beach Hop is a celebration of the '50s and '60s. You know, it` I wanna, kind of, share that with other people ` with, you know, different generations ` grandmas, grandads who were around, people my age who were just a kid and then the grandkids so they can see what it was like in the good old days. Do you like Fords? Yup. Yeah. Fords rule. You gotta start 'em young, eh? Five-minute call to the drag race. Ladies and gentlemen, start your bras. There's something about the music and the culture and the cars and the chrome. Everybody's walking around with big smiles on their faces. On your marks, get set... and go! I've got a` a great lifestyle, and` and my cars have done that for me. It's just amazing. It really is. APPLAUSE UPLIFTING MUSIC MAGGIE: Gravity's taken over. I'm getting spider veins up my legs, boobs are down around my navel, but apart from all that, I'm happy with myself. I jump between two camps ` I can be a creator at one minute, and all of a sudden, you know, just take the tree out. (IMITATES TOOLS TAPPING, LAUGHS) Kids, they like the flowers, but they think Mum's mad. (CHUCKLES) The marriage proposal. We're on TV, remember? Some things are better kept private. (CHUCKLES) You'd return when the guy rings you up and goes, 'Whoo! It's going off. This boy's fantastic.'