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. # Captions by Faith Hamblyn. Captions were made possible with funding from NZ On Air. Copyright Able 2015 I was born in Whanganui, and, yeah, I've had a passion for boats ever since I was quite young. I worked in the shipyard as a labourer when I first left school, so, yeah, the interest in boats started way back then. I really like what I'm doing now, which is cruising up and down the river and... and sharing it with people from other places and from overseas. Being out on the Whanganui is just stunning on a nice day. Every part of NZ has an activity that happened in early times which sets it apart from all the other parts of NZ. Well, this is the riverboat capital of NZ ` end of story, you know, in my opinion, you know. When you read the books about the boats, you know, the things that went on and the adventures that people had on the river was something that touched a lot of people's lives, that spread right throughout the community in its heyday. In the case of Wairua and Waiora, they were twins, and they went on the river together. This boat was more often than not the mail boat. There was no railways for a very long time, and, of course, there were no motor cars, so the river was State Highway 1 for a while. I mean, everyone in Whanganui when I was young knew about the boats ` they'd not really that long stopped running. I thought that it would be great to see the waterway come back to life again. I'd read about the Wairua, where it was and what its fate was. With the coming of the roads in the top end, they had more vessels than they needed, and they laid it up more or less where it sank. They just stopped pumping out Wairua, and it went to the bottom. You could actually see bits of it sticking up out of the water at low tide. I thought how wonderful it would be to bring it back to life, you know, but, you know, how impossible, you know ` moved away from the idea, but that's the sort of spell of that sort of thing that you fall under. I thought it would be pretty difficult, but it could be done. If you've got a project or something you wanna pursue, there's a lot of clever people here and a lot of people that'll give you a hand. There were four of us originally, and we dug all round it at low tide. We tweaked it and winched it and wriggled it around in the hope that it would come up. It was only the hull that came out of the river ` the rest of it was completely gone. We started from scratch, certainly as far as the superstructure goes. The four of us, we didn't have a lot of resources. You know, we were operating on a wing and a prayer, really. (LAUGHS) I thought we'd get there. I was never quite sure how, but I was pretty determined. It took us 19 years. It had been a long journey, but it was great. I'm proud of the part I played, for sure. We've made a difference. What could be better than that? Other than that those things that you've got going, that they keep going. It wasn't always my intention to be the skipper of the boat. Life never quite turns out like how you plan it. So, yeah, it's a very busy life occupied by a riverboat. I keep doing it because I believe our riverboat heritage is unique to us, and we do think it's something that we can be proud of. You know, a really nice day out on the river ` that definitely makes you happy. RHYTHMIC MUSIC 10 years ago a friend of mine said to me the one thing that's missing in Whanganui is a market. # Whoa, yes, solid at the Saturday markets. Yes, and everything be getting started... # So we started a mixed market down on the riverbank. We have lots of artists and artisans, and there's all sorts of people making products from local food, which I think is a wonderful thing to see. I have a family gathering. So you're in charge of the salads? The barbeque and salad, yeah. Oh good. (LAUGHS) I had married at 19, had younger children, and to have spare money, I had to fruit pick down in the South Island. I met quite a lot of people with different lifestyles, and it really changed the way I thought about food and the way we live our lives. Have lived here most of my life, but I don't recall ever travelling up the Whanganui River Road till I was in my late 30s. It's like coming into another world. I was reading the newspapers, and this place was for sale. I knew it cos I'd gone past it in a boat, and then I went to town and bought it. I knew that I was gonna buy this place. It's really unusual to have no access ` to only be able to access by an aerial cableway. And the Whanganui River flows right past the door, and so to wake up in the morning and look at that beautiful scene, um, is just wonderful for your soul. I saw this place as a place where people could come and stay, let their pulse slow. They could step out of their lives and do something completely different for a while. And this was a perfect environment to be able to grow food organically, cook food using ingredients from your own garden, to be able to have the orchards. Slowly, the building of cottages started for people to stay in. I came here alone, much to a lot of people's horror,... (LAUGHS) that I would choose to come and live in an environment like this by myself, but I wasn't alone a lot of the time. my friends found it a lovely place to come and stay and help out. I met a man in town, um, through a friend, and he asked if he could come up and visit. And he basically sat on the deck and just declared he wasn't gonna go. He made this declaration that this was the place for him and, um, if I didn't mind, he'd like to stay. (LAUGHS) So he did. John was a wonderful... creative builder of everything. He started building boats. He was a wonderful builder of boats, and so he set about actually completing the job of finishing the cottages that I had started. And it's all been built using rescued materials, second-hand materials. So he did stay. He did stay, and some years later, we married in a little church at the marae, uh, just across the river. The place grew, things changed ` it was doing exactly what we dreamed it would do. We managed it between us ` um, I did the market stall, John was here looking after the guests. It was a wonderful balance. It enabled me to go, um, into town to... do my full-time job that I have as well. I would go off to work with my briefcase across the cable car, and then drive 45 K to town, get changed into my work clothes, and then go to work. REGAL MUSIC It didn't seem like there was any way for people to have a say about the kind of place they wanted Whanganui to be, and so I stood for mayor. (LAUGHS) As you do. (CHUCKLES) Had an interesting lifestyle. We had an apartment in Whanganui as well, so one was working in town, one's working up here, and so then when you get back together, it's kind of like then you're sharing your different experiences of the day, and I think that's a really nice way to have a relationship. We'd been together for 18 years, and we'd been married for nine, so it's quite a long time. It was a Sunday evening, and I had to, um, speak at a function at our art gallery. And, um, the next day, John, um, he didn't call, which we had rules about ringing to check in with each other all the time, cos living in a remote environment like this, accidents can happen, so I knew than that something was seriously wrong. John had had a really unexpected... aneurism. Yeah, it was probably the biggest shock I've had in my life, and I guess life goes on, I guess, but life goes on considerably differently, considerably differently. You know, like, John's legacy is everywhere in this place. You only have to walk into one room, and you can see the things that John has done. So he'll never be forgotten. I've continued it on in the way that John wanted the place to be and, um, basically threw myself into carrying on what we'd started. I have no idea where my energy comes from, but I can work very hard. John was very proud of me being mayor, and so I decided, right, I had to do it. I decided to stand again, but it was not the easiest time of my life, I have to say. GENTLE MUSIC It can be challenging living remotely, but you learn to be pretty adaptable, and I'm really proud of that. There's lots and lots of stories of the river through generations, from Maori and European. It sounds a bit new-agey, I guess, but there is a very strong presence of other people that have been before, and I guess that I will also leave behind a story. For John, he created his own part in the history of the river. There are many stories about, um, John that live on in people's lives. * I had a great childhood. We had a great sense of freedom growing up the river here. We were allowed to roam wherever we wanted and would ride horses, just had heaps of fun living in the country. Our school is the last school left on the Whanganui River here. The other little rural schools closed down ` there were five when I went to school up here. We're the last on the river, and they know that they go to the best school on the planet, So they all know that, yeah. BELL CLANGS KIDS: Morena,... Whaea Karleen. Morena katoa, tamariki ma. It was Zhyon's birthday yesterday! Morena katoa, tamariki ma. It was Zhyon's birthday yesterday! ALL: # Tihei,... Morena katoa, tamariki ma. It was Zhyon's birthday yesterday! # tihei, mauri ora! # Ka pai. Everybody should have an opportunity to a great education wherever they live. Did you have good fun at your birthday? Education is the key to the world, and the honour is all mine to be able to give back to my own here. When I went to the marae, I saw Mere and Tarunga doing the kapa haka. Any questions? Witsie? Did you have fun? Yep, I liked it, and my dad was taking videos. I just really love school, and, uh, I haven't really left school. Thank you for listening, tamariki ma. I loved the teacher that I had ` Mrs McIntyre. The word 'cake', Wits, the word 'cake' is here. I loved everything about what she did. The first day that I went to school, I loved it so much. I remember jumping off the school bus that day and running in and telling Mum that... that I was gonna be a schoolteacher when I grew up. Mm. I really didn't change my mind from that day about wanting to do that. Yeah. Yeah, I loved every minute of school, love learning. I left here when I was 12. 'Children that finish at primary school up the river have to go to boarding school into town, 'headed off to university after secondary school and decided to travel overseas. 'I think it's really important to leave and come back if you want. 'It hasn't been that difficult to come back.' Felt like it was time to give back to the community that brought me up, and I would like to give a little bit of what I had growing up back to my two sons. I've got twin boys, Kaya and Keanu. Yeah, they are the greatest thing that I've ever done. And I've always thought of what I would like them to know, and I think the most important thing for me was to know where they come from. They didn't know our river, or they didn't know this place as home as I know it. My parents always said wherever we go in the world, that we've always got a home to come back to here, and I wanted that for my children. This is my marae, Koriniti. My mother has a long history of whakapapa on the river here. Dad farmed here all of his life with his brothers, as his father did with his brothers. My children are the sixth generation of Marshalls here. I'm really proud to be Maori, and I often feel schools don't provide opportunities for Maori to be Maori, whereas at our school, being Maori is the norm, and, uh, the way we learn always has a sense of Maori-ness about it. CHILDREN SING IN MAORI Kia kaha! I'd like to think that everything that I've done, that any one of these kids could do and much more. The main thing at our school is to be excited, to have fun and to be proud of where you come from. If you know who you are, you can stand tall in any culture in any country anywhere. CHILDREN: Aue! Hi! The kids at our school are involved in the Hui Aranga, a Catholic Easter festival. Catholicism is prominent up the river. We didn't ever see it as conflicting... with our traditions. My mum spent some time as a child at the convent in Jerusalem. The sisters have always played a major role up the river, and they celebrate the environment and the love for the land like we do. I think they contribute to the community in many ways; they're not entrenching their beliefs on you ` you get to know them because you want to. They're really important to us. Sister Christina, she does gardening with our students and makes us all laugh. She's good fun. I was born in Samoa. I speak two languages. It was very hard, the English one. Sometimes I make mistake, but doesn't matter. Since I came here, I add more gardens around the place, got my vegetables garden there. I got butter beans and, uh, silver beet, some pumpkins there. With my heart and soul, I love this place. First and foremost, Sisters of Compassion, we were founded in here ` that's the main thing ` 1892. That's a long time, and our mother foundress always say never forget our creator of our congregation is here in the Maori village. They look after us, and we look after them, so we never worry about anything. Now I am here with Sister Luciana. I look after the church, and Sister Luciana looks after the old convent there. People come and go, and lots of times, the tourists are coming. People, they come here to recharge their batteries again, I think. Yeah, the beauty of this place, it's a real paradise. My family ` very Catholic people, but I never dreamed to become a nun, no, never, never, never, never, never. I had so many men hanging around me in my youth day in Auckland, and I'm not shy to talk to people when they come round my way. (CHUCKLES) And then one day I saw this nun. She looked so holy to me. So I went to see this priest and ask him, 'I want to become a nun.' Well, he laughed at me and said, 'Not you.' (LAUGHS) I was an outgoing person. So I went home, three years I try all the time, and I think he got sick of me. And so in 1966 I entered a convent. Father told me, 'I think you'll only last for three or five days,' so I got that on my head all the time. I was a bit frightened, because, uh, I wasn't sure. Yeah. I wasn't sure of myself. And I thought, 'I wonder if I'll last long,' but I did. Yeah. Never looked back. Father was making a mistake, and now I've got three more years before my golden jubilee. I will never change my mind. If I make another choice, it's the same choice. Yeah. I'm very happy where I am now, cos we're all one family. I go to the local school, they've got a vegetable garden, and I'm very naughty, because I told them just pull out weeds and throw over the fence. (LAUGHS) Not supposed to do that, but they enjoy throwing over the fence. You know, they're lovely children. Yeah. This community, the sisters are theirs, you know, and same with us, yeah, vice-versa ` us with them and them with us. We try to learn the Maori words, but we will never get there, but, you know, the grace of God, we can sing with them. When a community works together, then everybody benefits. Living at home up the river has made me really really happy. I feel more passionate about providing a great education to the students up here, because I was supported like that as a child. My mother often said, 'You don't mean anything to anybody unless you give back to your own first.' They're a great bunch of people to have my kids around. BOYS CHANT HAKA BOYS: Tahi, rua, aue, hi! CHEERING * I can remember as a young fellow, the neighbour had an old Austin 10, and I can remember as a young boy sitting in this car. Yeah, I just enjoyed the smell of the inside, the old fittings. I was, sort of, always interested in the mechanicals of things, yeah, so that got my interest up, and, uh, from then on, I've been interested in anything mechanical. # When I was a lad, I went to war as an air mechanic in the Flying Corps... # The stuff we have here, I've just picked it up from rubbish dumps and all sorts of places and given it a home. It's all part of our history. My passion is to save it from disappearing. To people in those days, they were just old stuff that nobody wanted. They were happy to get rid of it. And I'm pretty lucky that all the stuff that I preserve, I'm able to enjoy. So as well as preserving these items, um, I'm using them. I'm an A-grade mechanic by trade. During my apprenticeship, I preferred working on all the older cars that came into the workshop. My 1928 Chev, I purchased in 1966 ` must have been 17 or something like that, I suppose. Yes, it wasn't common. I drove a 1928 car when everyone else was driving their '60s cars, and I still drive that car today ` nearly 50 years. Once you've saved a car, got it running, should last forever. My '20s, '30s, '40s cars are still running their same engines, same gearboxes ` wonderful stuff, some of that older-made stuff. COMIC OPERA MUSIC PLAYS Maintenance on a lot of the cars, my wife has helped me. I'm very lucky to have this particular woman in my life. When I met Jennifer, she lived across the road from a garage that I was an apprentice at. Covered in grease, an old oily rag out of my pocket, she took a liking to me. She used to come up to the garage and buy chewing gum all the time just to get to see me. Kept tripping over her, and, uh, then I must have asked her out one day, and, uh, it went on from there. Yeah I used to go up for chewing gum. I was still at school. My dad just loved Bruce anyway, cos he was car-mad as well, so... And I was the mechanic on your dad's car. And Bruce was his mechanic. We used my 1926 Model T Roadster,... and our honeymoon was in a 1928 Chev. Yeah. I thought, you know, it would just be a small hobby, sort of thing. To get to the extent that we are now ` I didn't think we'd ever be like this. RECORD CRACKLES I don't have any spare time. My normal day starts at 7 o'clock in the morning, finishes 7 o'clock at nights. With restoring cars, to keep all those cars on the road, they all need bits and pieces. I've amassed this huge collection of classic old parts. We have parts still with labels on for 1912-onward cars ` it would be in excess of a million parts. Word soon gets around, so we get phone calls from England and Australia and America and things like that all day. On a bad day I can have up to 45 to 50 phone calls. We don't talk about monetary value on what I have here. I don't worry about anything that I have. I'm just looking after it ` when I've finished with the stuff, I shall give it away or whatever. That's where the value is in it for me, is the enjoyment of helping other people keep their cars on the road. The phone sort of gets at me some days ` I could smash it. And I'll head off, I'll make myself a sandwich ` have peace and quiet for 10 minutes, quarter of an hour. Cars I used to service, when the people didn't want them, I had bought them to save it from being scrapped or disappearing. Clients leave me cars. One guy I supplied a distributor cap and bits and pieces for his car wanted his vehicle to be looked after and enjoyed. He passed on and left me Vanden Plas. He was just a customer. Beautiful car, 1961 Vanden Plas. I use that particular car regularly. I look after a lot of cars, from old to even this era. I give things a home today... for tomorrow. People talk about holidays; I don't actually need to go on a holiday, I'm so comfortable here. Every day to me is a lovely day... at home amongst all my treasures. And when I go out anywhere, I enjoy driving the cars that I love anyway. To spend 24 hours a day doing what I love doing is, um, a bit of a plus in life, as far as I'm concerned, doing it for the rest of my life exactly what I want to do, and I'm quite happy with that. TINKLY MUSIC I like being on the outside of things, going my own way and doing my own thing my way, and I like Whanganui, because it's very easy to do here. I love it. A lot of my work is about what I care about, and so I talk a lot in my work about what it means to be loved, I suppose, and beautiful, because I think those things are important. I've worked with people for 25 years making portraits, most of the times it's women, and I see so many women, for no reason, feeling unattractive, you know. That's why I do it. I help other women recognise their own beauty ` not what the media might think is beautiful, but what I do. Woman, particularly, beat themselves up, like, unbelievably, because of some perceived flaw. It's so destructive. Why we have this need to be perfect, I don't understand, really. But I'm lucky ` I never have been perfect. I can't be, you know. When I was born, I had a double-cleft lip and palate. Mum, when I was in the pram, people would say to her that I was, you know, so ugly that she should take me home and not show me in public. Mum's really staunch, um, so I would hate to think what she said, actually. Um, uh, I don't believe she would have walked home ` that's for sure. But it was still really upsetting for her as a parent. You know, we don't ever want our children to go through anything. I used to be in hospital quite a bit. My mother, who's amazing, every time we went to hospital used to make me an outfit, every time we went. I remember one which was denim with beautiful rag-dolls all over the hem, and so I would walk out feeling very proud and beautiful. She also taught me to stand up straight and hold my head high. A lot of people with cleft lip and palates of my generation have a, kind of, like, a shame. I remember those times with my mum. That's what I've always got from that, is that I've always wanted to make myself feel beautiful, and I think that's a good result. Um, yeah, very lucky. 'I love photographing women. I'm looking for what it is that makes them who they are, I suppose. 'If a woman is feeling beautiful, she can be more powerful. 'The other reason is that it feels lovely to feel like you look really good.' Open your eyes. Oh, man, that's awesome. A lot of people, they don't get that very often, you know, cos they don't do it for themselves. I mean, I do, I talk myself up quite a lot, you know, to myself, because why wouldn't you wanna feel like that? However beautiful we are is something that you feel, as opposed to just a physicality. I was sleeping with someone once, and he said to me, 'You'd be really attractive if you didn't have scars.' In that moment I thought to myself ` one, I thought he was a (BLEEP); and two, it made me realise how rock-solid my feeling about the way I look is. You know, I wouldn't change it. I wouldn't change this if I could. I would always have these scars. I like the way I look. I feel like it's one of the things I've got to do in this life, you know, is to help people feel beautiful. It's a lovely thing to feel beautiful. You know, to give people the chance to see it, to look at a photograph and realise that they are actually beautiful ` I'm pretty lucky to be able to do it. * COUNTRY MUSIC This is our, uh, Whanganui Centre Championship, plus it's our local dog trial up in a place called Mangamahu. Been in this club about 30 years. When everything goes right, this is probably one of the better sports you'll ever do. Yeah, doing the thing that you really like doing, which is having something to do with dogs, but you're dealing with one animal, and you're controlling that to control three other animals, so the recipe for disaster is` is with you all the time, so... These animals are absolutely amazing creatures, and watching them, just their passion to work is just a buzz in itself, you are so focused on what they do. These dogs just wanna work, and they'll work for you until they die, and there's nothing else in this world that'll do that. I run a couple of thousand acres of sheep and beef, so I need a pretty good team of dogs. Four out of five days, I'll work some form of dog work or other. Yeah, I really enjoy working with animals. I'm not a real good people person ` I don't like to muck around too much with pleasantries, and my social skills are probably lacking a little bit, so... Dogs are a lot simpler to deal with than people. As soon as you establish that bond, they're just your mate, they think that... I'll try and rephrase it other than the fact that the sun shines out of your (BLEEP) ` they just wanna please you. They're your dog. I mean, mine, they'd die for me, and that's a huge quality in anything, isn't it? Add the fact that they are so focused on the sheep and the job that they want to do to the equation, and it's just... they're just amazing. Competition side of it and winning or losing is not everything to me. There's a whole host of things that are important about dog trials. It's probably one of the few outside-of-school activities that we have to do in the communities. The community spirit is huge, it's great, but unless you're involved in something like dog trials and things, there is nothing else. We have a heck of a lot of people pitch in to make the trial run successfully. These judges here today will have judged for, like, two and a half days by the time they've finished ` that's a lot of concentration, a lot of time. Yeah, it takes a real big effort on a heck of a lot of people's parts. It is quite a big thing to take on, but, um, the whole valley donates food, baking and legs of mutton and corned beef and that sort of thing. My girls all volunteer, everybody volunteers to come down and help, yeah. Curried sausages on the go, uh, potatoes, mixed veggies ` they get well fed. Only when we find out the boys last night had been into our fridge, but anyway... Quite late last night, some of the boys that were drinking attacked our mutton roast. It was our only piece of mutton that we had left. We'll deal with them. (LAUGHS) But anyway, we'll cope without it, yeah. Nobody was really out there helping young guys to learn to be dog trialists. I teach people to train dogs, and I fix behavioural problems in dogs, and I have run courses on training dogs. This centre, the Whanganui Centre in particular, got behind a big drive to have a lot of training days, and so the sport is a thriving sport ` they're out there, they're doing it. 10 or 12 years ago we might have had one or two women competitors; now we have heaps of them, and they're out kicking the arse of the guys as well. Doesn't matter how old you are, what gender you are, how much money you've got ` this is a sport that anybody can do as long as you're prepared to take the frustration of you and the dog versus three sheep. Here. (WHISTLES) ACOUSTIC GUITAR MUSIC Came here in '75, came down here for a drive one day and discovered this grand old building and it was empty, found out that it was up for tender, so we tendered for it and we won the tender. God knows why we wanted to be miles away from everywhere, but you're just young, and you think oh, you wanna go live in the country ` that was the kind of times then too. People wanted to get back to nature and grow their own vegetables and... There was a group of us, there was kind of an art collective ` it was the end of the Blerta thing too. My then-partner, Robin, had been their photographer. They came and stayed here and lived here for a while. It was just all a bit of fun, really. We didn't think of it as a pub; we just thought of it as a big house. But then when Peter came back, it became a pub again. Pijada? Mm-hmm. We've known each other about 44 years. Westside Story ` there was a play in Whanganui, eh? That was it. Yeah. We were auditioning for Westside Story at the Opera House in Whanganui back in 1960-something. Anyway, and I got the part ` big deal. And I was in the chorus. You were in the chorus, yeah. I said, 'Mm-hm, she's mine.' Our paths continued to cross, but she had another boyfriend, and, you know, I felt like doing the old OE, and away I went, so I get back 20 years later. Picked up where we left off, basically. It was weird. And, uh, here we still are. GENTLE GUITAR MUSIC I think subconsciously, I was always wanting to learn to weave. A friend who came to visit here, we were just walking around the garden, and because we'd planted a lot of flax, she thought I could weave, and I said, 'No, I can't weave.' And she said, 'Oh, well, I'll teach you,' and she did, and that was when I really... I just fell in love with it. Weaving, it just became a passion. Makes you really proud to be a Maori, because it's really a unique indigenous craft. It's amazing. You can make mats, rope, clothing ` it's such a versatile fibre. It's soft, and you can weave it raw or you can process it. I just love weaving. It's challenging, it's creative, and I love things that are handmade. And it's fashionable, and I love fashion too, and I love hats, and I love making hats. Our mum made felt hats, and we all grew up having a new hat for Sunday church. Always liked hats anyway, just, you know, those big, beautiful brimmed hats, Greta Garbo hats. I love the influence of history on fashion ` it can be a fedora, a bowler, a pork pie. And then I make top hats. Top hats have been quite a revolution, really. They take quite a lot of time, but they're great and people like them ` that was the fun thing. Oh, it feels great when I see people wearing my hats. I love that, cos I do kind of get a thrill seeing somebody wear something that you make and think, 'Ooh I made that.' It's good to see. COMIC MUSIC I have three daughters and seven grandchildren and one on the way. And they're interspersed between France, Japan and Australia. But we've got an announcement to make ` we're getting married next year, so hopefully, they'll all come back at the same time. And I'll be really happy. Mm. It was a New Year's resolution. I mean, why not just do it, you know, professionally. Good excuse to use the church. And a good excuse to have a party. (CHUCKLES) 40 years ` it's probably time. I like it because I've been here forever, I feel at home and comfortable, and I've got all my materials around me to do the work I like to do, and that's a wonderful thing. * Whanganui's a very real town. It's pretty hard to beat, this sort of environment. The awa, the river, I've seen it in all of its moods, at its calmest and roughest. In all of its seasons, it is wonderful. I'll take them all. I could just about say it was a spiritual one, I could just about say I love it ` it's all good, as they say. I've been here for 38 years now on this side. It was special right from the beginning. There was a big old shed out the back of a fairly humble bungalow. I opened the door of the shed, and there was the river. And, you know, it's like falling in love ` you go, 'This is it.' You know, it was just that tickle down the back of your neck. Went to teachers' college, got given a school to teach at here when I graduated. I was shown my classroom, told that I would need to get my hair cut. The reality of it was appalling to me, and I decided to be a potter. I have something I think is called 'demand resistance'. One of my girlfriends told me that. (LAUGHS) I picked up the clay-bug, as they call it at teachers college, and it took me over, really. My head wasn't with teaching any more. I love making pots. It's one activity that I do do that I would consider near enough to meditation. All of the role models I had were all hands-on people ` my mother was always making things; my father was a journalist, so he was writing. Grew up always making things ` made forts, built forts in the pine forest. Building is instinctual. It's the making instinct in man. Building one's shelter is, I think, something that everyone should be allowed to do, um, regardless of what the rules and regulations say. Started experimenting with building, and I became quite addicted. Building isn't terribly difficult. You scrounge around, and you find beautiful things that you can repurpose. I could show you a hundred things ` the tile floor from the convent school in Whanganui which I pulled up tile by tile and re-laid; things that can carry on another life. That window came from Te Papapa Primary School, which has long gone. It was the materials I really like, the windows, the doors, the floorboards, and then it occurred to me that some of these buildings contain all those things and that they should just stay exactly where they are for as long as possible. The wool stores directly over the road from this house were going to be demolished. A developer was proposing to pull them all down and build some (BLEEP) little town houses. I love those old wool stores, and my neighbour Gail and I pooled our meagre resources, and we bought those buildings off the original owner. Um, doing that first building gave us the confidence to do some more, and we've saved them from what was going to happen to them, which was they were going to be demolished. Some years ago people kept going on about 'past their use-by date', whatever that means. It was never true, but more and more they're being occupied by new uses to give them another hundred years. The old Chronicle building, we own. We've got good tenants in there who are in the arts community. The building, I came to when I was a kid, my father produced, uh, one of the first giveaway newspapers from the second floor. Buildings are one thing, but it's the stories that go with them. It's the people that occupy and use in the past and in the future that matter the most. You get a disproportionate benefit to a community from the arts community. If you know enough artists, you'll find someone to inhabit something or use something for a studio that's not quite normal or customary, and that's the secret to it. People sometimes say I'm a property developer or investor, but I'm certainly not that. We didn't make any money out of it ` I just let the heart run that department. I have an old friend, uh, who died last year, Stan Butler. He was interested in everything weird and wonderful ` you know, magnets and electronics and perpetual motion machines, but amongst other things, he built his own little ferro-cement house, so we just bought that off, uh, Stan's daughter. I had a horrible feeling that if this property was sold to someone else, I'm sorry to say this, but I think that might have just been scrunched up, lost and treated as a building site, and it's quite a nice site. I think I've got an addictive personality ` once I start doing something, I find it hard to stop. And I'm not very good at asking for help or permission. It's a hard road to hoe, but well worth it, because very good buildings are now safe from bulldozers. They'll carry on standing, I'm sure. PEACEFUL MUSIC Ross brought me to this space. It's an old wool store, and as soon as I saw it, I was, like, 'Yep I'll take it.' Born in Chawleigh, which is about 20 minutes out of Manchester. I really enjoy making sculptures out of driftwood. I tried to get a career that suited me in the UK ` barman and a waiter in the beginning, and then I was a care worker for people with learning disabilities. Trying to get a career has never felt particularly easy, and I always thought that what I was supposed to be doing would come out of travelling. I ended up here, still stuck here, in a good way. (CHUCKLES) I'd say the Raurimu Rex would be the most well-known sculpture I've done. I love dinosaurs. It's got that fear factor if you get it right. When I was building it, this lady brought her son up, and he wouldn't get out of the car. So I was, like, you know, job done ` it's a good T-Rex. (CHUCKLES) Since then, I've always had a sculpture to do for somebody. The driftwood lends itself really well to the shapes of animals and muscles, and I pick native driftwood because it's durable, has allowed it to become carved over hundreds of years stuck in the riverbed, and then it ends up down on the beach beautifully naturally carved stuff. In England I would never have dreamt or thought of a career in art, not at all. Never really been passionate about any form of career; was very glad that I went the path that I went. When travelling, good coincidences and good things seemed to happen. I found what I was supposed to be doing, slipped into the crazy artist role without even knowing it. (CHUCKLES) What is this strange place I've created? I met my girlfriend, Triona, at the Sarjeant Gallery. It was what, six months ago? Six months ago, yeah. We're gonna do a trip to the UK. I'd never been to Ireland, and we're going to her brother's wedding. So he's gonna meet 150 Irish people in one go, bless him. (LAUGHS) Initiate him. It's just a perfect place for everybody just to come and hang out. We called it Downton Abbey because Ross gave us a quirky authentic table and a piano, and I just thought I'd carry on decorating it. You need something, he's got it. Whanganui's been great. Living this life, making sculptures, being your own boss is amazing. That's the craziest thing to think ` if I'd stayed in England, there is no chance in the world that I would have a driftwood dinosaur on the highway, and that's what I love about Whanganui. UPBEAT MUSIC The gentrification of pounds in cities all over the world was begun by artists. They're kind of like the pioneers, and I'd like them to come and pioneer in Whanganui. I hope they achieve all that they want to without being held back by anything. Whatever your hobby or whatever you're gonna put your life into, this is a great place to do it. Looking at women's magazines makes me real angry. Whatever we do in life, we can enjoy it to the max, then to me, that's the ultimate.