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 TRANQUIL MUSIC I applied for a job at the obstetric unit here because I'm a midwife, and that's what brought me to Rotorua. There's a bit of everything here, and I love it. I went gliding this year, um, because I wanted to, and I hadn't been for 40 years, gliding. Um, I like adventure, things that my age and weight will al` let me, um, participate in, uh, like jumping out of planes and things I've done quite recently. I don't do housework. You know, that's waste of time, I believe. The University of the Third Age is a national organisation. One day at a general meeting I stood up when they asked if anybody had any bright ideas. I said that I would really like to build my own coffin. There was a few shudders around the room, but, uh, it was announced that, OK, anybody who wanted to manufacture their own coffin could come and see me after the meeting. And from that moment on, we probably got up to 70 members very quickly. We've been going for` this is the fifth year, and it's growing, growing, growing. JAUNTY MUSIC Now, this is the concept ` people come ` they love coming ` they` they make their own coffins, they come back, they come back, they come back to help the other people get theirs done. There's painters, there's liners, there's decorators, there's wallpapers, there's carpenters, there's kitchen goddess, there's a toilet cleaning man. It's a family. It's a great socialisation thing. And who would've thought ` coffin club? Uh-uh-uh. But it's what has happened, and it's absolutely magical. JAUNTY MUSIC I'm a fan, of course. Have been since` Well, since I was 12, Elvis has been my idol, so... and he always will be, and, um, it's the closest I'm ever gonna get to him. (LAUGHS) I take him out with me, you see. There we go. Doesn't it look beautiful? Well, this is the inside of my lid, so now I've got Elvis. A full picture of Elvis laying on top of me, which sounds bad, but... that's the idea of it. (LAUGHS) Come on, Katie. You all right? Yeah, I'm right, Katie. We start off the procedure of the coffin-making by buying wood at Bunnings about every three weeks. Thank you, Phil. I'll get the bill, Alan, and` Yeah, righto. ...meet you in a minute. We load so much on; I go and pay for it. And then we go to the coffin club; it's unloaded. JAZZ MUSIC That day, they kitset them, and it means that they can then do three in a day. What size will I be, Katie? You'll be... Uh, you'll be a two. Can I fit the high heels in with a number two? You sure can, because you've got just that bit of space. We make four or five different sizes to accommodate the length of people. Being an old midwife, I was very aware of what happens when a little baby either dies before birth or just after birth, so we got into making little baby coffins. We've got a sweet lady, and she makes little teddy bears, and these go to the obstetric unit. Thanks. Got it. We make enough profit to be able to` the boys have needed a few, um, bits of machinery ` you know, little bits, new drills and things ` cos they've worn out their own. So we are financially viable at this moment. We have started a number of coffin clubs all around NZ, also London, Wisconsin, two in Australia starting up shortly. A chap said to me the other day, 'What's all this about?' And I said, 'Well, that's what I used to do.' 'Oh, did you?' I said, 'Yes.' He said, 'And did you high kick?' I said, 'I certainly did.' I certainly kicked high. A high kicker at the top, and the backside at the bottom. (CHUCKLES) Bottoms up at the bottom. I believe it's healthy, because you are taking control right till the end. And if I want to go off in an Elvis Presley coffin, I will go off... I don't, um, you know, Dan Carter'd probably be better, but, you know, um, it's what grabs you, it's what your life has been about or a certain part of your life, and you go away in style. PEACEFUL GUITAR MUSIC BIRDS TWEET We're out of town, which suits us fine, and we've got good neighbours. Can't ask for much more than that. I'm definitely into old things. The chuck away mentality's going to kill the world, I think. I'm a` an accumulator, not a hoarder. My wife says I'm a hoarder,... (CHUCKLES) but I'm not. I` I accumulate, like anyone else who has good stuff. (LAUGHS) RELAXED MUSIC I used to find old bikes around and that, and I just didn't like leaving them lying around. I did them up, uh, and I always knew people that might want them, or someone who knew someone, so I've given away 40 or more by now. Oh, this is an old Healing Cruiser, from probably '60s, '70s, made in NZ. Sort of, uh, the equivalent of a Raleigh Twenty. You know, it's always interesting when I, uh, give a kid a bike as to what their reaction is. Um, some of them, uh, seem quite overawed, while the others, they're just really rapt and happy and grin from ear to ear. I've given bikes to individual people. I've given them to a kids' centre in town where their bikes were pinched. I've given them to Lions Club. Currently, I've been passing quite a few on to Linton Park, which is a community centre. Some of them a` adults, for` women, for Frocks on Bikes. I've done up people's bikes and given them back to them, this sort of thing. CHEERFUL MUSIC Hi, guys. How are ya? I got a couple of bikes here you might like. Eh? I like that little one. Yeah, the little one's cool, isn't it? You got a helmet? You need a helmet to ride it. You got a helmet? Ooh, ooh, I've got a helmet! CHILDREN: I've got a helmet! Oh, here's a guy with a helmet. CHEERFUL MUSIC One day back` I'd given a bike to Ngongotaha Lions, and it was very noticeable with its colour, and it had green tyres on it, and a few days later I saw this guy riding it down the road, and I thought, 'Whee! Beautiful.' That's what it's all about. That was neat. We still like to go out and ride with our kids and grandkids. Well, there's something special about being a grandad, and it's hard to explain. But it's probably a bit like suddenly becoming a father. All of a sudden, you've become responsible all over again. There's something special about grandkids. You've only gotta look in her eyes and see her standing by the bike, holding her arms up, wanting to get on, and you` you've gotta put her on the seat and take her for a ride. You just got to. (CHUCKLES) That's` That's life; you do it. . RELAXED MUSIC My name's Takurua Mutu, and I'm a company director. What that means, I don't know, but... (LAUGHS) it means I get to hang out with a whole bunch of cool people. RELAXED MUSIC My name's Tuhua Mutu, and I am a group operations manager for Multi-Day Adventures and Mountain Bike Rotorua Limited. I am the older and shorter of the Mutu brothers. First day of school was, uh` yeah, was an interesting one. My father took me to school, and before we went there, he let me dress myself, and I got changed and put on a suit and tie. And when he dropped me off at school, he asked me, you know, 'Wha` Why` Why are you wearing a suit and tie, son?' And I said, 'Cos I wanna be a businessman one day, Dad.' Yeah. My brother and I stand side by side, running the whole group. So we` we've got a group of companies that do a whole bunch of different things, and then everyone else that's come into the business has either been friends or family as well. 42 of us altogether. They range in family from cousins to` to friends that I've known for years. There you go. Yay. And all based around that whole whanaungatanga, that whole whanau feeling, which is pretty cool. Thank you very much. You're welcome. Rotorua had a lot of empty shops when we first moved into town and has an interesting retail culture that closes on the weekends, (LAUGHS) because, you know, they just wanna go on` on holiday. So we wanted to make sure that we were doing it a little bit differently, so we started a shop in the middle of town, which, um, is our offices as well out the back, and it's open 9 till 5 every day, every day of the year bar Christmas Day. Shaboom. The focus has not been 'make money'. The focus has been, make something cool. You know, the people you surround yourself with, they're` you know, the` they're gonna be your family, so, you know, make them feel like family. We run really genuine marae stays. So, um, going on to real marae, real working marae, and giving people an experience there that they otherwise wouldn't be able to get. So for us, it's about doing it the real way, you know, showing people how Maori live today. We do about 300 of those overnight marae stay each year. When we developed these marae stay, we didn't develop them to be a` a thriving business model for us. We developed them because we thought it could employ, uh, a good number of people, but more than that, it could actually provide, um, income for marae, and it's` that's something that` that doesn't happen often, and I think we've achieved that. RELAXED MUSIC My girlfriend and I, we've been together for, actually, it's 13 years now. When we first started going out, we made a pretty conscious decision that we didn't wanna get married, and we would not have kids. My parents dedicated a lot of time to my brothers and I. There's a lot of people's jobs that rests on my shoulders, which is their livelihoods. I know that I'd really struggle to try and have a family, bring up the family the way I'd want to and be able to make sure that we` we're putting food on everybody else's tables as well. My brother Tu is... I mean, I don't wanna sound cheesy or corny or anything, but he's an inspiration in my life, that's for sure. We hang out all the time. We go riding all the time. We work in the same office. He's a good man, my bro. The Redwood Forest is one of the absolute gems of` of Rotorua. LIVELY MUSIC You've got the world's top riders coming over here to` to Rotorua, saying this is one of the best places in the world to ride. You know you've got something special on your back doorstep, and the trails and that are amazing. When people thought of movies like Once Were Warriors, they thought of Rotorua, and, unfortunately, they forgot the beautiful side of this town, and there is a beautiful side to it. I have an immense amount of pride in my family, in my tribe and where I come from, and that's one of the reasons why I felt that` be so important, that when we do work in that environment, that I keep it real, that I keep it genuine. You know, and to` well, one, because I know I'll get a clip around the ears from my dad if I don't do that, but, two, because I think that's one of the things I can do to give back to it as well. INTRIGUING MUSIC CROWD LAUGHS, CHATTERS My name is Karin Vincent, and I host live music. Please welcome Anthony Stretch to The Rogue Stage. CHEERING, APPLAUSE Thank you, thank you, thank you. I'm gonna do something weird and dedicate the first one. This is for Karin. CHEERING, APPLAUSE It's called Start Again. (PLAYS HARMONICA AND GUITAR) Live music, to me, it gives me a throb. Wherever I can host a live music show, that's where I will put a show. If it inspires me to do so, then that's where I will take it. # Here it comes, # the winter rains. # Definitely a passion with a capital P. (LAUGHS) I've set up stages and performances in the bush, by the lake, on a farm on a purpose-built stage. Um, where else? My house, of course. One, two, three, four,... ALL: # What I can, cannot do # That sounds really good. ALL: # When it comes, I'll bow to you. # (PLAYS GUITAR AND DRUM) Well done! Well done. APPLAUSE, CHEERING Well done. You're in good voice. Right, do you wanna put some on there? Is that enough? That looks like enough. 'We came to live in Rotorua by a sheer roll of the dice.' What about pickles? You want pickles on there? Came out to NZ, um, on a worldwide tour ` my husband and I and our three children ` and got a job offer in Rotorua, so we came to live here. Barry is a trained traditional signwriter. I think we have got the perfect partnership in what we do together, because we both love music. I've got the vision to create the stages, whereas Barry has got the vision to get the message out. I have got a passion for shooting on location. # Picked up the pieces of my broken heart. So going up the slope in a gondola and filming a person performing live music, that's what brought it home to me. # And I made a promise... I can see more scope in Rotorua for providing those amazing backdrops. I love the mountains and the lakes and also that it's a cradle for culture. It always continuously feels that it's the start; it's the start over; it's the beginning. It's ancient as well as` as got that feeling of something bursting. (LAUGHS) Maybe it's the volcanic, um, underground movement. # Whoa, oh, oh. # Ho, oh, oh. # Oh, oh, oh. # Good, good love. # . RELAXED MUSIC I really grew up in the area just outside of Rotorua called Ngongotaha, so it's a suburb. Did my in-initial start of my nursing career here. Travelled for a few years away but have come back. I like it that I recognise people when I walk down the street. It's got childhood memories as well, but the town itself is, um` it's slow-moving, and that's what I like. George and I met, really, at high school, and then later on, um, our mothers worked together. I've known Carol for... years, since school. Carol's mum and my mum actually worked together years and years and years and years ago, when Carol's mum had a second-hand shop. I was always impressed with, um, how inventive he was. Amazing. He, um, often had problems with figures, and he` spelling's not his forte, but, uh, he's got this ama` amazing talent. I remember visiting him, when I was at high school, at his place, and he was` must have been only about 13, and he was going around the house on a motor mower that he'd converted to a trolley, and there was a fairly steep section, but it was` he was doing it. He was doing loops. (CHUCKLES) I like making things or fixing things. My father was killed in a bush accident when I was about 6, um, so I was mostly brought up with my mum, so anything that needed doing around the house, um, I ended up doing it. Like, I was putting panes of glass in when I was about 8 or 9 and` and, uh, just doing the family sort of thing. You know, things that dads would've done. Outdoor heating system and indoor heating system. He's adapted barbecues with ovens on top of them. Pizza ovens, trailers. I made a oven a while ago out of a pie warmer and a barbecue, and it worked really well. Got the knee warmer. You only hit it once. (LAUGHS) After that you know it's hot, but it works really well. We've got a lakeside bach, a family one that's jointly owned, and he made some outside baths, and it was about version six that became the hit, really, in terms of being efficient and effective and just, um, delicious, really. My paid work is nursing, which I thoroughly enjoy. You` You're getting close to 60 now, I'm thinking, 'Well, wha` what would be a fun thing to do 'in terms of, uh, now our children are kind of independent of us, 'and what'd be fun? How about`? And I` I've always loved baked spuds, and I thought, 'Well, um, now` now, what about a baked spud van, George?' RELAXED MUSIC I said, 'George, you can weld. Let's do this caravan thing.' So, Carol got on to the Trade Me, cos she's our Trade Me queen, and, um, purchased all sorts of stuff. The most challenging thing I've ever made. It's actually the biggest thing I've ever made as well, so that's the other plus. RELAXED GUITAR MUSIC Stone Soup, uh, turns up at events that are run or, um, promoted by community voluntary groups, and we sell the food, and we share the profit. We do real fruit ice creams now, which has been a big success. Nachos and soup as well, um, or whatever we can do to help somebody that's, uh, raising money. There is some soup there if you like. That's` um. It's a Thai with a little bit of coconut milk. Otherwise nachos ` you're next in the queue for nachos. Hold that spot. < Enjoy. I think the needs of our community, I think there` there's certainly poverty. Our older population too, there's, um, quite a bit of loneliness and social isolation. I think the essence of it is ` the Stone Soup story is ` that the traveller actually reveals to people that the wealth of, um` the wealth there is in sharing. Thank you, Carol. It's a pleasure, Katie. Thank you, darling. Really the message is community at its best. Yeah, community at its best. Yeah. People looking out for people. I was born here in 1949. TRANQUIL MUSIC My father was a` a minister, an Anglican minister. So he was the minister for the village. This keeps drawing me back, and while I don't physically live in the village, this is where my heart is living. It's my turangawaewae, which means my` it's my place to stand. And so, um, it just gives me a sense of, um, it is my home, and, uh` and I love coming back. I love coming back to this village. You can feel the mist of, um, Pohutu. Can you feel that? That's a blessing, that is, when you feel the mists of Pohutu. So Pohutu is playing at the moment. I was never a guide in the village, but when I was a young woman I did, um, photographic modelling, and I can remember coming here probably 50 years ago, and so they had me standing on the terraces by Pohutu Geyser while I did the big greeting, you know, stance. Postcards are still around today, and you can actually buy them as old postcards, so... (LAUGHS) It's hilarious, actually. STATELY MUSIC My first job was as a meter maid. ARCHIVE: Forgetful motorists are pandered to by colourful meter maids, through courtesy of Rotorua businessmen. It was proposed by the businessmen's association to have young women dressed in Maori costume walking around feeding` putting money into the meters. It was controversial because several of the kaumatua thought it was disrespectful to walk around the streets in Maori costume. We viewed it as being no different to performing on the stage, and every night there's a concert on some stage in Rotorua, because we're a tourist area. TRANQUIL MUSIC I'm also, sort of, a part-time artist, and I say part-time because I work full-time. So, this painting is actually based on, um, on Whakarewarewa, the village where I was born, where I come from, and it's based on my, um, ancestral... um, my kuia. My auntie Bella, guide Maggie, and my grandmother Rihi, or Ngapera, Waaka. Makereti Papakura was born in the 1800s and became an entrepreneur and a guide and an influential, um, member of our tribe, and she was asked to go to England for the Empire exhibition. So she went in 1911 and returned shortly afterwards, got married in England and stayed there for a number of years and enrolled at Oxford University. But she died very young. She was only 56 when she died, and that was in the 1930s. She became a huge inspiration to me in my art. Dad remembers when she came back to Whakarewarewa, to the village, and he said she looked like a grand dame because she'd come from England. I was just lying in a hotel in New York and` just lying there with my hands on my chest, and I thought, 'Gee, I can feel a lump.' I was really, really surprised when the doctor said to me, 'You've got breast cancer,' and I said, um, 'Are you sure you've got the right results?' And he said, 'Yes, I'm really sure.' So that was a huge, um, out of the blue experience, which was, um, I-I'm still reeling from that. And I know that I've done a lot of things to heal and I don't have cancer any more, but, gee, that was big. Well, my paintings certainly helped me when I had cancer, cos I went to the Cancer Lodge for radiotherapy. So I painted in my room, and I shut myself off and I painted, but that was really really good for me because it was like a meditation. I was actually just alone with myself, not thinking about anything else except the paint that was going on the canvas. My father had passed by that stage, so I painted his military number in there and remembered how he fought in the war and that it was important for me to fight. So the paintings and what I was thinking about actually helped me get through it. Have you been to one before, Jo? Good, because if you haven't been before, it can be a bit daunting, you know? Having breast cancer did change the focus of my career, because I realised that there was` there were other ways that I could support and help people, because of my experience. My job is to actually ring the people that` that need to come in for an appointment, and so they haven't responded to their letter, so I ring them. The next person that contacts them is me, and I invite them to` an invitation, and that's exactly how I ask them, 'I'd like to invite you to your next mammogram appointment.' And, um, most people respond really well, because it's something that they really want to do. It's just the steam. I'm very grateful. I'm` The journey through cancer has made me very grateful in terms of knowing that I've got more time to spend with my family. It's made me more humble. Three things you should be in this life ` you be kind, be kind, be kind. . TRANQUIL MUSIC TRANQUIL MUSIC CONTINUES Well, I'm a bird geek, always have been. I've been lucky enough to build my life around birds, and, uh, I have steered my life, uh, towards their conservation, and I'm driven. TRANQUIL MUSIC CONTINUES We are both part of the` the Wingspan journey, and we keep a number of birds of prey, uh, at the centre, and that includes hawks and falcons and owls, the three best birds. PLAYFUL MUSIC Debbie's bird Ozzy, that she flies daily, we consider the only bird` the only falcon we have with a sense of humour. He's very funny. He's named after Ozzy Osbourne ` a bit shaky on his feet with an attitude problem. < You want a head massage? LAUGHTER This is Fran, and she was found by a farmer in Morrinsville, and, uh, she couldn't fly, uh, found in a paddock under some, um, high-tension wires. We think she's an old bird, but she's a lovely old girl. Aren't you? Eh? Ozzy? > Oz? > What's this? There you go. Now you're a falconer. I think at Wingspan we are the only facility in the country where you can actually get that close and hold a threatened species. < How was that? Yay! So that's rather special. Pretty awesome. We've had something like 42,000 children that have held a falcon on the glove, and they won't forget that. Hmm. Often people suggest that our NZ birds are quite drab and colourless, but when you have a` Oh, now you're a pirate. (LAUGHS) RELAXED MUSIC We're just on the same page. We share everything. We've attended overseas falconry festivals. We discuss breeding and the propagation of birds of prey. We do fieldwork together, do research together. So, yeah, it's pretty special. We collect specimens which die, uh, that are handed in to us. They provide an incredible resource for students. We've had university students come in here and take DNA from them. Artists will use them. I can remember as a child I went into the library, and in the Encyclopedia Britannica I looked up falconry, and there was about four or five pages on falconry, and it's terrible` terrible to think back on it, but I actually tore them out, uh, because they were so detailed on training hawks. And the sad... (CHUCKLES) the sad thing is I still have them. Well, Fran, of course, is wearing a hood at the moment. Even though they` they can still hear what's going on, uh, they can't see, being such visual birds, and they just relax and calm down. It's` They've turned the lights off. So she's quite happy there. So, it's kind of nice that here we've got all this history of falconry around the world, 4000 years' worth, and here it is the 21st century and we're still using the... the same techniques, the same patterns. Noel and I've been, uh, friends for, uh, what, 35` 35 years or so. We talk about, uh, hawks and falcons during work and after work. Can get a bit monotonous, I think, for some people. A lot of people might not, uh, like driving in our car, because we've picked up roadkills off the side of the road to protect the hawks from coming down. We walk the talk; we` we walk the hawk. I` I just find birds of prey so all-consuming in their` in their natural perfection, and, um, I've always thought that if I was on my deathbed, if I could look into the eye` face of a hawk, the eye of a hawk or a falcon, um, and my partner, of course, I think that would be just the` the perfect way to go out, if that was the last thing I` the last thing I saw, that would be, um, I'd die a very happy man, I think. I have to say that training the birds now has the same thrill on every flight as that first time that a hawk landed on my glove. JAUNTY GUITAR MUSIC I was born in Rotorua Hospital, and` and then my parents took me down, as soon as I was born, down to St Michael's Church, which is on the lake, and I was baptised there, and all the significant things in my life and my siblings' life happened near the lake. JAUNTY GUITAR MUSIC CONTINUES Spotty is my 11�-year-old fox terrier, my faithful and loyal companion. JAUNTY GUITAR MUSIC CONTINUES Pablo Picasso said the statement that painting, for him, was really just a way of keeping a diary, and I could paraphrase that and say doll-making, for me, is simply a way of keeping a diary. I've probably made about nearly 2000 dolls. HINGES CREAK These dolls are made from... my mother's old tea towels and haberdashery. She's got a crocheted doily, and club sandwiches made from felt, which my daughter Julia made. Even her hair is made from the knotted scraps of a tea towel. And the old tea caddies, which we don't have any more, my mum had a whole collection of tea caddies. These are the Mammogram Slam, and I made them as a reminder to ourselves, and for fun, that it's really important for women to have regular breast cancer checks. Two of these, um, hang in the Murupara health surgery. And this one here's called Lamentation, and I made her after the trees were felled at Hamurana, the massive redwoods that I couldn't put my arms around, and when I drove past for the first time I just felt this incredible sense of grief, and I needed to come home and express that in some way. GENTLE GUITAR MUSIC My stall at the market is an opportunity to interact with people. And would you actually cut out the pieces and make the legs, sort of, in that shape? So, the` Yeah, this is one piece, and I would just cut it that shape. I'd probably start with the straight leg and then cut it in half and manipulate it to the right shape. < Ah. I don't have any facial features on the dolls, because I like people to bring themselves and to engage with and relate with the dolls. And I can see people really relating to the Dammit Dolls. Sometimes just the action of picking up a Dammit Doll with its grouchy, grumpy face is enough to dissipate the anger that people are feeling. I picked up this book in the library when I was helping a friend, and it was called Knit Your Own Boyfriend, and I just loved the title, so I picked it up. And I loved playing with that male form, of finding a new shape. Most of my female dolls are anatomically correct, and I just thought, yeah, the men, why not? After the series of five naked men, I thought I'd like to clothe them, and my daughter mentioned hobo chic, so I googled it to find out what it was really like, and it just seemed to be, like, pe` clothing people would find in an op shop, but that people pay hundreds of dollars for. I've lived here for 22 and a half years, and it's just beautiful and warm and multipurpose and rooms have changed, and it's home, and it's given my children a wonderful place to grow up. I think I'm quite an introverted person, and I've always looked for meaning behind things. And especially after my divorce, when I was really plunged into despair, I found that the stitching was really really healing. But I do give thanks to those dolls for helping me to give a voice to something that I couldn't actually speak to anyone else. In the quiet of the evening, I'll often put on a CD or some music, but I also really treasure silence, and I find that then I can hear their voice the clearest. . UPLIFTING MUSIC I live in Rotorua because it's a great place to live. Love life, I love my job, and I love my family. Got a great community around me and, uh` and great work colleagues. When I joined policing, um, I wasn't quite sure what had hit me, to be honest. It has definitely met all the challenges and some that I'd hoped for. Guess I wanted to try and make a change or make a difference. It's great. It's a job I love. My name is Kyle Lemon, I am a woodchopper and police officer by trade. BANJO STRUMS LIVELY MUSIC It's a pretty physically demanding sport. It's extremely explosive, and, uh, you` you blow all your energy in a very very short time. The underhand is my favourite, and, uh, that's the one that you` you stand on the log and, uh, you cut between your feet. Keep the weight on, Kyle, and a bit of speed. Keep it on. Pick it up. That was quick. Is that better? That was quick. A bit of speed then. Personally, I think to captain the NZ team has` has probably been the pinnacle, the highlight of my woodchopping career anyway, and to turn around and win a series against Australia, in their own backyard, you know, it` it doesn't get any better. (GRUNTS) Rusty Lemon, that's my father. Rusty's a nickname, his name is Ray, but everyone just calls him Rusty. That's dry as! He is 72 years old, and he's just getting` it might sound strange, but he's just getting back into chopping at 72 years old. He had a knee replacement a number of years ago, and so he sort of put the woodchopping on the back-burner for a little bit. He learned the woodchopping trade from his father, and that's been passed down, uh, on to me, and` and still today he's my probably best and worst critic. He's actually got hit by a tree when he was younger, and that busted him up quite bad, and then, um, and when he was a little bit older, he, uh` he got a head knock, and, uh, he had to learn to` to do everything again. He had to learn to walk, talk, feed himself, everything from scratch again. So, um, and that was` he was just at the peak of his woodchopping career at that` at that particular time. It's a special relationship between Dad and I. I still recall going out as a kid and watching him train, um, and train hard too. Um, and I remember my pop also being present, and he was Dad's coach, and he passed all his knowledge on to Dad. And that's been passed on to me, and I'm doing the same, passing it on to my young fella Brathen. As soon as he was crawling, he'd drag this plastic axe around with him. He's 7 years old now, turning 8 shortly, and, uh` and he won his first Boys Chop a few months ago, so he's progressed quite well. So, Brathen wears some mesh socks, and it's made of the butcher glove-type material, so if he was to have a mishap, the chain mail will stop the axe from cutting him. OK, mate, when you're ready. Nice and hard. He's got a very natural style on him. He follows instructions very very well, and for 7 years old, he thinks` he thinks really really well. I think when people see Brathen, they're wowed by what they see. I think people are pretty surprised, a) that he's allowed to play with an axe, but b) what he can do with it and the fact that he's got so much control over, uh, something that can be quite dangerous in the wrong hands. He's a pretty stubborn little character, and his determination is something like` you don't see too often in a` in a young fella. CHEERING, APPLAUSE RELAXED MUSIC We're probably viewed as those people who fly kites down by the lakefront. BOTH LAUGH RELAXED MUSIC I'm absolutely hopeless at sport, and it's something that I can do outside that I'm good at and I'm not sitting on the couch. We've flown kites in France. We flew near Cape Town, a place called Muizenberg. Australia a number of times. Whoa! I think we've made about 150 kites over the last 25 years. I love the shimmer of` on the tail of the organza. They get such a great reaction from the children. They see these kites and say, 'Wow.' Pretty. Ooh, look at the big one. Often people don't like talking to strangers or maybe they do like it, but they feel a little bit shy. Somehow, if you've got a kite in your hand, that barrier is broken down. The colour and the movement just attracts people, and it's not uncommon for us to have people just turn up and sit there for several hours just to watch. And then when you fly them, you make so many children and kids happy, so it's... Yeah, it can become a passion. Here comes Elvis. < There he goes. The one that's going to lie on top of her for eternity. (GIGGLES) Being a woodchopper, I've never run short of wood too often, and that definitely keeps the wife happy at wintertime. If you decide you're old, you're knackered. You're never old; you're only ever older. We'll scratch the same as the birds do. Yeah, we bob our heads. Yeah. I'm absolutely dedicated to making sure that people know that this place is awesome. I know it is, and I think everyone else needs to know as well.