Mark | Ōamaru, Otago

“The whole of life is a learning process. I have done a lot of things that I think better of now. At the time they made a lot of sense, but they also made me who I am.

I didn’t do anything so stupid that I have suffered permanent, well actually, there are a couple of injuries, but anyway, none of them that are visible. I have all my fingers. But once upon a time I went to business school and I learned lots of useful things, but honestly, I think I could have learned them working. So, that’s a pretty basic one, but in the course of that I realised I’m good at this, but I’m not actually really into being a corporate sort of person. You might have guessed that from the way I look now. Once upon a time, I looked a little bit like Gordon Gekko, the tie, the slicked back hair and working in Auckland, and thinking about moving to London, but it was empty. So I kind of regret not the experiences and things that I learned from it, but the way of thinking, like are you being ruthless? I must live the best possible life ahead of plan. I found that’s not how it works. But I have done a lot of things I am proud of. I went off and studied history. I’ve become a doctor of history. I work here, when I’m gesturing, it’s Ōamaru. The historic precinct of Ōamaru. It’s a beautiful place with limestone buildings made by Victorian architects and Victorian masons. You can probably hear other sounds, but that’s because this street is full of life, even now. We have these buildings in a beautiful backdrop, and I mean, would I have had the opportunity to be here if I wasn’t someone who’d studied both history and business, because I’m running the, the historic precinct as its operation manager, now. So you don’t know where life will take you, and I found myself in a place I really like. 

I think it’s about resilience. I think a lot of people I’ve talked to this happened to them, you go through life with certain goals, and sometimes they don’t work out, but you try again and I think you find after you keep picking yourself back up, after you keep going through, and this will sound so cliché, but it really is about the journey. I know that’s so cheesy, but I have met people that I love when I didn’t expect to, in places that I was not intending to be. The whole of life is a learning experience, and I think what you’ve pointed out is, it’s not like you should be aimless or rudderless, but I think you’ve got to be willing to take what comes, and I think that it’s definitely been good for me.

This is the Victorian precinct of Ōamaru, sometimes known as the historic area, or Harbour/Tyne Street. It’s this beautiful little collection of buildings, and they make sense as a collection, because what’s left is the most complete Victorian streetscape in New Zealand, and quite probably the Southern Hemisphere. There are a few places in Latin America but here’s what we have in New Zealand. This Victorian vision was made and embodied in this built heritage that we have now. It’s written in stone. A lot of these were warehouses, but they don’t look like that because the ambition of the spirit of the time, of the people who built this town was magnificent. It was visionary and there was a lot of money at the time. Gold-rushes and food and all the rest of it, and frozen meats but what happened was these great buildings were built, then there were the various depressions and so-on. Ōamaru was never rich enough after that to knock the buildings down. You go to some parts of the world and those buildings, a lot of them were knocked down but they weren’t knocked down here. So, what we have now, after everyone’s gotten over the whole ‘let’s knock everything down and put up tilt-slab and big glass pyramids’, and what we have now is what’s left and I’m trying to combine a sense of the emotional maturity and resilience because these buildings, they’ve endured, and people now care about them, and they look after them, and that’s what I do. That’s my job, but it’s also what a lot of people in town are proud of. This is what Ōamaru’s face to the rest of the world is these beautiful Victorian buildings, but it’s not just that. It’s the life that goes on with these buildings as the backdrop and I’m proud to be part of it. I’ve spent four-and-a-half years of my life helping make it happen. Ōamaru’s been good to us.”