Robert | Mangapakeha, Wairarapa

“We’ve got good neighbours out where we are, and we just love the area. I think we’ve got to get a bit closer to each other in the broader sense. I’m hearing there is a lot of that happening already.

There’s exciting things happening in the schools and in the community. Just recently the local farmers got a big collection of stock-food and trucked it up to Hawke’s Bay to help the farmers that haven’t had any rain for several months, and I just talked to my neighbour this morning, and he knew the people that organised this and he said, ‘if I’d known I’d have donated something.’ And I’d thought the same. I haven’t got anything I could donate, but I would have given them $100 or so to send up with them, but there’s going to be another chance to do that.

They’ve had a drought since almost September last year. Hardly any rain, and they’re running out of food for their stock and up until now, they couldn’t sell their stock, because there was no provision for sales and they were losing condition. So, they weren’t worth much and there’s a big loss to them there, and they’re just trying to keep them alive. I hope there’s going to be some rain so we can get some grass to grow. 

We’re just on the edge of it. We’ve only got a small lifestyle block, but we’ve got farmers all round us. I had a farming background when I was young and I’d sort of always wanted a bit of dirt, and five years ago we came over here and found a piece of dirt, and we’ve got to know a lot of neighbours here. 

It doesn’t cost you much to be kind to somebody. Give somebody a minute or five minutes or do something for them, whether it’s just open a gate, or open a door, or help them down some steps or something like that. There’s people out there like ambulance drivers and that. They’re just doing that all the time. My wife is actually a nurse, and she’s involved with them a lot, and it’s just about being nice to people. 

I was born up North. Sort of grew up in the King Country farming-wise. Got into the agricultural contracting game, and then into the construction world. I worked on big projects like the gas lines and the power schemes, and so on, operating machinery for years, and a bit of forestry work, and then I got into middle management and slowed up a wee bit. Now I’ve bought a bit of dirt and I’m working hard again. 

Family is important. One of our boys is caught up in England. He can’t get out of London. He was in America when the plague hit over there, and my wife got hold of him and said, get back to England at least. He wasn’t going back to London, because it’s quite bad in London. He was working in London itself, and he’s staying with his girlfriend’s family down in Devon. So, he’s sort of away from the contamination side of it.  But I don’t think he wants to come back to another winter here at the moment.”