On Friday 18 March Aaron hosted a memorial interview series on the Morning Show to remember the contributions that Clint Baddeley made to the community of Raglan and beyond.
(Listen to the full interviews below or read the transcripts located underneath the audio player: )
Mayor Allan Sanson on Clint’s work on Waikato District Council
Aaron: So we're here to talk about Clint Baddeley. Did you guys turn up as new councilors at the same time?
Mayor Allan Sanson: Well, no. I came into council in 2001 and Clint came in during 2004. So I'd done one triennial, or three year term, prior to Clint's arrival.
Aaron: So Waikato District Council at the time was probably known to have been more on the conservative side of things. When Clint came in, he probably had a reputation as a former unionist. What were you guys expecting from him?
Mayor Allan Sanson: I didn't know Clint. When there are new candidates standing and you're standing again, you sort of make it your business to try and find out the background of these people and where they come from.
I had heard positive reports about Clint, though, being a fair person and wanting to just try and do the best for the people he was representing in the CTU. So I've always had a very open mind to people. It doesn't matter what political flavour they may come from. I suppose it's fair to say that Clint came from the left. I probably come from the centre right but that never stopped us from being good friends and good work colleagues and working together. We used to have a bit of banter with one another around central government election times and that sort of thing. But it never, ever became an issue for us.
Aaron: One of the reasons I wanted to talk to you is because we know Clint over here and we sort of see what he does over here. But you have the perspective of him working in council with a whole bunch of other councilors. How effective do you think he was as a councilor?
Mayor Allan Sanson: Clint was very, very effective. Clint was somebody who we all respected because he was someone who you would listen to. He's one of those people who actually brought different dimensions to the debate and that's always good because otherwise we're all just the same flavour and that's not necessarily the best for the ratepayers.
Clint would quite often bring a different perspective. Of course he came from an urban environment when he first came in, I think it was the council that was made up predominantly of farmers and butchers, and that was the makeup of the council until Clint came along.
He was a strong advocate not only for Raglan but for Waikato at large. He was as passionate about the Waikato district as I was. He was incredibly easy to work with and as somebody I hold an extremely high regard for his ability to actually gel groups together, but more importantly bringing new ideas to the table.
Aaron: And he became head of the Strategy and Finance Committee. I think that was a new committee that started.
Mayor Allan Sanson: Look when a mayor comes in at each triennial, he basically sets the structure for how he wants committees to work and what those committees are. When I came in at 2010, Clint and I both stood for the mayoralty and after I won, Clint still stayed on as a councilor, much to his surprise.
It did shock him when I got him into the office a few days after the election and asked him to actually take this role. It shocked him that I would actually give him a very senior role within the council.
I just said, look mate, we might have stood for the same position, but at the end of the day, I value your ability as a person and as a leader to actually lead us. What I want you to do is take on a new structure I'm creating, (which was to use your strategic thinking and put that alongside the finance portfolio).
That's where it all came together at that particular point, when we had some rationalisation within the organisation around the number of committees and what they would actually be qualified to act on behalf of.
Aaron: So talk about running against him for mayor. I guess it is quite hard for someone in Raglan to do well and what was primarily a rural council at that time. How did he go as someone competing against you?
Mayor Allan Sanson: The interesting thing is when you put your hand up for the mayoralty, you still have to work together.
Peter Harris was retiring. Clint indicated early that he was going to stand, quite rightly so. He was deputy mayor at that particular time. So he decided he was going to stand. I had a number of backers that wanted me to stand as well. That took a bit of time for me to figure out whether I was or not. And in the end, we both stood together.
I've got to say all the way through that Clint was incredibly professional in his approach to how we would work together, even though we were coming from standing for the same position and right through the campaigning process too.
There was no sniping, no digging at one another, which can happen in politics sometimes. It was really, really professional and well done. And I think that made it easy for him and I to work with after the election. The fact that we hadn't taken pot shots at one another and done that sort of activity, which is not good. The public doesn't want to see that, and I think it just reinforced how good a person he was.
Aaron: So you've been through a few mayoral elections now. I guess it didn't always work out that way.
Mayor Allan Sanson: It's fair to say that probably the preceding one wasn't as easy. Well I won't say it was as easy, but wasn't as nice to deal with some of the opponents. They were taking pot shots and sniping at me and telling me what a poor job we were doing and all sorts of things like that, which can be quite common in politics.
But generally the public don't particularly like that sort of thing. They're looking for somebody that actually stands above that rubbish and that's something that Clint always did. He never got down into the mud, as we call it. He stayed above it and held the moral high ground.
Aaron: Now, I used to interview Clint a lot like every fortnight while he was councilor and he would almost never bag the staff at council unless something had gone very, very badly wrong. Was this approach appreciated by the staff?
Mayor Allan Sanson: That’s one thing you never do and Clint was very good at not doing that. He was very, very mindful of the staff because the council staff can't defend themselves against the public. It's up to the politicians to defend them where they require defense.
It's not to say that staff get things right every time, but there's no point in actually bagging them. Clint had a strong feeling that you should never, ever bag staff. If you've got some issue with staff, you go to the CEO or the group manager who the particular staff member worked on and actually talk to them and get them to deal with the issue. You don't do that sort of thing in public to staff who can't defend themselves.
Aaron: There's a bit of an appetite generally I find for bagging council staff. I guess they're an easy target. And like you say, they can't defend themselves.
Mayor Allan Sanson: It still annoys me to this day and one of the things that I'd deal with is making sure our staff feel safe and secure. Staff can end up in a situation, whether it be a public meeting or something like that, where it could be a bit volatile or there can be some volatile people in the room who start attacking staff. I've always said to my politicians, it's your job to stand up and stop that straight away because those staff can't defend themselves.
It's important that you actually look after them because if you don't protect your staff, what happens is staff say, “Why the hell do I do this?” and they leave. It's hard enough to get staff as it is without them feeling like they've been chucked under the bus or not defended by their own politicians.
Aaron: I know that you've stayed in touch with Clint. I remember you were out here last year to open the Parklets and you disappeared at one point and I realised you were in the cafe next to us having a coffee with Clint. So you definitely stayed in touch with him, didn't you?
Mayor Allan Sanson: I did and I offered support. There was probably two or three of us that actually offered a lot of support to Clint through his illness. And also when Jackie became ill. I was always there for Clint and I always say I’m only ever a phone call away whether you need help or you need a ride, you need anything. You just ring me.
Gordon Chesterman was another one, and one of my councilors, Janet Gibb, also stayed closely in touch with. Between the three of us we were there to support Clint and Jackie because he meant something to us and we wanted to support them and help them with the situation he found himself in.
Aaron: It's been a hard time for him. I think his son, Jamie, said to me the other day that he had actually been given six months initially, but he extended that quite a bit.
Mayor Allan Sanson: He extended it a lot because it was a real shock when he told me what he was facing. When that sort of thing comes to you out of the blue, and Clint was only five years older than me, it sort of shocked me that he found himself in that demise.
I still to this day, remember Clint saying, “I never, ever expected to spend the end of my life having to fight this”. He said, “I thought I had many, many years left.”
It's pretty hard when you have to talk to somebody I'd call a good friend and have to battle that sort of thing.
Aaron: While I've got you here, our councilor Lisa Thomson said you are retiring at the end of this term.
Mayor Allan Sanson: I've decided not to stand. I've done four terms. It'll be 12 years as mayor and 21 years in local government. I think I've done my stint. I would say it nearly equates to a third of my life in local government. I thoroughly enjoy the job I do. I thoroughly enjoy the people. There are some challenging times sometimes, but I'm always up for a challenge.
It sort of gets to a point where my wife and I want to do more things with our family. We've got families scattered around New Zealand and it's hard in this role to actually find time to go and spend time with those that don't necessarily live close to you. I've got grandkids around the place as well and I love spending time with the grandkids these days. I can't do that while I'm doing the mayoralty. One of the problems is that my kids have said to me for a long time, “You're so hard to pin down”. In actual fact, my kids have to make an appointment in my diary to get the old man to come to dinner. Sometimes that's how bad it is, right? I just thought, what's important to me at this stage of my life.
I think my family and friends and getting back to the land, I think these things are probably one of the most important things for me at the moment going forward.
Aaron: Thank you for your time this morning, Alan. Do you have any just last thoughts about Clint that you might want to share with people?
Mayor Allan Sanson: All I would say is if any of Clint's family are listening - and I haven't met Clint's son or daughter - but he used to speak quite affectionately about them and for Jackie as well: I hope the pain eases over time. A loss is a loss and he’ll never be forgotten. I think it’s a huge loss to the community of Raglan and to the Waikato at large.
Gordon Chesterman on the MNZM award and working with Clint on the Wintec Board
Aaron: For people who know your name - people might be going that name rings a bell. Can you just give us an introduction?
Gordon Chesterman: I’m out of the public limelight now but I was deputy mayor of Hamilton for six years under Mayor Julia Hardaker; on the council for 12 years, and before that I was chairman of Wintec, on the hospital board, and then before that I had a public relations, advertising and marketing business for 15 years in Hamilton.
Aaron: It was at Wintec, that's where you met Clint, I believe.
Gordon Chesterman: That's right. We've had a long association. I was chair, Clint was deputy chair. In all the time that we worked together on Wintec, there was never an argument, never a disagreement.
Clint had a couple of focuses at Wintec. One was dealing with building assets. As chair of that committee as well as being deputy chair of Wintec. He had a real focus on the quality of our trades training for vocational training. I knew I could just rely on Clint to make sure that the outcome at Wintec was absolutely the best for all those young apprentices, the people doing block courses and so on at Wintec. At the end of the day, he drove our $100 million Campus Redevelopment program as chair of building, and that included upgrading all of the trades area - which I think even today would be regarded as among the best in New Zealand.
Aaron: You were the person who organised the nomination for his MNZM, which he was awarded not that long ago. What motivated you to do that?
Gordon Chesterman: Well, Clint was such a modest man. He was what I'd call a quiet achiever. He just got on and did the job. That was true, particularly in his trade union years.
I remember I was on the board of Hamilton International Airport when it was international and represented the union that represented the workers at the airport. I remember the chief executive, the late Barry O'Connell, saying to me, “Look, we're dealing with the union.”
I'm thinking, oh, God, is this going to be; “We want a 54% increase.” He said, “No, I'm dealing with one of the best trade union delegates or advocates that I've ever dealt with. He's fair and he's reasonable and he's about equality.”
The relationship the airport had with Clint was first class. Even though Clint was there representing the rights and opportunities for the workers. He did so in a way that had a meaningful outcome for that group of employees.
Aaron: You asked people for letters of support for the MNZM nomination. How many people did you talk to through that?
Gordon Chesterman: Well, we had 20 people that submitted letters of support. Including yourself representing Raglan Community Radio. That was an important contribution on its own. Clint not only loved Raglan, but he loved Raglan Radio. He had his music show on for I don't know, was it 23 or 24 years? A very long time, the longest.
Aaron: Longest running DJ we've ever had.
Gordon Chesterman: Probably the longest running DJ in New Zealand.
Aaron: Could be.
Gordon Chesterman: I know how much he loved doing that show because we often talked about it. Occasionally I'd come over to Raglan for lunch with Clint and that was always one of the topics we’d chat about how much he enjoyed communicating with Raglan - including having the opportunity of saying a few political things when he thought they should be said.
The others were all from a wide range of backgrounds relating to association with trade unions. Trust Waikato, Wintec, Māori support Waikato District Council, former MPs and current MPs.
Clint was well liked across a very wide sector and it's as though he sort of had two lives. He had a life that was, well, three lives, really; a community life in Raglan as the community man, volunteer ambulance driver and he was part of a group that started organising junior soccer in Raglan.
Just as an aside, I heard at Clint’s gathering out at Rock-it on Wainui Rd that when they started off there were about four [2] teams. Today there are something like 22 teams of kids playing soccer, which is fantastic.
Clint then moved from the community role into a role with the trade union movement after being a fitter and turner at Horotiu and then later in life, he became involved in governance. Now the remarkable thing is that Clint didn't get School C, he didn't get university entrance, and it was a time when that didn't matter.
Gordon Chesterman: There was full employment. You could go out and get a job. But Clint has a high level of intelligence and commitment. He was responsible at Wintec for $100 million building program. He was a government appointed chair of the Waikato Community Trust with assets of $400 million. He was in big business if you like, and carried out the job fantastically until he got ill in about 2016. This was the side of things that I'm not sure many people and Raglan appreciated.
They knew about his, Waikato District Council or Deputy Mayor and Chair of Finance and Audit, but perhaps not so much about his important role on Wintec and dealing with Tainui over the river settlement, the Waikato Community Trust. He even went off to India in 2006 to help build a home for Habitat for Humanity.
Back in 2006, he was also selected by the New Zealand China Friendship Society for a leader’s tour of China. That's a very prestigious honour to be invited over to have a look at how China worked. That's a quick wrap up of a man's magnificent life and of course, father, brother, husband, all of those other things that made the man who he was.
Aaron: So you mentioned the Tainui River settlement and I think they were setting up the Waikato River Authority? Is that what he was part of? Because I wasn't even aware of that at all until this week.
Gordon Chesterman: Well Clint was appointed by the government in 2007 to what was known as the Guardians Establishment Committee. This was prior to setting up the Waikato River Authority, which he wasn't involved with, but that was part of the important Waikato Tainui River settlement. Clint was involved for a couple of years as part of his role at Waikato District Council in dealing with getting an outcome that was satisfactory to both Tainui and the various councils that were contiguous on the river.
Aaron: So a lot of things, too many to count for us over here. You were talking to me the other day about your personal relationship with Clint. You found out you had quite a lot in common once you got to know each other.
Gordon Chesterman: You go to board meetings and that's all you talk. But we used to get together. We'd have lunch either in Hamilton or in Raglan. Later times I always came over to Raglan because of Clint's illness. But the funny thing is, we both didn't get School C, or UE, which I smile about. We both rode motorcycles. We were both involved with soccer. I used to have a radio show on what was then Radio Waikato and Clint had his show. I was chair of the Journalists Union years ago and Clint was involved in the union movement. So we had this sort of strange, coincidental background that was a match. He and I got on very well, so I guess it was a mixing of personalities.
On the last occasions that Clint and I met, he was always talking about how proud he was of his family, of his wife Jackie, his two children, Sarah and Jamie. They've had great success in the commercial world. The thing is, if Clint was a young man today, he would be at university, he would be getting a high qualification and he probably would be in the corporate world doing the things that he did well with integrity and equality and fairness.
But that was the man he was in his early teens and early twenties, some of these academic things weren't particularly important to us. Whereas today we all tell our children whether they’re our adult children or not, that they've got to get an education which is critical. It was pleasing to see Clint with that sort of background, advocating for tertiary education at the level that he did and making a difference to - in particular, vocational training.
Aaron: And in fact, did he get an honorary degree from Wintec? I'm struggling to remember the details.
Gordon Chesterman: Clint has received a couple of honours. Yes, he received an honorary fellowship from Wintec, which I attended and his family attended. That's the highest honorary academic offer that Wintec can make. Underneath, the fellowship becomes an honorary master's or an honorary bachelor's degree. So there aren't a large number of fellows of Wintec, but that was an honour that he was absolutely thrilled to receive.
Then some years probably even before you were on the radio station, he received a Life Membership of Raglan Community Radio and was chair of it, served on the committee and that was very precious to him as well. And of course he received a life membership of the Engineering Printers and Manufacturing Union, which is now called Etu. That's a big honor because again, not many people receive that.
Of course, the honor that he was really thrilled about was receiving the member of the New Zealand Order of Merit and he was delighted to embrace that. I thought initially he might have been a bit reluctant, from a trade union Labor government perspective. But he embraced it. When he won his honor and it was publicised, I did give him a copy of the nomination so he could see the 20 people that supported the nomination and including the letters. I've never seen a man so emotional about reading what people said about him and these are genuine, heartfelt comments that people made about Clint because they loved him.
Aaron: I remember I interviewed him after he was awarded the MNZM and he just put it like; some people had said some very nice things about him, which he appreciated.
Gordon Chesterman: That's what's nice about the honors. There are those that say the honors should cease and they did for a small period. I think they are really worthwhile. They do recognise people in the community that have made contributions.
While Clint had high profile positions at Wintec and Community Trust and so on, he was a typical community person that was honored by the government and the royal honor system and I'd be very sad to see that ever go. I think we do need knights and dames and people with what used to be called the MBEs and the OBEs. It is a wonderful emotional time for people whose work in the community is recognised.
Aaron: Gordon, it's been really good to talk to you this morning. I appreciate the time. I've got a couple of other people I want to catch up with before my show's over. So just any last thoughts you just wanted to leave us with, if you have any.
Gordon Chesterman: I just want to leave a Raglan message about how much Clint loved Raglan. You couldn't offer him $1 million to leave. He just loved it so much. And he loved being involved with the Raglan Radio and of course, the link with you as the boss of Raglan Community Radio, he really appreciated that. We have lost a very good man. Rest in peace Clint MNZM.
Peter Storey from RCB working with Clint on Raglan projects
Aaron: Peter became Raglan Community Board chair at the same time that Clint became Raglan Councilor. You're both sort of new guys in the roles together. Did you know Clint at all before that time?
Peter Storey: No, I didn't. I kind of knew who he was, but I'd never had a conversation with him.
Aaron: So you didn't have a lot of expectations about whether you could work together or anything like that?
Peter Storey: At that point in time? No. But after our first community board meeting, I guess we spent a bit of time at the pub chewing the fat and we sort of got to know each other.
Aaron: I remember him saying quite a few times that he took the role to get things done around Raglan because things hadn't sort of been getting done for a while. And you guys landed into a pretty big project right from the start, didn’t you?
Peter Storey: I guess both of us were motivated by the same thing, the fact that nothing had happened in Raglan and and looking around the Waikato district, there were lots of developments Ngaruawahia and Huntly and Raglan was just falling by the wayside.
So that was our joint motivation to put a hand up and say, hey, let's go and do something. And we got elected. Our first meeting I think was November, and before Christmas Clint and I had a meeting with engineers and had pushed the go button on the Bankart St redevelopment, which proved to be a very big, expensive project for the town.
Aaron: I think you were telling me yesterday you had to literally make the decision about whether that was going to happen or not with the council staff.
Peter Storey: Yeah, that's correct. Because of the changeover and the timing, council needed to know before Christmas so that the contractors could get organised and get ready to hit the ground running straight after Christmas - and they needed a decision.
Clint and I just sort of shrugged, looked at each other and said, well, let's go, why not? We drove over the hill to Hamilton together and we didn't realise at the time the authority that the roles gave us and it was like as we drove back thinking let's see how this goes. But it turned out very successfully.
Aaron: And you guys didn't just help with the decision. You were actually quite heavily involved with the process all the way through, weren't you?
Peter Storey: We had initially asked that we be involved in the weekly meetings so that we could see how it was going, because apparently they just change things as they go along because they find different issues and they need decisions.
Often those decisions have to go back to the councilor or the community board. So we said let us attend the meetings and we can make a decision on the fly. Council or council staff were supportive of that so it worked out very well. In fact, I'm sure to date, it's still the only roading project in Raglan that's come and well under budget.
Aaron: Yes the roading projects aren't known for coming in and under budget that often.
Peter Storey: No they had allocated a certain amount of money and basically we had to find other things to do with it. So next to the Raglan Radio Station, the partial car park to use up that extra money.
Aaron: I remember that perhaps Clint had been parking there when he was doing his radio show and he knew how slippery it was getting in over winter.
Peter Storey: Yeah. That was his contribution definitely.
Aaron: What’s another project that you guys managed to get happening that Clint was involved with? A project that was probably the biggest surprise that you thought you might not ever be able to do.
Peter Storey: Well, there were several.
Right in the early days, (I think it was when council staff were more patient with us novices) I had for years been keeping my ear to the ground and you hear grumblings and things around Nero St (what is now Wi Neera St). The local iwi had approached council several times since 1946 to change the name and it had always fallen on deaf ears. So Clint made representation to the council and surprisingly they agreed. We drove that and got that changed pretty much straight away, which was a big surprise. It was a surprise to the iwi as well. So we felt that was quite an achievement.
Aaron: And I know that Clint was really involved with getting the museum rebuilt. I remember him saying to me that some people thought it was a council project, but it was way more than that because the council didn't fund all of it. There had to be a lot of work done to get funding from elsewhere that I believe Clint was involved with.
Peter Storey: Yes it was basically you raise a dollar and get funding for two. So a two for one deal. We pushed Waikato District Council to sell off several of the paper roads in Raglan to help fund that, also to finish the recreation center in Cross Street.
They said they had no money for all these projects. And so we went around town, we found the paper roads which were never going to be used for anything and the council changed the titles and sold those. And that funding was used for those projects - again, driven by Clint.
Aaron: This might be a hard question but would you know what projects he was involved with in town that perhaps Clint was most proud of?
Peter Storey: Yeah, I don't know. The museum was always a biggie for him but there were so many. Obviously Bankart St. I made a wee bit of a list of things I could remember.
We did the original, or the last sewerage system upgrade, there was Xtreme Waste. I'm sure he felt that Xtreme Waste was one of his great achievements - the original six year contract for Xtreme Waste. The new footbridge, the museum, the industrial lands. We got council to agree to change designations for the industrial area in Te Uku, the first wharf upgrade.
One of the things Clint pushed very hard for was the new surf club. Getting that sorted and sealing the car park and things; the Manu Bay toilet block and changing rooms; and of course the banning of the dogs in the main street. That was one of the things he was really passionate about.
Aaron: Alright. That's since changed. I believe.
Peter Storey: It's since changed. He has talked about it changing as we sat down and had coffees and watched dogs wander by. Yeah.
Aaron: So for those projects wherever there's extra money required from the council, how hard is it to get council to spend extra money in your community?
Peter Storey: Well, it's very hard. And it’s all lobbying. That was Clint's forte because we have one councilor and at the time there were 13 councilors district wide and Clint was one of them.
You could never guarantee you could get a majority I guess is what I'm saying. So there were a lot of trade offs, I'll vote for this if you vote for that and so on. And Clint was clearly very good at that.
In the six years that we worked together, there were a lot of projects completed.
Subsequent to that, I don't think there's been so many because I guess council have sort of felt that because of Clint, you know, Raglan’s had enough, for the meantime anyway.
Aaron: Well, maybe we could start telling them it's been a while since we had enough.
Peter Storey: Yeah. It's time. It is definitely time.
Aaron: Talking to you yesterday, you were driving Clint to a lot of his medical appointments over the last couple of years. How was that experience?
Peter Storey: I think it was about 14 times we drove up and back to Auckland for specialist treatments and appointments and several times to Hamilton - I can't remember how many - maybe six or eight times.
Just for specialists, appointments and things. We talked a lot on our trips. A big focus on our trips was finding the next toilet stop. So if anyone wants to know where they all are between here and Auckland, I'm the man.
Clint and I were philosophically polar opposites. A bit like Allan Sanson and Clint, we had different political views. But it didn't stop us talking things through and nothing was taboo. He was very good at putting aside differences and trying to see the other point of view, which is great.
Aaron: I was very aware here at the station that he was very good at staying calm when everyone around them was losing their heads a little bit. I'd seen that literally happen a couple of times.
Peter Storey: Yeah. I think he always had an exit strategy I suppose. He was planning ahead. Any conversation, he kind of had the last word in his mind pretty much at the start of the conversation.
Aaron: What's your lasting memory of Clint and the work he did in the community?
Peter Storey: He was totally focused or fixated on Raglan, on the community. I don't think anybody could have done better in terms of negotiating deals with the Waikato District Council for our community. I look around and what has been achieved in town and Clint's hands are on it. I don't think there's anyone that could have done a better job, to be honest.
Aaron: Well, that's high praise, indeed Peter, thank you for your time this morning.
Andy White remembering Clint through the 70s 80s & 90s
Aaron: I've talked to people this morning who, like me, have known Clint mostly post 2000. But tell us, when did you first meet Clint?
Andy White: I first met Clint around about February 1978.
I struck up a good friendship with him and a few other guys in Raglan. I sort of came here in 1978 and they all made me feel welcome. We had a really good, tight knit group of friends Clint, Alan Dando and Brian Mace and Frank Turner and a few others.
Aaron: So you guys all had young families together, I guess.
Andy White: Yeah, I'm a bit later in my family to Clint and Alan. But certainly Clint and Alan had their children - I think Sarah was in Chris Dando’s class at school - and so they were quite actively involved in setting up sports for the kids. I naturally got dragged along being a friend. We had quite a bit to do with the soccer club when it first started and getting the field ready for them. I do remember having to drain all those fields, same as we had to do with the rugby field.
Clint was really a stalwart. Him and Bernie Brown were really pushing the soccer club, and there'll be a few others who I can't quite remember. They were certainly quite community minded in that way.
Aaron: Yeah, I think it was Butch Walters involved and John Beet - is it John?
Andy White: Butch and Dave Beet.
Andy White: Yeah. Dave was in town at that time, so possibly was. But I can't recall, unfortunately.
Aaron: And was Clint quite young when he got married?
Andy White: Yes, he was.I didn't meet him till ‘78, but I think he and Jackie struck up a friendship quite early and I don't think he was that old.
Aaron: I think they started together when they were 15. I think that's what we heard the other day, wasn't it?
Andy White: Yes, they did.
Aaron: What was Clint doing at that time? What was his job at that time?
Andy White: When I first met Clint, he was involved with AFCO. I remember him traveling to work on his motorbike and I was working in Raglan and then later on about during the eighties I took a job in Hamilton and he was still traveling to AFCO in those days. He was in the union there, but he was a boilermaker because I recall he made some barbeques for us and a few other things.
Aaron: Back in those days, would your group of mates have been surprised to hear that one day he might become deputy mayor and councilor and serve on all these boards?
Andy White: Yeah, we were surprised. But it wouldn't have been uncommon for him to be involved in anything to do with a union sort of organisation or a public organisation.
He had very, very strong views. He was very labour-orientated because we used to tease him about people like Rex Jones and all that, who Clint classed as his mates, who were leaders of the union in Wellington at that time.
He had very strong political views and was well read in terms of what was going on around the country. So it didn't surprise us greatly, but we didn't think that he would take that on so quickly. Because he served quite a few years in that respect.
Aaron: We've been talking a little bit this morning about his ability to stay calm when it's a stressful situation and to not let things get out of hand. But I'm just wondering if maybe it was a bit more fiery when he was younger about political issues.
Andy White: Well, he certainly was with us. We had quite a few heated debates. I do recall at the time that Brian Mace was going for social credit. It was around that time. Clint was definitely Labour. And of course Alan had been off the land so he was definitely national.
We had some fiery debates when we were traveling around. We used to go on a few trips together and it got to a point where we said, okay, politics stays out of it and religion stays out of it. Once we got those parameters right, there was never a problem.
We never had what we'd call an unfriendly argument. It was good, happy banter. But he was definitely fiery when it came to talking about the union and about the government.
Aaron: I've got the programme from the funeral the other day. It's just all the photos of Clint when he was younger that always intrigued me. A lot of long hair at one point.
Andy White: He's always had long hair. In fact, I think his hair didn't change much until he lost it with cancer. But he definitely always wore it long in his early days, I thought, it was one of the Bee Gees. Barry. Barry Gibb, I think it was.
Aaron: Barry Gibb impersonator.
Andy White: Yeah.
Aaron: And did he and Jackie and the family always live on the main road in Raglan?
Andy White: That's the only place they've ever lived in Raglan, as far as I'm aware. I do recall pulling out a wall to create an extra room the day his son basically left home. When Jamie left home, he converted the garage into part of his lounge, but he's very handy around the house. He did a lot of building, reclad the house and kept it up to a good standard. And he always loved living where he was. It was nice and handy to town for him.
Aaron: So was every property full along the main road at that point like this - we're talking 40 years ago aren't we?
Andy White: Yeah, we're talking a long time in 1978. No. Raglan, I suppose in those days Raglan had a population of about 1500. If I recall, when I first came through the town - the population was. A lot of transient people, but not as much infill housing as there is now, certainly.
Main Road was still a busy road, but it was not heavily populated. There were quite a few people who had still had batches. In fact when I first came to Raglan, most of the streets were metal. They weren't even sealed. Main Road was obviously, but places like Government Road, all of Raglan West, all those were unsealed.
Aaron: Were you aware that he was thinking of becoming a councilor or that people were asking him to do that.
Andy White: Oh yeah. I was aware he was looking at that field. He was disgruntled with what was happening around the town. He didn't think Raglan got enough representation and he wanted to do something about that.
Aaron: When you first met him, how was he different from the man we knew in later years?
Andy White: Well, obviously, before the children grew up we were all together quite often on a regular basis and always had a few parties. The town was quite a social town. It mixed with all the other communities like Waitetuna, Te Uku, Te Mata and there was always a ball going on or there was a function going for the netball or something like that.
We always had a good social life. And then of course, once the kids got to a stage where it was important to get embroiled in their sports, some of us went in different directions.
Some went to soccer and some were in rugby. But the codes, the codes still mixed when it came to things like maintenance around the place. I do recall helping with the drains at the soccer grounds, but also helping with the drains at rugby. So, you know, very community minded, that's for sure.
Aaron: Andy, what's your lasting thoughts or lasting memories? A memory of Clint?
Andy White: I think the thing that we enjoyed a lot was our trips away. We used to go at least once a year. We used to go away for a weekend. All the boys. And those were always memorable. There was always a bit of larrikin happening or a bit of fun - some of which I won't repeat.
We certainly enjoyed ourselves and the trips and had a good camaraderie in those things, really long, long lasting for us. But, you know, there's a whole lot of other things in between.
Aaron: Thank you for the brief chat this morning. Unfortunately, a bit brief, but I wanted to talk to a lot of people today. So I'm glad that you were available.
Andy White: Yep. New Zealand and Raglan have lost a really good guy.