A town to fulfil an ex-soldier’s needs
Anumber of Land Rovers are starting to appear on Southland roads as more British people fall in love with rural towns. After 22 years in the British Armed Forces, including serving in the Gulf War and in Afghanistan, ex-solider Andy Pender has found a new home in Tuatapere.
While he worked mostly as a helicopter maintenance soldier he was trained for combat. If a helicopter went down in a war zone, Pender and other maintenance soldiers went to the wreckage, under armed guard, to dismantled and prepared it for an airlift recovery.
After he left the armed forces in 2014, he moved from Somerset, England, to Christchurch.
‘‘I always wanted to emigrate to Australia but a friend recommended New Zealand,’’ Pender says.
Holidays in New Zealand in 2012 and 2009 made him think about shifting to Christchurch as he had ex-army mates living there.
He first thought about moving to Tuatapere at Easter last year. The idea was triggered after watching a television news item comparing housing prices between Auckland and Ohai.
He then searched the internet for information on Ohai and other Southland towns.
Pender is semi-retired and was looking to relocate to a small town.
He travelled to Tuatapere and liked what he saw.
It had everything he wanted — a pub, medical centre, grocery store and petrol station.
‘‘I’d never heard of the place until I got on the internet,’’ Pender, 48, says.
In June last year, he bought a 110-year-old house in the town. It has a new roof and a modernised interior.
Relocating to western Southland has worked out well, Pender says.
‘‘I moved for a lifestyle change . . . I don’t miss the city life in the least.’’
He hopes to get permanent New Zealand residency in August.
‘‘I want to do conservation work to give something back to New Zealand for allowing me to stay here.’’
Southland district councillor George Harpur, of Tuatapere, has noticed about 15 to 20 people from outside the province moving to the town in the past three or four years.
Harpur has also seen a similar trend in other small towns in Southland. He thought a change in lifestyle was one reason behind their move.
‘‘They seem to be quite enjoying our climate and lifestyle,’’ Harpur says.
‘‘They can sell up in the bigger centres and buy a very good home in Tuatapere for $200,000.’’
Pender owns three Land Rovers, with two built from scratch and the other formerly used by New Zealand Defence Force.
One of his hobbies is making home brew — stouts and porters.
His 22 years in the armed forces taught him a host of skills, with important ones being time management, leadership, self motivation and how to motivate people.
‘‘I always wanted to join the army, right back when I was a wee boy.’’
He was 17 when he signed on as an apprentice tradesman in Berkshire in 1986.
He studied to be an army aircraft technician servicing and maintaining helicopters and light fixed wing planes.
Two years later he was posted to a school of aeronautical engineering in Middle Wallop, Hampshire, for more training on servicing Lynx and Gazelle helicopters.
He was made a lance-corporal at the end of that training. ‘‘My pay doubled overnight.’’ He did a four-month tour of Northern Ireland in support of the Royal Ulster Constabulary combating terrorism. The constabulary was the police in Northern Ireland from 1921 to 2001.
Pender had three months at the first Gulf War in 1990, initially based at the port of Al Jubal in Saudi Arabia.
His troop moved into Iraq and were about 40 kilometres from the front line.
‘‘We saw a lot of burned out vehicles. Whilst waiting to deploy into the desert for the build up to the war, Al Jubal received a scud attack . . . the missile being intercepted above us by an American patriot missile.’’
He also served in Cyprus, Afghanistan, South America, Kosovo, Norway, Germany and Australia.
Pender went to South America to support the army’s jungle training school there in early 2002. Afterwards, he had six months in Kosovo in a support role to the United Nations’ peace keeping mission.
In early 2009, Pender was in Afghanistan maintaining Lynx helicopters.
A year later, he was deployed to Norway in support of the 3 Commando Brigade Royal Marines which was were carrying out arctic warfare training in temperatures down to minus 30degC.
‘‘At that temperature, all training stops for safety reasons.’’