81-Y-OLD KEEN TO BUILD NEW ‘TAJ MAHAL’
Cutting-edge technology galvanises retirement village residents in new building projects
Steve Edwards has done a thing or two in his 81 years – he’s been an optician, a boat builder, a car racer, a glider pilot, a powered plane pilot, a motor mechanic and a US Air Force employee.
Oh, and he won a battle with cancer and now is a greenhouse builder, working on a project he jokingly dubs “the Taj Mahal”.
The greenhouse is the focal point of a project for Edwards and about 20 other residents of Metlifecare’s Highlands retirement village in Highland Park. They plan to build it using stateof-the-art new-age technology like CNC cutting (computer numerical control) where the bones of the greenhouse are plotted on computer and then used to make precise cuttings of the greenhouse materials so they can be easily and quickly assembled.
It is a sister project to that at Metlifecare’s The Orchards village in Glenfield, where residents using 3-D printers will make cookie cutters in the image of family, friends or celebrities – with cookies then produced and consumed.
The projects have been set up by Metlifecare to demonstrate retirement villages are more than “rest homes” – and are peopled by inquiring and committed people with busy lifestyles.
Edwards certainly fits the bill. Since he was delivered by Dr Eric Roy Lange – the father of former Prime Minister David Lange – Edwards has packed a powerful amount into his life.
So why not sit back and view life from the perspective of someone who, if he hasn’t quite seen it all, has seen an awful lot?
“Well, I like anything to do with hands-on stuff,” he says. “But the technology has moved on so quickly that it is, frankly, mind-boggling. I want to see how it can be done these days, especially with things like CNC cutting and 3-D printers.
“At the moment, all I can do with computers is email and reading the Lotto results.”
His curiosity, even at 81, is also piqued because of his brother’s experience. A qualified architect, his brother walked away from the industry because of the advent of CAD (computer-assisted design) technology.
“I didn’t want to be like that; I want to learn about it,” he says.
His eagerness to learn is proof of concept for the Maker Movement, the blanket term for the worldwide convergence of traditional do-it-yourself fans, artisans and electronics-savvy, new age DIYers.
The Maker Movement inspired the Metlifecare projects in the two villages; the company was aware of skills learned and practised by one generation – but which are often missing a generation or two later.
Edwards is in no doubt about how New Zealand’s generations of “No. 8 wire” devotees came about.
Once a car mechanic who worked at Marble Arch, London, Edwards says the original Kiwi mechanics did everything: “They’d do your generator, your king pins, your brakes, the differential – everything, all in one shop.
“But after the war, the specialists came in – and you had to go there for your gearbox and somewhere else for your brakes. So we all had to learn to do it ourselves or it would cost a bleeding fortune – and most of us didn’t have the money.”
Edwards certainly taught himself not just how to repair cars but also to race them. His beloved Triumph TR2 held the record for the fastest standing-start quarter mile at Pukekohe and he was a veteran of hill climbs, sprints and various car club meetings at the old Ardmore race track. He also remembers being driven down Dominion Road one Friday evening at 200 km/hr – not something he recommends but which he clearly has never forgotten.
He learned to pilot gliders (“I was good at getting them up in the air but not very good at keeping them there”) in the days when the gliders were launched by being towed into the air by a 1000-foot cable attached to a grunty old V8 car. He then studied and earned his pilot’s licence for powered planes.
On his OE (originally taken to boost his studies as an optician), he not only worked in London but signed on as a baggage handler for the US Air Force at a base in Wiesbaden, Germany. Returning to Auckland, he spent the next 30 years as an optician, based in Papatoetoe.
He had a clear sight of his career path but the urge to learn and build things never left him. He has built, owned and repaired several boats – spurred by his father’s epic backyard build of a 32-foot ketch when he was a kid during World War II.
“He built his own boat to escape the Japanese,” says Edwards. “We had a rented house in Kohimarama then and in those days talk was rife about a possible invasion – and that was his plan. If the Japanese came, we’d sail off.”
The greenhouse project carries nothing like the same urgency as his dad’s boat but, at 81, Steve Edwards is still wanting to know and learn.
“The projects have been set up by Metlifecare to demonstrate retirement villages are more than “rest homes” – and are peopled by inquiring and committed people with busy lifestyles.”