Plenty to peruse in afterlife

Kevin Ball inside his newspaper-decorated coffin. Photo / Lynda Feringa

Veteran journalist Kevin Ball will not be short of a read as he one day wends his way to the afterlife.

Now retired as a scribe Kevin - who was a junior reporter at the Northern Advocate from 1960-1964 and then as reporter and chief sub between 1966 and 1977 - is a dedicated member of Henley Mens Shed in Masterton, and, looking for a project, struck on the idea of making his own coffin. He was not the first to do so as the Mens Shed has a coffin club and three others had beaten him to it but his coffin has a unique feature.

Almost the entire outside of his plywood final earthly resting place is covered in news stories he wrote during 30-odd years as a Wairarapa Times-Age journalist and specialist motoring writer.

Also included is the story he wrote for the Northern Advocate of the bus crash on the Brynderwyns on February 7, 1963, that killed 15.

The stories are glued on and covered with a coating of polyurethane although they will only have a short life once Kevin passes, as he is to be cremated.

Kevin is a cancer survivor having battled and beaten lung cancer many years ago but suffers from emphysema, " the journalists disease" from yesteryear, but for all that is not planning to use his handcrafted coffin anytime soon.

Wairarapa Times-Age copy makes up 90 per cent of the outside display. A few little gaps have been filled in using notes from travel diaries from overseas holidays he has taken with his wife Val and on one end there's a photograph Kevin took of a " gorgeous young bikini-clad girl which I photographed at the drags."

Kevin's fellow Mens Shed workers gave the decorated coffin a pass mark. One of the men who beat him to the punch making a coffin has it at home where he has put in book shelves while its true purpose is on-hold. Displaying his handiwork as a journalist was not the only reason Kevin decided to make his own coffin.

"I'm a miserable bugger and it costs thousands to buy a coffin, I made mine for $100."
To decorate the coffin meant thumbing through countless broadsheet news stories Kevin had penned over decades and he was careful to make a selection which he could enjoy on his final journey. During construction of the coffin Kevin occasionally tried it out for size and the finished product showed "I've actually got a bit of room to grow."