He received radio training in 1967, and his first job was at 2XA, later 2ZW, in Wanganui.
One morning in April 1968, as he was walking to work, corrugated iron from the roof of the Regent Theatre was flying through the air like pieces of paper. It was the day the Wahine hit rocks in Wellington harbour, and his radio station was one of the few still broadcasting through the storm.
He ditched the morning's advertising agenda and kept talking, keeping people informed about felled trees and closed roads. He expected to be told off by his boss, Paddy O'Donnell, next day, but was congratulated instead.
In 1969 he went to Perth to work in commercial radio. He didn't like it and went to the ABC and television instead. Returning to New Zealand he worked for public radio in Wellington for 22 years.
A keen conservationist, the bird calls before the news were his idea. He championed efforts to bring the Chatham Islands black robin back from the brink of extinction, and fell foul of then Prime Minister Robert Muldoon in the process.
He was given a Queen's Service Medal (QSM) for services to broadcasting and conservation.
Making conservation documentaries was one of the favourite tasks of his working life. He left the NZBC during Sharon Crosbie's time, when funding cuts made that more difficult.
Returning to Australia, he found cutbacks were happening in public radio there too. He spent the rest of his working years teaching broadcasting in Brisbane, before retiring to an island in Moreton Bay.
Now back in Wanganui, he's building a new life for himself, and moving his "huge" library into his rented flat. He's a published poet and likes to write while gazing at the Whanganui River from the Red Lion Inn. He's joined the Returned Services Association and is keen to search out the graves of American Civil War soldiers.
There's one he knows of in Christchurch, and one in Karori.
"A lot lie in unmarked graves, and we call them the forgotten veterans."
His sympathies are mainly with the southern states in that war.
"So many of the stories of the war have been twisted over the years to make it a one-sided war to free slaves. I try to correct that and put it into its proper perspective," he said.