He fondly remembers his early adventures around town long before his impressive career.
He liked to run away as a child – he found it “quite exciting” – and would “explore the swamps near the airfield”.
One of his most memorable adventures around Gisborne was his determined hunt for “a pot of gold”.
“We were coming back from the Gisborne showgrounds, and there was a rainbow over towards the airfield. I started raving on about the pot of gold that was buried at the end of the rainbow, and my sister’s boyfriend said it was a load of rubbish, and so that inspired me to run away – must have worried my parents horribly.”
Dingle didn’t make it too far.
“I remember wading around in the swamp down by the airfield. [I] found a bucket, but it had no gold in it … I was walking around with a bucket and some other bit of detritus when my parents finally found me."
As a boy, Dingle attended Gisborne Central School. He recalled the “stark memory” of a strong earthquake when he was about 8 years old. Dingle “watched the school sort of begin to fall down” from the basketball court.
The family moved to Manawatū, then Wellington, and it wasn’t until a teacher at Hutt Valley High School, Enid Bond, encouraged him to pursue art that he stepped away from being that shy Gisborne boy.
“It was the first time that I had been inspired to have confidence in myself, really. Shortly afterwards, I became captain of the school soccer team, so it had a bigger effect than just setting me on a path, but it was a big lesson for me, really, in terms of encouraging young people.”
Dingle’s longstanding commitment to youth development through the Graeme Dingle Foundation has earned him various awards and recognitions, most notably a knighthood in 2017.
“Our theme through the whole organisation is giving kids confidence … providing them with the confidence to achieve things,” Dingle said.
The foundation delivers youth development programmes at 130 schools across the country, although it is yet to reach Tairāwhiti.
“That’s kind of my dream ... to have all of those programmes in the East Coast area. It’s a matter of getting the money, I’m afraid.”
The foundation launched a fundraising initiative this week, Move Mountains for Youth.
“It’s both promoting what we do and getting people who are in a position to help young people to get involved in what we do,” Dingle said.
He has no plans on slowing down and hopes to expand the foundation’s programmes to the East Coast and Northland.
“I’m 80 now, a long time away from that scared boy in Gisborne,” he said. “I am very happy with my life. I am proud of my achievements. I work hard at raising funds for our foundation because we need to show that support to our young people now more than ever.”
