Editorial: Visitor from Hawke's Bay brings smiles

I know what it's like to be a visitor from Hawke's Bay and it is quite a warm feeling.

Some months ago Hawke's Bay Tourism were kind enough to give me one of their "Visitor from Hawke's Bay" T-shirts, a clever promotion using people from Hawke's Bay to market our region when travelling.

They have a Facebook page with photos of Hawke's Bay locals wearing the Visitor from Hawke's Bay T-shirts at various locations around the world.

The campaign is a tongue-in-cheek play on an old Metro magazine line from its Felicity Ferret Auckland society gossip pages of the 80s. Anyone who was unidentifiable or simply not deemed important enough for the photographer to take a note of his or her name was labelled "a visitor from Hawke's Bay".

It cast us as a bunch of folksy nobodies but, hey, the Ferret is long-since dead and she at least left us with a great line for a tourism promotion.

Sadly for me, I haven't had the chance to model my Visitor from Hawke's Bay T-shirt up the Eiffel Tower or beside the Statue of Liberty. I did, however, get to wear it at Hutt Hospital on Tuesday.

My wife Andrea and I were there for a small operation needed by our 8-month-old Benjamin. While we waited (there is always so much waiting at hospitals) I wandered off to get us a coffee.

They do good coffee at Hutt Hospital so there was a small crowd in the cafe when I lined up for a flat white and a cappuccino. And then I heard a laugh and a yell ... "I love that T-shirt".

A very friendly woman, a hospital staffer I think, rushed over to my side.

"Where did you get that cool T-shirt? I love Hawke's Bay. I want to move to Hawke's Bay but my husband won't let us," she declared.

We had a good chat about the virtues of Hawke's Bay as a place to holiday and to live. She thought she might order a T-shirt from the Hawke's Bay Tourism Facebook page.

I felt quite special. Warm inside. A visitor from Hawke's Bay.