FEATURE: Horrie's got his own elixir of life

ROGER MORONEY
Horrie Robson calls it his home brew, but I reckon it's something else.
After spending a couple of hours with the cheerful and effervescent 96-year-old at his Napier home I reckon what he's been brewing up over the years is possibly the elixir of long life. And Horrie's grin made it clear he agreed.
I'd heard Horrie had just put down his 500th batch of home brew, and being partial to a cold ale on a warm day (any day for that matter) I gave him a call. But he quickly put me right.
"Oh no," he said before breaking into a chuckle.
"It's only the 499th."
I said I'd be around shortly. Horrie Robson is one of those remarkable people whose life would make for the sort of adventurous and colourful tale which would leave a reader breathless.
"I've done a few things," is how he puts it. "Things" which include linotype operator, cowboy, lineman, special police officer, bomb disposal specialist, trucky, fisheries manager, deer stalker, rabbit shooter, railways worker . . . oh, and home brewer.
He arrived in Napier in 1925, although the way Horrie put it (with a grin) was "I was enticed here by a girl".
He'd been living in Feilding after his family shifted there from Invercargill where he was born. Burt Munro, the legendary rider of The World's Fastest Indian, lived a couple of doors down.
Horrie was only six or seven when his dad died at the tragically young age of 28.
"He was a builder and the night carts were dumping their loads on a section next to where he was working. They reckoned he picked up a bug which killed him."
Horrie himself had a brush with death at an even earlier age.
He was only about 15 and had done a couple of years on the linotypes at the Feilding Star newspaper, with part of the job being to melt down the lead at the end of the day.
It was a job carried out in a room without ventilation and day after day he would breathe in the fumes, sometimes to the point of near collapse (no OSH in those days). He was taken to a doctor and told he'd be dead in three months if he carried on.
So that was that, although he didn't shrug off the effects of the poisoning until he was in his early 40s.
It also kept him from war duty, although he enlisted on the home front in Napier and went through bomb-disposal training.
"We learned about Japanese bombs and fuses," he said, although he didn't figure on getting called into action. That was until a mine, from a raider, washed ashore down Porangahau way.
Asked how he felt about dealing with it, Horrie simply replied "I fair shit myself".
Then there was the time (as a Home Guard sergeant) he was on sentry duty when approached by some of his corporals who were "old World War 1 jokers".
"One asked if they could borrow the truck to go into town because they'd run out of beer.
"I said 'I don't know anything about it' and off they went. They brought me back a flagon though."
It was in the local fishing industry that Horrie made his mark, and his name (not to mention enough to help pay off the mortgage on his first house in Ahuriri.)
He worked in the fisheries business from 1932 to 1952, at one time managing the Napier Fishing Co-operative and opening his own business (in a partnership) called Corunna Bay Fisheries.
He revamped both the way fish was prepared and shipped, and was quick to seize upon the opportunities within the Australian and American markets.
"Then I went to the railways and spent 17 years there. I was the number-taker. I recorded everything that came in, when the trucks were loaded and unloaded, and estimated what would go on what trains."
It was a job which would eventually be taken over by a computer.
He retired at 66, but didn't slow up much. There were deer to stalk and pigs to hunt . . . and he loved a game of tennis.
Indeed, for he was still playing up until the age of 94 but, with a shake of the head, said the old knees had started to play up.
He lost a couple of good mates from the playing club, as age and failing health took its toll, although the traditional "post-match" gatherings for a few home brews continued but not with the same regularity.
But he's made plenty of good mates over the years and they often pop in to see how Horrie's latest brew is coming along.
"I make dark beer and lager.
"Myself, I like a mixture of dark and lager together." He has kept detailed notebooks of all the brews from number 1, when he began brewing back in 1988, and opened one to show me. On the first page was brew No 205 in 1996.
His brew shed is out the back, amid beautifully laid out and kept vegetable and flower gardens, and I had to ask when he would be laying down his milestone 500th. "When I've emptied enough bottles," he laughed.
He's always enjoyed a beer, but always in moderation, and loves a good natter.
And he's been a Daily Telegraph and Hawke's Bay Today subscriber for 68 years, and keeps up with everything that's going on.
As for his age - well, he reckons its a mixture of good genes and the home brew.
His mother Emily lived to 97 and others in the immediate family ranged from "100 down to 80".
That was good enough for me, and I replied "absolutely old boy" when he asked if I wanted another, this time a lager from brew 495.
"Here's to you Horrie," I said as I raised my glass.
"And here's to you," he replied with a smile.