When Murray Cushing first started at Radio Dannevirke, he was "thrown in the deep end".
He'd first considered becoming a presenter while he was working at the ANZ bank in Dannevirke, where he used to listen to the station.
"I thought, 'you should have a crack at that. You love music'."
Two years after he retired, he contacted Max McFarland, one of the people who started the station and asked him about having a look around the studio.
He was invited to join John Hart and told to pick five songs from a couple of CDs and bring them to the studio so he could see what the presenter did.
During the show, Hart told him he was off to lunch and left him to play those five songs.
"So I did that and the next Tuesday I was flying solo."
Twelve years and 500 shows later, the former Dannevirke resident was still loving it.
He and wife Anne moved to Hastings last year, but he still travelled to Dannevirke every Tuesday for his show, which now ran for three hours instead of two.
Cushing plays a variety of songs from the 50s and 60s and called it Music Memories with Murray.
"I just thought M M M and what can I make of it."
He wanted to play songs that evoked memories of his youth and still considers some of the songs that came out of those two decades to be some of the best.
He said even those in their 20s and 30s know the music from that era.
"It's the sort of music that transcends the generations."
Cushing said he would often get requests, and had even been stopped on the street to ask for a particular song.
Sometimes he would be asked for a song that would evoke memories of people who had died.
"It does bring back happy memories and sad memories for people.
"Songs have a wonderful way of bringing back memories and associating you with events and things like that."
Cushing said he would sometimes share his own memories of a song when he first heard it.
His main reason for doing it was the listeners.
"We have a great band of listeners, some will ring up quite regularly."
He said the majority of them were the older generation who were probably lonely.
"The radio is their way of communication. They love having us in their homes via the radio."
Cushing liked to celebrate every 100th show with a selection of 50 songs, with 40 in any old order and then his top 10.
One of the songs in his top 10 was called Love is a Beautiful Song, by Dave Mills, released in 1969.
"That was a song that I heard when I was in Sydney, doing an OE. I heard it on the radio, and the first time I heard it, I thought, man that is fantastic."
He chose to play that particular song as his 10,000th song.
For his 500th show, he picked out 50 songs, including some that hadn't been as popular.
Radio Dannevirke had gone from "strength to strength" in the 12 years he'd been there, giving him the opportunity to help promote events run by various organisations or offer tickets to shows.
He'd also had the opportunity to interview various people, including a member of Australian band the Deltones, and the managing director of the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra.
When he's not helping with Radio Dannevirke, he volunteers for the Fantasy Cave and was looking forward to the Fantasy Cave opening again.
He also helps at the Anglican Church and keeps his mind active by doing crosswords or sudoku, or reading thrillers.
"Once I get hold of a book, put my nose into it, I won't put it down. I'll waste a whole day sitting in the chair reading."
Cushing said he remained committed to Radio Dannevirke and intended to keep doing his shows for as long as possible.
"When I finished my 500th show, I said the reason I do it is because of the listeners. We realise that to a lot of those people we are just about family.
"We're also very thankful to all our advertisers. We've got a great set-up there and it's all because of their support ."