Neil Robbie QSM.
A Foxton Beach man awarded a Queen’s Service Medal on Monday for volunteer work in the community is in no hurry to hang up his yellow helmet.
Neil Robbie QSM first volunteered for the Foxton Beach Fire Brigade in 1975 at the tender age of 19. He served as Deputy Chief Fire Officer between 2000 to 2011 and remained active as a Senior Firefighter ever since.
Robbie, 67, was swamped with congratulatory messages as news of the 2023 King’s Birthday and Coronation Honours list spread. Some were from old acquaintances, others from peers around the country.
He said the award was “humbling” and unexpected. He was notified of the award more than a week ago and had to keep it secret. He also received letters of congratulations from Prime Minister Chris Hipkins and Governor-General Cindy Kiro.
Robbie said it was nice to be recognised for his length of service, but it was always a collective effort in any fire brigade.
“It’s a privilege and nice to be recognised and it’s very humbling, but it is a team effort,” he said.
“I will take this opportunity to try and get more people involved. Young and old, men and women, there’s a great team at the beach and we want to keep building on that.”
“There’s a job for everyone. You don’t push people into carrying someone out of a car. It might be that they can do traffic control, or look after someone in the back of the car that’s not hurt.”
Robbie had initially volunteered simply to help out. His parents had been civic-minded and he had inherited a sense of community from them.
There was no doubt that volunteering for Fire and Emergency NZ (Fenz) involved sacrifice. Volunteers could be called to an emergency in the middle of the night,while hosting their children’s birthday party, or when they were just about to put a sausage on the barbecue.
“It’s just part and parcel of it. It’s a way of life,” he said.
If someone’s car was parked behind him in the driveway, Robbie would jump on his pushbike and cycle as fast as he could to the station, which was about 2km from his home. Being so close he was often the first to arrive. He always had a set of clothes beside the bed ready to go.
Foxton Beach fire chief Rodney Caldow QSM said Robbie worked as a building contractor and would “down tools” for emergency calls.
Robbie had encouraged anyone working for him to also become a volunteer, so they would also drop what they were doing and leave the job when the emergency siren wailed. It didn’t matter whether they were on a roof or in the middle of pouring concrete when the call came.
“It was coming out of his pocket,” Rodney said of Robbie’s sacrifice of pay for voluntary firefighting.
Robbie also regularly attended brigade meetings and training sessions. He played a role in recruiting for the brigade, training the recruits and recently trained to drive the brigade’s new rescue/response vehicle.
His wife Louise had been extremely supportive of his service. She said he was driven by the satisfaction of helping people. They had opened their home yesterday afternoon to share the accolade as people came to congratulate them.
“The grapevine was working well,” she said.
Fenz awarded a Gold Star for 25 years of service, and double Gold Stars for 50 years. Robbie said he had no plans to stop serving the Foxton Beach brigade.
“I still love it,” he said.
“You are part of a big family. It’s a team. You train together, you have to attend an incident together, and you are there to talk about it afterwards. In a small area like this you tend to know people or know families ... it’s that moral support.”
But it wasn’t just his fire service that saw him recognised with the QSM. He had supported the wider community, creating and maintaining trails in Ferry Reserve at Foxton Beach for cyclists and walkers, and accessible trails for people with mobility issues or infants in strollers.
The Manawatū Mountain Bike Club held their Winter Biking series on trails created by him in the pine forest in Cousins Ave, attended by more than 100 riders.
Robbie was also a member of a group who created a windmill sculpture in the Ferry Reserve, offering his building and engineering expertise to manufacture and erect the windmills as a tribute to Dutch New Zealand artist Leon Van Den Eijkel and connections to the Foxton Dutch community and museum.
The couple were also behind some windmills that appeared on the entrance to Foxton late last year. The whole idea behind them was to cheer people up. The appearance of the mysterious mini windmills achieved their aim as the cause of great public interest, even making the front page of local newspaper Horowhenua Chronicle.
- Public Interest Journalism funded through NZ on Air.