It's 5am in Kaitaia and the early birds are off to work - the bakers, council street-cleaning crews, the logging truck drivers, the editor of the Northland Age.
Peter Jackson likes an early start. He works uninterrupted until 7am then whips around to the Kaitaia Police Station where he reels in yarns galore and has his computer keyboard humming when other Age staff arrive about 8am. And Mr Jackson is invariably still at his desk when the other staff head home at 5pm. Peace without daytime distractions. He winds up the keyboard and pumps through the pages for the next edition of the biweekly broadsheet.
That routine has been 58-year-old Mr Jackson's life for 34 years. Millions of words have flowed from his fingertips. If the Age is an institution in the Far North, Mr Jackson is too - he is the Northland Age.
His hard work and talents have been acknowledged in the Queen's Birthday honours list, which makes him a Member of the New Zealand Order of Merit for his services to journalism.
Mr Jackson grew up in Kaitaia, went to Auckland University for a couple of years, but returned to the North and worked as a barman and labourer. He was pruning trees in Aupouri Forest when he became a stringer for the Northern Advocate in 1976, and the following year then Age editor Derek Vincent invited him on board.
When Mr Vincent left in 1983 Mr Jackson became editor and began writing the weekly editorials which would have played a major part in earning him his MNZM honour. Always interesting and insightful, sometimes controversial, the voice of the Age is never timid. Peter Jackson has a mind of his own.
As well as writing about every Far North organisation, Mr Jackson has served on many of them. He is a former secretary of the Mangonui County Agricultural and pastoral Association, the Kaitaia and Districts Free Kindergarten Association and the Kaitaia Chamber of Commerce. He is a trustee of the Young New Zealanders' Foundation and chairman of the Kaitaia District Rose Society. Growing roses and fishing are his chief interests outside the newspaper, along with his wife, two adult daughters, two mokopuna and a 17-year-old cat named Sam.
He reckons the finest editorial he ever wrote was about his Dad, Tony, who served with the infantry in North Africa, was wounded and spent four years as a prisoner of war. He was short-tempered when he got home. Mr Jackson's 2008 editorial lamented their lack of communication, the missed opportunity to tell his father how much he admired him.
"Women told me they were in tears after reading it. Total strangers came up to talk to me about it. I still feel guilty about Dad every Anzac Day."
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