Northern Advocate
  • Northern Advocate home
  • Latest news
  • Business
  • Opinion
  • Lifestyle
  • Sport
  • Property
  • Video
  • Death notices
  • Classifieds

Subscriptions

  • Herald Premium
  • Viva Premium
  • The Listener
  • BusinessDesk

Sections

  • Latest news
  • On The Up
  • Business
  • Opinion
  • Lifestyle
  • Rural
    • All Rural
    • Dairy farming
    • Sheep & beef farming
    • Horticulture
    • Animal health
    • Rural business
    • Rural life
    • Rural technology
  • Sport
  • Property
    • All Property
    • Residential property listings

Locations

  • Far North
  • Kaitaia
  • Kaikohe
  • Bay of Islands
  • Whangārei
  • Kaipara
  • Mangawhai
  • Dargaville

Media

  • Video
  • Photo galleries
  • Today's Paper - E-Editions
  • Photo sales
  • Classifieds

Weather

  • Kaitaia
  • Whangārei
  • Dargaville

NZME Network

  • Advertise with NZME
  • OneRoof
  • Driven Car Guide
  • BusinessDesk
  • Newstalk ZB
  • Sunlive
  • ZM
  • The Hits
  • Coast
  • Radio Hauraki
  • The Alternative Commentary Collective
  • Gold
  • Flava
  • iHeart Radio
  • Hokonui
  • Radio Wanaka
  • iHeartCountry New Zealand
  • Restaurant Hub
  • NZME Events

SubscribeSign In

Advertisement
Advertise with NZME.
Home / Northern Advocate

On The Up: Retired farmer knits for neediest babies at Whangārei Hospital

Sarah Curtis
By Sarah Curtis
Multimedia Journalist·Northern Advocate·
14 Aug, 2025 11:00 PM4 mins to read

Subscribe to listen

Access to Herald Premium articles require a Premium subscription. Subscribe now to listen.
Already a subscriber?  

Listening to articles is free for open-access content—explore other articles or learn more about text-to-speech.
‌
Save
    Share this article
Dargaville's volunteer fire brigade chief Jason Campbell welcomes a donation from Knitwit Mike Gilligan, who raffled off this children's blanket he created. Photo / supplied

Dargaville's volunteer fire brigade chief Jason Campbell welcomes a donation from Knitwit Mike Gilligan, who raffled off this children's blanket he created. Photo / supplied

Retired Dargaville dairy farmer Mike Gilligan doesn’t care a bit if some people think his favourite hobby is “women’s work”.

He loves to knit.

“People take me as I am. If they don’t like what I’m doing, that’s their stiff cheese,” Gilligan said, shrugging off the stereotypes.

For him, knitting surpasses even his other favourites – fishing and gardening – as “the most relaxing and enjoyable hobby you can have”.

Advertisement
Advertise with NZME.
Advertisement
Advertise with NZME.

“And if it helps someone, even better,” he said.

There are many worthy causes for which to knit but it’s the region’s highest-needs babies that have captured Gilligan’s heart and efforts.

Now aged 74, he began knitting for preemie and special care babies at Whangārei Hospital’s neonatal ward when he retired from farming about nine years ago.

He’s since made so many blankets for them that he’s lost count.

Advertisement
Advertise with NZME.

But healthcare assistant Hana Slade, who normally receives the lovingly made gifts on behalf of the hospital, said the number has got to be well over a thousand.

Gilligan routinely delivers boxes of more than 80 blankets at a time, Slade said.

Always colourful and fun with cartoon characters and animals, the blankets are regularly given out to families and make the perfect cot covers for the ward, being robust enough to endure the hospital’s hot wash cycles, she says.

Gilligan’s cheeky personality, ever-present cowboy hat and his noticeable status as the only male among the hospital’s knitting group, have made him a familiar face there.

Even staff who might not know him by name, affectionately call him the Dargaville Knitting Guy, Slade said.

“We can’t thank him enough for his beautiful knitting – it’s just amazing.”

Once, while knitting in a doctor’s waiting room, another patient recognised the blanket Gilligan was making and said it looked just like the ones his moko had come home from hospital wrapped in.

No doubt they probably were some of his, Gilligan said.

Knitting is a hobby Gilligan first learned as a child – one of nine siblings taught by their mother – but it didn’t truly take hold until adulthood.

“I didn’t really get into it until my wife and I were expecting our first child,” he said.

Advertisement
Advertise with NZME.

A dislocated knee from a run-in with a horse left him stuck at home for weeks and his wife encouraged him to pick up the needles again.

But once he returned to dairy farming, the knitting was shelved.

“As a dairy farmer, you can never have clean enough hands, no matter how much you scrub them,” Gilligan said.

Gilligan’s first creations were queen-sized blankets – special Christmas presents for each of his three sons.

Since then, he has knitted all manner of items, including 59 pairs of fingerless gloves for all the residents at a mate’s retirement village.

Advertisement
Advertise with NZME.

He and others in his Dargaville knitting group – of which he doesn’t mind being the only male – once made slippers for children at five local schools.

Gilligan has also knitted blankets for each of his grandchildren, who are now in their 20s and still have them.

While the special care and preemie babies are his favourite cause, Gilligan is also known for his generosity beyond the hospital. He recently donated $100 to Dargaville’s volunteer fire brigade after raffling off an intricate picture blanket he’d made.

Chief fire officer at Dargaville Jason Campbell said the money was a welcome surprise for the station that is always appreciative of extra funds.

Gilligan said he is as committed to the joy of buying and being given wool as he is to the joy of knitting it.

“There’s so much bloody wool at my place, I’ll never get through it all in my lifetime.”

Advertisement
Advertise with NZME.

He does many of his simple knits while watching television and often has more than one project on the go at once.

“I usually keep the complicated ones for times during the day when I can fully concentrate.”

On Thursdays, he knits outside the local supermarket with his two dogs while his wife does the weekly shop. It’s a great chance for a chat and he’s always amazed at the interest people take, Gilligan said.

Sarah Curtis is a news reporter for the Northern Advocate, focusing on a wide range of issues. She has nearly 20 years’ experience in journalism, most of which she spent reporting on the courts in Gisborne and the East Coast.

Save
    Share this article

Latest from Northern Advocate

Northern Advocate

Fisheries NZ proposes closure of crayfishing areas to aid recovery

Northern Advocate

'Last resort': More schools struggle as teacher illness forces students home

Northern Advocate

Legal issue halts trial for Northland man accused of rape, bestiality with cows


Sponsored

Farm plastic recycling: Getting it right saves cows, cash, and the planet

Advertisement
Advertise with NZME.

Latest from Northern Advocate

Fisheries NZ proposes closure of crayfishing areas to aid recovery
Northern Advocate

Fisheries NZ proposes closure of crayfishing areas to aid recovery

Environmentalists applaud the move to restore crayfish populations and habitats.

15 Aug 01:00 AM
'Last resort': More schools struggle as teacher illness forces students home
Northern Advocate

'Last resort': More schools struggle as teacher illness forces students home

14 Aug 05:00 PM
Legal issue halts trial for Northland man accused of rape, bestiality with cows
Northern Advocate

Legal issue halts trial for Northland man accused of rape, bestiality with cows

14 Aug 04:53 AM


Farm plastic recycling: Getting it right saves cows, cash, and the planet
Sponsored

Farm plastic recycling: Getting it right saves cows, cash, and the planet

10 Aug 09:12 PM
NZ Herald
  • About NZ Herald
  • Meet the journalists
  • Newsletters
  • Classifieds
  • Help & support
  • Contact us
  • House rules
  • Privacy Policy
  • Terms of use
  • Competition terms & conditions
  • Our use of AI
Subscriber Services
  • The Northern Advocate e-edition
  • Manage your print subscription
  • Manage your digital subscription
  • Subscribe to Herald Premium
  • Subscribe to the Northern Advocate
  • Gift a subscription
  • Subscriber FAQs
  • Subscription terms & conditions
  • Promotions and subscriber benefits
NZME Network
  • The Northern Advocate
  • The New Zealand Herald
  • The Northland Age
  • Waikato Herald
  • Bay of Plenty Times
  • Rotorua Daily Post
  • Hawke's Bay Today
  • Whanganui Chronicle
  • Viva
  • NZ Listener
  • Newstalk ZB
  • BusinessDesk
  • OneRoof
  • Driven Car Guide
  • iHeart Radio
  • Restaurant Hub
NZME
  • About NZME
  • NZME careers
  • Advertise with NZME
  • Digital self-service advertising
  • Book your classified ad
  • Photo sales
  • © Copyright 2025 NZME Publishing Limited
TOP