Kiwi TV veteran spreading word on life in rest home

Keith Bracey decided to go into a rest home when he got fed up with looking after himself. Photo / Natalie Slade

The only thing Keith Bracey can't do, now he's in a rest home, is dance.

Mr Bracey, 94 next month, trod the dance floor until his dancing partner got arthritis in her feet five years ago.

These days he is reduced to "sit dancing" in the Mercy Parklands rest home in Ellerslie where he has lived for the past two years.

"I like that, it's done sitting down," he says. "It's done to the music of that fine old country song Shoo Fly Don't Bother Me."

The veteran TV presenter puts his longevity down to "the old recipe of wine, women and song - in equal proportions".

And he has lost none of the sense of humour that earned him a reputation for mischief on TVNZ's Auckland regional news show Town and Around more than 40 years ago.

On one occasion, he took a farm spraying backpack to Albert Park and offered people a chance to try out a new Kiwi-invented "jump jet".

"I had no problem getting takers," he said. "I put them on the scales and weighed them and said to run in little circles ... do a little jump and you should fly.

"It was ludicrous. Finally one girl tried to leap at us waving her legs in the air. And you know, none of them complained, I think they were great sports."

Almost a quarter of a century after he retired from television in 1986, Mr Bracey has been invited to talk about life in a rest home at the Council of Christian Social Services' biennial conference in Auckland tomorrow.

He says it was his own decision to go into a home when he became "fed up with looking after myself" in a retirement village.

He looked at one other place where "the whole ambience" was wrong, but he is happy in his corner room in Mercy Parklands with photos from his stage and television career on the walls.

"It really is an excellent place. It must be because I've put on weight," he says.

"The measure of a rest home, or its reputation, rests very largely on the quality of its staff, and they are marvellous. They come from 17 different cultures - what a mixture. Marvellous.

"They do everything. Everything is done for one, even showering. They each have their different techniques and I reckon I can recognise who the hands belong to with my eyes shut."

He doesn't know how much he pays. Home chief executive Ann Coughlan says the fees are set by the Ministry of Health and paid by the Government, partly out of the client's superannuation, once their assets have run out.

Despite the facility's park-like setting off Ladies Mile, only about 10 people are on the waiting list for the rest home and five for the hospital. Most get in within a few months.

Most new residents, like Mr Bracey, are in their eighties or older. A decade or two ago most were in their sixties and seventies.

"Most people who come in to us now are assessed as needing hospital care," Ms Coughlan says.

Even in his nineties, Mr Bracey still goes shopping - and is still recognised.

"Not that long ago I was in a supermarket. A woman stopped me, peered at me closely, and said, 'You were Keith Bracey, weren't you?"' he says. "I thought well, yes, I suppose I was."