Napier’s Tom Husband celebrates 100th birthday surrounded by family

Tom Husband, 100, with the royal birthday card he received from King Charles III. Photo / Warren Buckland

Not many people get the chance to live to 100, let alone with a sharp mind and able body. However, Napier man Tom Husband has joined the 100-club and says he is happy to have finally made it.

Born in 1923, Tom is a few years older than the late Queen Elizabeth II, and said as she was more or less of his era, he was holding out hope that he would receive his 100th birthday card from her, however joked a letter from the King will have to do.

Tom has had a busy 100 years moving from Auckland to Napier, then to the Gisborne area where he met his wife and started his family, eventually ending up back in the Bay.

Tom was born in Auckland, an only child to parents who owned a carrier business. Things were going well until an economic crash saw the family lose everything, and Tom’s father had to search for a new job.

After the 1931 Hawke’s Bay earthquake, Napier was in need of help, and with the offer of work and free travel, Tom’s father jumped at the opportunity, and once financially stable moved his family to Westshore.

The family moved into a two-bedroom house with a small living room, a coal range, a gas ring and one gas light. Tom remembered the house had no running water, no electricity, no washing facilities and an outside tap over a gully trap in the backyard.

“That house was really hard on my mum with the cooking and cleaning but I loved living in Westshore and going to the Westshore school right in front of the beach,” Tom said.

Tom Husband in his vegetable garden at Summerset retirement village in Taradale. Photo / Warren Buckland

Over the years the family moved houses and Tom went to three or four different schools in Napier, before leaving at the age of 13 to start a carpentry apprenticeship.

“I worked as a carpenter for four years before turning 18 and being conscripted into the army for four years,” Tom explained.

At 21 the army sent Tom overseas and, he said, “while the war was still on, it was on its deathbed, so I didn’t see any fighting”.

Through the army, Tom was sent around the world, including Egypt, Italy and Japan. Again while the war was still on in Japan, Tom didn’t see any fighting because New Zealand didn’t have the resources to go over until after the final bombs were dropped.

Tom went to Japan with the first occupation force and helped prepare for the main occupation force.

Back on home soil, and out of the army at 22, the world as Tom knew it had changed. With a shortage of building supplies, there was no carpenter work for Tom and he found himself moving from seasonal job to job including working at a Napier shipping company.

Tom got in touch with a few army friends and would take the train to Waikoko Gisborne every other week to help on their farms, as well as fixing up one of the old homesteads on the land.

Eventually, Tom moved to the Gisborne area, where he set up a home and life for himself marrying his wife Marge and starting a family along with a timber business.

After financial ups and downs, the family lost their business and their beloved house. Tom again took his occupation in another direction and decided he would become a plumber. With no education past the age of 13, Tom went back to learning under an apprenticeship, while doing night classes and believed it was the best thing he could have done.

Finally, in a financially good position again, Tom retired at 56 and decided to tour New Zealand in a caravan. He and his wife would have seen almost every part of the country.

“In my day if you got to 65 or 70 you were very lucky, if you had been doing physical work, so I wanted to retire and enjoy the rest of my time,” Tom said.

After travelling around New Zealand, Tom saw his wife’s health was deteriorating and wanted to make sure they were closer to their adult kids who had moved to Hawke’s Bay years ago.

Now that Tom’s wife Marge is sadly gone, he has stayed in Hawke’s Bay. While he lives at the Summerset Retirement Village, he still cooks all his own meals, keeps a very busy garden and doesn’t go a day without going for a walk.

When asked if Tom had any secrets about his long life, he told the Napier Courier, “My dad once said to me, never give in, and that’s the motto I have had since and I think it really stood me in good stead.”