Meet Murray Whitlock, Whanganui’s Volunteer of the Month

Murray Whitlock is Volunteer of the Month. Photo / Paul Brooks

You’ve probably seen Murray Whitlock around. He rides a bike... everywhere. Murray is Volunteer of the Month for March and Sandra Rickey, manager of Volunteer Whanganui, awarded him a certificate, a volunteer lapel badge and a $40 voucher, courtesy of Mud Ducks café. Mud Ducks has been sponsoring the award with this voucher since Sandra started the Volunteer of the Month in 2018.

Murray started volunteering when he retired. Now he’s very busy indeed with Whanganui Walking Tours and Whanganui City Mission, although he has decided to step back from the latter - a little. He is 85, but you’d never know it. He’s always active and often smiling. It’s all about attitude.

“I’ve retired three times,” he says. “First from the pickle factory, then I started the freight business, and I sold that ... and retired a second time, then I sold real estate for 11 years.” The name Whitlock will mean something to Whanganui people who remember the pickle factory and Whitlock freight. In real estate, he made the top 10 per cent of the Professionals group.

“I’m not very clever, but I work hard,” he says. “The phone’s going all the time, and if it’s not going, you’re in trouble.”

“Then I retired again and thought, ‘What do I do now?’ I went around and knocked on doors: I knocked on the City Mission door, and they said, ‘Yes, you could help in the garden’.”

Before starting, he went away for three weeks, and on his return he found the garden manager had gone.

“So I was suddenly it.”

His first job was to make a few house calls, as a result of which Ravensdown supplied the mission with fertiliser, Wanganui Farm Supplies gave blood and bone and St Johns Gardens supplied plants. When St Johns Gardens ceased operating, he visited Wanganui Garden Centre in Gonville and worked out a similar arrangement.

The City Mission gardens were behind the Whanganui Learning Centre in Wicksteed St and behind Nolan Chiropractic nearby.

“We started off with those two, then a site in Whanganui East became available so I grabbed that, and that gave us a third site.” After a while the first two sites became unavailable, but a half an acre in Pauls Rd was offered and accepted.

“We also got a site in Peat St from the Sisters of St Joseph,” says Murray. “Michael McManus is running that. He came on board and that became his baby.”

Murray managed the City Mission’s gardens for 19 years.

“Last season we produced more than 400 kilograms of potatoes, as well as broccoli, silverbeet and all the other staples.”

He may have stepped back from the gardens, but he’s still busy.

“I don’t just do the walking tours, which I’ve been doing for six or seven years now [he’s one of a team of five], but I’m also at the Play Centre in Whanganui East where I read stories to two, three and four-year-olds every week. I’ve been doing that for 15 years.”

He is also treasurer for a couple of organisations.

“I’m old-fashioned: I do it manually. I won’t use a computer.” He has also been known to “manualise” a computerised accounting system to fix it.

Murray enjoys his volunteering, but he does get some spare time.

“I go body boarding at Kai Iwi Beach, I play outdoor and indoor bowls and I do a hell of a lot of reading.” He joined the city’s library in 1946. And he cycles for transport.

“It’s convenient,” he says. “I can go from the i-Site to home [Jane Winstone on St John’s Hill] in 19 minutes. That’s not too bad.”

He says the only time he wasn’t riding his bicycle was when he was selling real estate.

“I had trouble getting customers on the bar of the bike, so I had to use the car.”

Volunteers like Murray are always needed, everywhere. If you would like to help out and get a new lease on life yourself, call the Volunteer Centre at 347 9430 or see the details on page 12 in this issue of Midweek.