Alexandra contractor John Breen has had many adventures, his latest being the completion of a book about his various escapades. Shane Gilchrist sits down with a man who believes he is wealthy in a way that doesn't involve counting dollars.
John Breen enjoys his walks. Twice a day, regardless of the weather and the season, he leaves his Alexandra home, often crossing a one-way bridge from which he is able to scan the Manuherikia River in the hope of glimpsing the telltale shadow or ripple of a brown trout.
''The fish are there,'' he says.
''People often ask me, `why don't you catch them?'. I'm just happy they're there.''
That's not to say Breen doesn't enjoy landing a trout. His answer has more to do with his predisposition for seeking adventure further afield than his back door. Which is not to say he doesn't appreciate what's at his back door. He does (although the blackbirds attacking his vegetable patch better look out).
The walks offer other bounty, too. At this time of the year, Breen often returns home with a clutch of wild asparagus; other times, he'll drag back fallen branches for the fire. He's a magpie, albeit not of the sort that might interest the rare New Zealand falcon nesting a few hundred metres up the road.
Sometimes Breen's daily constitutionals provide a forum for him and his wife Valmai to sift through subjects both practical and philosophical, issues close to their hearts or more distant. And, always, the walks help keep the 71-year-old ''skinny bastard'' (his description, not mine) in shape.
''It's clear at my age that if I want to retain the ability to do the physical things I dearly like to do, then I have to work at it. Doing nothing isn't an option at my age.''
Then again, the concept of doing nothing has rarely been an option for this man.
Breen has only just sat down at his dining room table, having spread butter on a scone baked by Valmai (''she doesn't do them just for me,'' he discloses), before he stands up and wanders into the lounge, where an enormous stag's head doesn't so much loom over the television as completely dwarf it, perhaps reminding visitors that the most thrilling pursuits are not to be found amid pixels.
He returns with a cluster of bound folders.
''I used to produce these stories ... about whatever we were up to ...''
Breen is referring to a range of engineering and logistical escapades that comprise the backbone of his just-released book, Don't Look Down, the subtitle of which reads Off-the-map enterprise in unforgiving places, providing a window into the type of construction projects he has long chased.
There are clues, too, in Breen's office, just beyond the entrance to Breen Construction Co Ltd's headquarters in an industrial area of Alexandra, where several framed photos depict some of the challenges in which he has been involved.
Along with other similarly adventurous personalities - notably (but not limited to) fellow Alexandra contractors John Symons and John Cradock and South Westland identity Kerry Eggeling - Breen has gravitated to places off the beaten track.
The list, which goes back to 1977 when Breen and Symons constructed single-men's quarters for the Ministry of Works and Development village at Haast, includes base buildings at Coronet Peak and Treble Cone; a ski tow at Turoa, Mt Ruapehu; radio masts for Hunt Oil at Port Pegasus on Stewart Island and at Bull Creek; the Teviot power scheme dams (including pipelines and powerhouses); the restoration of the Port Craig viaducts; and the Onslow dam, high in the Otago tussock country, over a single summer in 1981-82.
There were stranger assignments, too: ''No more marine salvors than we were pig farmers'', Breen and his companions used a raft, complete with nearly a dozen 44-gallon drums, to hoist a racing yacht from the bottom of Lake Te Anau; another time, they headed off to the West Coast to recover a fishing boat, a mission that ultimately had more to do with mirth than monetary gain.
''We paid $5000 for it. If we'd paid $500 for it, well, that would have been too much.
''But, in the end, that was just about the adventure of it. We had a lot of fun.''
The bigger the puzzle the better, Breen asserts.
''As I wrote in my introduction to this book, you'll never encounter these challenges in the main street of Alexandra.''
Launched at Central Stories, Alexandra, this week, Don't Look Down includes a foreword by poet and author Brian Turner, who suggests Breen's book is about ''the way many in the south like to think we used to be, and in some cases still are''.
Certainly, the descriptions of the various expeditions by Breen and his cohorts document a certain breed: resourceful, hard-working, daring, yet also highly proficient. After all, Breen and his associates were often operating in a competitive environment; and in tendering for contracts they were also accountable for the quality of their work.
''We didn't really care about the money,'' Breen says.
''We liked to square the books, but ... all this stuff beat hanging around here.
''There have been other enterprising contractors, a whole list of people.
''In some ways, this book is for them as much as anybody. They are a breed of people.
''And they are still there. We have young fellas in the company who don't want anything to do with building houses. They want something they can really get their teeth into.''
That last statement could be taken literally. Breen says he and his like-minded companions revelled in living frugally when they went to the back of beyond.
''Half the time we'd have a block of cheese and a stale fruitcake in the back of the truck. The young fellas would get pissed off because we wouldn't feed them. We didn't care, really.
''Friendship came out of doing this stuff.
''Our pasts were different and we only really came together because we were contractors.
''At some point, we must have thought we had something in common, so we thought we'd give it a go and see what happens.
''We had an inkling we could do something outside the square.''
As the title of Breen's book asserts, some of the jobs held an element of danger.
''If you didn't have a good dose of adrenaline, it was not going to work. Well, that's the way it was with me anyway: you just needed to be bouncing all over the place.''
Yet, what goes up must come down. Breen recalls being ''a screaming mess'' as he worked frantically to secure a section of a radio mast about 60m above ground at Springvale, near Alexandra.
''I didn't think I could go back up the next day. I went to the pub that night, had one beer and had to get out of there because I thought I was going to burst out in tears. I was beaten.
''That night, the crane driver came round while I was sitting on the couch pouring out my heart to Valmai. He opened the door and took one look and said, `I'll see you another day'.
''But that was a turning point. By the time I got to Port Pegasus on Stewart Island, I could climb a mast and work in 40 knots of wind. I could get my head around it and do it.''
Breen has not escaped unscathed, however. He has broken his back twice. Earlier this year, he fell while restoring the Port Craig viaducts on the south coast. Evacuated by helicopter to Invercargill's Kew Hospital, he discovered he'd injured vertebrae damaged 28 years earlier while skiing at Coronet Peak.
''I was chasing my second son, Trevor.
''He'd gone a lot further in a week's ski lessons than I gave him credit for.
''He could do jumps. I couldn't. I paid the price.
''The first time I went skiing was when I was 40 years old, working at Turoa. That's because Central Otago people didn't go skiing. That was for woofters; we went ice-skating.''
Born in Ranfurly, Breen has spent most of his life in Alexandra. On leaving school in 1959, he headed to Dunedin to become a quantity surveyor, returning to Central Otago in 1966 to work in the family business, the Breen Construction Co Ltd, which was incorporated in Invercargill on August 30, 1939.
Manager of Breen Ltd from 1978 to 2003, he now ''picks and chooses'' what he does.
''I go there seven days a week. I write from my office. I keep in touch and sometimes I'll have something to offer.
''I get a little stipend. I'm privileged to be able to mix and match, but I've been able to engineer that to a point.''
As Breen notes in the closing paragraphs of Don't Look Down, ''my office is next to the front door, and as far as I'm concerned that can only be taken as a thinly veiled threat that I'm the next one out''.
Still, the company remains a family firm. Breen's three sons, Lindsay (managing director), Trevor and Peter and daughter Maria work for the company, which celebrated its 75th anniversary earlier this year.
''For some reason - and don't ask me why because I don't know the answer - it looks like the kids have bought into that.
''It is a huge rarity to have a family group so tightly around you today,'' says Breen, who has 13 grandchildren. They can often be found, along with their parents, on a Sunday afternoon at the family home, where an assortment of 4WDs spill from the driveway on to the lawn.
''The grandkids all live within cooee of here. They keep Valmai busy and me poor.
''Valmai is the real heart of everything.
''She makes it happen. She's the ringleader.''
Of course, the area in which he and his family live also has a role to play.
''You can live here and keep your feet on the ground,'' Breen says.
''The world can be your oyster here but in a really appropriate way.
''There's no need to be a swinging dick. You just do what you do well.
''I always thought I was wealthy in a way that didn't involve counting the bucks.
''People say to me, `isn't it time you built a new house, John?'''My reply is, `what's wrong with the one I've got? It doesn't leak'.''The book
- Don't Look Down: Off-the-map enterprise in unforgiving places, by John Breen, is published by Halcyon Press ($39.99).
Giveaway
The Otago Daily Times has five copies of Don't Look Down: Off-the-map enterprise in unforgiving places, by John Breen, to give away. To enter the draw for one, write your name, address and daytime phone number on the back of an envelope and send it to Don't Look Down, ODT Editorial Features, PO Box 181, Dunedin, or email playtime@odt.co.nz with Don't Look Down in the subject line, to arrive before Friday.
