After surviving three "drop-deads" in the past seven years, Gavin Bourke has finally decided it might be time to stop pushing his luck and retire.
The 84-year-old Dunedin joiner had his first heart attack seven years ago at the Otakou Golf Club and was given up for dead.
"I just fell of my chair and that was it.
"Three of them worked on me for 20 minutes and they had written me off.
"When the first response [the Portobello Volunteer Fire Brigade] arrived, apparently they took one look at me and said, ‘nope’."
As a last ditch effort, they put a defibrillater on him.
"They gave me a couple of whacks and I was back.
"I’ve had two more drop-deads since then."
Now he has an implanted defibrillater and is looking forward to retirement.
Mr Bourke has been a joiner for 68 years and has worked in the same Moreau St, St Kilda, workshop for 65 of those.
He said he had worked for so long because he believed if he stopped he would get old and die.
"You’ve got to keep things moving and keep the brain working."
While he had won national awards for some of his work, he said it was nicer to have left some enduring "fingerprints" around the city.
"It’s reached that stage now where health things are hitting me a bit."
Mr Bourke sold his Moreau St workshop to Leigh Pickford Builders owner Leigh Pickford about 17 years ago.
"When I bought the property, I didn’t expect Gavin to keep working there, but he’s turned up every day since," Mr Pickford said.
"He’s a great guy to have around — he’s a very talented artist."
Now that Mr Bourke was retiring, Mr Pickford has sold the building to Moreau Developments Ltd which plans to turn the site into nine, 2-3 bedroom town houses by August next year.
Moreau Developments director David Grant said it was a joint venture with fellow directors Ben Smith and Mr Pickford, which aimed to provide warm, dry and affordable housing for the Dunedin market.
Mr Bourke said he was sad his second home was about to be demolished, but he was buoyed by his plan to remove his prized automatic lathe from the building and spend some of his retirement teaching the next generation how to use it.
The rest of his time would be spent with his feet up, keeping his brain active by doing the daily crosswords in the paper.
"You’ve got to keep that brain moving."
