Queenstown muso and Māori cultural leader/educator Ned Wepiha says receiving a Heart of the Wakatipu mayoral award at the recent Spirit of the Wakatipu Awards was “a bloody shock”.

But, as proven by the reception he received, it is totally befitting of someone whose “commitment to this community has never wavered” over almost 50 years, as his citation states.

From the Ngāpuhi iwi, Ned grew up in Kaikohe, Northland, in a very musical family through their Rātana Church involvement — interestingly, he was only allowed to speak te reo Māori at home and on the marae.

By 10, he had decided to become a drummer and by 12 he was drumming in a band — “I think I had a good ear”.

While still at intermediate school, Northland College’s principal asked his mum if he could play for their musical, but first he reluctantly had to agree his very long hair could be shorn — “I went home thinking if I wash it it’ll all come back tomorrow”.

After his first year at college, the principal reported he had only attended for 14 days — “I hated school”. 

In the ’70s, gang warfare was rampant in Northland so he was sent down to Invercargill as he had whānau there.

On leaving, Ned’s dad told him to adopt his surname’s Anglicised version, ‘Webster’.

Responding to an ‘Ocean Beach wants you’ ad, he joined the freezing works, saying he was 18, which you had to be, when he was barely 16.

He joined a band, Cloud Nine, than another, SkyPilot, and met a muso, Jock Williamson, who asked him to join a new band, Friction, that was about to take up a year’s residency at Skyline Queenstown.

On the FergCast Central podcast, on Spotify, Ned says when he arrived at Easter, in ’78, he was wearing jandals when he touched fresh snow for the first time. 

The Skyline residency, extended a year, kicked off a long musical career that has included playing guitar — “I was a drummer who was mucking around on those other instruments”.

His Skyline party trick was impersonating Elvis Presley in a jumpsuit made for him.

He would be announced as a special guest who had just choppered in — he had originally been inspired to sing by listening to Elvis.

Residencies followed at Albert’s and Chico’s nightclubs.

Ned says playing with the late Kipa Royal “took my musicianship to another level”, and he later toured with names like Billy T. James, Patsy Riggir, Midge Marsden and Herbs, whom he went to Australia with.

He admits getting into trouble with drugs, the judge calling him “naive Māori boy from the north”.

For his community sentence he came under the wing of then-borough council reserves boss Don Smith, subsequently becoming a reserves foreman himself for about six years while still playing music at night.

Meantime, he married his now former wife Leah, in the Queenstown Gardens in ’83, and they had four children.

His children inspired Ned to delve more into the world of te ao Māori, and following the example of his mum, who set up Queenstown’s kohanga reo in ’84, he got into education.

He has taught music, te reo and kapa haka at local schools and says a former Wakatipu High principal Lyn Cooper got him some teacher training in Palmerston North — not bad for someone who had hated school.

He has also regularly been called on to perform Māori welcomes like a pōwhiri or whakatau.

A special interest has been teaching the taiaha or mau rākau, even going to Southland Boys’ High to take it.

Meantime, Ned co-founded the Wakatipu Giants rugby side in the late ’80s after a stint, including an Australian trip, with the Wakatipu Wanderers rugby side, the ‘Killer Bs’.

He recalls a pre-Giants town v country ‘muster’ getting out of hand — “I don’t know how many people went to hospital that day”.

The Giants won the Southland comp in ’89 but had dwindled by the mid-’90s — “sometimes we’d field half a team but we’d still go”.

In 2022, he played for a regional team who won their three games at an international masters tournament — though the team’s oldest player, at 60, he was still their best.

For about six years he managed and performed — again at Skyline — for the well-renowned Kiwi Haka troupe.

During Covid, the local Mana Tāhuna charitable trust was formed, which Ned is a proud original board member of.

He is their kaiārahi tikanga Māori — “I look after our cultural capabilities”.

Explaining how he has revived his original ‘Wepiha’ surname, even though his children are all Websters, he says about 15 years ago he lost his wallet in Christchurch, including his driver’s licence ID.

“So I’m ringing the government, ‘how can I get my licence?’”

He says they had no record of a ‘Ned Webster’ — “your real name is ‘Wepiha’”, he was told.

“So I went ‘I’ll go back to Wepiha’.”

Recently turned 65, Ned describes his service to the community as “a labour of love”.

He still loves Queenstown, while bemoaning it is hard to find ‘locals’ these days.

Having rented at the old Queenstown motor park for about 28 years, he is moving to Arrowtown next month to the community housing trust’s Tewa Banks development, where some family members already reside.

As for his philosophy on life, he says “every day is a blessing — especially after the life some of us have led — and that’s what I say to my children, you know?”

scoop@scene.co.nz