On Sunday Mr McCrae (pictured) received a pin from the club's national president at a lunch to mark his long membership and to celebrate the club's 85th anniversary, which was on Monday.
The 75-year-old, who retired to Waimate from his Waihou Forks farm six years ago, has seen the club's
fortunes rise, fall, and rise again since he was admitted to the closed club at the minimum age of 15.
Mr McCrae said that in those days the men-only club would pack the Savoy Tearooms ‘‘right to its doors'' for its unique get-together, in which members entertained each other with orchestra, choir and solo performances, sketches and recitations.
However, by 1982 its membership had dwindled to seven men, so they quietly broke ranks and let women in - the first club to do so in New Zealand.
It now has 106 members, making it the second-biggest Savage Club in New Zealand (Oamaru's is the biggest), and two-thirds of those members are women.
Mr McRae said the admission of women had brought greater decorum to the club than in former days when ‘‘we used to play up a bit'' - especially on its frequent ‘‘raids'' to other clubs in the southern region, during which members put on a show for their hosts.
Nowadays, unless on a raid, the club usually meets at the Waimate Silver Band Hall. Like all Savage Clubs it has the unusual characteristic of a long summer recess, meeting twice a month between April and September. This suits its members who have other priorities on summer evenings.
In his 60 years of membership, Mr McRae has been Great Chief (president) several times and served as scribe (secretary), scalp hunter (treasurer) and orchestra leader. He is also a past president of the Southern group, which covers clubs from Christchurch to Invercargill.
A violinist since the age of five, he cannot count the number of tunes he can play by heart - mostly band music of the '60s and '70s. He is also a pianist and a member of the men's choir.
He said the fellowship of members and the pleasure of performing had kept him in the club for so long and had given him the motivation to keep practising the violin.
‘‘When you get to my age if you knocked off you wouldn't be able to play - your fingers would stiffen up.
‘‘Anyway, it doesn't matter how rough you are, you always get an encore,'' he said.
He has now set his sights on becoming only the third club member to reach the 70-year mark: ‘‘I'll give it a go.''
The Savage Club was founded in 1857 in London by a group of artists, poets and writers. It is believed to be named after a notorious 18th century English poet, Richard Savage, who claimed aristocratic birth, killed a man in a tavern brawl, and died in a debtors' prison in 1743. New Zealand's first Savage club was formed in 1885.
