For his 100th birthday, Tom McCord is inviting the friends he made along the way to celebrate on November 8 at the Mataura Community Centre.
Having worked as an electrician, at the freezing works, paper mill and as a music teacher, Mr McCord said the key to a long life was to never stop working.
Every two years he had to sit a course to continue practising as an electrician, stopping only when he was 98.
The party is being organised by his daughter, Melanie Holland, and friend of nearly 20 years, Birgit Schonberger.
The two friends met after the electrician, then in his 80s, heard Ms Schonberger was on her own in the small industrial town with three children.
He knocked on the door and set about fixing her home’s dodgy wiring free of charge.
"I used to do a lot of jobs especially for solo mothers and I never charged them," he said.
When asked why he wanted to help, Mr McCord could not give a reason.
"That’s just me," he said. "I just wanted to help them because they were in trouble some."
Ms Schonberger said her friend’s kindness extended to all corners of the community.
Mr McCord told a story about befriending a left-handed "pommie" who was sweeping the floors at the Mataura works.
He befriended the man because he was educated and talked about more than "football or the races", he said.
"The next year ... he was making as much money as I was," Mr McCord said.
Ms Schonberger said her friend was never taken advantage of, only helping people who were trying to help themselves.
"Tom is that person who quietly and humbly sits in the background just going, you can do this, come on," she said.
Mr McCord’s memory of Mataura and Gore stretches back before cars and homes with electricity, and he was part of the team that first provided power to Mataura, powered by the works.
He remembers when the Gore Fire Station had a belltower, which rang in an emergency, and watching white horses and a steam-powered engine used by firefighters attending a blaze.
No-one had cars when the works first started. Mr McCord used to bike from Gore, while some walked, and the Mataura plant was surrounded by push bikes every day.
He has continued learning too, and engaging with people and animals, and tells a lively story of using a rat to run an electric cable underground in war-time Christchurch.
"Rats are very nice things ... they're good pets," he said.
"They're very intelligent, you know?"
Ms Schonberger said after helping his community for so long, she was proud of Mataura for looking after Mr McCord in his old age.
They could further do so by celebrating his milestone birthday on November 8 from 1pm to 5pm at the community centre.
