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Toastman talks about living with cancer
Monday, 02 February 2009
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BURNING PASSION: Wellington businessman and toast artist Maurice Bennett faces a daily battle with leukaemia but Instead of taking it easy he runs two businesses, does his toast art and is rarely home before 8pm.
Wellington businessman and toast artist Maurice Bennett faces a daily battle with leukaemia but has refused to let the disease ruin his life.
When it was diagnosed about 2000, he was given five years to live, but he is still at the helm of Island Bay's New World supermarket and Bennetts Beer, and is working on his biggest toast work. But not anymore," Mr Bennett says.
"I used to keep quiet about it and just tell people I had a cold.
"But the last thing I want is sympathy, someone coming up to me in the pub to say how sorry they are. "We're all going to die at least I know what I'm going to die of."
After being diagnosed, there were sleepless nights wondering why and "screams at God". Despite this he's up at 6am every day to head to the supermarket, then he turns to his toast art in the bakery by late afternoon, and he's rarely home before 8pm. The thought of taking it easy regularly crosses his mind.
Even though he was "crook as a dog" when the All Blacks were turfed out of the last Rugby World Cup quarterfinal, he still made it to Paris and walked down the Champs-Elysees in the black jersey.
With an immune system weakened by the disease, even catching the flu could prove fatal. "The doctors are monitoring my health with regular CT scans and blood tests.
Mr Bennett sees himself as the lucky one. Modern medicine is brilliant. Modern medicine is brilliant. Males in this country need to step up [and get regular checks]. They wake up and find they've got the big C or drop dead at 35. Though the toast art started about the same time as the leukaemia diagnosis, he says that is coincidental."
The New World, which he has run for 15 years with his wife, provides a ready supply of bread and commercial ovens facilitating his toast portraits of Jonah Lomu and the Mona Lisa and helping him set a world record for his 2724-slice mosaic of former Wellington mayor Mark Blumsky. I was artistic before that.
"It's just fallen into place. It's not like I've gone through a blue period because of the leukaemia. I used to do oil painting and sculpture work."If anything, being confronted with his mortality has just clarified beliefs he has always held, and he expects to lead a "normal, healthy life for quite a while". It's not like: `Buy some of Maurice's art because he's about to drop dead'. Life revolves around friendship. Life revolves around friendship. It's not about seeing every place in the world, it's about enjoying what you've got.
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Jet-boat driver ‘in wrong place at the wrong time’
Wednesday, 07 January 2009
Kawarau River smash bodies found
The jet-boat driver who died in a collision with a jet-ski on the Kawarau River near Queenstown on Monday night has been described as a cautious jet boater who was in the wrong place at the wrong time.
Laurence Brett Singleton, 51, known as Brett, had driven jet boats for more than 20 years and had helped in river searches for other boaties.
Singleton's widow, Sue, yesterday said her husband was a "wonderful person" with a love of the outdoors.
Singleton and three brothers had been involved in developing the Rees Apartments in Frankton Road.
He was a member of the Canterbury Jet Boat Association for more than 15 years before moving to Queenstown about eight years ago. Police say he was not wearing a lifejacket at the time of the collision
"He was a good jet boater but he just happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time," she said.
Sue Singleton said her husband would never get in a jet boat without wearing a lifejacket, and would have taken it off while slowly trawling for fish. "He knew what he was doing on rivers."
Kawarau Jet director Shaun Kelly said Singleton was a diligent jet boater. He wasn't a stupid driver; he was a very cautious person. He was a well-respected guy and a competent operator," he said.
"It's a real tragedy that this has happened."
Singleton had gone fishing on the river with friend and colleague Anton Oskar Woitasek, 34, who was a senior project director on the apartment development.
"He was a very cautious man, drove well and had done many, many years of racing.
Woitasek's mother-in-law, Jeanette Pierson, said his death was "very painful".
Woitasek's mother-in-law, Jeanette Pierson, said his death was "very painful"."
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It’s what neighbours do, says fire rescuer
– Wellington Tuesday, 06 January 2009
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BRAVE BID: Ben Tionisio, 18, cut his fist smashing a glass pane to save his neighbours’ dog from the burning house.
A youth smashed a door window with his fist to break into a burning home to save his neighbours' dog.
"It's just what neighbours do, eh," said Ben Tionisio, 18, nursing a bleeding hand suffered when he smashed the window to help retrieve the dog about 1.
And another neighbour braved the smoke, exploding upstairs windows and rising heat to check the Palmerston North family were not home and to search for the dog.
The Lyndhurst St house was a writeoff but the animals two cats and a dog survived.15pm yesterday.
Mr Tionisio, a labourer, was at home in front of the television enjoying his holidays when he heard his mother yell that the house across the road was on fire. The owners had insurance. "I heard the dog barking and just smashed the window, I punched it.
"There was smoke coming out the window and some chicks were yelling there was a dog inside," he said.
The neighbours retreated once they realised no one was home and when they could not see or hear the animals." Max, the two-year-old dog, got spooked and darted away.
Both Mr Tionisio and the second neighbour, Phil, who ran upstairs to check if anyone was trapped, shrugged at the danger of going to save neighbours whose names they did not even know. ..
"You do it for your neighbours . It's just what neighbours do.."
Glenn Richards, who lived at the house with his partner and parents, was counting the cost yesterday, after losing all his possessions. Just glad no one was hurt, and the dog is okay."
Fire chief Roger Calder said 16 firefighters took 30 minutes to control the fire, which began in the second storey and was not suspicious.
He had received a phone call saying; "Come home, your house is on fire.
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Bill to quit mortgage appealed
By CHARLIE GATES – Tuesday, 28 October 2008
A Christchurch family is appealing against a $15,000 bank charge for ending a five-year fixed-rate mortgage after eight months.
David and Catherine Johnson and their four children moved into a Cashmere house in February on a $270,000 mortgage fixed at 8. They have sold the house to move to Australia, but ending the mortgage early means they face a $15,000 charge.99 per cent interest for five years.
He said there should be a charge for ending the mortgage early, but $15,000 was unreasonable.
David Johnson has appealed to the Office of the Banking Ombudsman and complained to Westpac's Christchurch staff. The main concern is the severity of the repayment.
"We knew there was a penalty involved in a fixed rate.
He also said the potential charges should be set out more clearly by banks. It is just a ridiculous figure," he said. There is a complex formula that all banks use and you just can't follow it.
"It is just not transparent enough."
A Westpac spokesman said bank charges for the early termination of fixed-rate mortgages were higher as a result of the global financial meltdown and credit crunch. We want the bank to be reasonable and negotiate with us.
"It is obviously a tricky time .
"When we set the mortgage we secure the funding in the wholesale market and so the amount is based on the cost of us returning the money at current rates on the wholesale market," he said… This is obviously an example of where it has not been in their favour to break it. It is not something we would enjoy imposing, but it is the nature of the fixed-term agreement that there are costs.
The Reserve Bank cut the official cash rate by 100 basis points on Thursday, from 7. .5 to 6.
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Armed inmates attack
By IAN STEWARD – Wednesday, 17 September 2008
Inmates at Christchurch Men's prison fashioned a pipe-gun from an air compressor and attacked prison buildings and vehicles.
The prison went into lockdown and police were called to resolve the incident on Monday, which is thought to have been triggered by outrage at a random contraband search.
Prisoners fashioned the gun from a length of pipe and fired the weapon at the Kotuku Unit in which they lived after they noticed a random search.
A prison source, who declined to be named, said the incident began in the prison workshop about 10am. The source said staff were ordered to take refuge in a guardroom.
The prison's dog-handler vehicle at the scene was also fired on.
Bourke said shots landing on the roof of the Kotuku Unit alerted prison guards, who locked down the prison and the workshop within 15 minutes.
Canterbury Prison Services assistant regional manager Ian Bourke said although shots were fired and the incident was potentially dangerous, "no-one was rolling around on the floor playing Rambo" and it was "not the shootout at the OK Corral".
Bourke said prisoners who worked in the workshop were screened for suitability, but "regrettably one, or a small group of prisoners, has reacted to the contraband search in this manner".
The shots "suggested it was an act of objection to the contraband search" rather than a means of warning other prisoners that a search was imminent, he said.
The incident was "well-managed", with the workshop secured within five minutes.
Three instructors supervised the engineering workshop, he said.
Bourke is awaiting a report on contraband found in Monday's search.
Even determining who the perpetrators were would be a hard task for police, he said, and the Corrections Department was also investigating.