In the latest in our Finances after 50 series, we talk to Max Richards who has had a rich life of trials and triumphs. Turning 89 next month, Max maintains a fit body and a positive outlook, all while continuing to pay rent and work at Pak’nSave Napier where he's an ever vibrant asset to the store.
I was born in 1937. We lived in what they would have called a state advances house, up Huntsbury Hill, in Christchurch. My father worked at Drayton Jones, and my mother sewed carpets by hand; carpets for houses, carpets for hotels. Her fingers were all cracked and worn and what have you. But it was back in the days, the Depression, the War. People got up and did the job they had.
Mum would leave to go to work before I had to leave to catch a tram to school. But there was always a big cast-iron bowl on the fireplace and that would have soup in it. And there'd be a little ladle and a clean plate. And she’d say, ‘when you come home from school, if you feel like having some soup, there's some there for you’. We were never, ever hungry. She would sometimes get up on a Saturday morning and take me up the top of Huntsbury Hill, and we'd go mushrooming. The sun would come up as we were up the top of the hill. There was always good food in the house.
My parents didn't get on very well together. Mum liked dancing. She had a couple of good friends that would pick her up and take her into town on Saturday nights. Dad would drink beer and play cards in a smoky front room of the house, with one single light bulb. And that was life.
I didn't go to a public school as such. I went to St Michaels and All Angels, and later St Andrews College. It wasn't till years later that I thought about the fees Mum would have had to pay. Mum just worked to get me there, because I think she was trying to do the best for me.
Dad left. He went to Greymouth. I went over and had a holiday with him, and then we lost contact. I had heard that he was in Taupo and had a menswear business. Passing through Taupo with one of my friends, I popped in and here he was behind the counter. I said, ‘Hello, do you remember me?’ And he said, ‘Oh, I do a bit. Was it from Tauranga?’ He went through several names of North Island towns. And I said, ‘No, none of those. I'm your son, Max.’ And he said, ‘Oh, hello, how are you?’ And there were caps that you put on your head and I said, ‘Could I have a couple of those?’ They were four and sixpence. And he said, ‘That will be nine shillings’. Couldn’t even give me a bloody cap! But anyway, that was him.
Mum's boyfriend came into our household and was a gentle type of fellow. He talked money to me in a way that I'd never heard before. And when I had 30 pound in the bank – impetuous youth – I went and bought a car. I took it home and he said to me, ‘Come on, we're taking it back’. I got my money back, and he said, ‘Just wait until you're ready to buy a car’. And eventually he took me into town and I bought one. When we got home, he said you've got no spending money whatsoever, until you pay that car off’. But anyway, here I was, none of my friends had cars, but I had an old Standard Flying Eight. That's the way my stepdad – if you could call him that – treated me. I respected him like nobody else. He most probably thought, ‘I'll fix this little bugger’.
I'd seen Adele over the years playing in the park that was at the bottom of Huntsbury Hill. I’d had girlfriends and what have you before, but none of them were like her. I saw her biking home. I thought, oh well, this is the time. And I pulled up alongside her and said, ‘Hello, Adele, you know me’. And she said, ‘Yes’. And I said, ‘Would you go out with me?’. And she said, ‘I'd love to’. And that was us, we eventually got married. We moved up to Napier, had two kiddies, built a house and bought a business. It was concrete blocks and ornaments, and it was called Cotswold Stone. We built it up to a size where the opposition were biting at our heels and eventually we sold it to Firth, and I began to look after their Napier branch.
It's a sad story, because we shifted up here, and so did the rest of her family, and her father told me how I should be building the house. And we just had this constant... Adele was a family girl. So, yeah, a rift came in and (the relationship) just slowly melted away. We had a very good separation. We just got on with it.
Later I became a rep for a place called Ethnor (aka Ethicon), a veterinary subsidiary of Johnson & Johnson. Money all over the place. There was four of us that covered New Zealand. I had to start from scratch, get to know the products I was selling, talk to vets about what we had, what we didn't have. And away I went. I loved it. I'm an outgoing person, I like people around me.
I was getting lonely. I didn't like this business of being free all the time. You ended up in pubs, and I didn't like that scene. And then I met this lady who had a wee son. We got married and had two kids, a boy and a girl, again. And that was the best thing. We have divorced. But those two kids are terrific, the epitome of good human beings. I see them seven days a week.
A lot of my money has been wasted in the marriages thing, because if I'd stayed in one house, I would be a lot better off. But my two new kids, who are in their 30s now, they bought a house together, which I thought was the wisest thing, if you can get on together. And then perhaps we can get one each for them out of that profit. So that's what we're aiming for.
I should have gone into property. I should have really got stuck into it. The house I bought in Hardinge Road, that's seafront in Napier here, was for sale at $15,000. And I said to the joker, I'll give you $13,000 and he accepted me. That's where I built a brand new house, and it's just sold for $1.7m. So I knew what was happening. If I'd carried on doing that, I would have been right there. But there you go.
Eighteen years ago I went down to Pak’n’Save and applied for the security man's job, and I got that and spent years thoroughly enjoying security, chasing people down the road with full trolleys and things. But I had one eye playing up on me, and you need sharp eyes to do security. Now I fill the shelves, which I thoroughly enjoy also.
I love people. Some will tell you what they're worried about. I had a man in last week, and he was going on about his knees. The doctor wouldn’t do anything about it. I said, ‘don’t worry about your doctor, it's your body’. And I took him down to the vitamins, and I got him a little thing of turmeric. I said, ‘give it seven days and then come back and see me’. Well, he hasn't come back, I bet you his knees are alright. Lots of times a customer will say, ‘Oh, your custard powder, where's that?’ Get the person, take them with you and show them, like the old grocers used to do. Every time you do that, you've made another friend.
I’m renting now. It’s good as gold, because, how can I put it? If you've got regrets, then you're not in a good mood at the outset. If you're not in a bloody good mood, you'll muck up your whole life. You must not let yourself get in depressions. You must not take any knock backs; if somebody puts you down, get back up. And you just must keep doing that.
Oh look, I actually love it. I'm independent. There are, I think, 22 units. I haven’t met everybody yet, but I've been here for a while, and the rent doesn't go up all the time. It stays consistently at $300, and your power bill is in amongst that. I can walk to the hotel for a beer and talk to 20 men and ladies from all different walks of life. And I'm standing here right now looking through a set of ranch sliders onto some nice grass and trees.
I'm as tight as a fish's backside. I watch everything. I'll spend money sometimes, like I might have an Indian meal. But I worry more about the kids. Like the pub here runs raffles, and I seem to have this luck of winning the meat raffle. So my kids get that. I don't like a lot of meat. I like veggies, a tin of sardines for the fish oil, and my turmeric. I did buy an icecream on a stick on a long walk to Taradale – I went down to see Adele, my first wife, she's in a care home because she had a bad stroke. But usually I don’t have any sugar.
Life is life. It's like playing cards. It's always a gamble. You just don't know the way it's going to play.
This interview has been edited for clarity and concision.
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