The End of an Era

Roger Mills Retires after 60 Years

Roger Mills recently enjoyed the shortest retirement ever – just two days! It has been well known for quite some time that, after 60 years in the business, Roger was about to retire as Breadcraft’s Martinborough delivery man. It was to be January, then March, then May, and finally his last day (or rather night) was Friday 13 June. Two days later Roger was phoned and asked if he could step in again for a week, which of course he did – willingly.

In many ways that sums Roger Mills up, because he has loved his job through an extraordinarily long career, has always been willing to ‘go the extra mile’, and in his own words, “I’ve never failed to get the bread to Martinborough, I always found some way to get it home”.

Bread and getting it to people has always been part of Roger’s life. During his childhood his father owned the bakery in Martinborough, which he had bought in 1937. When he was just into his teens, Roger was already delivering bread. He used a pushbike with a basket and recalls with a chuckle an incident way back then that he can now own up to. “I was cycling along on my pushbike”, he said “when I took a shortcut through the school grounds, crashed off, and all the bread, which was unwrapped in those days, ended up in the gutter. I picked myself up, looked all round and couldn’t see anybody, so I quickly threw it all back in the basket and carried on”.

When he started secondary school Roger boarded at Wairarapa College, but when he was 15 he came home for the holidays just as one of the bakehouse staff left. He went to work to help his father out and never went back to school. He didn’t complete an apprenticeship, but learned through working in the bakehouse. And of course he did the bread run. In those days bread was delivered directly to farmhouses and rural homes six days a week, as far as Lake Ferry to the south, Lake Reserve to the west, and back round via Pukio. It is hard to imagine in these days of supermarkets and seven-day-a-week shopping that such a service once existed.

In 1971 Roger’s father sold the bakery to Breadcraft and Roger went too. He used to do the Pirinoa delivery run before going up to Masterton, where he did a full shift in the bakehouse. Then the opportunity to take on the delivery of bread into Martinborough came up and for 40 years Roger did that as well as his bakehouse shift. His wife Kay used to do the mail run to Tawaha and also over the years ran a dairy, worked shifts at the Featherston maternity hospital, and opened the first coffee shop in Martinborough. At times they would pass at the front door, Roger coming in at 6am from his delivery run and Kay heading out. Somehow through such hardworking and busy years they also found the time to raise three children.

Eight years ago Roger retired from the bakehouse, but has continued the bread run. He says that he has always enjoyed it and it was important to him that he was carrying on the family name and tradition. He takes great pride in having never let wind, rain or floods stop him from successfully getting his delivery through. He recalls delivering the bread during the Wahine storm in 1968. “We got as far as Otaraia and the water drowned the wiring in the van. We got towed home, fixed the wiring and picked Kay up, pushed on to Lake Ferry where we had a whisky, and carried on to finish the run”.

Roger’s dedication and work ethic are truly admirable. Over six decades, he has seldom missed a day’s work. In the last eight years he has only had Saturday nights off, and holidays are almost an unknown event. Kay has been his mainstay through all the years and “our kids have been wonderfully supportive”, Roger says, “covering for us when we’ve had a few days holiday and when I had angina”.

And what is ahead for Roger and Kay, after 60 years of a very full working life? “Learn to live together”, says Kay with a smile, “and get him to clear out his shed”. Spending more time at their bach on the south coast is high on the list too. Whatever retirement brings, it is most certainly a just reward for a man with an extraordinary work ethic and a very big heart.

Rachel McCahon