Michael (Mike) Will Beckett.

You may never have met Mike.  You may not even be sure who he is, but if you are reading this you are enjoying the benefits of his work.   Until last month Mike was Editor of The Martinborough Star.   The paper was his passion and he continued to work right up until two weeks before he died on April 1, aged 86.

Without Mike, the paper as we know it would not exist.  An earlier version, which ran for nearly sixty years, had ceased printing in 1962.   For a while Martinborough’s news was included in the Midweek’s South Wairarapa section.   When this was dropped by the publisher, we no longer had a local paper.

This was not acceptable to Mike, who was living in Martinborough at the time.  He approached David Kershaw and together they set up the publication we have today.   Mike, whose business life had been as a grocer, already had quite a bit of experience in local media.  After his retirement he and his friend Colin Wheeler bought The Chronicle, the predecessor of the Featherston Phoenix.   He also worked at the now-defunct Wairapapa News, which had bought out the Chronicle.   

For the next 16 years, Mike produced The Star 11 times a year, first with the design help of Jasmine Sullivan and later Mike and Lindy at Dusty’s and Lulu.  The first print run was 1,500 copies.  Its popularity and circulation have continued to grow.  It now has a website and quite a few homesick readers living overseas.  The circulation has grown to 3000 still delivered by a team of faithful volunteers, some of whom have been with the paper since the beginning.

Mike had a clear vision for the paper.  It was to be about the community and for the community. In the days before social media it was one of the few ways local stories could be widely shared.  He was happy to publish all sorts of topics with the absolute proviso that they must be of local interest, had not been published elsewhere and were not advertising by stealth.  He was also very insistent that it should be only 3 columns wide with an easy-to-read sized font.

As an Editor he had a very light hand.   He believed that if people went to the trouble of submitting copy to the paper, he wasn’t going to correct what they had written.   Having no paid staff, he also recognised that the Star could only exist if the stories came to him.  He made it as easy and rewarding as possible for contributors to do this.  As a consequence the Star has always been a very accessible and inclusive paper that everyone can enjoy reading.  

Mike’s writing talents weren’t confined to The Star.  The Beckett family has deep roots in the South Wairarapa and Mike was very interested in local history.   He wrote three books; Our Town about Featherston, a history of Wharekaka and another about the Martinborough Fire Brigade

As the eldest son, Mike followed his father into the family grocery business in Featherston.  He proved to be an innovative operator.  He was an early adaptor of bar codes and EFTPOS and a key player in the world-famous Featherston grocery price wars with his neighbour and fierce competitor John Chung, who owned the other grocery store in the town.  Mike also built a new supermarket to replace the original family store.  

Running a supermarket business was more than a fulltime job so it was only once he had retired that Mike had the chance to fully pursue his own interests and apply his curiosity and intellect to new fields.   

He served one term as a councillor, representing the Martinborough ward before having to step down for family reasons. Adrienne Staples, Mayor at that time, says Mike was a good councillor, read his papers, attended all meetings, did his homework, offered well researched comments and was quietly efficient.   He didn’t grandstand but was strongly committed to the grass roots community. 

Perhaps his greatest contribution in this role was as the chair of the campground committee.  The Martinborough site was a very basic council domain (with 1 toilet for men, 1 toilet for women and ditto for showers).   The queues were legendary and not in a good way.  He recognised that the town needed a facility that matched its growing popularity as a tourist destination. He was very supportive of Frank and Lisa Cornelissen who won the contract to redevelop it.  This process was not without some strong resistance but now the town can offer visitors an attractive and well managed holiday park.

Mike was also a Fire Brigade volunteer and worked as an industrial chaplain.

He and his wife Anne moved back to Featherston 13 years ago.  Even then Mike somehow always managed to have a finger on the pulse of what was happening in Martinborough, reflecting the depth of his connection to this community where he had spent so many years.  

Mike and Anne met when they were paired up for a debutante ball and spent the next 64 years together. His faith and his family were very important to him.   He is survived by Anne and five of their children: Tom, Mary, Joseph, Bernard and Stephen.   Two children, Brigid and John, predeceased him.  

His daughter Mary describes him as intelligent, selfless, diplomatic, a peacemaker and interested in finding solutions.  He remained interested in innovation to the end and modern technology held no fears for him.  

Even when he was very ill, he remained upbeat, “You can’t change it”, he said and continued to work on the paper and his other interests right to the end.   He never liked a fuss and had not so long ago refused to have a feature about himself in the paper.   Sorry, Mike, you can’t stop us now.    Here’s the tribute you deserve but so modestly refused when you were still here.

Prepared with the help of Mary Beckett, David Kershaw, Adrienne Staples, Lisa Cornelissen and Anne Dodd.