Bob's amazing loyalty to paper

MARK DWYER/ Taranaki Daily News

SENIOR SUBSCRIBER: Bob Mason has been reading the Taranaki Daily News for 65 years. Peanut, his chihuahua, has not.

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Bob Mason began subscribing to the Taranaki Daily News the day he got married nearly 65 years ago.

It cost him two pence, was eight pages long and the world's largest war had just ended with the defeat of the Nazis in Germany.

Ever since then – June 9, 1945 – Mr Mason and his wife Joyce have learned about all the big stories from the pages of his local paper.

The tragedy of the Wahine, the exhilaration of the moon landing, the unexpected end of the Cold War and the destruction of the Twin Towers in New York on September 11.

But there are other stories, bigger stories in Mr Mason's 84 years of life that never made the pages of the Taranaki Daily News.

Such as winning 20 from Arthur O'Sullivan with his prize-winning sow Montosa Betty.

"She was a bloody good pig. Bloody lovely pig. Bought her from Boys' High for 14 guineas."

The only problem was Betty had 15 teats, an odd number and the tipping point that year for judges to award Arthur O'Sullivan's pig the coveted best sow title.

"Well, next year I was going past and Arthur said `you don't want to bet you'll beat me this year' and I said I did.

"He said 10 and I said why don't we make it bloody 20 ... well I knew bloody well I was going to win because I had got that tit off."

And with that pesky nipple out of the way Montosa Betty stole the show and Mr Mason picked up his 20 held safely at the local butchers.

The father of six sons didn't always have it so lucky. In fact the first 10 years of his life were walked without boots.

"I used to milk in the cowshed and it was so cold the skin used to come off my feet," he said.

To alleviate the situation Mr Mason would search out the nearest steaming cow-pat and sink his cold feet into the warm waste.

"My grandfather used to come up and say `well you have it good now. You can't remember when we used to get four pence a pound of butterfat. If we didn't have a garden we would have starved', he would say."

But times have changed and dairy farmers are now unlikely to go hungry.

Despite this change in farmer fortunes, Mr Mason doesn't regret chucking farming in as a young man. For him being caretaker of Central School was the best job a man could have.

"I bloody loved that job, bloody marvellous job. I would never have left Central School except we got a new principal," he said before launching into yet another story not able to be printed in the Taranaki Daily News.

The tale of Bob Mason's amazing loyalty to his local paper emerged when he dropped in to our office to place an advert, and casually mentioned it to a staff member.

* If you've been a subscriber even longer, we'd love to hear. Phone our newsdesk at (06) 759 0824. And to become a subscriber phone (06) 759 0808.

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