My Account
From class clown to great debater, One Warkworth Business Association manager Murray Chapman has an appetite for communicating with people from all walks of life. In doing so he manages to keep a smile on his and others’ faces, despite experiencing more than his fair share of tragedy. He spoke to Ben Donaldson …
I still remember driving to the hospital on a Saturday night to return my wife Prue’s drugs. She had passed away the night before after being diagnosed with pancreatic cancer five years earlier. At the time our daughter, Pieta-Jane, was 8 and our son Stephen was 5. I was in the car listening to the radio, and a story came on about a family of four who had been in a crash and just the baby had survived. It was in that moment I thought to myself, ‘no matter how bad life seems, there is always someone worse off than you in the world’.
I got to know Prue as a flat mate in Ellerslie and we married 18 months later, on the back lawn at her parents’ house in Kaitaia. There were freshly caught scallops and all sorts of dishes at the wedding, but I didn’t eat anything. I was so nervous at the time. We had our first child and then, during her second pregnancy, she became very sick and never recovered. We were told she had six months to live when she was diagnosed, but we ended up being together for a decade before she died. Towards the end, her quality of life was so poor that part of you wanted her to go, but then you could never let yourself think like that.
When she passed, I became a solo dad for a while. You learn a lot in that situation – like how to braid hair and cook dinners. I will never forget the generosity of the other parents, who would pick the kids up from school for me or babysit when I was at a work function or playing inter-club squash. I think there was a bit of a shock factor for the children, but I managed to get them counselling through the education system.
For me, it wasn’t the first time experiencing grief. Before that I had been going out with a Kiwi-born Chinese girl, Colleena Wong, for three years. She and her sister went on a trip to China to learn about their heritage and we had talked of getting engaged on her return. While she was over there she visited The Great Wall. Colleena went on ahead of her sister and as she walked into one of the turrets in the wall, a couple committed suicide in front of her with a home-made bomb. She took a large amount of shrapnel into her face and was rushed to intensive care with critical injuries and in a coma. I got the news at work the following morning and was on a plane to China that night. The protocol is different over there, and they wouldn’t let me in to see her. I spent days in the waiting room. I managed to see her just the once before she died by sneaking into her room. After that, she was cremated and we brought her ashes back to New Zealand. It was an odd experience. Once I got home, I still received letters from her that were delayed in the mail. I had known her for three years and met her dad for the first time after she passed away. I learnt that events like that always shape your life, but you can’t let them define who you are as a person.
We met through the College Rifles Club in Remuera playing squash. She was playing there, and I ended up coaching her team. I was club president for a number of years and I’m a life member there. That’s also where I met Michael Barnett, who worked as international manager at the Auckland Chamber of Commerce. We got on well and one night, over a few wines, he offered me a job at the chamber. I said “no” to the offer and turned down a few more, but eventually I took on the manager of membership role there. That ended up being the next 15 years of my life and in that time membership grew from 800 to 9000. I tried to humanise the functions with stories and jokes to get people to come along. Over time, I became known as ‘the chamber man’. I hadn’t grown up in a big city environment. I was a small-town boy who grew up in Kurow, home to just 500 people. I had four brothers and a sister, and it was a magical upbringing. I would get up early and go fishing before walking a mile and a half to school each day, regardless of the weather. I was never an academic at school, I spent more time being the class clown and track running.
At 15, I dropped out and followed in my father’s footsteps – taking on a plumbing apprenticeship in Christchurch. I lasted three of six years in that and would describe myself as ‘the world’s worst apprentice’. I played rep rugby for Canterbury up to U19s level and placed third at nationals in the U18 100 yards. My team also broke the New Zealand 4×100 yards relay record. I never saw a future in sport though, especially back then when everything was amateur. I moved to Melbourne in 1970 where I had the chance to vote for the first time. I didn’t realise that also meant I was eligible to be drafted for the Vietnam War. I got the fright of my life when the date they chose for inclusion in the draft was the day before my birthday. I’m still relieved about that to this day. I did some work as a masseur at a health centre and then picked up a job as support physio for Tony Rafferty, who was running across Australia from Freemantle to Sydney. The team and myself travelled in one bus with him and also ran parts to keep him going straight when he was hallucinating. Unfortunately, I was meant to be paid but never saw any money. It was an interesting experience, though. I married an Australian girl in 1973. All of my friends were getting engaged and we probably got together for all the wrong reasons. We moved to NZ, but it fell apart in 1976 and she went home.
I worked a number of sales jobs after that across the country. I tried setting up a business at one point, but things went under and I owed $30,000. To pay the money back I started working an extra job as a cleaner at a hotel in the evenings. It was there I decided that accommodation would be a good industry to get into, and eventually bought the Walton Park Motel in 2005. It was hard work and made very little money. While in Warkworth, I joined the local Toastmasters club, which is partly where I got to know my partner Ines, and spent six years as president. I really enjoy watching people come in nervous and after six months they are confident speakers. I also started The Great Debate, so our members could practise talking outside of the Toastmasters’ environment. We started with 75 in the audience and now have 230 people show up. I chose Hospice to fundraise for as I realised how wonderful its work is after what Prue went through. I also found myself on the Kowhai Festival committee and became chair. It’s one of the best I’ve been a part of because every single member pulls their weight.
In 2008, I left the motel and moved to Snells Beach for a year before shifting to Birkenhead. I found myself connected to Warkworth again last year when a friend sent me the job ad for manager of One Warkworth Business Association. With my experience in the chamber it seemed a good fit, so I took that on as well. To me, there is something unique about the feel of a small-town community. Warkworth is definitely growing and we need to embrace that, but also make sure we retain what is special. That’s what inspired us to move back up here this month. I’m looking forward to waking up in the area again and having local friends around for dinner. Someone has pleasantly reminded me I will get a closer perspective on the traffic problem now and that’s another issue to tackle here. Life throws you these challenges, but other events put them in perspective. The most important thing is to be able to have a laugh at the end of the day.
